Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate - Chapter 213 213: Vehicle

He hit the floor with precision, not power.

No wasted motion. No dramatic exertion.

Just clean, quiet efficiency.

Push-ups. Core holds. Motion drills. Form compression cycles designed by the system to burn energy in narrow bands—forcing each muscle group to operate at max load without the explosive waste of typical combat training.

He didn’t need to bulk anymore.

He needed refinement.

Density.

Control.

Each breath came colder than the last, his body already past the burn, now entering that space where the stats began pressing back—not from fatigue, but from anticipation.

The system wanted him to breach the ceiling.

But he didn’t give it permission. Not yet.

Not until he was standing at the vault’s door.

The final set ended with a quiet exhale. Damien wiped his neck, chest still bare, the training shirt clinging loosely at the collar where sweat had collected but not spilled.

He heard the footsteps before he saw her.

Elysia.

Steady. Even. Echoless.

She entered the training chamber dressed in her usual attire—tailored, crisp, and clean. Her uniform had been pressed perfectly. Hair pulled back. Boots polished. Not a single flaw in presentation.

His maid, once more.

But her eyes lingered on him longer than they used to.

He noticed.

She didn’t speak.

Just stepped forward, her tray balanced in one hand with the kind of quiet reverence reserved for ritual or discipline.

A warm meal.

Not rationed. Not bland. Balanced to his current output.

She’d calculated it from observation, not from a request.

Smart.

Damien took the tray with a single nod, not bothering with a thank-you. That wasn’t how this worked.

But his tone, when he spoke, was calm. Controlled.

Clear.

“Get ready.”

Elysia’s eyes flicked up, expression neutral.

“We’re leaving today.”

A beat passed between them.

She should’ve bowed. Should’ve turned.

Should’ve obeyed without pause.

But instead—

Elysia spoke.

“…Is it safe?”

Her voice wasn’t hesitant.

It wasn’t even soft.

Just level. Measured. The same way one might test the temperature of a blade before handing it over.

Damien looked up from his tray.

Her face was unreadable.

But the question was real.

Not protocol. Not scripted.

A break in pattern.

He didn’t answer right away. Just chewed once. Swallowed. Then set the tray aside.

“No,” he said plainly. “We’re not bringing guards.”

Elysia didn’t move. But her shoulders tensed—only slightly. She didn’t argue.

She waited.

“I need to make sure my father doesn’t hear about this,” Damien continued, standing as he wiped his hands on the cloth. “Or the family. Or the guild. Or the system handlers, if we’re being thorough.”

A pause.

Then, quieter—more pointed:

“This trip doesn’t exist.”

Elysia’s eyes flicked downward, her expression unchanged—but he saw it.

The understanding.

The shift from duty to execution.

A subtle nod followed. Tight. Exact.

That was enough.

“We’ll be going through the southern pass,” Damien added. “Mountain route. Remote. Minimal patrols. Prepare a vehicle accordingly.”

“Understood,” she said, already turning.

No questions now.

Only movement.

She’d heard what she needed to hear.

She left the training chamber without another word, already calculating the route, supplies, terrain challenges, fuel compression for long-range stealth travel, threat assessment protocols.

Damien watched her go.

The efficiency was satisfying.

But more than that—it was silent.

He returned to his seat, finished the last few bites of his meal, and let the thought settle in like flint under dry leaves.

They were going off-map.

And this time—

No one would pull them back.

*****

Inside a garage in the outskirts of Vermillion City, Damien and Elysia stood beneath a canopy of dim mag-lights. The room was half-forgotten—dust layering the tools, one cracked screen flickering in the corner, storage crates pushed against the wall like the whole space had been paused mid-use and never resumed.

But the vehicle in front of them was immaculate.

Elysia had cleaned it, clearly. Powered it. Tuned the mana stabilizers just enough for silence, but not enough to trigger any household alerts.

It was compact. Matte-black. Military-grade subtle.

At a glance, it looked like a sleek, unmarked touring bike.

But Damien knew better.

Elford-tech.

