By the time Li Ke opened his eyes again, he found himself lying inside a makeshift fabric tent. Along with the faint return of his senses, the rich, savory aroma of simmering meat broth drifted into his nose.
Though his head was still swimming with a stubborn wave of vertigo, he gritted his teeth and forced his upper body out of the low sleeping cot, dragging himself upright.
To his absolute astonishment, while his limbs still carried a dull, throbbing ache and were bound tightly in splints fashioned from small tree branches, the catastrophic pain in his internal organs and head had completely vanished.
When he tested his range of motion, his arms moved smoothly. The excruciating agony from before had dwindled down to a faint, easily ignored prickle beneath his skin.
Weird... just how long was I out cold?
Stepping cautiously out of the tent, the first sight that met his eyes was a crackling campfire. Sitting beside the flames were the two women he had seen earlier, using a salvaged iron drum to boil chunks of meat. Both wore the exact same distinctive outfits as before.
Gazing at the short-haired, tomboyish woman, Li Ke's cognitive functions steadily snapped back into full clarity. Locking his eyes onto her, he called out a name to test the waters.
"Kiri?"
Hearing him call out, Kiri paused her stirring and turned her head. She flashed Li Ke a sharp, rakish grin, casually waving the thick wooden stick she was using as a makeshift ladle.
"Oh, you're finally awake! Chow will be ready in just a bit. Grab a seat over there and take it easy for a second... Oh, by the way, this lovely lady beside me is Tsunade Senju. She's the one who put you back together, so you'd better make sure to give her a proper thank you."
Tsunade Senju?!
Li Ke's breath caught in his throat. He knew exactly who that name belonged to, but he had never in his wildest dreams expected the legendary medic-nin from Naruto to be summoned into this godforsaken apocalypse.
If she's currently suffering from severe hemophobia... does that mean she already lost everyone she ever loved in her world?
Li Ke couldn't help but steal a lingering glance at Tsunade before stepping forward and giving her a deep, respectful bow.
"Thank you so much for saving my life."
Tsunade didn't offer a dramatic response to his profound gratitude. She simply sat by the fire, her eyes silently tracking the roiling broth inside the iron drum. Her posture carried a deep, crushing aura of melancholy.
"Don't sweat it. Everything comes with a price," she murmured, finally shifting her gaze to lock eyes with him. "In exchange for patching you up, you owe us an explanation. What the hell is going on with this place?"
She was deeply bewildered by her sudden displacement into this reality. She had literally just made up her mind to desert the Hidden Leaf Village, intending to take Shizune with her to find a quiet, secluded place to live out her days. Yet, the moment she stepped past her front gate, she had been instantly dropped into this ash-choked ruin, surrounded by a mountain of charred corpses.
She was thoroughly sick and tired of death. For a fleeting moment, she had genuinely believed she had died and gone straight to hell.
"Honestly, this place isn't much different from hell," Li Ke sighed heavily, lowering his battered frame onto the hard asphalt before diving into the explanation.
"The human population of this world was completely wiped out by an unknown cataclysm. They've all mutated into walking corpses—monsters driven by a primal urge to consume living flesh. The only way to put them down permanently is to completely destroy their brains. But that's not even the worst part. The truly bizarre anomaly of this world lies in its physics. Every time we slaughter these infected, we harvest a corresponding amount of experience. This energy directly elevates our character levels, which in turn unlocks a series of reality-defying survival abilities. The supernatural block-building technique you saw me use earlier is a power granted directly by this world's system."
Li Ke paused. Thinking about his hard-fought survival during the Blood Moon, he instinctively opened his character status window to check his parameters—only to be struck by a mind-boggling realization.
He had skyrocketed straight to Level 51!
Li Ke hurriedly navigated through the various system sub-menus. To his immense surprise, not only had the World Map function finally been unlocked, but both the Quest log and the Skills tree were now fully accessible!
Furthermore, a highly convenient HUD overlay had materialized at the top of his field of vision. A digital compass accompanied by directional letters indicated that he was currently facing dead north, while a running game clock informed him that the exact time was 8:20 AM. This gave him a concrete temporal reference point at long last.
