The Kidnapped Prince is Mine Now - Chapter 35

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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 35
“…The wind bites. Return soon.”
Rotar Eisenrit did not seem satisfied with my response.
Yet it appeared he had sensed my desire for solitude.
I offered a faint smile in lieu of words and stepped out of the tent.
Outside, the dawn remained shrouded in darkness. Stars glimmered brilliantly between snow-laden branches, as if threatening to cascade down upon me.
It was a beautiful sight, yet no warmth of contentment filled my heart.
When had this begun? This numbness of emotion, as though my heart were a broken automaton’s—which cycle had it started?
Some memories burned with unnatural clarity, while others faded as if they had never existed at all.
As I reached back into the past, I felt a gaze upon me.
‘A knight standing watch, no doubt.’
I turned my head, meaning to assure them I required no attention.
But then.
“…What are you doing there?”
Wolfgang sat alone near the dying embers of the campfire.
‘No, isn’t watch duty typically a two-person rotation?’
Wolfgang’s lips curved upward as he observed my bewilderment.
“And what brings the Holy Maiden out here?”
“Hey, I asked first. Why is the Knight Commander on watch duty? And alone, no less.”
Wolfgang merely shrugged at my questioning, showing no sign of discomfort.
“My mind was restless. I told them if anything arose, I would bear full responsibility, so they should retire.”
“….”
I see. When one needs time alone with one’s thoughts, one must stand watch solitary.
A useless lesson indeed. In Elise’s body, I was already straining to endure this grueling expedition without complaint.
As I regarded him with a listless expression, Wolfgang gestured to me.
“I had something I wished to ask you anyway. Would you come here?”
“Speak from there.”
“It is a matter I would prefer not to discuss loudly.”
…True. We were indeed burdened with many secrets between us.
I reluctantly moved to Wolfgang’s side. He naturally offered me half of the log he had been using as a seat. When I settled upon it, our bodies were so close they nearly touched.
Was this improper for a married woman? I was contemplating the conventions of the secular world anew when Wolfgang spoke.
“Have you never considered such a path?”
“What path?”
“Marriage to the Holy Knight Commander.”
“Wow.”
Had he truly lost his mind?
I felt as though I had heard words I should never have heard. Had I been drinking water, I surely would have choked.
I stared up at the face of this man spouting such madness, as if to verify whether a spirit had possessed him.
Regardless, his eyes narrowed as he smiled—a countenance of such beauty that he must have grown weary of hearing it praised since childhood.
Why would he say such a thing? What was he lacking? What was he missing?
Was it really sleep deprivation? I hadn’t realized the lack of rest could be this dangerous.
“Hey. Just go inside and sleep. I’m worried about you.”
“There’s no need to dwell on it if you haven’t considered it before. We can simply proceed together from now on.”
Wait, proceed together with what?
Wolfgang continued speaking as he stirred the dying embers of the campfire with a poker.
“This is already your seventh life, is it not? In two of those lives, you married other men. Out of necessity.”
That’s right. In my second cycle, I married an obedient marquis once, and in this cycle, I married Rotar Eisenrit once. Both were men I had chosen.
“So? What benefit would I gain from marrying you?”
“Benefit, you say.”
The embers of the campfire flared up suddenly.
Crack, crackle. As the kindling burned, yellow firelight danced across Wolfgang’s face. He had never taken his eyes off me from the beginning.
“For one, you could seize control of the Religious Order in an instant. A combination of the Holy Knight Order Commander and the Holy Maiden—it would be a momentous union.”
“….”
“By leveraging the information you possess to reduce the Archbishop to a puppet, preventing the Second Prince’s death would become far easier. There would be no need to agonize over the abduction through forged official documents, nor would circumstances spiral into him taking poison of his own accord.”
Regency within the Religious Order.
It was something I could never have imagined attempting alone. A Holy Maiden of commoner birth without backing and a Knight Commander from a prestigious family started from entirely different positions.
