Infinite Days

"What are you doing?!"

She had nearly lost her reason entirely—the shock of this was too much for her!

If kissing and hugging could still be excused, this was going way too far!

"Uh, sorry, I accidentally misused this Game System..."

Li Ke quickly turned around, and from his inventory, he took out all of Erina Nakiri's clothes, forming a small cloth bundle on the floor. He tore the bundle open and handed it to the blushing Erina Nakiri.

"These are your clothes! I really didn't mean it!"

Even after turning around, Li Ke was still thinking about the scene just now—but not about Erina Nakiri's maidenly shyness or her exceptionally full figure. Instead, he was focused on his skill.

"This ability... if it were in a normal world, it would be incredibly powerful, right?"

Li Ke pondered the uses of this ability in a normal world. It could completely ruin someone's social life in an instant, and it could also steal things without anyone noticing!

Even in a cold-weapon era, if you were fighting someone in armor, you could strip them bare in a single moment!

What a terrifying ability!

"This is practically a divine talent... it's just a shame it's not very useful in this world. If I were in a cold-weapon era, I could become a great hero remembered in history with this ability..."

Li Ke looked at his own hands and couldn't help but say these words.

This was what he truly believed. As for Erina Nakiri's body or anything like that...

Thinking about that now would only bring him unnecessary trouble...

Li Ke stared at his hands, already covered in wounds and calluses after just two days, and let out a helpless sigh.

Using these hands on her would probably be a torture no less cruel than a slow death by slicing.

It wasn't like he could grind down the bedboard, right? The bedding here was filthy, and who knew if a zombie had lain on it.

As for making demands of the girl directly, Li Ke felt it wasn't necessary. They might end up spending their whole lives together, so there was no need to sour their relationship.

Erina Nakiri was furious. She had a vague fondness for Li Ke, but that fondness wasn't enough to justify him stripping her bare!

But just as she was fuming, hearing Li Ke's muttering ignited a burning rage of humiliation in her heart!

"You idiot... what's going on in your head?! At a time like this, you're thinking about that?! Idiot, idiot, idiot!! Big fool!"

After putting on her clothes, her cheeks flushed red, Erina Nakiri kept kicking Li Ke's shins. But just then, the roar of zombies came from outside the house, instantly stopping her. She quickly grabbed the axe Li Ke had set aside and handed one of them to him.

"Li Ke! I think I made a mistake!"

Chapter 6: Simple Battle

"No, this is actually just right."

Li Ke forced a smile, but it froze when he looked at the zombies outside the door.

Because it wasn't just one or two zombies at the door—it was a dense crowd of dozens of them!

"Uh, looks like we'll have to criticize your mistake later."

Despite the dozens of zombies at the door, Li Ke wasn't worried at all. These zombies weren't like the ones at night with their frenzied speed; they were still slowly shuffling forward.

And most importantly, there was only one path for them to come through.

The front door.

"Come on..."

Li Ke took a deep breath. As long as the door held, he would only have to face one zombie at a time. As long as he kept his cool, it wouldn't be a big problem.

The main issue was that these American-style houses were all wooden and not very sturdy, so he was worried the windows and doors might be breached.

Just as he was worrying, the wooden glass windows were suddenly pierced by arms, and zombie arms appeared inside the room.

Then, unlike zombies from other worlds, these zombies could climb!

He had noticed this earlier when the wolf pack attracted the zombies, but he hadn't expected them to do it even during the slow-moving daytime.

Li Ke watched as the zombies came in through both the windows and the door, and couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth.

"Erina, you handle the windows, I'll handle the door. If it gets too much, call me, and we'll retreat!"

With that, Li Ke charged forward, swinging his axe and slamming it into the skull of a zombie that stumbled in.

The fragile, half-rotted skull split open easily. Clearly, this zombie wasn't in good shape—its body showed clear signs of decay, so it went down quickly.

Noticing this, Li Ke didn't hesitate. He pulled out his hammer and smashed it into another zombie's skull, knocking it to the ground and blocking the ones behind it, causing the next zombie to trip and fall.

Li Ke didn't pause. He stepped on the first zombie's skull, pulled out his axe, and split the fallen zombie's head open, putting it down for good.

Taking advantage of the brief lull before the next zombie came through, Li Ke glanced at Erina's direction.

He thought she might hesitate, but what he saw stunned him. Facing a zombie trying to climb through the window, Erina swung her axe in a perfectly standard stance and cleanly chopped into a zombie's neck, severing its head in one blow.

Not only that, but she also reversed her grip on a kitchen knife and stabbed it into another zombie's neck, then slashed sharply. Li Ke saw a gush of blood spray from the zombie's neck, but not a single drop landed on Erina.

Then, with a light flick, the zombie's head lolled to the side, and it stopped moving.

Li Ke was stunned for a moment. The fluid motions, the decisive actions, and the sight of her cutting off a zombie's head and slitting its throat without a single drop of blood on her—it all left him dumbfounded.

But he snapped back quickly, dodging another zombie's lunge, and swung his axe in one smooth motion, breaking its neck and splattering a lot of blood onto himself.

Realizing this, Erina Nakiri couldn't help but cry out.

"W-What are you staring at?! What are you spacing out for! I'm a chef, after all! Of course I know how to use a knife!"

R-Right.

Li Ke felt the fatigue in his arms, then looked at Erina Nakiri, who had gradually found her rhythm and was swinging her axe three times in a row, lopping off three zombie heads without even breathing hard. An idea couldn't help but surface in his mind.

This girl...

Her combat ability might be better than mine?

Whether it was speed, agility, timing of her strikes, or precision of her attacks, she far surpassed him.

Although he could still tell she was genuinely scared and hadn't fully adjusted her mindset, her actual fighting ability was undeniably superior to his.

