To an outsider, Li Ke looked like a madman—a logger who stopped to eat an apple after every few trees as if his life depended on it. In a way, it did. By exploiting the hunger mechanic of this square world, he was essentially running his body on an infinite loop of destruction and conceptual repair.
He spent three grueling hours refining his Blood Qi in tandem with the logging, using the forest as his whetstone. Every swing of the iron axe was a calculated burst of internal energy, pushing his veins to the limit. The physical damage—the micro-tears in his muscles and the strain on his heart—was mended instantly by the food. It was an unnatural rhythm: destroy, consume, repair. Yet, while the body was refreshed, the mind was not. The sheer monotony of the task was a different kind of torture. In this world, the trees didn't splinter or fall with a crash; they simply vanished section by section, leaving behind floating, spinning cubes that mocked the very idea of hard labor.
As he leaned against a stump, his mind heavy with a fatigue that no "hunger bar" could cure, he let out a self-deprecating chuckle. "I finally get it... the true meaning of 'felling' tired."
Physically, his body felt fine, but the mental exhaustion was unavoidable. The repetitive actions were mind-numbing, and the static, unchanging landscape began to feel oppressively lonely. The wind didn't even whistle through the leaves correctly; it was a digital hum that emphasized his isolation. In the world of 7 Days to Die, there were at least desperate, rowdy people around to keep things lively. Here, if it hadn't been for the accident that brought the two girls to his side, he might have succumbed to the eternal, silent void of this pixelated purgatory.
"Stop overthinking it," he told himself, wiping a bead of sweat that felt strangely "low-res" against his skin.
Li Ke halted his training, shouldered his makeshift stone axe, and headed back toward the cave dwelling. By now, Elsa and Toph were awake. Elsa had already stepped outside, her pale hair glowing like spun silver against the harsh, square sun. She was scanning the landscape for him, and since Li Ke had decimated the surrounding forest, she spotted him almost instantly. She waved and ran over, her expression clouding with worry when she saw the glazed, hollow look in his eyes.
"Mr. Li Ke? Where did you go? You look exhausted."
Elsa watched him with genuine concern. She had spent the morning reflecting on the night before—how she had been completely vulnerable, at his mercy, yet he hadn't made a single unwanted move after their "treatment." In her world, men looked at her with fear or cold ambition; Li Ke looked at her like a partner in a shared disaster. This restraint had caused her opinion of him to climb even higher, blossoming into a fragile, newfound trust.
"Just cutting some wood and gathering the local food," Li Ke said, trying to shake off the mental fog. "The logic here is... weird. Want to try some?"
He pulled out an apple. It stayed in its "normal" (albeit pixelated) form while he held it, but he knew the moment it left his hand, it would shrink into a tiny, floating icon. He was curious to see if his status as a "user" could bridge the gap to her. Elsa looked at the blurry, low-res fruit in his hand. She hesitated, her eyes flickering with a mix of hunger and scientific curiosity, before nodding firmly. "Alright."
She reached out to take it, but the moment her fingers made contact, the apple didn't feel like skin or pulp. It felt like nothing. Just like when she tried to grab the floating icons on the ground, her fingers passed right through the mosaic apple as if it were a holographic projection.
Looking at her empty hands, Elsa didn't know whether to be relieved or saddened. She was in this world, but not of it.
"Looks like it's a no-go," Li Ke said, feeling a pang of sympathy for her. "But honestly, there's no real 'sensation' to eating this stuff anyway. Watch—one bite and it's gone. You aren't missing much."
Li Ke popped the apple into his own mouth. He didn't even have to chew; the moment it touched his tongue, it dissolved into a burst of "nutritional data." He then began transferring the wood from his inventory into a storage chest, tossing the seeds into a separate box.
"Is that so? It sounds... magical," Elsa remarked. She watched the apple vanish with wide-eyed surprise, her regal composure slipping for a moment. To her, magic was a burden, a curse of ice and solitude. To see magic used for something as mundane as eating an apple was a culture shock.
"You must be hungry," Li Ke said, noticing the way she leaned away from the morning chill. "Hold on a second, I'll get started on breakfast. Real food, this time."
