My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 197

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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
Chapter 197
* * *
The one day off each week at the Magic Tower had arrived.
True to my promise, I’d spent the early morning hours with the twins—rode horses through the back hills and caught about a dozen spiders along the way.
“Lilis, is something wrong?”
Unlike Leon, who seemed endlessly delighted, Theo kept noticing that my expression had grown somewhat gloomy.
“Oh! No, brother. It’s just that I haven’t played like this in a while—I think my body’s a little sore.”
“Hmm, really?”
Whenever I thought of Oscar, my chest tightened.
But it was a worry I couldn’t confide in anyone.
“Then let’s grab lunch and head home to rest. Cheshire, are you free today? Should we eat lunch together?”
Theo suggested.
“Oh, Cheshire! Will the son of the Conqueror Hero grace us with his presence?”
Leon laughed merrily.
I couldn’t help but smile at that too.
‘I wonder if Uncle’s home.’
Jedo had been impossibly loud these days.
Starting tomorrow, a festival period celebrating the birth of a new imperial territory—the Moarte Archipelago.
The streets rang ceaselessly with praises for the Conqueror Hero, Axion Libre.
And everyone was watching with bated breath.
Just how staggering would the Emperor’s Honors and Merits be for Axion?
‘It won’t cost much Life Force, so His Majesty will grant Uncle’s request, won’t he?’
I had already said something to Axion in anticipation of this moment.
What was it, you ask?
‘Lico, just wait!’
A promise to prepare a “blade” for our Lico, the leader of the information guild Red Sparrow!
“Uncle, you know. When you receive land and gold coins and lots of gifts from His Majesty this time…”
“There’s this really, really terrible noble who’s been bothering my friend…?”
‘A gentleman’s revenge loses nothing by waiting ten years.’
I chuckled to myself.
‘Using barbarians to control barbarians—isn’t that the sweetest taste of strategy?’
Only the Emperor, Primera, could grant such a request.
* * *
At that moment.
“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!”
“Long live the Conqueror Hero, Duke Axion Libre!”
The heroic deeds of Axion, who had subdued a suicide mission alone, shook Jedo day after day.
“Long live Duke Axion Libre!”
The roar drifted in from outside.
Axion coughed awkwardly and looked at the Emperor seated before him, Nicholas.
“Lord Axion.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
This was a formal audience where the Emperor had the duty to commend his greatest military achievement.
Nicholas, his face noticeably gaunt over the past few days, spoke.
“If there is anything you wish for, speak freely.”
* * *
Libre Manor.
“Big brother, slow down!”
“Hey, Leon!”
Leon thundered up the stairs to Cheshire’s room and threw open the door without even knocking.
“Son of the Conqueror Hero! Your eldest brother has arrived!”
What greeted us at the threshold was Cheshire, mid-change, his broad back fully exposed.
“Oh my!”
Caught off guard by the sight of Cheshire’s bare back, I turned around at once.
I knew this would happen.
I’d had a similar experience before and meant to be careful this time.
“You haven’t eaten lunch yet, right?”
“Leon, why do you have no sense of manners whatsoever?”
Whether Theo scolded him or not, Leon pushed in and spoke.
“Why the sudden fuss? We’ve been rolling around in the dirt shirtless during training for years.”
“But Lilis came with us!”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind.”
The three men chattered on.
“I’m all dressed now, Lilis.”
I sighed at Cheshire’s words and turned away.
“Hello, Cheshire. Want to come get lunch with me?”
“Oh.”
Cheshire looked uncomfortable.
“I have a prior engagement.”
“An engagement? What kind? With whom?”
…….
As Leon asked, Cheshire hesitated before approaching me and leaning down to whisper in my ear.
“I have to meet the Marquis.”
“Ah!”
Marquis Roger Onyx.
Cheshire’s biological father.
…And the bait the Emperor was using to lure Cheshire in.
At the request of Joseph, the strategist of the rebellion, Cheshire was maintaining an outwardly cordial relationship with him.
‘He really has it rough. What is this revolution, anyway.’
To think he had to periodically face the man who’d abused him in childhood and pretend everything was cheerful.
I patted Cheshire’s arm sympathetically.
“Everyone, Cheshire has an appointment. Let’s just go eat without him.”
“What appointment? Why did you only tell Lilis? Are you keeping secrets from us?”
“I’m not, Brother.”
I tried to soothe Leon’s hurt feelings.
Just then.
Caron, the steward of Libre Manor, knocked on the open door with a tap-tap-tap, drawing our attention.
“Excuse me, young master.”
Caron spoke to Cheshire with a distinctly uncomfortable expression.
“Perhaps you should come downstairs.”
“What’s the matter?”
“He sent over more than a dozen letters, and today he’s come in person. Count Jenkins, sir.”
Cheshire let out a heavy sigh, and I.
‘What, what did he say? Count Jenkins?’
Dropped my jaw in shock.
* * *
I stood at the second-floor railing, confusion filling my chest, and looked down.
On the first floor in the parlor sat Count Jenkins with his daughter, facing off against Cheshire.
‘Why is that man here? There shouldn’t be any connection between him and Cheshire.’
Count Jenkins.
