My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 231

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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 231
My wife turned back and smiled softly.
My angel, with that smile that never changed, eternally beautiful.
Lilis.
The revolution had succeeded, and peace had come to the empire. And Cheshire had gained a new family with a new name.
Lilis, who had been his lover, was now his wife, and Cheshire had become her husband.
A home like any other.
Nothing special about the bond, yet every single day made Cheshire’s heart swell with joy.
“Oh, honey, that tickles….”
“What are you making?”
Cheshire asked, still pressing kisses to Lilis’s neck and cheeks.
He’d thought his wife, who usually slept late, had somehow woken early, and sure enough, something was bubbling away over the fire.
“What do you mean, what am I making? Can’t you tell just by looking at it?”
Lilis sounded flustered.
“This is your favorite! I made it with tomato and beef—it’s a stew, you know?”
……
Really? This was…?
Bubbles rose and popped from the bright red stew.
It looked like demon food freshly fished from the depths of hell.
“Look, it might not look great, but it’s definitely going to taste good. The smell isn’t bad, right? Just try a spoonful for me, honey.”
Lilis blew gently on the hellish brew to cool it, then thrust the spoon toward him.
Cheshire hesitated a moment, then tasted it.
……
“How is it?”
The taste was exactly as it looked.
“Is it good?”
“Yeah. Really good.”
Of course, he was the kind of husband who could manage a white lie or two to keep his wife from disappointment.
“I’ll handle the rest.”
But he couldn’t inflict this on his wife too.
As he reached for the apron, Lilis shook her head firmly.
“No way, not today. You cook every day anyway. I have a conscience, you know. At least on your birthday, I should be the one making it.”
“Oh.”
That’s right.
Today was my birthday.
Cheshire felt a sudden laugh rising in his chest.
A birthday.
It had meant nothing to him—a man who lived only because he hadn’t managed to die.
Just one day among countless others. He’d never paid it any attention, and no one had ever celebrated it with him.
But everything changed after he met Lilis. Because of her, who made his birthday happy every year, a day that once held no meaning now became something he looked forward to.
“Happy birthday, honey.”
I’m so happy—so incredibly happy—that I’d be content to die right now.
“Thank you.”
I hope that for the rest of my life, you’ll be by my side, celebrating my birthday just like this.
A birthday really is a happy day.
“Oh, goodness, I almost forgot!”
Lilis suddenly started and unwrapped Cheshire’s arms from around her waist.
“Has our little prince woken up? I need to check his diaper!”
Our little prince?
Right.
I had a son.
A precious little prince, nearly a year old now, with features that were half Lilis and half himself.
Cheshire stopped Lilis as she tried to remove her apron.
“I’ll do it.”
“You will? Then please do. I’ll finish making breakfast.”
“Okay.”
As Cheshire turned away, his heart began to beat rapidly, thump-thump.
Why?
I see my son’s face every day.
Yesterday too, he hadn’t slept, fussing and whining until late before finally drifting off in her arms.
Why was he so curious now? Why this longing to see him?
Cheshire arrived at the nursery in quick strides and stood frozen, staring at the small crib from a distance.
“…….”
One step. Then another.
With each step closer, his chest tightened.
At last, peering into the crib, Cheshire went rigid.
“Gya-a-a!”
The boy grinned wide at the sight of his father, stretching out his arms.
Plump fingers wiggled and grasped.
Black hair. Blue eyes.
Those eyes—like his mother’s, holding the sea itself—reflected Cheshire back at him.
“Ah….”
What was this feeling?
Had he felt it even when he first held his newborn son in his arms?
Overcome by the fresh surge in his chest, Cheshire slowly reached out and lifted his son into an embrace.
“Ap….”
Ap…?
“Aba, ap… ba!”
In that moment, Cheshire’s eyes widened.
Father.
The boy had called him father.
This same child had spoken “mother” first.
Even though he’d been babbling for a while now, he still hadn’t managed the word for father—and Cheshire had felt a quiet sting at that.
As if reading his unspoken wish.
“Aba!”
The boy called to him again and again.
“Ah.”
He understood then.
‘This was it.’
The life he had longed for.
He had wanted family.
From earliest childhood, it was what he had craved with an ache that never dimmed.
Even beaten, scarred, tormented….
He had always wanted family.
Even when his mother, raising him alone as a bastard, struck him daily and screamed and pushed him away, he stayed at her side.
Because she was all the family he had.
When he was handed over to his father, his wretched lot never changed, but he refused to break—he clung to survival with grim teeth.
