My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 194

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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 Power
Chapter 194
“Wait!”
Enoch seized the old man urgently.
‘I have to save him.’
I quickly checked the Bracelet.
–
“Ah.”
It was impossible.
A realm forbidden even to Primera.
The old man’s final words to us had triggered the worst of Restrictions.
“My… name… is Alberto Manuel.”
I knew that name too.
A missing person Father had been searching for across the entire continent.
Someone presumed to have used Regression Magic.
Oscar’s grandfather.
“Damn it!”
Father checked the old man’s pulse and collapsed to the ground without strength.
His breath had stopped in an instant.
Without even closing his eyes.
Father’s lips tightened as he lost the thread of Regression he’d barely found, right before his eyes.
“Princess, for now….”
Father reached out to separate the corpse from me.
“Father, I’m fine. But… we know what Master’s grandfather looks like, and this isn’t him. So why….”
“Wait.”
Father wiped away the blood at the old man’s mouth. Then he stared intently at the face of the corpse, still warm.
“…This can’t be.”
“Ah.”
I was stunned at the same moment.
The features that had been so hazy.
A face I could never quite hold in my mind, no matter how hard I tried.
Yet only after the old man died did that appearance suddenly become clear.
“That’s right….”
Father reached out with trembling hands and gently touched the old man’s eyes.
Brilliant golden irises.
Aged beyond what the portraits showed, but unmistakable.
“It’s Alberto Manuel.”
His face hadn’t changed.
The old man had looked the same way when he first entered this room.
Only after he died.
Only after his death, by breaking free of the Restriction he carried, did we finally perceive him.
We only then became aware of his existence.
“So disappearing….”
Father murmured numbly.
“…it was like this.”
I understood too.
The Price of Regression.
Its caster did not die and disappear.
Only erased from everyone’s memory.
As if they never existed.
Unrecognizable to anyone,
perceived by no one.
Unable to make others aware of their existence through words.
A body bound by Restriction for all eternity.
“It’s the worst.”
Father spoke the words as if in a trance.
Should we count ourselves fortunate that Oscar’s end was not death?
Or instead,
should we despair that his existence vanished from everyone’s memory, irretrievable?
Was this hope or despair?
I couldn’t know for certain.
* * *
Even after discovering exactly what the Price of Regression was, there was nothing I could do about it in that moment.
Let me not be forgotten by people.
Free me from this Geis.
–
Despite my many wishes, the bracelet coldly refused them all.
It was a law of the world that existed beyond even Primera’s authority.
“Are you going to tell your Master?”
The next day.
Father helped me prepare for my trip to the Magic Tower as he spoke.
“Think about it for a while. But you should let the Master retrieve Grandfather’s body.”
“If Master finds out Grandfather was alive, he’s smart enough to figure out what happened.”
“He will. Tell him I’m coming to see him today, all right?”
“Okay.”
Just then, I heard a commotion outside.
“What?”
Confused, I suddenly froze before hurrying to the window.
“We have the right to live like human beings!”
“Guarantee our safety and security!”
A crowd of commoners had made their way to the Noble District, their voices raised in protest.
It was a demonstration.
In the Original Story, the ten ringleaders of that protest were beheaded.
That’s why I’d tried to find out in advance who was preparing the protest, and a few days ago Lico sent me their identities.
“Ah, Father?”
I turned to him in surprise.
The moment I received their information, I’d passed it straight to Father.
Whether to find these people beforehand and prevent the protest, or leave it as it was―
“If the protest happens, it’ll be tremendous for Father’s business. But the people who started it die.”
―I’d left the choice to him.
I thought Father, the righteous protagonist, would surely not stand by and watch their sacrifice.
“My dear.”
Father grasped my shoulders, startled, and met my eyes.
“That’s a very good change.”
“Y-yes, that’s… right, yes, that’s correct.”
It was right. But….
“If they don’t step forward like that, nothing changes.”
Revolution is written in blood.
A cruel truth.
Knowing that, I hadn’t acted recklessly alone, nor had I passed the choice to Father without thought.
“Don’t worry about it.”
And yet, in my heart, I had hoped.
Father was a righteous protagonist, after all.
He would find a way somehow, and succeed without requiring these people to suffer.
“Ah, understood. I… I’ll be back soon! I’ll tell Master that Father wants to see him!”
I fled the room, leaving Father’s brief kiss on my forehead behind.
For some reason, Father felt like a stranger to me.
* * *
“Their audacity has really swollen up, hasn’t it?”
Oscar gazed out the window with a smile.
The protesters were moving through Jedo, their voices raised. Even the Magic Tower was no exception.
“Yes, that’s how it should be.”
Oscar was satisfied.
“It won’t do for them to just keep accepting everything spoon-fed to them by their father.”
He was right.
‘Yes, this is good. It’s not that Father was turning a blind eye because he’s a bad person.’
The protest became the mechanism through which commoners gradually found their voice and shed the instinctive fear they held toward the Emperor.
‘It’s too necessary for the business. Changes like this are absolutely necessary, even if there is sacrifice.’
So let me stop thinking about it now.
I shook my head and pressed Oscar’s face and eyes firmly into my memory, just as I’d been doing moments before.
“Hey.”
“…….”
“Hey!”
“Come on, yes!”
