"Rin, is there really a need to go after such ungrateful people? If we don’t have enough power, then I can train harder. I-"

Shelly was getting anxious, and Rin immediately ruffled her hair to make her feel better.

"You are enough as you are. But I can’t have you running yourself ragged all the time. So let’s get more people so that you can have more free time."

That was not the full intention behind this outing, but Shelly looked determined instead of depressed, so Rin decided to take it as a win.

Shelly immediately turned around to head back toward the settlement, and Rin had to quickly grab her to stop whatever she had planned.

"What are you thinking of doing?"

"I am going to make that leader change his mind about joining us by force. It’ll happen anyway, so I am just going to speed things up."

Shelly promised with full confidence, and Rin did not know whether he wanted to applaud her determination or shake his head at her.

In the end, the best thing to do was distract her from that settlement.

"Don’t worry about this settlement. They are not as important as you think. I still have a few more settlements to visit before we return. Do you want to help?"

Rin asked her, and Shelly’s eyes lit up. She ended up following him around with the same sparkly, wide-eyed look she used to have when they were younger.

...

Somehow, things became smoother with Shelly’s presence.

People who would usually pick fights with Rin stopped doing so and stared at Shelly with a...unique expression. He almost called it fear, but the emotion looked far more complicated than that.

Whatever kind of magic Shelly was working, it worked, because by the end of the day, they had covered significant ground.

[Leader (lvl 2 - 800/750 followers). Next Milestone - 2000 followers]

[Leadership (lvl 2) - When given a command by the user, the efficiency of the workers will triple. Can also be used on the caster. Duration: 1 hour. Cooldown: 23 hours.]

The effect of Rin’s ability had increased significantly. Now, it would be a little easier to fight against the apocalypse in the future.

"Shelly, it’s time to head home."

Rin called Shelly back from where she was talking with another settlement, whose people were cowering from her presence. And this time, Rin knew it was because of her presence alone.

After all, he had been by her side the entire time and had seen everything.

(He was somehow still blind enough to miss Shelly’s glaring sessions and threatening gestures.)

Shelly immediately turned toward Rin, and they started heading back. She looked happier and freer than he had ever seen her before.

For a second, Rin wanted to ask her if she missed home and the world before the apocalypse, but the words died on his lips.

Even if Shelly said she missed it all, what could they do? This was their new reality after all.

...

"There are so many settlements. Just how many do I need to go through to clear out the whole map? I need a faster way than visiting each one personally."

The map still had around 100 dots left. Even if Rin managed to visit each place individually, it would take at least ten days.

So doing it alone was impossible.

"I guess it’s time to ask others to step in for me."

The best people to recruit more settlers would be the newcomers. Since they were new themselves, it could also serve as a bonding exercise and help them get used to how things were run here.

So after arranging everything with the others, Rin suddenly had free time on his hands. It was rare, so he decided to take a walk around the settlement.

But not everyone sounded happy with how he was handling things.

[Rookie, how could you push your precious work onto others? Do you no longer value work ethics? Work needs to be done by the one who receives it.]

The system reminded Rin. But knowing the system, it would dump its own work on the first available person and disappear if it could.

[This senior takes offense to your words. Don’t you know just how hard-working this system is? Ugh, kids these days have no idea how easy they have it.]

And just like a boomer, the system went on a long rant about work ethics and similar topics.

It had become so familiar at this point that it was almost background noise. Rin was content to ignore it when Reina suddenly barged into his room.

"Rin, I got it. I researched the material we got from Madam Yao and found a way to hatch the core..."

Reina looked like she had not slept in ages. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her pupils were trembling. Exhaustion was beginning to claw at her mind, and it was not a good situation for her to be in.

The first thing Rin did was help Reina onto the couch and hand her a potion.

"I don’t need it."

Reina insisted, but Rin was not about to listen to someone who looked one step away from collapsing. So Reina had no choice but to drink the potion he handed her.

Her condition improved by around ten percent, which meant she no longer looked like she was dying...but she still looked close to it, which was not much better.

So Rin told her to rest for now. But Reina insisted she had no time to rest.

In the end, Rin had no choice but to let her speak.

"I was researching the text Madam Yao gave us, along with the extra research material we got, and I found a way to hatch the monster core. Here, I summarized everything for you."

Rin took the handwritten research notes from Reina. She looked proud of her findings, and Rin did not have the heart to tell her that she could have made things easier on herself by using the system.

So instead of complaining, he focused on the data Reina had provided him with. It was filled with folklore and different methods for hatching the egg.

"These are methods...but which one will actually work? We don’t even know what kind of guardian egg it will turn into."

Rin questioned, not liking his odds of choosing the correct method.

However, just as he was worrying about it, Myth decided to stroll in and notice the egg.