Though his Quest log remained completely blank for now, the Skill panel displayed the foundational core attributes familiar to any player: Perception, Strength, Fortitude, Agility, and Intellect. While the specialized character perks beneath them were still grayed out, it was entirely obvious that continuing to level up would gradually unlock everything.
Currently, he possessed only a single unallocated Skill Point, leaving him hesitant about which attribute to invest in first.
Even so, this massive breakthrough breathed a sudden, desperate surge of hope back into his chest—hope that he could actually survive the next impending apocalypse.
In fact, with these two by his side...
Li Ke glanced subtly between Tsunade and Kiri, the deep-seated anxiety eating away at his gut finally beginning to dissipate.
Kiri's exact combat parameters aside, anyone capable of making a name for themselves in the brutal badlands of the Empyrean was bound to be a lethal asset. But the real game-changer was Tsunade. Her monstrous physical strength was legendary. Even if her psychological hemophobia completely paralyzed her from actively slaughtering infected on the front lines, her raw kinetic output made her an unparalleled asset for constructing a fortress!
At the very least, her mining efficiency would be completely off the charts!
Right as his thoughts trailed off, Kiri broke the silence.
"So, you're saying that trick where you conjure solid lumber and firearms out of thin air is a power granted directly by this world's mechanics? Man, I just assumed you were rocking some high-end spatial storage tech. By the way, do you have a way to get back home?"
Beside her, Tsunade offered a firm nod of agreement. The first time she had witnessed Li Ke manifest those wooden reinforcement blocks, she had nearly mistaken it for some highly bizarre, mutated strain of Wood Style ninjutsu. Clearly, the underlying logic of this world was far more alien.
"Yes. Better yet, I can actually burn a portion of my own experience points to grant you guys formal 'Player' status," Li Ke explained, offering a nod of affirmation. Sensing that Kiri and Tsunade were still harbor a healthy amount of skepticism, he chose to lay his cards on the table. "Consider it my repayment for saving my life. So... do you want to become Players?"
He paused, letting the weight of the offer sink in before breaking down the mechanical reality.
"Without a recognized Player profile, it's flat-out impossible to interact with the unique anomalies of this environment. Take that pristine building over there, for instance. Inside sits a merchant who clearly breathes like a living human but possesses absolutely zero human traits. Her shop and the surrounding architecture are completely impervious to physical damage. If you don't possess Player credentials, the system won't even allow you to purchase survival gear from her counter. But speaking of which... just how long was I out cold?"
"A full day," Kiri replied.
"Shit... That means we only have four days left until the next horde night."
Li Ke felt his composure crumbling. With a razor-thin window of only four days, rushing a high-tier surface defense build was practically impossible. He would likely have to rely on a desperate underground tunneling strategy to cheese the upcoming event.
"A horde night?" Tsunade questioned, her brow furrowing.
"Yeah, a horde night. To be completely honest, I only dropped into this world seven days ago myself. The day before you guys found me, I was entirely surrounded by a relentless sea of the dead. Those monsters march in a unified direction across the biomes. The second the moon bleeds into a pure, sickening crimson, thousands of infected will violently lock onto your position, aggressively obliterating every single obstacle in their path to tear you apart. To be completely frank, I don't even know how I survived the blast. Looking back, it was a pure miracle that the oil tank detonation managed to burn them out."
He trailed off, his expression turning solemn as he addressed her final question.
"As for a way back to our respective worlds..." Li Ke hesitated for a fraction of a second before deciding to be honest. "I haven't found a physical portal or an active pathway yet, but the mechanism definitely exists."
Accepting a cup of warm water that Kiri handed him, Li Ke took a slow sip, his gaze drifting up toward the clear blue sky. He didn't say it aloud, but his heart was heavy with a singular, quiet prayer—hoping with everything he had that Erina had made it back to her world safely.
"I see..."
Kiri crossed her arms over her chest, offering Li Ke a highly contemplative look. Beside her, Tsunade cut straight to the core of the issue, her voice dropping into a chillingly cold register.