Oscar’s brow furrowed.
“Something’s on your mind. Out with it.”
“No? There’s nothing wrong.”
“Then why are you staring at me like that? You’ve been sitting there in a daze, just watching my face for the past hour.”
“Oh. Did I? I did…. I suppose it’s because you’re so handsome I can’t look away….”
“Ha.”
Oscar let out a hollow laugh.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth….”
“There’s definitely something! Tell me now!”
“There isn’t. Really.”
“Ugh!”
Right now, his face is so vividly etched in my sight.
But when the final day comes….
Will I truly forget Oscar and not recognize him?
“You’re the one who’d bolt the moment lunch ended, and now you’re here shirking for thirty minutes straight? Shouldn’t you be studying?”
“Oh! Studying, yes. I should. But….”
If I commit Oscar’s face to memory as though carving it beneath my eyelids, perhaps I can remember him—can recognize him—when the time comes.
“I just… can’t… I can’t….”
“……?”
“Can’t I just… look at you…? Waaah….”
“…? Hey!!! What is wrong with you, really!”
I kept drinking him in with my eyes, and in the end, I wept again.
* * *
The Emperor Nicholas’s office.
Standing with hands clasped behind his back, Nicholas gazed out beyond the window and let out a scoff of disbelief.
“They’ve lost their minds.”
A mob of commoners had gathered outside the Imperial Palace itself, raising their voices.
“They’ve no fear for their lives, it seems.”
Nicholas turned around.
Enoch stood before him, motionless.
“Well? What is it?”
“What do you intend to do with them?”
“You dare ask me?”
“The fire has caused devastating losses. They are making legitimate demands. Do not punish them—strengthen security in the Commoner District as they request.”
“Hmph.”
Had Enoch finally lost his wits?
Nicholas was incredulous.
“They set fire to their own lands and now they dare make demands of me? I see this entire affair as the work of those ignorant vermin staging a spectacle. And you want me to grant their wishes?”
Nicholas stepped closer to Enoch and spoke quietly.
“Were you aware that all the arsonists conveniently took their own lives, making any investigation impossible?”
“…….”
“I showed them mercy and granted them land. They neither thanked me nor were satisfied—they only crave more. Why do you suppose that is?”
Nicholas gripped Enoch’s shoulder firmly and laughed.
“Because you’ve given them every opportunity to crawl ever higher. But look what’s happened.”
“…….”
“Now they fear nothing, and they dare bargain with me even as they destroy their own lands.”
“…….”
“It is because of you that they crawl.”
Nicholas ground his teeth and pressed his face close to Enoch’s.
“Up the tower I have built.”
“…….”
“You should be bowing and begging forgiveness, yet instead you ask me to spare vermin and grant their demands?”
Even beneath the Emperor’s bitter reproach, Enoch did not blink.
“We can investigate. I have secured one of those preparing the fires.”
“……?”
In that instant.
Nicholas went rigid.
His heart began to race.
“…What did you say?”
“Upon investigation, it appears to be premeditated crime with backing. If we continue the inquiry, Your Majesty, we’ll be able to determine with certainty whether the fire terror was indeed the commoners’ own doing, or…”
Enoch’s eyes sharpened as he continued.
“…whether it was a cruel jest orchestrated by someone for personal gain.”
Nicholas’s hand, which had been gripping Enoch’s shoulder, slowly fell away.
Beneath his assumed composure, his mind was louder than it had ever been.
‘The vermin—I made certain they were all eliminated. Is he testing me?’
As though reading Nicholas’s thoughts, Enoch spoke.
“They accepted payment to participate in the crime, then were coerced into suicide.”
…He knew. All of it.
“Bring them to me.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I intend to complete the investigation myself.”
Between them, silence settled.
“Your Majesty.”
……
“If you wish, shall I bury it?”
Enoch’s proposal, breaking the quiet.
……
Without a word, Nicholas turned slowly and walked away.
The investigation was already complete.
Whatever he’d uncovered, he’d surely secured evidence that the Imperial Household was entangled in the fire terror.
Enoch had already learned everything—he’d come here to extort.
“Shall I bury it.”
His demand, asked again, was singular.
That Nicholas not punish the protesters outside shouting themselves hoarse, but grant their wishes instead.
It was the lesser evil compared to the truth becoming known—that Jedo, in the Emperor’s own hands, had been destroyed.
“They are also your subjects, Your Majesty, citizens of the Empire. I await a merciful decision.”
Enoch intoned these words without emotion and departed.
……
Left alone, Nicholas’s legs gave way. He barely managed to stand by gripping the desk, swaying.
‘What is this? Why…?’
A god’s cruel joke?
Enoch Rubinstein.
Since his return, Nicholas had felt as though he were fighting an invisible enemy.
Every circumstance, as if by lie itself, had favored Enoch, and Nicholas had suffered defeat after defeat.
How was it possible…
At every crucial moment,
why did the divine raise this man’s hand?
“Something… isn’t right….”
Nicholas felt regret.
The choice he’d made four years ago, when he’d brought Enoch back to Jedo.
Then, at last.
His legs gave out entirely, and his knees struck the floor.
“Ugh… ugh…”
A pathetic illusion, as if he were kneeling before Enoch.
“Aaaaaaugh!!!”
Unbearable rage erupted from within him.

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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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