My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 138

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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 Conceals His Strength
138
* * *
Inside the carriage returning to the estate.
Axion was grinding his teeth.
‘That infuriating bastard, I swear.’
Enoch had returned in less than two hours to inform him that Lilis had awakened, then vanished somewhere else again.
Along with strict instructions to keep silent about the fact that the child had suffered Holy Fever.
And worse.
‘As if only his daughter matters. And shouldn’t he have been doing right by his father while the old man was still alive?’
Poor Nordic hadn’t even laid eyes on his granddaughter despite her awakening.
Enoch had locked the child’s room door securely shut.
‘Is the child really awake or not? He should prove it!’
He’d nearly yanked off his insignia and demanded a fight in his fury.
“Sigh. Cheshire Libre.”
“Yes.”
That’s right—he’d held back because of that wretched fellow.
Axion fixed a glare on Cheshire, seated across from him.
‘How does that man command such blind devotion from Enoch?’
After Enoch had coldly vanished, leaving Lilis consumed by Holy Fever.
It was Cheshire who had steadied the situation, urging patience.
“Perhaps you might simply trust the gentleman and wait. Don’t do anything at all. He cherishes Lilis more than anyone.”
Even for Enoch, the predicament had seemed unsolvable.
Yet Cheshire had stated with absolute certainty that Enoch would resolve it.
That alone would have been unremarkable.
“You’re truly all right with not seeing the child’s face?”
Cheshire had fretted constantly, anxiety plain in his concern for Lilis.
How pitiful he’d looked—that boy, usually expressionless, turning pale and trembling.
Yet that same Cheshire.
“If the gentleman says so, then yes. Lilis must have truly awakened. So please don’t worry.”
Even when told the child had awoken but her face wouldn’t be shown, he’d acquiesced with unnerving ease.
It was Cheshire who’d pacified the raging Axion—demanding he unlock the sealed room—and persuaded him to return home.
“Yes, I’m perfectly fine.”
“How is any of this fine? If the child hasn’t actually woken up and he’s lying and won’t show her face, what’s the meaning of this?”
“She has awakened. I’m certain of it.”
Axion searched Cheshire’s clear eyes intently.
It wasn’t merely simple faith in Enoch—not quite.
‘It seems like he knows something.’
His shrewd instinct was correct.
Cheshire had seen Lilis’s letter first, and thus knew that a way to resolve the Holy Fever existed.
He’d even inferred that Enoch had departed to search for a Holy Relic.
“You’ve heard something, haven’t you?”
Axion’s question carried worry.
Enoch guarded his words even with him, though he claimed to be closest to the man.
Yet somehow Enoch seemed to confide everything to Cheshire.
What lay between them, and how much had Enoch truly revealed to this boy?
‘He’s still a child. Surely Enoch hasn’t told him things about rebellion or worse—matters beyond his years to comprehend.’
Worry born from the smallest conjecture spiraled and grew.
“I’ll say this just in case: you’re still young. You may feel indebted to Enoch, but you needn’t repay that debt through your own suffering.”
“…….”
“That I helped you, that I taught you—these were all choices Enoch made himself. You simply live as you wish, doing what you want. Don’t torture yourself worrying about such things, about, well, adult matters.”
Cheshire paused, regarding Axion quietly.
Though he was circling around it carefully, the boy could understand.
Worried counsel not to be drawn into rebellion out of misplaced gratitude.
“Thank you for your concern.”
Cheshire bowed his head slightly.
“But I have no intention of forcing myself into something I don’t want to do simply because I feel indebted to you. So truly, you needn’t worry.”
“Hah, smooth words from someone who follows Enoch far more than me. Yet I’m supposed to be your closest guardian….”
Axion crossed his arms and turned his gaze toward the window, trailing off.
Seeing a hint of dejection in his expression, Cheshire spoke at once.
“I’m not necessarily following you more closely than I follow him, sir.”
This stiff creature—when would he finally stop calling him “sir”?
Surely calling Enoch by his name would feel warmer, more natural?
He’d meant to point it out just now—
“Don’t misunderstand. It’s not that I trust him unconditionally… I just have my reasons.”
Cheshire’s addition made Axion bristle.
“So what are these reasons, exactly?”
……
When asked the very thing he was curious about, Cheshire fell silent.
A sigh escaped Axion.
Yet even that frustrated exhalation seemed to offer Cheshire nothing to say.
Lilis’s true identity.
Whether ally or enemy, the fewer who knew, the better for everyone.
Still, his protector deserved to know at least one thing, given his genuine concern.
“What I want to do is the same as what he must do. That’s why I follow him.”
“What you want to do? And that would be?”
The moment Axion asked, he went rigid.
Cheshire’s eyes had flashed with a terrible, cold light.
“With these hands of mine.”
He spoke quietly, meeting Axion’s anxious gaze directly.
“To remove the Emperor.”
What did he just say?
Axion’s mouth fell slowly open.
* * *
‘Damn this woman!’
The Emperor, Nicholas, hurled curses toward heaven.
‘She’s deliberately trying to obstruct me!’
Another Divine Revelation had come down to Zadkiel, High Priest of Seraph Temple.
<There exists an evil that dares obscure your eyes and ears with its false voice.
I seek to discern those capable of hearing my true voice alone.
Go to the most sacred land in the place where the sun first rises.
There I have prepared a Holy Relic, worthy of being possessed only by a servant of true faith that I alone have chosen.
