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

Chapter 260: Business

The black Elford cruiser—not the Varkos—waited at the outer loading bay, idling silently. Sleeker, quieter, built more for security and comfort than performance. Vivienne and Damien stepped off the pit level, the quiet buzz of residual adrenaline still humming between them.

Merek stood by the cruiser, arms folded, waiting. The track had long since shut down—lights dimmed, doors sealed behind layers of security—but the old circuit manager remained, his presence as much routine as discipline.

Vivienne gave him a short nod. “It’s clear. We’ll be leaving now.”

He returned it with the precision of someone who had spent decades under the hierarchy of elite protocols. But then his eyes shifted to Damien.

“You drove well,” Merek said. Not casual. Measured.

Damien blinked. “Thanks. But how did you know I was a first-timer?”

Merek gave a short breath that almost passed for a laugh. “This old man’s seen a lot of drivers, young Elford. If I can’t tell the difference between nerves and muscle memory, then I’m afraid I might as well retire.”

Damien chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Fair.”

“Still,” Merek continued, giving Vivienne a sidelong glance, “to handle the Delta-Six that way on your first night? That’s not common.”

“It runs in the blood,” Vivienne said simply, already opening the car door.

Damien didn’t respond with words. Just a slight nod of thanks to Merek before he followed her in.

The cruiser pulled out of the underground with that familiar Elford quiet—minimal sound, maximum presence. Damien leaned back in the seat, his mind still turning over every corner, every shift, every flick of his mother’s wrist behind the wheel.

The city blurred past.

It wasn’t the Varkos.

But Damien didn’t care.

That drive was behind him.

The next one would be in his hands.

****

The Elford cruiser glided along the upper lanes of Vermillion, soft hum threading through the silence between them. Tower lights shimmered against the windows, and far below, the neon arteries of the city pulsed like quiet signals from a world Damien no longer felt entirely removed from.

Vivienne drove this time—not because he couldn’t, but because she had more to say.

“You’ll be issued a provisional grid pass in two days,” she said, eyes never leaving the road. “I’ll push the documents through our legal team. Elford-level authorization skips most of the bureaucratic queue.”

Damien nodded once, watching her profile under the blue-white gleam of the dash. “Then what?”

“You’ll log three guided sessions. Standard traffic conditions. No expressways. You’ll be supervised, of course—no overrides or AI assists. After that, you take the adaptive traffic module and the applied response sim. You pass those, you’re certified.”

He exhaled slowly. “Sounds manageable.”

Vivienne gave a faint sound in response—half-agreement, half-warning.

“You learned the vehicle fast. Too fast, in some ways. But traffic’s not a track. You won’t be carving S-curves or reading apex lines out there. You’ll be dealing with slow signals, lazy pedestrians, and twitchy drivers in cars that react like molasses. That requires a different kind of control.”

“I figured,” Damien said, glancing at the road ahead. “I mean, I haven’t even practiced parking between two other cars yet.”

“No,” Vivienne said, lips tight. “You haven’t.”

He chuckled lightly under his breath. “Or… you know, how to just cruise normally. Maintain steady distance. Not downshift just because it sounds good.”

She gave him a side glance, the barest flicker of dry amusement in her eyes. “So you’re aware.”

“I’m not stupid. Just new.”

Vivienne didn’t respond to that immediately. The city curved upward ahead of them, the main lane branching into the quieter executive district where Blackthorne Villa stood. She took the turn with effortless grace, then spoke.

“Track driving teaches you motion. Pressure. Feeling the car’s balance. That foundation matters. Most people don’t have it. They go into traffic with years of half-formed habits, relying on crutches. You’ll go in knowing how the machine speaks to you.”

Damien looked over, catching the weight in her tone.

“And then,” she said, “you’ll learn how to be silent with it. Not every drive is a hunt. Some are just about precision.”

He didn’t answer right away. Just nodded again, quieter this time.

Because she was right.