"We can put a pin in this 'Player' status for now. If you suddenly dropped into this world just like we did, does that mean you had a companion with you earlier? Did you successfully send her back? More importantly... what exactly is the catch with this repatriation method of yours?"
She locked her piercing gaze directly onto Li Ke's face, demanding an absolute, unvarnished answer.
Li Ke offered a firm nod, having zero intention of beating around the bush.
"Yes. She was successfully returned to her original world. As for the repatriation method I mentioned, it stems directly from a secondary system capability. Because of the constant terror and our survival circumstances out here, she and I ended up sleeping together. Right after that, I discovered I had unlocked a new ability: every single time I engage in an act that facilitates a 'deep emotional bond' with someone, I harvest a specific type of vital energy. Once that energy reservoir hits a threshold of one thousand points, the system allows me to repatriate that target. However, whether they are actually returned safely to their exact home world... to be completely frank, I have no way of verifying it myself."
"Huh?"
Kiri tilted her head, pointing a thumb directly toward her own chest.
"So what you're basically telling us is that if I want to use your fancy system shortcut to get back home, I have to sleep with you? What kind of absurd logic is that? Talk about an incredibly convenient excuse to take advantage of us."
Her expression completely shifted into one of sheer, unadulterated disbelief.
"Well... that's just the extent of the raw data I've uncovered so far," Li Ke explained, his face burning with sudden awkwardness. "But I don't think physical intimacy is a strict mechanical requirement. The prompt specifically labels it as the power of 'emotional bonds.' It's entirely possible that once we forge a genuine camaraderie as teammates, the system will naturally start generating energy points anyway."
Tsunade simply averted her gaze, her tone dripping with skepticism. "Let's hope so."
She was still far from dismissing the theory that Li Ke might be the sinister mastermind pulling the strings behind this entire anomaly. This reality was deeply twisted, and Li Ke was the lone variable they had encountered so far. If she blindly accepted every single syllable that came out of his mouth as absolute gospel, she would be a certified fool.
Li Ke was well aware of her internal calculations.
Tsunade was a seasoned ninja, after all; if she trusted a complete stranger that easily, she wouldn't have survived the brutal shinobi world. As for Kiri, if she were the type of naive person who handed out her trust like candy, she would have met a grim end back in the Empyrean long ago.
"Look, I know it's incredibly difficult for you guys to trust me right now," Li Ke said, looking at both of them with absolute sincerity. "But for the sake of surviving the next horde night, I'm asking you to suspend your disbelief as much as possible and cooperate with me."
Realizing that forcing a bond would backfire, Li Ke decided his actions should do the talking.
His immediate priority was to excavate a heavily fortified underground bunker for himself. As for constructing a massive surface fortress to hold the line...
The vivid nightmare of that boundless, suffocating sea of flesh trampling his stone wall flashed through his mind, and he immediately vetoed the idea. Consequently, he chose to lay his cards completely bare before these two.
"I won't force you to do a single thing you don't want to do. You are entirely free to explore this world on your own terms to uncover the truth of this place. As my repayment for saving my life, I can provide you with a baseline stash of survival resources and rations. But if you do venture out, please promise me you will avoid getting clawed at all costs. Without the proper medical treatment, the infection rate from a laceration is practically fatal. Furthermore, if you encounter a specific type of zombie that unleashes a piercing shriek, prioritize neutralizing it immediately. Those are Screamers—they can summon nearby hordes to their position while drastically buffing their movement speed and physical aggression."
He paused briefly, letting the tactical warning sink in before delivering his final, crucial piece of advice.
"But please, remember this one rule above all else: by the third day, regardless of where your exploration takes you or what anomalies you uncover, you absolutely must return to this compound. Without a properly fortified bottleneck choke point, it is practically impossible to survive a Blood Moon horde night out in the open."
His delivery was completely earnest, with zero intent to hide any hidden catches.
"Fair enough."
Tsunade traded a lingering glance with Kiri. Kiri offered a slow, validating nod in return.
"Sounds like a plan," Kiri chimed in. "We'll accept your hospitality for the time being."
This was the most logical arrangement for everyone involved. The two heroines intended to map out the immediate biomes themselves before deciding whether to place their full trust in Li Ke. Seeing that his attitude was so accommodating and respectful of their boundaries, they were thoroughly satisfied with the arrangement.
