Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate-Chapter 144: Quest and Teacher (3)

Not mocking.

Not deferential.

But like she was his. Like the title belonged to him now.

A twitch passed through her brow—but she still didn't answer.

So he smiled wider.

"Why did you react like that?" he asked softly, tilting his head as if genuinely curious.

As if he hadn't felt it in her breath. As if he hadn't seen her pupils shiver wide. As if he didn't already know.

Elysia's lips parted slightly, but no sound came. Just the warmth of her breath, shallow and soft.

Damien's hand moved then—slowly, deliberately. From where it had braced beside her head, up to her face. His fingers grazed the curve of her chin again, featherlight. Testing.

She didn't flinch.

She couldn't.

Because there was a tremor buried too deep in her composure now—one that ran not through her limbs, but her stillness. The kind of stillness that had always made her unreadable. Untouchable.

But now, that stillness felt like tension.

Waiting to break.

His thumb traced the line of her jaw, moving to the corner of her lips. Slowly. Reverently. Like mapping terrain he already intended to cross again.

Damien's hand left the mat.

It found hers—still clenched at her side, fingers stiff with tension not from restraint, but from denial. Habit. Discipline. A soldier's reflex to suppress anything that did not serve.

He didn't tug.

He guided.

Threaded his fingers between hers and gently lifted her hand—slow, careful, like he was coaxing a weapon from someone who hadn't realized she was armed.

And then he placed it on himself.

Flat against his abdomen.

Elysia's breath hitched, barely audible. Her palm met slick heat and hard muscle, and gods, she felt it—each breath dragging beneath her skin. The sweat slicking his torso should've repulsed her. Should've triggered some old conditioned recoil—unfamiliar contact, unnecessary proximity.

But it didn't.

Her fingers didn't draw back.

Instead, they twitched—ever so slightly. Like they wanted to press.

Damien's skin was hot. Alive. His core was tight under her touch, like a coil wound too hard. Not for show—but because he felt this. The moment. The tension. Her.

"Didn't I tell you before?" Damien murmured, voice rough now, a little frayed with breath, but steady. His eyes burned beneath the fringe of sweat-dampened hair as he dipped his head lower.

"You'll reap your rewards…" His mouth hovered inches above hers. She could feel the words brush her lips.

"…soon."

And then he kissed her.

Not harshly. Not with the kind of violent heat she might've expected from someone who'd fought so hard to get here.

But slowly.

Tenderly.

Deliberately.

As if this—not the sparring, not the bruises, not the relentless hours—was what he'd been building toward all along.

His lips were warm. Damp with sweat and breath, but not crude. He didn't overwhelm her. He waited.

Let the kiss speak, let it question what she'd never been taught to answer.

Elysia didn't respond at first. Not in the way he might have wanted. Her body didn't surge up to meet him. Her hands didn't pull him closer.

But she didn't stop him.

And for someone like her, that was a response.

Her body remained taut beneath his, not with resistance—but confusion. Like something inside her had been unmoored. Like her map was missing its compass.

This wasn't in the protocols.

This wasn't covered in training.

This wasn't something a maid—her kind of maid—was meant to experience.

But her lips softened.

Bit by bit.

And then, like a gate creaking open for the first time in years, she answered.

Not with force.

But with permission.

Her mouth moved against his, hesitant but real, a breath catching in her throat as her other hand—still trapped between their bodies—curled slightly against his side.

It was the first time Elysia had ever been kissed.

And the first time she didn't know who she was supposed to be.

Damien's lips moved slowly over hers, coaxing, never demanding—but every second the contact lingered, something unspoken twisted deeper between them. A thread drawn tight.

Then his hand rose.

From her side, up—palm skimming the curve of her waist, then along her ribs until his fingers slid softly to her cheek.

Elysia shivered.

A small, involuntary tremor. Barely a flicker—but he felt it. She knew he did. Her lashes fluttered, and something in her posture—always so exact—sagged, just enough to betray her.

Damien's thumb stroked her cheekbone, slow, reverent. Then, his hand drifted again, slipping behind her neck… lower… sliding down the length of her spine until his fingers pressed gently between her shoulder blades.

He broke the kiss.

Her breath stayed suspended in her chest, as if some part of her didn't quite know how to let go of the contact yet.

And then—without a word—he shifted his weight, and pulled her with him.

He moved fluidly, strength tempered with restraint, until her balance tipped—and suddenly, Elysia was no longer pinned beneath him.

She was above him.

Straddling his lap.

Her knees planted awkwardly on either side of his hips, her hands reflexively bracing against his chest as she sat up—her back still straight, posture rigid with the uncertainty of it all.

And her face—

Gods, her face.

She was flushed completely. The heat had spread from her throat to her cheeks, blooming like a fever. Her breath was fast. Shallow. Eyes wide, lashes trembling. Like she'd been turned inside out.

Damien looked up at her, that damn smile still playing at the corner of his lips.

"My dear maid," he said slowly, gaze dark and steady. "How was it?"

Before she could answer—if she could answer—he leaned forward again.

This time, his lips found her ear.

And he whispered, warm and low—

"Shiver."

Her whole body jolted.

A visible, helpless ripple of sensation that bloomed from her neck down her spine, goosebumps chasing his breath. Her hands tensed on his chest, and she instinctively tried to pull away—her thighs flexing, ready to retreat—

But his arms curled around her waist.

And his voice dropped into something closer to a command.

"You are not allowed to move away."

Elysia froze.

Not because he'd physically restrained her.

But because he'd said it like it wasn't a suggestion. And something deep inside her—the part of her that had always obeyed, always followed, always submitted to mission, structure, command—could not disobey him.

Her body didn't betray her.

It betrayed itself.

Damien's lips brushed the shell of her ear again, slower this time, his voice silk-wrapped steel.

"My maid," he whispered, "I know your feelings."

She stiffened.

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"You don't know it," he breathed, "but I do."