The place where Kiri took him out to drink was, of course, no obscure hole-in-the-wall. Kiri had been doing quite well for herself lately. Unlike Li Ke, whose powers had completely vanished along with the shattering of his world, Kiri had left her world before its destruction. Consequently, her strength remained fully intact—something Li Ke understood completely.
After all, when everything was going to hell, it was only natural for the World Power within candidates like them to be reclaimed for self-preservation.
Because of this, Li Ke didn't harbor much resentment. It hadn't been his own power to begin with, so there was no sense in crying over spilled milk.
The establishment Kiri brought him to was immensely famous among players and highly renowned within Hendon Myre. Although the decor was lavish and the alcohol exquisite, the prices were surprisingly reasonable. But the most important draw of this place was...
People fought here. Constantly.
The very instant Li Ke followed Kiri through the doors of the Moonlight Tavern, a stray chair came flying straight toward them. Li Ke swiped his hand, knocking it aside. He was just about to scan the room to see which blind bastard dared interrupt his crucial prelude to getting laid, when he spotted someone riding on another man's back, furiously bludgeoning him with a folding stool. The victim's hands were clamped tightly over his own head, terrified of being beaten to death on the spot.
Meanwhile, Aganzo—whom Li Ke had crossed paths with once before—was currently slumped over a table in a small booth looking practically dead. A punk who looked like a local street thug was actively picking his pocket for a wallet.
The other patrons simply laughed, enjoying the show. However, the moment a stray wine bottle shattered against the head of a white-haired youth with a Ghost Arm, the entire scene devolved into utter chaos.
And Li Ke saw it with absolute clarity: that white-haired brat was holding a bottle of milk, of all things!
Watching the two swordsmen brawl like savages, Li Ke desperately wanted to know where the bouncers were. Where was the law? Where was the order?
Yet, the moment his eyes landed on the tavern's landlady, any complaints he had vanished instantly.
The landlady was dressed in a low-cut evening gown that exposed a breathtaking expanse of pale skin and deep, alluring cleavage. She was adorned with a wealth of magnificent jewelry.
Rather than distracting from her beauty, the gems only served to accentuate her elegance. She exuded the rich, fully ripened charm of a mature woman, radiating an irresistible, seductive mystique.
What truly captivated him was the faint smirk on her lips as she leaned against the bar, swirling her glass and watching the brawl. It carried the effortless, detached confidence that only a mature woman could possess.
She was entirely different from Kiri. Kiri possessed the hearty, boisterous charm of a tomboyish older sister. Furthermore, Kiri could be incredibly sly. Li Ke had seen right through her—her reinforcement machine was absolutely rigged with hidden mechanisms...
Then again, in business, some secrets were better left unspoken. Equipment reinforcement was basically gambling anyway, and Kiri wasn't a bad person. She likely had her own reasons.
At any rate, Li Ke refused to believe Kiri would ruthlessly fleece someone to the point of bankruptcy just for coin. She simply wasn't that cold-hearted.
How could a woman who lived by a chivalrous code do something so vile for money?
It was just like Li Ke himself. His actions were always noble and aboveboard. There was absolutely no way he would intentionally alter his demeanor to look brooding and melancholic just because the landlady seemed to have a soft spot for mature, tragic men. Right?
Li Ke silently tugged his hood lower, allowing his expression to fade into a silent, detached, and subtly sorrowful mask.
He was just a naturally tragic soul, after all. Everyone else had a home to return to, while he had none.
However, just as he sat down on a stool, the landlady approached with a glass to take their order. Having watched Li Ke transform from a man sporting a arrogant smirk—looking ready to ravish someone until they couldn't get out of bed—into this sudden picture of brooding melancholy, Kiri couldn't help but snap him out of it.
"What are you suddenly acting all deep and brooding for?"
Li Ke felt a bit awkward. It wasn't that he was entirely faking the melancholic act; he truly had been reminded of his own reality—that he had a home he couldn't return to.
Granted, he would definitely be able to go back in the future. After all, his parents had raised him to adulthood, and abandoning them forever would be going too far. The pressing issue, however, was that there was simply no way back right now.
Usually, he didn't let it get to him. But seeing Kiri trapped in the same situation, unable to return home, he couldn't help but empathize with her to some degree.
Yet, Kiri at least had a realistic chance. If everything went according to plan, the next time he returned, he would be able to send her home. But as for himself...
Who could possibly help him get back?
Li Ke let out a quiet sigh. His sudden surge of desire for Susia had completely dissipated. After all, he was here to keep Kiri company tonight. This would be Kiri's first time with him, and Li Ke took every girl's first time very seriously.
