My Daddy Hides His Power Chapter 316 - Side story Part 2 Chapter 12

* * *

 

Thirty minutes earlier, inside the carriage heading toward Lilith and Cheshire’s love house.

 

“Are you really… going to be okay with this, Enoch?”

 

“Mhm.” 

 

Axion looked down at baby Enoch in his arms with concern. 

 

“You’re really… okay with dirty diapers?”

 

A father who has to spend 23 days in his daughter’s care—showing her his dirty diapers!

 

Axion thought he could never handle something like that himself, but the great father Enoch looked perfectly fine with it.

 

“Fow da pwincess… I can enduwe it.”

 

It was truly tearful fatherly love.

 

If he were a complete baby, it might be easier, but could he really endure such a dignity-shattering situation with the mind of an adult?

 

For the record, Enoch also had to pretend to be a baby while hiding his true identity.

 

“If you choose to go along with Lilith’s wish, then you’ll have to hide the fact that you’re Enoch Rubinstein. You’ll need to pretend to be a real baby.”

 

“Lord Manuel, what are you saying! That’s far too cruel to Enoch!”

 

“We don’t know how Lilith will react when she finds out this baby is actually her father and that she’s supposed to take care of him. She might feel guilty for unintentionally causing this and try to reverse it right away, don’t you think?”

 

It was a reasonable concern.

 

Lilith wouldn’t want to witness her father’s dignity being shattered, either.

 

Lilith might go through with reversing it anyway, even if it costs her an excessive amount of lifespan.

 

‘That’s abso-wutely not okay!’

 

Protect our princess’s life!

 

Enoch made up his mind to gladly pretend to be a baby and endure 23 days of childcare under his daughter’s care.

 

And so… 

 

They had arrived unannounced at Lilith and Cheshire’s newlywed home.

 

Axion, holding Enoch in his arms, sat across the living room table from Lilith and her husband.

 

“Lilith’s not stupid—don’t you think she’ll recognize the baby is Enoch when they look so much alike?”

 

“Don’t worry about that. There’s no way she’d ever guess that someone actually managed to seal Enoch Rubinstein’s core with just a month of lifespan.”

 

“That’s true. Then…”

 

“The baby’s origin? Just say anything that sounds completely ridiculous—no matter what it is, she’ll buy it right away.”

 

Recalling Oscar’s words, Axion glanced nervously at Lilith, who couldn’t take her eyes off the baby, and opened his mouth to speak.

 

“Lilith, as for who this baby is… he’s the first son of the youngest daughter of your granduncle’s eldest daughter, who lived abroad and recently passed away.”

 

“Oh, I see! So he’s my relative, then!”

 

“….”

 

Axion was shocked. Do you believe this?

 

“Lilith wished to see a baby that resembled her, and she knew that wish would come true one way or another.”

 

“So of course he ended up looking like me!”

 

“Since nothing’s happened yet after making the wish, she’s been entertaining the ridiculous idea that she might be pregnant—but if a baby suddenly appears, she’ll realize that’s not the case and accept it.”

 

Axion found himself once again impressed by the genius Oscar’s deductions, which never missed the mark.

 

“But how did you end up with this baby, Father?”

 

Cheshire, who had accepted the explanation just as naturally as Lilith, asked the question.

 

“They say three generations of that branch of the family came to the duchy for a trip. But the baby was too young, and they needed someone to look after him. After some thought, the baby’s mother must have remembered her grandfather—Lord Nordic here.”

 

“Oh, so the baby’s mom left him with our grandfather and is off traveling right now!”

 

“Yeah. Lord Nordic didn’t want to entrust his great-grandnephew to anyone else, so he insisted on taking care of the baby himself. But given his age, looking after a newborn is a bit too much…”

 

“What about Dad? Isn’t he home?”

 

“Of course, your dad had been taking care of the baby until recently. But he left for Teneva a week ago. There’s an ongoing negotiation there, and he had to go in person.”

 

“R, right! They’re trying to set up a warp gate in the kingdom, right? Master hasn’t even been sleeping lately trying to build a new type of warp gate… that’s right…”  

 

Lilith covered her mouth in surprise and turned to look at Cheshire.

 

“This is so crazy, honey. How can the circumstances fit together so perfectly?”

 

“Lilith.”

 

Cheshire quickly gave Lilith a subtle warning glance. Realizing it, Lilith immediately clamped her mouth shut. 

 

Then, with flushed cheeks, Lilith cupped her face and asked Axion. 

 

“So, Uncle, you came to ask us to take care of the baby, right?”

 

“Yeah. Before leaving, Enoch was worried that it’d be too much for Lord Nordic to handle alone. So he asked me to see if you two could help out. Would that be okay?”

 

“Of course it’s okay! It’s totally, absolutely more than okay!”

 

Overwhelmed with joy, Lilith let out a cheer and subtly reached out her hands.

 

“C, can I hold him?”

 

“Mhm.” 

 

Axion handed over the baby. Lilith, arms trembling slightly, carefully cradled the baby in her arms.

 

“Byaaaa!”

 

“Oh my….”

 

Looking down at the giggling baby, Lilith was stunned. He looked so much like her, it truly felt like she had given birth to him herself.

 

Eyes as big as bells. Tiny lips.

 

Chubby cheeks that looked ready to burst yet felt soft enough to melt in your hands. Plump little arms and legs.

