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"Will that be of any help?" Carol asked with a small smile as she presented a sizeable bag to Mathew.

"Any help?" Mathew muttered, hesitating for but a second before reaching for the loot and raising his eyes to the girl\'s face.

For a single moment, he managed to see past Carol\'s history which made him somewhat disregard her. In Mathew\'s eyes, she wasn\'t as important as the main trio of his wives. But in this one instant, she appeared to be a hero he needed but didn\'t deserve.

"I was half a thousand short to go through with the settlement," Mathew muttered as he weighed the bag in his hand. "With those two thousand, we have enough."

For a short moment prior to Carol\'s return, Mathew went into a state of borderline panic, as gaining more cores was easily possible… only in theory.

In practice, though, he was out of options.

There was nothing left of value within the school that he could sell and that the residents of the school wouldn\'t miss. There were no zombies anywhere near that would allow him to farm up the missing cores. And judging by the state of the city that he saw while traveling on his recent adventure, they would have to move for quite a distance before encountering common zombies again.

All in all, solving the problem of missing five hundred cores was extremely easy… as long as one didn\'t mind spending at least an entire day\'s worth of effort.

And with the fulfillment of his long-standing wish right at the end of his fingers, Mathew could tell he had no patience of this kind left in himself.

"I\'m glad I could be of help, then," Carol smiled before resting her hands on her hips and slightly lowering her head, taking on a cheeky but smiling expression. "Now then, are you going to do it?"

Mathew shook his head.

He was still struggling to get over the dissonance created by the sudden bout of desperation and the equally sudden end to this headache. These rapid changes in the situation confused him, making it harder for the young man to keep processing the reality around him.

Thankfully, Carol\'s words snapped Mathew out of his daze, allowing him to refocus his attention on the only thing that mattered at the moment.

"Yeah," Mathew nodded his head before turning around and reaching for the shadows hiding underneath the merchant\'s hood. "I\'m going to do it right away!"

Mathew ignored the question of what exactly Carol meant by doing it that flashed through his mind. Judging by the context, she likely referred to the thing he was interested in himself.

And on the off-chance that Carol sought a physical reward for solving Mathew\'s major headache or even just doing her job of collecting all the spare cores left around the school…

Mathew simply decided that he would think and then take care of it later.

The young man reached for the shadows and allowed their surge to separate him from reality. From there, he followed the standard procedure of approaching the center of importance within the merchant\'s subspace before throwing all of the cores Carol gathered into the storage.

\'Nineteen hundred and fifty-seven, huh?\' Mathew thought as he watched the numbers change on his system. His lips then quivered a little, turning into a small, proud smile. \'She was nearly on the spot with the count.\'

Once again, Mathew was faced with a reality where the girl who led her life in a way that made it extremely easy to judge her… proved that she didn\'t exactly fit the frame she painted for herself.

And just from how she could estimate the number of cores in the bag so closely, Mathew couldn\'t help but feel a sense of admiration grow in his heart towards his fourth wife.

\'No, stop!\' Mathew then froze before grabbing the edge of a nearby shelf and squeezing it tightly. \'I already have my hips full with three of them. I won\'t handle another girl,\' he thought.

Mathew\'s face froze. Not because of the internal drama that he was going through, though.

No, the problem of having more girls vying for his attention than he could handle was a topic he had to think through… But its appearance wasn\'t sparked by anything Mathew could fathom.

It was thought as disturbing as it was serious… but ultimately, it came out of nowhere.

\'As if it wasn\'t my brain featuring this problem,\' Mathew thought, steeling his face to stop any and all emotions from showing on it. \'As if… this thought came from an outside party…\'

The young man fought off the desire to look around that exploded in his mind. He suppressed the natural instinct that nearly forced him to assess the situation so that an appropriate response of the fight or flight mechanism could kick in.

\'But wait, what could be their aim?\' Mathew asked himself.

He decided against trying to uncover who was messing with his head. Outside of their connection to this entire apocalypse, he had no clues that allowed him to figure out the other party\'s identity.

As such, rather than wasting time over questions he couldn\'t answer, he focused on the things that he could achieve.

\'This single thought pulled my attention away from my actual goal here,\' Mathew thought while still acting as if he struggled with Carol\'s position within the ranks of his group.

\'And that means…\'

Mathew moved all at once. He reached behind his back only to pull out all the cores from his storage before dumping them all on the merchant\'s altar.

"I wish to establish a settlement here!" he then shouted, before whoever was interfering with his situation could have any time to react!

[Congratulations on establishing your first settlement!]

A new line appeared in Mathew\'s system.

[As the seventh survivor globally to achieve this feat, you will receive a placeholder gift package!]

Mathew only had to wait for the second line to appear in his system for the entire thing to start showing cracks.

And the first crack that came to his eyes just happened to prove that the details of his system weren\'t created automatically… but were actually handcrafted!

[Unlocking options locked behind the settlement requirement.]

The third line went back to a proper, professional form without any clues that could give away its origin.

[Unlocking area-specific rewards requires the host to fulfill the following criteria:

- Fortress construction: Level 3

- Fortress development: Combined level 3

- Further requirements are area-specific]

[Main Area Reward Requirements:

- No zombies present within a kilometer range away from the fortress

- At least fifty residents

- Oh come on, what else can I put in here?! Do you think…]

The last part of the message Mathew managed only to glance through before it disappeared. But that fraction of a second during which it changed was long enough for Mathew to notice it.

[Main Area Reward Requirements:

- Calculating, please hold]

Mathew simply stood in place, staring at the letters that made up words and then sentences within his system.

He blinked his eyes once and then twice.

\'Did I see it right?\' Mathew asked himself while doing his utmost to keep his expression straight. \'No, that\'s not the point. Since they deleted it the second it appeared…\'

Mathew took a deep breath.

\'I need to make sure they think I didn\'t see it!\'

Mathew released his breath. The time he could buy with random actions ended. And so, he opened his mouth and whined.

"Just hold long am I supposed to hold?!"