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

Chapter 250: Forgotten Passive Skill ? (2)

“Heh…”

The sound slipped from Damien’s throat, soft and amused—almost involuntary. A dry curl at the edge of his mouth followed, not smug but something deeper. Knowing.

Vivienne’s gaze flicked toward him. “What’s so funny?”

He didn’t look up from the war table. “Nothing.”

“Damien,” she said, voice steady, but with that slight tilt—half challenge, half curiosity.

He finally glanced over. “Relax,” he said. “I’ve just… got a few candidates in mind.”

He turned back toward the interface, fingers moving more deliberately now. The pulsing names—six of them now—stood out like quiet embers in a field of cold glass. Not the brightest profiles. Not the safest. Not even the most compatible on paper.

But they had something.

He hovered over each one in turn. Renia Mallor. Kallis Vorn. Dren Ko. Lysa Evens. Jaro Tren. Even Myla Drey from earlier, who the system had ranked modestly but whose glow he noticed now that he was looking for it.

Each of them came with a different set of risks.

One had a history of insubordination. Another was noted for “emotional rigidity.” One barely passed mana compliance metrics, and another had been flagged as “underperforming in collaborative tasks.”

Damien watched the data swirl, weighing nothing and everything all at once.

‘The system doesn’t tell me which is better,’ he thought, watching the glow shimmer faintly at the corners of his vision. ‘It just says there’s something here.’

He tapped the air.

Confirm.

The six names lit up, shifting to the selected tier.

A sharp sound of notification followed.

Vivienne stepped forward, her eyes scanning

Then—silence.

For a moment.

“…Dren Ko?” she said, tone neutral. But the pause after his name spoke volumes.

Damien didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

“He’s been flagged twice for protocol violations,” she said.

Damien’s tone didn’t shift. “He’s not here to follow protocol.”

Vivienne gave him a measured look, but he kept his eyes on the profiles.

“They’re not Awakened,” he added. “I’m not building a frontline. I need thinkers. Doers. People who don’t wait for permission before solving a problem.”

“People who cause problems,” Vivienne corrected mildly. Her voice wasn’t sharp—just factual. “Disciplinary logs, interdepartmental clashes, HR interventions. Dren Ko’s file reads like a test case in chaos management. So does Vorn. Even Renia had a minor confrontation with a supervisor two cycles ago.”

“Which she won,” Damien said. “And after that? No further issues.”

“She was reassigned.”

“Reassigned is just another word of an excuse because she made her old department uncomfortable,” he said, then shrugged. “That’s not a weakness. That’s just what it looks like when someone refuses to get buried.”

Vivienne’s eyes didn’t narrow, didn’t harden—but there was a distinct shift in their stillness. She wasn’t angry. She was assessing.

“That’s not how one should interpret things,” she said quietly, voice like trimmed silk. “You’re reading insubordination as integrity. That can be dangerous.”

Damien leaned back slightly, arms folding across his chest. “It’s not a ‘should,’ Mother. It’s a can. Interpretation isn’t a rule—it’s an angle.”

He tilted his head, expression calm but sharp. “You and I both know how many schemes slip through clean performance reports. How many get rewarded for staying quiet, not for being competent.”

A pause.

“Workforce politics is just a slower war. Dressed in badges and titles.”

Vivienne didn’t reply immediately.

Instead, she looked back at the profiles. Not at the candidates. At the structure. The system. The pillars beneath it.

Because Damien was right.

There was politics.

There were favorites. Petty power plays. Managers who pushed people down to preserve their own authority. Entire sectors built on the illusion of order while the best ideas got quietly buried under seniority and outdated protocol.

Even here—especially here.

The Elford name didn’t sanitize the system. It just ran it more efficiently.

Finally, she exhaled—slow and measured.

Then, she shook her head. “You see the flaw. Good. Just don’t mistake knowing it for being immune to it.”

Damien smiled faintly. “I don’t think I’m immune.”

He turned his gaze back to the table, watching the last of the candidate notifications flash green—acknowledgment received. The meetings were being scheduled.

“I just think I’m better at exploiting it.”

Vivienne didn’t argue.

But she did speak once more—softly, without looking at him.

“Then you’d better make sure you’re right.”

Because in a place like this, a misstep didn’t just cost progress.

It cost people.

Damien nodded once.

Not out of obedience.

But because he’d already decided.

Now it was just time to watch them prove it.

“Indeed,” Damien said quietly. “That’s exactly why.”

He looked at the interface one last time, watching the confirmations ripple into place like dominos—six profiles now marked with a meeting timestamp. Six sparks he intended to test, push, and maybe ignite. Or discard.

“I need to see them with my own eyes,” he added. “How they speak. How they hold silence. Whether they flinch when I ask the wrong question.”

His gaze sharpened slightly. “I’ll know what I need to know when I see what they try to hide.”

He gestured toward the war table, and the command followed through the system with a soft pulse of light.

“Order them to meet me,” he said. “Today.”

Vivienne gave him a sidelong glance. “Individually or as a group?”

“Individually,” Damien said without hesitation. “If they see each other first, they’ll adjust. I want them raw.”

Vivienne nodded, and within seconds, her assistant’s tablet synced to the war table, deploying the first wave of meeting requests. Each candidate would be brought to a temporary evaluation chamber in one of the upper wings. Neutral ground. Controlled setting.

Damien turned toward the lift.

“I’ll go to them,” he said.

Vivienne’s brow rose faintly. “You’re not having them report to you?”

“No,” he replied. “Not this time. I want to see how they act when I step into their space. When the roles aren’t set yet.”

Because that’s when people reveal the most.

Before the power is official.

Before the hierarchy calcifies.

That’s when you see who reaches, who hesitates—who already thinks they belong, and who’s still asking permission to exist.

Vivienne didn’t stop him.

Didn’t correct him.

She simply watched as he stepped into the glass elevator, hands in his pockets, eyes steady ahead.

The doors slid shut without a sound.

And Damien descended—calm, quiet, and already calculating.

*****

The elevator slid open with a whisper, revealing a private reception chamber framed in matte obsidian and soft-glow panels. The lighting was gentle but precise, calibrated to strip away shadows without ever feeling clinical. Damien stepped out, the low hum of mana-flow panels beneath his shoes grounding the room in quiet, restrained power.

He adjusted his cuffs—tailored, black, seamless. His suit fit with the kind of effortlessness that came from wealth and awareness. Hair tousled just enough to look accidental, eyes clear and sharp, the faintest smirk playing at the corner of his mouth like he already knew how this would end.

He didn’t.

That was the point.

But it was good to look like he did.

The assistant waiting outside the first chamber gave a subtle nod. “Candidate Kael is inside.”

Damien returned the nod without breaking stride.

As the door slid open, he felt it immediately—like static on skin.

A shimmer in the air. A whisper at the edge of his perception. The same pulse he’d seen through glass and numbers earlier, now intensified.

Harren Kael.

The glow around him wasn’t blinding. It wasn’t radiant like a beacon.

But it was dense.

Concentrated. Thick, like the weight of storm clouds just before the first strike.

Harren sat upright in the far seat. Early thirties, tall, lean muscle beneath a fitted logistics uniform that had seen better stitching. His face was sharp in that lived-in way—creases near the mouth, a jagged scar along his jaw, and eyes that didn’t blink unless something earned it.

Not Awakened. Not tuned. Just raw endurance wrapped in a man who didn’t posture because he didn’t need to.

And the glow?

To Damien’s [Merchant’s Intuition], it clung to him like quiet gravity. No fireworks. No show.

Just… certainty.

‘Interesting.’

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