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

Capítulo 332: Outside

Dominic had been standing by the gate when the first tremor ran through the floor.

He didn’t move at first. Didn’t breathe.

The runes embedded in the chamber walls flared—once, then again, then settled into a low, flickering pulse. The crystal veins laced through the dome’s infrastructure glowed faintly, but there was no system alert, no failure—just a rising hum. Familiar. Controlled.

But the silence that followed—that was the most agonizing part.

Then breath returned from inside the chamber. A soft, shaky inhale. A twitch in the resonance signature. A flicker on the stabilizer’s edge.

Dominic moved.

He was through the gate before Kael even reacted, boots hitting stone as he rushed forward, the rest of the world narrowing to a single center point.

His son.

Damien sat upright in the middle of the chamber, a thin curl of steam rising from his skin. The air around him shimmered, residue of whatever he’d just survived—or become. His posture was straight, if tired. His breathing shallow, but steady.

Dominic’s chest tightened—not from panic, not anymore. From pressure. Parental weight. That unbearable paradox of pride and fear.

Because this… this was different.

This wasn’t a fight in the estate’s training halls. It wasn’t a political maneuver he could buffer. This wasn’t Elford-level danger, calibrated and precise. This was the unknown. A domain even he couldn’t predict, and he’d sent his son into it.

Not the same son, either.

Damien had started changing. Slowly, then rapidly. The boy who once never showed his face through social gatherings, how lazy he was and useless, now stared people down like he was born to rule. He’d made a public bet. Created a company from nothing. Stepped forward on his own terms for the first time in his life.

And then—this.

Throwing himself into a sealed Cradle. Into something no Dominion agency dared to interfere with. Into something even Dominic couldn’t control once it started.

He slowed as he reached him, breath measured, his cloak catching faint gusts from the still-active chamber.

Damien was awake. Alive. Sitting on cold stone with nothing on but the pulse of residual mana.

And Dominic had never felt more uncertain.

Not because he doubted Damien’s ability. Not anymore. But because—for the first time—he wasn’t steering. He wasn’t guarding from behind the curtain. He wasn’t the architect of this trajectory.

This was Damien’s.

And watching it unfold—watching the man his son was becoming, the edge in his eyes, the stillness in his breath—was the most unbearable kind of pride.

“Damien,” he breathed, not quite a shout now.

He knelt beside him, cloak in hand, the moment folding between them.

This wasn’t a father checking on his fragile child.

This was a man returning from war.

And Dominic knew—deep down—there would be more battles ahead. More changes. Damien had crossed a threshold no one could fully understand yet.

And all Dominic could think was—

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Letting him go.

Letting him grow.

Dominic stood silent, the edges of his coat fluttering slightly in the low wind circulating through the sealed dome. Beside him, Damien lay unmoving—still completely unconscious, the glow from the ritual crystal lingering faintly over his skin like drifting starlight.

“He’s stable,” Kael said after a moment, approaching from the side. “For now.”

Dominic didn’t respond. His gaze remained fixed on Damien’s face—searching for something. A flicker. A breath. Anything that felt like proof that his son was still tethered to this world.

It felt strange. As a parent. Damien had only just started changing—making choices on his own, carving paths different from the lazy, indifferent mess he’d been before. He’d made a bet. Started a company. Done something without needing to be told. And now here he was—silent, motionless, his body surrounded by a power older than it had any right to be.

Of all the moves Dominic had made in his life, this one—this gamble—was the first that truly felt like a risk he couldn’t measure.

“This,” he murmured, voice low, “feels like the most reckless thing I’ve ever allowed.”

Kael crossed his arms beside him, eyes half-lidded with something between consideration and caution.

“You didn’t allow it,” he said. “You set it up.”

Dominic shot him a look.

Kael shrugged. “Hey. I get it. He’s your kid. You want to keep him alive. But if you’re going to drag him this far, don’t start doubting now. He’s strong. I saw it in his eyes before he dropped. He has it.”

Dominic exhaled through his nose. “Let’s hope that’s enough.”

He never got the chance to finish the thought.

BOOM.

Thunder cracked.

Not above them. Not natural. The entire compound lurched—a throb deep in the foundation, like a heartbeat slamming once and recoiling.

Dominic’s hand instinctively went to his sidearm—not for use, but reflex. Kael’s head jerked upward.

“What the hell was that?”

The lights along the upper dome flickered. For a breathless second, every rune dimmed—then flared, flooding the chamber with intense amber light.

Then came the surge.

Wind, raw and sharp, hissed from the far boundary wall. Not air. Mana. But not stabilized. This wasn’t the refined flow of constructed energy—they were standing in the bleed of something primal. Fire flickered out of nowhere, racing along containment lines. Lightning snapped silently in place. Gravity distorted—just faintly enough to feel it pulling wrong.

The sealed sanctum where Damien’s body lay began to glow—runes trembling, light pushing out between the cracks of the crystalline structure like it was trying to hold something in.

A technician came sprinting through the barrier hall, eyes wide, tablet flashing wild readings.

“Sir!” she called. “All resonance readings just spiked—Zone Theta destabilized, and—”

“What’s the origin point?” Kael snapped.

She swallowed. “It’s… a human…”

“A human?” Kael repeated, his voice low, sharp.

The technician froze for half a second, suddenly aware of the weight in the room—of the two men who weren’t just figureheads, but seat-holders with bloodied hands and long shadows.

Dominic’s eyes met Kael’s. No words. No dramatics. Just a click. A realization.

There was only one.

Only one human inside Zone Theta.

Only one person that energy could be answering to.

The technician blinked at their reaction, confused. “You… you weren’t informed? We didn’t receive confirmation from the chamber. There was no system alert for neural restoration. His vitals were unreadable—off the charts, but not aligned to any typical form. It’s like—like the resonance is overriding every scanner.”

Kael took a step forward. “What’s his state now?”

She checked the trembling screen again. “Not moving. Still at the core of the pulse. But there’s… something wrong with the flow. The mana in that zone isn’t behaving like it should. It’s not stabilizing or fluctuating—it’s circling. Reacting. Like it’s orbiting him.”

Dominic muttered, “Like it’s responding to a nucleus.”

Kael exhaled, slowly. “He’s not just waking up.”

Another wave of thunder rolled across the dome—deeper this time, not explosive but rolling, like the cracking of a thousand-ton glacier shearing along invisible lines. It wasn’t just sound anymore. The air was vibrating.

Then came a flicker of flame along the crystalline walls. Then pressure. Then wind. Nature in conflict—elements overlapping without order. As if the deeper laws that kept mana balanced had begun to fray.

“Sir,” the technician said hesitantly, “we’ve never seen a reaction like this. It’s not like a standard post-Cradle return. The energy’s becoming self-replicating. We’re seeing spikes in all frequencies. Even trace signatures of higher-order resonance—things not native to this world.”

Dominic’s jaw clenched. His gaze flicked to the sealed sanctum—and the faint, flickering glow rising from the cracks around its perimeter.

Kael rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The kid went into the Cradle with raw potential, unstable mana, and a bloodline backed by ancient infrastructure. And now he’s dragged something back with him.”

The technician whispered, barely audible: “Or became something on the way.”

That silence settled again.

Dominic stepped toward the viewing platform overlooking the sealed zone, arms crossed tight against his chest. No father should watch this. No commander should be unprepared. But here he was—doing both.

And in the dead center of the storming energy, amidst wind and lightning, lay a single unmoving body.

His son.