"Put that way… yeah, it really is kind of scary."
Leo didn't notice what Erina was thinking, but he did agree with her point that the female merchant looked terrifying.
This was the uncanny valley effect.
When you look at a face that has no expression, no emotional change—especially under gloomy lighting—you instinctively feel fear.
But still—
"Her chest is really big though, and it's warm to the touch, so I honestly don't feel that scared."
Leo stated his feelings very straightforwardly.
"See! How are you not a perverted old man?! You're not afraid just because of something like that!"
Erina complained reflexively. After realizing she could now kill zombies herself, her mental state had clearly recovered a lot, and she couldn't help but retort to Leo.
"But being scared doesn't help anyway. We need that merchant, so the only choice is to find a way not to be afraid of her."
Leo shrugged.
That was honestly how he felt. If he were the only one who had discovered this, he might have done even more unhinged things—like testing whether the merchant's pants could be taken off.
After all, despite the uncanny valley feeling, you couldn't deny one thing: aside from being unable to take damage and lacking self-awareness, that merchant was no different from a real human.
She had saliva, a soft tongue, skin that felt real.
Something that looked human, felt human, smelled human—if Leo were alone for long enough, he was sure something messed up would eventually happen.
But…
Glancing at Erina's chest swaying as she walked, and her snow-white long legs, Leo couldn't help sighing.
He had a feeling that with a teammate like this, he'd go off the rails even faster than if he were alone.
There was no helping it.
If he were alone, he'd probably suppress loneliness by constantly working—building defenses, setting traps, keeping busy.
Now he still had to do those things, but everything became faster and easier.
Take looting houses, for example. Without Erina, he'd be sneaking around like in a stealth game, terrified that a zombie would pop out from nowhere and force him to GG.
With Erina around, he could loot boldly and much more efficiently.
The only problem was that his partner was too beautiful, with too good a figure—making it hard not to think in certain directions.
"You're always coming up with weird excuses."
Erina turned her head away, face flushed. She was still a little angry, but she continued carefully scanning the surroundings, looking for anything useful.
Unfortunately, there was nothing.
Leo, however, discovered something interesting on the way to the shop.
"Oh? I'm already level three? I'm leveling pretty fast."
Looking at his character screen, Leo smiled. He tried opening the other tabs again—quests, skills, map—all still inaccessible. But recipes could now be opened.
"Oh?"
The moment he opened recipes, his inventory appeared again—but this time his character model and status panel were gone.
Instead, the left side was filled with a long list of items.
"Wood frame, storage box… huh? This looks just like crafting lists in other apocalypse survival games. Kinda weird though. Does that mean I can make guns?"
Flipping through the list, Leo found it fascinating. There were lots of items, including a stone axe.
The icon showed a stone axe made of a wooden handle tied with rope and stone—but the recipe itself was branches, grass, and small stones.
"If I craft this, does the system help me braid the rope, or does it just auto-assemble everything?"
Curious, Leo bent down and picked up stones.
That's when he noticed something strange.
The stones on the ground were all about the size of bread rolls or eggs—there were almost none the size of fingernails or beans.
"Interesting…"
After collecting enough stones, he moved on to gathering plant fiber.
Though the recipe said "plant fiber," the icon clearly showed weeds. He pulled up a clump of grass—and sure enough, it counted, giving him twenty plant fibers.
"That's way too sloppy."
Leo complained, but something even more absurd happened.
When he tried chopping wood, he ran into a dead bush. He attempted to put it into his inventory—
And a wood plank icon popped up.
+3
Leo's eye twitched. He broke more bushes and stored them.
Whether it was a bush taller than a man or one only reaching his calves, once destroyed, the system classified them all as wood.
"So… what exactly are you doing?"
Erina looked at Leo curiously, completely confused by his actions.
"I hit level two and unlocked crafting, so I wanted to test it. You should be close too—you killed way more zombies than I did earlier."
After explaining, Leo crafted a stone axe.
No flashy effects, no EXP burst. The stone axe icon simply appeared in his inventory.
That fast?
He took it out and tapped a roadside tree—cracks immediately appeared, and the axe chipped.
"What kind of trash is this…"
Annoyed, he put it back into his inventory, hesitated, then placed the half-broken axe into the hotbar.
Nothing happened.
He selected use.
The stone axe appeared in his hand again.
This time, when he hit the tree, the tree took no visible damage—but a number appeared:
536 / 600
Wood +5
"I see."
Leo grinned arrogantly and kept chopping. On the tenth hit, the tree's durability hit zero.
He expected it to fall and had already prepared to dodge—but instead, the tree instantly disintegrated into particles.
Wood +25.
"Very game-accurate."
"I want to argue, but… yeah, that's really amazing."
Erina nodded, still stunned.
Leo then noticed something called Wood Frame in his inventory. His instincts told him it was a basic building block.
It took ten wood and two seconds to craft. He had plenty, so he made one.
Opening the bag revealed a 1×1 plywood-like block.
He tried pushing it—same weight and feel as plywood.
He put another wood frame into his hotbar. A translucent outline appeared in his vision.
"Right-click, probably."
He placed it on the asphalt road. It materialized instantly—and couldn't be moved at all.
"This is really turning into a game…"
If he could place blocks in midair like Minecraft, zombies would be meaningless.
He stacked another frame, then pressed E to retrieve the bottom one.
The top frame fell—and instantly shattered into pixelated debris.
Uh oh.
He tested further, hitting both system-placed and real plywood with a metal axe.
System frame: instantly destroyed.
Real plywood: axe stuck halfway in.
"So system objects and real objects are totally different."
He tested durability values—same numbers, wildly different behavior.
"This system is biased… I wonder which rules zombies follow."
Leo suspected zombies would follow real-world logic against real objects, and system logic against system objects.
That meant loopholes. Lots of them.
He jumped on a system frame with no problem.
The real one collapsed instantly.
"I get what you're testing now."
Erina's eyes lit up.
"You want to build a base?"
"Yeah. Just the two of us can't build a solid house—but with this system, trenches and defenses are doable. Maybe even fix the RV as an escape option."
Leo smiled.
"And I saw something called a pipe machine gun in crafting. Six wood, two glue, four pipes."
Once they had that, zombies wouldn't stand a chance.
At least… that's what he thought.
With hopeful smiles, they returned to the shop. Leo sold nineteen gold bars.
2400 casino tokens.
He bought every jar of honey available.
Seven jars.
Only then did he finally relax.
And then he looked at the rest of the shop's prices.
…And was immediately reminded that he was still poor.