Transmigrated into Eroge as the Simp, but I Refuse This Fate-Chapter 191: Exam (3)

The rustle of papers was almost deafening in the silence. One by one, hands stiff with fatigue and relief, students slid their answer sheets to the edge of their desks as the proctor paced the rows with mechanical precision. Isabelle was back at the front, spine straight, eyes on the clock. She didn’t fidget—she never did—but the tension in her posture was clear to anyone who knew her.

Damien didn’t bother looking at his classmates as he closed his packet, flipping it upside down with a flick of his fingers. He was the second to last to finish, by design. Always avoid being first—makes you look reckless. Never be dead last—makes you look desperate. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.

The proctor moved down the aisles, collecting stacks of sealed envelopes and booklets, giving each desk a cold, clinical nod. When he reached Damien, there was a split-second pause. Not disrespect—just calculation. Everyone here had something to prove, or to lose.

Damien handed his packet over with a lazy tilt of his head, blue eyes unreadable. He didn’t smile; that would’ve been too much.

A final click echoed as the last exam was gathered. The proctor murmured a dismissive, "Remain seated until dismissed," before gliding out with the evidence of their agony tucked under his arm.

The moment the door closed behind him, the room exhaled.

First, a few mutters. Then a rising current of chatter—quiet at first, then growing into a buzz that filled every corner of the classroom. Chairs scraped back from desks. Someone let out a muffled groan and buried their head in their hands. All the composure, the focus, the rigid self-control that had ruled the morning started to dissolve.

Damien leaned back, stretching his legs out, gaze drifting lazily across the room. Already, clusters were forming—friends leaning in, anxious voices whispering guesses about the answers. No one seemed confident. Even the usual top scorers looked unsettled, shuffling through mental checklists and half-remembered readings.

This time was different. He could see it in the way people hunched together, in the sharp, nervous laughter as they swapped their guesses.

"It wasn’t just me, right? The Lit section was actually insane this time?"

"Did you get Question 16? All those options sounded the same—"

"Don’t talk to me about the comprehension part. I picked C, but honestly… could’ve been any of them…"

The Literature and Reading Comprehension had been a slaughterhouse. Instead of clear answers, every option had felt like a trick, worded just subtly enough to spark doubt, to bait even the best into second-guessing themselves.

Damien listened, not because he cared about their panic, but because the room’s mood told him more than any score report ever could. These were the children of privilege, used to winning by habit, not grit. The exam had rattled them—stripped the certainty from their voices and replaced it with raw, unfiltered uncertainty.

He glanced at Isabelle at the front, saw her jotting something down—probably already mapping out her post-exam review, her schedule, her damage control for the underperformers she’d end up tutoring. Always thinking three moves ahead.

Damien’s lips curled into a faint, amused smile.

He wasn’t worried.

Pressure made people honest. It shook out the mask, left only the bones. In this room, today, he could see who would crack and who would crawl out sharper.

Damien leaned back further in his chair, the hard curve of the seat pressing into his shoulder blades as he folded his arms behind his head. His eyes drifted to the ceiling, not really seeing it—just letting the noise blur into background static.

’Alright. Let’s be honest.’

The packet had been brutal. Not impossible, not unfair—just tailored with a very particular cruelty. One that didn’t care how smart you were. One that punished you for being a few inches behind.

And Damien?

He had been behind.

’There were at least nine questions I wasn’t sure about,’ he counted idly. ’Four of them came from texts I hadn’t even skimmed. And the analysis question on that Tragedian excerpt—what even was that phrasing?’

He exhaled through his nose. Not annoyed. Just… grounded.

’Expected, though.’

It was never going to be perfect. The idea that he could cram three years’ worth of foundational bullshit into his brain in one week and then walk into the elite exam block like some prodigy reborn?

Delusion. Useful delusion. But still.

’If I could close the entire academic gap in seven days, I’d be running clinical trials and rewriting civilization by winter.’

A dry smirk tugged at his lips.

’Not yet. Not that kind of monster.’

But even with the shaky patches—the questions that felt like darts in a fog—he wasn’t rattled. Because what mattered wasn’t whether he knew every answer.

It was how he played the weight.

’Math should carry. That section was clean. Clean enough to compensate.’ freēnovelkiss.com

And Literature?

He let his mind replay a few of the passages—dense metaphors, questions designed to trap overthinkers, deliberately ambiguous phrasing.

He liked that kind of mess.

’Takes a predator’s mind to cut through the bait.’

It was a phrase from the exam itself.

’Kinda cooked in that paragraph, mister writer, or whatever gender you are.’

Just as the last remnants of that smirk settled on his lips, Damien caught it.

A glance.

Quick. Too sharp to be accidental.

He didn’t shift his posture—didn’t need to—but his ears tuned in.

The voices came from the front. Third row, left side. Girls. Always the loudest once the proctor left. Always the ones who assumed whispers were invisible if they were well-dressed.

"…Seriously, what’s he even doing here?" one of them muttered, just loud enough for her words to carry. "I bet he couldn’t even finish the Lit section."

"Please," another replied, voice drenched in false sympathy. "It’s all an act. That whole smug-rebel thing? Classic overcompensation."

Damien didn’t move.

Didn’t need to.

’Ah… here it comes.’

The third girl—the one who had a habit of twisting her words into knives with bows—chimed in, just loud enough to cut.

"He’s just pissed he peaked in elementary school."

Soft laughter followed. The kind that tried to sound effortless, but always came with the stiffness of people who needed others to believe they were above someone.

’Predictable.’

The laughter wasn’t meant to be funny.

It was theater.

Performed not for the class, not even for him—but for a very specific audience.

Damien’s eyes slid past the trio, sharp and slow, like a blade being drawn. And there they were—front and center like always.

Celia. Victoria. Their orbiting satellites.

Queen and heir-apparent, flanked by their loyal lieges and carefully curated entourage. No one sat near them by accident. No one spoke around them without considering the echo.

And the three girls whispering? Just satellites trying to gravitate closer.

’Right… group mind.’

He’d noticed it before—how girls, especially in this school, treated social circles like war tables. One look from the wrong person could rearrange loyalties overnight. One smirk, one whisper, one raised brow from someone like Celia could redefine your worth for a week.

And Damien?

He wasn’t just outside the circle anymore.

He was radioactive.

’Publicly humiliate one social darling and antagonize the other…’

He almost laughed.

’Of course the moths start flapping harder.’

It wasn’t about his grades.

It wasn’t about his attitude.

It was about positioning.

These girls weren’t speaking because they hated him.

They were speaking because they wanted to be seen hating him. Because Celia hadn’t said a word. Because Victoria hadn’t offered a scoff. Because the best way to climb the ladder was to loudly stomp on someone else’s name—especially if that someone had the nerve to stand toe-to-toe with their favorites.

’They don’t even know why they’re mad. They’re just following pheromones.’

Damien stretched one arm behind his head, glancing up at the ceiling like it might have better company.

He didn’t need to look at Celia to feel the tension radiating from her direction. He knew that silence.

’Sooner or later, you will do something, and I will be waiting for that.’