Conquering Heroines: Starting From A World Of Zombies Chapter 7: System and Non-System

"Now that you put it that way… that actually is kinda creepy."

Ryuji didn't notice Erina's subtle emotions, but he did agree with her assessnt—the rchant was unsettling.

After all, this was a textbook example of the uncanny valley effect.

When you see a face that's completely expressionless and unnaturally motionless, especially under dim lighting, it instinctively triggers fear.

But…

"Well, her chest is huge, and she's warm to the touch, so honestly, I wasn't that scared."

Ryuji stated his thoughts bluntly.

"See?! How are you not a pervy old man?! The fact that that made you feel less afraid is proof enough!"

Erina shot back imdiately, her voice laced with frustration.

Maybe it was because she had successfully killed zombies on her own—her confidence had returned, and she couldn't help but complain about Ryuji's words.

Ryuji shrugged.

"Fear doesn't help us. We need that rchant, so the best thing to do is find a way to make her less scary."

If he had been alone when he discovered this NPC-like rchant, he might've done even crazier things.

Like, say… testing whether or not he could take off her pants.

Because, apart from lacking self-awareness and being unable to inflict real harm, this rchant was identical to a human.

She had saliva. A soft tongue. Skin that felt real to the touch.

Honestly, if he were left alone for too long, things would definitely take a weird turn.

But…

His eyes flicked to Erina, watching the way her figure moved as she walked—her swaying chest, her long, fair legs.

He let out a long sigh.

Sohow, having her as a teammate might actually push him toward insanity even faster than if he were alone.

If he were solo, he'd distract himself with tasks—building defenses, crafting tools, anything to keep his mind occupied.

Now? He still had to do all that, but with Erina around, everything was faster and more efficient.

Take scavenging houses, for example. Without her, it was like playing a stealth ga—one wrong step, and a hidden zombie could force a Ga Over.

But with Erina? He could search boldly, moving faster with less risk.

Of course, the downside was… she was too attractive. His mind kept wandering to dangerous places.

"You always co up with the stupidest excuses," Erina huffed, turning her head away, her cheeks tinged red.

She was still irritated, but she stayed focused on scanning the surroundings for anything useful.

Unfortunately, there was nothing.

anwhile, Ryuji made an interesting discovery on their way to the store.

"Oh, I'm already level 3? That was quick."

He grinned at his character interface.

Most of the options were still locked—quests, skills, and the map were all inaccessible.

But—

"The crafting nu's open now?"

As soon as he clicked on it, his character model and status bar vanished, replaced by a long list of items.

"Wooden fras, storage boxes… huh? This looks just like the crafting system in other survival gas. I wonder if I can make guns?"

Scrolling through the list, he found a variety of basic tools—including a stone axe.

The icon showed a simple wooden handle with a rock tied to it.

However, the crafting recipe called for sticks, grass, and small stones instead.

"Weird. If I craft this, does the system automatically weave the grass into rope for ? Or do I have to do it manually?"

Curious, he decided to test it out.

The materials weren't hard to find, so he crouched down and picked up so stones—only to notice sothing strange.

All the stones were about the size of a loaf of bread or an egg.

There were no tiny pebbles—no fingernail-sized rocks, no bean-sized stones.

"Huh. That's odd."

Shrugging, he moved on to collecting plant fibers.

The crafting nu called them fibers, but the icon just showed generic grass.

So, he reached down and yanked out a tuft of grass—

A notification popped up: "You have collected 20 plant fibers."

"Wait. Twenty? Just from pulling one weed?!"

Ryuji blinked, dumbfounded.

But before he could complain any further, sothing even more ridiculous happened…

As Ryuji prepared to swing his axe at so nearby trees, he stumbled upon a withered bush. Curious, he attempted to store it in his system space. The next mont, out of the corner of his eye, a small icon flashed.

A wooden plank icon appeared, accompanied by a number: 3.

Ryuji's eye twitched. He grabbed more shrubs, snapped them apart, and tried storing them in his inventory.

