With a face as dark as thunder, Li Ke trudged back to the Trader's compound. Kiri finally wiped the grin off her face, mostly because the suffocatingly heavy aura radiating from Li Ke was getting alarming. It was so intense that she genuinely feared he might snap and open fire at any moment.
Even so, she couldn't stop her lips from twitching occasionally, struggling to suppress a laugh that was threatening to give her stomach cramps.
However, once they actually stepped inside the shop, Kiri completely lost the ability to laugh.
Staring at the tier-three M60 machine gun that had magically appeared in her own hands, and then looking over at the basic iron fire axe that Li Ke had just received, Kiri fell into a stunned silence.
She looked at Li Ke, then at the motionless, statue-like female Trader, and finally couldn't help but ask.
"Do you two... have some kind of personal blood feud?"
Aside from a deep-seated vendetta, Kiri couldn't think of any logical reason why the game would treat two people with such blatantly unfair, night-and-day bias.
"In a manner of speaking, yes."
Li Ke glared at the female Trader. He was absolutely certain the NPC possessed no soul, and the reasoning was simple.
Tsunade shared zero emotional connection with him, yet she could still generate Energy Points. Though the amount was miniscule, they definitely existed.
But the Trader was a completely different story. Despite how much he had interacted with her, there hadn't been a single drop of Energy feedback. This proved beyond a doubt that the Trader was entirely devoid of human emotion.
Ultimately, his atrocious, black-faced RNG wasn't just limited to quest rewards; it infected every single mechanic in this world.
"Let's not talk about that anymore. It doesn't matter. Even if my luck is completely down the drain, at least you're pulling top-tier gear, right? More importantly, did you manage to get a skill point?"
Li Ke shifted the focus. Compared to his completely elusive, unchangeable luck, this was the metric he actually cared about right now.
"Huh? Yeah, I got one. But it's just a single point. Did I accidentally split and dilute your reward?" Kiri asked, scratching her head a bit sheepishly.
"No, that's not how it works. I received a full point too, which is the exact same amount I get when running solo. It seems the total pool of daily quests here is shared globally. The missions she posts aren't generated per person; there's just a fixed number available on the board. Look at it this way—running quests as a party is actually the most optimal strategy."
Li Ke took a deep, stabilizing breath, then accepted a basic Tier 1 quest from the menu.
"Alright, let's keep grinding!"
It's not because my luck is trash! It's definitely just because I haven't run enough numbers yet!
Yes! That's it! It's purely a volume issue!
Staring at Li Ke's tense, deeply suppressed expression, Kiri cautiously trailed behind him as they set off, and then...
Ten minutes later, Kiri was staring at a completely silent Li Ke, cold sweat trickling down her neck. It wasn't just because Li Ke was no longer receiving any skill point rewards from running Tier 1 quests anymore, but more importantly...
She had just pulled another M60 machine gun. Meanwhile, Li Ke had once again received nothing but random garbage.
Specifically, a single schematic book.
To make matters worse, the alternative reward options on his screen were even more pathetic—a literal handful of iron nails.
At this point, Kiri was genuinely terrified that Li Ke might snap and shoot her in the back out of pure jealousy.
"Uh... you know, I think luck is a balanced resource across the universe! Since I'm being lucky right now, I'm bound to hit a streak of terrible misfortune somewhere else later. Think about it, wasn't I born in the Lawless District back home?"
She scrambled desperately to find any words that could comfort him. But Li Ke merely reached out, wordlessly confiscated the M60 from her hands, and pointed the barrel dead ahead at the female Trader. Then, he flattened the trigger.
A deafening cascade of metallic clanging echoed through the room. The flashing muzzle brake illuminated Li Ke's face in alternating shadows. The most infuriating part of it all was that the female Trader maintained her eerie, pleasant smile. Not a single bullet tearing through her clothes could bypass her invulnerable, safe-zone defense.
Phew...
Only after completely emptying the entire drum magazine did Li Ke let out a long, heavy exhale. His face instantly morphed back into a bright, pleasant smile as he interacted with the quest board once more.
"Alright, I'm completely fine now! Let's keep moving!"
The moment Li Ke had started shooting, Kiri had pressed herself flat against the back wall to avoid any ricochets. Watching him stroll out like nothing happened, she nodded blankly and cautiously trailed behind him.
And then...
It turned into a full-blown exhibition of Kiri flexing her god-tier luck in every way imaginable.
Whenever Kiri initiated a quest, the reset buildings would be bursting with high-tier canned food and mechanical components. She could even stumble upon completely functional, pristine workbenches right out in the open.
Yet, whenever Li Ke initiated a quest, the spawned rooms wouldn't just be completely barren; they were a absolute wasteland. Even worse, when they revisited a few buildings that Li Ke had previously cleared entirely on his own, Kiri's quest reset would suddenly cause multiple high-tier rifles to manifest out of thin air in containers he had already looted.
By the time noon rolled around and it was time to regroup with Tsunade, the legendary medical ninja was greeted by the sight of a completely hollow, dead-eyed Li Ke.
"What on earth happened to you?"
Staring at Li Ke, who looked as though his soul had been entirely drained of all hopes and dreams, Tsunade couldn't help but ask.
It wasn't that she deeply cared about his well-being, but his current state was visibly unhinged, which actually sparked a flicker of genuine apprehension inside her. Granted, she could still execute a single chakra-infused slap that would spin his head around his neck dozens of times over. Yet, fear was fear—it defied all logic.
"It's nothing... But could you please just let me bury my face in your lap for a minute?"
Li Ke was truly, utterly exhausted. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that the sole reason he and Erina had struggled so brutally to survive the early days was simply because... because...