The three of them spent a little more time going over various details, with Li Ke outlining the remaining zombie threat types before falling into a quiet, focused mealtime.
To put it mildly, the broth Kiri had whipped up was barely edible. Compared to the divine creations Erina Nakiri brought to the table, this stuff tasted like slop meant for farm animals. But given their life-or-death circumstances, it wasn't a time to be overly critical of their food.
Once breakfast was over, the two heroines geared up to venture out into the wilderness to conduct their investigation, showing zero interest in visiting the anomalous female merchant first. Li Ke remained behind at the campsite, tracking their graceful silhouettes until they disappeared past the edge of the ash-choked ruins. He couldn't help but let out a long, heavy sigh.
"Man, what a missed opportunity."
If Tsunade and Kiri could just give him their unvarnished trust right out of the gate, his daily survival loops would become an absolute breeze.
While Kiri had accepted his pipe machine gun, she refused to hoard all of his ammunition. She manually counted out just over a hundred rounds and left the remaining crates behind. Tsunade, on the other hand, packed absolutely zero gear, clearly intending to rely on Kiri as her primary combat vanguard for the trip.
"Alright. Time to put in some real work myself."
Taking a deep, stabilizing breath, Li Ke marched straight into the Trader's fortified compound. The interior looked identical to how it had before the Blood Moon—pristine, untouched, and housing the lone female merchant who maintained her static, unchanging smile without moving an inch.
Li Ke didn't say a word. His broken body still hadn't fully recovered to the point where he could engage in heavy manual labor, so he bypassed the physical counter and manually clicked open her trade screen, selecting the standard prompt: [Do you have any jobs available?]
The very next split second, the static NPC smoothly transitioned into her active state.
"Oh, you're a lifesaver! I've got plenty of work that needs doing around here."
Standard English poured from her lips, but the system translated her voice perfectly into his mind. While it lacked the sharp, endearing tsundere cadence of Erina's voice, it still carried a reassuringly gentle, professional warmth.
An instant later, a list of available quest options materialized right before his eyes.
1. [Clear Zombies] — Fire Station (214m)
2. [Fetch White River Supplies] — Three-Story House (200m)
3. [Fetch Food Supplies] — White Wood Cabin (160m)
4. [Clear Zombies] — Wood Bungalow (121m)
Li Ke scanned the proximity tags and immediately selected the fourth option, eager to see how the system's quest logic functioned in a localized reality.
More importantly, he was deeply curious about the mechanical outcome. The entire main town had been completely incinerated into a flat wasteland of ash—there shouldn't even be a wood bungalow standing out there for him to clear in the first place!
"Fantastic! The last crew I hired met a grim end over there, and I was genuinely worried about finding someone to handle it. You're a true blessing!"
The moment her voice line finished, a standard quest tracker tracker popped into the right flank of his field of vision. Tapping open his World Map overlay, he verified that a massive, glowing exclamation mark had materialized amidst the ash-choked coordinates of the town, accompanied by the bolded keyword: [CLEAR].
Looks like the physical destruction of the POI building doesn't break the system's quest parameters. So, how does it handle the glitch? Is it going to spawn a batch of zombies out of thin air, or will it instantly trigger a quest completion flag the second I step onto the waypoint marker?
Li Ke licked his dry lips, spinning on his heel to make a swift exit. But right as his hand reached the doorframe, a sudden, intrusive thought slammed into his brain.
This female trader standing right in front of me... is she recognized as a valid target to upgrade my Endless Traveler skill?
Gazing back at the heavily exposed, scantily clad NPC, Li Ke's internal consciousness plunged into a chaotic, moral struggle.
Should he pull the trigger on that plan, or should he maintain his boundaries?
Deep down, Li Ke knew the answers clear as day. The moment a guy starts debating the moral boundaries of a situation, it means the underlying desire has already taken root. The only reason he hadn't executed the thought yet was simply because his current level of impulse hadn't overridden his survival pragmatism.
Besides...
"Not right now," he muttered to himself, forcing his eyes away.