Regardless of whether the bush was waist-high or barely reached his calf, as long as it was broken, the system categorized it as wood.

"So... what exactly are you doing?"

Erina watched him curiously. She had no idea what he was trying to accomplish, nor why he was suddenly gathering these strange materials.

"Oh, I leveled up to Level 3 and unlocked a crafting system. I just wanted to test it out. You should be close to leveling up too, right? You took down way more zombies than I did back there."

After explaining to Erina, Ryuji opened his inventory and selected the option to craft a stone axe.

There were no fancy effects or sudden experience pop-ups. Instead, a small stone axe icon appeared in the lower-left corner of his crafting nu. A second later, a stone axe with a "1" next to its icon materialized in his inventory.

That fast?

Ryuji skeptically took out the stone axe. It looked identical to its icon, but when he swung it against a roadside tree, cracks imdiately appeared along its surface. A chunk of the axehead even broke off.

"What kind of garbage is this…?"

He stared at the axe in dismay and put it back into his inventory. Then, noticing the row of empty slots in his item bar, he hesitated before placing the half-durability stone axe inside.

Nothing happened.

Confused, he selected the axe and chose "Use."

In an instant, the axe reappeared in his hand.

Ryuji closed his inventory and swung the axe at a large tree again. This ti, sothing strange happened.

The tree remained unscathed, but a number appeared in his vision: 536/600.

Additionally, a notification popped up on the right side: Wood 5.

"I see… Now I get it."

Ryuji nodded, flashing a smug grin. He repeatedly struck the tree, swinging again and again. On the tenth swing, the tree's durability hit zero.

He expected the tree to topple over and had already braced himself to dodge. However, to his surprise, the mont its durability was depleted, the entire tree disintegrated into nothingness.

No leaves, no branches—just gone. In its place, the wood counter increased, this ti by twenty-five.

"This is exactly like a video ga."

"I want to argue, but… yeah, this is seriously unbelievable…"

Erina nodded in agreent. She was slowly coming to terms with this bizarre world but still couldn't help expressing her amazent.

Ryuji licked his lips. His inventory now contained an item called "Wooden Fra." His gut told him this was likely the equivalent of a basic building block in other survival gas.

Crafting a wooden fra required ten pieces of wood and took two seconds to complete. Since he had plenty of wood, he decided to craft one and see what it was.

Two seconds passed quickly. His inventory now held two small, promising items. He imdiately took one out.

A small sack materialized in his hands. Opening it, he found a one-ter-by-one-ter wooden composite panel inside.

Frowning slightly, he pushed against it—it felt exactly like plywood, both in texture and weight.

He then placed the second wooden fra into his action bar. The next mont, a transparent outline of the fra appeared in his field of view.

"It should be the right button."

Ryuji aid at the asphalt road and placed the wooden fra. Instantly, it materialized on the ground. When he tried to move it, he found it completely immovable, as if fused with the pavent.

"This is feeling more and more like a ga."

He clicked his tongue. This thing was basically a miracle item! If it worked like Minecraft, where blocks could be placed mid-air, then he and Erina wouldn't need to worry about zombies at all.

They could just find a river, build a floating farm, and live a peaceful life above ground!

Excited by the thought, he crafted another wooden fra and stacked it on top of the first one. Then, he pressed "E" in his mind to retrieve it.

To his disappointnt, the third wooden fra fell to the ground instead of returning to his inventory. Before he could react, it crumbled into a pixelated ss of unusable debris.

A bad feeling crept over him.

To test further, he placed another wooden fra and took out his iron axe. Swinging it against a normal plywood board barely left a dent—the axe got stuck halfway through.

However, when he struck the system-generated wooden fra, it instantly shattered into a pile of debris.

"..."

Ryuji set his axe down and sighed at the ss on the ground. Seeing Erina's curious gaze, he summarized his findings.

"Looks like there's a huge difference between system-generated items and real-world materials. System objects have so incredible properties, but they also have major weaknesses compared to real-world ones."

He nudged the non-system wooden fra with his foot. Though it looked like plywood, it was far more durable than the one he had placed using the system.