"Yeah... I just suddenly thought of my hometown. At least you still have a place you can eventually return to. I don't even have that."
Li Ke casually ordered a drink and pushed it over to Kiri.
Looking at the faint hint of helplessness in Kiri's eyes, the last of his lustful thoughts completely faded away.
"Let's just have a few drinks tonight and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, the sadness won't feel so heavy."
When all was said and done, his bond with Kiri was arguably the deepest. His relationship with Erina felt more like a child admiring an adult—a yearning for an omnipotent, powerful figure. Both he and Erina harbored their own mutual insecurities, which was precisely why Erina had accepted him having other women so easily.
He and Erina valued entirely different things. But when it came to truly understanding one another, Kiri knew the real him far better than Erina ever could.
"Ha! What's with that tone? I'm going to belong to you sooner or later anyway. Let's just cut loose together tonight, and tomorrow we'll go right back to living our lives! There's no need to dwell on it so much!"
"If I didn't dwell on it, could I even call myself human? But you're right. This kind of grief is only worth a moment's sorrow. If there's wine today, let's get drunk today! Tomorrow's problems are for tomorrow's versions of us to worry about!"
Because Arad's language didn't translate poetic verses very well, Li Ke just spoke plainly.
Hearing this, Kiri flashed a bright smile, raised her glass, and clinked it against his.
"Then cheers to that!"
"Cheers!"
Li Ke raised his glass high, clinked it with Kiri's, and drained it in a single gulp.
The alcohol tasted excellent; it was premium stuff. But truth be told, Li Ke could never be considered a connoisseur. He didn't drink to savor the flavor. Most of the time, he drank either for social obligation or to use alcohol to numb his senses and thoughts, allowing him to just drift by and temporarily forget his overwhelming anxieties.
In reality, this was exactly why most people at the bottom of society drank.
The harder the working masses labored, the more they craved strong, heavy liquor. Intoxicating spirits allowed them to completely forget their physical pain and exhaustion, numbing their minds so they wouldn't feel the agony so acutely. Under the guise of drunkenness, they could boast about feats they had never achieved, giving themselves a fleeting moment of pride.
After all, when sober, very few people had the face to brag about things they hadn't actually done.
This held true across every single universe.
Li Ke knew that Kiri was acting a bit self-destructive because everything she once knew had been buried away.
And Kiri understood the terrifying anxiety deep within Li Ke's heart—the sheer panic of being abruptly transmigrated and the lingering trauma from the brutal sequence of events that followed. This was a side of Li Ke that many of the women currently around him knew absolutely nothing about.
Whether it was Robin, Nami, or Erina, all they ever saw was a powerful, godlike Li Ke who could solve any crisis and adored them. Only the women who had witnessed Li Ke's desperate, pathetic struggles back in the 7 Days to Die world truly understood just how fragile he could be.
"Mind if I join you?"
Hearing Li Ke and Kiri's exchange and watching them drink so passionately, Susia couldn't help but feel deeply moved.
Here were two people who had completely lost their homelands and their pasts. Even though their hearts were heavy with longing and grief, they still joyfully embraced the future, determined to forge a brand-new life for themselves.
Yet, look at her. For all these years, she had remained utterly drowned in the destruction of her own past, to the point where even her former convictions had withered away.
Perhaps this is exactly why I love humans.
Indeed, the tavern landlady was not human at all. To be precise, she was a being known as an Elf.
However, in the current world, the beings once known as Elves had almost entirely vanished. The only ones left on the continent were the Dark Elves—a faction that had been banished from the Elven race.
As for Susia herself, she was the very last of the true Elves.
Once, the Elves lived deep within the Grand Flores, maintaining harmonious relations with the beast tribes like the Goblins and Minotaurs, while also enjoying a good rapport with humans.
But ever since the great fire over a decade ago, the Elves had vanished entirely. Furthermore, the beast tribes and Minotaurs had grown to hate humans with an extreme, violent passion, slaughtering them without a second thought—because that was simply how they treated humans now.
To Susia, everything had become profoundly alien. Consequently, she had abandoned her previous endeavors and opened this tavern, quietly waiting for her fate to reach its eventual end.
Thus, listening to Li Ke and Kiri's conversation truly resonated with her.
"Not at all," Li Ke replied casually.
Li Ke raised his hand in a casual gesture, and all three of them fell into a comfortable silence.
Kiri didn't talk about her days in the Lawless District, nor did she bring up the hardships she had endured. Li Ke kept his own past to himself as well.
As for Susia, she remained entirely tight-lipped, looking less like someone drinking and more like a quiet observer enjoying the atmosphere.