My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 1

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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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Father hides his strength
Episode 1
Like an angel.
“Ooo, baa….”
Watching the infant nestled in his arms smile softly, it was Enoch Rubinstein’s first thought.
Two months old.
The baby had seen the world’s light for only two months, yet it seemed to know with perfect certainty that the man holding him was its father.
“Byaa.”
Hair like silver thread and eyes clear and blue.
Enoch stared long at the features so unmistakably his own, bewildered by a strange sensation reverberating through his chest.
It was an undeniable pull—something he could not resist.
A bond toward blood kin, and perhaps what might even be called affection….
‘Why?’
Enoch could not understand himself for feeling such an emotion.
Like most Ability Users in the Empire, he had been produced like breeding stock to carry on the family line.
He thought he would feel nothing.
Just a small creature with the same blood flowing through its veins, destined to grow into an Ability User, a nobleman, a soldier—a dog of the Empire….
‘I hate it.’
He was seized by a powerful impulse.
‘I don’t want him to live as I have.’
The moment he made his decision, his heart began to race. Cradling the baby, he slipped silently from the barracks.
Outside was a battlefield in a lull.
Unextinguished flames still rose in scattered places, sending up acrid smoke.
As that sight burned into his mind, his resolve hardened.
‘You… won’t do.’
Both parents were Ability Users of the highest rank, and exceptional even among them.
There was no need to verify the child’s potential.
As the nation’s sword, shield, or staff…. More than half a life would be spent on battlefields.
“Are you running away?”
A voice touched with amusement seized the nape of his neck slowly. Enoch swallowed and turned around carefully.
The woman who emerged from the darkness was the child’s mother.
“Surely not… with the child?”
She had marched while pregnant and given birth in the midst of war. Then, a month later, she had returned to the front lines.
Someone might not understand the situation that had driven a pregnant woman to the battlefield, but the duties an Ability User bore were, sadly, such things.
“What could you possibly be thinking.”
“I don’t want to raise him as I was raised.”
“He’s my child too.”
The woman smiled mockingly.
Enoch looked at the child in his arms once more, and his hesitation was brief.
“…Come with us, then.”
“Haha. So you’re more impulsive than I thought.”
The woman who had laughed aloud stepped closer.
“We were born as Ability Users, as nobles—we’ve lived as such, and we’ll go on living as such until we… die. This child will be no different.”
…….
“Well, I understand what you mean. Being a daughter makes it worse, I suppose. I’ve been troubled by such thoughts myself.”
The woman passed by Enoch without pause.
“Go.”
Enoch was taken aback. And then he understood.
The woman, too, must have harbored the same thoughts as he did when she looked upon the child.
That she did not want her to live like this….
“…I’m thinking of going to Zenon. I can’t say whether we’ll stay there.”
It looked like a deserter telling his whereabouts….
But she was the child’s mother. She deserved at least that much knowledge.
“All right. I wish you fortune.”
Leaving the woman’s brief farewell behind, Enoch vanished into the darkness.
That night.
Thus Enoch Rubinstein, the Empire’s one and only Sword Saint, disappeared.
It had been seven years ago.
* * *
Chirp-chirp-chirp―.
Beyond the window of the ramshackle cottage, brilliant sunlight poured down on the morning.
“Our little princess, it’s morning. Time to wake up, dear.”
“Mm… just five more minutes.”
“No, no. Come on, brush your teeth and have some breakfast.”
As the blanket was whisked away, I forced my eyelids open with effort.
Wearing a cute cherry-red apron and holding a spatula in hand was none other than James Brown—a househusband of the highest order.
My father, in other words.
“Ugh… I’m not even hungry.”
“But Dad made that delicious chicken dish you love so much.”
Father scooped me up before I could burrow back into the blankets.
I closed my drowsy eyes and nuzzled into his neck, breathing in his scent.
“Sniff, sniff. I smell chicken, sure, but also… waterlogged broccoli?”
“Oh no.”
Father flinched. My eyes snapped wide open.
“I told you I hate broccoli!”
“Now, now, our little Liliis. How about we just eat two pieces of broccoli today? Then I’ll give you chocolate macarons with apple jam for dessert.”
“Sigh.”
Trying to negotiate with apple jam–drizzled chocolate macarons, as if I were still a toddler.
Did he really think I was the sort of child to cave to such tactics and dutifully eat tasteless broccoli?
“Fine. Just two pieces, then.”
…Well, there you have it. That’s exactly the sort of child I am.
It’s only two pieces, after all.
“My, my, whose daughter is so well-behaved?”
Father chuckled and planted a kiss on my chubby cheek.
James, househusband extraordinaire, had apparently maxed out his parenting skills too.
* * *
My name is Liliis Brown.
I’m seven years old this year.
As I grow, memories of my past life surface bit by bit—the secret of a somewhat unusual child.
“Open wide.”
“Ahhh.”
Brush, brush.
“Now the other side.”
“Eeeee….”
Even though I could brush my teeth myself, I watched Father insist on helping me and couldn’t help but giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing at all.”
I carry the memories of thirty-two years combined—twenty-five from my past life and seven from this one.
