The Kidnapped Prince is Mine Now - Chapter 28

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 28
The demon’s laughter cut short. Its smile vanished as it thrust its blood-red eyes toward the gun barrel and shrieked.
“That’s enough. You just watch. Watch as your husband’s heart is shredded to pieces and devoured by my jaws!”
The demon’s twisted neck snapped back into place just as the spear-wielding arm rose high.
‘Ah.’
Heat. The hand gripping the gun burned.
No—not just my hand. I felt it. Something flowing through my veins from deep within my body….
‘Holy power?’
The demon’s arm moved. The sharp spear tip began its descent toward Rotar’s chest.
The gun barrel remained fixed on the back of the demon’s head.
And I.
‘Ah.’
Now I understood. The meaning of the Cat’s advice.
I held my breath. And pulled the trigger.
And what I felt was.
‘This.’
The weighty recoil traveling up my arm for the first time in so long.
There was no metallic scent. In that frozen moment, there was only one sound.
Bang!
A deafening gunshot—one I’d missed so desperately.
Every scene before my eyes seemed to move in slow motion. A gleaming white bullet pierced straight through the center of the demon’s skull and flew onward.
It struck the bedroom wall, spun, and fell to the floor. Then vanished. Like a mirage.
“…What.”
The demon’s neck, its skull now pierced, twisted toward me once more.
Its pupils dilated in incomprehension, looking once at the gun, then once at me.
“…Saint?”
Those were the demon’s final words.
Its body tilted downward.
Before it even touched the floor, it scattered into black dust—a sight that defied all reality.
….
So.
“…Did I just defeat it?”
Me? With this gun?
I stared down at the bedroom floor, now nothing but dust, for a long time.
Then.
“Elise.”
I lifted my head at the call.
Rotar’s eyes had opened. He gazed at me and spoke in a hoarse voice.
“I woke to that loud noise. Was this a dream?”
“…No.”
I forced strength into my trembling vocal cords and answered.
Was this a dream?
It couldn’t be. If it were a dream, I would kill myself.
Because.
“I shot. Me.”
“…Elise, are you crying?”
In this cruel and terrible world, I had reclaimed the only thing I knew how to do.
***
In a past now long forgotten, I had once made a wish.
‘In my next life, I want to live with intact hands. For a long, long time.’
That wish had brought me here.
I had regretted that choice for so long, but what could I do?
In the winter of my twentieth year, a massive collision occurred.
Failed rehabilitation. Decided retirement. Within that entire flow, my wish was already determined.
‘Yet I’ve come this far.’
I sat in a chair in the dressing room, quietly gazing down at the frame of the magical gun in my hand.
It had been several days since I killed that demon with this strange object.
Through several subsequent tests, I discovered one condition for infusing holy power into the gun and firing it.
‘A minimum of altruism.’
The desire to help. To save. To preserve life.
Only when I considered the wellbeing of others—excluding myself—would the holy power within my body flow into the gun. It was absurdly fitting for a Saint’s mechanism.
‘At least I can use it this way.’
Since it drew upon a force other than mana, I rationalized its lower efficiency.
The Archbishop’s letter was delivered covertly once the chaos within the castle had settled somewhat.
Summarizing the thick letter’s contents into a single line:
「If you do not reveal your awakened authority, I will throw both you and the Second Prince to the First Prince as prey!」
A troublesome old man. I’d sensed it before, but he seemed far better suited to being a politician or merchant than the head of a religion.
The fortunate part, though: I’d bluffed first, and an actual authority had manifested. After considerable deliberation, I decided to reveal only half my cards.
「Capable of harming people.」
In a direction that would make spines crawl, if possible.
It was also a warning to conduct myself properly. For the time being, he wouldn’t dare attempt reckless schemes.
‘Beneath the surface, he’ll send people to discover the nature of my authority.’
This gave me one more reason to depart for Drakenloch quickly. It was better to move before information about my authority spread. Maximilian had already left, so I needed to accelerate preparations for the journey.
And the Staufen Margrave did not disappoint me in this regard.
‘Four days. Exactly four days until we launch the Drakenloch expedition!’