He could feel the road beneath them now—more than before. He could sense when she eased into turns, how she coasted instead of braking, how the car felt light even at low speeds. The silence between motion and control. That was what she meant.

But the foundation? The feel of movement and machine? He had it.

And he wasn’t going to waste it.

****

The Blackthorne gates recognized the cruiser on approach—no stops, no scans. The security node blinked once, accepted Vivienne’s encrypted ID, and the wrought-iron arch yawned open in silence. Damien barely registered the exchange. His mind was somewhere else. Somewhere between muscle memory and memory-memory—between the throttle and the quiet, stinging image of his mother’s hands letting go of the wheel.

She didn’t say goodbye when she parked.

Just turned off the engine, climbed out, and walked into the manor.

Because that’s how she was. Efficient. Elegant. A storm wrapped in satin protocol.

He followed.

The air was cooler here. Higher. Too many trees. Too much stillness. Blackthorne Villa loomed ahead in that way it always did—less a house, more a citadel. Slate-colored walls, tall glass, curved balconies trimmed with black-metal vines. It didn’t welcome. It watched.

Damien stepped into the foyer.

And there she was.

Elysia.

Waiting.

Not standing like a maid. Not bowing. Just… there. At attention. Like always. Perfect spine, perfect posture, uniform crisp as if it had been ironed onto her skin. Eyes forward, impassive.

That face.

That same cool, polished expression. The one she always wore when greeting him after his trips. Neutral. Respectful. Cold.

It used to unnerve him.

Now—it made him smile.

She didn’t flinch when he approached. Didn’t look away. Just tilted her head a fraction. “Welcome back, young ma—”

He kissed her.

No warning. No performance. Just pressed his mouth to hers like he was clocking out of the world and into her. Lips soft but certain. Not rough, not possessive, not even long. Just real.

And hers.

Elysia didn’t gasp. Didn’t twitch. She just froze.

Perfectly.

As if his kiss short-circuited the programming.

When he pulled back—barely an inch—her face was unchanged. Still blank.

But her eyes—

Her eyes were too wide.

Damien chuckled softly. “I needed that.”

No apology. No clarification.

He didn’t offer any more explanation, because there wasn’t one. Not one she needed, anyway. He’d spent the entire day with Vivienne—fitting sessions, floor meetings, driving modules, corporate protocols, inherited silence. All of it.

And now, here she was.

His reset.

“I’ll be in my room,” he added, voice quieter, rougher, still laced with that electric residual buzz that hadn’t quite left his bloodstream. “Unless you’re busy.”

Elysia blinked. Once.

Then, like a system rebooting, she stepped aside with perfect timing, perfectly measured grace.

“I’ll bring tea,” she said. Her voice hadn’t changed.

But Damien swore he heard it.

The tremor. The hesitation. The faintest echo of breath she didn’t know she held.

He walked past her. Didn’t look back.

And if his fingers brushed against the back of her hand as he did, slow and light and utterly deliberate—well.

He’d needed that, too.

****

Damien stepped into his room and closed the door behind him, the latch clicking shut like a punctuation mark.

Silence.

Not sterile, not empty. Just… his.

For the first time in days, maybe weeks, the quiet didn’t feel like waiting. It felt like space—something he could fill. Mold. Direct.

He walked to the window, pulled the shade just enough to look out over the villa’s northern sprawl. Blackstone walls. Polished gardens. Distant city lights bleeding through the treeline like neon veins under glass.

And his mind began to work.

Now it begins.

He had the funds—allocated discreetly through one of Elford’s secondary shells. No need for Vivienne to hover, no oversight committees breathing down his neck. Enough to purchase a low-level tower, gut it, and build from foundation to top in his own image.

More importantly?

He had the people.

The five he’d chosen were already processing their transitional paperwork. By the end of the week, they’d be out of Elford’s ranks and under his banner. Independent. Bound by contract and interest—not by inheritance.

And that was how it had to be.

The Plan.

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