How to Protect My Sub Male Lead Dad

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Of course not, How could I? To laugh at the Emperor would mean the end of three generations.”

“You do remember Hanelope and I are included in your generations?”

“Oh, is that so?”

“I don’t favour the idea of penalizing for association. So you’re the only one who will bear the punishment.”

“But that would make Hanelope sad.”

“It will be fine. She has me.”

“Have you become that close already? It doesn’t seem so.”

The Emperor was furious.

“Hanelope even said she liked me. No- She liked ‘grandfather’.”

Hart’s face went cold at that.

“Gra..nd..father?”

“Yes. Grandfather. Isn’t that right, Hanelope?”

The Emperor asked in an uncharacteristically soft tone. Flustered, Hanelope nodded hesitantly.

“Hahaha, serves you right!”

The Emperor acted triumphantly.

Hanelope looked up at her grinning grandfather, then back at her speechless father. Hart looked like his soul had been sucked out of him.

Hanelope stormed her little head for a while and spoke upon reaching a conclusion-

“I like both my father and grandfather!”

The Emperor, Hart, and Professor Munich all fell silent and stared at her.

Hanelope smiled cautiously and said.

“But I’ve played a lot with Grandfather today, and now I want to play with Dad.”

The Emperor stiffened as if he’d been hit in the head with a hammer.

Hanelope looked at the Emperor and smiled cautiously.

“Isn’t that fine, my good… grandfather?”

“Huh….”

‘This oversmart kid.’

I’ve been taking the ‘good Emperor’ thing lightly so far, and never expected Hanelope to use it like this. I chuckled at the absurdity. But there’s Hart in front of me.

‘I can’t laugh. If I do, Hart will find another opportunity to tease me again.’

The Emperor said, trying to regain in composure.

“The child is already thinking about his father. You did a good job raising her.”

Hart was puzzled by the blunt yet mellowed demeanor. But he was more concerned with retrieving Hanelope. As he approached, Hanelope reached out for him. The Emperor handed her over to Hart without resistance.

“I shall take my leave.”

“Grandfather, see you later!”

Holding her tightly in his arms, Hart left without looking back. Hanelope was hugging him and waved to the Emperor until the door closed behind them.

The Emperor, who had dismissed the two with dignity, felt an odd sense of emptiness as soon as the door closed.

“Hart is lucky,” he thought to himself. “How did that punk have a daughter like Hanelope! Through his childhood, Hart was cold. Hart did inherit my handsomeness, but he didn’t have an ounce of cuteness in him!”

“I suppose His Majesty is envious of His Highness, Prince Hart?”

Professor Munich asked.

The Emperor seemed angry at his teasing and glared at his confidant.

“It’s just that I’m intrigued by Hanelope. I wondered what all the fuss was about. She’s not only clever but also cute.”

“Grandchildren are supposed to be adorable.”

“I don’t ador…. I just like her because she seems to be useful to me as royalty!”

The Emperor showed anger. But Professor Munich knew, ‘A strong negative is a positive.’

The Emperor continued to stare at the closed door in disappointment.

He was a cold monarch, the ruler of the Berg Empire. Even his flesh and blood were not to be treated with personal feelings.

‘He only asked for Hanelope today to see how she was faring.’

But was that really all to it?

Professor Munich would have informed him about Hanelope’s achievements anyway. He didn’t need to come all the way to the Academy to ask her. Maybe he just wanted to see the Princess. Without any particular reason.

Professor Munich looked at the Emperor carefully, then asked.

“Does His Majesty regret it?”

The Emperor looked at his young entourage and scoffed.

“I can see where you’re coming from and why you’d make such an ungracious statement, but I don’t regret anything.”

After a moment of silence, however, the Emperor added a word,

“It’s a shame… If I had known, I wouldn’t have opposed Hart’s relationship with Laura Koch.”

The Emperor’s voice was filled with agony. But it was too late to regret.

 

***

 

Dad looked at me with a scared look on his face,

“I’ll ask you again.”

Yikes!

Nervously, I swallowed hard and looked at Dad.

“If the Emperor says, ‘Come with me,’ what are you supposed to say?”

“No, I don’t want to. I want to go to my dad.”

I answered straight away.

‘I’ve already been told to memorize it several times!’

Dad nodded.

But still not satisfied, he asked again.

“When addressing His Majesty, what should you say?”

“His Majesty the Emperor.”

“Absolutely, you should never address him with a title like ‘grandfather.’ His Majesty tends to get delusional, and if you call him that, he might misunderstand and give you annoying tasks.”

