Ten years had turned Shelly into a great fighter.
She was still soft and caring around him, but she seemed to turn into someone else as soon as she stepped into the arena. Her eyes lit up and her stance hardened as she grabbed her opponent and threw him over her shoulder.
Her delicate body twisted around perfectly, and before anyone realized what had happened, Shelly reset her stance and her eyes sought out Rin in the audience.
He waved back at her, but his sharp ears picked uup people talking around him.
"Hey, is that the girl you were talking about? She's cute and looks delicate, but her form is no joke."
"She's totally my type. Do you think she will say yes if I ask her out?"
"I heard that she turned down even that handsome senior of ours when he asked Shelly out. If he got rejected, then what chance do you even have? Besides, I heard she has a filthy rich childhood friend who dotes on her. Would she settle for anything less?"
Rin's hands itched to smack these guys talking about Shelly. He wanted to grab their collars and shake them around and smack it into their brains that Shelly was not someone they could talk about her like that.
But Rin also knew that someone his size had to pick his fights carefully.
He knew he could not deal with these guys with his strength alone, so he needed to use the asset he had—money.
Rin positioned his front camera in such a way that it included that group talking about him and Shelly, and then he sent it to his PR team.
The advantage of being the son of a wealthy couple meant he was always in the public eye. Rin had been told that his parents were concerned with his public image, so they had provided him with a team of PR managers to maintain his image.
Their main job was to clean up after Rin if he was caught in a compromised position, like doing drugs. But he was too busy preparing for the apocalypse to get involved in useless filth like that.
So those PR guys had nothing to do. And that was why Rin used them to clean up people who could cause him and Shelly undue stress.
Once this problem was taken care of, Rin decided to put his phone down and focus on Shelly.
Her training match was finally over, and she had already gone to change. That meant that it was Rin's time to change as well and start heading home with her.
…but weirdly enough, Shelly was taking too long, and it made Rin feel worried about her.
'Should I ask someone to check on her? I cannot go into the female changing room myself.'
Just as Rin was about to ask a manager about Shelly, he felt someone watching him, and he looked around, only to see a girl looking at him with a shy expression.
The girl was really cute, with huge black eyes and straight black hair. Her skin was fair and clear.
But despite her cuteness, she did not stand out much, which meant that she was not a main character of the novel.
"Excuse me, but do you want something?"
Rin asked the girl carefully, not wanting to startle her further. He watched the cute girl flinch before she gathered her courage and gave him a small bow.
"A-Actually, I wanted to tell you something. D-Do you have time to talk to me?"
The girl looked desperate, and Rin felt sorry for her. He wanted to help her, but he also did not want to leave this place in case Shelly came here to find him once she was done.
So, with an almost sorry smile on his face, Rin looked at the girl in front of him and spoke.
"I cannot leave this place for now. But I can listen to what you have to say to me."
The girl's flushed red, then pale again. She struggled with what to say before her eyes hardened, and she made up her mind.
"Actually, I have been watching you for some time, and I have come to realize that I l-"
A loud noise drowned whatever the girl in front of him was about to say. Everyone turned toward the entrance of the girls' changing room, where the loud noise had come from.
The door had made that noise when it collided with the wall, and the culprit behind this was Shelly.
She had a sheepish look on her face as she looked at the door and then at Rin and made a quick excuse.
"Rin, sorry-! Did I startle you? The door was stuck and wouldn't open, so I used too much force and did not realize that it would make the door bang so loudly. You were…in the middle of something? Did I disturb you?"
Shelly looked sorry as she looked between Rin and the girl in front of her.
Rin noticed how the girl who had been talking to him seconds ago suddenly paled and decided to make a run for it.
"I-I think I should get going. I-I will ask you the question I want some other time."
The poor extra tried to make a run for it, but Shelly's soft voice stopped her.
"Ah-! I recognize you. Are you here to ask about your friend who participated in the practice as well? I think I have seen you with her a few times. Anyway, your friend is inside the changing room. I think she passed out from exhaustion. You should go and help her out."
The girl looked like she had been struck by lightning once that news reached her ears. Her wide black eyes looked at Rin, then at Shelly before she ran toward the changing rooms.
She looked…terrified of something.
"Hmm, it seems like she's far more concerned about her friend than I realized. Maybe there is something more going on there…"
Rin tried to make sense of the situation, but honestly, he did not care much about what was going on in the life of an extra. He had more important fish to fry at the moment.
Like how to get more resources before the apocalypse hits. Also, investing in more food options would be better. Land would become scarce once the world became infested with monsters, but Rin knew some secret locations he could occupy…
A finger poked his cheek and grabbed his attention. He looked at Shelly, only to see her pouting.
"Rin, are you not paying attention to me? What are you thinking about? Is it about that girl-"
"I am thinking about the future and how to make it better for us."
Shelly's expression eased at that admission.
"Ah, you are thinking about us? That makes me feel good, so I will allow that."
Rin just smiled, not paying attention to Shelly's words. She often acted a little strange like this sometimes, but it was just a part of her charm.
Unfortunately, soon the time for their parting would come, and neither Rin nor Shelly could do anything about it.
Well, Rin could ask Shelly to live with him to protect her, but that would ruin her awakening and her desperation as well. In most dire situations, she might not wake up at all or awaken with a lower class.
'I am sorry, Shelly, but the danger you are about to face in the next few years is not one I can save you from. It's for your own good that you harden your heart and awaken like in the original story.'
A lot had changed for the better, but the main key points needed to remain the same.
Only then would the future be a safe place for Rin to look forward to.