The Random Warehouse Event

Events in this world fell into two distinct categories: standard, scheduled occurrences that were guaranteed to happen in every single playthrough, and dynamic random events that cropped up on the fly depending on shifting circumstances.

It had been quite some time since I had encountered a random event, not since the Random Papa fiasco and the Gigantamax Plant crisis.

Which warehouse drifted away was entirely random. Its contents were just as much of a gamble. Every now and then, a containment shed from the beast pens would get washed downstream; pry the door open on one of those, and an entire menagerie of live magical beasts captured for vivisection and research would come pouring out.

For an under-geared scrub, it was the sort of absurd event that could inflict an instant, undignified death the very moment the latch clicked open.

Well, whatever. It's no big deal for a veteran like me. As long as I press my ear to the sheet metal and listen closely for scratching or growling, I'm not going to suffer a humiliating death from pure carelessness!

Truth be told, the potential haul interested me greatly. If we fished out a dry goods shed, I could score a mountain of rare culinary ingredients. If it turned out to be an alchemy repository, stockpiling the reagents until resale would net me a massive bounty of Points from upperclassmen, while the non-perishables could be hoarded until my second year. And if we hit a weapons locker, I could haul the blades straight to a forge, melt them down into fresh ingots, and effectively launder the contraband metal clean!

"I'm in!" I announced.

"Gyahaha! I knew it! Pint-sized you may be, but your guts are big enough to burst right through your ribs! Let's get cracking this second!"

Jigoku ducked under the broad overhanging eaves of a nearby academic hall to escape the sheets of driving rain. Wiping the water from her brow, she unrolled a parchment map. It was a comprehensive architectural blueprint of the entire Gift Academy campus, drafted with such meticulous precision that even a veteran player like me was forced to do a double take.

"Where on earth did you get that?" I asked.

"Huh? Surveyed the terrain and drafted it myself. Look, if you're gonna board a vessel for three months, you strip her down to the ribs so you know where every bulkhead and rat hole sits. If we're gonna be stuck at this academy for over three whole years, shouldn't I know the lay of the land ten times better?"

"A pirate... speaking absolute sense?!"

"Hey, you looking down on me just 'cause I fly the Jolly Roger?"

"Sorry. Honestly? A little bit."

"Gyahaha! Well, I like the honesty. Count your lucky stars you dodged getting a rubber slug ventilated through your forehead, squirt."

Come to think of it, she had earned admission to Gift Academy, the premier educational institution in the civilized world. Her credentials were undeniably elite. Back when I had played as a male character, we had spent every waking moment firing flintlocks or hurling felled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trees at each other's skulls, which completely blinded me to her sharper edges. Perhaps this was who Jigoku had been all along.

"Right then. Factoring in the natural incline of the hills and the drainage runoffs," she said, tapping a blackened fingernail against the soaked parchment, "the drifting sheds would have been swept from this quadrant straight down this channel. The spots we need to sweep are these three collection points along the spillway."

I stared in genuine shock.

The three locations she singled out were the exact three secret farming spots discovered by hardcore community theorycrafters after months of trial and error. What had taken hundreds of collective player hours to document, Jigoku had calculated on the fly purely through hydrodynamic intuition and terrain analysis.

Beneath the guise of a trigger-happy maritime delinquent lurked a remarkably shrewd tactical analyst.

"Incredible!" I praised her sincerely.

"Gyahaha! Save the buttering up for later, kid. Let's pillage the closest basin before somebody beats us to it!"

She was now the third person to unlock an affection milestone perk, trailing right behind Arcadia and Hestia. By some bizarre twist of fate, my standing with prominent canon figures had surged ahead of my ties with everyday classmates, though when I thought about it, that was completely natural. Between figures I had studied, fought, and allied with across thousands of game cycles versus random background extras I had met for the first time in this run, who was I going to understand better?

The veteran's memory won out every time. Even if procedural personality seeds shifted a person's traits from cycle to cycle, their fundamental ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠psychological archetype always gravitated toward predictable patterns.

"First candidate site is right ahead!" Jigoku shouted over the roar of the downpour.

The academy maintained this dedicated complex to rear experimental creatures. To ensure their stock could survive the predatory wildlife roaming the wilderness beyond the boundary wards, the researchers had deliberately induced gigantism, rapid mutations, and selective adaptations in their charges. Some had been fed processed monster cores until they mutated into half-beast horrors; others were pure, unaltered beasts that simply had skulls thick enough to cave in a drake's ribs with a headbutt. And then, of course, there were the pathetic weaklings kept solely to be fed on or pummeled for baseline comparison data.

"Whoa," Jigoku whistle-sighed, ducking behind a low parapet. "Those Giant King Crabs are swarming the perimeter like barnacles on a sunken keel."

"They must have caught the scent of meat," I whispered.

The Animal Husbandry Facility had been dragged into an impromptu, blood-drenched siege.

"Back off, you crustacean bastards! You won't lay a single claw on our beloved Bunny-buns!"

"Bunny-bun LX-10229 has only completed seventy-two hours of observation following aerosolized inhalation of a rapid-putrefaction curse! We cannot allow a single crab past this breach until the pathology and symptomatic progression are documented to the final decimal point!"

"Cross this threshold, I dare you! I'll make my next doctoral thesis about cultivating flesh-eating parasitic creepers inside your hollowed-out carapaces!"

The third-year production students were howling with visceral, unadulterated madness. Perched atop barricades and high sills, they jabbed barbed boar spears into the surging tide of crustaceans while hurling pressurized glass ampoules of hyper-corrosive neurotoxins down into the frothing surf. It was a terrifying reminder that the Production Department did not share academic standing with master swordsmen and high wizards out of charity.

