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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Enoch Rubinstein
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No kind soul was there to explain the situation to the shocked child.
“Ensure the child is not harmed. Step back and stand by.”
The captain of the knights said this and quickly handed me over to a subordinate knight behind him.
It was the same man whose hand I had bitten earlier. A clear bite mark was visible on his right hand, with a drop of blood welling up.
“Um…”
I stared up at him blankly.
He was looking back at me, his expression slightly annoyed.
‘So he was just diligently carrying out his duties.’
Feeling awkward, I apologized.
“I’m sorryyy. I just found out myself….”
It was then.
A sudden, immense pressure from the wind made me look up.
*Swoosh—!*
“Kuh.”
……? What in the world just happened?
Dad had only swung the poker through the air once.
A blade of pure, blue energy shot toward the captain, who barely managed to block it with his sword, getting pushed back about a meter.
What followed was a relentless series of attacks.
The poker cut through the air ceaselessly, and the captain seemed overwhelmed just by blocking the incoming blades of energy.
“Disobeying an order means death, you say?”
“Kuh.”
“You must have felt ridiculous saying that.”
“You, bas…tard…”
“And how exactly do you plan on subduing me?”
Dad was relaxed, launching blades of energy even as he spoke.
Contrary to his confident blustering, the captain was completely powerless.
“Furthermore.”
“Keuk.”
“You dared to touch my daughter.”
It was me, after all, who had been the detonator for Dad’s explosive anger.
Dad launched a blade of energy every second, and the captain could barely keep up, scrambling to defend.
He… he can barely even defend himself. How is he supposed to attack, let alone subdue my dad?
Only now could I understand why Dad had found the captain so pathetic.
“Stop! Enoch Rubinstein!”
Seeing that the fight was hopeless, the knight holding me shouted.
At the same time, a flash of light burst before my eyes.
The knight had drawn his sword and placed it against my neck.
“Eek!”
“Lilis!”
Dad, who had stopped his attack, froze mid-step, his face drained of color.
“Surrender quietly and come with us. If you do, we will guarantee your daughter’s life.”
“Threatening a child. The famed Holy Knights are quite the joke.”
Dad ground his teeth and sneered, and I silently agreed with him.
“We are merely carrying out an imperial order. His Majesty the Emperor commanded us to use any means necessary to bring you, Enoch Rubinstein, back.”
The captain, having narrowly escaped death, started blustering again.
After a moment of silence, Dad answered.
“……I have abandoned that name.”
Hah, so that means he really did have that name at one point, right?
Facing a situation where even the slightest possibility had vanished, I let out a dry laugh.
It seemed James (27) was, in fact, the protagonist in hiding, Enoch Rubinstein.
“I have no intention of living in service to the Imperial family any longer. Tell your master that.”
“This is not a choice we are offering you.”
With some strange bravado, the captain pointed his sword at Dad and added.
“It is an order.”
“……”
A strange aura once again began to swirl around my now genuinely furious father.
This time, it felt like something… bigger was about to explode.
At that, the knight holding me pressed his sword closer, threatening again.
“Enoch Rubinstein! Stop, if you wish for your daughter to remain unharmed!”
“Hic. W-wait! Wait a minute!”
Terrified, I tried my best to calm my pounding heart.
To summarize the situation, my dad, whom I thought was just an extra, was actually the protagonist in hiding, Enoch Rubinstein.
Therefore, I was his sixth character setting. In other words—
6. In his youth, he lost his young daughter at the hands of the Imperial family and has since been honing his blade for revenge.
—I was playing the part of the heavily underlined ‘young daughter.’
‘Is this for real? Give me back my easy life as an extra.’
At the point where these facts became clear, for me, who knew the entire plot of the original story, there was only one choice.
I gently pushed away the arm of the knight holding the sword, then said with a bright smile.
“Of course! If it’s an imperial order, we have to follow it! My daddy will return to the knights this very day~!”
*Clap, clap, clap.*
Everyone, including Dad, stared at me, dumbfounded.
* * *
“You said I looked like Mom! You said I looked like Mom!”
As I lay on the floor, flailing my arms and legs, Dad knelt beside me like a sinner and apologized.
“I’m sorry, Princess.”
“Why didn’t you tell me! Why! Why!”
“I’m truly sorry. Even if I had ten mouths, I’d have no excuse….”
Dad’s silver hair and blue eyes, now revealed in his true form, were a perfect match for mine.
And he definitely said I looked like Mom.
Dad’s a liar!
“But, my daughter.”
The corners of his mouth twitching, Dad grabbed hold of my struggling form and planted a big kiss on my cheek.