"Well, this is..."

Li Ke found it absurd at first, but he quickly let it go.

Erina Nakiri was a young lady, a blonde tsundere, and even a picky eater.

But you couldn't deny one thing.

She was a chef.

And a pretty damn good one at that!

Sure, she had a slender waist, long legs, and big breasts, but she was a chef who could toss a wok and stir-fry. And among modern professions, she was probably the most skilled at cutting meat with a cold weapon!

Even so-called swordsmen weren't as proficient as chefs when it came to handling blades and chopping meat!

A chef, a master of cold weapons in the modern world?

Li Ke was stunned by his own thought.

His mind wandered a bit, but when he saw another zombie approaching his attack range, he immediately snapped out of it and brought his axe down on its skull again.

Cracked brains and blood sprayed out once more, and Li Ke couldn't help but gasp for breath a few times.

After all, even if they were rotting, swinging an axe or a hammer was hard work. An office worker like him, injured and out of shape, didn't have much stamina...

"Can't let myself be outdone!"

Li Ke paused to catch his breath, then swung his axe again, cutting down another zombie that had crawled in. He flexed his arm before smashing the head of the one on the ground.

After doing all that, a thought struck him. He focused inwardly, and the game interface appeared before his eyes again.

He wanted to see how much experience he got for killing a zombie.

The moment he opened his game vision, Li Ke swung his axe straight into the head of the next zombie, which crumpled to the ground instantly. A string of numbers flashed at the corner of his eye.

+1250 EXP.

The experience bar in his inventory inched forward, almost enough to let him level up.

"So nine zombies would make Erina Nakiri a player? No, the required experience should be lower, since Erina Nakiri isn't... Huh?"

Li Ke looked over at Erina Nakiri again and froze.

Because in that short time, there were already over a dozen heads piled at her feet. She still wasn't flushed or out of breath, and there was barely any blood on her.

The zombies had some intelligence—they would shove aside the corpses of their dead comrades to get in.

But their intelligence wasn't that high, because they still stuck their heads in one by one, trying to crawl through the window with their stiff limbs, giving Erina Nakiri one beheading opportunity after another.

And because they pushed aside their companions, that window had turned into an efficient zombie guillotine.

So how the hell were you being chased by just a few zombies earlier?

Looking at this brutal scene, Li Ke couldn't understand it. With combat ability like that, forget zombies—he probably couldn't do anything to her even if he wanted to.

"So how does a body like that have so much strength?"

Staring at those slender arms, Li Ke couldn't figure it out, but that didn't stop him from continuing to chop down the zombies in front of him.

Thanks to Erina Nakiri's guillotine-like constant clearing of zombies, Li Ke didn't have too much pressure guarding the door. Unfortunately, the zombies at the door didn't appreciate the virtue of queuing. They frantically slapped the walls with their arms and circled around the house, looking for a way in.

So when Li Ke took down another zombie, a bony arm suddenly thrust in from beside the door, smashing through the already rotted wooden planks and further damaging the already wide-open doorway.

Luckily, it didn't tear a full hole, but it reminded Li Ke that these houses really couldn't serve as shelters. If he wanted to build a real refuge, iron and concrete were far more reliable.

Still...

Watching the zombies charging madly toward him, Li Ke swung his axe again and split open another skull.

"I can't be sure this world doesn't have zombies that can dig through concrete walls, or are tough enough to ignore guns."

Li Ke wasn't sure about that. He was still exploring everything about this world, and he'd just seen guns and bullets for sale at the merchant's. That meant guns and ammo weren't too hard to get here. So the question was—

Would the game really have no difficulty?

Li Ke reserved judgment on that, mechanically swinging his axe.

Then, as another zombie fell, he leveled up.

But there was no recovery of stamina or HP, let alone a clearing of negative status effects. His body was still tired, still sleepy and hungry. Li Ke had no idea what the point of leveling up was, and he didn't have time to think about it now.

As Li Ke and Erina Nakiri kept swinging their axes, when the last zombie wobbled and collapsed to the ground, they both finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Li Ke's arms were already aching, so sore he could barely lift anything. He watched Erina Nakiri, who was finally showing signs of fatigue, standing over the corpses.

"Should we find another place, or rest here for a bit?"

Erina Nakiri shook her head in exasperation. After a few heavy breaths, her face suddenly went pale.

The stench of rot and blood made her stomach churn violently, so she waved a hand and strode straight outside.

During the fight, she hadn't noticed it, but now that she'd come to her senses, she realized what she had done—and just how terrible the surrounding smell really was.

Li Ke didn't like it here either, but he was too tired to move right now, wanting to avoid any new dangers.

Still, since Erina Nakiri wanted to rest somewhere else, then somewhere else it was.

Li Ke followed Erina Nakiri's steps toward the exit. But just as the two of them were about to leave through another door of the house, Erina Nakiri froze.

Li Ke was about to ask what was wrong when he saw the door in front of Erina Nakiri swing open on its own, untouched by anyone.

"Oh? You got this system too?"

Though he had expected it, actually discovering that Erina Nakiri had also obtained the system from slaughtering zombies left Li Ke with a strange feeling in his heart.

Part of him was relieved, but there was also a sense of loss.

"That's right, I got it too. But is this really not an illusion?"

Erina Nakiri wore an expression of utter disbelief. The door in front of her kept opening and closing on its own, like something out of a paranormal scene.

"But it can keep us alive."

Li Ke wanted to ruffle this young lady's hair, but looking at his own hands, caked with blood and grime, he gave up.

"Oh, right. Check your character panel—there should be something like a cured infection. Same as Gate of Opening, just press B in your mind."

Li Ke reminded Erina Nakiri, and she did as he said.

But after examining her own information, she shook her head.