Yet Father James, now twenty-seven, knows nothing and treats me like a child, even helping me brush my teeth.
I’m actually a child harboring a secret….
“Now, rinse and spit. Ptooey.”
Rinse and spit.
As I spat out the water, Father wiped my mouth with a towel and hoisted me up again.
“Excuse me, mister. I do have legs, you know?”
“I know. But a princess isn’t meant to walk. A real princess just crooks her finger and her servants do everything.”
“Ugh, Dad. If you keep spoiling me like this, won’t I turn into a brat?”
Father, who’d been heading toward the kitchen, stopped and burst into laughter.
“Our Liliis, you talk just like an adult.”
Well, I am an adult, after all.
My memories from my previous life began surfacing gradually, starting from around age three, when I could think clearly enough.
And now, at seven, I’ve recalled everything from my past life perfectly.
Including the fact that this world is from a fantasy novel I’d read in my previous life.
“Now then, brave Princess Liliis! Shall we defeat that wicked villain today—the Broccoli Earl?”
“Sigh.”
Chicken fries and sausage….
And nestled shyly between them, two pieces of boiled broccoli, which I poked at with my fork as I exhaled a resigned breath.
My past life memories surfaced slowly, and until then, I was no different from any ordinary baby.
Even now, after recalling everything, my past life feels hazy if I don’t deliberately dwell on it.
My sense of self instinctively anchors to this life….
‘Maybe I can hide the broccoli under the chicken.’
So even though I’d gained the capacity for adult thought, my distaste for broccoli remained stubbornly unchanged.
“Right then, how shall we do your hair today? Bunny tails? Or princess curls?”
Dad pulled a chair behind me and sat down, brushing through my hair as he asked.
Bunny tails meant two pigtails; princess curls meant a half-ponytail.
“Dad, am I still a baby? Just do a regular ponytail.”
Dad paused, then burst out laughing.
“Our little princess is still a baby. You don’t even reach up to Dad’s waist.”
“That’s just my body, though.”
I’d always been small for my age, even tinier than Jimmy, the five-year-old youngest son from the persimmon tree house next door.
But my mind was fully ripe.
Now I possessed genuine adult reasoning.
‘Still… being a clever child is nice, but I can’t let it seem so strange that grown-ups get suspicious.’
I made a mental note to hide my secret well—stumbling over my words now and then, playing along with bunny tails and all—then I answered.
“Just do bunny tails.”
“Bunny tails? Perfect.”
Dad’s skilled hands wove through my hair, tying it up.
“Oh, you’re beautiful. Whose daughter is this lovely? Hmm?”
“Noooo, don’t give me kisses!”
He scooped me up so I couldn’t move an inch and pressed kiss after kiss to my cheeks until they were squished like steamed buns.
“Right, princess. Dad needs to go to the market today, so why don’t you go play next door? I’ll let Susan know.”
“Why? Can’t I come with you?”
I swung my short legs, which didn’t even reach the ground, back and forth as I asked.
“Not for a while. There’ve been scary soldiers around lately.”
Tsk.
The scary soldiers Dad meant were elite troops from the Imperial Royal Court.
The reason the Imperial Military occasionally came down to this remote, backwater estate—thousands of miles from the capital—was to hunt for Ability Users.
“But it’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t have even a speck of ability.”
“Even so, no. It’s dangerous.”
Pointless worry.
‘Dad doesn’t know, but we’re just extras in this world where only the brilliant protagonists get real roles. We’re part of “the countless Imperial citizens” and part of “the ordinary Non-Ability Users”!’
I swallowed the words I wanted to say.
This world was inside a fantasy novel: the Rebellion of Dos.
If you had to name the defining characteristic of this novel, it would be that humanity was divided into the categories of Ability User and Non-Ability User.
In simple terms: if you could use magic, you were an Ability User; if you couldn’t, you were a Non-Ability User.
Non-Ability Users were ordinary humans, and in this novel, they weren’t even secondary characters.
That was me and my dad.
“But… actually, I love it! Hehe, being born ordinary is an absolute blessing, right?!”
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
I studied Dad’s puzzled face with satisfaction.
He was the perfect father—tall, fit, devastatingly handsome, and utterly smitten with his daughter—yet unmistakably an extra. Clearly, unmistakably an extra.
Plain brown hair, brown eyes, the pedestrian surname “Brown,” and a first name so common you’d see at least two James Browns if you walked down any street.
“It’s a terrifying world out there. I’m so happy just living peacefully with Dad, the two of us together. So happy!”
A world where only Ability Users held noble titles and received proper respect.
A rigid pyramidal hierarchy determined entirely by power level.
Wars breaking out constantly, with Ability Users drafted into service.
And main characters dying without mercy….
If this was a page—every page—of the Rebellion of Dos, where there was never a moment of peace, then being an extra with no name was genuinely a sweet deal.
The instant I grasped my own significance as “Imperial Citizen Number One,” “Extra Number One,” I became grateful to the heavens.
“…Yeah, that’s right. Dad just needs you, princess, and I’m happy.”
Watching Dad smile in that oddly awkward way, I made short work of two pieces of broccoli.

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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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