My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 30

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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 30
* * *
Only after Lilith beside him had fallen into a deep sleep did Chesire finally open his eyes.
He had never actually been asleep to begin with.
How could he rest easy in a bed that didn’t feel like his own?
‘She really is strange.’
Watching Lilith’s peaceful sleeping face, Chesire shifted his body carefully to lie facing her.
‘Truly strange.’
What could have happened in just a single day?
Their first meeting, in an alley of Jedo.
He had taken her concern for him as nothing but the hypocrisy of the nobility.
And today, their second encounter.
He’d been startled to see Lilith coming all the way to a duke’s household, but only for a moment.
He had thought that rescuing a commoner with no connections—himself—was merely a whim, a fleeting caprice of the nobility toward someone who had piqued their curiosity.
‘Yes, that must be it.’
He had seen plenty of commoners fawned over by the aristocracy only to be discarded like toys when they grew bored.
Still, at least for now he wouldn’t go hungry and had a place to lay his head. That was fortune enough….
If he didn’t want to die by his biological father’s hand or waste away somewhere unknown, he might as well make good use of this young noblewoman’s brief interest….
That was what he had thought.
“I’ll become your family. I promise.”
‘Why would she say such a thing?’
Chesire’s brow furrowed as he gazed at Lilith’s sleeping face.
‘It doesn’t make sense.’
He wasn’t fool enough to miss that Lilith was being considerate and looking after him, whatever he might tell himself about playthings and such.
He had lived his whole life on scraps of attention and crumbs of affection.
The weight of it made him speak harshly, as if pushing her away.
“I don’t trust you.”
He whispered it softly, as if sealing a vow.
He was already so weary, and he wanted to trust no one anymore.
His mother would raise her hand against him every day, crying that his very existence had ruined her life, only to apologize the next morning—and like a fool, he had believed her….
His father had never held him warmly, but neither had he struck him, and somehow Chesire had harbored the hope that perhaps his father did regard him as a son.
The price of that faith had been cruel.
Abandoned by his mother, nearly murdered by his father.
Blood-bound family betrayed trust itself, so what hope had he with a stranger….
“If you’re going to throw me away anyway, don’t be kind to me.”
…….
Lilith, lost in deep slumber, only smiled softly, as if dreaming something pleasant.
‘I don’t want to be hurt anymore.’
In just a single day, he felt like a fool for having been intoxicated by her gentle warmth.
Chesire pulled away the blanket Lilith had draped over him.
* * *
‘What’s this? Why isn’t she sharing the blanket with him? Why is our princess alone under the covers?’
Enoch laughed the moment he saw the two children asleep on the bed in Lilith’s room.
Lilith had been given a blanket, while ten Jellyfish Drawings lay neatly arranged at the head of Chesire’s pillow.
‘The boy has real skill.’
The drawings were so lifelike they seemed ready to swim away at any moment—almost disconcerting in their precision.
Lilith’s, on the other hand….
‘Is that supposed to be a jellyfish?’
A jellyfish with decidedly individual character, at any rate.
Silver and gray swirled together haphazardly, with two blue dots for eyes.
‘Is that a jellyfish, or is it me?’
Enoch’s eye was keen indeed.
As he drew the blanket over both children, Enoch noticed his daughter’s uneven, childish handwriting.
A laugh escaped him unbidden.
Enoch bent down and kissed his sleeping daughter’s cheek, whispering softly.
“Sweet dreams, our princess.”
* * *
The next day.
Scratch, scratch.
I focused intently on the problem set while casting a furtive glance out the study window.
Chesire sat motionless in the garden where spring sunlight streamed generously through.
‘He must be bored. It would be nice if he could play with the twins while I’m in class.’
Since Leon had stormed out yesterday, the twins hadn’t shown their faces once.
“Sigh.”
“Yawn.”
Just then, a yawning sound came from beside me.
When I turned around, Oscar sat with his chair tilted back, his expression bored as he wrinkled his nose.
“This is tedious.”
“Then don’t come….”