“Who in the world did you take after to be so clever? Huh? To think of such a quick-witted solution in that situation?”
Dad glanced at the six knights waiting outside the house and laughed, pleased.
At my declaration that he would ‘return to duty as of today,’ Dad had nodded as if he had no choice and said he would get his things in order before coming out.
That’s how we bought this time.
“Hehehe… Those idiots. They actually believed it and released their hostage? As long as my princess is safe, I have nothing to fear. Now, let’s just pack a few things and get out of here.”
I gave a pathetic look to my dad, who was cackling as he peeked out the window.
No, is this really him?
The stoic, cold-blooded Enoch Rubinstein, who never showed a hint of emotion, radiated an intense aura, and ended all his sentences with a terse finality?
No matter how I look at him, he just seems like the village idiot.
‘Well, I suppose he changed after he thought I died.’
I tried to understand my dad’s current state of constant, over-the-top doting and nodded my head.
“Dad, I have something to say.”
“Yeah, what is it?”
Dad, who was already packing with surprising speed, answered distractedly.
“Let’s not run. Let’s go back to the capital. And you should return to the knights.”
“Huh?”
Dad’s eyes went wide as he turned to look at me, then he wiped the tip of his nose and let out a chuckle.
“Hey, don’t worry. When my princess was being held hostage, I couldn’t do anything, but that’s not the case anymore. Those guys outside? I can beat them all with just this poker.”
“Yeah, I know about the poker, I saw it earlier. I know… but I just want you to go back.”
Dad flinched, stopping his packing to look at me. His expression had finally turned serious.
“Why?”
“And I want to go to the capital with you. I’ll go to the Ability User Training Center and get my ability user badge. I’m an ability user, too.”
Dad’s eyes widened.
“What are you talking about? How do you know about things like the training center?”
“Um, Joe told me.”
“What?”
Dad frowned.
“How in the world would he know something like that? No, even if he did, what is he doing telling a child….”
In reality, Joe probably didn’t know a thing, but I decided to sell him out for now.
“If we run, we’ll be chased forever…. And scary men like them might come again, and I could even die if something goes wrong….”
“No, Lilis. No. I’m sorry. I was careless this time. I won’t let my princess be in danger ever again. I won’t let this happen.”
“That’s not the problem. I don’t want to live on the run. I want to live openly and proudly.”
At my words, Dad’s eyes wavered.
“Lilis.”
Even after saying my name, Dad hesitated in silence for a few minutes.
“Listen to me carefully.”
Then, as if he’d made a decision, he gripped my shoulders firmly.
“The truth is… I always thought a day like this might come. That those scary men outside might come looking for me…. I was always prepared for that.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And yet, even knowing all that, I ran away. Because I… didn’t want to raise you as an ability user.”
His words, that he didn’t want to raise his precious child as an ability user.
As someone who knew this world better than anyone, I could naturally understand how he felt.
The reason I felt relieved when I thought I was a ‘non-ability user’ was also because the life of an ‘ability user’ is anything but beautiful.
“Living as an ability user, as a noble, might seem glamorous. But what you see isn’t everything.”
In this Pavilion Empire, ability users receive the highest treatment.
They are granted noble titles according to their rank and specialty, possess vast territories and fortunes, and earn the obedience and loyalty of all.
However, these benefits come with obligations.
To become the emperor’s sword, shield, and staff, and live their entire lives as part of the ‘Imperial Elite Forces.’
In this empire, where all 365 days of the year are filled with wars of conquest and monster subjugations, the elite forces who receive deployment orders at a moment’s notice are no different from battle slaves.
“An ability user is both a noble and a soldier. As a warrior, as a mage… they have to live almost their entire lives on the battlefield.”
“……”
“And the battlefield… is a truly, truly terrible place.”
Dad paused for a moment. Then, with great difficulty, he continued.
“A friend you greeted yesterday… comes back to you today as a corpse. As I bury that friend in the ground, I think, who will die tomorrow? How long will I be able to survive…?”
Dad looked at me with deepened eyes.
In his gaze, there remained terrible memories that hadn’t faded one bit, even after being away for seven years.
The roar of explosions, screams, the sounds of death….
“I am.”
Dad’s gaze lingered in the empty air for a moment, as if recalling something.
Perhaps he was imagining it.
My future, lived as an ability user.
“…afraid.”
After a long pause, Dad spoke, his face contorted as if he were about to cry.
“I don’t want you to live like I did.”
“Dad….”
“Lilis. Seven years ago, the day I first saw you after you were born.”
Dad struggled to speak, then pulled me into an embrace. And said.
“That day, you became my entire world.”
His voice was thick with emotion.
“I… don’t want to lose you….”