 

‘Ah, I’m going to faint…’

 

Overwhelmed by cuteness, Lilith felt a dizzying sensation and asked.

 

“What’s the baby’s name?”

 

“….”

 

“We need to give him a name. For an alias, James would be the obvious choice… but it means too much to me, so that’s a no. Something else.”

 

“There are a million people named James in this country—what do you mean it ‘means too much’?”

 

“No, seriously, we can’t. Even someone as oblivious as Lilith might sense something’s off if we go with James.”

 

“Hmm, then since he’s a baby… let’s go with something cute…”

 

Axion, who was recalling his conversation with Oscar, suddenly said,

 

“Jamie.”

 

He said the name of the baby he had personally created.

 

* * *

 

What are the chances that a baby who looks exactly like me exists in this world?

 

Of course we looked alike. It’s only natural—people who share the same blood tend to resemble each other, whether as father and daughter or as siblings.

 

After doing the math, Jamie turned out to be about a seventh cousin to me, and the strong Rubinstein genes made the two of us look alike.

 

“Jaaamie~”

 

“Byaaaa!”

 

“Ack! So cute!”

 

Then what are the chances that a distant relative, with whom we’ve had no prior contact, just happened to be traveling nearby and suddenly decided to leave their baby with us?

 

It’s not impossible—but it’s the kind of coincidence that ordinarily wouldn’t happen.

 

So the “one month” of my lifespan that the landlord took in exchange for granting my wish—“I want to see a baby boy who looks like me”—was the price paid to make this unlikely coincidence happen. 

 

“Nom nom.”

 

I was extremely excited.

 

Not only had I gained an incredibly meaningful research result, but just as I wished, I also got the chance to care for a baby who looked like me, even if only for a while.

 

“Nom nom.”

 

“Lilith, you’re going to wear out the baby’s cheeks at this rate. That’s enough.”

 

I was frantically sucking on Jamie’s soft cheek with my lips when Cheshire stopped me. 

 

“He’s not a doll, he’s a person. Don’t torment him.”

 

“I know he’s a person! I wasn’t tormenting him! He’s just so cute—I can’t help wanting to kiss him instinctively!” 

 

Despite Jamie’s deadly level of cuteness, Cheshire somehow stayed calm—and the moment Axion left, he went out to buy parenting books.

 

As newlyweds, we had never seriously discussed having children yet—and naturally, we weren’t prepared for it either.

 

We had absolutely no parenting knowledge!

 

In that case, we had to get help.

 

“Three months old…”

 

Cheshire quickly flipped through the book, running his finger down the page as he skimmed.

 

The most urgent matter was feeding the baby.

 

“A three-month-old baby needs to be fed six to eight times a day.”

 

“Really? Since Jamie’s a bit bigger than average, I guess we should go with eight times a day?”

 

“Yeah, that sounds about right. Hmm… it also lists the ratio of breast milk to formula. Looks like six feedings of breast milk and two of formula should do.”

 

“Huh? Where is the breast milk here?”

 

Unfortunately, there was no pregnant woman in this house who could breastfeed, even though I was a woman.

 

“This is a problem. Normally, the mother would be breastfeeding.”

 

Cheshire, wanting to care for the baby exactly by the manual, looked flustered.

 

“Feeding him only formula won’t be a problem. I was raised on formula too, you know?”

 

I reassured Cheshire, who looked worried.

 

“And besides, I’m sure Jamie’s mom already considered that when she left him with us…”

 

…probably didn’t think of that, huh.

 

Honestly, what kind of mother would even think of leaving her newborn with a distant relative and going off on a trip?

 

The baby needs to be nursed regularly and constantly held and cared for all day—it’s nowhere near enough just to leave him.

 

But this situation was forcibly brought about by Primera’s wish-granting.

 

Besides, in most noble households with a newborn, a wet nurse is usually present—so under normal circumstances, Jamie would have stayed home and been well-fed with breast milk.

 

‘Wow, if Primera’s power is used like this, it could cause unintended harm to others.’

 

A baby skipping breast milk for a while isn’t going to throw the world into chaos.

 

But this little baby’s normal, healthy feeding routine had been disrupted.

 

“I’m sorry, Jamie.”

 

I apologized to Jamie after finding a problem during my research.

 

“Suddenly being separated from your mom must be scary and you’re probably hungry, huh? Honestly… it’s my fault.”

 

“Byaaaaah!”

 

The kind Jamie just smiled brightly as if it was okay.

 

“Lilith, what’s done is done—we can’t change that. But what we can do is give it our best while Jamie’s with us. Let’s create an environment as close as possible to what he had with his mom.”

 

Cheshire, comforting me as I felt guilty, offered a solution.

 

“We’ll hire a wet nurse to stay with us for a while. That way, Jamie can have breast milk, and since there’s still so much we don’t know, we’ll have someone experienced around to ask for help.”

 

“Oh, should I?”

 

“I’m going to the job center right now….”

 

“W, waaaa!” 

 

At that moment.

 

Jamie suddenly started crying like the world was going to end.

 

“Oh my! Jamie, what’s wrong?”

 

“Whaaaa! Waaaa!”

 

Jamie, whose eyes weren’t the least bit teary, suddenly cried out while looking at me with an oddly urgent expression.