Because his gacha luck was absolute trash!
"Huh?!"
Tsunade stared at him as if looking at a complete lunatic, placing her hands firmly on her hips.
"Don't you dare think that just because we crossed that line yesterday, you can start asking for weird favors or expecting some bizarre romantic progression! Even if we went to a hospital right now to get an examination, I, Tsunade, am still a woman who has done absolutely nothing!"
Tsunade fiercely stated her baseline position. She had no intention of developing emotional entanglements with Li Ke.
The reasoning was simple: they belonged to entirely different worlds. While last night had indeed been her first time, she wasn't about to suddenly fall in love with someone. Besides, Li Ke wouldn't be returning to her world with her. They were ultimately destined to part ways. Because of that, maintaining a strictly mutually beneficial arrangement was the absolute best dynamic for them. There was no need to complicate things with weird emotional attachments.
"Let me buy you a drink."
Li Ke pulled out a few bottles of beer he had scavenged from the ruined buildings and set them down in front of Tsunade. Then, he offered an excuse that even a toddler wouldn't buy.
"Besides, it's all about creating the right mood. You wouldn't actually want to be pushed through that dozens of times in a row, right? If we have a drink and build up some mutual chemistry, maybe each session will let me accumulate a bit more Energy. After all, this system relies heavily on emotional resonance."
Li Ke didn't even believe his own words as he spoke them. In fact, he couldn't help but feel a sudden pang of irony.
The one gold finger that requires the most intense emotional investment just had to end up with me—the absolute last person who should be catching feelings.
"Are you serious?"
"Dead serious."
"Fine. But remember this: I'm only doing this for the sake of the alcohol."
Catching the utterly pathetic look in Li Ke's eyes, Tsunade found herself unable to completely harden her heart. She laid down a layer of wooden building blocks on the ground and sat cross-legged on top of them.
Originally, she had wanted to refuse. Even her late lover, Dan Kato, had never done something like this with her. Letting Li Ke do it actually filled her with a lingering sense of guilt. Yet, looking at his desperately pitiful expression, her heart ultimately softened.
"Thanks a lot."
Li Ke walked over with the beer. Tsunade didn't stand on ceremony either; she snatched the alcohol and the food he handed her, completely ignoring him as she began to drink by herself. Even so, she still left her lap open for him.
"Now that I think about it, Erina has never given me a lap pillow before..."
Muttering a passing comment that instantly irritated Tsunade, Li Ke laid his head down onto her lap and looked up at the blue sky...
Except there was no blue sky to be seen.
The only thing filling Li Ke's field of vision was a pair of staggeringly voluptuous assets. They were massive, heavy, and perfectly round, straining against the thin fabric of her top with every subtle breath she took. From this angle directly beneath them, he could see the deep, inviting valley of her cleavage, the smooth, pale skin glowing with a faint sheen of warmth, and the way the soft, pillowy flesh jiggled and swayed hypnotically above his face. They were incredibly soft, overflowing his imagination with their sheer size and weight, and carried a wonderfully sweet, feminine scent that flooded his senses and made his mouth water.
It was only after staring directly at these magnificent sights that Li Ke finally felt his mood improve by leaps and bounds.
"You know what?"
"I have zero interest in listening to your sob story."
"I only just realized that my luck is actually garbage. The reason Erina and I had such a brutal time surviving earlier, nearly dying several times... it was probably all because of me. Thinking about that makes me feel so depressed."
Tsunade remained silent. In truth, she shared the exact same psychological burden as Li Ke when it came to bad luck.
Li Ke had fully intended to wallow in his self-pity a bit longer. However, as Tsunade kept shifting her weight, the mesmerizing, pale-white view swaying right above his face made it physically impossible for his brain to stay depressed. The heavy breasts pendulously swung and bounced with her movements, the soft undersides brushing teasingly close to his nose and lips. Staring up from his position on her lap, his hand subconsciously reached out and firmly grasped one of those full, heavy mounds from below.
His fingers sank deeply into the impossibly soft, warm flesh. The sheer size and weight of her breast filled his palm and spilled generously over the edges of his hand as he squeezed, feeling the supple, yielding texture mold perfectly to his grip. He could feel the faint heat radiating from her skin and the rapid thump of her heartbeat beneath the abundant softness.
And then, he gave it a deliberate squeeze.
Tsunade—who had actually been feeling a bit touched and emotionally stirred by his vulnerability a second ago—stiffened violently. A wave of intense shame and fury instantly surged from her chest straight to her heart, and from her heart directly to her brain!
"You don't look the least bit unhappy to me!"
She practically forced the words out through clenched teeth. Meanwhile, Li Ke slid his hand directly beneath her clothes, his fingers greedily seeking bare skin. He pushed upward, cupping the massive bare breast fully now, skin against skin. His palm rubbed and kneaded the heavy, pliant globe, thumb deliberately brushing across the stiffening peak of her nipple as he gave it another possessive squeeze, savoring how the warm, velvety flesh overflowed between his fingers.
"What kind of man would stay in a bad mood over garbage gacha luck when a pair of things like this is sitting right in front of his face?! No matter how unlucky I am, as long as I have these available to knead right here, I'll always be happy!"
Those were his absolute, heartfelt words!
Who cares about being depressed? A quick session of fondling breasts heals all wounds!
If he wasn't currently in this slightly unhinged, self-destructive state of mind, there was no way he would have had the nerve to blurt out something so utterly shameless.
But...
A short distance away, Kiri was diligently repairing their equipment at the workbench.
Suddenly, a deeply ominous premonition washed over her.