The Kidnapped Prince is Mine Now - Chapter 80

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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 80
Years upon years of accumulated torture and abuse had left their mark.
Each time the fear coiled within me stirred awake, I was reminded of how fragile reason truly was.
“…You did well. You endured.”
So I praised myself once more.
Overcoming learned terror and choosing to defy Maximilian required a courage far more brutal than I had anticipated.
“Exhale.”
I drew in a slow breath and rose from where I sat. Then I surveyed the room Maximilian had left behind once more.
It was an ordinary bedroom. It came with a dressing room and bathroom, a grand canopied bed, and expansive bookshelves.
But.
‘…There are no windows.’
How cruelly ironic. Even the chance to smash through glass and leap to my death had been denied me.
Like a solitary cell for a prisoner. It seemed perfectly suited to be the setting of a locked-room murder.
“….”
Screaming would not bring anyone to unlock the door and rescue me.
Even if someone heard my voice, it would be one of Maximilian’s people.
Any hasty escape attempt would only bring down the first ‘punishment.’
‘That cannot happen.’
Unless I bit through my own tongue and died.
I had learned through bitter experience that a swift death was preferable to being violated by Maximilian.
Yet in this life, it was a choice I desperately wished to avoid.
‘I must reach the Southern Region.’
Suicide was a choice only those who had released everything completely could make.
But I harbored a desire that would not fade. The desire to save Rotar Eisenrit of this world.
So I had to find a way to escape this place alive.
‘Come now, Elise. Think.’
Using my head was certainly not my forte.
But this head I carried was no mere ornament, so in moments like these, I had to make it useful.
I rose and paced the room in circles, retracing everything that had happened in reverse.
Hilda’s trip to the Grand Cathedral to summon the Archbishop. Wolfgang’s refusal to help me this time.
And Rotar’s retaliation after seeing through my lies.
….
‘I don’t understand.’
As my life’s trajectory grew darker, my spirits sank further, but no answers came.
Just as despair began to claw at my mind and I wanted to tear my hair out.
Knock, knock.
“…Huh?”
Someone knocked on the door. Then came the sound of the lock disengaging with a click.
Surely Maximilian wouldn’t knock before entering.
As I stood rigid, staring at the door, the gap widened open.
And the figure that emerged was….
‘Ah.’
Martha—Maximilian’s maidservant, the one I encountered in every lifetime.
In this life, I’d first seen her face in Graupels.
That strange nostalgia lasted only a moment.
“…What?”
I noticed what Martha held in her hands.
A cane. More precisely, a cane-shaped case that concealed a rifle perfectly!
Martha spoke as she handed me the cane, as if she hadn’t noticed anything amiss.
“I heard you’ve been using a cane lately. I thought your mobility might be compromised, so I brought this for you.”
“Ah, thank you… truly.”
I barely suppressed the urge to embrace Martha on the spot.
If my mobility was compromised, I needed a cane. It was a modest gesture of consideration, but to me, it was like gaining another escape route. Another lifeline.
‘If all else fails, I’ll use this to crack Maximilian’s skull.’
Of course, this was a last resort I’d only choose after everything else had failed.
Think back to when Maximilian kidnapped me. He moved at transcendent speed without making a sound, didn’t he.
It meant the demonic power he borrowed had grown considerably. Even now, in the Southern War, innocent soldiers must be dying without respite.
“Then I shall take my leave….”
Martha, having finished her task, bowed her head and turned to leave the room.
I hastily reached out and grabbed her wrist.
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
Martha made no effort to hide her confusion. She clearly hadn’t expected me to stop her.
‘I can’t just let her go like this.’
Martha. Among Maximilian’s maidservants, she was rare—one who still possessed compassion.
That fact had been proven since my first lifetime.
‘Unlike the other maidservants, she treated me with a shred of humanity.’
There was a time when Maximilian punished me by denying me even a sip of water, leaving me to starve. Then Martha secretly slipped me a small piece of bread and a cup of water.
When my entire body was covered in wounds, she slipped a pain-relieving medicine into my mouth while Maximilian was away, whispering urgently for me to swallow it. Her voice trembled with fear.
Once, I had even grabbed her ankle and begged her.
‘Help me escape this place. I’ll do anything, please….’
That was a mistake.
Martha’s face drained of all color as she pushed me away with surprising strength, crying out.
‘Don’t drag me down into hell with you!’
What emotion had I felt then.
Betrayal? Disappointment? Despair?
I don’t know. Now I couldn’t even remember that far.
But Martha’s face—terrified as if she’d received a devil’s bargain—remained vivid in my mind.
And I understood Martha.
‘Martha cannot save me.’
Only I can save myself.
Still, I had to use whatever was available within the given circumstances.
Martha was one such resource.
“I won’t ask you to get me out of here.”
Martha’s pupils trembled at my words.
“So just tell me a little.”
I needed to reassure her—that I would never drag her life into ruin.
At the same time, I wanted to touch that flickering candle of conscience still burning within her heart.
“What can I possibly try?”
A kindness small enough that she could comfort herself by knowing she hadn’t turned away from someone in distress.
That was all I needed.
Martha stared at my face for a long time with wavering eyes.
I couldn’t tell what answer she found there, but eventually she opened her mouth.
“I… truly know nothing.”
“….”
Had it been a meaningless attempt?
“I only heard that this place isn’t a sealed room.”
“…!”
No. This was precisely the information I needed most right now.
Martha squeezed her eyes shut as if reproaching herself for what she’d just revealed. Then, without a single word of farewell, she fled the room—though she didn’t forget to lock the door behind her with a click.
Even so, I was grateful. Had she wished it, I could have knelt and kissed her feet.
‘Now, I must move.’
I immediately began searching the room again.
The scenery was identical to when I first entered, yet it felt different.
A room without a single window. And yet, if it wasn’t a sealed room?
That meant there had to be a hidden passage.
I began searching the room at once.
First, I examined the walls. The basement of Graupels came to mind.
The image of the Steward running his fingers along the wall near the Torture Chamber and Discipline Room, watching it rise into the air, remained vivid in my memory.
‘Perhaps pressing somewhere on the wall here will reveal a door too.’
So from the bedroom to the dressing room, and even the bathroom beyond—I felt every wall that existed within.
I even leaped with all my strength to press as high as my hands could reach.
But.
‘Nothing.’
The walls showed no reaction. It didn’t seem to be a method of pressing hidden buttons.
‘Then do I have to break the wall directly?’
My thoughts reached the emergency evacuation partition walls. A memory from my previous world surfaced.
The balcony of an old corridor-style apartment had an escape route—you could kick or smash it with a hammer to evacuate to the neighboring unit when you couldn’t reach the main entrance.
It looked exactly like an ordinary wall on the surface, but when you knocked on it with your hand, it made a hollow, empty sound.
‘Just in case.’
From that moment on, I began tapping the walls throughout the room. This time, my search encompassed the entire bedroom, dressing room, and bathroom.
Just to be thorough, I crawled across the floor on my knees, rapping my knuckles against every surface. My finger joints reddened as I struck the walls relentlessly, leaving no corner untouched.
Yet no matter how persistently I tapped against the walls and floor.
‘…It doesn’t exist?’
Not a single hollow space revealed itself to me.

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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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