I just don't care if this is or isn't romantic. She's 25. A whole grown adult. MC didn't groom her. He was just a genuine kind dude. If she develops feelings for him and wants to date him, I feel like that's fine. Like seriously She's not a child. If both parties are adults and are fine with it...
Humans are surprisingly very fragile. You saw how the red team was dwindling down the blue team with the spears. Imagine that but with a ton of combat experience.
I mean, this is a Twitter series. It's been this way since Chapter 1. You probably just have to wait until the serialization is caught up to this point.