My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 77

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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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Dad hiding his strength
Chapter 77
* * *
Entering the Monthly Evaluation Field!
A sprawling plain stretched across the center, flanked by forests on either side, with a steep Cliff Fortress looming behind.
“Princess, don’t you dare lift a finger! We’ll keep you clean as a whistle!”
“Ugh, Cheshire! Stop teasing!”
I swatted Cheshire’s shoulder as he giggled.
“Hiya!”
“Hyah!”
Bright shouts echoed from the white-badged children scattered around the field.
They were chasing F-Rank Magical Beasts that hopped about like squirrels and rabbits, snapping them up as quickly as they appeared.
“C-c-come on, l-let’s catch one t-too!”
Rom grabbed a small stick from somewhere and began beating a rabbit-shaped beast.
The illusory rabbit beast dissolved like mist, leaving behind a marble-sized purple core in its place.
“Here! L-Lilis! F-for you!”
“Really? Thanks!”
I gripped the core and absorbed it just as we’d been instructed before entering the field.
A hologram-like score materialized above my Mana Device Bracelet.
Lilis Rubinstein (1)
Cheshire (0)
Cheshire (0)
Rom (0)
“Huh. One point.”
A Graduation Score of 1000 was needed to graduate.
Hunting F-Rank Magical Beasts all day wouldn’t get me anywhere near that in a single Monthly Evaluation Test.
“L-let’s catch another!”
“Rom.”
Cheshire grabbed Rom by the scruff of the neck before he could pounce on another rabbit.
“Huh? W-what?”
He drew his sword and pointed it toward the forest.
“We’re going that way.”
“B-but… th-that place… w-we’re n-not r-ready…”
Rom glanced nervously at Cheshire’s white badge.
The forest held D and E-Rank Magical Beasts; beyond it, the Cliff Fortress housed C-Rank ones.
‘The white-badge kids struggle with E-Rank beasts, after all.’
I understood Rom’s hesitation.
“It’s fine, Rom. Don’t worry—just trust Cheshire and me and come along.”
I encouraged the frightened Rom.
“B-but what if s-someone gets hurt…?”
“It’s all an illusion anyway, right?”
“N-no, the p-pain feels real…”
“True enough.”
From E-Rank onward, the beasts struck back; hunting them meant taking wounds and injuries.
The wounds vanished the moment you left the field, but inside it, you felt every scrap of pain.
‘These kids are barely past elementary school, and whoever designed this set it up to be ridiculously harsh.’
Still, there was no getting around it.
Once we graduated from the Training Academy, we’d all become Child Soldiers.
We’d have to hunt actual beasts—real ones, not illusions.
This was meant to acclimate us to real combat ahead of time, I suppose.
“That’s why I came with you, Rom!”
“H-huh?”
“We’ll do the hunting. You just heal us if we get hurt, okay?”
Rom was a Healer.
Though his mana pool was too shallow to help with serious wounds…
‘The protagonist’s carrying us anyway—no point wasting time on this worry!’
I encouraged Rom to trust Cheshire once more, and he soon nodded with a determined expression.
We stepped into the forest.
The forest held E-Rank fanged flower monsters and D-Rank wolf cub beasts.
“Lilis, you stay here with Rom! Cheshire and I will catch them all!”
“Right. Just stay here and don’t do anything.”
The two of them said that and took off running.
Gem ripped apart the attacking monster flower with her Knuckle Guard-clad fists, shaking its stem wildly, while Cheshire channeled Mana into his blade and toppled two or three wolf cubs in quick succession.
“Wow, wow.”
“They’re seriously strong, aren’t they?”
“Y-yeah!”
Rom and I watched the two of them like we were passengers on a comfortable bus.
‘Though that’s not how I planned to spend the day.’
I felt a twinge of guilt.
‘How much Life Force does it take to catch a D-Rank Magical Beast?’
I glanced at Oscar’s bracelet as the thought crossed my mind.
5min
Five minutes meant aging two and a half minutes.
Catch ten of them, and I’d age twenty-five minutes.
‘Are you serious? Just for D-Rank?’
I knew that offensive Magic consumed the most Life Force, but this was beyond excessive.
‘Completely inefficient.’
I suddenly understood why the Emperor didn’t hunt Magical Beasts himself, didn’t go to war, and instead worked my father to the bone.
“Hmm.”
I swallowed my urge to jump in.
I’d just stay on the bus as long as I could, and only get up when things got truly dire.
“Lilis!”
Cheshire and Gem came rushing over and dumped a heap of Magical Beast cores at my feet.
“Absorb these fast! I’ll go catch more!”
“Rom, let Lilis go first. I’ll grab yours once she’s done with all of these.”
“O-okay!”
“Wait, you two! Hold on!”
Cheshire and Gem didn’t hear me and vanished deeper into the hunt.
I stared at the roughly ten cores piled in front of me and swallowed hard.
‘This really is an emperor’s bus ride.’
Guilt tugged at me, but I shook it off and absorbed two cores of different sizes.
“Let’s see.”
Lilis Rubinstein (6)
D-Rank was worth 3 points, E-Rank was worth 2 points.
‘You’ve got to be joking.’
After absorbing them all, I had 26 points.
I let out a long sigh.
The four of us needed 4,000 points combined—hunting all day here wouldn’t come close.
“Ah, Cheshire!”
