January 3, 2026 — 02:45 PM | Wave 2 — Time Remaining: 15 Hr 15 Min
CRACK!
The sound wasn't just a noise. It was a physical concussion that vibrated through the marrow of Gilbert's bones.
The structural I-beam Malenia had been gripping didn't just bend; it sheared. With a thunderous, grinding roar, the ceiling of the "Pleasure Palace" surrendered to the thousands of tons of floodwater pressing down from above. Concrete slabs, some the size of SUVs, tumbled into the dark, murky depths of the store.
The boat—the "Ark of Wilton"—didn't stand a chance.
As a massive block of reinforced masonry slammed into the center of the deck, the Home Depot lumber screamed. The metal shelving foundation buckled, twisted, and snapped with a violent ping of snapping zip-ties. The vessel, Gilbert's masterpiece of "maritime logistics," split perfectly in two.
"GAH! PHYSICS ENGINE! THE COLLISION DAMAGE IS TOO HIGH!"
Gilbert shrieked as he was bucked off his feet. He slammed into the wet plywood of the stern half, his doughy fingers clawing at the rough wood. Beside him, Courage let out a high-pitched, warbling scream that sounded like a slide whistle falling down a well. The dog's paws were a blur as he clung to a blue plastic barrel, his eyes bulging so far out they looked like they were held on by strings.
The stern half of the boat rocked violently, half-submerged. The air in the store was now a thick, suffocating mist of pulverized concrete dust and freezing spray.
Outside, through the jagged, widening maw in the roof, the Abyssal rain hammered down. But the noise of the storm was quickly joined by something else.
A splash. A sleek, heavy movement in the water just beyond the wreckage.
Gilbert froze, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Through his smeared, fogged-out glasses, he saw a dorsal fin. Not a shark fin—it was too jagged, covered in what looked like rusted copper scales.
The water-mob had seen the "can" open. It had heard the screams.
The creature swam with a predatory, serpentine grace, circling the halved ship. It dipped beneath the surface, a dark shadow passing directly under Gilbert's dangling feet.
"It's... it's going to tip us," Gilbert whimpered, his voice a pathetic, high-pitched rasp. "It's a scripted encounter! Malenia-chan! Help! The support is being ganked!"
The shadow slowed. The water began to bulge upward near the edge of the raft as the monster prepared to launch itself, to flip the remaining wood and claim the soft, unwashed meat cowering on top.
But the predator had forgotten the one variable that didn't follow the rules of the flood.
SPLASH.
A golden arm, glistening with oil and sludge, plunged into the water. It didn't grab for a weapon. It reached for the danger in hiding.
With a sudden, violent heave, Malenia erupted from the depths. She wasn't swimming; she was standing on a submerged shelf, her strength defying the current. Her golden hand was buried deep in a mass of thick, kelp-like hair.
With a wet, sucking sound, she hauled the mob out of the water.
The creature screeched—a piercing, multi-tonal wail that sounded like a circular saw hitting a lead pipe. It struggled, its muscular, scale-covered tail lashing out, but Malenia's grip was an absolute. She held the monster aloft, exposing it to the dim, crimson light of the storm.
Gilbert wiped his glasses with a trembling hand, his vision clearing just enough to see the blurry outline.
The mob was humanoid. It had the sleek, pale torso of a woman, but its skin was a mottled, iridescent grey. Where ears should be, jagged copper gills pulsed with a frantic, dying rhythm. Its eyes were huge, milky orbs that glowed with a faint, predatory blue light.
Gilbert's fear didn't vanish. It just... shifted.
His eyes traveled down the creature's sleek, wet torso. Even in the middle of a collapsing building, even as he clutched a dog for dear life, the "culture" inside his brain began to flicker.
"It's... it's a female water mob," Gilbert whispered, a thick string of saliva pooling in the corner of his mouth.
His mind immediately jumped to Volume 4 of The Kraken's Concubine. The proportions... the "Monster-Girl" archetype... the potential for a "taming" sub-quest.
"Malenia-chan!" Gilbert shouted, his voice cracking with a sudden, desperate greed. "Wait! Don't kill it! I need one alive! It's... it's crucial for our survival! We need to... study its biology! For the archives! Think of the research, Malenia-tan!"
Malenia's eyeless helm turned toward him. The pressure in the room became so heavy that the remaining ceiling tiles began to crack.
