"You're right, thinking about it like that is a little scary."
Li Ke didn't pick up on Erina Nakiri's thoughts, but he could agree with her assessment that the female merchant had an unsettling aura.
This was a textbook example of the uncanny valley effect.
When you look at a face that shows no expression and no variation, especially under dim and eerie lighting, it naturally sends a chill down your spine.
Still...
"But she does have quite the chest, you know. Warm to the touch, too, so I wasn't scared at all."
Li Ke made this observation quite matter-of-factly.
"And you claim you're not a perverted old man? Getting over your fear just because of that?"
Erina, seemingly emboldened by the realization that she could now take down zombies herself, felt confident enough to openly mock him.
"But fear won't help us. We need the merchant, so the only option is to make ourselves not afraid of her."
Li Ke shrugged.
That was his honest opinion. If he'd been alone in discovering this anomaly, he might've done even more questionable things.
For example, testing whether he could remove the female merchant's pants.
Unsettling as she might be, there was no denying one thing: this merchant was indistinguishable from a real human, except for her inability to deal damage and her apparent lack of self-awareness.
She had saliva. Her tongue was soft. Her skin felt convincingly lifelike.
Given all this, Li Ke thought it was inevitable he'd do something disturbing if left alone for too long.
However...
His gaze briefly fell on Erina's swaying chest and her long, pale legs as she walked. He let out a sigh.
He had a feeling this companion of his might push him to lose his composure faster than being alone would.
If he were on his own, he'd probably focus all his time on distracting himself: building defenses, crafting tools, and so on.
Now, while those things were still necessary, they were far easier and faster with a teammate.
Searching houses, for instance, was a completely different experience. Alone, it felt like playing a stealth game, constantly worrying that a zombie might suddenly ambush him and end the run.
But with Erina around, he could search boldly and quickly.
The downside was that his partner was just too attractive. It made concentrating on survival unnecessarily challenging.
"You always have some ridiculous justification for your actions."
Erina turned her blushing face away, still clearly annoyed, though she diligently kept an eye on their surroundings for anything useful.
Unfortunately, they didn't find much.
Li Ke, however, stumbled upon something interesting during their journey to the store.
"Oh, I've already hit level three? I'm leveling up pretty fast."
Looking at his character screen, Li Ke smiled. He tried accessing the other options again—quests, skills, maps—but they were still locked. However, the crafting section had become available.
"Interesting."
When he opened the crafting menu, his character display and status bar disappeared, replaced by a list of strange items on the left side of the screen.
"Wooden frames, crates... huh? This looks like the crafting menus in other survival games, though with some oddities. Does this mean I can make firearms too?"
Li Ke scrolled through the crafting list with growing interest. The items were numerous, and he even spotted a stone axe.
The icon showed a primitive axe: a stone tied to a wooden handle with some rope. Yet, the crafting menu described it as being made from sticks, grass, and small stones.
"So, if I craft it, does the system help me weave the rope from grass, or does it just magically create the item?"
Curious, Li Ke decided to test it out. Gathering the materials wasn't too difficult; he started by picking up stones.
During this process, he noticed something peculiar.
All the stones on the ground were about the size of a fist or an egg—there weren't any smaller ones, like pebbles or gravel.
"How strange..."
Without overthinking it, Li Ke collected enough stones and turned to gather plant fibers.
Though labeled as "plant fibers," the icon clearly depicted weeds. He pulled up a patch of grass, and sure enough, the system registered it as plant fibers—twenty of them, to be precise.
"This is way too generous."
Li Ke couldn't help but comment. But the real absurdity came when he tried chopping wood.
He approached a dried shrub and swung his axe at it. As the shrub broke apart, an icon of wooden planks appeared in the corner of his vision, accompanied by a number.
+3
Li Ke's eye twitched. He grabbed another shrub, snapped it apart, and tried adding it to his inventory.
Whether it was a towering shrub or a knee-high one, the system classified all of them as "wood" once they were broken down.
"What exactly are you doing?"
Erina tilted her head, curious about Li Ke's strange behavior. She had no idea what he was up to or why he was suddenly collecting random materials.
"I reached level two earlier and unlocked a crafting system, so I'm testing it out. You're probably close to leveling up too—you killed way more zombies than I did in that last horde."
Li Ke explained as he navigated the crafting menu and selected the stone axe.
There was no fancy animation or sound effect. A small icon of the stone axe appeared in the bottom-left corner of his screen, and an actual stone axe popped into his inventory.
"That was fast."
Suspicious, Li Ke took out the stone axe. It looked identical to the icon, but when he tested it on a nearby tree, the blade immediately cracked, and a chunk broke off.
"What a piece of junk..."
Frustrated, Li Ke put the damaged axe back into his inventory. Then, glancing at the empty slots in his quick-access bar, he hesitated before equipping the axe there.
Nothing happened. He stared at the axe in his inventory, then chose the "use" option.
In the next moment, a new axe appeared in his hand.
Closing the inventory, Li Ke swung the axe at the same tree. This time, something unexpected happened.
Instead of leaving a mark on the tree, a number appeared in his vision.
536/600.
