By the time Lucas came out of the building, Elena and Carol were already waiting for him.

"Hey, Lucas," Elena said with a small wave.

"Hello," he replied casually.

From upstairs, Stacy watched through a window.

"Isn’t that one of the heroes who came here the other night?" she asked in shock when she spotted Carol standing beside Lucas.

"It is!" Alex looked even more surprised.

"Then what is that loser doing with her?" Stacy wondered.

She watched as they walked away together, chatting and laughing as though they had come all this way just to see him. For some reason, the sight made her blood boil.

The place they brought him to was a construction site, a skeleton of a building with thick concrete pillars but no walls.

According to Carol, locations like this—places that had rarely seen human activity before the apocalypse—usually had fewer monsters.

The areas that suffered the worst during the initial impact were crowded public spaces such as malls, office buildings, and, to a lesser extent, residential complexes.

This was where their group held most of its meetings, which, Lucas learned, happened far more frequently than he had expected.

By the time they arrived, the rest of the group was already there.

"Not this guy again," Arnold muttered as soon as he saw Lucas.

"Hello, everyone," Lucas greeted them a little too softly.

"Do you actually have a death wish or something?" Arnold asked, shaking his head.

"Mind your business, Arnold. Lucas is free to do whatever he wants," Carol said in his defense.

Deep down, Lucas wasn’t particularly happy about having a woman constantly defend his honor, but there was nothing he could do about it.

He had already figured out the hierarchy within the group, and everything revolved around strength.

Damian, the leader, was supposedly the strongest, followed by Carol, then Arnold and the others.

After buying all those items, Lucas had spent some time researching the group’s members.

’It’s important if I want to get along with them’

It turned out they were actually quite famous in the new world.

There was a global ranking system, and Damian was considered the fifth strongest person in the world. Carol wasn’t far behind at eleventh.

Every member of the group ranked within the top hundred except Elena and Gavin. The rankings were fan-made and based on viewer popularity, so they weren’t entirely reliable.

"How are you doing, man?" Gavin asked as he walked over.

"I’m good. Thanks to Elena."

"Good for you. My back still hurts like hell," Gavin groaned as he stretched.

"I can take a look at it for you," Elena immediately offered.

"That would be great." He moved beside her with surprising speed. "You know I love it when you touch me."

"Stop being creepy," she replied, looking mildly disgusted.

At that moment, Damian himself walked over to Lucas and offered him a handshake.

"Nice to meet you again," he said with a friendly grin.

"You too," Lucas replied.

"I guess you’ll be joining us officially from today. It’s good to have you on board." His friendly smile was disarming.

"Yeah. Thanks." Lucas nodded.

For some reason, it was beginning to feel like he was talking to an actual superstar.

Seeing how warmly he was being welcomed, Lucas started to wonder if maybe he really was becoming one of them.

That thought lasted exactly until he noticed the glare Arnold was giving him.

"Okay, guys, it’s time to discuss our next move," Damian announced.

"Thanks to Carol, we were able to locate the Engineers and complete the Rank Mission, they say it would take a while before they would be able to restore full power to the city. That’s one more step toward restoring order to the world–"

"Just get to the fucking point," Arnold interrupted. "Some of us still have lives to live."

Damian sighed but continued.

"With the death of the the Spider Queen, we’ve now defeated three boss monsters. If we want to reclaim the city, we’ll have to eliminate the remaining ones."

"So far, we’ve located four of them out of six. We’ll be taking them on one at a time to maximize our chances of survival."

"I don’t agree," Arnold said immediately. "Carol killed the Spider Queen by herself. That means I can handle one of those monsters alone too. We should split up and take them simultaneously."

"Arnold, if you don’t want to be here, you’re free to leave," Carol replied calmly.

"You gonna make me?"

"Guys, calm down," Damian said, stepping between them.

Lucas couldn’t understand why they still kept Arnold around.

Everyone could see how much trouble he caused.

The man was a hothead who seemed to be looking for an excuse to explode at any moment.

And Carol wasn’t the type to tolerate nonsense.

’I don’t think this group is going to last very long’

A brief silence followed before the large man sitting nearby finally spoke.

"If every meeting is going to be like this, then I’m going to stop coming and join another group," he said in a deep, coarse voice.

"He’s right," Old man Saito agreed. "Why can’t we all just agree on something for once?"

"Then help me explain to them that I’m tired of all this extra caution," Arnold snapped. "Back when I worked in finance, everything was about taking risks."

"How can you compare risking money to risking your life?" Carol asked.

"What’s the difference?" he shot back. "You people are slowing us down. If it weren’t for all your stupid rules, I’d already be in the next rank by now. And now we are going around accepting strays"

"Like I said before, if you don’t like the rules, you’re free to leave." Carol rolled her eyes as she said.

"Maybe that’s exactly what I’ll do, no point hanging with losers"

Arnold turned and stormed off.

Damian immediately went after him, while everyone else remained standing there in awkward silence.

"I don’t understand why he doesn’t just let him leave," Carol said with a sigh,

"It’s because we are a group," Gavin said with an excited smile, "An as the Guild master, Damian understand’s that,"

"That’s a lie," the old man corrected, "Damian knows the value of strength in this new world,"