"Now that you mention it, it does sound a bit scary."
Li Ke didn't realize what Nakiri Erina was thinking, but he do somewhat agree with her point that the merchant looked terrifying.
This is the uncanny valley effect.
When you see a face that has no expression and no change, especially when the lighting is eerie, you will naturally feel a sense of fear.
But...
"But her breasts are really big, and they feel warm to the touch, so I'm not scared at all."
Li Ke spoke very directly about his feelings.
"So you're really a perverted uncle after all! You've actually become fearless because of something like this!"
Erina Nakiri seemed to have recovered quite a bit of her composure after discovering that she could also kill zombies, and couldn't help but retort to Li Ke's words.
"But being afraid won't help, since we need this merchant. So we can only choose a way to stop being afraid of her!"
Li Ke shrugged.
This is his true opinion. If he were the only one who discovered this, he might do even more heinous things.
For example, trying to see if the businesswoman's pants could be taken off.
After all, although it has a bit of an uncanny valley feel to it, you have to admit one thing: this merchant is no different from a real human being, except that she cannot cause effective harm and has no independent consciousness.
She had saliva, her tongue was soft, and it felt like real skin to the touch.
Li Ke honestly felt that if he were alone for too long, some morbid things would inevitably happen to this creature that looked, felt, and smelled just like a human.
but...
Li Ke couldn't help but sigh when he glanced at Erina Nakiri's swaying chest and her long, snow-white legs as she walked.
He always feel that he will become more deranged faster because of her as a teammate than when he is alone!
no way.
If someone is alone, they will definitely try to relieve their loneliness in various ways, such as constantly doing things or creating various protective devices.
Although these tasks still need to be done, they will inevitably be much slower and more inconvenient to perform now.
Take looting houses, for example. Without Erina, searching a house would be like playing a stealth game for him. He'd be constantly afraid that one or two zombies would suddenly appear out of nowhere, catch him off guard, and force him to give up.
But now that Erina Nakiri is with him, he's much bolder and faster when searching houses.
This companion is just too beautiful and has such a great figure that it's hard not to think about those things.
"In short, you always come up with weird and strange reasons."
Erina Nakiri blushed and turned her head away. She was still a little angry, but she carefully observed her surroundings and looked for anything she could use.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
On the contrary, Li Ke discovered something interesting on his way to the store.
"Oh, I'm already level three? I'm leveling up pretty fast."
Li Ke looked at his character interface and smiled. He tried to open the options again, but he still couldn't open the quests, skills, or maps. However, he could open the recipes.
"oh?"
The moment Li Ke opened the recipe, he saw his inventory, but this time his character image and status bar had disappeared.
Instead, a series of strange things appeared on the left.
"Wooden frame, crate... Hmm? This is similar to the crafting recipes in other post-apocalyptic survival games, just a little strange. Could it be used to make firearms?"
Li Ke flipped through his crafting list and found it quite interesting because there were many items inside, including a stone axe.
Above the icon, Li Ke saw a wooden-handled stone axe with a rope tied to a stone, but in the crafting interface, it was made of branches, grass, and pebbles.
"Hmm, if we're going to synthesize it, should I weave the rope from grass with the system's help, or should the system synthesize it directly?"
Li Ke was somewhat curious about these things.
Fortunately, these materials weren't too hard to find, so Li Ke bent down and picked up the stones.
During this process, he discovered something amazing.
The stones on the ground were only the size of bread and eggs; there were almost none the size of a fingernail or a soybean.
"interesting..."
Li Ke didn't think too much about it. After collecting enough stones, he turned to collecting the plant fibers described above.
Although it was labeled as plant fiber, the icon showed weeds. So, after Li Ke tried pulling out a weed, he successfully collected the plant fiber.
And there were a full twenty of them.
"Isn't this a bit too casual?"
Li Ke couldn't help but complain, but something even more speechless happened.
As he was about to chop some wood with his axe, he came across a withered bush. He tried to store it in his system space, and then, out of the corner of his eye, an icon flashed.
An icon of a wooden board with a number next to it.
+3
Li Ke's eye twitched, so he grabbed some more bushes, broke them off, and tried to put them into his inventory.
But whether a shrub is as tall as a person or only reaches a person's calf, once it is damaged, it will be classified as wood in this system's criteria.
