My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 130

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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 hiding his strength
Chapter 130
“Come on, hurry up!”
At Oscar’s urging, Enoch snapped to attention and followed.
“Where are we going? I don’t know the exact location. Can you even use Detection Magic without it?”
“We’re definitely within the Domain, though.”
After walking for a while, Oscar stopped and swept away loose stones from the flat earthen ground with the tip of his shoe.
Then he picked up a stone roughly the size of a fist and began drawing a Magic Formula in the dirt.
“This will take a while to draw. About thirty minutes? You should sit over there and wait.”
Oscar gestured with his chin toward a spot nearby.
But how could Enoch rest comfortably while someone else labored alone?
He simply stood beside Oscar and watched him work.
‘He’s even more frazzled than I am.’
Oscar’s face was far more deliberate than it had been when drawing a Teleportation Circle—intense, focused.
Sweat already beaded on his brow, his anxiety laid bare.
Fear that they might be delayed.
Fear that the child might be ill.
Oscar was consumed with worry.
‘Why is that?’
Enoch had often wondered.
Why was Oscar so utterly devoted to Lilis?
Certainly the boy’s suffering had moved him, and yes, Enoch had failed—
Failed to prevent all of this, which was why Oscar had wound back time, to let him begin again from the start.
That reason had seemed paramount.
But after reading Lilis’s letter, Enoch had realized a truth: he had ultimately succeeded.
Then why had Oscar reversed time at all?
Everything should have been perfect.
Why?
Now there could be only one answer.
“Tower Spire Lord.”
In the world that had found peace, only one thing was missing: Lilis.
Oscar had wound back time for no other reason than to bring the child back to life.
“What? I need to concentrate. Save the pointless chatter for later.”
Even if everything crumbled like sand, it would not matter.
The child’s existence loomed large in Oscar’s world.
“Our princess….”
…….
“What does she mean to you?”
Oscar’s rapidly moving hands suddenly went rigid.
Meaning?
What could that girl possibly mean to him?
“I don’t know.”
Oscar’s hands resumed their work.
Foolish little thing.
Tearing through people’s hearts, calling only for her father while everyone else lay in ruins—that vexing girl.
“I’m curious myself. She’s not even my daughter.”
Yet how could he ever hate her?
In his previous life, Lilis had occupied nearly half a lifetime’s worth of his memory.
“Why can’t I live without her?”
Oscar laughed quietly, the words tumbling out almost to himself.
* * *
Please, I just want to wake up.
From this damned lucid dream.
But as if mocking my wish, I found myself instead in the Emperor’s chamber.
Mother trembled before him like prey before a predator.
Beside her, I stood helpless, at a loss.
And the Emperor’s face bore the shock of terrible understanding.
I realized then that I was witnessing the moment after my identity had already reached his ears.
“A change in the Imperial Bloodline’s name, it seems.”
After a long silence, the Emperor murmured those words.
Imperial Bloodline, Primera.
If she learned everything about my identity, the Emperor’s words would come true — the Imperial family’s name would change.
“I can’t just… stand by and let that happen.”
…….
“You checked your Rank alone?”
“…Yes.”
“Selena.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“You are also my loyal subject, and a citizen of the empire I must protect. I am.”
The Emperor’s eyes gleamed sharply for a moment.
“I don’t want to kill you.”
Mother flinched.
“Not you alone. The Duke as well, and…”
…….
“Your son too.”
Gentle words wrapped around a cruel threat.
From the moment Mother had revealed my identity, she’d had no choice.
“Your Majesty, I will keep silent until death. Please, I beg you….”
“Ah, no need to tremble. How pitiful.”
The Emperor opened his arms toward me.
I hesitated, but then realized I had to go to him for Mother’s sake — to ease her fear — and slowly took a step forward.
“I trust you more than anyone. There’s no point in using my abilities to seal your lips; it would only shatter the trust between us.”
The Emperor lifted me into his arms and spoke to Mother.
He wouldn’t use his abilities on her to keep the secret.
Because Mother was also Dos, the Emperor must have felt the burden of it.
‘I thought there was nothing left that could shock me, but there was.’
All strength drained from my body.
I simply stared blankly as Mother’s figure retreated, her head bowed as if fleeing.
‘Mother knew everything, yet the Emperor neither killed her nor brainwashed her.’
The Emperor seemed to understand Mother well — that she would do anything for family.
He didn’t even suspect she might break her promise….
‘And she really didn’t say a word to the end. If she had, Father would have at least known I was alive.’
Was it because my expectation of Mother — who had remained and tormented me all this time — had now vanished completely?
The moment I learned all the truth, separate from the shock itself, I felt nothing.
“Child, what’s your name?”
The Emperor asked warmly, smiling.
“…Lilis.”
“Yes, Lilis. There’s nothing to fear. Don’t you want to see your father?”
“Yes….”
“Then just do as I tell you. Can you do that?”
I nodded slowly, fumbling for words.
“Someone will come through that door soon.”
The Emperor pointed at the door.
“When you see them, think carefully. Remember everything I say from now on, and do exactly as I say.”
…….
“Absolute silence about all facts.”
Silence? To whom?
As I listened to the Emperor’s words, an ominous premonition wrapped around me.
“Without my command, you will take no action of your own will.”
He was telling me to subjugate myself.
The Emperor stroked my head.
“The rest I’ll command slowly. These two things — remember them well and think of them immediately. Then I’ll send you to your father.”
At the word “father,” I nodded as if enchanted.
