Ch.1Became a Monster (1)

# Male-Oriented Collection Mobile Game.

<Monster Front>

The game’s style was extremely simple.

Draw girls with special abilities from Hero City, divided from Area A to Area Z, and exterminate monsters!

…a typical otaku-style narrative.

Well, I started playing because I liked that kind of story in the first place.

Others might find it a bit cringeworthy or childish, but I was an open beta user who had been playing <Monster Front> since the beginning of its service.

Until I raised a 1-star character to 5 stars.

Then until I collected their exclusive equipment, even spending real money.

Then until I upgraded all that equipment to the highest grade of 3 stars.

Then until they introduced a new growth system called 6-star awakening above 5-star characters, requiring me to raise their stars even higher.

Then when they added a pet system and I spent hundreds of dollars on gacha pulls for that too…

“Haah…”

Thinking about it now, I could understand exactly why I quit that game.

The ridiculous cash-grabbing tactics of the developers.

Even monetization should be done in moderation to keep players spending, but when rumors of a 7-star awakening even more powerful than 6-star started circulating…

Five years of service.

By then, only about 100 players remained.

It had lasted quite long for a mobile game, but <Monster Front> was simultaneously on its deathbed, and I was one of the so-called “100 diehards.”

A veteran player called the last hope of a dying game.

Someone whose head was already broken.

That was me.

But even I, when the rumors about 7-star awakening were finally confirmed to be true.

“…Let’s quit.”

I had already spent millions of won on this game, and at the news that I needed to spend even more, I immediately deleted <Monster Front> from my phone.

And then, 10 years later.

“Grrrr! Grr!”

‘Shit.’

I found myself in Hero City, the main setting of <Monster Front>.

Not as the protagonist of the male-oriented collection mobile game I once obsessed over… not even as a gender-swapped female character, but as a monster.

In other words, I was incarnated as one of the monsters that needed to be exterminated.

***

Let me retrace my memories.

My name is Kang Janghoon.

This year I’m 37 years old.

I was an ordinary salaryman, and as usual, I was getting up early in the morning to commute to work.

The traffic light was definitely green.

HONK HONK!

“…Fuck.”

If it had been dawn, I might have understood… no, it shouldn’t happen even at dawn.

I seemed to have been instantly killed by a drunk truck driver in broad daylight, without even feeling any pain, and when I regained consciousness.

At first glance, it looked similar to the Earth I lived on, but it was a world where there were more wastelands and ruined cities that humans hadn’t yet pioneered than developed lands.

A world where only women among humans could use “special abilities” to protect people from monsters called “kaiju.”

A mobile game with a story where humanity’s survival was guaranteed by “female heroes.”

Somehow, I had been incarnated into <Monster Front>, which I had quit 10 years ago.

Not as Kang Janghoon just before death, nor as a gender-swapped female character who could use special abilities.

“Grrrr…”

But as a monster with a bizarre horned mask face, covered in dark red leather, with flesh flapping like a cape.

A blonde “monster” that looked so dangerous at first glance that it should be exterminated immediately, with horns growing out of it.

“Grrrr. Grr…”

‘I’m screwed…’

Come on, isn’t there an unwritten rule for isekai reincarnation after being hit by a truck?

I should have opened my eyes to find myself reborn as a hero.

Starting an adventure with an elf mage, a tsundere priestess, and other male characters to save the world, growing close to my companions who are also heroines, and even having passionate sex to continue the bloodline.

Anyway, I should have been someone beloved by the isekai people.

Wasn’t that the unwritten rule for truck-hit reincarnators?

But what am I now, as I see myself reflected in the broken building’s window?

Height approximately 2 meters.

My appearance was like a guardian straight out of hell.

I remember that there weren’t many monsters with such a hideous appearance even in <Monster Front>.

Of course, if they overused such modeling, the weekly boss mobs or regular bosses would lose their impact.

Yes, this visual was at least a chapter boss.

The kind of appearance you’d only see on “named monsters.”

‘By the way, what kind of monster have I incarnated as?’

I had been walking through the ruined city for a week now.

The place where I found myself when I opened my eyes.

Perhaps it had been recently attacked by monsters, or maybe because the electricity hadn’t been cut off yet.