“Should the Second Prince maintain his priestly status under our protection, we could even organize expeditions like the current one under the banner of martyrdom. The starting point would differ, but cooperation with House of Staufen would remain intact.”
His voice continued smoothly, and the more he spoke, the more I found myself at a loss for words.
This bastard Wolfgang—he said he needed time to think alone, but I wondered just how far he’d already planned all of this.
‘It’s true that Holy Knights have no restrictions on marriage.’
The Holy Knights of the Pelmira Order differed from priests who took strict vows of celibacy. They were closer to warriors capable of wielding sacred power—holy force itself.
‘Even so….’
A touch against my brow interrupted my thoughts.
Wolfgang was watching me with his chin resting on his knee.
“You’ll develop wrinkles.”
Only then did I realize I had unconsciously furrowed my brow. More than that, the distance between us had closed from before.
Wolfgang opened his mouth from a distance where our noses could almost touch.
“I’m simply asking you to consider it. Should you fail your mission in this life as well.”
“What, huh?”
“After all, you’ll inevitably reveal the fact of your regression to me in the next life anyway.”
“….”
I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. His words brought back memories of how I’d been discovered in each cycle.
Or more precisely, how my ‘possession’ had been discovered.
‘Who are you?’
In every life, it was the question Wolfgang threw at me when he caught me passing by after visiting the Grand Cathedral.
‘Your gaze, your posture, your gait, your tone of voice. If even one thing remained the same as before, I would pretend not to notice.’
The things he said were always tactless. But his intuition was sharp, that much was certain.
In the first cycle, I fumbled through it knowing nothing and simply fled. From the second cycle onward, I focused solely on escaping Maximilian, regardless of whether Wolfgang was watching me closely.
If a person seemed to have changed, so what? What could he do about it? Would he have me burned as a witch? With each successive life, I grew more accustomed to ignoring Wolfgang’s suspicions.
The first time I actually revealed my regression to Wolfgang was in the fifth cycle. That is, when I had killed Maximilian and yet still regressed—when I was completely losing my mind.
‘Holy Maiden. What have you done?’
I cursed Pelmira and set fire to the Grand Cathedral. In front of the building burning and crumbling away, I clutched my belly and laughed until I collapsed onto the floor.
Wolfgang posed his familiar question from among the Holy Knights who had come to apprehend me.
‘Who are you?’
This time, I did not evade or deflect. After all, I had nothing left to hope for.
I met Wolfgang’s gaze directly and answered.
‘Me? A Holy Maiden who went mad trying to change the past.’
I thought that would be the end of it. The arson at the Grand Cathedral was clearly a capital offense.
But after being transferred to the Underground Dungeon, Wolfgang came to see me. He even bribed the guards to secure a moment alone with me.
Then he asked me, watching as I counted the cobwebs on the ceiling.
‘Your personality has changed drastically. Did you come from the future?’
I was going to die anyway. I answered without restraint.
‘Something like that. I keep coming back. To this damned, ambiguous point in time.’
‘What makes it ambiguous?’
‘I’ve become a Holy Maiden. If I’d returned before that, I would have escaped by any means necessary.’
‘…Will you come back again next time?’
‘That’s not my choice. Our almighty Goddess is the one spinning the wheel.’
Wolfgang did not laugh at a story that sounded absurd. Instead, he fell into thought and offered a proposal.
‘If you come back again, why not use me then?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Wouldn’t it benefit us both?’
What did Wolfgang know back then to say such a thing?
The execution proceeded as scheduled. The seventh cycle. When I opened my eyes again, my neck throbbed and ached as if it had been severed, but it was only a brief pain.
I bolted upright in bed and thought. A way to kill Maximilian while I survived. Could such a way even exist?
And then, at last, I remembered it. Rotar Eisenrit, the Second Prince of the Empire—a hidden card.
Of course, to obtain him, I needed at least some power. And for me, with nothing, to gain real authority…
‘The Holy Knight Order Commander.’
I needed the cooperation of that strange man who had told me to use him.

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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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