This conversation had gone down a road Rin never expected it to. He had not expected the outsider to take offense due to his protective actions and yell at him.
It felt like a tactic to anger Rin and make him lose his cool. Unfortunately for the outsider, Rin had a lot of patience. So he let her vent her anger before responding.
"I have no intention of causing Reina any trouble. But just like you cannot trust , I also cannot trust you with a precious mber of my settlent. This talk only happens if I am in the room with her."
Rin firmly placed his foot down and the outsider looked cornered. He could see the outsider calculating the odds of killing him and being able to get out at the sa ti.
Unfortunately, there were too many people for her to make it out without being caught. So the outsider decided to compromise and agree to Rin’s demands.
"Alright. I can do two things. But I still don’t feel comfortable having you there. It would make feel better to have more girls there."
The outsider made another demand, but this was easy to follow.
Before Rin could agree with her demand, Shelly appeared and placed her head on the outsider’s shoulder.
"Are you a new person joining this settlent? Do you want to show you around?"
Shelly’s voice was soft and nice to hear, but because it was so close to the outsider’s ears, it made her flinch and turn to look at Shelly with a shocked expression.
"W-Where did you co from? Who even are you? I did not even feel your presence..."
The outsider looked lost for words after seeing Shelly. But Shelly did not look disappointed by her surprise. She even let out a small laugh, dismissing the whole situation.
"It’s alright if you didn’t sense until now. You’ll have plenty of chances to sense from now on. Anyway, can I join this eting as well?"
Shelly asked and Rin felt proud of her for taking the initiative to join a group activity. He did not think Shelly even had it in her to do sothing like this.
As for the outsider...she looked even more unnerved after Shelly appeared. She must have been spooked by Shelly’s sudden appearance. But she was slowly recovering and gave Shelly a weird look.
"You are...a human? How can a human let out such an aura? As if the man beside Reina wasn’t enough, now you as well..."
The outsider muttered and Rin felt curious about her muttering. He wanted to ask her more but Albus chose to walk in with Alia and Teressa next and the outsider looked like she was about to faint when she looked at Albus.
"A-Another anomaly? How is this possible..."
Rin decided to distract the outsider before she could faint. He coughed to gather her attention before he spoke.
"Shall we get to the eting room now? Collin, is there any conference room that is free?"
His head butler nodded and led them down. Rin felt relieved that they had a room present. He did not want to hold this eting in his office which was still unkept due to the late-night potion making.
But the arrival of this outsider made Rin curious. What was she doing here and what did she want? Was it truly fine for them to let her in this deep?
[Aren’t these the questions you should ask before you act, Rookie? Luckily for you, the system can assure you that your guest has no ill-intentions toward you.]
That felt reassuring, but sowhat hard to believe. But only because it was the system that said these words.
...
The conference room was clear and small. It had enough space to accommodate around 10 people so their small party fit in quickly.
Rin took the head seat (the outsider looked surprised but quickly masked it) before he faced the outsider and Reina.
"So, let’s hear what you have to say."
Rin allowed the outsider to go first and she imdiately turned her attention away from him and toward Reina.
"Miss Reina, my na is Kora and I am a representative of Girl’s Battle Frontier. It’s another settlent in the nearby city. So people in our settlent discovered your settlent and your extraordinary talent. So we would like to extend you an offer of cooperation."
An offer of cooperation from one of the three big settlents in this apocalyptical world? It was a rare opportunity to co across.
But sohow, Rin did not feel happy about it.
The attitude Kora had shown toward Rin so far was rude and dismissive. Her actions showed that she had no respect for him and all her focus was on Reina.
All this attention was making Reina uncomfortable. She was trying to gather her thoughts to phrase her question better But Shelly decided to throw diplomacy out the window and outright ask the question everyone wanted to ask.
"I understand that you want an alliance with our settlent, but I don’t understand why you approached Reina when our leader is Rin. Did your information get mixed up? Or, are you just incompetent?"
Kora flinched at Shelly’s words before imdiately defending herself.
"There is no need to lie about the true leadership of your settlent. We have kept an eye on you for a few days now and we observed a few things—everything in your settlent revolves around Miss Reina. Isn’t that leader of yours just a figurehead? There is no need to lie to . I know everything."
Kora looked convinced that she was right. Saying anything else to her seed like a waste of ti, so Rin did not bother to correct her.
But Shelly could not take this injustice and let out a loud laugh. It felt rude, so Rin imdiately tried to signal her to stop.
"Shelly-"
"Shelly, you should not make fun of our guest’s misunderstanding. You could seriously offend them by doing this."
Reina took charge before Rin could speak and she also turned to look at the outsider and clear up her misunderstandings.
"Miss, I don’t know where you got your information from, but it’s wrong. I am not the leader of this settlent. I am not even the deputy leader either. I am just soone who lives here."
Kora looked dissatisfied with her answer.
"If you are not the leader, then who is?"
"Rin is."
Reina pointed toward Rin and spoke. Kora’s eyes darkened for a second and she imdiately grabbed Reina’s hand and made a sympathetic expression.
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