Just as Tsunade had said, a grueling chore that would have been completely impossible for Li Ke was nothing more than a casual stroll in the backyard for her.
More importantly, she made the entire process look effortlessly simple.
Leaping seven or eight meters wide and five or six meters high with a single bound, she could easily rocket from the very bottom of the deep ravine straight onto the roof of the base if she put just a fraction of her back into it. The display left Li Ke standing completely dumbfounded, his jaw hanging open.
Of course, he had always known Tsunade was a ninja. He had witnessed the supernatural capabilities of these shinobi while watching anime back on Earth. Yet, actually witnessing it happen right before his eyes in the physical world made him realize just how absurdly broken and profoundly jaw-dropping their abilities truly were.
Honestly, if Tsunade hadn't explicitly admitted that sharp blades could still slice through her skin and that her defense against piercing attacks wasn't all that great, Li Ke genuinely felt she could have easily starred as a female version of Superman in Man of Steel.
Watching a flashy sequence play out on an animation screen versus seeing it manifest in raw reality were two entirely different sensory experiences.
He was absolutely certain of one thing: if it weren't for her severe hemophobia, Tsunade wouldn't have a single reason to fear a measly zombie horde night. Even if she chose to stand completely exposed in the dead center of a vast open plain, she wouldn't encounter a shred of real danger.
Finally, as the late afternoon rolled around—and after enduring four or five more chaotic structural collapses—the trio managed to successfully erect a relatively secure stronghold.
"Phew... the physics and building rules governing this world are truly bizarre," Tsunade remarked, waving her hands in a helpless shrug. "But this is pretty much the absolute limit of what we can pull off right now."
She turned her gaze toward the compact, five-by-five-meter iron box sitting before them. This final layout was only chosen after an extensive series of trials, error, and cautious deliberations. They had conducted a rigorous battery of stress tests to ensure that performing any heavy physical activities inside would never trigger another sudden structural collapse.
The newly built shelter didn't feature a standard door or entryway. Their strategic plan was to wait until the horde night began, physically seal the entrance using two massive steel blocks, and then use the system interface to lock them firmly into the structural grid.
Around the perimeter of the heavy iron walls, they had incorporated specialized firing slits and ventilation cutouts. These openings were formed by modifying the shapes of the system Steel Frames, allowing Li Ke and Kiri to safely poke their weapons through and constantly thin out the zombie ranks.
Naturally, they intended to completely block off these opening slots with materialized, real-world steel castings once the situation called for it. After all, taking these extreme precautions was the only way to guarantee absolute security against the unknown terrors of the horde.
"Even though I still think you're being a bit too paranoid about these zombies, this whole setup is honestly a spectacular sight to behold," Kiri remarked, nodding as she looked up at the fortress structure suspended against the ravine walls.
"But still, it gives a person a lingering sense of insecurity."
She gestured toward the narrow, visible gaps between the vertical structural columns and the invincible bedrock wall.
"I know we stress-tested it a bunch of times, but looking at it just makes me feel like the whole thing is going to snap and come crashing down at any second."
"As long as we don't go recklessly snapping extra blocks into the grid, and as long as those external steel casings don't get punched clean through, everything should hold together perfectly fine," Li Ke explained. "Besides, it's not like we don't have a backup survival plan ready to go, right?"
Li Ke pointed down toward the massive, solid blocks of un-mined dirt right beneath their feet. Down there, Tsunade was currently using her raw physical strength to slam materialized, physical steel plates deep into the surrounding soil. Hidden inside this massive mound of earth was a secret network of tunnels and an underground bunker room they had excavated earlier. If their primary iron fortress above ever suffered a catastrophic breach, they could instantly slip through a drop-hatch and retreat directly into the subterranean fallback shelter.
The reason they hadn't chosen the underground bunker as their primary defensive line from the absolute beginning was simple.
They just didn't have enough Steel Frames to go around. If they poured their entire steel supply into constructing a subterranean vault, Li Ke was deeply terrified that the infinite zombie paths would chip away at the surrounding support terrain, undermining the foundations. If that triggered an structural integrity failure, the entire underground facility would collapse instantly, burying them alive.
Therefore, running a dual-layered defensive setup was a much wiser tactical choice.
While they were working, Kiri also took a crack at repairing the broken Cement Mixer they had salvaged. Ultimately, she could only wave her hands in a helpless shrug, openly admitting that she had completely over-promised earlier.
The issue was that the machine was completely missing its electric engine! No matter how incredibly skilled she was as a mechanic, she couldn't magically summon a motor out of thin air.
