No—fine, you people from the Sky Realm live through war all the time, so snoring in your sleep is understandable. I can accept that. Living in constant conflict messes up your sleep, I get it. And you even drank beer last night.
But why is it that—
Leo looked over at Tsunade, who was lying sprawled out on a single blanket, legs wide apart, arms thrown open, completely unbothered as she boldly exposed the generous curves of her chest.
You're a ninja.
A ninja who's supposed to specialize in covert operations.
Why are you snoring too?!
Staring at Tsunade sleeping so carelessly, Leo finally snapped and covered his ears.
Under the moonlight, both women—fresh from bathing—looked great. Especially lying there so naturally, their figures forming eye-catching curves that were hard to look away from. But the two of them were competing in volume with their snoring, and Leo couldn't fall asleep no matter what.
What made it even worse was that just as he was drifting off—
"Hey, it's morning. Time to work."
Smack.
Kelly slapped him right on the ass and woke him up.
"Huh?"
Leo stared at Kelly in confusion, then blankly looked up at the sky and silently made a decision.
Today, we must sleep in separate rooms.
"Ah—right. You two go sell the turret ammo first. I'll make breakfast. After we eat, we'll start digging the fortress."
Barely awake, Leo forced himself to sit up, swaying as he worked hard to stay conscious.
The two women didn't bother with him. They went to wash up, sold off the excess robotic turret ammo at the trader, then came back to watch Leo cook.
Breakfast was meat porridge again—peas with small chunks of meat. No surprises, just a bit of salt Leo had found. Still, no one complained about the taste.
"Alright. Next, everyone gets to work."
Leo slapped his cheeks lightly. He now had eight skill points—four from quests and the rest from leveling up. He planned to dump them all at once and release all the pent-up issues in one go.
That was exactly why he'd sent the two of them off to wash up and visit the trader first.
"Okay, okay. You go do your thing. We'll keep digging according to the plan."
Kelly waved him off. They'd already discussed it: dig a massive pit around the trader's shop to funnel zombies in, then build a semi-suspended structure.
At the same time, they'd leave plenty of earth and stone as defensive mass.
The plan included ladders—one underground escape tunnel from the suspended structure, and another ladder down a cliff leading to a secondary underground bunker.
They weren't planning to make the house fully suspended. They'd leave a solid pillar of earth reinforced with system blocks, with a hidden passage leading to another underground chamber. With system blocks, this wasn't difficult.
If the suspended house held, they'd stay there. If not, they'd retreat via the cliff to the underground bunker.
Ladders were easy—wood was enough. Completely hollowing out the area around the trader's shop wasn't hard either. For Tsunade, who could swing a pick and shovel all day without getting tired, it was basically a one-day job.
As for multiple underground chambers, that was manageable too—just make them deep enough, line them with ladders, and prepare proper anti-zombie defenses. With system blocks, that was trivial.
If Tsunade dug while Leo and Kelly handled zombies behind her, even a small opening could block an endless zombie tide.
After a brief discussion, the plan was settled.
Leo said nothing. He deliberately ate more slowly, and only after confirming both women had gone back to mining did he sprint toward the trader's shop.
He didn't notice the meaningful looks the two women exchanged as they watched his back. He was too focused on allocating skill points. They, on the other hand, had no interest in watching and simply laughed it off before returning to work.
Leo slammed the door shut, secured everything, then opened his skill panel and started allocating points.
As point after point went into stamina, his body felt increasingly powerful and vigorous. Fatigue and drowsiness vanished instantly—he felt reborn.
But then he noticed something.
When he raised stamina to level six, upgrading to level seven suddenly required two skill points.
He frowned, hesitated, checked his remaining points, clenched his teeth—and spent them.
The next moment, a pleasure far greater than everything before surged through him. He couldn't help but grab the female trader and gasp for breath.
His body had never felt this good.
The problem was exactly that—it felt too good.
He was so energetic he felt like not running tens of thousands of meters would be a crime against his own physique.
No—more accurately, he didn't feel human anymore.
His limbs moved with almost no sense of exertion. Even after going at it five or six times—until the trader's lower abdomen slightly bulged—he felt no discomfort at all. Not even the feeling of having exercised.
"This is a qualitative change…"
Leo took a deep breath. Seeing how energetic he still was, he didn't dare dump the remaining points.
He'd already been in here for almost an hour. Before, he could claim he was tending the furnaces—but now there was no excuse.
"Damn it…"
In the end, he bought a roll of duct tape from the trader and taped his problem tightly to his right thigh, preventing injuries while running.
Then he bolted out and began his quest run.
This time, he realized just how fast he was.
Previously, his sprint speed was about 15 seconds per 100 meters—pathetic. Now, he wasn't much slower than the sprinting zombies. He could even tell that if his leg weren't hindered by something tightly bound to it, he'd be even faster.
"What's wrong with him—did his ass catch fire?"
Kelly watched Leo dash past, baffled. Then she noticed the suspicious object tied to his leg, and her eyes sharpened.
"…That guy."
Kelly hadn't attended many wild soldier parties or strange dates, but she'd seen enough in bars. She'd seen bigger than that—but staying that active under those circumstances was a first.
She snorted.
"Hey, Ms. Tsunade. We really should make a bed and separate rooms. Otherwise, one day this guy might actually night-raid us. I don't want to wake up to something weird."
"Alright."
Tsunade replied calmly, as indifferent as ever.
Leo's first three quests went smoothly. Against him in this hyper-energized state, the slow zombies were nothing. If he weren't worried about accidentally injuring his "brother," he'd have happily hacked them apart with an axe just to burn off excess energy.
But—
The real problem was the last quest.
"..."
Looking at the pit—now forty meters deep and fifty meters wide thanks to Tsunade and Kelly—Leo stared at the question mark floating at its center, his own head practically sprouting one too.
How was he supposed to activate the quest like this?
After thinking it over, he sighed, climbed down via the reserved ladder, stacked three wooden frames, climbed up to the floating question mark, and pressed E.
The next instant, a two-story wooden house spawned in front of him.
Then it immediately fell.
Leo watched as the house dropped, and once it passed a certain height, a Mission Failed message appeared. The house smashed apart at the bottom, furniture and debris scattering everywhere.
And right after that—
Another question mark appeared.
He tried pressing E again.
The question mark vanished.
An identical wooden house spawned.
It fell straight down.
The question mark reappeared.
"..."
Bug?