"No way! God, are you messing with me?" Zhou Tian cried in disbelief, glancing at his own body. He couldn't believe that such a thing would befall him.
Just like in many stories, Zhou Tian, like many other protagonists, was playing a game when he accidentally got electrocuted and, unbeknownst to him, found his soul transported into it.
Alright! Zhao Tian who liked reading novels in his spare time did think about traveling to another time or place. If it was just time travel, he wouldn't mind. But, he didn't just travel through time. He ended up in the very game he was playing. To make matters worse, Zhao Tian found it hard to accept that his soul had ended up inside a wild monster.
What's a wild monster? Those are the pitiful groups that supply newbie players with money, experience points, and equipment. Finding himself suddenly a member of this pitiful group, Zhou Tian's mood certainly wasn't good.
Even so, now that Zhou Tian had traveled here, the world wouldn't change just because he opposed it. Unless he committed suicide, Zhou Tian could only continue to be a wild monster.
He never contemplated suicide from the start. Even if he were to barely survive as a wild monster, Zhou Tian would never make the decision to give up his own life. So after experiencing life in the game world for a while, he quickly accepted his current identity.
"The most important thing now is to avoid those players. If I accidentally bump into them, it would be dangerous," Zhou Tian said. He knew very well what the biggest threat was to wild monsters. Thus, after accepting his new identity, he immediately began to head for the less-populated area in his memory.
"Now I'm a Level 1 Beast Slave. If I continue to live with this identity, I won't survive for very long. There are always lots of players around. If I'm unlucky and get spotted, I'll be doomed," Zhou Tian fretted about his identity all while distancing himself from his original area.
But to Zhou Tian's surprise, right after he left his usual area, he quickly ran into new trouble.
"Roar!" As he heard a sudden roar, Zhou Tian instinctively looked up, only to see a dark shadow flash across. Following that, he felt a sharp pain.
"Stay within your patrol area," came the unexpected command. Even though Zhou Tian didn't understand the monster's language, he somehow was able to understand its meaning.
Hearing the Beastman's command, Zhou Tian didn't try to resist initially. However, when he sensed the killing intent emanating from the Beastman, he reluctantly retreated.
Zhou eventually realized that in-game monsters have their own territories and would not easily leave their areas. Given this, the Beastman's behavior made sense, it must be the creatures' restrictions at play. Before he could transform into another wild monster, Zhou's current movement area must be those territories in the game where Beast Slaves exist.
Upon understanding this, Zhou's face naturally turned rather pale. After all, his initial plan to distance himself failed, and he was forced back so easily. Zhou was, understandably, not in a good mood.
Downcast, Zhou turned around and started heading back towards his previous hiding place.
However, before he got very far, he sensed that, seemingly out of nowhere, the number of Beast Slaves nearby had decreased at an alarming rate.
Unlike the two or three in the game world, here, Beast Slaves being the lowest-ranking wild monsters, their numbers were not minuscule as shown on the computer screen. There were probably tens of thousands where Zhou was presently. With such numbers, a perceptible decrease meant a significant number of Beast Slaves had disappeared.
Instinctively, given this scenario, Zhou felt an inexplicable threat. He should have run away without a second thought given his disposition.
However, he didn't do that. Due to some changes in Zhou Tian's character or the influence of his Beast Slave identity, when he sensed danger, he didn't choose to flee. Instead, he carefully headed towards the source of the threat.
Indeed, after a while, Zhou Tian finally saw the 'thing' potentially threatening his safety.
Unexpectedly, he expected the ones that could pose a threat to him to be players given his current situation. But when he arrived at the place, he found out that the ones wiping out the Beast Slaves were not players, but a group of NPCs.
Seeing the NPCs dressed like soldiers continuously charging into the pack of Beast Slaves, Zhou Tian's heartbeat inevitably accelerated a few beats.
It was only when he saw the NPCs that usually played supporting roles in the game surrounding and hunting Beast Slaves that he truly felt that he had reincarnated as a monster.
The background of the game world was about various creatures and NPCs struggling for world domination, though the players were the only ones seen fighting various monsters in the game, while the NPCs simply made cameo appearances. But what Zhou was seeing now was strikingly similar to the game's background story.
"Perhaps this isn't just a game, it might be another world," As Zhou Tian pondered, his composed demeanor took a significant hit.
"Anyway, whether it's a game or another world doesn't matter now. The problem I need to consider right now is how to deal with these NPCs," Setting his mind, Zhou quickly shifted his focus to the group of NPCs.
Although they hadn't targeted him yet, he wouldn't naively think he could avoid trouble if he didn't mess with them. According to the game's background story, the army in front of him were essentially his sworn enemies and he couldn't avoid them forever.
Instead of running away from the foes' constant encirclement, Zhou preferred to face them head-on.