Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate - Chapter 323: See and remember (2)

Chapter 323: See and remember (2)

The savage thing stood at the edge of the pool.

Still steaming. Still snarling in breath, but not moving. Its claws dug into the soil. Its muscles coiled like tension made flesh. But it didn’t attack. Didn’t drink.

It watched.

The waterfall’s light played across its hunched frame, refracting in strange hues off its bony carapace. Its many teeth glistened, unmoving. It gazed down at the glowing pond not with hunger—but with purpose.

Deliberate.

Damien’s brow furrowed.

There was something in that posture. Something… familiar.

Not in shape. Not in sound.

In feeling.

That weight in the chest. That edge between fury and survival. Between pain and purpose.

He rose fully now.

Step by slow step, he moved toward it.

The other beings didn’t stop him.

Didn’t notice.

The savage one didn’t either.

But Damien kept moving—drawn by that pull. That whisper of shared instinct.

’What is that?’ he thought, his breath tight.

As he approached, the creature’s back rose and fell—heavy, deliberate.

Then it moved.

Not with rage.

With intention.

It stepped into the shallow pond, the luminous water parting like fabric. The black carapace glistened with wet light. Then it crouched—took a position. Not elegant, not graceful, but steady. Firm.

And then—it began.

A blackish vapor, thick and slow, oozed from its spine. Not smoke. Not mana. Something older. It coiled like oil made sentient, dark and gleaming, and it didn’t just surround the beast—it anchored it.

The pool’s light bent toward it.

The waterfall’s song twisted, notes distorting as that black essence drank from it.

Absorbing. Drawing.

Not recklessly.

But with hunger shaped into discipline.

Damien’s chest tightened.

He felt it again.

That connection.

That echo inside him.

Not of the creature’s form. Not its body.

Its method.

Its resonance.

He stepped forward without thinking. Into the pool. The light curled around his legs—warm, strange, but not rejecting. He moved closer to the creature, still cautious. Still watching.

Then he knelt.

Facing the waterfall.

And for a moment—

He copied it.

The crouch. The curve of the spine. The angle of the arms.

And something inside him clicked.

The thread returned.

Not vague.

Not abstract.

Sharp. Real. Flowing through him like it recognized what he was trying to do.

And with it—

A swirl of something dark. Low. Heavy.

Like the beast’s.

Not identical.

But parallel.

It wrapped around Damien’s shoulders. Sank into his gut.

And then—

Drank.

The waterfall’s energy responded.

Curved inward.

Poured into him.

And this time—

He didn’t collapse.

He channeled.

It began not with a surge—but with a stillness.

Damien held the crouch beside the creature, the chill of the pool curling up around his shins like liquid air. His body didn’t reject it. The waterfall’s glow pulsed around them both, responding not to will but to resonance.

The creature exhaled—steam rolling from its many-mouthed neck—and Damien mirrored it. Not consciously. Not ritualistically. Instinctively.

And something answered.

A weight.

Not on him. In him.

It began at the base of his spine—a coiled heat, slow and steady, rising with the rhythm of his breath. His fingertips buzzed. His chest opened like a gate swinging inward. The darkness the creature exuded—viscous, grounded—became more than a visual. It became direction.

He wasn’t just absorbing now.

He was drinking.

The energy bled through him, slow and thick, not like the rushing flame of combat but like warm oil down a dry throat. It didn’t burn. It soaked. Filling gaps he hadn’t realized were there, mending the raw seams torn open during his last fight, knitting muscle and marrow and soul alike.

And then the memory came.

Not a vision. A muscle memory of how it once felt—training with his father. That slow, brutal pace of repetition. The way his legs had learned to catch power before his mind even understood it. The subtle shift in breathing that let the mana feed him instead of burning through him.

He channeled that now.

Into his legs. Into his spine. Into the palms resting on his knees.

Bit by bit, the channeling synchronized.

’I see now…’

The thought wasn’t proud. Wasn’t surprised.

It was a recognition.

Of rhythm.

Of resonance.

Of truth.

He wasn’t copying the creature beside him anymore. He was running parallel. Tapping into the same source. A different current maybe, but the same ocean.

The waterfall pulsed.

Then—

Something cracked.

Not around him.

Within.

A ripple in his consciousness, deep and low. Like an ancient gong struck in the hollows of his soul.

And from that ripple, came sound.

“Kikikikikiki…”

The laughter.

Not mad. Not mocking.

Knowing.

His blood chilled. The air around him didn’t move, yet something had entered it.

Another voice followed.

“Little corpse… little one…”

It wasn’t heard with ears.

It was felt. Pressed into the base of his skull like breath against bone.

Then—

A sound.

Not words. Not any human phoneme. Just an ancient tone, one that twisted in shape the more he tried to grasp it. A call not meant for meaning. Meant for memory.

It dropped through his gut like a stone.

The pool didn’t flicker.

But his body did.

He shuddered—his spine jerking upright. The energy in him pulsed—once—like a heartbeat too big to belong to one person.

And in that moment—he felt it.

The Pulse.

He didn’t know the name.

But he knew the rhythm.

It was the root of every beat of mana he’d ever felt. The echo of something older than any school or training. The very first breath of the world, still humming at the center of the waterfall’s glow.

And it was humming in him now.

Not as a possession.

As a permission.

The mana didn’t just circulate anymore. It aligned. Not entirely—but enough.

And in that beat, Damien felt something even stranger:

Connection.

Not to the creature beside him.

To the whole.

To the waterfall.

To the pool.

To the forest.

To the pulse beneath the stone.

Everything breathed the same rhythm now.

And for the first time in his life—Damien was breathing with it.

Everything began to take shape.

Not the world—him.

The black current that had swirled around his spine now pulsed clean through him, threading through muscle, nerve, breath. Every inhale carried weight, and every exhale left him lighter. The ragged, splintered hollow that had plagued him since the surge—the void that made his body scream and his mana buck wild—was filling. Not with pressure.

With balance.

His fingers flexed.

They didn’t twitch anymore.

His limbs didn’t tremble.

His vision, once blurred at the edges from fatigue and overreach, had sharpened. Clear lines. Subtle contrast. Everything around him—leaf, light, clawed silhouette—felt present. Real.

His strength was coming back.

But more than that?

His center was settling.

And still…

Still, it wasn’t enough.

Not yet.

Because even as the Pulse beat in his veins, even as the resonance of this strange world welcomed him into its rhythm, Damien felt it.

Distance.

He was breathing with it—but he hadn’t become part of it.

Not fully.

Not yet.

He opened his eyes fully now—locked on the waterfall.

It shimmered.

A wound in the world. A birthing place. A gate.

It was offering—not just mana, not just resonance, but something deeper.

Something that required more than rhythm.

It required surrender.

It required will.

And Damien felt it spark behind his eyes.

That hunger again.

But this time—refined. Not desperate. Not raw.

Focused.

His lips barely parted.

And in the quiet of his mind, with the Pulse running smooth and steady beneath every thought, he whispered:

“More.”

Not greedily.

Not recklessly.

But like someone who knew he was only halfway through the door.

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