A man with a distinctly wicked mustache, his appearance was unmistakably villainous even at first glance.
A villain he was.
The very person I’d recently asked Axion to have the Emperor dispose of.
‘He was only supposed to make a brief appearance in Lico’s flashback and quietly depart to the next world. What is he doing here?’
[Lico recalled that day when she resolved to take up the sword.
Her childhood spent as a servant in Count Jenkins’s household.
A rainy night.
And him, listening to her mother’s agonized screams as she single-handedly raised two young siblings……]
I stopped recalling the Original Story and shook my head firmly.
‘No, stop. I don’t need to revisit this for my own sanity. Don’t.’
That section had been the hardest to read—the atrocities of a nobleman abusing commoners laid bare in such graphic detail.
The catalyst that made Lico despise Ability Users and vow to overturn this nation.
A deep trauma inflicted by that man, Count Jenkins himself.
‘For him to take such drastic measures—Father must have genuinely prostrated himself before the Emperor, begging for Lico to have the right to slit that bastard’s throat herself.’
The protagonist, Enoch Rubinstein, had a merciful nature. If he glimpsed any possibility of redemption, he’d embrace it.
But Count Jenkins.
He was scum of the scum—the kind of trash that drove even Father to desperate vengeance.
“He’s been sending letters proposing a marriage alliance—thirteen of them so far. Even after being refused, he wouldn’t give up, and today he came to call in person.”
Caron, the steward, whispered from behind me and the twins, who had huddled together.
“He’s insane. Truly.”
I soon grasped what was being said and looked down again in shock.
‘Wait—so he’s saying he wants to marry Cheshire off to her?’
The daughter of Count Jenkins.
A girl my age in an expensive dress, sitting beside the count with a bored tilt to her head.
“But is there really reason to call him insane?”
Theo’s expression soured at Caron’s choice of words.
“There aren’t many families who give up cleanly after a single rejection. That’s why our parents have been struggling lately, meeting with each marriage proposal that comes in and turning them down one after another.”
“Oh! No, my lord. That man is definitely insane. Because….”
Caron was about to say more when voices drifted up from downstairs.
“Since Father is away at the moment, do visit again another time.”
“I see. Then I suppose I must. Though I am curious—does your daughter meet with the young lord’s approval?”
Count Jenkins smiled knowingly and placed a hand on his daughter’s shoulder as he asked.
“Does my opinion matter?”
“Of course it does. Naturally, it should.”
“I defer entirely to Father’s judgment. If Father accepts this proposal, I have no objections.”
“Is that so?”
My jaw dropped.
Seriously, Cheshire?
“If Father consents, the marriage is assured. There is no need for further discussion with me.”
He’d marry her the moment Axion gave his blessing?
My mouth fell open wider in shock.
Shouldn’t the parties involved have the final say in marriage?
Axion didn’t even need to be consulted—Cheshire could shut it down with a word of his own.
But to answer like that….
‘That’s as good as acceptance! Does he actually like her?’
I studied Michaela, the count’s daughter, once more.
She clearly looked like an ox dragged reluctantly to the slaughterhouse, yet her face was undeniably pretty.
‘No—this won’t do.’
I had to stop this.
Because Count Jenkins was a wicked man who would soon die.
I couldn’t let him become Cheshire’s father-in-law.
“Oh, brothers. Listen….”
I glanced to the side and found the twins staring at me with peculiar expressions.
“Lilis, your face is pale.”
“Little one, you’re shocked? That Cheshire’s getting married?”
“No! It’s not that….”
“Pardon me? Young lords?”
Caron was awkwardly trying to wedge himself into our conversation with a smile, but—
“Hold on!”
—Leon was faster.
He pressed down firmly on my head, then descended the stairs in quick strides.
“Cheshire!”
“…Brother?”
Leon, his arm slung around Cheshire’s shoulders as he sat down, spoke.
“I know I shouldn’t meddle, but watching this is beginning to frustrate me.”
“Oh, aren’t you Lord Leon of Antrace?”
Count Jenkins recognized Leon and brightened considerably.
“Yes, that’s correct. A pleasure to meet you. Cheshire—you there.”
Leon was direct.
“Tell me straight: you’re not a three-year-old child. Why do you need your father’s opinion?”
“What?”
“If you like her, say so. If not, refuse. Decide right now whether to reject this proposal or not.”
……
Cheshire hesitated and glanced sharply up at me on the second floor.
“No, brother.”
Then, with a sigh, he spoke.
“The proposal came to Father. Not to me.”
……?
At those words, silence fell over everyone.
A few seconds passed before we all gasped in shock.
“What, what, what did you just say?”
Leon’s mouth fell open in astonishment, and he turned to look at Count Jenkins and his daughter.
‘Wait. So that means….’
Axion Libre—the hottest conquest hero in Jedo these days.
Rank: Captain.
Founding Lord of Libre Manor.
Vice-Commander of the Paladin Order.
With such superior credentials, and having just returned from conquering the death ground itself, he was unmarried—making him utterly coveted in the nobility’s marriage market.
But?
Even so?
‘My daughter is my age? The age difference between him and me?’
Behind Theo and me, who couldn’t close our mouths, Caron whispered.
“I told you he was a madman.”

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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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