The Kidnapped Prince is Mine Now - Chapter 42

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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 42
I plummeted alongside the shattered chunks of ice and snow.
‘I’m going to die.’
My instincts screamed at me to squeeze my eyes shut. In that instant, my body lurched violently and came to an abrupt halt.
“Ugh…!”
Rotar’s arm clamped around my chest with crushing force. When I glanced upward, I saw him gripping the jagged edge of the fractured ground, straining to hold on.
‘Wow.’
I felt like I’d just lost ten years off my lifespan.
But we weren’t safe yet. There was no way the ground supporting two people’s weight could hold for long.
In fact, I could already see cracks spreading across the fracture line with a sickening crunch.
‘At this rate, we’re going to fall.’
Could I climb back up before the ground beneath Rotar’s grip crumbled away?
I had to try…
“…?”
Before the thought could fully form, a shadow fell across my vision from above.
A long, pitch-black shadow at that.
My terror-stiffened neck twisted with difficulty as I forced myself to look back.
“…”
And I saw it.
Moist, dark-crimson skin. Embedded within it, a massive and vicious maw.
‘Sh—’
A worm-like monster of nightmarish proportions.
Its size was overwhelming. So this whale-sized creature was the source of all this devastation.
‘What kind of mouth is that…?’
The gaping circular maw was lined entirely with ring-shaped teeth arranged in a spiraling vortex.
If I fell into that? I’d be ground to paste like a carrot chunk in a blender, not even managing a scream.
Every hair on my body stood on end. And here was the bigger problem.
‘…That bastard’s head is pointing right at us.’
That’s when Rotar called out to me in a low, strained voice.
“Elise.”
“What?”
“Listen to me carefully from this moment on.”
…What?
“I’m going to throw you back onto the ground.”
“…What?”
“There’s a high probability you’ll be injured, but it’s better than dying like this.”
“But… what about you, Rotar?”
“…”
A brief silence descended.
I immediately looked up at him, and seeing his trembling lips, I spoke urgently.
“Don’t you dare lie to me. Tell me the truth!”
“…I will climb up after you as well. Provided the ground I’m gripping doesn’t crumble.”
No.
That was a promise bordering on a lie.
For Rotar Eisenrit to throw me, the opposite side of his arm would have to act as a lever. That would naturally put force behind it.
If he throws me away, the ground will crumble. With high probability.
Which means.
“Are you saying you’ll die in my place?”
Rotar Eisenrit didn’t answer my question. Instead, he met my eyes and broached a different subject.
“I have one request, Elise.”
A rumbling sound. With a single undulation of the colossal earthworm, the nearby ground crumbled away. Its maw still gaped toward us.
“If, in this life, you fail to achieve what you desire.”
Soon, the monster’s fully opened jaws drew closer.
“Choose me again in your next life.”
It was just as Rotar Eisenrit lifted my body to hurl me away.
“…Shut up.”
With a curt retort, I opened my mouth wide. Without hesitation, I bit down hard on the forearm wrapped around my body.
“…!”
The moment his grip loosened in shock, I kicked against his body and wrenched myself free from his embrace.
And I felt it then—with no one holding me back, the gravity below was pulling me down.
Why was I doing this? Memories flashed through my mind like a lantern show—the time I had abducted Rotar Eisenrit.
I had chosen him merely as a means to defeat Maximilian. Never once had I placed anyone but myself at the center of my life’s priorities.
Yet my body moved before my mind could catch up. I couldn’t bear to watch that man die because of me. Driven by instinctive revulsion, I bit down with all my strength. The metallic taste of blood lingered on my tongue.
Would I come to regret this choice?
After all hope and effort crumbled to nothing, after I opened my eyes once more in a world where the man I had sacrificed my life to save had completely forgotten me.
Even as I fell, I could see Rotar Eisenrit frozen in shock. If this were the last face of his I would see in this lifetime.
I didn’t think I would regret it. Because I would never forget the face of the man who had loved me.
