[Task Seven - Capture the Flag]

[Task Details: Defend your settlement’s main flag and make sure the enemy is unable to take it away.]

[Reward: Safety of the settlement.]

This time, the task came with a lot of details. Rin took some time to go over everything and combine the useful points he had figured out.

In short, the task was as follows—

The system would create fake settlements to compete against the human settlements. The objective for both sides was to capture the opposing settlement’s flag before the timer ran out.

Anything was allowed as long as the teams managed to capture the enemy’s flag. Even murder and deception were not forbidden by the system.

"This sounds simple enough. We can just smash through the enemy’s gates and force them to surrender before they get a chance to do anything."

Albus looked excited as he proposed the straightforward strategy. And in theory, it should have worked.

But Rin had a feeling the task would not be as simple as walking up to the enemy base this time.

Reina seemed to feel the same way because she frowned before replying to Albus.

"Don’t assume it’s going to be easy. When has the system ever made things this simple? I think we should take some time to observe our opponents first before making a move."

Albus calmed down after hearing that and sat back down. But Rin was more concerned about Shelly.

She had gone quiet and had not said a single word during the entire meeting. Instead, her eyes remained fixed on Rin in a way that made him nervous. He could not tell what she wanted from him, but he was certain she was waiting for him to address her.

Once Shelly realized that Rin had no intention of calling attention to her, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

"I have a proposal to make. I want Rin to sit this task out and leave everything to us."

Shelly’s proposal was met with silence at first, but protests soon followed.

Most people there had no idea that Rin had already died once and come back to life, so they did not want him sitting out during such an important task.

Even Rin had no intention of staying out of it, but Shelly looked dangerously unstable right now. He would have to handle her carefully if he did not want her to snap.

Rin took a deep breath and turned toward Shelly before placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Shelly, let’s think rationally—"

"But I am thinking rationally. I-I cannot risk losing you again, but you are too reckless to take care of yourself. It would be best if you stayed out of this situation. No, it would be even better if you were unable to participate at all—"

The more she spoke, the more unstable Shelly looked. At this rate, she was going to cause a scene.

"—how about we lock him in a room while we take care of this? It can’t be that hard, right? I mean, it’s just crushing someone and—"

That was as far as Rin could allow Shelly to go. He grabbed her cheeks and forced her to look at him.

Shelly looked confused for a second, but the moment her eyes met his, she reflexively relaxed.

"You’re getting too worked up. There’s no need to go as far as locking me up since I have no intention of standing on the front lines this time. I’ll leave things to all of you."

Rin tried to reassure Shelly, and it worked. She took a deep breath and calmed down...but only for a moment.

"That’s what you said last time, and look where that got us. Do you even realize the kind of situation we’re in?"

Somehow, every meeting kept turning into this same argument, and Rin was getting tired of it. He decided he needed to have a serious talk with Shelly later.

But for now, he needed to convince everyone else to follow his lead as well.

"I’m going to remain in the office this time and coordinate everyone from there. First, I’d like to divide the roles. I need a scouting team, and then another team to..."

That was how the roles were assigned, and Task Seven officially began.

Shelly was difficult to deal with because she kept a constant eye on Rin, only relaxing once the task was truly over without him getting hurt.

But somehow, Rin had a feeling this was merely the calm before the storm. The real danger had yet to arrive.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

__________

"Miss Karina, look at this. The s-system...it’s doing something on its own. W-What do we do now?"

Karina looked at the readings in front of her with a detached expression. But for the first time, her eyes widened and she finally seemed interested in what was happening.

"This is...the creature is beginning to respond. Has it started waking up?"

Karina wondered aloud as she checked the readings and pressed more keys. But the more information she uncovered, the more confusing the situation became. Even the computers started to overload, forcing her to shut some of them down.

Her assistant looked pale as he checked the readings again, only for the same results to appear.

"C-Can we even contain something like this? I...what do you think is happening?"

he asked.

Karina compared the current readings to the previous ones before making an observation.

"It looks like the system is about to unleash a disaster. This could completely change the course of events. Our original goal was to preserve the storyline we created for this world, but I don’t think that will be possible anymore."

Karina took a sharp breath and cursed under it.

The apocalypse and everything that was meant to happen within it had been carefully planned using both the system’s power and the creature’s assistance. The goal was to ensure that humanity could reach a safe future.

But now that the creature had started acting on its own, the situation was becoming dangerous.

"Contact Mr. J and tell him I need to speak with him and the others immediately regarding what’s happening. I won’t allow this to interfere with my beloved’s recovery."

For the first time, Karina took the initiative herself, and her assistant nodded with a pale face.