My Daddy Hides His Power - Chapter 96

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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 Conceals His Strength
96
* * *
Whirr—whirr—whirr—
The cicadas shrieked their insufferable song on a sweltering day in mid-August.
The heat of high summer was poison to someone like me, who couldn’t bear the warmth.
“Huff. Pant.”
I hung from a wooden swing in a sleeveless dress, fanning myself desperately with my hand.
“Lilis! Are you all right?”
“What do you expect? I’ve shriveled up like a dried jellyfish.”
“Come on, give me that and push the swing already—!”
My twin brothers’ hands held cups of chilled fruit juice with ice cubes bobbing on the surface.
Leon quickly handed me the juice and set the swing in motion.
“Ahhhh.”
“Better? Feeling more alive?”
“Yes! You’re the best, brother!”
Theo nimbly climbed up beside me and wiped the sweat from my brow.
“You really can’t handle the heat, can you? This must be miserable.”
“Yeah, I’m dying here….”
I flopped down onto Theo’s lap entirely.
The tree’s shade and the occasional breeze made it bearable, at least.
‘God, I want air conditioning.’
Not that I’d never experienced the modern conveniences of a scientifically advanced twenty-first-century Earth—but this heat was suffocating, and memories of climate control came unbidden.
Dying of heat makes you think of such things.
“By the way, where did Uncle go?”
“Father? He’s been busy lately.”
The protagonist was occupied pushing the original story forward.
He kept up his day job as a Magical Beast Subjugation agent too….
‘And that other business (?) as well.’
The operation that begins with ‘ban’ and ends with ‘ran.’
Father was more than capable of managing it himself, but still, I found myself making an effort to recall the original story.
‘By now, it should be time for him to make his move on the temples. Has Father already begun?’
The temples were precisely where the protagonist had laid groundwork before the story even began.
Which made perfect sense.
This realm was ruled by a madwoman playing theocracy, spouting that the Emperor’s will was divine will itself.
To cripple the Imperial Household’s power, one had to cripple the temples’ power first.
Incidentally, that silver-haired High Priest of Pavil Temple whom we’d met upon arriving in Jedo was a villain.
An old man who droned on about “The Emperor Primera is as a god himself!” while stuffing his pockets with generous donations, too distracted by his greed to think clearly.
And the opponent Enoch Rubinstein had chosen as Pavil Temple’s counterweight was—
‘How old is High Priest Zadkiel now? I think he was just a year or two older than Cheshire….’
* * *
Seraph Temple.
This temple, situated on Seraph Street on the outskirts of Jedo where poor commoners gathered, presented a pitiful appearance at first glance.
The crumbling, single-story building seemed ready to collapse at any moment, and beneath the makeshift relief shelter outside, the groans of the sick echoed ceaselessly.
“High Priest Zadkiel! We’ve received a reply to the letter you sent to Count Gertel!”
Zadkiel, the young priest of Seraph, fourteen years old this year, abandoned his vigil over the sick beneath the shelter and dashed out with a radiant smile.
His spring-blossom pink hair gleamed beneath the summer sun.
‘I hope it’s good news!’
Zadkiel wiped the sweat dripping from his chin and hurriedly opened the reply.
[To Seraph Temple.
Your request was shameless enough not to warrant a response, but fearing you’ll pester me with the same question again, I write this reply.
Donations? What sort of deranged Jedo nobleman would contribute there?
The very fact of exchanging letters with you will earn divine wrath.
Unless you wish to see innocent people branded heretics and burned at the stake, do not contact me again!]
“Oh dear.”
Zadkiel gave a wry smile and scratched his cheek awkwardly.
Not a single positive response had come from any of the several nobles he’d approached for donations.
“High Priest! Are you busy?”
“Oh! No, not at all!”
A voice called from the relief shelter. Without a trace of weariness, the boy hurried back.
Dozens of patients filled the relief station, and all of them were commoners.
They suffered from Internal Injuries of unknown origin, yet had no means to receive proper treatment.
“Cough!”
When a middle-aged woman with a sickly pallor coughed up blood, Zadkiel looked up in alarm and examined her.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes. Priest….”
Zadkiel wiped the blood from her lips and placed a fresh, cool cloth on her forehead, then gently massaged her rigid arm.
“Be strong. You’ll recover soon. All I can offer is my prayers, but….”
“No, Priest. Cough. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have survived this long. I’m truly grateful.”
At the woman’s words of thanks, Zadkiel smiled bitterly.
This young priest possessed an extraordinary gift of Holy Healing Power and had grown skilled in Healing Magic through years of study.
Zadkiel believed that God had given him life to serve the poor and the afflicted, so he spared no effort in healing and caring for the sick.
“I wish I could be of more use….”
Yet Healing Magic worked only on External Injuries. Against Internal Injuries of unknown cause, it was worthless.
All those lying in the relief station were suffering from Internal Injuries.