"Alright, our next priority is going to be trap fabrication," Li Ke announced, turning his gaze toward the massive, cratered expanse of the hollowed-out canyon floor. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he began pulling a massive stockpile of raw gunpowder out of his system inventory.
First, he laid down a perimeter of basic wooden frames, anchoring them firmly into the ground. Next, he materialized a mountain of empty tin cans, stuffed them to the brim with sharp iron nails, packed the remaining spaces inside the cans and the surrounding wooden frames tightly with gunpowder, and rigged the makeshift devices into interconnected clusters.
Taking his madness a step further, he went ahead and blanketed a massive patch of the canyon ground with a heavy layer of loose gunpowder nearly half a meter thick. He then laid down a clean grid of wooden floor plates directly over the top of it. He planned to trigger a massive floor-flip detonation once the horde bottlenecked there; even if the crude setup failed to register a proper explosion, the sheer volume of black powder would guarantee the entire floor grid erupted into a blazing inferno.
While finalizing these arrangements, he kept his crafting queue constantly running in his inventory screen, mass-producing Wood Spike Traps. These defenses consisted of a cluster of razor-sharp logs tied together to form basic anti-infantry spikes, which he pegged into the canyon floor to establish multiple layers of defensive choke points across the valley floor.
"Man, this kid is seriously running on some heavy borderline-paranoia... If someone wandered in here completely blind, they would absolutely be wiped off the face of the earth..."
Kiri's eye twitched slightly as she watched Li Ke meticulously set up the defenses. She honestly felt he was making a mountain out of a molehill.
"As long as it makes him happy," Tsunade remarked indifferently. She had already finished lining their fallback retreat route with heavy steel plates and structural bulkheads. "Besides, we've mined out most of the resources around here anyway. Once this is over, we basicially won't be spending much time in this area regardless."
Tsunade really didn't give a single damn what he chose to build. Even though she personally couldn't see how a bunch of rotting zombies could ever pose a real threat to them, she was perfectly content to let Li Ke play with his traps.
Time quickly slipped away as Li Ke relentlessly worked to finalize his massive minefield. After eating a quick lunch, he materialized a stack of finished wooden planks, crafting three proper beds and a few basic privacy partitions inside their suspended iron box so the three of them could finally have a decent place to sleep. He then hauled two clean buckets of fresh water into the shelter, completely moving all their personal belongings out of their old wooden cabin and stacking them neatly inside their new iron stronghold.
Following that, at Li Ke's urgent request, Tsunade and Kiri pitched in to help erect additional outer barricades and spread bundles of highly flammable materials across the chokepoints. This setup would allow Kiri to easily light up the entire valley with a single shot from her firearm when the time came.
But the absolute peak of his madness occurred while the two women were busy cooking dinner. Li Ke went ahead and completely excavated the only remaining dirt path that connected their base to the outer world, deliberately severing their location from the mainland to completely isolate themselves from any approaching zombies.
After all, they possessed the incredibly convenient system blocks. Whenever they needed to head out, they could easily snap a temporary bridge together and cross over effortlessly.
Seeing this extreme measure, Tsunade and Kiri merely smirked and scoffed under their breath, offering no further commentary. They simply chalked it up to Li Ke having a severe case of shattered nerves. Once their own chores were settled, the two ladies headed out to wash up before using the Casino Tokens Li Ke had given them to purchase a massive stockpile of food and beer, fully intent on throwing a cozy banquet.
Li Ke didn't mind their relaxed attitude at all. He kept layering black powder across the defensive grids until the dark blanket of night fully settled over the wasteland. Only then did he snap a few temporary steps together, climbing his way back up into the iron stronghold to join Tsunade and Kiri for dinner.
Lying down on his beautifully soft bed later that night, Li Ke stared out through the narrow viewing slit at the brilliant star-filled sky. An overwhelming sense of absolute serenity washed over his heart. Even though a terrifying thirty-meter-deep abyss yawned directly beneath his bedroom floor, he had honestly never felt this incredibly happy and secure since arriving in this nightmare world.
"We still have one more full day tomorrow. I can check the trader's terminal again to see if any high-tier quests at a local police station pop up. A proper American police precinct is bound to be packed with heavy tactical weaponry. On top of that, I can still make a few more defensive upgrades to the emergency bunker downstairs..."
Cradling these optimistic hopes for the future close to his chest, he peacefully drifted off into a deep, heavy slumber.
Then, the exact millisecond the clock struck midnight.
Outside the iron fortress, a fierce, yellow dust storm suddenly began to howl across the dead wasteland.