My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 196

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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 196
Enoch handed Oscar a letter, standing with hollow exhaustion.
“I found it in his pocket while collecting the body. I don’t think anyone but you could read it.”
……
A single sheet of paper, densely filled with ancient script.
Even then, the characters were deliberately misspelled, their order and arrangement jumbled into something that looked like a cipher.
“He must have wanted you to have it, wouldn’t you say?”
“So it would seem.”
Naturally, a Restriction also applied to conveying secrets through writing.
Perhaps that was why.
In the letter, written so that no one else could decipher it, the grandfather’s determination to communicate something — anything — glimmered through.
“Master.”
Enoch called out in a heavy voice.
“…I’m sorry.”
……
“Truly, I’m sorry….”
“There’s no need to apologize.”
Oscar laughed softly.
“It was my choice, after all.”
Though he had learned the true meaning of Annihilation, the shock had been brief.
If the same situation arose again, he would make the same choice. So whether his end came as death or something even more wretched, it mattered little.
“Just keep the child safe.”
So long as she survived unscathed.
* * *
Even knowing the price of Regression, Oscar showed no apparent change in spirit.
“Master.”
The man who had once driven himself desperately, knowing his time was short, now….
“Pwahahaha!”
…wasn’t working at all.
Since he wasn’t actually dying, he seemed to feel there was no need to suffer in such haste anymore.
“Master!”
“Ah! I’m dying of laughter, seriously.”
Oscar lay sprawled across my lap, tears streaming down his face as he read.
“Where does a book this funny even exist?”
“Are you sincere?”
“About what?”
“Is that book really funny?”
[A History of Projective Geometry and the Principles of Three-Dimensional Forms — Garreck’s Foundational Theorems, Volume 2]
No matter how I looked at it, the title held nothing remotely humorous.
“Hey, it’s funny though?”
“Yes.”
So it wasn’t that his spirit remained unchanged after all….
‘His mind just broke.’
I sighed.
Oscar, who had been absorbed in reading that book only he found amusing, suddenly sprang up.
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
“How are you getting along with Hans?”
“Suddenly?”
The Magic Tower Talent Class.
Though we studied together every day and everyone had grown close, Hans — who had been difficult with me from our first meeting — still felt somewhat awkward.
“Fine. He’s sharp.”
Oscar smiled with unmistakable intent.
‘Hm? Master wouldn’t bring this up without reason.’
The way Oscar singled out Hans seemed odd, so I focused my thoughts.
‘Did Hans appear in the Original Story?’
A name as generic as James Brown.
Nothing in my memory matched it.
“There’s a Magic Formula that even a genius like me can’t create.”
“What is that?”
“Hmm, who knows?”
Oscar just chuckled and flopped backward against my lap, opening a book across his chest.
“Ahahaha!”
He laughed his way through a mathematics formulary that wasn’t remotely funny, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.
* * *
While the other students struggled through their math problems, Hans worked alone, groaning quietly as he refined a Magic Formula.
“Hey, Hans. That Magic Formula you’re always working on—what is it?”
I ventured to ask carefully.
“What’s it to you?”
Hans bristled like a defensive kitten, exactly as I’d expected.
“Come on, I’m just curious. Won’t you tell me a little bit?”
“So you can finish it yourself and take credit to the Master?”
“I’m not like that, I promise. You just make things so smoothly it looks amazing, so I was asking.”
Hans let out a scoffing laugh.
“Even if I told you, you couldn’t make it. This is a Magic Formula for amplifying mana.”
“Huh?”
“Technically, it’s not so much amplifying mana as reconstructing Magic Formulas with better cost-efficiency—the concept lets you cast the same spells using far less mana. It’s revolutionary.”
My jaw dropped.
If something like that could be created, it might bridge the gap between Ability Users.
For instance…
In the Original Story, the Day of Revolution.
The emperor sent Rank-3 Septima soldiers to suppress commoners, committing massacre in the name of order.
The Rank-6 Diez mercenaries who stood against them, dying helplessly—this time, they might not have to just endure.
“You’re incredible!”
My eyes lit up.
“But can you do this alone? Why don’t you bring this brilliant idea to the Master and ask for his help?”
“The Master told me to try making it.”
“What?”
“Because the Master can’t make it himself, he told me to try.”
Hans added this with obvious irritation, as though explaining one more time was beneath him.
“To create this Magic Formula, you first need to be able to feel what it means to have no mana reserves, or very little—to actually experience that state.”
“Eh?”
“The Master is a high-ranking Ability User. Unless he were born again, he’d never experience such a condition at all.”
Then I understood.
“There exist Magic Formulas that even a genius like me can’t create.”
That was what he meant.
And in that moment, I also grasped why Oscar had been gathering and teaching non-Ability User children all this time.
Not simply because they were gifted, but because there were things only they could do.
For the Day of Revolution.
For minimal sacrifice, for guaranteed success.
Oscar had been struggling on his own all this while.
“So that was it…”
My throat tightened again.
“Now get out. I’m busy.”
