Chapter 1
The sun had been beating down on me for what felt like an eternity, turning the interior of this metal rust bucket into a literal oven while the endless expanse of the ocean mocked my thirst.
It had been days since I first found myself floating aimlessly in this godforsaken tub, and the relief of having survived a supernatural abduction had long since worn off, replaced by a grinding, salt-crusted misery.
Every time a wave surged beneath the hull, the boat would lurch violently, dragging me toward a new horizon that looked exactly like the last one, leaving me with absolutely no idea whether I was drifting north, south, east, or west.
I was a speck of dust on a blue marble, trapped in a repetitive cycle of tides that rose and feel as my constant mood swings, with nothing but the annoying creaking of this rusted ship to keep me company.
The sheer absurdity of my situation was enough to make me want to scream until my lungs gave out, especially when I let my mind wander back to the reason for this shitty disaster.
I facepalmed the moment the memory resurfaced, the heat of my palm against my sun-reddened skin serving as a painful reminder of just how incredibly stupid I had been to engage with that online community.
All of this, the isolation, the starvation, the looming threat of a watery grave, had happened because I decided to bad-mouth a Webnovel online, a decision I know regretted wholeheartedly.
In my defense, it really wasn't my fault that I had lost my temper, because that goddarned book was quite possibly the most insulting piece of literature ever conceived by a human mind.
The plot wasn't just foolish; it was a combination of stupid tropes with an illogical plot that made my brain ache just thinking about the thousands of words I had wasted my time reading.
The characters themselves were beyond foolish, existing only as cardboard cutouts designed to worship a protagonist who lacked even the most basic levels of common sense.
"How can so many women suddenly fall for one stupid guy who can't even tell what's blocking his asshole when it's obvious it's his hand that's far up there?" I snarled, the words coming out as a raspy growl as I gnashed my teeth in a fit of lingering anger.
Even out here, surrounded by nothing but water and the threat of death, the memory of that protagonist's incompetence made my blood boil.
I had once harbored such great expectations for that story, drawn in by a decent premise, only to watch it devolve into some crappy, brain-rot harem fantasy that lacked any semblance of soul or internal logic.
It felt like a personal betrayal to see well-written, powerful female characters suddenly lose every ounce of their agency and intelligence just to compete for the attention of a dense asshole when they clearly had better options in every single chapter.
Even if the guy wasn't intentionally being a jerk, the very least he could have done was show some spine and politely decline their advances to maintain some dignity for everyone involved.
But no, the author had to double down on the wish-fulfillment nonsense in the most irritating way possible, leading to a scene that I still couldn't think about without feeling my blood boil with rage.
"The dumb fuck said he would love them all equally? Who the fuck even does that?!" My voice cracked as I shouted into the wind, my self-control finally snapping as I swung my arm and punched the side of the metal boat with everything I had left.
"ARRGH! Damnit!"
A scream of pain followed almost instantly, the dull thud of my knuckles against the unforgiving iron sending a jolt of agony straight up my arm and into my shoulder.
I pulled my hand back, cradling it against my chest and clenching my fist as I waited for the throbbing sensation to subside.
Taking several deep, shaky breaths, I tried to force my heart rate down, realizing how pathetic I must look, throwing a tantrum in the middle of a literal ocean over a fictional character.
"Honestly, it doesn't even matter whether he strings all of them along at this point," I grumbled to myself, leaning my head back against the side of the boat and staring up at the vast, uncaring sky. "Why am I even thinking of something so dumb when I'm stranded in the middle of the ocean with no food or water?"
I've already tried drinking sea water due to desperation and of course that was a dumb idea, so yeah, I really had nothing to eat for several days.
The silence of the sea offered no answer, which only served to irritate me further as I glared at the clouds, imagining the author of that cursed book sitting somewhere looking down on me.
"If you wanted to prove a point by dragging me into this world, you could've just made me a real side character, you know? Why the hell would you leave me out here to die in the middle of nowhere!" I shouted, hoisting my middle finger toward the heavens.
I let out a long, helpless sigh, the weight of my reality finally beginning to crush the anger out of me, leaving only a hollow sense of helplessness.
In my mind, I couldn't help but curse the author again, thinking that even if they truly were a god in this realm, only a kindergartener would resort to something as petty and dumb as this.
It felt like the work of some emotionally unstable bastard who couldn't handle a single bit of constructive criticism without throwing a literal tantrum and casting their critics into a watery abyss.
I was about to lay back down and wait for the sun to finish me off when my heart suddenly skipped a beat, a strange sensation prickling at the back of my neck.
I then noticed that something was different about the water around me. a subtle shift in color that didn't match the deep blue or the white foam of the cresting waves.
Straining my aching muscles, I stood up and cautiously approached the edge of the metal boat, gripping the rusted rim with both hands to keep my balance as the tipsy waves threatened to throw me overboard.
I leaned out as far as I dared, squinting against the glare of the sun to get a better look at the water surrounding my vessel, and my breath hitched in my throat.
The water wasn't blue anymore; it was actually becoming red, a deep, swirling crimson that was blooming outward.
"The hell?" I blurted out, my voice trembling with a mixture of confusion and genuine fright as the color intensified.
My mind immediately went to the darkest possible conclusion, wondering if that was actually blood I was seeing clouding the brine.
If there was that much blood in the water, did it mean there was some kind of viscous monster lurking beneath me, hunting something large enough to dye the sea red?
The thought caused my face to turn a ghostly shade of pale, and I suddenly felt a lot more content with the idea of dying of starvation on this shitty boat than being torn to shreds by some unseen horror from the depths.
I remained frozen, my knuckles white as I gripped the metal, watching as the red stain continued to spread and thicken until it looked like a red carpet laid out across the waves.
The tension in the air felt like it was rising, a heavy silence falling over the ocean as I waited for the other shoe to drop.
Plop.
A soft sound broke the rhythm of the waves, and my eyes widened in sheer surprise when a shape emerged on the surface of the water, some distance from me.
It wasn't a shark or a sea monster, but a person's body that had suddenly bobbed up to float along the sea surface, drifting slowly toward my boat.
From this distance, I couldn't get a perfect look at them, but they were definitely nude, their pale skin standing out starkly against the dark red of the stained water.
I could only catch a glimpse of the head as the body rolled with the current, though it was hard to tell much else due to the long, wet pink hair that was matted against their skin and trailing in the water like seaweed.
'The hell is a body doing all the way out here?' I wondered, my fear momentarily eclipsed by a profound, haunting confusion as the pink-haired stranger drifted closer to my rust bucket.
My gut screamed at me that something was fundamentally wrong with this situation, as finding a lone body drifting in the middle of a vast ocean was never a sign of good fortune.
Especially as I watched the crimson stain in the water continue to expand and thicken with every passing second.
I knew enough about the sea to understand that this much blood would act like a dinner bell for every predator within a ten-mile radius, and it wouldn't be long before sharks or something much worse arrived to investigate the source.
Even though every rational part of my brain told me to paddle away as fast as my weakened arms could manage, I couldn't ignore the fact that if I didn't do something immediately, this person was going to die right before my eyes.