"hey, what are you doing?"
Erina Nakiri watched Li Ke's actions with curiosity. She didn't know what Li Ke wanted to do, nor did she understand why Li Ke had suddenly started collecting these strange things.
"Yeah, I've leveled up to level three and unlocked a recipe system, so I want to try it out. You should be almost there too, right? You killed way more zombies than I did just now."
Li Ke explained to Erina Nakiri, and the next moment, he selected the Stone Axe from his inventory.
Without any fancy tricks or experience suddenly appearing in front of Li Ke, he only saw a stone axe icon appear in the lower left corner of his inventory. Then, the next moment, a stone axe with the number 1 on its icon appeared in his inventory.
So fast?
Li Ke suspiciously took out the stone axe and found that it looked exactly like the one in the icon. However, when he tried to bump the stone axe against a tree by the roadside, cracks immediately appeared on the stone axe, and a piece of it broke off.
"What kind of garbage is this..."
Li Ke looked at the axe in his hand speechlessly, then put it back into his inventory. But the next moment, he looked at the empty inventory below his eyes, hesitated for a moment, and then put the stone axe, whose durability had been reduced by half, into his inventory.
But nothing happened, so Li Ke looked at the stone axe in his inventory and thought about using it.
Then, in the next moment, a stone axe appeared in his hand.
When Li Ke closed his inventory and swung his stone axe at the tree again, something magical happened.
The tree was completely unharmed this time, but in Li Ke's eyes, a number appeared.
536/600.
Not only that, but a notification appeared on the right side that wood had increased again, and this time five more pieces of wood were added!
"I see, I understand now."
Li Ke nodded, revealing an arrogant smile. He continuously struck the tree with his stone axe, then swung it repeatedly, chopping at the tree until, on the tenth strike, he completely depleted the tree's durability!
He had expected the tree to fall to the ground and was prepared to dodge, but to his surprise, the moment its durability was depleted, the tree instantly turned into a pile of dust and disappeared into the air.
The leaves and branches all disappeared, and in their place, the amount of wood increased from five to twenty-five.
"That really fits the game's setting."
"Although I really want to argue with you, it really is incredibly amazing..."
Erina Nakiri nodded in agreement. She was gradually becoming able to accept this absurd world, but she still couldn't help but gasp in disbelief.
Li Ke licked his lips because he saw something called "Wooden Frame" in his inventory. His intuition told him that this thing should be the same as the basic blocks in other games.
Making a wooden frame requires ten pieces of wood and takes two seconds. Li Ke happened to have several dozen pieces of wood, so he decided to make one to see what it was.
Two seconds passed quickly, and two small items that he had high hopes for appeared in Li Ke's inventory. He immediately took a wooden frame out of his inventory.
The small bag reappeared, and Li Ke opened it, revealing a one-meter-by-one-meter wooden block that looked like plywood.
He frowned, tried to push it, and sure enough, it felt and weighed like plywood.
So he placed another wooden frame in his inventory below him, which is the action bar, and the next moment, a phantom image of the wooden frame appeared in his field of vision.
"It should be the right-click, no doubt."
Li Ke aimed it at the asphalt road and tried to use the wooden frame. The next moment, the wooden frame appeared out of thin air on the asphalt road. Not only that, when Li Ke tried to push it, he could not move it no matter what he did. It was as if the thing was embedded in it, and there was no way to pick it up.
"This is starting to feel more and more like a game."
Li Ke couldn't help but click his tongue in amazement. This thing looked like a divine artifact! If it could be placed directly in the air like in Minecraft, what would he and Erina have to fear from zombies!
Just find a river, then plant crops and fetch water from the sky! And live your lovely little life from then on!!
So he created another frame block, built it on top of the original frame block, and then pressed the E key in his mind to reclaim the frame block.
Then, the third frame block he had placed such high hopes on fell to the ground. Before he could do anything, the frame shattered into a jumble of mosaic-like debris.
Li Ke had a bad feeling.
So he placed a wooden frame, took out his iron axe, and swung it directly at the plywood on the side.
The axe got stuck on the plywood, but it didn't chop it in the middle; it only chopped it in half.
But when he chopped down on the frame block placed by the system with an axe, the frame block shattered into pieces.
"..."