Taking out his stone axe again, Ryuji used the system's perspective to strike the real-world wooden fra. The mont he did, a durability bar suddenly appeared over it.

2/100.

Ryuji placed two more frawork blocks and struck each one with his stone axe.

36/100.

36/100.

Perfectly fair, no difference at all.

The only distinction was that the digitized frawork block remained unchanged, while the real-world one had already lost more than half its structure.

"It seems like this system is playing favorites. I just wonder which set of rules the zombies follow."

Ryuji wasn't entirely sure, but he had a strong hunch—just like himself, the zombies might follow real-world physics when interacting with real-world objects, but adhere to ga chanics when encountering digitized ones.

If that were the case, there were plenty of loopholes to exploit.

Ryuji stepped onto the digitized wooden fra. Even though its durability had dropped significantly, no matter how much he jumped and stomped on it, the block held firm.

The real-world version, however, was a different story. The mont he placed his foot on it, the half-broken plywood cracked under his weight. Forget jumping—Ryuji nearly fell straight through!

"I think I understand what you're trying to do now."

Erina watched Ryuji hop down from the frawork block, nodding in realization.

"You want to build a base, don't you?"

Her eyes glead with excitent.

"Exactly. The two of us alone don't have the manpower to construct a truly solid house, but with these materials, we can dig trenches and build a reliable shelter. And if we manage to repair that RV, we'll have a backup escape plan in case things go south."

Ryuji nodded, his mind already racing ahead. If the stone axe was this powerful, then what about a stone shovel? Or an iron shovel? Or even an iron axe?

And if he wasn't mistaken...

Ryuji looked at the axe in his hand, and the next second, it vanished into his inventory. A small green number 4 appeared beside its icon.

He pulled it back out and swung it at another tree. The tree's durability plumted by a staggering 166 points!

And the best part? The description for the fra blocks ntioned that their shape could be altered, while the stone axe could repair and upgrade items!

This thing was basically a universal tool!

With a system like this, they wouldn't even need to break into houses the traditional way. They could just hack straight through wooden walls with a single swing!

"That... sounds pretty amazing..."

Erina envisioned what Ryuji was describing—a well-fortified shelter, built by the two of them, standing strong against the outside dangers. No matter how bad things got, they could live safely inside their own fortress.

That sounded far better than their current life of constant fear and paranoia.

"Then as soon as we're done trading with the rchant, let's hurry back and start building! Nakamura-san!"

Her face lit up with excitent as she grabbed his hand and sprinted toward the nearby store.

Ryuji grinned as well.

With what he had seen of the zombies so far, as long as they didn't do anything reckless at night, there was no way they'd be in real danger. No unforeseen disasters.

Unless... this world had even more terrifying zombies.

But even then, he had options.

He had already noticed a crafting recipe in his nu—a pipe machine gun.

And the materials? Six wooden planks, two bottles of glue, and four iron pipes. That was all it took.

If he could make one of those, and he and Erina dug themselves a cave in the mountains, then what zombie could possibly stop them?

Who could touch them?!

No one!

Nothing!

It was impossible!

What, were the zombies suddenly going to shoot projectiles or explode like TNT?

Ryuji laughed to himself, filled with excitent and confidence.

Of course, he knew better than to get careless. Anything was possible in a ga-like world. But that didn't stop him from dreaming about their bright future.

With those thoughts in mind, he stepped into the store.

His eyes landed on the scantily clad shopkeeper, and he instinctively swallowed hard. But instead of getting distracted, he quickly accessed her inventory and sold all nineteen gold bars he had collected.

In an instant, his Duke's Casino Tokens skyrocketed to 2,400!

Without hesitation, Ryuji bought out every single jar of honey in stock.

Looking at the seven bottles of honey in his inventory, he finally felt at ease.

Only then did he take a mont to browse the rest of the store's wares.

And the outrageous prices instantly crushed his enthusiasm.

Ryuji had no choice but to accept the bitter truth.

He was still broke.