As I awoke, I felt that this was all getting pretty repetitive. I hadn’t died this time though; I was still in my Kaiju body. As I sat up, I discovered I’d been put in a cage. After a moment’s thought, I wondered how I could even fit in a cage. Wasn’t I some fifty metres tall? Thinking I should easily be able to break out of my prison, I shook violently at the bars, but to no avail.

Damn, seemed I wasn’t going to get out of this so easily. I thought back on my captor – the man with the cape. I knew I’d felt a strong presence from him, but to think he’d imprison me so easily. This wasn’t how it went in the movies. The Kaiju always won at least a few times before being defeated, and even then, only through the use of some secret military weapon. That light – I guess he’d had his secret weapon right from the start. Talk about unfair.

I leaned back against the bars and stared at the ceiling for a while. I was in a dark room, a single light hanging from far above me. How big was this place anyway? What kind of world had rooms big enough to hold Kaijus? What kind of lightbulb was that huge? None of this made any sense. It was then that I noticed something in the corner of my HUD.

 

LVL: 1

 

No way. Wasn’t I supposed to be level twenty? I checked my other stats.

 

HP: 100

MP: 15

Atk: 9~11

Def: 4~6

 

Pathetic! What had happened to all my awesome power? I was – I realised suddenly that this cage wasn’t huge. My eyes widened.

“I must be small,” I said out loud.

My voice, however, was not the nightmarish cry of a movie monster, but the pitiful chirp of a household lizard. This was some real A class bullshit. I folded my arms sulkily. Just when I thought I’d been able to leave my boring-ass real life for something cooler; I’d been turned into someone’s pet gecko.

I sat in silence for a while, until I heard something from outside. I turned and started as I was faced with eight eyes glowing in the blackness. They moved from left to right, as though the thing was cocking its head as it observed me.

“Hello?” I called, nervously.

The eyes moved closer. The light from above fell upon its form, revealing a hair covered face reminiscent of a spider’s. It didn’t step fully into the light, but I could assume from what I saw that this thing was indeed a spider. A large arachnid, which much have come up to my upper chest. It hissed but I was able to make out what it said.

“Another one, huh?”

I regarded it with curiosity. “You were taken captive too?” I asked.

It nodded.

“Why was my level reduced to one?”

“When you weren’t in the possession of a Keeper you had the ‘WILD’ status effect. This drastically increases your level and stats.”

“You mean it was just a temporary buff?” I couldn’t have sounded more disappointed.

“Well, only temporary if you get captured.” The spider laughed. “What’s your name?”

“Ugh.” I didn’t really want to say it, but I supposed it was impolite to refuse. “Shi Mian.”

Wait. I’m being stupid. This is another world. This spider won’t know the meaning of my name, right?

“Wet noodle?” the spider said. I could hear its laughter barely being held back.

Shit. I’d hoped for too much. Even in my new life I would be forever haunted by parents’ ill decision.

“What about you?” I said with a resigned sigh.

“Mei Long.”

A name from my world – that’s interesting – and a girl too. Better I knew her gender upfront or I might get myself into an awkward situation. Human females were already hard enough to understand but this girl could probably inject me with spider venom if I pissed her off. Yikes.

“Were you also reincarnated?”

She nodded. “As a spider Kaiju. Once I was captured by our Keeper, I dropped back to level one, same as you. I’m level three now though.”

“Huh, so this guy captures Kaiju? Then what?”

“We’re kept in here, inside his Kaiju Orb, until he decides to use us.”

“Use?”

“The objectives of Keepers is to get to the top of the leader board. They gain points by defeating enemy Keepers’ Kaijus.”

I scratched my chin with a clawed finger. Now this was really sounding like a video game.

“The call it the ‘Kemono Wars’.”

“And you’ve fought a few times already?”

“Yes, but only against WILD opponents. Weaker Kaiju spawned in this world through means other than reincarnation. I’ve never fought an enemy Keeper. Most of the time I’ve been sent in alone, he never uses Karl.”

“Karl?”

“He got reincarnated as an ankylosaurus type Kaiju.”

“You know, I always imagined Kaiju with more… dramatic names.”

“Well, the famous keepers near the top of the leader board give their Kaiju battle names. Us though, we’re low levels. I guess our Keeper, Wei-Jian, can’t be bothered.”

Just then, the sides of my cage lowered before vanishing into the ground. What the hell was this place? Then, with a sound like a hydraulic system activating, a circular doorway opened up to one side, letting in a flood of blindingly white light. I covered my eyes as I blinked away the black spots that had formed in my vision.

Against the white was a human silhouette, an unmistakable cape waving behind him. This must be our Keeper, as Mei had called him. The figure indicated with his hand for me to follow him and so I stepped into the light. I blinked as the black of the Orb dissipated around me, and I found myself standing atop a grassy hill, a cloudy but blue sky hanging above, and not a building in sight.

Before me stood my captor. He wore a teal tunic that hung down longer at the back. It had an upturned collar, and the whole thing was edged in maroon to match the maroon of his cape. Over this he wore a belt, as well as a single armoured pauldron on his right shoulder. From his side hung what I could only call a gun-sword. His hair was messy and midnight blue; and across his forehead he wore a yellow white hachimaki with black ink lettering that read ‘征服者’ (seifukusha). In essence, he looked way more like a protagonist than I did.

He stared at me intently with his dark eyes. “We haven’t been formally introduced,” he said. “I’m Wei-Jian, your Keeper.”

“You can call me Shi,” I said.

He nodded.

“How can you understand me?” I asked.

He held up a metallic, spherical object. “My Kaiju Orb interprets the speech of my Kaiju for me.”

I squinted. How the hell had I fitted inside of that? It was barely bigger than the palm of this guy’s hand.

“Your molecular structure was condensed,” Wei-Jian said, as though reading my thoughts.

The science in this world was about on par with a video game too, it seemed.

“What’s to stop me attacking you and escaping?”

Wei-Jian smirked. “You’re currently in my party. You can’t attack me.”

I saw then something I’d failed to notice earlier. A new, small icon had appeared, this time in the top left of my HUD. On closer inspection it resembled Wei-Jian’s face encompassed by a circle. I selected the icon and it brought up a menu, labelled ‘PARTY’ at the top in large writing. There was a profile icon and stats for each of Wei-Jian, Karl, Mei, and me.

“I guess you’re right.”

“Mhm. Now then, we need to get you levelled up. You’re useless as you are now.”

I frowned. Even if he was right the remark was still hurtful. Besides my meagre stats, I checked my SKILL TREE and found everything except HEAT BEAM to be greyed out – and even that ability had been reduced to level one, now boasting much less impressive capabilities than it had during the rampage I’d unleashed on that city.

“Once I’ve levelled you up, we’re going to start challenging rival Keepers, and then…”

He turned and looked out into the distance, his gaze falling upon the rolling hills that dominated the surrounding landscape.

“…then we’ll aim for the top of the Kemono Wars leader board.”