“Annoying?”

“Yes, if you follow His Majesty’s orders, you might not be able to come home forever.”

As I trembled in fear, my father gently stroked my head.

“If you ever have any issues with His Majesty, immediately tell your father.”

“Okay, I got it!”

Only then was my father satisfied and left my room.

‘These two are so hard to get along.’

I heaved a sigh. Dad was right to be wary of the Emperor. The Emperor had abandoned him for his people. And dad had sacrificed himself for his men. He couldn’t have known what it was like to give up his own child to protect others.

‘I can understand that much.’

However, even after my dad had returned as a survivor, the Emperor had erased all traces of my dad’s sacrifice. Instead of offering encouragement and comfort, the Emperor had distanced himself even further.

‘Why did the Emperor act like that?’

Was it because he couldn’t stand the fact that he couldn’t eliminate his enemies and had been taken hostage instead?

‘Dad must have felt that the Emperor used him like an object and threw him away.’

That’s how it appeared to me as well.

The Emperor’s decision to sacrifice dad for his people, I can understand that up to a point.
But after that, the Emperor’s behavior was really too much.

‘This was the reason dad thought I would be used and discarded by the Emperor.’

I wasn’t convinced that he wouldn’t either.

‘No, the Emperor most likely could.’

But for my father to live peacefully, even if he couldn’t become close to the Emperor, at the very least, he shouldn’t incur his displeasure. If there were a rift between my father and the Emperor, someone like Asta, a villain, might approach my father again.

Furthermore, if someone else became the Emperor, would they just leave my father, who was the past Emperor’s son and heir, alone?

They might try to kill him.

Goosebumps rose all over my body.

Even with Asta out of the way, Dad was still in danger.

‘Even the woe-is-me type characters from the novel wouldn’t be this fragile.’

But there was a way.

‘I just need to become useful to the Emperor. So that he won’t feel like discarding me.’

It wouldn’t be easy, but… Wait?

While I was sighing, I noticed something strange. There was a familiar pendant on the table.

“Why is this here?”

Did Professor Richter bring it back?

“No, that’s not possible. Professor Richter said she would seal this pendant because it’s dangerous!”

Besides, Professor Richter couldn’t just come and go from the mansion as she pleased. My room was off-limits!

“Then who brought this here?”

Could it be that the pendant moved on its own, using its ominous energy?

I suddenly felt uneasy.

Just then-

The pendant, which had been sitting quietly on the table, shuddered.

“?!”

To me, that tiny tremor looked like a demon rising from the fires of hell.

And somehow it seemed to be getting closer and closer to me…

Bam!

I lost my temper and picked up the pendant, and threw it away.

At that moment, the mana inside me began to trickle out towards the pendant. It was as if the pendant was tugging at my mana.

I jumped back in surprise.

The pendant fell to the ground not far from me.

But the real terror began after that. The pendant’s lid opened, and the red gem embedded inside it began to glow with a crimson light. I was filled with dread.

“D-Dad!”

Unintentionally, I called out to my father and tried to crawl back using my hands and knees.

Light poured out of the pendant, creating a translucent window in the air.

I stood frozen as a massive presence seemed to emerge from it.

“What is that? It looks like a game window or something, but it possibly can’t be.”

Even though I was possessed, I never imagined seeing a status window.

“No way…”

But as I anxiously watched, texts started to appear in the window.

[ ▽◇▲□● ]

[ ■▽am ○◇□ ]

“!”

At first, I couldn’t make out the words.

However, as the code repeated, I began to recognize some of the characters, and eventually, I could see entire sentences.

[ G□d, T▲□ is annoyed that you woke him up ]

“An encryption… but can I actually read it?”

[ I’ve only been sleeping for 200 years, why are you waking me up in a hurry? ]

“What’s going on?”

I was suddenly plunged into a perplexing situation.

Not only had the ominous pendant returned, but it was also now displaying encrypted messages that I could somehow read.

[ G□d, T▲□ recognizes you ]

[ Nice to see a member of ‘Koch’ clan ]

“!”

I gasped.

The Kochs are my mom’s family. It was an unfortunate family that passed on a genetic disease to me and my mom. The disease killed all of their descendants except me, so few people know that they existed.

How does the pendant know that?

Who is this ‘G□d, T▲□ ‘ that knows about Kochs?

What is this pendant that is displaying such things?

Just then, a new text was inscribed on the window.

[ G□d, T▲□ is wondering, Shouldn’t the Kochs have perished? How come you’re alive? ]