"Silence thee, master of rot," Malenia hissed, her voice a lethal promise. "Indulge thy stagnant lusts another time. Focus thy meager spirit on protecting the beast, or I shalt feed thee to the next one that rises."
With a casual, almost bored flick of her wrist, Malenia drew her blade.
SHING.
In one fluid motion, the "Siren" was bisected. The two halves hit the churning water with a wet splat, the blue light in its eyes flickering out as the current swept the gore away.
"Noooooo!" Gilbert wailed, reaching out as if he could catch the lost "loot." "The rarity! That had to be a Rare-Spawn! You just deleted the only good thing in this Wave! Think of the fan-service, you baka!"
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SLC_Savage: "HE ASKED HER TO SAVE THE MERMAID. I AM DECEASED. 💀💀💀"
Gamer_God_69: "Gilbert is literally about to drown and he's still trying to build a monster-girl harem. The dedication to the cringe is S-Tier. 📈🤮"
Utah_Momma_Jen: "That boy is possessed! Malenia, give him another slap! He needs to focus on the flood, not the... the fish-ladies!"
Vile_Virtue: "Did you see how fast she cut that thing? Malenia isn't even trying yet. But the water is still rising. Look at the shelves. They're almost gone. 🍿"
Malenia ignored Gilbert's mourning. She grabbed the upper half of the monster's carcass and hurled it through the gap in the roof, a bloody offering to whatever else was waiting outside.
She turned her attention back to the problem at hand. The water wasn't just rising; it was surging.
"The vessel is broken," Malenia stated, her voice echoing in the shrinking air pocket. "And yet, even in its ruin, the width of the wood exceeds the portal."
She was right. The half of the boat Gilbert was clinging to was still stuck. It was wedged between a structural pillar and the front door-frame. As the water rose, the buoyant wood was being pressed upward, pinned against the remaining ceiling.
The boat wasn't an escape pod anymore. It was a lid.
"I can't swim!" Gilbert shrieked, his face pressing against the soggy, mold-covered insulation of the ceiling tiles. "If the wood goes under, I'm a dead man! I don't have the 'Gills' perk! I didn't spec into Athletics!"
He was laying on his back on the deck, the water already soaking through his 3XL shirt, cooling his chest. He could feel the cold, wet concrete of the roof just inches from his nose.
The proximity to Malenia, even in this life-or-death scenario, began to trigger the toxic "gamer" logic in his brain. She was standing only a few feet away, her armor slick and reflecting the Abyssal glow.
"Malenia-chan! Suggestion! We have to abandon ship! Take me to the roof! Use your wings! Ikuze! Ikuze! If we're pressed together... it's basically an incidental contact scenario!"
Malenia looked at the churning rapids outside. The "Endless Rain" was creating a vortex around the building. "The sky is no longer safe, creature. The winds carry the rot of the industrial smog, and the predators of the air have gathered above the opening. If I fly thee now, thou shalt be torn asunder before we clear the height."
She looked at Courage. The dog was shivering so hard his teeth sounded like a Geiger counter in a uranium mine.
"We must find higher ground within the structure," Malenia murmured. "The upper mezzanine... if it still holds."
"There is no mezzanine!" Gilbert wailed, his voice muffled as his nose hit a ceiling tile. "It's a one-story block! The only higher ground is the roof, and you just said that's a 'Death Zone'!"
The water reached Gilbert's ears. He could hear the dull, rhythmic thumping of the flood against the exterior walls. It sounded like a giant heart beating.
The air pocket was now less than six inches high.
"This is it," Gilbert whimpered, tears mixing with the dirty floodwater. "This is how the Representative of Utah goes out. Drowning in a store called Pleasure Palace while holding a pink dog. My legacy is going to be a meme."
He looked at Courage. The dog was staring back, his large eyes filled with a terrifying, silent empathy. Courage reached out a paw and patted Gilbert's cheek.
"Abluh... bluh... g-g-goodbye?"
"Don't say that!" Gilbert barked, water splashing into his mouth. "I'm the protagonist! I refuse to accept this ending! There has to be a 'Deus Ex Machina'! Malenia-chan, do something! Use your EX-Rank logic! I haven't even unlocked your 'Affection Scene' yet!"
Malenia stood in the water, her helm tilted up toward the roof. She ignored the panic. She was calculating the structural integrity of the remaining concrete.
