Days in the Infinite

Just as Tsunade had said, the task was nearly impossible for Li Ke—but for her, it was nothing more than a casual stroll behind the house.

The most absurd part? She made it look effortless.

With a single jump, she could cover seven or eight meters in distance and leap five or six meters into the air. If she put in just a little effort, she could even spring from the depths of the ravine straight to the rooftop. Li Ke was utterly dumbfounded.

He had always known that Tsunade was a ninja, and he had seen her abilities in anime. But witnessing it in real life was an entirely different experience. The sheer absurdity of it left him in awe.

If she hadn't outright stated that she could still be cut by blades and had poor resistance to piercing attacks, Li Ke would have thought she could play a female version of Superman in Man of Steel.

Seeing something in animation and witnessing it in reality were two completely different experiences.

One thing was certain: if it weren't for her hemophobia, Tsunade had no reason to fear zombies. Even if she stood alone in the middle of a vast plain, she would remain completely safe.

By the afternoon, after four or five failed attempts, they finally managed to construct a relatively secure structure.

"Hmm... the rules of this world are really strange," Tsunade commented, shrugging. "But this is the best we can do for now."

Before them stood a small, five-by-five-meter steel box. After extensive testing and careful adjustments, they had confirmed that no action inside would cause it to collapse.

The structure had no doors. Their plan was to seal the entrance with two steel blocks and reinforce it with system-generated materials.

The walls featured small windows—modified from steel frames—designed for ventilation and shooting. These openings would allow Li Ke and Lady Kiri to continuously clear out zombies from a safe distance.

These windows, too, would be sealed with real steel plates when necessary—an extra precaution to ensure absolute safety.

"Honestly, I still think you're overreacting about the zombies," Lady Kiri said, examining the suspended shelter. "But I have to admit, it looks pretty impressive."

Even so, she couldn't shake a sense of unease. Pointing to the gaps between the supporting pillars and the indestructible wall, she added, "We've tested it a bunch of times, but I still feel like it could come crashing down any second."

"As long as we don't randomly add more structures or let the steel plates get breached, we should be fine," Li Ke reassured her. "Besides, we have a backup plan."

He gestured to the untouched patch of earth beneath their feet. Tsunade was busy embedding reinforced steel plates into the soil using her bare fists. Beneath that soil lay an underground passage and a hidden chamber they had dug earlier. If the worst happened and they lost control of the upper structure, they could retreat through the tunnel to a safer refuge below.

The reason they hadn't made the underground shelter their primary defense was simple:

There weren't enough steel frames.

If they used up all their resources reinforcing the underground bunker, Li Ke feared the relentless horde of zombies might eventually dig through the foundation. If that happened, the entire shelter would collapse in an instant.

It was safer to have multiple contingency plans.

During this time, Lady Kiri attempted to repair the cement mixer—only to throw up her hands in frustration.

She had been too confident earlier.

The machine was completely missing its motor. No matter how skilled she was, there was no fixing that.

"Next, we need to set up traps," Li Ke said, surveying the vast, uneven terrain. He took a deep breath and pulled out a large stockpile of gunpowder.

First, he secured wooden planks to the ground, then materialized a batch of empty cans. Filling the cans with nails, he packed gunpowder into both the cans and the wooden planks before arranging them into a formation.

His preparations only became more insane from there.

He covered a large stretch of land with nearly half a meter of gunpowder, then layered wooden floorboards over it. Even if the explosion didn't go off as planned, the wood would still catch fire and burn everything above it.

While setting up these deathtraps, he also crafted spiked wooden barricades—rows of sharpened stakes designed to act as a defensive line across the canyon.

"This guy definitely has some sort of paranoia disorder..." Lady Kiri muttered, eye twitching as she watched Li Ke work. "If someone unaware of all this walked in, they'd be done for."

"Let him be," Tsunade said, unfazed. She had already lined the underground escape route with steel reinforcements. "We're almost done mining here anyway, so we won't be around much longer."

She still didn't believe the zombies were that big of a threat.

Time passed as Li Ke continued laying traps. By midday, after lunch, he used the system to materialize wooden planks and crafted three beds and several partitions inside the steel shelter, setting up proper living spaces for the three of them. He also carried over two buckets of water and transferred all their supplies from the small wooden box to the new structure.

At Li Ke's insistence, Tsunade and Lady Kiri helped install additional defensive measures and scatter flammable materials across strategic points—so that Lady Kiri could ignite them from above with gunfire when needed.

The most drastic measure, however, came while the two women were busy cooking.

Li Ke—completely out of his mind—dug away the only accessible path leading outside, cutting off any potential entry for zombies.

After all, with the system blocks, they could always create a temporary bridge when they needed to leave.

Tsunade and Lady Kiri merely glanced at him, rolled their eyes, and said nothing. They chalked it up to his paranoia and went to take a bath, then used the money Li Ke had given them to buy a feast of food and beer, planning to throw a small party.

Li Ke didn't care. He kept setting traps well into the evening before finally stepping onto a system block and making his way back to the steel shelter for dinner.

Lying on his soft bed, he gazed out the window at the starlit sky, feeling an overwhelming sense of peace.

Even though a thirty-meter abyss lay beneath them, he had never felt so content.

"One more day tomorrow," he murmured to himself. "Maybe I can find a mission to visit a police station... American police stations should have heavy firepower, and I could also improve the emergency shelter below."

With hopeful thoughts for the future, he drifted into sleep.

Then, just as the clock struck midnight—

A sandstorm began to howl outside.