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

Capítulo 360: I am Damien

The words landed like stone in still water—no ripple, no echo. Just weight.

“I am Damien.”

Erin Valeheart did not react immediately. Her gaze remained locked, unwavering. The silence that followed was not one of doubt, but of calculation.

‘I have heard better lies,’ she thought. ‘And worse truths.’

Normally, the threads would guide her. Every syllable spoken by a soul revealed some trace—of intent, of alignment, of truth. It was like hearing sound in color, like watching light split through crystal. But with him, there was nothing.

Just the silence of unreadable depth.

She extended her perception further—not just with Mystery, but with instinct honed over a century. The tilt of the shoulders, the dilation of the pupils, the twitch of restrained breath. The body never lied, even when the mouth did.

And yet…

‘No tension in the neck. Pulse steady. Eyes locked, but not evasive. No shifting of weight that indicates deception.’

The posture was unnatural—yes. Too precise. Too deliberate.

But not dishonest.

Not entirely.

Not the posture of someone pretending to be Damien.

It was the posture of someone becoming him.

‘Not the boy I knew. That is certain. But not a parasite in the full sense either. There is… intent here. Control. Evolution. Not replacement.’

It made the calculation harder. Not easier.

Because had he been lying—truly, deeply lying—she would have struck already. Burned away the falsehood with divine precision and asked forgiveness from her daughter afterward.

But this?

This could be Damien.

Vivienne and Dominic were not fools.

Erin knew this better than anyone.

Her daughter—the razor-blooded diplomat who could outmaneuver three Elders in a single breath—and her son-in-law, the silent hammer behind the Elford name. Neither of them were weak. Neither of them were naïve. If they had accepted Damien’s transformation as real, as possible…

Then that alone carried weight.

‘They must have asked the same questions I did. Felt the same wrongness. The same dissonance. And yet they chose to believe. Why?’

She considered the variables. Personality. Power. Upbringing.

Could it be that he is Damien?

Just… changed.

Forged by some unseen flame.

But the flame was too clean. Too sharp. Too sudden.

‘Change this drastic doesn’t happen in silence. Not without cost. Not without marks. Where are the scars? Where is the ash?’

“Do not lie,” she said at last, her voice a blade honed not in anger, but in certainty.

He flinched.

Slightly. But enough.

That single act tore the last of her patience.

She didn’t strike him.

She pressed.

The pressure of her mana surged—not as a wave, but as a singularity. Reality pulled inward. The temperature dropped, space thinned, light warped as if the Mystery itself leaned closer.

She was not a warcaster. Not a destruction-class Seer.

But she was still a Seat Holder.

A Valeheart.

A Watcher of Threads.

The walls trembled.

Damien’s legs buckled slightly, blood flecking his lips as his aura cracked beneath the force.

“Mother!” Vivienne’s voice tore through the chamber, panic edged with wrath. She stepped forward, her own aura flaring—but Erin raised a single hand, stopping her without turning.

Her eyes never left him.

“Answer me,” she said again, her tone colder than the void between stars. “Who are you?”

Damien wiped the blood from his mouth, slowly, deliberately.

His eyes—clear, burning, alive—met hers.

“I am Damien,” he said, his voice rasped but steady. “Grandmother. Your grandson.”

That word—grandmother—landed harder than expected. It wasn’t supplication. It wasn’t plea. It was a statement. A reclaiming of identity.

She stared. Searched.

And still—still—she couldn’t see the lie.

But she couldn’t find the truth either.

“Again,” she hissed, voice sharp as glass, “lying.”

Damien’s jaw clenched. “Why? Why do you think I’m lying?”

More blood. His lungs were trembling under the pressure. But still he stood. Still he met her gaze.

And that’s when she saw it.

His eyes were cold—yes. But not hollow. Not distant.

It wasn’t the coldness of possession, of some ancient parasite wearing a boy like armor.

It was the cold of purpose. Of will.

And behind that—

Fire.

Anger.

Directed. Focused. Not lashing out, but burning through.

It was an expression she had never seen on his face before.

“This is why.”

Her voice did not rise; it settled, the way old verdicts do when they no longer need a gavel.

“The boy I watched squander himself had no fire that could look me in the eye. He bristled, yes; he sulked, he hid, he nursed petty hatreds—small flames that die in the first wind. But this heat in you is tempered. It does not flicker. It holds its shape under pressure. That is not the anger of a child; it is the discipline of a will that has already chosen its end and merely walks toward it. Damien never possessed such steel, and steel does not appear overnight because a conscience stirs.”

She took one step closer, the air tightening as if the walls leaned in to hear.

“Your body bears fresh strain, but not the scatter of a boy learning himself. Your stance is measured. Your breath, paced. Your gaze, fixed where it must be, not where it wanders. These are the manners of a soul that has worn purpose before. A new Awakening does not grant that. It reveals, it amplifies, but it does not author character out of empty parchment.”

Her eyes did not soften.

“And your answer. You speak my title as if weighing it rather than clinging to it. Not the whine of a grandson petitioning mercy, but the address of a traveler stating his name at the gate. Polite. Exact. Unafraid. Damien—my Damien—met judgment with excuses or collapse. You meet it with declaration.”

She let the silence breathe a heartbeat, then bound it again.

“So I doubt you. Not because I cannot accept change, but because I have lived long enough to know its price. True change leaves scars—on the thread, on the breath, on the eyes. Yours are hidden from me, and when scars are hidden, they are either veiled by craft… or they are not yours to show.”

Her aura eased by a hair, not mercy but precision.

“If you are Damien, you will withstand being known. If you are not, you will fail under the weight of truth. Either way, I will have my answer. Now—hold your name steady. Let me see whether it holds you back, or whether you are the one holding it forward.”

Damien remained still beneath the weight of her presence, the tension in the air thick enough to choke. For a heartbeat—two—he said nothing.

Then he laughed.

It wasn’t a sound of mockery or hysteria. No edge of madness. Just a low, dry scoff—half a breath, half a cough, laced with the wet rasp of blood. He wiped his mouth again, crimson staining his knuckles, and lifted his head.

His eyes met hers. Blue. Sharp. Burning with that same impossible fire—and something else now. Something darker. Wry. Almost… pitying.

“Grandmother…” he said softly.

Then came the words:

“What a conceited woman you are.”

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