Watching yet another house crash to the ground and shatter—zombies inside included—Leo honestly felt his sanity slipping.
"Does this count as some kind of infinite resource exploit?"
Excited, Leo immediately climbed down, eager to rummage through the wreckage to see what could still be salvaged.
Unfortunately, reality disappointed him.
Although the wooden house itself posed no obstacle to him, there was still nothing particularly special inside. He only managed to loot some food, leather, mechanical parts, and electronic components. Nothing more.
"Still… this is a line of thought."
Leo rubbed his chin, suddenly struck by an idea.
If he could find a quest house with especially good rewards, thoroughly loot it, then completely demolish it—couldn't he repeatedly refresh that same house and farm it over and over?
They'd just need to go down and pick up the drops.
Deciding to test it, Leo built blocks again, climbed back up to the question mark, and began repeatedly spawning houses, carefully measuring how far a house had to fall before the system judged the quest a failure.
"So ten meters is the cutoff for failure?"
Watching a house land on the ruins without breaking apart, Leo nodded. He pressed E again, spawning another house and letting it drop directly onto the head of a zombie poking up from below.
He repeated this seven or eight times. Then, on the final attempt, something changed.
The last house spawned, and the instant its foundation touched the debris from previous houses, something unbelievable happened.
A lone pillar of earth and stone appeared beneath the house.
At the same time, all the previous ruins—and all the zombies—vanished.
Not just the zombies trapped in the rubble. Even the ones that had survived nearby disappeared as well, all replaced by blocks of dirt and stone.
"So that's how the mechanic works."
Leo nodded, feeling he finally understood.
In other words, if the spawned house touched the ground, it refreshed everything beneath it. But if it didn't touch the ground, only the house itself refreshed.
"That's pretty weird. Going by normal game logic, the ground should've refreshed from the start. This has to be a bug caused by the world being 'real'."
He was convinced it was a bug—but that didn't stop him from wanting to use it.
"Still, I haven't gotten any repeat quests yet. I'll worry about that later."
With a nod, Leo smiled at the zombies roaring inside the house, kicked in the already-battered wooden door, and raised his submachine gun.
"FBI!"
Gunfire erupted. The zombies quickly dropped. After another unprofitable round of looting, Leo built his way back up from the island, returned to turn in the quest, and then resumed mining with Tsunade and Kelly while preparing various supplies.
Another day passed in the blink of an eye.
Kelly and Tsunade had completely dug through three sides of the trader's walls, though unlike this side, they hadn't reached the invincible wall. Instead, they deliberately left a large stretch of land for other uses.
They even kept the pond.
And they discovered something incredible—the pond never dried up, no matter how much water they drew from it.
The discovery stunned both of them.
To be honest, Leo was shocked too—but he was already used to this world's nonsense.
"So damn tired…"
Kelly stretched lazily in a water tub. After a full day of mining, a hot bath felt amazing. But she couldn't help glancing at Tsunade's smooth skin and asked curiously,
"So… how do you do it?"
Tsunade, who was washing her pink strawberry-colored nipples, froze for a moment. Thinking Kelly was talking about her chest, she answered naturally,
"Born this way."
Kelly paused, then reached out and grabbed Tsunade's shoulder. The silky smoothness made her openly jealous.
"Hey, I meant your skin! And mine isn't small either, you know."
As she spoke, Kelly tugged at her own chest, making the heavy mass sway in the water, sending ripples that were undeniably eye-catching.
"Well… it's chakra and bloodline-related. My bloodline is special, and the chakra techniques I practice have effects like this. But you wouldn't be able to learn them."
Tsunade answered seriously.
"I've observed your body. I also examined Leo's when I treated him. Your bodies are fundamentally different from people in my world. Even our civilians have twice as many active cells as he does. As for you, I couldn't sense any chakra at all. Without chakra, our world's techniques are impossible to learn."
She wasn't speculating. Even though she wasn't a sensory specialist, she could tell. Kelly had no chakra whatsoever.
As for Leo…
Extracting chakra from his body could be summed up in one word.
Death.
The moment chakra was drawn, his cells would start dying in large numbers, and the flow resistance was horrifyingly high. If chakra resistance in her world was 1, then Leo's was easily 10. That day, if she hadn't treated him personally, an ordinary medical ninja wouldn't have been able to save him.
If Leo ever tried to cultivate chakra, he wouldn't get stronger—he probably wouldn't even be able to walk.
"I see… that's a shame. I heard mages in Arad had ways to keep their skin perfect without cosmetics. But now that I'm here…"
Kelly looked dejected as she stared at Tsunade's ripe, mature figure, then suddenly asked,
"By the way… have you done it? You know… that."
She made an OK gesture and pushed a finger inward slightly. Tsunade's face darkened instantly.
"You didn't actually believe that guy's nonsense, did you?"
She glanced toward the shop. Leo was inside again, claiming to be processing materials, preparing bullets, researching items…
But both women knew better. With how strong his libido was, he was probably doing something else with those callused hands.
Honestly, it was hard to watch.
Still, they could understand him to a degree. Their clothes were pretty revealing, and neither planned to change anytime soon. Any normal man would react. The fact that Leo wasn't harassing them and instead handled it himself already put him above average.
That didn't stop the urge to complain.
"That's not it. It's just… if we really can't leave this place, I'll probably end up sleeping with him. And if what he says is true, wouldn't that mean I can go back to my world?"
Kelly casually pulled out a bottle of beer from her inventory.
What she really wanted to know was whether Tsunade would mind. If Tsunade objected—or already had someone—then Kelly would take the initiative herself.
This was something she needed clarity on.
"Of course I'd use protection. I'm not raising a kid in a ruined hellscape like this. I don't want my child growing up desperate and miserable, like that guy, with no outlet at all. I just want to know if it's really that good. If it is—and if it really lets me go home—I won't bother pretending to be reserved."
She was completely serious.
"…I had a lover once," Tsunade said quietly. "But before anything happened… he died."
Her thoughts drifted to Dan. She sighed.
Every time she thought of him, her heart clenched painfully. During that period, he'd been her only emotional anchor.
And yet, even so, she'd still ended up alone.
"I see…"
Kelly sounded disappointed.