Toph's lingering resentment was clearly going ignored; neither Elsa nor Li Ke had the heart to deal with her right then.
Out of a sense of debt, Elsa was determined to take Toph's place in grinding out the necessary energy. Li Ke, meanwhile, vastly preferred the "direct approach" with Elsa. To him, using his hands with Toph felt like clocking into "Work Mode"—a clinical, boring three-minute shudder that left him feeling deeply unsatisfied.
Besides, being intimate with Toph always gave him a strange, jarring sensation—as if he were trying to pick the right "caliber of bullet" to fit a very specific, difficult problem...
So, when Li Ke woke up first and saw Elsa, he felt a wave of genuine satisfaction.
The morning sun hit her snow-white cheeks perfectly. When she opened her eyes and saw him, the flicker of bashfulness and panic in her gaze reminded him vividly of Erina. For some reason, it gave him the inexplicable thrill of a secret affair.
Waking to find Li Ke staring intently at her, Elsa's face flushed a deep crimson. Her first instinct was to hide. However, as a Queen, she suppressed her nerves and looked at him with gravity, choosing to explain her actions.
"Mr. Li Ke... I am so sorry. Yesterday was... abrupt, and I nearly caused you harm. Please, forgive me. I only wanted to help Miss Toph get home, and I need to return quickly as well. The longer I am gone, the greater the risk to my kingdom."
Worry clouded Elsa's features; she was terrified for her sister, yet profoundly grateful to both Toph and Li Ke for saving her life. She harbored no resentment toward the fact that Li Ke will also use the energy they had generated together to his own gain; she just wanted to get home faster.
"If you ever visit my world, I will ensure you are properly rewarded, but for now..."
She felt a lingering, sticky discomfort between her legs that desperately needed cleaning. Realizing she had no way to bathe in this world yet, she looked at Li Ke with shimmering embarrassment.
"I-if you don't find me too cold... could you, perhaps after a quick rinse, continue with... that? I will try my absolute best to control myself this time. I won't hurt you again!"
She remembered the night before clearly. She knew Li Ke had been forced to raise his body temperature just to counter the freezing aura she emitted. That realization only made her more anxious—her cold was lethal, after all.
Yet, thinking back to the warmth of those "flames" that had nearly consumed her, Elsa wanted to hide her face in her hands. Her hunch had been right: just as she commanded ice, Mr. Li Ke could use fire to help her.
She felt a lingering fear, too. She had thought she could control her powers after using her mouth, which is why she had consented to the act, but she had drastically underestimated the surge. If Li Ke had pulled away, he might have only caught a cold—but Li Ke was nothing if not persistent.
She had no idea that Li Ke's "fiery resistance" wasn't some grand mastery of elements; it was purely a result of blood rushing to his head. In a moment of "desperate genius," he had figured out how to manipulate mana into high-intensity heat rather than literal flames.
But Li Ke just smiled. Leaning close to the Princess's ear, he began to tease her.
"Not at all. You're actually very warm on the inside, Elsa," Li Ke teased. "It's only your power that's cold; you are quite cozy."
Elsa's face flushed instantly. She instinctively reached out to push him away, but the moment her hands brushed against him, her magic flared, instantly encasing half of Li Ke's body in solid ice.
She was absolutely horrified.
"I-I-I'm so sorry!"
Panic gripped her; she was terrified her magic might actually kill him. But Li Ke only chuckled. He channeled his high-heat mana, slowly melting the frost away bit by bit. Although the freeze had inevitably caused some damage, he knew a few apples would patch him right up.
He didn't feel any stress about it at all.
"Don't sweat it," he said easily. "We can start whenever you're ready."
Watching the ice melt, Elsa felt a profound sense of relief. It's true, she thought. Li Ke is the only man who can be near me without getting hurt.
In her eyes, he was the only one in the world who could handle her. At that thought, her blush deepened even further.
Li Ke, oblivious to her inner turmoil, simply gave her a thumbs-up and pulled out a bottle of fresh water. Elsa covered her face with her hands and lay back obediently, letting him rinse her legs.
But as she lay there with her eyes closed, she noticed something.
The water was warm!
Li Ke was using his fire magic to heat the water for her. This small act of thoughtfulness lifted her spirits, and she found herself blurting out a question.
"Li Ke... if you were a King, would you oppress your people just for your own pleasure?"
"Me? No way," Li Ke replied. "Mainly because I'd never want to be a King in the first place. All that fighting for power and profit is just boring. I just want to live a happy, comfortable life; I've got no interest in making enemies. A tyrant has a whole world wanting him dead, and a 'good' King just works himself to death. I might start some organizations later on, but they'd just be for business."
Li Ke had zero interest in being anyone's savior.
Every world had its own destiny. As far as Li Ke was concerned, every world simply had different girls for him to pursue.
As for "liberating humanity"?
If the fate of the human race depended on a lecher like him, then that world was probably better off ending anyway. If he actually had the power to save all of humanity, he'd most likely just end up as the master or husband of every woman on the planet. "Liberator" just wasn't in his DNA.
Fighting a Demon King for a beautiful girl? Now that was possible.
Taking down a Demon King meant money, fame, and a flock of beautiful women throwing themselves at him. And if a pretty female villain happened to "disappear" into his care, nobody would really come looking for her anyway. It was a win-win.
But joining a Demon King to destroy the world? Not a chance.
Not because the Demon King wouldn't offer him girls, but simply because if the world ended...
...all those beautiful women would be destroyed along with it.
And that? That would be a damn shame.
Even if he couldn't get his hands on them personally, beautiful women were highly likely to give birth to more beautiful daughters!
This was also the exact reason Li Ke didn't harbor any ill will toward handsome men. In his mind, they had a high probability of producing beautiful daughters, too! As long as they didn't try to steal his girls, he couldn't care less about them.
Therefore, any Demon King intent on destroying the world was his sworn, mortal enemy.
His time in the 7 Days to Die world, where death was a constant shadow, had long ago cemented his resolve: he would live freely and solely for his own desires. Why on earth would he suddenly turn into a saint? Unless, of course, there was a "Saintess" type girl he wanted to pursue who required him to save all of humanity just to unlock her route—otherwise, he wasn't about to tire himself out like that.
But most importantly...
He truly didn't have the talent for it. Li Ke was very self-aware about his own limits. He lacked the grand leadership, the raw power, and the charisma to incite a revolution. At his core, he was just an ordinary guy.
"If this were seven or eight years ago, back before I had a job, I probably would have dreamt of changing or conquering the world," Li Ke mused. "I mean, I still think about it now, but the urge isn't nearly as strong as it used to be."
As he spoke, he gently caressed Elsa's body. Just the act of being cleaned by Li Ke was enough to make her breath hitch. Involuntarily, a wave of frost began to bleed out from her skin.
Li Ke looked down, a bit speechless, at the warm water. It had already frozen into a solid block of ice, trapping the milky-white streaks of his seed from the night before right inside the frost. He looked up and met Elsa's eyes.
Staring at the shameless evidence held in Li Ke's hands—and seeing that his "equipment" was already fully primed and waiting for her—Elsa finally hit her breaking point. The sheer indecency of it all made her head spin. She covered her face with both hands, her voice trembling and so faint it was like the buzz of a mosquito.
"P-please... just get on with it! The... the inside is all clean now!"