Once those sociopaths graduated, they would undoubtedly retreat into untamed borderlands, construct unmapped subterranean dungeons for illicit biological experiments, slaughter the hundreds of state-sanctioned adventurers dispatched to eradicate them, and vanish into the mist as legendary dungeon architects. Even for an old hand like me, watching them work sent an icy shiver down my spine.

"Gyahaha! Now that looks like a proper brawl!" Jigoku cackled, her eyes gleaming with manic glee.

"...Does it?" I deadpanned.

"Should we wade in and help 'em crack some shells?"

"...I really don't think that's a good idea. Let's just leave. Remember our deal? I'm only accompanying you until my afternoon lecture starts."

"Ah, right, you've got class, don't ya? Fine, fine. I'll just swing back here by myself after we're done."

"……."

Pure, unadulterated lunacy. What kind of madman saw a fortress held by homicidal graduate students throwing bioweapons and thought, Yeah, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I want to hang out there for fun?

I guess that's the level of brain rot required to become a pirate king.

No wonder maritime buccaneers always out-scaled mountain bandits in high-level content; you couldn't beat genuine, certifiable psychosis. Keeping our heads low to avoid catching aggro from the stray Giant King Crabs, we sloshed through the mud toward the second collection basin.

"Candidate number two!" Jigoku declared, halting at an iron archway.

The bottom half of the painted steel plate had been severed cleanly by an errant crab pincer. I had hoped that the sight of an explicit prohibition might inject a shred of common sense into her skull, but Jigoku merely squinted at the mangled sheet metal, raised a scuffed leather boot, and kicked the pole. The sign spun around with a squeak of rusted hinges, hiding the warning letters on the reverse side.

"Right, path looks clear! In we go!"

"...Only for a quick look," I muttered, dragging my feet.

Lucky bastard. If I wasn't terrified that she would wander off alone and suffer an off-screen death that broke my quest flags, I wouldn't be caught dead near this perimeter.

"Don't sweat it, kid," she said breezily, gesturing into the misty gloom. "My reconnaissance says this tract only houses a penal labor compound. Nothing genuinely lethal."

"Even with a restricted-access sign posted at the gate?"

"If it were truly suicidal, they'd have posted sentries at the threshold. Watchtowers, roaming proctors, the whole nine yards. Wouldn't they?"

To give credit where it was due, her logic was sound on paper.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!

“…….”

That held true, of course, right up until the blaring sirens echoed all the way to the outer perimeter fence. Jigoku scratched the back of her neck, a sheepish grin spreading across her damp ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠features.

"Oops."

Oops, my ass.

If either one of us had been in a male body right now, I would have clobbered her upside the skull without a second thought. For someone disguised as a boy, her outrageous personality drowned out her gender by a country mile. There probably wasn't another lunatic quite like her on the face of the continent.

"Let's check the final spot," I said coldly.

"Aye, lead on, Cap'n."

The layout of Gift Academy was notoriously hostile: the farther you journeyed from the safety of the central Main Building, the more lethal the installations became. The seniors' Animal Husbandry Facility was a nightmare; the penal camp for imperial felons was a powder keg; and the third site on our list was the crowning jewel of academic hazard.

In terms of difficulty rating, it was far and away the most treacherous of the three. And unfortunately for my nerves, I already knew exactly what lay waiting down there.

"Ta-daaa! The grand finale, where the salvage is all but guaranteed to have run aground!"

Before us yawned a colossal subterranean abyss—a vertical shaft wide enough for an ancient dragon to spread its wings and dive without grazing the rock face. A spiral stone staircase clung to the perimeter, guarded by waist-high iron railings to keep errant students from tumbling into the dark below. Lodged directly against one of those safety balustrades on an intermediate landing was a large, waterlogged wooden cargo shed.

"Bullseye!" Jigoku grinned.

"Are you seriously planning to climb down there?" I asked.

"Why not? We're just popping down to liberate some abandoned goods."

Bereft of fear, common sense, or a preservation instinct, the pirate sauntered down the slippery stone steps without missing a beat.

Chiseled into the cavern wall alongside each winding descent were massive archways leading to self-contained training dungeons. This yawning sinkhole was, in fact, the Comprehensive Dungeon Theme Park, an underground facility hollowed out specifically to provide students with controlled combat environments. Contrary to its fearsome appearance, 'Theme Park' was the official administrative name listed in the registrar's office.

"Whew. Thank goodness it didn't drift all the way down to Sector B," I muttered, catching up to her.

"What's down in B?"

"Dungeons that can't be cleared in a single day, automated surveillance wards that log your student badge... basically, a mountain of academic trouble."

Jigoku turned around, her eyes sparkling like polished dubloons.

"I knew it! You've got the soul of a true sea dog! You wanted to go treasure hunting just as badly as I did, didn't you? That's why you dug up all this classified academy intel!"

"I didn't research it for that kind of nonsense..."

"Then why'd you memorize the layout?"

"It's less that I researched it and more that... well, you could call it an occupational hazard. The information just stuck."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Say no more. Every good privateer spots prime targets to plunder while they're nursing an ale at the tavern."

I couldn't relate to that in the slightest, and I really wished she would stop trying to forge pirate solidarity between us. My only goal was to pry the shed open, see what dropped, and get back to dry land.

Reaching the landing, I stepped up to the soaked timber wall of the container and pressed my ear against the wood.

THUMP. THUD.

A muffled, rhythmic pounding resonated through the grain, followed by a chorus of high-pitched, venomous hissing.

"...We really, really shouldn't open this," I whispered.

Of all the rotten luck in the world, the floodwaters had delivered a live magical beast container straight into our laps.