My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 118

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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
Chapter 118
* * *
The day of the Seongsu Incident.
Enoch learned only later that the Magic Tower had been sealed that day.
He’d assumed the Emperor simply wanted to protect the Tower’s elite personnel from being caught up in the chaos—but that wasn’t it at all.
‘No. The Emperor sealed the Magic Tower because of the Tower Master. He was afraid the Tower Master might try to go rescue Lilis.’
Enoch was certain of it.
The new Mana Portal.
Oscar must have rigged it beforehand. For Lilis’s sake.
“What is it? Coming all the way to the Tower with that unwelcome face of yours.”
Oscar dropped into the chair across from Enoch, who had been waiting in his private office.
…….
Enoch studied Oscar’s face carefully, piece by piece.
“Tower Master.”
“What.”
“You know, don’t you.”
…? What are you suddenly—
Oscar, who had been frowning at this abrupt, roundabout question, faltered.
Then he scrutinized Enoch.
Serious eyes.
A confused expression.
Oscar grasped that the question was asking whether he knew Lilis’s true identity.
‘What’s this? How did this man find out? The girl wouldn’t have told him herself….’
Oscar, suddenly tense, swallowed hard.
The Emperor himself had grown suspicious and locked Lilis away inside the Mana Portal again.
What father who cherished his child like life itself could fail to sense such a secret?
‘Even playing ignorant, his insides must be rotting away.’
Oscar clicked his tongue and feigned innocence.
“What are you even talking about? I don’t….”
“You rigged the Mana Portal, didn’t you.”
…….
“How did you find out?”
Read the room. Enoch was already convinced that Oscar knew Lilis’s true identity.
“Yes, fine.”
There was no point in dodging it further.
“Did the child tell you?”
“Is the girl catatonic? She wouldn’t speak of such things herself.”
“Then?”
“I can’t say that much.”
…….
“So what’s the reason you came here? To kill me? To keep the child’s identity from being exposed?”
“No.”
Enoch answered at once.
“If I meant to tell, I would have long ago.”
“That’s right. Even if someone beat me to death, I had no intention of revealing your daughter’s secret, so stop worrying needlessly and go home.”
“Then… what’s the reason?”
…….
“Why would you do this much for my daughter?”
Oscar felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
It was like this, face to face with this man, having spoken of the child before.
“Why did you fight for my daughter?”
“I raised her. In your stead.”
Unlike then, Oscar found himself unable to say anything to Enoch.
“Well, I do love geniuses.”
…….
Enoch stared at Oscar, who deflected so smoothly.
And spoke carefully.
“I would do anything for Lilis.”
“Yes, of course. That’s what makes a true father.”
“Keep Lilis safe. Keep her safe.”
“…….”
“To keep her alive….”
“Right. I’ll have to kill her, won’t I.”
The Emperor.
Another Primera.
“…….”
Oscar let out a short laugh as Enoch stared intently at his face.
“The Magic Tower has nothing to worry about. Every time I see that bastard Emperor, I’ve been brainwashing our children so thoroughly that they’ll betray him without hesitation.”
Before Enoch could even voice his request, Oscar had already given him the answer he sought.
There was nothing more to say after that.
Enoch’s shoulders relaxed, and he released a long breath.
“…Thank you.”
“Don’t misunderstand—I’m not doing this because I like you. The girl’s been taught to do whatever her father asks, absolutely anything.”
Oscar clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
“I’m doing this because she begged me so desperately.”
“I know. Thank you.”
Enoch rose with a hollow laugh.
He paused at the door before turning back to face Oscar.
“Master of the Magic Tower.”
“What.”
“My princess adores you very much.”
“…….”
“So when all of this is over….”
“…….”
“…I hope you’ll be able to smile beside Lilis too.”
With those words left behind, Enoch departed.
Oscar blinked, staring at the closed door Enoch had just walked through.
‘That man knows nothing, yet he speaks as if it all means something. He’s unnerving.’
Oscar rose to his feet.
He walked to the mirror in the corner of the room.
“When all of this is over…. I hope you’ll be able to smile beside Lilis too.”
That such a thing was impossible….
He probably didn’t even know that when he said it.
“Unlucky bastard, that’s what he is.”
Oscar muttered under his breath as he gazed at his reflection in the mirror.
‘Let’s see. Ten years left?’
August 13th, 1789.
The day Enoch Rubinstein finally brought peace to the Empire.
August 28th, 1789.
The day Primera was revived.
The day the father who had resurrected his daughter—Enoch Rubinstein—ceased to exist.
And then.
The resurrected child unhesitatingly chose to give her own life to bring her father back.
‘I was a fool too, wasn’t I.’
Oscar smiled bitterly.
