The Kidnapped Prince is Mine Now - Chapter 51

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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 51
I needed to defuse the situation. From my muddled thoughts, I grasped at whatever topic came to mind first and blurted it out.
“Rotar has the exact same eye color as his uncle, the Staufen Margrave. Did your mother have green eyes too?”
No, that wasn’t it. The question was random and utterly boring. I wanted to slap my own mouth for speaking so carelessly.
Would he ask why I suddenly said that, or if I’d hit my head? I watched his lips part and braced myself for what came next.
But Rotar simply said:
“No, my mother had eyes as red as garnets.”
With his usual gentle expression, he answered my question earnestly.
“It was my grandmother who had green eyes. Though she passed away before I was born.”
“Ah, I see….”
So I learned something new about Rotar. Not that I’d intended to.
Rotar shook his wrist to extinguish the match’s flame as he continued the conversation.
“And you, Elise—have your eyes always been violet since childhood?”
“Huh? Oh, uh, yes.”
I hadn’t expected such trivial conversation to stretch on like this. I managed to respond naturally while searching my memories of childhood.
In truth, those memories didn’t feel like my own. I’d possessed the body of a twenty-year-old Elise, and though all her past memories were shared with me, they weren’t experiences I’d lived through directly.
Still, I could recall them if I tried.
For instance.
‘What a hideous color. If I plucked them out and sold them, would I get a good price?’
A joke the perpetually drunk orphanage director had made with complete sincerity.
‘Violet eyes, huh. They’d sell well in the red-light district.’
The muttering of a human trafficker whose neck had been severed after attempting to kidnap children from the orphanage.
They say that a poor but beautiful woman’s life tends to become tragic.
Elise’s childhood was a record of barely surviving while being evaluated like a piece of meat.
As for what I’d directly experienced myself:
【Upon discovery of a woman with silver hair and violet eyes, capture alive without fail.】
It was a memory from the third cycle, when I’d been captured by Maximilian in the Birellia Kingdom.
‘All of it so bleak.’
I rubbed the back of my neck and turned the question around.
“What about you, Rotar? Were your eyes a different color when you were young?”
Rotar nodded as he spread out his sleeping bag on the ground.
“Yes. When I was young, they were supposedly a much brighter, paler emerald. The Emperor was said to have been quite fond of that color.”
“Oh….”
I’d heard that when there’s less melanin in childhood, eyes appear brighter.
I would have liked to see a portrait of young Rotar if one existed.
A boy with bright emerald eyes must have been intelligent and beautiful.
But truthfully, what bothered me more than that detail was the Emperor’s story that had suddenly surfaced.
‘…The Emperor definitely didn’t favor Rotar that much, did he?’
If he’d been favored, he wouldn’t have been sent to the battlefield starting at thirteen.
Instead of continuing his own story, Rotar sat on top of his sleeping bag and spread both arms wide as he spoke.
“Come here and continue telling me.”
“…About what?”
“About you. Anything is fine. You never talk about yourself.”
“…”
Rotar’s fingers twitched as if urging me forward, his arms spread wide in invitation.
There was no reason to refuse. I slipped between his arms and settled against him. As I rested my head on his shoulder, I felt his arms tighten around my waist and back.
It was warm and comforting. The tension in my heart naturally melted away.
With my eyes closed, I opened my mouth.
“It won’t be interesting at all.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“You might fall asleep listening.”
“Isn’t that fine? Like a lullaby.”
If he said that, there was only one thing left to decide.
“…Choose. The hunter Elise, or Saint Elise. Which story do you want to hear?”
The hunter Elise. The vanished ‘me’ whose life had left no trace in this world.
Even if no one remembered me from back then, I still remembered myself.
Rotar opened his mouth without the slightest hesitation.
“Of course the former.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s more thrilling.”
“…Ha.”
“I’m joking.”
I cracked my eyes open slightly to check Rotar’s expression. His face was bright with a faint smile playing at his lips.
And.
‘…Yes, beautiful eyes indeed.’
Perhaps because of the topic we’d just discussed, his green eyes gleamed like jewels, reflecting the light of the lamp with a lustrous brilliance.
Could this be called being blinded by love?
I found myself laughing softly and opened my mouth.
“Well. There was this ill-tempered little brat back then.”
“From that far back?”
“Yeah. Had a fierce competitive spirit from childhood—couldn’t stand losing.”
Perhaps in his next life, Rotar would not remember this story of mine.
He listened quietly, pressing a gentle kiss to my temple.
Outside the tent, a sharp wind howled loudly.
***
“Your Highness, you’ve returned safely!”
I turned my head toward the cheerful voice.
We were making our way from the castle gate toward the Main Hall. In the distance, a man with a bright expression descended from the entrance of the Main Hall.
It was Konrad. He had risen from his sickbed during my expedition.
However.
“….”
The right sleeve of his garment fluttered in the wind, empty.
An arm once severed does not return.
I forced myself to smile, careful not to let my gaze linger on Konrad’s sleeve as he approached.
“Fortunately. Has anything happened while I was away?”
“Anything? Ha ha!”
“….”
So something had happened. Konrad made no attempt to conceal it—there was little point in trying. It would surface regardless.
It would have been stranger if nothing had occurred during such a lengthy expedition.
The Imperial Family and the Religious Order would certainly have sent word.
“I’m relieved to see you looking well.”
“Thank you. It is all thanks to the Prince.”
Rotar exchanged light pleasantries with Konrad while his sharp gaze swept across the Main Hall’s lobby.
Presently, he asked.
“Where is my aunt?”
“Ah, you mean the Staufen Margrave?”
Konrad gestured calmly to this floor in response to Rotar’s question.
“She stepped out briefly. Perhaps it would be best to rest sufficiently first, then speak of matters. You should be able to meet the Staufen Margrave by evening.”
“….”
Rotar’s eyes, devoid of warmth, fixed intently on Konrad’s face.
It was enough to exert pressure, yet Konrad’s smile remained unchanged.
‘After all, his wife is that Margrave.’
Something had definitely occurred. The Margrave was handling it.
‘And Konrad has no intention of revealing it yet.’
I quietly tugged Rotar’s pinky finger. He responded as if he’d been waiting, interlacing his fingers with mine as he spoke.
“I understand. We’ll catch up this evening.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Please rest comfortably.”
Of course, Rotar had no intention of merely resting as Konrad suggested.
We climbed the stairs of this floor alongside the attendants carrying our luggage.
Rotar escorted me from behind, his voice undiminished, as he asked.
“What do you make of it?”
“Hmm.”
To be honest, I couldn’t predict the course of events ahead.
‘Under normal circumstances, everyone in this castle would have been dead long ago.’
Still, I remembered how much power Maximilian had accumulated by this point—as the harsh winter drew to its close.
It was a period when the number of death row inmates had grown unnaturally high, and children from the Orphanage were disappearing.
In other words.
“…In my opinion, the Staufen Margrave must have gone out to fight the demons.”
At that moment, I noticed the attendants ahead of us stiffen, their bodies trembling.
‘A direct hit.’
Rotar would never have missed such an obvious reaction from the attendants.
“I see.”
When I glanced to the side at his measured response, Rotar’s gaze remained fixed solely on me—as if it should be nowhere else.
“…?”
Just as I was about to ask why, he spoke first.
“So then, are you prepared to discuss Zaikas’s blessing?”

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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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