The Princess Was Kidnapped, and the Kidnapper Was in Danger

The soldier acted as soon as the thought crossed his mind. He took out The Tinderbox and struck a spark.

With a whoosh, the dog with eyes as large as teacups immediately sprang out.

The soldier ordered the Big Dog, "I want to see the kingdom's princess. Can you bring her here?"

The Big Dog nodded obediently and immediately ran out the door. In the blink of an eye, it vanished into the deep night.

Seeing that the Big Dog had not refused the command, the soldier felt both nervous and excited.

"Hahaha, that treasure the Old Witch left behind is truly a wonderful thing! Killing her and taking The Tinderbox was absolutely the right choice."

But a few seconds later, the soldier suddenly realized there was a problem.

"The dog turned left after leaving just now, didn't it?"

"But shouldn't the royal palace be to the right? Turning left leads out of the city! It went completely the wrong way."

"That dog took the wrong road, didn't it!"

"A beast is a beast. It really isn't very smart."

The soldier clutched his head in frustration.

Who knew what that lost dog would bring back!

On the outskirts beyond the Royal Capital.

Inside a wooden house in a small town, two Witches were talking.

"This is bad. Aurora is gone! She was still in bed earlier. Do you know what happened?"

"I don't know either. I was sleeping so deeply."

As agreed, 12 Witches would send two of them at a time to care for Aurora together with Rhine, while the other ten were free to do as they pleased. They rotated every few days.

These past few days, it had been their turn.

Yet tonight, Aurora had mysteriously vanished! The two Witches could only knock on Rhine's door and seek help from the powerful Kingdom Sage, hoping he could use divination magic to locate Aurora.

"Rhine, Rhine, Aurora is gone."

"I got up in the night and wanted to quietly open her door to check on her, but Aurora was gone!"

When they pushed open Rhine's door, they found it empty. Only the biting night wind swept through the room.

"This is bad, Rhine is gone too!"

The two Witches hugged each other.

"I heard child traffickers have been active nearby. Princess wouldn't have been kidnapped, would she?" The first Witch was extremely nervous as she voiced her guess.

"If Princess was kidnapped by traffickers, then she'll be in danger." The second Witch looked out into the thick darkness beyond the window, her face full of worry.

"Wait, did I hear that right? You said Aurora is in danger?" The first Witch abruptly turned around, looking utterly astonished.

"Of course not!" The second Witch forcefully refuted her and corrected her wording. "I meant that the kidnappers who abducted Princess are in danger!"

"Oh, that's true." The first Witch immediately found this reasonable and nodded.

What kind of child trafficker had such a death wish? Why kidnap Princess Aurora of all children? Even though she was only ten years old, there was no warrior in the entire Rose Kingdom who could fight better than her! After discussing it quickly, the two discovered another problem.

"Wait, did those kidnappers abduct Rhine too?"

"Wouldn't that make the kidnappers even more endangered?"

"Yes. We should hurry and find them. Otherwise, who knows what might happen?"

To the soldier's surprise, after waiting for a long time, the dog truly returned carrying a girl on its back.

On the Big Dog's back was a blonde girl who appeared to be asleep.

She wore simple clothes no different from those of commoners, yet she was as beautiful as someone from a dream. The soldier merely glanced at her sleeping face, and felt as though his soul had been drawn in, as though even his heart had been cleansed!

"Heavens, anyone can tell she's a true princess! The dog actually brought back the kingdom's princess! I thought it had gone the wrong way."

The soldier was ecstatic.

The soldier looked around, making sure it was deep in the night, that there was no one nearby, and that the princess was still sound asleep.

He leaned closer, intending to secretly kiss her before she woke up.

"Who are you? What are you trying to do?"

Aurora suddenly opened her eyes. She raised a hand to block the soldier's improper move, gently pushed him away, and stared at him with vigilance and hostility flashing in her eyes.

As a vigilant warrior, Aurora had awakened long ago.

But she wanted to see where the strange creature that had taken her would bring her, so she had pretended to sleep the whole way, keeping her eyes barely open through a narrow slit.

The soldier greeted Aurora, giving a very gentlemanly bow as he said, "Oh, beautiful princess, hello."

He was not at all afraid despite having just attempted such an improper act toward her.

The soldier believed that the princess had been imprisoned deep within the royal palace for many years, in secluded palace towers. She probably had never seen a man—except for her father, the King. She had likely barely seen any people at all!