Mana-suspension chassis. Zero-signal emissions. Stabilizer core capable of adjusting to terrain gradients mid-ride. The entire frame wrapped in vibration-dampened armor alloy, threaded with internal runes designed to convert excess motion into mana redirection.

Not civilian-grade. Not even close.

And technically? It was his.

Because one of the Elford family’s main pillars wasn’t politics, or military contracts, or even territory.

It was tech.

Mana-tech, to be exact.

The intersection of arcane theory and machinery.

They’d built their empire on it. Mana-pulse reactors. Signal-dampening armor. Personal storage gates. Even the first stable floating platforms in the eastern capital bore Elford patents.

But the reason they’d stayed at the top?

They weren’t the only ones doing it.

Because Celia’s family—her house—was the other piece of that empire.

Her mother, a former arch-tier engineer specializing in high-density mana cores, had once co-developed the now-banned “Soul Imprint” design the government quietly buried after an entire research facility vanished overnight.

And that was why Celia’s threats carried weight.

Why even Dominic Elford, who bowed to few, had listened when she spoke.

Because while the families were not allies, they were interlinked.

Bound by shared blueprints. Cold war partnerships. Secrets woven into every layer of mana-coded metal.

As Damien looked at the vehicle, his eyes narrowed faintly.

He remembered something.

A log. Buried deep in the system’s junk memory. A request from the original Damien—years ago. A single line item buried in a fleet requisition form.

“Requesting to test-drive Elford-RX ‘Hollow Fang’ prototype for recreational use. Clearance: authorized.”

A memory of the old one.

But it hadn’t lasted.

The ride had been too rough. Too fast.

Too real.

The old Damien had nearly been thrown on the first turn. His conditioning too poor. His balance nonexistent.

He never touched it again.

It had sat here ever since. Covered. Untouched. Out of rotation because no one wanted to waste a perfectly good prototype on a dropout with a bad liver and worse reputation.

Now?

Now it was perfect.

Out of sight.

Out of record.

Out of reach.

Damien’s lips curled faintly.

He stepped closer, dragging a hand along the cool frame.

“Quite good,” he murmured.

Elysia moved to the control panel without a word.

Her fingers danced across the mana interface, each sigil lighting in sequence as the vehicle stirred under her touch. The hum beneath the frame deepened—resonant and steady—before leveling out into a faint pulse that matched the rhythm of her core.

She glanced back once—wordless.

Damien gave a small nod and stepped onto the back platform, slipping into the second seat. His boots settled against the curved footholds, and as he leaned back, the system responded.

With a faint shimmer, a back support bloomed into existence—mana-conjured metal forming in layers behind him until it locked into place with a soft click.

Standard Elford ergonomics.

‘Comfort, even in war,’ he thought wryly.

He let his hands fall to the stabilizers on either side—just under the lip of the seat. Not for control. Just for balance. The place where a passenger could exist without interfering.

Elysia slid forward in the front seat, her legs straddling the narrow body of the RX ‘Hollow Fang,’ boots braced, posture razor-straight.

Then—

She tapped the ignition rune.

And they moved.

Not with a jolt.

Not with a roar.

With velocity.

The vehicle surged out of the garage like it had been launched—mana-suspension gliding inches above the dirt path, stabilizers flexing to absorb the uneven terrain of the back lot without slowing.

Wind hit him in the face, whipping past his ears. Not painful. Not blinding. But fast.

Elysia shifted her weight once, and the whole frame banked clean around a rusted-out supply crate with mechanical grace.

Damien grunted low in his throat, leaning into the motion instinctively.

It wasn’t bad.

It was just—

He blinked as the canyon road opened ahead, the first signs of elevation starting to cut into the scenery. Dust curled behind them in whispering trails as the prototype adjusted its terrain mode automatically.

And that was when it hit him.

Not fear.

Not awe.

Just… practicality.

“I need to learn how to drive,” Damien muttered, deadpan, the words nearly drowned out by the wind.

Elysia didn’t respond.

But he could feel it—her posture shifted by a fraction. Just enough to acknowledge that, yes, she’d heard him.

And no, she wasn’t surprised.

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