Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate - Chapter 352

Capítulo 352: Mother’s mother

Vivienne’s eyes lingered on him for a breath longer before she stepped forward again, closing the space between them.

Her arms came around him once more—slower this time, less the desperate clasp of someone confirming a heartbeat and more the deliberate hold of a mother who wanted her son to feel, without a doubt, that he was wanted here. She stayed there for several seconds, her cheek brushing his shoulder, eyes half-shut against the faint sting she refused to let show.

When she drew back, her hands remained on his arms, steadying him like she had when he was much younger.

“Congratulations, Damien,” she said quietly. The words were firm, almost ceremonial, but the warmth beneath them was impossible to miss. “You did it.”

Her gaze softened for the briefest moment—then shifted past him.

And in that shift, the temperature dropped.

The cold glint in her eyes could have cut through tempered steel, and it was aimed squarely at Dominic. The change was subtle but undeniable, the kind of shift that didn’t need raised voices or pointed gestures to be understood.

Every person within three meters could tell: Vivienne Elford was angry.

And she had every reason to be.

Dominic met her gaze without flinching, but he didn’t speak. Not yet.

“We will have a talk,” she said, each word polished smooth, wrapped in the kind of composure that was far more dangerous than shouting. “Later.”

A pause.

“I won’t cause a scene here.”

Her tone made it clear that restraint was a choice, not a limitation.

Without waiting for a reply, Vivienne turned back to Damien, slipping one hand around his arm—not possessive, but guiding—and began leading him toward the mansion’s open doors.

“Come. You’ve been through enough for bunch of days.”

Naturally, as Vivienne guided them across the threshold, the staff moved to receive them. Two maids stepped forward with graceful bows, heads lowered, but it was Owen—the butler of the house—who took center stage.

The old man was dignified as ever, back straight despite his years, his expression as sharp as polished steel. He approached with measured steps, bowing low first toward Dominic.

“Welcome home, Master Elford,” Owen intoned, voice carrying that deep timbre that had commanded staff and household alike for decades.

Dominic gave a small nod, wordless acknowledgment.

Only then did Owen turn to Damien.

And for once, the man’s composure wavered just enough to show genuine surprise in the small lift of his brows. He straightened fully, his voice softer now, but weighted with respect.

“Congratulations, Young Master Damien,” Owen said. “Your awakening… it honors the Elford line.”

Damien smirked, tilting his head slightly as if he hadn’t expected the words to come from this man of all people.

“Well,” he drawled, eyes glinting, “that’s one I never thought I’d hear from you.”

A faint twitch touched Owen’s mouth—almost a smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Still, the bow that followed was deeper than any he’d given Damien before.

It was clear. The butler who once dismissed him now stood in respect.

Not bad.

Vivienne didn’t pause for long, though. She swept forward, her hand still lightly at Damien’s arm, leading him down the main hall toward the dining chamber. The rhythmic click of her heels filled the silence until she spoke again.

“The school has called,” she said evenly, her tone shifting into the cadence of business. “Your instructors wanted to know the reason for your absence.”

Her gaze slid sidelong, not at Damien, but toward Dominic—a pointed flicker of steel disguised as casual.

“I told them it was a family matter,” she continued, her voice cool but precise, “since a certain someone was unavailable to provide a more… detailed explanation.”

Her meaning needed no clarification.

Damien caught the edge of her glance toward his father and almost laughed. Almost. Instead, he let the corner of his mouth curve upward again, amused by the sharpness threaded through her voice.

Family matter, huh?

That was one way to put it.

They reached the tall doors of the dining hall. Vivienne gestured, and the servants opened them smoothly, the golden glow of chandeliers spilling out across the polished floor. The table inside gleamed with preparation, every dish already laid, steam rising in fragrant waves.

But then—

Both Damien and Dominic stopped.

Not by choice, not by coordination, but because the air itself seemed to catch. A subtle prickle, like the faint hum before lightning touched the earth, ran along Damien’s senses. His father froze as well, not in hesitation, but in that precise, controlled pause that meant he had already noticed what Damien had.

Vivienne’s steps carried forward another half-beat before she, too, halted. Her brows knit, her hand still lightly at Damien’s arm as her gaze cut forward.

Because someone was already there.

Seated at the far end of the dining table.

The chandelier light fell soft against her figure, outlining her in contrasts that refused to blend. Her hair—long, blonde, and gently flowing as though an unseen draft toyed with it—should have softened her. Should have made her presence lighter, warmer. But the effect was immediately undone by what she wore.

Pitch-black cloth, layered and textured as if woven from raven feathers, clung and cascaded in sharp lines across her frame. The darkness of it seemed to drink in the room’s glow, leaving only the gleam of her skin and the faint shimmer of the ornaments adorning her body.

Her face was young—certainly not as ageless as Vivienne’s, but sculpted with features close enough to draw a line of kinship. High cheekbones, lips that curved not in welcome but in some private knowledge, a presence that blurred the line between familiarity and menace.

And her figure… though her face bore maturity, her body carried the grace of someone untouched by time’s cruelties. The kind of beauty too exact, too deliberate, to be mistaken for chance. As if sculpted for stage and spotlight.

Jewelry traced her in gleams of metal and stone. Rings clasped across nearly every finger, intricate bracelets layered one over another until they caught the light in fractured sparks. At her throat, a narrow chain of silver lay, a small pendant resting just above the line of her collarbone—subtle, but somehow more dangerous in its restraint than the excess everywhere else.

But none of it held them the way her eyes did.

Her eyes were the weapon.

Sharp, unyielding, pale enough to seem carved from ice yet too alive to be mistaken for anything lifeless. They locked onto the three of them as they entered, carrying weight without movement, command without a word. Eyes that were not simply watching, but measuring.

Damien’s smirk, reflexive and irreverent, didn’t surface this time. His head tilted instead, a flicker of instinct telling him what his mind hadn’t yet put to words:

This was not a guest.

This was an arrival.

Vivienne, for all her practiced composure, stilled at Damien’s side. Her fingers, which had been resting lightly against his arm, curled just slightly—not in panic, but as though bracing herself against something she’d expected eventually, yet not tonight.

“Mother.”