He was clearly one of the few living people the princess had ever met.

The soldier liked such ignorant beauties. It meant he could easily "play" the role of her mentor in life, teaching her about social interaction and common sense about the world.

Aurora frowned slightly.

She was trying to determine whether "beautiful princess" was merely some flirtatious pickup line.

"I don't know you."

Aurora climbed down from the dog and stood alertly, her emerald eyes sharp and cold.

The blonde girl's voice was exceptionally lovely, like a lark's song, but the fierce gleam in her bright eyes made the soldier's scalp tingle.

At that moment, the soldier once again doubted whether the dog had truly kidnapped the kingdom's princess.

—He believed a princess should not have such a gaze, at least not the way he had imagined.

It doesn't matter whether she's really a princess or not, the soldier thought again. Even if she is a real princess, she couldn't possibly be more captivating than the girl before me.

From the very moment he saw the blonde girl, he had fallen hopelessly in love with her.

"Who are you? Why did you bring me here?"

Aurora looked around and confirmed that she was in an inn within the Royal Capital.

Unfortunately, she had been taken while asleep, so her sword and armor were not on her... She could fight with her fists and feet, but it would not be as convenient. She could not even guarantee taking down a lion or tiger in one blow...

Aurora's gaze darted rapidly about before settling on the sword hanging on the soldier's wall.

—She did not know that it was the very sword that had pierced Grandma Rosa's chest.

The soldier noticed Aurora's gaze roaming around the room, and his heart pounded as though it might leap from his chest.

"Oh, she is such a beautiful girl. Even the way she curiously looks around is breathtakingly beautiful!"

"She's curiously examining my room, the most luxurious room in this inn!"

"If she really is a princess, I wonder how this compares to the palace where she once lived?"

"Even if it cannot compare, this is still somewhere entirely new. For Princess, it must be wonderfully novel..."

The soldier reveled in his thoughts.

He stood straight, already prepared to play the role of an outstanding mentor in life, doing his best to make his tone and posture resemble those of a true gentleman.

From the moment he ordered the dog to seize the princess, the soldier had prepared for her to wake from her dream and already thought about what he should say to her! "Beautiful girl, I want to tell you a secret. This kingdom has no more than six or seven years left before it is destroyed.

"A terrible disaster will descend in a few years. When that happens, whether it is the King and Queen, the illustrious nobles, or the farmers in the fields, all of them will die! And I am the hero who has come to save you! My dog possesses magical power and can protect us. We can leave this kingdom together, then hold a grand wedding in another kingdom!"

In the empty room next to the inn.

Holding a Silver Mirror and observing the next room through divination magic, Rhine was slightly surprised when he heard the soldier's words.

"I didn't expect him to talk about this."

This was a plot point absent from the original fairy tale.

Without question, the "disaster that will destroy the kingdom" the soldier mentioned was the curse pronounced by Black Witch Maleficent.

This information should have been sealed away, yet he knew this secret.

Sure enough, in this mixed magical world, after his intervention had altered fate, many details would change. He could not rely completely on a transmigrator's knowledge of the future... Rhine gathered his thoughts and continued watching the scene in the Silver Mirror.

—Clearly, Rhine had not been taken away by "child traffickers."

After Grandma Rosa was injured, Rhine had guessed that the soldier would, just as in the original story, send the dog to the royal palace to seize the princess.

For this reason, Rhine had quietly contacted the King, prepared the palace's defenses, and laid a trap to reclaim The Tinderbox.

Strangely enough, the dog summoned by The Tinderbox possessed some bizarre perceptive ability. It discovered that the "real princess" was not in the palace, ran to the small town outside the Royal Capital, and took Aurora away.

Aurora herself did not even know that she was a princess! Of course, Rhine had also considered the possibility that the dog would come for the real Aurora and had prepared in advance.

As the dog abducted Aurora, Rhine followed along, all the way to the inn where the soldier was staying, watching in secret.

"Of all princesses to capture, he chose Aurora. What bad luck..."

Rhine looked at the arrogant soldier in the mirror and did his best to suppress his laughter.

He had confirmed with Grandma Rosa that the magical creatures summoned by The Tinderbox were indeed monsters to ordinary people.

But before this Princess, who was Invulnerable to blades and possessed monstrous strength, they were no different from tiny Chihuahuas!