Li Ke put down his axe, looked at the mess on the ground, and helplessly summarized the situation to the curious Erina.
"It seems that the items certified in the game are quite different from those that appear directly in the real world. When you use items directly through the game system, you get some amazing effects, but there are also some things that are inferior to real-world items."
Li Ke kicked the real-life version of the wooden frame. Although it looked like it was made of plywood, its durability was surprisingly much stronger than the wooden frame that was protected by this action bar.
Li Ke took out the stone axe again and, using the system's vision, chopped the real-world version of the frame block with it. The next moment, the real-world version of the frame block suddenly showed its durability value.
2/100.
Li Ke then placed two more frame blocks and struck them with his stone axe.
36/100.
36/100.
It's perfectly fair; there's no difference whatsoever.
The only difference is that there are no changes to the data-driven framework blocks, while most of the physical framework blocks have disappeared.
"It seems this system is a bit hypocritical. I wonder which criteria they used to determine which zombies were identified."
Li Ke wasn't entirely sure, but he had a hunch that the zombies might behave like him: when they encountered tangible objects, they would follow tangible logic, but when they encountered digitized objects, they would follow digitized logic.
This creates many loopholes that can be exploited.
Li Ke stepped directly onto the data wooden frame. Although its durability had dropped by more than half, there were no problems no matter how much he jumped on it.
But reality was different. He only stepped on it once, and the plywood, which was already mostly broken, snapped in two. Not to mention jumping, Li Ke almost fell off it!
"I think I understand what you mean by experimenting with these things."
Erina Nakiri nodded as she watched Li Ke jump down from the frame.
"Are you planning to build a base?"
Her eyes sparkled.
"That's right, it's a bit unrealistic for the two of us to build a sturdy house. But with the help of these things, we can build a trench and a decent house. And we should also be able to figure out how to fix that RV so we can drive away if anything happens."
Li Ke nodded. If the stone axe was so powerful, then what about the stone shovel? And the iron shovel and iron axe?
And if he remembers correctly...
Li Ke looked at the axe in his hand, and the next moment, the axe appeared directly in his inventory with a green "4" mark on it.
Li Ke took it out and then chopped it down on another tree with an axe, causing the tree's durability to drop by 166 points!
Most importantly, he saw in the descriptions of these frame blocks that they could be reshaped, while the stone axe could directly repair and upgrade items!
It's practically an all-purpose tool!
Moreover, with this system, the two of them won't need to figure out how to open the doors when looting houses anymore. They can just smash the wooden walls with an axe and get in!
"It sounds amazing..."
Erina Nakiri thought of the scene Li Ke described: she and Li Ke built a sturdy house together, so that no matter how dangerous it was outside, they could live peacefully in their big house.
This kind of life is much better than the life I live in constant fear right now!
"Then let's hurry back and get to work after we get to the merchant, Li Ke!"
Erina Nakiri smiled, grabbed Li Ke's hand, and ran quickly towards the shop that wasn't far away.
Li Ke smiled too.
Based on the strength and operating rules of these zombies they've seen so far, as long as the two of them stop messing around at night, there's no chance of any accidents or danger!
Unless there are even more dangerous zombies in this world!
Moreover, he saw that there was something called a water pipe machine gun in his crafting section, and the ingredients were very simple. It only required six pieces of wood, two bottles of glue, and four iron pipes to make it!
If he and Erina can make this, and then dig a cave in a mountain, what zombies could possibly kill him?
How could there possibly be any zombies capable of killing him?!
impossible!
No one!
It doesn't exist!
Could these zombies also launch ranged attacks and generate explosions even more powerful than TNT?
A joyful smile appeared on Li Ke's face.
Of course, Li Ke still needed to take precautions. Anything was possible in the game world, but that didn't stop him from imagining the future with such a wonderful feeling.
Overjoyed, Li Ke entered the shop. He glanced at the still disheveled young woman, subconsciously swallowed, but quickly opened her inventory and sold her all nineteen gold bars he had found.
In an instant, his Duke Casino tokens reached an astonishing 2400!
Then, Li Ke immediately bought all the honey!
Looking at the seven bottles of honey in his inventory, Li Ke finally felt completely at ease.
Only then did he have time to look at other items.
Then, the exorbitant prices immediately deterred him.
Li Ke was forced to confront the fact that he was poor.