Enduring, always enduring, hoping that someday a kind word might come.
That someday he might hear himself called family.
That someday he might be loved.
“…….”
His throat tightened. His eyes burned.
At last, he had built the sanctuary he had yearned for all his life—the walls of family.
And he needed fear nothing now. No one could threaten what he had made.
This nation was at peace.
Because he had forged that peace.
His son….
Could do anything he wished. He need never take up a sword.
He would never have to bow before anyone, could befriend whomever he chose, and could grow in a happy home, loved and without care.
“Haa… hah.”
Cheshire’s breathing had grown ragged.
Tears gathered at his eyes as if he were weeping, yet he smiled.
It wasn’t only his son.
Now every child could live this way. Indeed, they were living this way.
In the nation I have changed.
In the peace I have finally brought into being.
“Aba-a-a…!”
“Yes….”
A soft touch.
“…I’m your dad. I’m your dad.”
A single tear from Cheshire’s eyes fell onto the child’s round cheek.
‘I did it.’
A poor child who had only waited for the day of death.
Hundreds, thousands of nameless ‘Cheshires’ who wandered the streets without a surname, without a voice to call their own.
All of them had vanished.
And in their place arose hundreds, thousands of ‘Cheshire Libre’—happy families, laughing without care.
In the end, it was peace of his own making.
“I….”
Cheshire laughed through his sobs and wiped away his own tears from his son’s cheek.
“I did it….”
“Oh my! Darling, why are you crying?”
Cheshire turned to see Lilis, who had drawn close without his notice.
“Why do you want to kill His Majesty the Emperor?”
“Because I’m Primera?”
“Isn’t there any other reason?”
Yes, Lilis.
Now I understand.
“Think about it. What is it that you truly want?”
From the moment you saved me.
From when you showed me hope—something that had never existed in my life but only despair.
From when you taught me that even someone like me could dream.
I had been longing for a future like this all along.
And in this country….
I wanted to create happy futures.
Hundreds, thousands of versions of myself.
That’s why I ran forward.
“The child….”
Cheshire pulled his wife close, cradling the child in his arms.
A fullness beyond measure welled up deep in his chest.
“The child called me Dad….”
He was now,
perfectly, utterly happy in the peaceful country he had created.
* * *
“The child called me Dad….”
The moment he mumbled these words and opened his eyes.
Lilis stood over him, looking down at him lying in bed with an expression of surprise.
His wife seemed somehow younger.
No, that wasn’t it….
‘Ah, it was a dream.’
Cheshire bolted upright, suddenly awake.
He had fallen asleep in the priest’s quarters of Argonia Temple.
Morning had already broken.
“What kind of dream were you having?”
A dream….
He’d made Lilis his wife on a whim. And that wasn’t enough—he’d held her close and kissed her all over.
“…….”
Embarrassed, Cheshire scrambled to his feet and turned away from Lilis, standing by the window.
He stood there in bewilderment, staring out at nothing—
“Hey. What kind of dream were you having?”
—when Lilis sidled up beside him and jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. Her voice was full of laughter.
“The child called you Dad? You were dreaming about becoming a father, weren’t you? Admit it.”
“…….”
“Ahahaha! What is it~! I’m dying to know. Tell me. Was it a son or a daughter?”
“I… I don’t know.”
Cheshire rubbed his flushed cheeks with the back of his hand and fled from Lilis. She clung stubbornly to his arm and followed.
“Come on, tell me! Was the child’s mother in the dream too? Who was she? I’m so curious!”
“I really don’t know. I don’t remember. I’m going to wash up.”
“You’re mean!”
Behind the closing door, Lilis’s grumbling voice could be heard.
Click.
Cheshire stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him, and stood motionless—turning the dream over in his mind.
Had it truly been a dream?
Lilis’s scent, the warmth of holding her in his arms.
His son’s face, his voice, that moment when he called him “Father”—all of it vivid as this very breath.
‘Perhaps. Maybe it wasn’t a dream at all.’
Yes, perhaps.
A certain future, not a dream.
At the end of the path he walked, there lay undoubtedly a future where this dream would become reality.
‘The reason I risk my life, draw my blade…’
He thought he could answer it now.
‘Lilis.’
For you.
And for myself.
For the hundreds, thousands of yous and mes who breathe in this land.
So that they might, at last, find happiness.
I will make it happen. I must.
For the first time in his life, Cheshire smiled—truly smiled, with light in his eyes.
‘What a beautiful dream that was.’
And with that thought.

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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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