“Hans, thanks for telling me. You really are amazing.”
Hans glared at me.
I grinned as harmlessly as I could manage and raised both thumbs.
“Seriously, I’ve never met anyone as sharp as you. I doubt the empire has two geniuses like you?”
“……”
When I laid on the praise, Hans simply picked up his pen again without comment.
His expression remained stiff.
“Genius! Future Master of the Magic Tower!”
But I caught the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
* * *
Oscar sat sprawled across the sofa, reading his grandfather’s letter—written in cipher.
He couldn’t decipher it completely.
He could only read it by piecing together scraps of visible meaning and what he already knew, making educated guesses.
[If you chose to step into a cage so cruel despite your understanding, then give your all until the end.
If you have lost something, find it. If you meant to change something, change it. If you meant to save something, save it.
I failed, but I hope you will obtain what you desire in the end.]
‘Yes, grandfather. That’s what I intend to do anyway. I won’t fail.’
It felt as though I were speaking with my grandfather while he still lived.
Without thinking, I let out a soft laugh.
“Ma~gic~ To~wer~ Ma~ster~!!!”
“Blast it! You nearly burst my eardrums! What’s wrong with you?”
Robel, the Advisor, gestured frantically at the mountain of papers stacked on Oscar’s desk.
“What are you doing right now? Don’t tell me you’ve been idling about all day and not working? The report I brought you this morning still hasn’t been signed off on. It’s just sitting there.”
“Are you seriously implying I should be working right now?”
“Implying? Don’t you remember me begging you to take at least one day off? I’m just amazed and startled that it’s actually happening!”
“Fine, fine. Now leave. I’m busy.”
“Busy with what? Actually, might I ask what sudden change of heart has possessed you to slack off?”
Oscar simply ignored Robel and finished reading the letter.
[And when the end comes,
keep living.
Perhaps it is merely my selfish wish for you to survive, but a wretched life is preferable to death.]
If the end comes, it will be in six years.
The day I believed would end in death.
‘Then I’ll just keep living. What else?’
Oscar tried to imagine that final day and whatever might come after, and it didn’t seem so terrible.
He was confident that even if Lilis forgot him, he wouldn’t feel lonely or wounded.
That impudent princess had regressed once before, and when they first met again, she’d already completely forgotten him.
“With all the money I’ve saved, I could just find a small house nearby and live there, couldn’t I?”
“Suddenly, what are you talking about, sir?”
Robel dutifully responded to Oscar’s murmuring.
“I could just pass by now and then, check how she’s doing, see the child’s face. That’s all that matters.”
“Child? Whose child? When did you secretly have a child?”
Mm, not bad at all.
Oscar nodded,
[The Restriction will bind you far more severely than before.]
Reading the next passage, he grew somewhat grave.
[Not a single word, not a single action, nothing that would allow another soul to perceive your existence.
To do so would lead only to death.]
Watching from afar would be difficult—far harder than it sounded, he imagined.
If he saw her face, he’d want to speak to her. He’d hope she’d recognize him. He might carelessly draw too close.
His grandfather seemed to have foreseen all of this, and his final words were coldly pragmatic.
[To avoid any mistake whatsoever, abandon everything you are and leave.
Go to a place where no one knows you and no one can find you.
That is the wisest path.]
“Right, then.”
Oscar folded the letter and tossed it across the table.
“Is that it? Can I read it too?”
“Read it if you can.”
He spoke indifferently, draping his neck limply over the back of the sofa.
‘Certainly… it is crueler than simply dying.’
If he were to die, at least it would be over.
But living—still breathing—he would be human, and humans desired things.
When he didn’t know, there was no need to imagine what came after it all ended.
Now that he knew, he would suffer imagining her, not recognizing him.
“Damn it all.”
Suddenly, Oscar’s throat tightened, and he covered his eyes with his hand.
“Master?”
Robel sensed something amiss in Oscar’s demeanor and stepped closer.
“What—what is it? Are you… crying right now?”
…….
He was crying.
Actually crying.
Robel, witnessing this rare spectacle, felt all his urge to jest evaporate.
“Ha… damn….”
“Um, well… sir….”
His hair swept back and gripped tight, his face twisted into a grimace as tears streamed down.
He had never looked so wretched.
For the first time, Robel felt that Oscar was….
Very young—a pitiful boy of twenty-one.
“Why is my life like this, honestly? I wasn’t asking for much, was I? I can’t even see her face, can’t speak to her—is that really how it has to be?”
“Huh?”
“How am I supposed to live without you?”
Ah, so it was a woman after all!
Robel quickly sat beside Oscar and, feeling for once like an older brother, wrapped his arms around him and patted his back gently.
“There now, let it out. Cry and wash it all away. There are plenty of women in the world, and the Tower Master is a decent man, isn’t he?”
“…….”
“So really! You’ll meet someone else. Come on, chin up!”
‘What nonsense is this idiot spouting.’
Oscar sniffled and shoved Robel’s arm away.
“Get out of here.”

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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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