The Holy Beasts that guard the Relic shall kneel in obedience with his every step.>
God was openly exposing the false revelation that Nicholas had fabricated.
There exists an evil that dares obscure your eyes and ears with its false voice.
Of all moments for this to happen!
“Your Majesty. What… what shall we do?”
High Priest Timothy’s face had drained of all color.
Just a little longer, and he could have placed the sword in Enoch’s hands….
Of course, Nicholas could have demanded anything as the price for awakening his daughter.
But.
‘If the revelation is exposed as false, everything falls apart.’
What if it became known that the revelation commanding the conquest war was not the Will of God?
The situation would unravel completely.
An empire where God’s voice is absolute.
One cannot defy an angry God’s Will and continue inciting war.
Not only Enoch, but all the gifted would resist….
‘If only I’d thought of using Enoch’s daughter first, I wouldn’t have needed to fabricate a false revelation.’
He’d fallen victim to his own scheme, hadn’t he?
Clinging desperately to his scattering thoughts, Nicholas wrestled with how to salvage the situation.
* * *
Enoch’s footsteps quickened as he made his way toward Lilis’s chambers.
He had just returned from visiting Seraph Temple and meeting with Zadkiel.
There was something he needed to ask of him.
‘If she’s seen to wake without the Emperor growing suspicious, there’s only one way.’
Lilis’s Holy Fever.
Since it wasn’t her own affliction but the Emperor’s doing, Lilis could not shake it off and rise on her own.
Yet he couldn’t reveal the fact that they’d sought out a Holy Relic and cured the Fever as if waiting for just such a moment.
It all seemed far too convenient….
And Holy Relics, after all, had always belonged to the Imperial Household from ancient times.
So Enoch devised a plan.
‘Right now, only God can awaken the child through the Emperor’s power.’
He had gone to seek Zadkiel’s help.
Yet surprisingly, beyond achieving his objective, Enoch learned something entirely unexpected.
“So you came because of the princess. I thought you were looking for me because of the Divine Revelation I received. Please, might you take me on the expedition? I must go.”
“What are you talking about? A Divine Revelation? And what’s this about an expedition, all of a sudden?”
“Pardon? You didn’t know?”
Learning the full story, Enoch found himself at a loss for words.
‘Lilis… truly, ah.’
It would be his daughter again.
The child, once more.
Working alone behind the scenes for her father.
‘I thought there was no way….’
Right now on Jedo, a false Divine Revelation urging war had come down from the High Priest.
That revelation bore no evidence of truth, yet there was no way to prove it false either.
A problem that even Joseph Luetman, the strategist, found himself unable to solve.
“If you continue to refuse this order to march, I fear your reputation will crumble under the charge of defying the voice of God.”
“I will give it further thought, but if there is no clear solution….”
“Sir, you must remember that you are fighting a war that requires looking far ahead. However painful it may be, you must steel yourself to draw your sword more than once.”
Innocent blood would flow.
Or else,
he would finally preserve his convictions.
Enoch stood at a crossroads of choice.
If Enoch chose his convictions and refused the war, the rebellion would be delayed.
The position he had so carefully built would narrow, and he would face the reproach of the Empire’s faithful.
“Ah, Lilis….”
But mercifully, all the problems he had worried about would be cleanly resolved.
Without him saying a word, his daughter—knowing somehow—had opened a path for him once again.
“This is maddening. Truly pathetic.”
Enoch bit his lip, smiling as if on the verge of tears.
The princess had told him not to worry.
That father would handle everything—such bold words she had made.
Yet in the end, he had made the child suffer again….
Enoch felt apologetic, ashamed, and grateful all at once.
A tangled heart.
For now, he simply wanted to see his daughter’s face, seized by an overwhelming rush of feeling.
“Damn it.”
Click, click.
His hands fumbled urgently with the key as he arrived at Lilis’s room.
The moment he pushed the door open.
“Lilis?”
The child was not there.
Oscar, whom he had asked to watch over his daughter while he was away, was nowhere either.
“Lilis.”
For an instant, his heart seemed to drop—a phantom sound that echoed through him.
‘Where could the child be….’
If anything, Enoch was the rational sort.
He rarely panicked, always thought and moved with deliberation.
The one who could make him emotional, prompt choices he would never otherwise make, strip away his reason….
In other words.
“Ah.”
The only person who could render him utterly thoughtless, make him foolish,
was surely his daughter alone.
‘What is this? Where has the child gone?’
If he thought about it calmly for just a moment, there would be nothing to fear.
He had entrusted Lilis to Oscar before leaving the room, and he now knew of Teleportation Magic’s existence.
Yet before Enoch’s eyes, the world had gone white.
In this moment.
No thought came to him—only the serpentine laughter of the Emperor echoed in his mind.
“Li—Lilis. Lilis….”
In the missing time he knew nothing of,
a demon had stolen his daughter.
Even now, returned as things were, it had happened countless times already.
A hideous thing that threatened his daughter.
“Ha… ha.”
Enoch’s body trembled violently.
The moment he steadied his reeling mind and turned to leave the room,
“Father!”
“What is it. You’re faster than I expected.”
Lilis and Oscar appeared.
Beneath their feet, a Magic Circle glowed blue before fading away.
“Ah.”
Only then, seeing it, did Enoch grasp the situation—a gasp tore from his throat and he crumpled to the ground.

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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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