My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 151

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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
151
Episode
“Hehe, Uncle is the best! Everything you say is right!”
Lilis turned and threw her arms around Axion’s neck, offering comfort.
“You were worried about Cheshire for nothing—! Just because he fights well doesn’t mean he’s a Supreme Commander! Who knows what might happen on a battlefield!”
“Yeah, exactly. That’s precisely what I was saying.”
With Lilis taking his side, Axion felt an unexpected surge of emotion.
“On a battlefield, see, inexperienced soldiers panic and lose the ability to think rationally. When unexpected situations arise, the mind goes blank—you can’t think straight.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“A commander has to give orders, but he doesn’t know what’s right. Dozens, hundreds of lives depend on his decisions—what if he chooses wrong? But he can’t waste time either. He has to make the best judgment he can and give orders within five minutes.”
“Uncle, is that from experience?”
Listening to his lengthening explanation, Lilis asked with sharp perception.
Axion flinched.
“…Yeah, actually. It is experience.”
“I thought so.”
“Young commanders carry a lot of worry for that reason. Sometimes they even abandon the front lines.”
Axion laughed softly, glancing at the portrait of his comrades placed on the table.
Then, suddenly.
“Wait! Enoch, this guy. That’s hilarious, seriously?”
“Yes? Father, what is it?”
“Back then!”
Axion pointed at the portrait.
“Your father was a commander and you know what he did? He abandoned the front lines.”
“What?!”
It had been like that.
The memory surfaced unexpectedly, and Axion burst out laughing at the thought.
* * *
Axion Marquis Schneider, sixteen years old.
Third son of the Marquis Schneider Household and a Holy Knight of Dos Rank.
Even in his days as a child soldier, he boasted extraordinary abilities.
Had there not been a monster of exceptional caliber like Enoch Rubinstein, the position of Commander would surely have been his.
But when his comrade seized the position immediately after his appointment, he harbored no resentment.
Enoch was a talent everyone acknowledged without exception.
“C-Commander… an order….”
It was his first deployment as part of the Elite Force.
It was a large-scale subjugation, and the Supreme Commander was the Swordmaster of that time.
Taking on such a heavy responsibility as commander from the start, Axion’s mind went blank.
“Right… an order….”
Considering it was his first time, he had been assigned to command the subjugation in the easiest sector.
The operation should have proceeded without incident.
Had it not been for this unexpected crisis.
“I must… capture them all….”
“Commander! Hurry!”
Before his eyes, hundreds of eggs were hatching—crack, crack—splitting open.
No one had known.
That this sector harbored a Demon Beast Spawning Ground.
Flying-type Demon Beasts matured the instant they hatched.
Young Demon Beasts were not weak either, so Axion now faced an impossible choice: fewer than a hundred soldiers against hundreds of Demon Beasts.
His soldiers’ faces had turned ashen. They wore the expression of those who had already glimpsed death.
“…Retreat.”
“Sir?”
“Before they all hatch! Fall back now! As fast as you can! Run for your lives and report to the Supreme Commander!”
“B-but Commander….”
“I’ll hold the line here. Go! Now!”
A commander must never flee.
Either everyone dies together, or he dies alone.
If victory is not won, then a commander’s corpse must lie upon that battlefield.
Such was the fate of one who held the lives of countless others in his hands and commanded them.
“P-please… survive, sir!”
His comrades retreated.
Everyone knew Axion couldn’t hold out much longer—
But it was an order.
“Hah.”
Left alone, Axion forced his eyes wide, grasping at the fading edges of his vision.
Of course he couldn’t survive.
Several of them had already begun hatching, launching into the air.
There was only one person who could face this many Demon Beasts—
“Axion. Let’s stay alive together, for as long as it takes.”
Only Enoch.
His comrade, who had created a swordcraft called Elevado at fourteen and begun to be called a Swordmaster.
But Enoch was a Commander in a different sector now.
“I’m sorry. I can’t keep that promise….”
They’d sworn to survive together.
‘And I’m dying right after I was finally promoted to the Elite Force. My fate really is something.’
Axion raised his sword with great effort.
“Aaaahhh!”
He was wiping away the tears that had begun to spill when—
A sharp whistling sound—!
A blue blade of sword energy tore across his vision, riding a gust of wind.
The newly hatched Demon Beasts shrieked.
Every unhatched egg burst open, and the Demon Beasts that had just taken flight dropped like stones.
Elevado.
As far as Axion knew, a swordcraft only one person could wield.
“Ah….”
Axion stood frozen, watching the Demon Beasts die in an instant.
“Axion!”
Enoch came rushing down the sloped wall of the Gorge.
“Hah, hah.”

