Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate-Chapter 168: Who are you?

The black Elford sedan rolled through the iron gates of the estate with the smooth silence of a machine long accustomed to elegance. Past marble lions, past sculpted hedges and ancient sycamores. Up the winding path that led to the mansion—a structure carved from wealth, legacy, and ruthless ambition.

Inside the car, Damien sat still. Composed. Dressed in dark tailored fabric that no longer strained at the shoulders or bunched at the stomach. The clothes hugged his frame now—shaped by precision, not indulgence.

Beside him, Elysia rode in silence. Her posture straight, hands folded in her lap, gaze forward. But her eyes would flick to him now and then. Brief glances. Soft. Calculated. Like she still hadn't grown used to the change, like she was verifying he was real.

The driver pulled up to the grand entrance. A valet already waited at the top of the steps, bowing low before the car had even stopped.

The door opened with a muted click.

Damien stepped out first.

The afternoon sun hit him in full then—casting the clean lines of his form into sharper relief. Shoulders squared. Chest lifted. Hair still slightly damp, giving him a careless, almost predatory edge.

And then the mansion responded.

He didn't notice it at first. But as he walked toward the doors, something subtle shifted in the air.

The maids.

At first just one—carrying a polished silver tray across the hall—stopped. Her eyes locked on him, lips parting slightly, confused.

Then another, dusting the balustrade above the main foyer. Her feathered cloth froze mid-motion, eyes widening.

And then more.

The maids near the grand staircase. The ones adjusting the curtains in the western hall. One fixing the placement of roses near the portrait of Dominic Elford himself.

All of them turned.

All of them stared.

Not in fear. Not in reverence.

In disbelief.

Their faces told the story without words.

Their faces told the story without words—

But some of them used words anyway.

"…No way."

"Is that really—?"

"That can't be him…"

Whispers broke the silence like cracks spidering through glass. Tiny, splintered murmurs that should never have passed their lips. Not here. Not in the Elford mansion. Not when in uniform.

But discipline faltered when confronted with the impossible.

They had known Damien as a ghost of an heir. Bloated from luxury, aimless in bearing, drifting from one indulgence to the next. They had seen him at his worst—sprawled on couches, reeking of wine and sweat, demanding sweets at midnight and whining when breakfast wasn't his preference. His presence had never been taken seriously. His name barely whispered with respect.

And now?

Now he walked like someone who belonged.

And they couldn't reconcile the man with the memory.

"I didn't even recognize him…"

"He looks—"

"Different. Too different."

"Better."

One of the younger maids—barely past seventeen, likely new—spoke louder than the rest, wide-eyed. "Is he… is that even the same person?"

The question died the moment Elysia turned her head.

Her gaze alone was enough.

Sharp. Cold. Final.

No words. No movement. Just one precise look—and the entire hall froze.

Every maid who had dared speak, dared breathe, lowered their heads at once. Not out of fear.

Out of instinct.

Because even if Damien didn't command their respect yet, Elysia did. Her authority was unquestioned. And if she stood behind him now… that meant something.

Damien said nothing.

He didn't look at them. Didn't slow. He walked as though they weren't there at all. Because to him, they weren't. They hadn't been there when he trained in the dark. When he choked on blood and herbs. When his body failed and he made it submit.

So now, their opinions? Their awe? Their trembling?

It didn't matter.

He walked through it like fog.

Until—

"Eh? Elysia…?"

A woman's voice—gentle, elegant, unmistakably curious—echoed down from the east corridor.

He turned his head slightly.

And there she was.

Vivienne Elford.

She stepped into view like a scene unfolding in slow motion—grace woven into every line of her frame. Her golden-blonde hair spilled down her back in soft waves, her figure cloaked in a deep emerald robe trimmed with silver. Even in something as simple as loungewear, she radiated refinement that no designer could replicate.

Her green eyes locked onto Elysia first—then Damien.

And for a breath—

She stopped.

Her lips parted just slightly.

Her eyes—widened.

Like the others, like the staff who had spent years walking past her son as if he were a shadow.

But then—

Unlike them, Vivienne's hand rose slowly to her lips.

"…Damien?" she breathed.

And the disbelief wasn't just in her voice.

It was in her eyes.

Recognition. Confusion.

Damien stopped.

His steps, once deliberate and unyielding, paused the moment his mother's voice broke through the corridor. That voice—it hadn't changed. Soft, poised, yet threaded with that familiar warmth she reserved for no one else. He turned fully, facing her with a calm smile tugging at the corner of his lips, something rare and genuine. There was no arrogance in it. No performance. Just quiet truth.

"It's me, Mother."

He said it gently, like one might to a dreamer on the edge of waking. And for a moment, the words hung there, suspended in the still air between them.

But Vivienne didn't move. Her hand remained half-raised to her lips, her brows furrowed, her posture locked in a state between disbelief and defense. She took one step forward, then another—but there was no relief in her eyes. Only suspicion.

"…No," she whispered.

Damien's brow twitched, faintly.

Vivienne's gaze sharpened as her eyes swept over him—over the defined cut of his jaw, the sculpted shoulders beneath the fabric of his shirt, the unmistakable precision in his stride. And then she looked to Elysia, as if confirming what her mind couldn't.

"…What is this?" she asked, voice low now, but rigid. "What kind of illusion is this?"

Damien blinked.

"What?"

Her expression shifted—grace cracking, replaced with a rare, visceral protectiveness. She took a breath, grounding herself, but it trembled at the edges. Her voice, when it returned, was edged with steel.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "What have you done with my son?"

The air seemed to tighten around them. Even Elysia, ever-composed, lifted her head slightly, brows drawing in as if the moment had turned a shade darker than anticipated.

Damien didn't flinch. He took a step forward, hands raised in calm. "Mother," he said evenly, "I promise you, it's me."

But Vivienne shook her head sharply, retreating half a step. "No. No—Damien was not like this. Damien could never—" Her words faltered, mouth trembling around thoughts she couldn't finish. "This face… this voice… it looks like him, but this isn't him. What is this? Who changed you? What kind of witchcraft did you allow?"

She was slipping—elegance giving way to disbelief, disbelief to fear.

Elysia stepped forward at last, her voice smooth and absolute. "Madam Elford. It is your son. I have been with him every day this month. No one else has touched him. No one else could have."

But Vivienne's eyes flicked to her sharply, distrust still swirling in the emerald depths of her gaze.

"That's not possible," she said, voice cracking like glass.

Vivienne's voice trembled as the words came out—not with rage, but with a mother's panic barely veiled behind her cultivated composure. The kind of panic that had no place in these halls, yet spilled from her lips anyway.

"You expect me to believe that this—this man—is my son? The same Damien who couldn't be bothered to button his own shirts? Who would cry over stomach cramps because he ate too much candy the night before?" Her voice cracked as her hands rose toward her chest, fingers tightening around the fine fabric of her robe. "The same boy who snuck out of etiquette class just to nap on the roof?"

She was rambling now, but she couldn't stop. The disbelief had become something rawer. Something that clawed against her ribs.

"I let you indulge. I allowed you to drift. Because you were my son. Because you were soft and kind and foolish in a world that eats boys like that alive." Her voice dropped lower. "I never expected greatness. I only wanted you to live. To be safe."