Given that Elsa was a Princess and a Queen, the idea of her knowing how to handle a kitchen was a long shot. He figured he'd better take charge before she tried to freeze-dry a steak.
"Um, I'm sorry..." Elsa murmured, her face flushing with a mix of embarrassment and gratitude. She followed Li Ke, watching him pull out a heavy iron pot and summon a flicker of mana-driven fire.
Li Ke really didn't have a choice. In this world, wood didn't exactly function like kindling; you couldn't just build a roaring campfire to simmer a stew. The furnaces here were visual props that didn't emit radiant heat. To cook a proper meal, he had to be his own stove. Maintaining a steady output of magic, Li Ke began preparing a meat stew—a rich, hearty recipe Erina had taught him back in the Shokugeki world. He used vacuum-sealed ingredients from 7 Days to Die; in this world, food was immune to rot, meaning his stash was as fresh as the day it was packed.
Li Ke watched the steam rise from the pot, noting how the water behaved like a programmed entity rather than a natural element. Even as the soup boiled and bubbled, the liquid level didn't drop by a single millimeter due to evaporation. In this world, mass was constant unless a "user" intervened. It was a sterile, perfect environment that ignored the messy entropy of the real world. Steam was just a visual effect, a floating particle that carried no actual moisture. It was yet another reminder that while they were eating "real" food, they were doing so inside a giant, clockwork heart that didn't know how to let anything truly change.
The savory aroma of stewed corn and fatty meat soon wafted through the cave, acting like a physical lure. It roused the other resident. Toph, who was technically an adult but cursed with a "tragically underdeveloped" figure, came yawning out of the sleeping quarters. She was scratching her chest and armpits with zero shame, her hair a chaotic nest of black tangles.
She stomped over to Li Ke, skipping the lady-like grace Elsa showed on her cushion. Instead, she plopped down cross-legged on the bare floor with a boisterous thud that sent a small puff of dust into the air.
"Li Ke! I want to eat! How much longer? I'm starving over here!"
Her sheer audacity nearly made Li Ke's magic flame flicker out. He stared at the "flat board" in front of him, marveling at her ego. At least Elsa watched the pot, he thought. You just slept until the smell hit your nose.
But before he could snap back, Toph turned toward Elsa with a dead-serious expression. "Elsa, I want to ask you something. It's been bugging me since I woke up."
"Yes, Miss Toph? Go ahead," Elsa replied, smoothing her skirt, unaware of the landmine Toph was about to plant. Toph didn't believe in filters; she lived in a world of vibrations and blunt truths.
"What did that stuff taste like? I heard you gagging and coughing your lungs out earlier. Was it bad? Was it fishy? Or did it have that sharp, tangy taste... like piss?"
The sheer crudeness of the question hit Elsa like a physical blow, shattering the fragile, dignified silence she had been trying to maintain. It wasn't just the words; it was the way Toph spoke about the oral sex as if it were a common chore or a strange new fruit to be sampled. Elsa's mind flashed back to the viscous heat and the stinging sensation in her nose—memories she had been desperately trying to tuck away under the label of "medical necessity." To have it dragged out into the light and compared to something as foul as piss made her skin crawl. The princess in her wanted to vanish, but the Queen in her felt a cold, jagged spike of defensive rage.
The silence that followed was absolute. Elsa's face turned a shade of crimson so deep it looked painful. Her jaw dropped, her eyes wide with a mix of horror and disbelief. She knew Toph was crude, but to ask about the oral sex with such clinical, gross curiosity was beyond the pale.
"T-Toph! How... how could you ask something so... so revolting?!"
The air around Elsa began to drop in temperature rapidly, frost crystallizing on the rim of the stew pot.
"Don't want to say? Fine, whatever. Keep your secrets," Toph shrugged, completely unfazed by the sub-zero glares. She reached out and gave Li Ke's leg a loud, brotherly smack, her hand lingering for a quick, teasing squeeze near his knee. "Hey Li Ke, let your 'bro' have a taste later. If it's that good, don't be stingy!"
Li Ke stared down at her, his spoon frozen mid-air. "..."
Who the hell are you calling 'bro'?! And stop touching my leg!