"The pressure..." she whispered. "The building groans under the weight of the deluge. To stay is to be crushed. To fly is to be devoured."
Gilbert's head was now fully pressed against the ceiling. The rough concrete of the roof slab was scraping against his forehead. He could feel the immense weight of the water outside pressing the boat up into him, slowly crushing the air out of his lungs.
"I... can't... breathe..." Gilbert wheezed.
His double chin was submerged. The water tasted like copper and old paper. He was staring at a cobweb on the ceiling, a tiny spider struggling to stay above the line.
'Is this a sub-quest?' he thought, his brain beginning to flicker into the hazy delirium of hypoxia. 'Is the spider the NPC that gives me the secret exit? Or maybe... maybe if I die now, I'll be Isekai'd into a world where Malenia is my submissive kitten-tan?'
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SLC_Savage: "HE IS LITERALLY FLAT AS A PANCAKE. THE WATER IS PRESSING THE BOAT INTO THE ROOF. 🥞🌊"
Gamer_God_69: "Gilbert's 'Hitbox' is too big for the air pocket. This is why you don't pick the 'Heavy' build in a flood wave. 📉💀"
Utah_Momma_Jen: "Malenia! Save the baby! And the boy! Break the roof! Break it!"
Vile_Virtue: "If she breaks the roof, the whole building collapses. They're in a pressurized tank. One wrong move and it's a 'Total Wipeout' for the party. 🍿"
Gilbert's eyes bulged. The pressure was becoming agony. He could feel the Home Depot lumber of the boat deck groaning beneath him, the blue barrels screaming as they were compressed against his back.
"M-Malenia..." Gilbert gasped, the word coming out as a bubble.
He didn't want to die. Not like this. Not before he loses his virginity. Not before he sees the "Hidden Scene."
Desperation, sharp and acidic, flooded his brain. He wasn't a hero, but he was a gamer—a sexy, big-dick Alpha male gamer! And he knew how to exploit a map. He knew about clipping through geometry.
"The... boat..." Gilbert choked out, his face turned sideways so his mouth could reach the last half-inch of air. "Cut... the boat... more!"
Malenia's helm snapped toward him.
"Quick!" Gilbert wheezed, the water entering his nose. "It's... too wide! Cut it... into a... toothpick! Just enough... for me and... the dog! And... cut the... door! We'll clip through the portal!"
He made a face of pure, unadulterated agony, his pale skin turning a sickly shade of blue.
"If... you cut... the frame... the pressure... will blow us... out! Like... a... torpedo! It's the meta play, Malenia-chan! Trust the Alpha!"
Malenia didn't hesitate. She didn't rebuke him. She didn't call him a master of rot. She saw the logic in the coward's madness.
She drew her blade.
SHING. SHING.
The movements were too fast for the human eye—and certainly too fast for Gilbert's fogged-out lenses.
The remaining stern-half of the boat was suddenly shredded. Malenia's blade moved with a surgical, lethal precision, carving away the excess lumber, slicing through the metal shelf struts as if they were warm butter.
Gilbert felt the boat beneath him shrink. The pressure on his chest suddenly shifted as the "wings" of the raft were lopped off, leaving only a narrow, six-foot-wide sliver of wood and four blue barrels.
But they were still pinned. The boat was still being pushed up.
Malenia turned toward the front door. The steel frame was groaning, the glass long gone, replaced by a solid wall of dark, churning water that was trying to force its way in.
"Hold thy breath, master of filth," Malenia commanded.
She stepped onto the narrow sliver of wood, her weight stabilizing it for a split second. She raised her blade, the unalloyed gold of her prosthetic glowing with a faint, rot-stained aura.
She didn't swing. She thrust.
The blade hit the center of the door's reinforced lintel. The structural support didn't just break; it evaporated.
The result was a "Physics Engine" catastrophe.
With the main support gone, the pressure differential between the inside of the store and the flood outside equalized in a violent, explosive surge.
BOOM.
The "Fortress of Filth" didn't just flood; it imploded.
A wall of water, traveling with the force of a freight train, slammed into the room. It caught the narrow sliver of the boat—and the three passengers on it—and launched them toward the exit.
Gilbert didn't have time to scream. He was submerged instantly. He felt the violent, tumbling chaos of the current, the sensation of being inside a washing machine filled with gravel and broken glass.