“No, Priest.”
The middle-aged woman grasped Zadkiel’s hand, her cracked and chapped lips curving into a smile.
“To receive such care from you before I die—that alone is a blessing. How fortunate we are that someone so noble watches over people like us….”
……
Zadkiel swallowed hard, holding back the urge to weep.
Dozens of patients like this woman lay in the relief station.
If only there were enough thin gruel for them to eat, if only there were more hands to help care for them….
But the temple’s finances were barely enough to provide the priests with food and shelter.
Zadkiel gave his own meals to the patients and patched his worn priest’s robes to scrape together money for medicine.
‘Oh God.’
For a boy not yet fourteen, the weight of reality was almost unbearable.
Yet Zadkiel never lost his smile.
Love even those who stand lowest among all.
He did not doubt that this was God’s will.
* * *
‘In the original work, High Priest Zadkiel first appeared as an adult, so I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing now.’
If he’d spent his childhood in temple service, he would certainly be at Seraph Temple now.
Jedo had two temples.
One was Pavil Temple, where his grandfather the High Priest served.
The other was Seraph Temple.
Though both temples served the same God, their doctrines were fundamentally different.
Pavil revered the Emperor as one would revere God Himself.
Naturally, they followed the Emperor’s will, which meant commoners were treated as less than human.
Seraph, on the other hand, drew a distinction: the Emperor was the Emperor, and God was God.
They taught that God’s teachings encompassed compassion even for commoners.
‘The beginning of this mad tyranny was drawing that very line.’
The Imperial Household divided believers into the “New Doctrine”—those who revered the Emperor as a god—and the “Old Doctrine,” then used this split to consolidate their tyranny.
Naturally, the Old Doctrine faced persecution.
Beyond Jedo, temples and believers existed throughout the regions, but….
‘They don’t openly reveal which doctrine they follow.’
Surely there were believers capable of the obvious thought that commoners were people too?
But if they dared voice such an idea openly?
They faced complete isolation.
Just like Seraph Temple.
‘Openly sheltering commoners right under the Emperor’s watchful gaze in Jedo….’
I shook my head slowly, imagining the bleak situation at Seraph Temple without needing to see it myself.
“Ugh, my stomach….”
As I sat lost in thought, I heard Leon groan.
I stopped thinking hard and asked him.
“Brother, what’s wrong? Does your stomach hurt?”
“That’s why I told you not to eat ice.”
Theo spoke, looking at Leon’s juice glass, which he’d completely drained of ice.
“Even at home, he kept eating cold things because he said he was hot, and he suffered for a week. Went in and out of the bathroom all day long. Such a fool.”
Ah, so it was a stomach upset.
Leon, sitting beside me, winced and rubbed his lower belly.
Unable to watch any longer, Theo spoke up.
“Go get yourself some tea at Salvacion and come back.”
“Ugh, I don’t want to. It’s such a bother. Why isn’t there magic that fixes a stomachache?”
Leon grumbled.
‘Hmm, that’s true. The lack of treatment for internal injuries is the most frustrating thing about this world,’ I thought to myself.
I clicked my tongue inwardly.
My previous world, where science and medicine had advanced so far, was truly convenient.
If you were sick, you’d go to the hospital, get examined, take medicine, or have surgery.
But here, medicine had barely developed at all.
Fortunately, external injuries could be treated with magic, but internal injuries couldn’t.
You could only attempt treatment if you knew the exact cause.
Even then, it was nothing but medication.
There was supposedly a universal cure called Salvacion, but as you know, the Imperial Household was cracking down on its distribution with fierce determination.
“Leon, you just want to keep sticking to Lilis, don’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Leon wrapped his arms around me and rubbed his cheek against my shoulder without strength.
“I came to see her after so long, and we only get two hours. Where’s the time to go take medicine?”
Once their rare free time ended, the twin brothers would head to the Imperial Household for training, they’d said.
Apparently they’d been assigned to the Magical Beast Subjugation unit that would deploy to the Central Domain next month.
“Sigh.”
Watching Leon and Theo, suffering at barely twelve years old, made me heave a sigh unbidden.
This mad world….
“All my brother’s pain, be gone now.”
“Ehehehe.”
I gently stroked Leon’s belly.
Of course it actually worked.
I was Primera, after all—I could heal anything, external injury or internal.
1 second
Maybe it was just the kind of thing that would be fine after a single bowel movement?
The Oscar’s Bracelet I always wore on my right wrist showed only 1 second had elapsed.
‘Hehe. At this rate, I’d do it a hundred times more without hesitation.’
Leon, receiving my caress, suddenly sat up with a start.
“Wow.”
“What is it?”
“It’s really all better.”
“Really? Truly?”
“Yeah!”
“Yaaay, my hands are magic hands~!”
“Puhaha! Are they now?”
Leon chuckled and pulled me into another embrace.

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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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