Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate - Chapter 112

Chapter 112: Background
Ping.

A soft, almost playful chime echoed in Damien’s mind as a translucent blue window shimmered into view before him.

[System Notification]

▶ Host has weakened the mental state of a Side Character.

+200 EXP

▶ Host acted like a scoundrel.

+50 SP

Damien’s smirk sharpened.

“There it is.”

He exhaled slowly through his nose, fingers still drumming lazily against the desk, eyes unfocused as if the world around him had dulled to a low hum. Only the system’s words remained vivid. Real.

He leaned back in his chair, still watching Leon from the corner of his eye—the tightly coiled tension in his fists, the barely-suppressed rage trembling through his limbs. Damien drank it in.

This was the reward.

Not the EXP. Not the SP. But the crack—that jagged little fracture he’d carved into the mind of a future hero.

Because Leon Ardent?

He wasn’t just any student.

He was a flag.

A pivotal piece in the grand narrative that Damien remembered all too well.

Shackles of Fate.

A game soaked in tragedy, betrayal, and sob stories written for weaklings who blamed everything but themselves. The kind of game where you played as a pathetic shell of a protagonist, kicked and spat on by the world—only to “grow” through suffering.

Bullshit.

But there was one thing that had stuck with Damien.

The name.

Fate.

That word—heavy, pretentious, full of gravitas—lingered with him longer than anything else.

Wasn’t that all life was?

A game.

A story you experience from your own side of the screen.

From your seat, you’re the main character.

From theirs?

You might be nothing more than the antagonist. A side character. A footnote.

“So then,” Damien muttered under his breath, his smile turning thoughtful, twisted, “what if the story followed the one who stole everything?”

In Shackles of Fate, the original Damien Elford had been like a third-rate villain, even though he was the protagonist of the game. Arrogant. Spoiled. A walking punchline with too much power and not enough spine.

One needs to ask, if he was not a main character, what would his purpose be?

His only purpose in a game where he wasn’t the protagonist?

The answer would be….

To serve as a stepping stone. A lesson. A sacrificial ego to inflate the pathetic little protagonist’s “growth.”

That was it.

That was it.

That was all Damien Elford had ever been.

Until now.

His fingers stilled, that lazy drumming against the desk fading into silence as something colder, heavier slid into his mind.

Because if he had been nothing more than a narrative tool…

Then what did that make her?

“…Celia,” he murmured.

Her name tasted bitter on his tongue.

The perfect, gleaming centerpiece of the original story. The main heroine. The catalyst. The crown jewel of another man’s suffering and growth.

His suffering.

His humiliation.

She was never written for Damien.

She was scripted for the protagonist. For that spineless fuck who had knelt in the rain, watching her walk away into the arms of someone else while dramatic music swelled in the background.

That scene. That moment.

It had seared itself into his brain.

The betrayal.

The words.

“I never wanted you anyway—just like your parents.”

His lips curled into a sneer.

So that’s what it was, huh?

Celia wasn’t his heroine.

She was someone else’s.

Just like Leon was someone else’s friend.

Just like Damien himself was someone else’s villain.

A bitter laugh slipped past his lips.

“If that’s how this works…” he whispered, eyes narrowing, “then every life is just a game from another seat.”

And once that thought settled, it wouldn’t let go.

What if this world—this life—wasn’t as fixed as everyone thought?

What if there really were countless different stories?

Countless games, each one unfolding from a different angle, a different screen, a different goddamn controller?

And maybe—just maybe—the people around him weren’t just people.

Maybe they were roles.

Characters.

Flags and triggers and arcs waiting to be activated.

Maybe even the life he was living right now was nothing more than a fantasy from someone else’s world.

He let the thought roll around in his head, letting it fester and curl and take root.

Then, finally, he spoke aloud—quietly, calmly, but with a strange gravity.

“…System.”

[Awaiting input.]

His voice lowered, something unshakable in it.

“Tell me something.”

A pause. Then:

[Ask.]

“If there are games… stories… infinite versions of life being played out through different lenses…”

“…Is it possible that this world—this life—is just one of them?”

The system paused.

And then—like a door creaking open, just wide enough to peek through—

[Affirmative.]

Damien stilled.

[There are countless timelines. Planes of existence. Some linear, some cyclical. Some locked within loops, others open-ended. Your world is one of many.]

The words hit him like a whisper from behind a mirror.

[There exist beings capable of perceiving these timelines, experiencing them as “games” or “stories.” To them, your struggles are data. Entertainment. Lessons.]

His blood ran cold—but he couldn’t stop reading.

[These beings often refer to themselves as Players, Watchers, or Writers.]

“But the protagonists,” Damien muttered. “The ones this whole world bends around… they’re not like us, are they?”

[Correct.]

[They are not merely individuals. They are anchors.]

[This world refers to them as Children of Fate.]

[In higher-order timelines, they are known as Children of the Plane.]

Damien stared at the fading notifications, their final echoes still ringing quietly in his head.

Children of Fate. Children of the Plane.

He leaned back in his seat, legs stretched lazily beneath the desk, fingers draped over the armrest. The classroom had long since faded into static noise. Even Leon’s trembling rage, even Kross’s penetrating glare—none of it registered anymore. He was somewhere else now. Above this moment.

‘Child of the Plane, huh…?’ he mused, his lips twitching into a lopsided smirk. ‘I’ll admit… that’s a cool name. Has a certain divine arrogance to it. Like the world’s some oversized stage, and they’re the lead actor in every fucking act.’

And yet, he didn’t feel surprised.

Not really.

Maybe the old Damien would’ve been. The fool clinging to scraps of dignity, the idiot still waiting for his “route” to go differently. But he—this version, the real one—had suspected the truth for a while now.

‘Of course the world bends around someone,’ he thought, his eyes flicking toward Leon, who had only just begun to simmer down under Kross’s lingering presence. ‘Of course some people get the script written for them, custom-tailored like some high-end suit. Of course the deck is stacked.’

But if there were Children of Fate… then what did that make him?

He flicked his fingers, calling open the familiar translucent blue screen.

[STATUS]

▶ Traits: [Arrogance] [Simp] [Lazy Bitch] [Spineless Donor] [Impulsive] [Naïve Fool]

▶ Unique: [Does Not Bend], [Singularity], [Partial Sociopathy], [Anarchist]

His eyes narrowed as they locked on the word.

[Singularity]

There it was again. That outlier. That anomaly.

The system didn’t explain it—yet. A vague silence hung beneath the name, as if even the program itself was reluctant to touch it without higher clearance. But Damien didn’t need a full explanation.

He could feel it. The weight of it.

‘A Singularity… something that stands outside the pattern. A divergence in the design. If a Child of Fate is an anchor—then I’m the blade to the rope, aren’t I?’

His smile slowly widened.

‘I’m not a protagonist. I’m not a side character. I’m not even part of the script anymore. I’m the error. The glitch. The unscheduled disruption that throws the whole simulation into chaos.’

The longer he thought about it, the funnier it became.

‘That’s why the world won’t bend around me. Because I don’t bend. Because I can’t.’

Because fate wasn’t a current he had to swim through.

It was a net.

And he had already cut through it.