He clutched Courage to his chest, his eyes shut tight, his lungs burning.
'I'm a torpedo,' he thought, the delirium taking over. 'I'm a Rank-S projectile. This is basically a high-speed Gacha pull.'
They hit the doorframe. Gilbert felt a jagged piece of metal tear into the shoulder of his Neko-Maid shirt, but the momentum was too great. The narrow raft, stripped of its width, shot through the portal like a cork from a bottle.
They were out.
SPLASH.
The transition from the suffocating, dark interior of the store to the open world was a shock of cold air and deafening noise.
Gilbert broke the surface, gasping for air so violently he nearly choked. He vomited up a mouthful of copper-tasting floodwater, coughing until his lungs burned.
"I... I'm alive?"
He blinked, his glasses gone, his vision a blur of grey and crimson.
He was still on the wood. The narrow sliver of the boat had survived the "launch," though it was rocking precariously in the churning rapids. Courage was still there, tucked under Gilbert's arm, coughing and shivering but alive.
Malenia stood at the front of the raft. She looked back at them, her cape tattered, her armor slick with oil. She didn't say "Good job." She didn't offer a hand. She simply turned her gaze back to the horizon.
Gilbert sat up, his body aching in places he didn't know he had muscles. He looked back at the "Fortress of Filth."
The building was gone. The roof had finally collapsed entirely, and the rising flood had submerged the rest. A few floating waifu pillows were the only evidence that Gilbert's "archives" had ever existed.
He looked up. The sky was a dark, bruised purple, the clouds swirling in a violent vortex. The "Endless Rain" showed no sign of stopping.
A sense of victory, cold and fragile, bubbled up in Gilbert's chest.
"I did it," he whispered, a shaky, hysterical laugh bubbling out of his throat. "I navigated the hazard. I used my 200 IQ strategist brain to override the map's limitations. You feeling horny for me yet—never mind. I know you're just playing hard to get, Malenia-tan."
He held up his hands to feel the rain's pour as the waves lift him up and down. His skin was pale and shivering, his shirt clinging to his jiggling frame.
"Do you see that, chat?! I'm the Master! I'm the one who saved the party! The boat might have been a mid-tier build, but the 'Wilton Torpedo' is a meta-breaking masterpiece! Hahahaha!"
His laughter echoed over the roar of the water. He felt like a King. He felt like a God. He felt like he had finally earned his "Alpha" status.
But the laughter quickly dwindled.
The raft slowed as it drifted out of the main current and into the "Lake" that used to be the parking lot. The water here was calmer, a dark, mirror-like surface reflecting the crimson sky.
Gilbert noticed movement.
Not one dorsal fin. Not two.
Dozens of them.
The "Increase in Mobs" modifier hadn't just placed predators in the building. It had seeded the entire biome.
Jagged, copper-scaled fins began to break the surface all around the narrow raft. They weren't attacking—not yet. They were just... circling. Waiting for the "Wilton Torpedo" to slow down.
And beyond the fins, something much larger was rising. A massive, industrial-looking eye, the size of a tractor tire, broke the surface a hundred yards away. It turned, the blue light of its pupil locking onto the three survivors.
Gilbert's smile died. He looked at the water. He looked at the fins. He looked at the giant, glowing eye.
"This is bullshit," Gilbert whispered.
[LIVE FEED: UTAH SECTOR CHAT]
SLC_Savage: "THE KRAKEN. THEY TRIGGERED THE KRAKEN. 🐙💀"
Gamer_God_69: "The 'Loot' from the building escape was just a lure. The real Wave 2 boss is here. Gilbert... you're gonna need a bigger boat. 📈📉"
Utah_Momma_Jen: "Run! Malenia! Fly away! Take the dog!"
Vile_Virtue: "They can't fly. Look at the sky. The 'Industrial Smog' just turned into 'Acid Rain'. 🌧️☣️"
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[Wave 2 — Event: THE DEEP HUNT BEGINS]
[Time Remaining: 15 Hr 00 Min]
Gilbert looked down at the four blue barrels holding up his narrow sliver of wood. He looked at Courage. He looked at Malenia.
"Ikuze...?" he whispered, but this time, there was no ego. Only the sound of a man who realized he had just escaped a cage only to enter an arena.
The giant eye blinked. The water began to churn.
And the first of the fins began to close in.