Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate

Capítulo 344: Impossible

“Ma’am. I have brought the guest.”

Marien’s eyes flicked from Liora to the boy again, then back. Her stance sharpened.

“You brought the guest?” she asked, tone clipped.

Liora straightened. “Yes, ma’am. Mister Kael instructed me to monitor the Stabilization Wing and escort the guest here once the process was complete.”

Marien blinked once. Slowly.

The guest.

This guest?

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she processed that. Kael hadn’t mentioned anyone. No schedule alert. No protocol file. No clearance push from Dominic or the comms board. Nothing.

And yet, here stood this quiet, composed, barely-an-adult with war-caliber eyes and posture like he’d stepped out of a combat dossier.

Her gaze cut back to the room behind her. “Of course he did…”

The projection still flickered across the walls. Synth war drums rolled in the background. And Kael’s voice drifted out, half-laughing.

“What are you guys talking about over there?”

Marien turned back toward the doorway, one hand still on her slate.

“Ahem. Mister Kael—”

Before she could finish the sentence, the boy spoke. Calm. Even.

“I’m here, Uncle Kael.”

The voice was low. Not deep, but steady. Clear enough to cut through the noise of the room. It wasn’t raised—but it didn’t need to be. Something about it carried. Like it belonged.

And then—

Silence.

The projection faded slightly, left flickering in standby. The game froze mid-frame.

Dominic was the first to move. Just a glance. A small turn of his head, but his eyes locked on the doorway, the muscles of his jaw setting in a way that said prepared more than surprised.

Kael… actually looked up.

Not playfully. Not with a grin.

He looked up the way a soldier might when hearing a friend’s voice after a long war—half-expecting it to be a ghost.

“…Damien?”

The boy stepped forward, the soft hiss of the door giving way to the weight of his presence. His steps were light, measured. No stumble, no hesitation.

And when he walked into the spill of flickering game light, his expression held no confusion.

Just recognition.

Kael stood slowly, glove dropping from his hand, forgotten on the side table.

Marien stepped back without realizing it, eyes scanning Damien again—this time, slower.

There was something wrong about him. Not bad. Just… off. Like he didn’t breathe like other people. Like the air obeyed him a little too easily. And beneath that soft calm, there was tension—like a forge, sealed and cooling, not because the heat had faded but because the shape was finished.

Kael and Dominic exchanged a glance—short, silent, weighty. A nonverbal language honed over years of shared service and sharper truths.

They stepped forward in unison, closing the space between themselves and Damien. Not fast. Not aggressive. But deliberate.

“Marien,” Kael said, without looking at her. “Clear the room.”

Her brow ticked up. “Pardon?”

“You too, Liora,” Dominic added, this time facing the junior officer directly.

Liora blinked, startled. “Y-Yes, sir.”

“But—” Marien started.

Kael cut in, voice firm now. “Give us the room, Marien.”

A beat.

She hesitated—just long enough to make a point—then nodded once, sharply. She turned and left without another word, heels clicking with controlled defiance. Liora trailed after her, still casting glances at Damien even as the door hissed shut behind them.

Silence followed. The kind that was no longer just heavy—it was surgical. Focused.

Kael stepped closer.

Dominic mirrored him.

They stood before the boy—this kid with the eyes of someone who had seen too much and come out unscathed. Not untouched. Just… unshaken.

Kael’s voice came first. Low. Even.

“You really finished?”

Damien blinked at him, confused. “Yes?”

His head tilted, just a bit. Genuine. Almost curious.

“Why?”

Kael frowned. “What do you mean ‘why’? That’s not something you just—”

Dominic’s voice cut in. “It’s been fifteen hours.”

Damien’s brow furrowed slightly, eyes flicking toward the clock on the wall. “That long?”

Kael stared at him. “You were supposed to take a day, minimum.”

Damien tilted his head again, not in mockery but in simple, unguarded confusion. “Why would I have needed a full day?”

That question—so innocent in tone, so blunt in implication—landed heavier than anything else he’d said.

Kael didn’t answer.

Dominic didn’t either.

Because how were they supposed to explain it? That the Cradle—the most volatile, unstable, soul-warping dimension known to their kind—had chewed through history’s best, shattered half of them, and left the others crawling for weeks before they could even stand without vomiting mana?

How could they explain that no one—not one—had walked out stabilized in under twenty-four hours?

That even he—Dominic Elford—had taken weeks to thread the first lattice of control through his body after awakening, and that wasn’t even through the Cradle?

So instead, they stood in silence. Two of the highest-ranked Awakened on the continent, and not one of them had an answer.

Damien stood there, calmly watching.

Kael exhaled through his nose. Then, wordlessly, he extended his senses.

It wasn’t a dramatic motion. No shift in air. No pulse of mana. Just a reach.

Dominic did the same.

For a moment, the room went colder—only perceptibly, the way pressure dipped right before a storm broke.

And then—

Kael’s brow furrowed.

Dominic’s eyes narrowed.

There was no resonance leak. None. No push or overflow of latent mana, no stray threads of untrained energy brushing against their perception like most fresh Awakened. In fact, there was no projection at all—not even the faint background hum of a newly-formed core aligning to its host.

Instead, there was… alignment. Total, unnatural cohesion. The mana within Damien didn’t just sit—it pulsed in perfect sequence with his body. Breath and flow, intention and stability—each working in tandem like clockwork.

Kael felt his mouth go dry.

Dominic’s eyes sharpened.

No instability. Not a single twitch. Not a thread out of place. Every layer of Damien’s core was functioning—cycling. Not passively. Not like a system still settling after shock—but active. Operating. Maintaining.

“He didn’t half-ass it,” Dominic said quietly.

Kael’s brow twitched.

Dominic didn’t look away. “No gaps. No skips. No scaffolding left to clean up later. He went through every step. Every layer. He finished it.”

Kael let out a breath through his nose. “You were worried he might’ve—”

“Of course I was,” Dominic said. “Fifteen hours? You expect someone to slap a patchwork on the lattice, brace the core long enough to keep breathing, and call it done. But this…” His voice trailed off, turning grim. “This isn’t patched. It’s built.”

Kael turned toward Damien again, eyes narrowing slightly—not with suspicion, but scrutiny.

He reached out again. Deeper.

His mana sense pushed past the outer lattice, brushed the surface of the core itself.

A pause.

Then another.

His expression shifted.

Dominic noticed immediately. “What?”

Kael didn’t answer.

He just reached deeper again, more carefully this time—more precisely.

Then his voice dropped, almost to a whisper.

“…What is this?”

Dominic’s attention flicked toward him. “Kael?”

Kael didn’t respond—not at first.

Then, slowly, he pulled back.

Turned his eyes toward Dominic.

“Check it again,” he said.

Dominic’s frown deepened, but he obeyed. His senses reached out again—brushed against Damien’s core.

And then—

His breath caught.

“…No.”

Kael gave a slow, incredulous nod. “Yes.”

Dominic focused harder, zeroed in. It wasn’t just stable. Wasn’t just functioning.

It was full.

The core.

Damien’s core—freshly awakened, barely fifteen hours out of stabilization—

Was full.

Not brimming. Not cycling up. Not gathering naturally from ambient flow like a new Awakened would after initial alignment.

Completely. Saturated.

Layers of high-density mana packed in perfect compression. Not bloated, not unstable, not overdrawn.

Integrated.

Dominic took a step back.

“Impossible.”

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