My Childhood Friend Turned Yandere in the Apocalypse

Chapter 279: Ch 279: Take Over

Sensation returned to Rin’s body as soon as he was pulled back from the system’s embrace. The countdown he had been seeing also disappeared. It was just him and Shelly now.

Shelly had a protective hold around him while glaring at the system.

The translucent branch looked hesitant to attack Shelly, but it still reached out toward Rin. Everything inside Rin wanted him to reach back toward it as well. But he held back the urge and focused on the situation at hand.

"What were you trying to do to Rin? Do you think I will allow you to do whatever you want, you bastard? I am going to make you pay dearly for it!"

Shelly had more than a few words to say about the situation, and her hold around Rin tightened even more. He felt suffocated, but in a strange way, it was reassuring.

The translucent branch hesitated before slowly pulling back and disappearing from the room.

Only then did Shelly let go of him and let out a relieved sigh.

She clutched Rin’s shoulders, and her worried eyes carefully looked him over.

"Rin, are you alright? That thing didn’t do anything weird to you, right?"

Shelly asked in a desperate voice. She sounded exhausted, so Rin decided not to tell her what had just happened.

Instead, he placed a hand on Shelly’s shoulder and praised her actions.

"You saved me at the right time, Shelly. Thank you."

Shelly looked back at him with a flushed face and reddening cheeks. She quickly looked away to hide her expression and took a deep breath to calm herself down.

"Well, of course I saved you. Why wouldn’t I? Now, let’s head back to the others."

Shelly grabbed his wrist and dragged him out, and Rin allowed himself to be led by her. He did not put much effort into resisting at this point.

The others were waiting for them outside, and they had discovered information of their own. But before they could share it, the entire facility started to beep.

[Self-destruction protocol has been initiated. The facility will be destroyed in 10 minutes due to an error in the system defense. Please evacuate before the facility self-destructs.]

The mechanical voice announced this, and everyone paused whatever they were doing.

"It seems we’ll have to wait before sharing information. Everyone, focus on escaping from here first."

Rin yelled, and everyone quickly followed his instructions.

They ran as doors started closing behind them. By the time they reached the front entrance, it had already sealed shut.

"Get out of the way."

Fortunately, that did not turn out to be a problem because Albus simply smashed through the wall instead.

They all made it out alive just before the facility exploded behind them.

"Phew, we got lucky and managed to make it out in time. I have no idea how I would have healed everyone if we had gotten caught in that explosion."

Reina tried to joke to lighten the mood, but no one laughed.

Finally, Rin sighed and looked at everyone’s exhausted expressions.

"Let’s head back for now. We can discuss what we found once we’re back at the settlement."

Everyone nodded, and it fell to Albus to drive them back. Between taking turns driving, everyone managed to get some rest.

...

Rin knocked on the guest room door in the middle of the night.

It had been a whole day since they returned, and everyone was still recovering.

But he had no time to relax.

He could feel the cold clutches of the system crawling inside his body. It was threatening to take him over.

And Rin knew he needed to do something before he lost himself to that power.

The only ones who could help him now were Kyle and Mira since they seemed to know much more about the situation than he did.

Mira opened the door with a sleepy expression.

"What do you want? Can you come back in the morning? I’m too tired to entertain you right now."

Mira complained, and she almost slammed the door shut in Rin’s face.

But he was faster and jammed his foot between the door and the frame.

He was almost afraid that Mira would not notice and would still close the door anyway, breaking his foot.

Fortunately, Mira was much more careful than that.

She opened the door wider for Rin and gestured for him to come inside.

Sigh.

"Whatever you have to discuss had better be important. I’ll go wake Kyle up for you as well."

She told him before allowing Rin into the guest room.

Kyle was sleeping on the second bed, completely dead to the world.

Mira walked over to him, grabbed his blanket, and tried to wake him.

"Hey, wake up! Rin is here to discuss something with us, and judging by the look on his face, it seems important."

Kyle grumbled but did not wake up, making Mira sigh before shoving him off the bed.

That woke Kyle up immediately, and he looked at Rin with a wide-eyed expression.

"What the hell? Can’t you be a little gentler with me, Mira?"

Kyle asked, and Mira simply rolled her eyes.

"You want me to be gentle? Then you’d never wake up when I need you to. You only respond to rough treatment, and you know that."

Kyle did not argue after that and instead turned toward Rin.

"Ah, what are you doing here, Rin? Is there anything you need from us? Couldn’t this have waited until morning?"

Kyle asked with a yawn, and Rin did feel a little guilty about waking him up.

But that guilt was not enough to make him back down from what he knew he needed to do.

"There is something extremely important I need to discuss with both of you and as you said, it’s extremely important. It’s about the system...and its awakening."

That woke the two of them up immediately, and their expressions turned serious.

It was time to find a solution to Rin’s problem.