Not only that, but another notification popped up indicating an increase in wood—this time, a whopping five pieces!
"So that's how it works. I get it now," Li Ke muttered with a smirk, his stone axe swinging down repeatedly onto the tree. He struck it again and again, each blow chipping away at its durability. By the tenth strike, the tree's durability was fully depleted.
Li Ke braced himself, expecting the tree to topple over. But to his surprise, as soon as its durability hit zero, the entire tree disintegrated into a pile of dust and vanished into thin air.
The leaves, branches—everything disappeared. Instead, the system rewarded him with 25 pieces of wood, far more than the initial increments.
"Really feels like a proper game," Li Ke remarked, amused.
"Although it's bizarre, I can't deny it's amazing," Erina Nakiri admitted with a nod. She was gradually adapting to the absurdity of this world but still couldn't help marveling at the strangeness of it all.
Li Ke licked his lips as he examined his inventory. His attention landed on an item labeled "Wooden Frame," and his intuition told him it was akin to the basic blocks found in other games.
Crafting a wooden frame required 10 pieces of wood and took two seconds. Since he had plenty of wood, Li Ke decided to make one to see what it was all about.
Two seconds later, his inventory held two wooden frames. Excitedly, he pulled one out.
A small pouch appeared in his hand. Opening it, he found a lightweight, one-meter-square wooden block that resembled plywood.
Frowning, he pushed against the block and confirmed its plywood-like texture and weight. Curious, he placed the second wooden frame into his hotbar. Instantly, a translucent outline of the frame appeared in his field of vision.
"Probably a right-click to place it."
Li Ke aimed the outline at the asphalt road and clicked. The wooden frame materialized on the spot, perfectly anchored to the road. No matter how hard Li Ke pushed or pulled, it wouldn't budge, as though fused with the ground.
"This is starting to feel more and more like a game," he murmured, impressed.
The implications were staggering. If the frames could float midair like in Minecraft, he and Erina could avoid zombies entirely. They could build a safe haven above ground, grow crops, fetch water, and live a peaceful life.
Eager to test his theory, Li Ke crafted another frame and stacked it atop the first. Then, he tried dismantling the bottom frame to retrieve it.
The frame dropped to the ground but immediately crumbled into pixelated debris, disintegrating into useless junk.
A sense of foreboding crept over him.
Determined to investigate further, Li Ke placed another wooden frame and took out his iron axe. He swung at the frame experimentally.
The axe sank halfway into the plywood but didn't split it completely. However, when he struck the system-generated frame, it shattered instantly, breaking into pieces.
"…"
Li Ke put the axe down, surveying the mess with a helpless expression. He explained his findings to a curious Erina.
"It seems there's a significant difference between items recognized by the system and those that exist as real objects. System-generated items have unique abilities, but they also come with limitations compared to real-world materials."
To illustrate his point, Li Ke kicked the real-world wooden frame. Though it looked like flimsy plywood, its durability was surprisingly high compared to the system-generated one.
He swung his stone axe at both versions of the frame. The system frame registered as 36/100, identical to the real-world version. However, the real frame visually splintered and degraded far more dramatically.
"This system is definitely biased. I just hope the zombies follow the same logic," Li Ke said.
He suspected that zombies, like himself, would interact with items differently depending on whether they were real or system-generated. If true, this discrepancy could be exploited to their advantage.
Standing on the system-generated frame, Li Ke tested its durability by jumping. Despite being halfway depleted, the frame held firm.
By contrast, when he stepped on the real-world frame, it immediately cracked and nearly gave way beneath him.
"I see where you're going with this," Erina said, watching Li Ke jump down. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. "You're planning to build a base, aren't you?"
"Exactly. Building a proper house for the two of us is unrealistic right now, but with these tools, we can dig trenches and construct a reliable shelter. We might even repair that RV to use as a backup escape plan."
Li Ke nodded confidently. His thoughts wandered to the possibilities—stone shovels, iron tools, and beyond. He even noticed something in the crafting menu labeled "Water Pipe Machine Gun," which required only a few basic materials: six pieces of wood, two bottles of glue, and four iron pipes.
With such tools at their disposal, their survival was practically guaranteed.
"This system is incredible. With enough resources, we'll be untouchable!" Li Ke grinned, imagining a fortress with automated defenses.
"Let's hurry back and start building after visiting the trader!" Erina urged, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the shop in the distance.
Li Ke smiled, reassured by her enthusiasm. Given the zombies' current strength and patterns, as long as they avoided unnecessary risks at night, they would remain safe.
Unless the world introduced more dangerous zombies…
But that was unlikely, right?
As they entered the store, Li Ke's eyes briefly lingered on the scantily clad trader. He quickly shook off his distraction and opened her inventory. Selling the 19 gold bars he had collected, his balance skyrocketed to 2,400 Duke's Casino Tokens.
Without hesitation, he purchased all the honey available, seven bottles in total, finally allowing himself to relax.
Scanning the rest of the inventory, he grimaced at the high prices and accepted the reality of his poverty.
Even so, with honey in hand and dreams of their future base, Li Ke couldn't help but smile. The game's possibilities were endless, and he was ready to seize them all.