Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate - Chapter 297: Lesson (2)

Chapter 297: Lesson (2)

Dominic didn’t give him long to recover.

“Stand,” he ordered.

Before Damien could fully rise on his own, something shifted in the air—a low thrum, subtle but dense, brushing over his limbs like the static before a storm.

And then—

His body lifted.

Slowly. Smoothly.

Not yanked. Not pushed. Just… raised. As if gravity had decided to ease its grip, as if some invisible hand beneath him had begun to cradle his spine and carry it upward.

Damien’s boots left the floor.

His breath caught.

Not from fear—but from the sudden shift in orientation, from the unnatural ease of motion. His muscles weren’t doing the work. Something else was.

Dominic didn’t move, but his eyes glinted sharply.

“Feel it.”

Damien tried. He slowed his breath, narrowed his focus. His core still ached from the pressure earlier, but now that ache buzzed with something else—an echo. A beat.

A pulse.

Dominic’s voice cut in, even and controlled.

“This is called Resonation. One of the older Awakening methods. It doesn’t force mana into the core. It doesn’t try to artificially stimulate formation. It aligns.”

He tapped his chest once.

“My Authority is guiding yours. Tuning it. Not invading. Not replacing. Just… striking the same chord.”

same chord.”

Damien’s arms prickled. His skin tingled at the joints. His breath felt hollow, but not empty. He could sense it now—the way mana folded around him, not swirling, not entering—but waiting.

Attentive.

“This method doesn’t work on most,” Dominic continued. “It requires stability, clarity, and a will that doesn’t crack under outside pressure. It’s the closest we get to replicating the pressure of the Cradle… without letting it devour someone.”

Damien’s brow creased as his thoughts slowed—no, deepened. He wasn’t slipping out of consciousness, but into something deeper. More aware. He felt his spine lengthen, his nerves tensing with clarity.

Something inside him stirred. No fire, no roar—just recognition.

Then, just as his breath began to sync with the rhythm outside his body—just as the first ripple of internal heat surged—

Dominic’s hand flicked.

And the resonance broke.

Damien dropped.

Not painfully. Just sharply. His feet hit the ground like he’d missed a step on a stairwell, and the grounding made his whole body hum with absence.

The connection was gone.

He stood there, panting slightly, sweat sliding down his neck.

Dominic’s expression was unreadable. Measured. Coldly precise.

“That,” he said, “is how close you were.”

Damien’s fists clenched—not out of frustration, but from the sudden silence that had replaced something… vast.

He looked up slowly.

Dominic’s expression didn’t shift immediately. He stood there, arms folded behind his back, studying Damien like he was re-evaluating a blueprint that had just revealed a hidden layer.

“If I hadn’t stopped it,” he said quietly, “you would’ve begun Awakening right here. Right now.”

His tone was clipped, composed—but his eyes narrowed with something closer to alarm than pride.

’I didn’t expect it to be this fast,’ Dominic thought, his gaze narrowing slightly. ’This kid is definitely not going to be normal.’

Even for someone with a Partial Awakening… that kind of receptiveness to Resonation was rare. Almost unheard of.

Dominic tilted his head slightly, as if still weighing it all.

“If you can get that close on a first attempt,” he said, voice lower now, almost to himself, “then any method will yield results for you. Cycle, circuit, pulse-forge—doesn’t matter. You’re tuned. You’re already near the threshold.”

He looked back at Damien, his tone hardening again.

“And that’s exactly why you want the Cradle, isn’t it?”

Damien said nothing—but his eyes answered. Calm. Steady. Unapologetic.

Dominic exhaled, not quite a sigh.

“Any other method would feel like a waste to you.”

No accusation. Just fact.

Dominic turned away then, walking toward the armory wall of the chamber. He tapped a code into the console, and part of the wall rotated, revealing a rack of ceremonial garments and prep equipment—robes woven with mana-sensitive thread, diagnostic armbands, stimulant dampeners, emergency stabilizers.

“Then we don’t waste time,” Dominic said without looking back. “Tonight is preparation. From now until sunrise, you’ll be subjected to every major Awakening method. Resonance. Pulse Circulation. Vein Expansion. Core Induction. Even direct Mana Infiltration.”

He glanced back over his shoulder.

“You’ll taste every threshold. You’ll know what each one asks of you. When you enter the Cradle… you’ll walk in with every option behind you—and only one left to face.”

He gestured toward the changing area.

“Now,” Dominic said, voice iron again. “Change.”

Damien didn’t argue. He stepped forward, eyes cool, the still-lingering ache in his bones forgotten beneath the slow, burning pull of certainty.

Tonight wasn’t the Awakening.

But it was the sharpening of the blade.

*****

The ground was cold beneath him. Not icy, just indifferent—the kind of chill that seeped in slow, like time didn’t care he was still breathing. Damien lay there, chest rising and falling in uneven pulls, bruises peppered across his ribs and shoulders like abstract art.

His vision pulsed once. Twice.

And above him—Dominic, arms folded, standing tall like the mountain that just threw him off a cliff.

“Is that hurting?” Dominic asked.

Damien huffed, jaw clenched. His tongue tasted metal. It absolutely was.

’Bloody hell…’ he thought, teeth gritting around a breath. ’That last one really was something.’

Three hours. That’s how long this had been going on. Three hours of torture disguised as “methods.” Each one a different kind of awakening stimulation. Each one with its own flavor of agony.

Resonance was subtle—like a song that never resolved its final note. Core induction? That one felt like swallowing fire while someone folded your spine in half. Vein expansion was probably what it’d feel like to be gutted and rewired with live wires instead of veins.

’And I volunteered for this?’

He let out a low groan, half a laugh, half a curse. Not loud enough for Dominic to catch it, but real enough to anchor him.

’Still… I’m getting it.’

That was the thing. Even through the pain, even through the ache biting into his nerves, something had started clicking.

He wasn’t just enduring it anymore.

He was mapping it. Feeling out where things lit up, where the pulse of mana pulled tighter, where it sank deeper. Not academically. Not from a textbook. From within.

’I thought it was all just technique. Order. Math with spiritual flair.’

But it wasn’t.

It was feel.

It was timing and intuition and instinct layered over raw biological function.

And now that he was crawling through it—bleeding through it—he could tell.

’I’m starting to get it. Not fully. But the language’s coming through.’

“Are you done breathing like an injured ox?” Dominic’s voice cut through the air again, clean and cool.

Damien didn’t answer. He just rolled onto his side, then forced himself up—slow, shaking, but upright. No drama. No groaning.

Just movement.

Because pain wasn’t the point.

Endurance was.

And this? This was only the prelude.

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