My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 209

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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
209
“Brother, did you… see from the beginning?”
Leon stared blankly at Cheshire, who had rushed to his side, mimicking Lilis’s usual manner of speaking.
“Show me your face…”
“Yeah.”
“…from the start. Why?”
So he’d seen everything.
“Could you pretend you didn’t see?”
“What? You already saw it all—how am I supposed to unsee that?!”
Leon grabbed Cheshire by the collar without hesitation.
“How could you not say a word to me… you bastard.”
Though she’d grown into a proper young lady, in Leon’s eyes Lilis remained a precious younger sister—still childlike, still cherished.
Now that she’d matured, how many headaches had he endured watching dark-eyed men flock to her like moths, beating them back one after another?
And yet?
She’d ended up with someone after all?
And of all people, his closest companion?
This was what they meant by being stabbed in the back by the very weapon you trusted.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, brother.”
Cheshire’s eyes wavered.
Watching them, Leon felt only confusion.
“Wow, really.”
Of course, he’d never have forced Lilis away if she fell in love with someone someday.
No matter who the man was, he wouldn’t be satisfied.
If he thought about it that way…
“Sigh.”
Compared to watching his sister’s eyes meet with some mediocre man and suffering in silence, Cheshire was actually the best choice.
Yes, that much was true…
“How long has it been?”
Leon released his grip on Cheshire’s collar and asked, his hand falling away limp.
“…A month.”
“A whole monthhh?!”
He’d been in the dark for an entire month?
No, more than that—how was this even possible in the middle of all the expedition preparations keeping him so busy?
“Wait! A month ago means… surely you didn’t…”
Leon’s mind raced.
“That day…?”
* * *
One month before now.
The Imperial Palace, Magic Swordmaster Order Training Ground.
Ability Users trained day and night at the Imperial Palace in preparation for the coming expedition.
“Why are you here again?”
“I was worried about you. I was afraid you might get hurt during training. You’re not injured anywhere, are you? You’re okay?”
Leon had thought Lilis was acting strange lately.
His younger sister, who should have gone straight home after leaving the Magic Tower, had taken to stopping by the Imperial Palace for some reason.
There was no real purpose to these visits.
“Why would I get hurt? Please stop coming, just stop!”
She simply checked on her older brother’s condition from every angle and then left.
“Don’t say that. Why are you being so cold? You don’t find me annoying, do you…?”
“It’s not that!”
Actually, yes, it was annoying.
To be precise, it wasn’t that Lilis was annoying…
“Miss Lilis, good day! I am Ride Felton of the Quarto Magic Swordmaster Order… Gah!”
That—this exact situation was what annoyed him!
Leon intercepted the knight rushing toward them like a hawk diving for prey, catching him by the scruff of the neck and hurling him away.
“Oh my!”
Lilis gasped at the violent action.
Leon paid no attention, and casually knelt down in front of the knight sprawled on the ground, belly exposed.
“Ride Felton. Have you lost your mind?”
“S-sub-captain…!”
“How dare you ignore procedure?”
Leon patted down Ride’s chest. A rustling sound—his fingers caught on something, and he drew out a pink letter envelope.
“Confiscated.”
Leon slipped it into his own coat without hesitation.
“No! Please, give it back!”
“What do you mean, no? Did you sell your chivalry for scrap? Who told you to come charging at a lady like that? If you want to send a letter, you go through the inspectors, didn’t I say that? If it passes, we’ll make sure she gets it.”
Before any love letter could reach Lilis, it had to pass through a panel of inspectors.
Her cousin Leon.
Her father, Enoch.
Her uncle, Alexei.
“Good grief, at this rate our princess won’t even be able to leave the house without permission. Brother-in-law, and Leon—let’s ask for your help.”
This was the system Enoch had implemented in response to the confessions flooding in.
“But you never actually deliver any! Have any of them passed? They don’t all end up in the trash, do they?”
Leon flinched at Ride’s anguished cry.
“That’s right—none have been delivered, but only because nobody has met our rigorous standards!”
His younger sister’s popularity had reached its peak this year.
And no wonder.
The precious jewel of the Rubinstein Ducal Family, the most distinguished house in Jedo!
Dazzling beauty and a gentle disposition!
And on top of that!
‘If she’d just stayed out of the Magic Tower, I wouldn’t be so exhausted.’
Yes—the beloved disciple of the unmarried Magic Tower Master himself.
The open secret that Lilis had already been chosen as the next Magic Tower Master to succeed the current one with no heir, and that only drove her popularity higher.
“Why don’t you find someone from Quarto like you? You’re an only child—you’ll have to inherit the family holdings.”
“That’s not it! I’m fine, really! My parents respect my opinion!”
“Ugh.”
The only real flaw one might cite was that Lilis held the Octava rank, but even that wasn’t a problem.
She would be the Master of the Magic Tower, after all.
And a non-combat classification was actually all the better!
So now, whereas the heads of major noble houses had once shown at least some restraint when Lilis was younger, they came flocking like a pack of dogs with marriage proposals.
Enoch grew gaunt with each passing day from dealing with them.
“What’s going on?”
Just then.
Cheshire, noticing the commotion, approached.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
Leon was startled. The Commander was rarely seen, given how busy he was.
“Hmm.”
……
But Ride, reading Cheshire’s expression, suddenly burst into tears.
“I wasn’t asking to meet, I just—I just wanted to tell her how I—hic—how I feel….”
“Wow.”
Leon’s jaw dropped.