I showed my score to Cheshire, who had brought a few more cores.
He met my gaze steadily, studying my numbers.
“…We have to go, don’t we?”
“Yeah.”
“W-where? Where are we going?”
Rom’s face had gone pale—he’d sensed something was up.
Cheshire pointed toward the high cliff visible beyond the forest.
“Cliff Fortress.”
“N-no, we can’t!”
“Rom, it’s fine. Don’t worry.”
“B-but….”
“Lilis, look! I caught even more!”
Gem bounced over with a gleeful grin, wiping the sap of a monster flower from her cheek.
“Gem, let’s head toward the cliff.”
Cheshire said it immediately.
Gem paused for a moment, then broke into a wicked smile.
“I’m totally in!”
“N-no, you guys, wait….”
Gem took the lead, and Cheshire dragged along a Rom who was trembling with fear.
And so we began to push deep into the forest, heading toward the Cliff Fortress.
* * *
Cheshire and Gem hunted down magical beasts as they made their way through the field.
When we reached the entrance to the Cliff Fortress, the cores they’d collected gave us 46 points.
“Wow, Lilis, you’re the best! I was wondering what you’d packed so carefully.”
“Didn’t I tell you I’d be essential?”
Before we entered the Cliff Field.
We settled down in a corner of the forest and opened my bundle.
Inside were four Bento Boxes.
“My older siblings said that when you’re taking the test, you get hungry. They said Bento Boxes were essential.”
The test had no time limit.
You just had to catch enough magical beasts and accumulate points.
But once you entered, no matter how hungry you got, you couldn’t leave until you called out to end the test….
The tip about bringing a Bento Box and enduring as long as possible was the golden advice the twins had given us.
“Mmm, sweet and delicious.”
Gem emptied her Bento Box while whimpering.
Both of them, having expended so much stamina and Mana during the hunt, quickly finished their meals.
“Eat mine too!”
I, fortunate enough to have just strolled around, wasn’t hungry. When I offered my share of the Bento Box, Cheshire shook his head.
“Never mind. You eat it.”
“No, keep eating. I’m not hungry, I’m telling you.”
“W-well, true. I-I’m not either. Gem, t-take mine.”
“What? I’m not turning it down?”
In the end, Cheshire and Gem, who’d received our shares, finished satisfying their hunger.
Watching them eat well filled me with satisfaction.
If I hadn’t brought the Bento Boxes, things could have gone badly.
“You guys, if we go in here today, do you think we could collect all a thousand points?”
I pointed at the hologram floating in the air with a smile.
The Cliff Fortress had a special Mana Device installed, so we could check the points of the magical beasts and how many remained.
* Cliff Fortress *
A-Rank (1000 points): 2 beasts
C-Rank (50 points): 300 beasts
“Catch an A-Rank and we graduate right away. But it’s going to be tough, isn’t it?”
Gem scratched her head.
“A-Rank might be hard, but there are three hundred C-Rank beasts. If we just catch eighty of them, we all graduate!”
“Wow, is this a dream?”
Hearing my words, Gem slapped her own cheek.
“You’re saying I could graduate in one go…?”
“I-I also need to d-do something, and I’m s-sorry….”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Cheshire comforted the downhearted Rom.
“This place will be harder than the forest. We’ll probably get pretty beaten up.”
“T-then I’ll h-heal you!”
“Yeah.”
Heh, this warm teamwork.
I felt satisfied and wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
That was when it happened.
The Mana Device Display changed.
! Group A Entrance !
Gerard Schmidt: 1150 points
Bruce Chamber: 850 points
Jake Carter: 820 points
Butler: 265 points
“Oh, so this shows the scores of the people entering the field too?”
“Seems like it?”
“Gerard’s already hit his Graduation Score. Lucky him.”
Gem pouted, watching Gerard’s score, which had already exceeded 1000 points, with envy.
“Come on, Gem. Don’t be envious. We’re just starting out, and they’ve accumulated those points over multiple tests.”
“S-still. Look at that. He’s really incredible….”
Gem’s mouth fell open as she looked at Group A below the cliff.
Curious about her reaction, I dashed over to get a look.
‘Hmm, truly a first-class mage.’
The bus driver for Team A turned out to be Gerard Schmidt.
The other team members were watching from the sidelines while Gerard stood at the front, grappling with a full-grown wolf magical beast.
Every time he swung his sword, four or five beasts at a time were engulfed in Blue Flame and toppled.
‘Whoa—he’s already using Sword Aura that smoothly?’
Gerard Schmidt: 1150 points
Bruce Chamber: 1000 points
Jake Carter: 1020 points
Butler: 1015 points
In less than fifteen minutes, every member of Team A had reached their Graduation Score.
That was when it happened.
Cheshire abandoned his meal and hastily grabbed his sword, rising to his feet.
“Huh, Cheshire? Finish eating first.”
Why the sudden rush? There were still plenty of beasts left.
“What?”
But I soon understood why Cheshire was hurrying when I glanced at the rapidly changing Mana Device Display.
C-Rank (50 points): 278, 273, 268, 264, 259…….
The C-Rank magical beasts were declining at a rapid pace.
“No!”
I leaned over the cliff in shock and our eyes met—Gerard’s and mine.
He grinned as if to say, “Watch this,” and kept hunting.
“Why is he still catching them?!”
He’d already maxed out his score!

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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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