He had overlooked it.
A child who knew only her father could never have been happy in a world without him.
For the simple desire to see the child breathing and alive….
Because of the delusion that he could fill the void her father left behind….
He had traded Enoch’s life for the child’s with terrible ease.
Oscar paid the price for that.
‘Ten years left.’
Thinking this, he clicked his tongue again.
Ten years later.
September 4th, 1789.
Unable to bear watching the child pour nearly everything of her own life into bringing her father back, Oscar turned back time.
And when that day comes around again….
Oscar Manuel.
He will disappear.
* * *
At first, he was angry.
Primera. The omnipotent child had enslaved Oscar.
He saw but pretended not to see.
He heard but pretended not to hear.
He wasn’t a fool, yet Oscar could do nothing.
Afterward, the child who had been stripped of her selfhood and left catatonic couldn’t free him of her own will.
Deceived by her simpering promise to let him meet his father….
The man who had been stronger and prouder than anyone else came to hate the child who had made him this way.
Yes, at first.
“H-here. For you. It’s yummy.”
The child seemed to have grown quite accustomed to Oscar’s daily visits.
…….
Her face shy and smiling as she held out half her chocolate.
Whether she’d eaten the rest herself, the smudge around her mouth somehow looked a little endearing.
‘That’s right. It’s not your fault. The villain is the Emperor.’
Was it from the day he felt pity for her?
Oscar began to look forward to their meetings, bit by bit.
“And look at all this long hair. If we collected it all, we could make a hundred wigs.”
“H-hehe….”
The child’s father was preparing a revolution born of vengeance.
The Emperor exploited the child to reclaim the people’s hearts, which were slowly slipping away.
Each time the child used her power, she grew.
Truly, it was ironic.
The more her father struggled, the more slowly she died to prevent it.
Gradually, constantly….
“Ah, don’t move! Stay still! It’s hard to tie!”
The child who had looked younger than him at first had grown, somewhere along the way, to match his height.
And then surpassed it.
Oscar kept watching.
“Hehe…. Bunny…. Dad did it….”
The child loved it when her hair was tied on both sides.
The way she called him father each time suggested there were memories, even in her catatonic state, that she hadn’t forgotten.
“What is this?”
“Um, um, it’s… a carriage!”
“A carriage doesn’t look like that. And there’s no horse.”
“It can go anywhere even without a horse! And this, this is… a bird that carries people!”
The child loved to draw.
Having never seen the outside world since she was confined, the child imagined it only from what Oscar told her.
Perhaps that’s why the carriages and birds she drew looked so absurd.
“It’s not a carriage. They don’t look like that. And not a bird either. There’s no bird that carries people. Think of a new name for it yourself.”
“Um um….”
Whether it was from his patient teaching or her natural brilliance.
Even stripped of her selfhood, the child communicated quite well.
Had she not become catatonic.
“Oh, oh, then this is an automobile! And, and this, this is an airplane….”
The child would surely have been a genius.
She could construct an entire world in her mind and put it to paper.
Between the stacked sheets of drawing paper lay a world entirely unlike this place.
He couldn’t recognize most of it,
but one thing.
“People. Is it Dad?”
Though every drawing was different, there was one thing the child never failed to include on every sheet.
Two people….
“Yes. Dad.”
“And next to him is me?”
“No, no.”
The child beamed and pointed at Oscar.
…….
In that moment, Oscar’s chest tore open.
Torn to pieces….
Beyond recognition.
The child was so pitiful.
And yet there was nothing he could do.
Oscar wept for the first time.
“D-don’t cry….”
“You.”line>
…….

“You can do anything….”
Oscar fell to his knees before the tilting child and sobbed.
The omnipotent Primera.
Whatever the child imagined, she could make it real.
And so Oscar prayed.
That somehow the child might use her power to escape this hell.
“Imagine it, please…. Yes? Please. Think of….”
Oscar wept like a madman, holding hundreds of drawings before the child’s eyes.
“A happy…. place. Yes? There are cars, there are airplanes, and yes, your father is there too….”
In this place.
You could never be happy.
“Don’t cry. Don’t….”
But the puppet of the Emperor could not even think to use her power unless he commanded it.
Or perhaps the child.
Even knowing how to escape that hell….
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t cry. Just wait a little longer and Dad will come for you….”
Foolishly, he waited.
“So please, don’t cry….”
It was tragedy.

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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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