“You promised me one special lesson a week. I can’t back out on my word now.”
Today was our scheduled mathematics tutoring session with Oscar, the Magic Tower Master.
We were working through quadratic equations at the moment, and since he had no real questions, Oscar seemed thoroughly bored.
I pointed to a problem as a sort of peace offering.
“I don’t understand this one. Could you explain it?”
“Liar. You know perfectly well.”
Oscar scoffed and swept the problem sheet aside entirely.
“This is pointless. You already know all of it, so you’re bored too, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know everything….”
“Sure, sure. Let’s say you don’t.”
Oscar leaned forward to look at me, his long golden earrings glinting between strands of disheveled white hair.
“You’ll be heading to the Ability Cultivator Institute soon? Enrollment’s mandatory at nine, though you can start as early as seven. When’s your birthday?”
“May nineteenth.”
“Less than a month left. You’ll finally see your mother’s face, won’t you?”
“I’m sorry?”
The sudden remark caught me off guard.
“My mother?”
“What—your father never told you?”
Oscar’s eyes narrowed with amusement, as if he’d stumbled upon some delicious secret, and he grinned wickedly.
“Babies don’t just spawn out of nowhere. You didn’t know you had a mother?”
“Oh, well, no, I mean….”
To be honest, I’d never given it much thought. My father had never brought up my mother first, either.
Back when we lived in Jennon, I’d once asked, “Why don’t I have a mother?” and James Brown had simply—
“You left home when you were just a baby….”
—brushed it aside.
‘Well, I suppose I must have a mother somewhere. She’s probably living in Jedo.’
The original work only stated the fact that he had lost a daughter.
There was not a single line of mention about Enoch Rubinstein’s wife.
‘Wow, I really hadn’t thought about this at all until just now….’
The moment Oscar spoke of my mother’s existence, my heart inexplicably began to race.
“D-does the Magic Tower Master know my mother?”
“Know her? Of course. She’s famous.”
“What is she like?”
“You want to know? Judging by your reaction, this is the first you’re hearing about her. Your father, the others in this household—there must be a reason none of them told you.”
I swallowed hard.
“P-please, I want to know. Tell me.”
“Then I’ll tell you. Selena Ludendorff, the Marquise. She was a well-known mage, but she retired five years ago and now works as a researcher at the Ability Cultivator Institute.”
A marquise?
As I tilted my head in confusion, Oscar chuckled and added:
“After your father vanished, she didn’t look back once. She remarried the Marquis Ludendorff right away. They even have a son together.”
“Ah, I see… I see.”
“Why? Shocked? She doesn’t seem to care whether you’re alive or dead. Look at her now—she went straight into another marriage, had another child, and is living quite well.”
Rather than worrying whether I was shocked, Oscar’s nasty expression seemed to hope I would be, so I shook my head.
“No, I’m not shocked.”
“Really?”
“Yes. My mother deserves to have her own life. She’s young and talented—she should do what she wants and live freely.”
“Well, sure. She was young, talented, a capable mage, and came from a good family. That’s why she ended up marrying your father, who was the most accomplished man of his time. Though I doubt love had much to do with noble marriages….”
Oscar, still reclined in his tilted chair, continued muttering.
“Don’t you think it’s too much, though? Never mind your husband, but you gave birth to your own child—how could she abandon you like that?”
“My father took me and ran away the moment I was born. She wouldn’t have even known where I was. What could she have done?”
“Hah. How naive.”
Oscar pulled a chair over and flicked the tip of my nose.
“Your mother too. She’s still young, not even thirty yet—an Ability User in her prime. So how is she already retired and working comfortably as a researcher at the Ability Cultivator Institute?”
“…….”
“It was that woman who told the Emperor where you and your father were hiding. She revealed everything.”
“…What?”
“In exchange, she was allowed to retire. She also made the Emperor promise that her son wouldn’t be conscripted as a child soldier. Do you understand what that means?”
“…….”
“She sold you. To protect her son.”
Thump.
In that moment, my heart felt as though it had dropped from my chest at Oscar’s words.

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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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