Even as a monster, I got hungry, and whenever that happened, I could occasionally stop by collapsed convenience stores to have meals with still-cold drinks and snacks.

“Grrrr! Grr!”

‘At least I won’t get in trouble for this!’

No matter how money-obsessed a convenience store owner might be, they wouldn’t complain about a monster eating some food from their collapsed store.

…Well, is the owner even alive?

Munch munch munch.

Ah, the chocolate bar melts so smoothly.

The Freedom Chocolate Bar, an overwhelmingly powerful stamina recovery item compared to what you can get from the beginning when you first start <Monster Front>.

In-game, it was an overpowered food item that allowed you to immediately use skills that normally had a 3-turn cooldown, and if purchased with real money, it cost only 100 won each.

‘100 won… I thought it was a very cheap price with fair monetization and used it freely, but when I came to my senses, I had already spent about 50,000 won on a single battle.’

The problem was that while it was one thing to use it in PVE against monsters, it could also be used in PVP against other players, so if both sides started using chocolate bars…

I shake my head.

I don’t even want to think about it.

A battle of whose money would run out first, starting with just 100 won.

Even now, remembering it gives me PTSD.

Munch munch munch.

“Grr… Grr…”

‘I wonder if I have to stay in these ruins until I die?’

Convenience store food isn’t infinite.

Above all, despite my appearance, I’m still a “person,” and people should live where there are other people.

If I continued to sustain my life like this, it was clear that I would break down mentally before physically.

Moreover, just as I was a monster, there were other monsters in the world of <Monster Front>.

‘I’ve been like this for three days now, and I’ve encountered others maybe three or four times?’

Monsters that were several times larger than my 2-meter tall self, with forms that looked terrifying at first glance.

Maybe because my face was so hideous.

So far there hadn’t been any real problems as we just ran away from each other, but if I fought them, I would surely die.

Just like now.

CRASH.

“Grr?!”

Something smashed through the convenience store window and landed in the triangle kimbap section.

At first, I thought a shell had fallen and prostrated myself with both arms over my head.

Then, sensing the quiet, I got up again and looked around to find that what had attacked the convenience store that had been providing my meals for three days was none other than a monster’s head.

‘Eek?!’

It was the severed head of a cow-like monster with shaggy hair, about the same size as me.

‘W-what is this?! …Oh, could this be the “Goat Monster”? Now that I think about it, I think I’ve seen it in the game.’

The Goat Monster.

It was definitely a low-grade monster, classified as semi-4th grade among monster grades ranging from 5th grade to special grade.

The nickname once used among veteran players was “large sandbag.”

Perhaps because it had almost no attack power but extremely solid defense.

It was a monster often exterminated for combo practice by veteran players, and I had also tested various character combinations on it.

…But were you such a scary creature in real life?

‘Monsters usually have their strength measured by the “epithet” attached to them, according to the setting.’

This was a “plot point” I hadn’t resolved because I deleted the game during play.

However, from what I knew, all monsters were connected to some specific concept in human society.

And they appeared as monsters taking that as their epithet, with the source of their power being the fear of the humans they antagonized.

For example, the Goat Monster whose head was now in front of me.

Since almost no one would fear goats, its epithet didn’t inspire much fear, so it could never exert strong power.

But names that people fear.

Like “Domination,” or “Gun,” or “Chainsaw,” or chainsawchainsawchainsaw anyway chainsaw.

‘S-surely there isn’t a monster with a chainsaw attached to its head around here?!’

Monsters with such spine-chilling epithets had enough power to treat this Goat Monster as nothing.

“Grrrr!”

Where did this thing fly in from anyway?

Seeing how this defensively solid creature had its neck cleanly cut off and thrown here, it clearly meant there was something dangerous nearby.

Rustle rustle rustle!

Before running away, I hugged chocolate bars and water to my chest.

“Grrrr!”

‘I’m running away!’

Click.

So I opened the convenience store door with its hole and went outside.

And.

Right then.

…Beep.

“Grr?”

First time seeing a monster hoarding chocolate bars?

A red dot slowly rising up my body toward the chocolate bars I had taken… well, not stolen but picked up.

The scope of a sniper rifle was already targeting the crown of my head.