He stayed bent over, wiping the sweat from his chin, catching his breath for a long moment before lifting his head sharply to ask:
“You alright?”
“You—you… what are you doing? You just abandoned your entire unit?”
A Commander breaking ranks.
It was unthinkable.
And yet his comrade had just done it.
“Mine’s all taken care of. There was a Demon Beast Spawning Ground there—I thought yours might be the same, so I came running.”
“But that’s no reason to run here from there! When you get back, there’s no excusing your way out of being court-martialed!”
“What’s so scary about that?”
Enoch laughed and threw an arm around Axion’s shoulder.
“A friend dying is scarier.”
* * *
“If your father hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here now.”
“Wow, that’s so cool. But Dad, why don’t you ever tell me stories this interesting?”
“Interesting? War stories are just scary and boring—that’s why I don’t tell you.”
“That’s not true—it’s really fun!”
Axion chuckled and ruffled the hair of Lilis, whose eyes were shining bright as moons.
Then, knock-knock.
A hesitant knocking sounded at the door.
“Come in.”
He wondered who it could be.
“Oh, Cheshire!”
His son.
Cheshire was startled to see Lilis sitting on Axion’s lap, but came forward anyway.
“…There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Mm?”
The timing was awkward—catching him like this.
Could the boy not trust his own abilities, and come to speak to his adopted father for reassurance?
Axion felt a sudden tension.
“Should I step out?”
“…No. It’s fine.”
Cheshire shook his head at Lilis’s hesitant words and spoke.
“I’m sorry, Father.”
“What?”
Axion furrowed his brow at words he hadn’t expected to hear.
“What are you apologizing for?”
“For not taking your side earlier and agreeing with the Supreme Commander’s plan.”
Axion’s mouth fell open.
“That’s nonsense. Obeying the Supreme Commander’s orders is the iron law of the Knights Order. I only stuck my neck out because Enoch and I are friends—you shouldn’t have done that.”
“Even so, I understand why you did it, Father.”
……
“Thank you for worrying about me. I know it wasn’t because you didn’t trust me. It’s just that I still lack so much experience compared to you and the Supreme Commander.”
Cheshire looked up as he spoke, meeting Axion’s eyes.
“But Father, I really can do this. I’ll prove it—please trust me just this once.”
His crimson eyes blazed with unwavering resolve.
Axion stared at that determined gaze for a long moment, then turned his head slightly away and muttered under his breath.
“…All right, I hear you. I trust you. You’ve grown up fast.”
Lilis, who had been listening, burst into laughter.
“Uncle, you sounded just like a middle-aged man who’s finished raising his son!”
“Ha, well, I suppose I am getting on in years.”
Cheshire let out a soft chuckle at the sight of Axion, ruffling Lilis’s hair and lamenting his age.
* * *
Thump-thump.
My heart was racing.
“Why did you come?”
“I have something to say.”
The day after their bitter quarrel.
Two men facing each other—Father and Axion.
Father opened his mouth curtly.
“Speak.”
“You go first.”
Axion furrowed his brow and shot back.
“What am I supposed to say? You’re the one who said you came with something to tell me.”
“But you came to our house too. What were you doing there?”
……
Father’s lips sealed shut.
That was true.
With dark circles under his eyes as if he were coming to make peace, Father had woken me at dawn—
“Princess, will you come with me?”
—and we’d gone to Axion’s house together.
“Oh? The master and young master left about ten minutes ago, my lord. They said they were going to see the Duke—I suppose your paths didn’t cross?”
Caron, Axion’s butler, tilted his head in confusion.
In the end, they’d each returned home before managing to meet up again.
‘Dad, hurry up and say something!’
It was clear they’d both set out from their houses at dawn to reconcile.
Yet the two of them only glared at each other in stubborn silence.
“Um, Lilis.”
Just then, Cheshire beside me whispered into my ear.
“…Don’t you think we should leave? It’ll be harder for them to speak if someone’s listening.”
“Oh, right?”
I hadn’t been paying attention.
I scrambled to my feet.
“Dad, can Cheshire and I step outside?”
Then—
“No, Princess. Stay here. It’s all right.”
“No, go on!”
Father and Axion spoke at the same time, then looked at each other.
“Besides, there’s nothing to talk about for long. I’ll be quick.”
“…Fine, then.”
As I quietly sat back down, Father finally broke the long silence and spoke first.
“I’ve hired twenty more mercenaries—I’m sending them Cheshire’s way. And you take ten of my elite force and cover the north. Once I’ve pushed through the east, I’ll regroup with you as fast as I can.”
Father seemed to have redrawn his plans, perhaps aware of Axion’s worry.
“And I want to clear something up, because I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I haven’t been pushing Cheshire into battle without a second thought just because he’s someone else’s son, or anything like that.”
……
“After teaching him for four years, he’s become like my own son to me. I worry about him just as much as you do, and I care for him just as deeply.”
Father cleared his throat awkwardly and added to that.
“If I hadn’t cared, I wouldn’t have asked this of you in the first place. You’re the one I trust most of all. That’s why I entrusted Cheshire to you.”
……
“To be honest, you’ve taken on a request that makes no sense, and you’ve cared for him with genuine heart. I’m always grateful for that. Neither of us is one to spell out these things, so I never said it, but…”
Father finished his words and added one more thing.
“Thank you. I’m grateful, and I’m s-s—”
An apology seemed to embarrass him.
I found his clumsy awkwardness charming, so I covered my mouth and giggled softly.
“—sorry.”
Looking at Axion’s expression, the tension between them seemed already dissolved.
“Yeah, I’m… too.”
He seemed even more embarrassed than Father.
After hesitating for a long moment, he began to speak with his head bowed low.
“I know you were speaking as Supreme Commander and doing what you thought was best, but I let my feelings cloud things and ruined the mood.”
……
“I know what he’s capable of, but I kept second-guessing and doubting anyway—like I didn’t trust him. I think I’ve done something I can’t apologize to the boy for.”
……
“And more than that, you’re still my superior, but I regret how I kept acting stubborn and disrespectful, making you look like you couldn’t keep discipline.”
Axion raised his eyes.
“Anyway, thank you for speaking first, and I’m s—”
He left the word “sorry” hanging, his gaze turning toward me.
Then to Cheshire.
Had he only now realized we’d been listening the whole time?
Axion’s face flushed crimson.
‘Uncle’s so cute…’
With sparkling eyes, I raised both hands in a fighting spirit pose.
If he’d just finish those last words and then the two of them shared a warm embrace between men, it would be perfect!
“S-s—”
I nodded toward Axion, who was looking at me.
Yes, Uncle.
“S-s—”
Sorry!
“S-sorry, you madman! You’re the one who was wrong in the first place!!!”
“What?!”
Nooo! This isn’t how it was supposed to go!
I can’t live through this!

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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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