While she swiftly restored order to the castle and replenished our forces, I conducted further tests on my newly acquired ability.
First question: did the holy power fired through the gun only work against creatures with mana, like monsters or demons?
The answer was.
‘Ahhh, ahhh, gaaahhhhh!’
‘No.’
Assisting in the physical castration of a rapist who’d just been thrown into the Underground Dungeon yielded excellent results. Heh heh.
So what about its destructive power? I tested that as well.
‘…Huh?’
Have you ever seen it? A single shot splitting a massive dead tree clean in two.
That was when it started—my Holy Knights would flinch whenever they saw the gun.
On the surface, it resembled a modern pistol, but its penetrating power and destructive force were entirely different.
The advantage was that I could adjust its potency depending on how much Holy Power I channeled into it.
After confirming both its range and destructive capacity, only one question remained.
‘How would this ability perform in actual combat?’
So tomorrow, I planned to take Wolfgang and a few of my escort knights to the entrance of the Snowy Mountains.
I’d have to cross them eventually anyway. I should at least hunt a monster or two as a trial run.
Mastering the technique completely was important. Creating that sense of purpose each time—the justification for someone else—was more tedious than I’d anticipated.
Of course, the easiest method was.
‘If I fail, Rotar dies too.’
Conjuring the face of the man who’d become my shared fate. Constantly, at the most inopportune moments.
Now that I thought about it, what was he doing at this hour? It only occurred to me now that I hadn’t visited him today. Even if it was just the adjacent room.
I draped a thin shawl over my changed nightclothes and pulled open the Dressing Room door. I intended to wish him well and return.
“…Rotar?”
Not until I stepped into the Bedroom and spotted Rotar reading the Archbishop’s letter laid upon the desk.
At my call, Rotar turned his head, a thin robe draped over his linen shirt.
His grayish-brown hair, falling across his forehead, swayed gently in the breeze from the window. For some reason, the atmosphere felt more composed and serene than usual.
“You’ve come.”
For reasons I couldn’t explain, I swallowed hard. I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly and asked without stepping closer.
“You’re already well enough to be up? You should be resting.”
“I’m fine. I’ve nearly recovered.”
Rotar replied matter-of-factly.
Even so, since I hadn’t personally examined the wounds inside his body, it was difficult to take his word at face value.
It was extraordinary enough that a man who’d been bleeding to death just days ago could now walk about unscathed.
Rotar set down the letter and gazed at me. His eyes swept over me as though examining every inch, and somehow my lips felt dry.
Then he spoke.
“I’m relieved that your Holy Maiden powers have manifested.”
“Ah, yes. That’s right.”
My tense body relaxed slightly at the mention of the magical gun.
Now that I thought about it, on the day Rotar was kidnapped, I’d used secrecy as an excuse and never told him about the absence of my powers.
The Rotar before me seemed entirely unbothered by that incident.
Yet I couldn’t understand why I felt this tension. Was it because being alone with an awake Rotar in the Bedroom was something I hadn’t experienced in a long time?
Without showing it, I withdrew the gun from inside my body and displayed it. I’d been carrying it everywhere out of fear of losing it.
“No one knew. That I could draw upon Holy Power like magical power.”
“I’ve heard your marksmanship is remarkably precise.”
“It’s not quite that good yet. I need more practice.”
It wasn’t false modesty—my skills had genuinely rusted over time. During my active years, I’d invested half of every day into training.
Stamina, breathing, marksmanship. I’d had to practice maintaining composure in any situation without fail.
Now, trapped in Elise’s frail body with barely a muscle to speak of, even managing the recoil was a considerable burden. How I wished I could borrow just a handful of Rotar’s muscle.
But that aside.
“Did you come here just to talk about guns?”
It was time to get to the real purpose.
As I lifted my head from fiddling with the barrel, Rotar was already there, close enough to touch.
“No.”
His hand settled atop my head.
He combed through my damp hair with his fingers, grooming it gently, then carefully touched my flushed cheeks.
As though handling something fragile as porcelain. His hand descended slowly, brushing against my jaw and neck.
“Did I not tell you? My body has fully recovered.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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