That’s what I thought.
Until I let go of the hand gripping the earth and watched Rotar Eisenrit fall after me.
“…?!”
The voices of the knights crying out toward us grew distant. Simultaneously, the colossal earthworm’s body surged upward from the ground.
A plunge into pitch-black darkness. Just before consciousness slipped away, a familiar warmth touched my accelerating body.
***
Cold.
And it hurts. Not just a dull ache—it fucking hurts.
I knew this sensation. I’d experienced it before, more than once—that moment of opening my eyes while reliving the agony from my final moments in my previous life.
I was sick of it. Sick enough to retch.
The moment consciousness returned, I swam through the tide of weariness and heavy pain, slowly lifting my leaden eyelids.
And the first thing that came into view was.
“Sssss.”
“…?!”
Shisha’s serpentine face. Not the ceiling of the Cathedral’s bedroom.
I didn’t even have time to process whether I was dead.
“Hisss, sssick, shack.”
“Ah, ow, it hurts, damn it!”
She was mercilessly slapping my cheek with her flat palm.
Shisha only stopped her assault after I cried out. It seemed she’d been trying to bring me to my senses, so I couldn’t really complain.
‘What is she doing to me?’
Now that I thought about it, the ground had split apart when I was trying to save Shisha. It seemed she’d fallen along with me while I wasn’t looking.
My cheeks were swollen and puffy—I’d deal with that later. As I tried to bolt upright, a wave of sharp pain made me catch my breath urgently.
“Ugh.”
It hurt. Really, truly hurt.
I slowly raised my body, which was screaming in agony everywhere. After barely straightening my waist and turning my head.
“Ah.”
My heart felt like it had dropped.
Rotar Eisenrit lay beside me with his eyes closed. But.
“Rotar Eisenrit.”
One side of his head was crushed. It was obvious he’d struck something hard.
Was this what it felt like to have all the blood drain from your body? I quickly bent down and pressed my ear to his chest. My battered body, aching as if beaten, was the last thing on my mind.
“….”
Thump. Thump.
At the slow rhythm of his heartbeat, tears threatened to spill.
‘Please choose me again in the next life.’
There was no need. We hadn’t died. Neither Rotar Eisenrit nor I.
‘How did we survive?’
Once I’d steadied myself, I belatedly looked around.
We’d definitely been attacked by a massive monster. Because of it, the ground had split in two, and Rotar Eisenrit and I had fallen through the gap.
But now, in every direction, I saw the landscape of a vast cave. The very cave we’d been desperately searching for while suffering through the blizzard.
‘How did we end up here?’
What came into view next was a stream flowing between massive rock formations.
“…Underground stream?”
Now that I thought about it, Rotar Eisenrit was soaked through.
I belatedly felt my own body. No wonder I was so unbearably cold—I looked like a drowned rat.
By sheer luck, I fell onto an underground stream and survived. Of course, my body felt half-shattered from colliding with rocks on the way down.
But the fact that Rotar Eisenrit and I lay here without succumbing to hypothermia in the water was an entirely different matter.
I turned my head to look at Shisha again.
“Shisha, you….”
“Chirp.”
She had awakened first and dragged us both to dry land. Including Rotar Eisenrit, who had tried to kill her.
Now I noticed the rope that had bound Shisha’s hands so tightly was already severed long ago. She remained in her damp clothes without seeming bothered by the cold.
“Chirp, chirp, chirp.”
Shisha said something to me. Of course, I couldn’t understand a word of it.
As I stared blankly upward, she closed her mouth. Then she gazed down at me, sitting there in a daze.
I waited, wondering if she would resort to drawing pictures or gesturing like I used to.
“…?”
Tap tap tap. Shisha began to run. Deeper into the cave.
“Wait… wait?”
She vanished. As if she had never been there from the start.
I sat beside Rotar Eisenrit, staring blankly toward the corner of the cave. Understanding arrived slowly.
‘She ran away.’
This crazy creature!

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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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