And then, someone opened the door and entered.
‘Ah.’
It was Oscar.
“…It seemed like all the talk was finished earlier. Is there more you wish to say?”
The moment I confirmed with my own eyes what I’d dimly suspected, a hollow laugh escaped me.
The reason he had done nothing.
The reason he had kept silent despite surely knowing something.
“If you want to see Dad again, what did he say you had to do?”
It was because of the shackles I’d forged with my own hands.
* * *
The next moment.
I found myself trapped at the very top of the Tower Spire in the Imperial Palace.
“Heh…”
Staring blankly at a window the size of my palm, my face twisted into a stupid grin.
I had become an idiot.
‘Right, I understand now.’
Without needing to bind me forcibly or threaten my life, she could make me obey the Emperor’s will with mere words.
She had stolen my self.
It was far more efficient than outright brainwashing me into servitude.
‘Efficient? The audacity to think of this catastrophe in terms of efficiency is absurd.’
I sighed and studied my own reflection. I had used my abilities on Oscar and grown considerably.
“When is Dad coming…?”
The way I mumbled like that was so pathetic that I felt tears welling up.
“Dad’s not coming, you idiot.”
* * *
When exactly would I wake up?
The agonizing hours watching my original self—reduced to a simpleton, locked in this tower—crawled by with excruciating slowness.
‘Is there no skip button? Surely they’re not going to show me every single day of the ten years I spend here?’
A groan escaped me.
There was another kind of suffering too.
Click. The door opened and in came—
“Ah, Master. Hello there…”
—Oscar.
Of course, he ignored my invisible greeting without a second thought.
I felt ashamed whenever Oscar came to visit each day.
His hatred for me—the one who had turned him into a fool in an instant—was written plain across his face.
Oscar would arrive seething with anger, sit in silence for a few hours, and then leave.
* * *
I wept bitterly.
‘I just want to wake up now. Please…’
Each day was a torment, a living hell.
Watching myself use my abilities at the Emperor’s command whenever he visited was agony, and then—
“Bella.”
Just hate me to the very end, I thought.
And watching Oscar grow infinitely tender toward me at some point, caring for me with such gentle eyes—
It was all unbearably, impossibly painful.
“Um, Sera?”
“……”
“Ah, forget it.”
Oscar stared blankly out the window and gave my shoulder a light tap when I didn’t respond.
Only then did I turn around with a bright smile. Oscar smiled back at me.
‘What is this, really.’
Somewhere along the way, having forgotten everything, I hadn’t even told Oscar my name.
So each day, he called me by a different name.
Was it maybe this one?
Should I answer today?
Perhaps that’s what he was thinking.
“Lilis.”
“Yes!”
“…So you do answer now.”
What must he have felt, seeing me respond perfectly like that?
“And look at all this hair. If we gathered it all, we could make a hundred wigs.”
“Heh, hehe…”
“Sit down. I’ll cut your hair.”
He chided me for grinning like an idiot all the time.
Yet every time the Emperor came by, he would tenderly trim my hair, which had grown so long.
“Oh my. You’re quite good without using magic. How did you cut it so well?”
“Could you cut a lot more? I want it shorter.”
“Pardon?”
Watching Oscar, I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face.
Even when I wiped them away, they kept coming.
“There. All done. It looks lovely.”
His eyes were warm now—nothing like the coldness I’d seen before, not a trace of contempt.
I was becoming someone who mattered to him, little by little.
* * *
How much time had passed?
By now I was getting used to it all.
‘If I haven’t woken up by now, could I actually be dead?’
Perhaps I was.
I watched myself—a fool sitting beside Oscar, absorbed in drawing pictures.
“What is that?”
“Um, well, um… a carriage!”
“Carriages don’t look like that. And there’s no horse.”
What on earth had I drawn?
I knew perfectly well how terrible my drawing skills were.
Embarrassed, I looked down at the canvas—
‘Wait.’
—and stopped short in surprise.
The drawing was clumsy, but not quite as poorly done as I’d expected.
Yet it contained things I could never have known.
An automobile. An airplane.
I’d drawn a carriage and a bird from imagination—things from a world I’d never seen.
“It’s not a carriage. Carriages don’t look like that. That’s not a bird either. There’s no bird that carries people. You give it a new name.”
“Then… then this must be an automobile! And this one, this is an airplane…!”
That answer startled me even more.
What was happening? The confusion lasted only a moment.
“That’s a person. Is it Father?”
“Yes. Father.”
Oscar pointed to the two figures drawn on the canvas and asked me a question.
“And the one beside him—is that you?”
“No, no.”
I pointed to Oscar.
In that moment.
Watching his face contort, I caught my breath.
An expression twisted with unbearable anguish.
Suffering. Sorrow.
Pity.
Such an expression.
“M-Master…?”
I wanted to reach for him, but I couldn’t hold his hand or embrace him.
“It’s all right. I’m all right. So please, please…?”
Oscar collapsed where he stood.
He cried out, pounding his chest, sobbing violently.
“Please, no. Please…!”
Don’t cry. Please.
I’m truly all right.
“You can do anything…”
Oscar knelt before me, tearing at his own chest.
“Imagine it. Please. Just imagine what you…”
He thrust the canvas with the drawings before my vacant gaze.
“A happy place. Going to a happy place. Yes? With the automobile, and the airplane, and yes, with Father there…!”
That I might escape this hell.
He begged desperately, like a madman.
“Please…!”
Face buried in my lap, he repeated the same words endlessly.
“Please… live…!”

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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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