Ride Felton was a sixteen-year-old knight who’d only recently been commissioned.
‘Seriously? Even for a young boy, this is…?’
Does he have no shame? Crying right in front of Lilis? If he keeps blubbering like that, he’ll embarrass himself even more.
But unlike Leon, for whom the weeping young man was just pathetic,
“R-Ride!”
the unexpected tears seemed to have gotten through to the soft-hearted Lilis.
“Don’t cry. And thank you for writing to me. I’ll read it when I get home, I promise.”
“…Really?”
“Yes. Brother, give me the letter.”
Lilis reached into Leon’s coat and retrieved Ride’s letter.
“Th-Thank you so much, Miss!”
“It’s nothing. Keep up your training, and be careful not to get hurt, all right?”
“Ah….”
The boy fell for her all over again, touched by the concern from his angel.
Cheshire watched the entire scene in silence, then followed Lilis as she left, as if to see her off.
That would have been the end of it….
* * *
“The day Lilis took that letter from Ride!”
At Leon’s words, Cheshire flinched.
“That day, right?”
Leon had never shown his hand before, but what if Cheshire had been nursing some feelings for Lilis all along?
Then on that day, when Lilis offered to read another man’s love letter herself, he must have felt some anxious stirring, surely?
“…Yeah.”
Leon’s deduction was spot on.
“Aha!”
So it must have been that something had happened when Cheshire brought Lilis back.
Cheshire, who’d decided things couldn’t go on like that….
“You confessed, didn’t you?!”
Faster than light, sharper than a hawk’s talons diving for prey!
“Yeah, that’s right too.”
He’d definitely stolen Lilis away!
“This, this, this….”
Uncle, and Father!
We’ve kept up an iron-tight defense all this time!
The thief was inside the house the whole time!
“You conniving bastard!!!”
Leon let out a cry of anguish.
* * *
One month before a large-scale Magical Beast Subjugation.
The Imperial Palace, Audience Chamber.
Selena Luden Dorf faced the Emperor.
Everything before her eyes had gone white. The hands clasped together trembled violently.
How had things come to this?
Was she being punished now?
The punishment for having betrayed Enoch Rubinstein seven years ago?
“Listen, Selena.”
“…Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Do you remember what we exchanged back then? Tell me.”
The Emperor, with cruel precision, made Selena speak those memories aloud again.
“In exchange for Your Majesty exempting me and my son from military service… I was to… I was to reveal the whereabouts of the deserter….”
“No. You’re misremembering.”
The Emperor shook his head.
“What I should have received then wasn’t the whereabouts of Enoch—it was Enoch himself.”
Yes, that was right.
What the Emperor had wanted wasn’t to know where Enoch was hiding. It was to find Enoch and make him bend to his will.
“But what happened?”
Selena closed her eyes. Tears that had pooled spilled down her cheeks.
“Well, yes. You wouldn’t have known—that your daughter would be an Octava.”
Selena had naturally assumed her daughter Lilis would be a Dos.
Of course, she had never once wished that Lilis, a Dos born of her own body, would become a soldier, someone whose life and death she’d have to worry about every day.
“Now I don’t even have a daughter left to sell.”
The Magic Tower Master’s words had struck like a blade.
It was a misunderstanding. Selena had never intended to send her daughter to the battlefield.
In any case, Lilis—
Even as a Dos, she could have been exempted from military service.
Because if only Enoch—
If only that one man, Enoch alone, would make the sacrifice.
If he would abandon his convictions and take up the sword at the Emperor’s command.
Then everyone’s safety could be guaranteed.
Her own, and Lilis’s.
And even her son Kyle’s.
So she had made a deal, turning away from her guilt over her deserter ex-husband.
“I gained nothing from that deal. I tried to negotiate with Enoch by exempting the girl from service, but it all came to nothing.”
The Emperor’s firm voice said everything.
“Meanwhile, you’ve enjoyed quite a lot for a very long time.”
Here and now, no matter what she said, the Emperor would not bend.
“Frankly, I’m so wronged I can hardly bear it. I’d like nothing more than to drag out even the child in that belly and make you compensate me for every loss I’ve suffered.”
Selena’s arms, wrapped around her swollen belly, trembled. The Emperor clicked his tongue and rose to his feet.
“I’ll grant you this much—a parent’s love for their child. But to come here demanding I keep my promises on your terms? That’s audacious.”
“Your Majesty!”
Selena lurched to her feet, then dropped to her knees before the Emperor without hesitation.
“My son, he has never… never had any experience. This expedition, just this once, just this one time…. Please, just once, I beg you….”
Tears spilled freely down her cheeks.
Had Kyle been an Ability User who’d built experience as a child soldier, it wouldn’t have felt so hopeless.
But Kyle—
her precious son—
was only twelve years old, with no expedition experience whatsoever.
“I will obey. I will train him to work as a child soldier starting now. But this once, please. Just this one time….”
……
“I didn’t think it through. I… I was too caught off guard….”
“Really?”
The Emperor broke into laughter.
“You didn’t think? Why not?”
Tears dripped steadily from Selena’s eyes as she remained prostrate.
“When you so boldly betrayed Enoch and came to strike a bargain with me, I thought you’d already foreseen this.”
The Emperor lowered himself onto one knee.
“When you betray someone, you see…”
His hand lifted her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his.
“Someday…”
The Emperor’s face, twisted in a cruel smile, reflected in Selena’s widened pupils.
“you ought to consider that you might be betrayed in return.”

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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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