Greetings and welcome to my lair. I am the Evil Eye Beholder, your host and storyteller for this tale.

Now, I do not consider myself a fan of the kaiju genre with encyclopedic levels of knowledge about the lores of famous franchises, but I do like a good monster movie. What can I say? In that regard I'm really simple minded. I see giant monsters destroy cities, countries or even the whole world, I click.

However, the market is rather small since only a handful of franchises managed to persist over the years, following the success of the original Godzilla movie. Like there were really a lot of attempts at making giant monster movies by many people, only for them to be left forgotten as they failed to take off the ground. And this story most likely will not be any different as it is a creation of your's truly instead of a crossover fanfiction about a certain famous kaiju and some anime franchises. It simply was the combination that would be most fitting. Therefore, apologize here for the misleading categorization of it. Anyone, who no longer interested in the story, may leave now.

This story is inspired by Dante Fernandez's story Hail To The King!, so I'd like to ask you to go and check it out yourselves. It's still just a first chapter, but the first part of that chapter prompted me to write this story. Also for those interested, I did get their permission first, before starting to work on that story. Though don't expect any monster girls or kaiju girls or something along those lines, because that is most definitely not going to happen here.

Disclaimer: I do not own any franchises mentioned or referenced to in this story.

So without further ado, let us begin.


Isekai Transmigration as a Kaiju

Chapter 1 - End of an Era

Colossal Kaiju Combat.

The title actually summarized the game itself very well on its own. The central point of the game was both PvE and PvP combat with giant monsters, which already set it apart from the other MMORPGs on the market. Where other games were large ego shooter arenas, battlefields for thousands of troops being deployed in real time strategy battles or typical the run of the mill fantasy RPG about swords, sorcery and saving the world as the chosen one, Colossal Kaiju Combat (sometimes shortened to CKC for convenience) was a truly gigantic world meant to be the home of several city destroying monsters. In fact, CKC's game world was not just a world. It was an entire solar system loosely based on our own, though with more planets.

But the size was not the only thing Colossal Kaiju Combat did to set itself apart from the competition as a truly unique gaming experience. After all, how many games let you play as a kaiju? Instead of the usual kaiju genre setting of the players siding with humanity defending itself against the monsters, the players were the monsters.

The game featured quite a lot of creative freedom when it came to character creation and customization. From essentially a giant version of a regular animal to things inspired by mythological monsters, deities or even IRL company mascots, anything was possible. It didn't stop with creating the player's avatar. Ranging from something as simple as the ability to breath fire like a dragon to things like psychokinesis and even magic, the players could pretty acquire any sort of ability they wanted for their avatar to have, allowing for the creation of anyone's dream kaiju.

The gameplay itself was rather simple. Life as a kaiju was tedious, especially at the start when the players are still at a low level and very vulnerable. It was mainly a learning process through trial and error for the players. Being a kaiju didn't automatically mean being invincible. A lesson many players learned within the first few days of playing the game. But regardless of what level a player was, the planets all had their fair share of hostile NPCs to fight. In order to become more powerful, players usually fulfilled quests to gain experience as well as evolution points to obtain more abilities or strengthen the ones they already had.

As the players grew in power and size, their opponents also became stronger. Ranging from simple military soldiers over entire armies all the way to NPC kaijus, giant mechas and other anti-kaiju weapons, players had their work cut out for them as they progressed through the game. However, there was also the PvP aspect of the game. While PKing in general was looked down upon by the community, giant monsters duking it out was just as much part of the whole experience as leveling entire cities and destroying armies. Regularly there were tournaments with powerful items as prices to make one's personal kaiju build even more powerful. Outside of such events, players also happened to butt heads and exchange blows in either priory organized duels or chance meetings when competing for farming spots or items. There was also time limited events as well as guild raids that required players to team up against level breaking NPC opponents in exchange for loot to further strengthen the players.

The game didn't have as much of a crafting system as more traditional MMOs as the players made use of their own abilities and therefore didn't really need things like a magical sword named Excalibur, but the community had proven time and time again to come up with certain things like a kaiju capable of creating giant crystals making basically their own Fortress of Solitude even it was only for a short amount of time before the crystals disappeared again or a group of players covering the in-game version of Rio de Janairo in molten cheese, vegetation and meat all the way up to the Cristo Redentor statue and posting pictures of it with the caption "Pizza Rio Grande".

Essentially Colossal Kaiju Combat was a love letter to the kaiju genre in form of a video game with extreme freedom and it was appreciated by its player community for that.

But like all good things, Colossal Kaiju Combat also had to end.


Location: Earth - Europe - UK - Scotland

At the northern coast of Scotland it was rather quiet, but that was because of the lack of people there. Since the emergence of kaiju all around the globe, the government had to concentrate its resources on defending the capital and larger cities. This left smaller settlements to either fend for themselves or to become ghost towns as the people simply migrated to better defended places. With the larger cities of Glasgow and the capital city Edinburgh being located closer to the southern border to England, many simply moved southwards in hopes to find safety and shelter. The city of Aberdeen at the eastern coast was an exception, but the fact remained that most of Scotland's territory was a no man's land mainly populated by monsters.

Operations to reclaim this territory had failed in the past and now the wrecks of battleships along the coast showed for it. It was like a graveside filled with the metal skeletons of all the destroyed vessels as they stuck out of the sand and shallow waters. Rust had begun to eat away at them, filling them with holes and making them little more than scrap metal. Some were apparently torn apart, while others missed chunks out of them as if something had bitten a piece off of them. But overall, they were just a silent remainder of a lost battle, which would eventually be eroded with no trace left behind by the elements.

But then there was a tremor shaking the ground. Metal groaned under the sudden stress and the usually calm waves hit the rusted relics of the past with more power as if they were trying to knock them down with all their power. Further away from the coast, strange noises could be heard despite coming from below the waves as a large shadow approached the surface. Then all of the sudden, the waters a bit further off the shore exploded up into the sky like a geyser and rained back down like a heavy downpour. Meanwhile, the shadows of two truly massive creatures became visible from within the falling column of water as their breach of the ocean's surface had created a wave so large, that it temporarily submerged the old ship wrecks and now flooded the coastal area.

One was a reptilian being with a long serpentine neck and a relatively small head with a mouth full of long sharp teeth jutting out of it. Thick osteoderms of brown and dark grey color covered its skin like the back of a crocodile. Its hind legs were elephantine in shape like those of an ancient sauropod dinosaur, while its front legs bore sharp claws. On the back two large fins were located looking like the flippers of a whale or those of an Mesozoic marine reptile. Meanwhile, the tail was almost pathetic in length as it was practically nonexistent.

The other creature was an arthropod. Standing on six multi-jointed legs like a crustacean, its entire body was covered in a thick, beige and brown colored carapace made out of many plates. While the legs hoisted the body off the ground, each foot had four claws for stability, while its upper body had two larger appendages looking like the bodies of two enormous centipedes. Its head bore six frontal appendages akin to those of an anomalocaris around its head with a round mouth filled with sharp teeth at the lower side of the head, while multiple facet eyes glowed in an eerie red as it seized up its opponent. The lower body sported a long tail, shaped like a centipede's tail but with an earwig's pincers.

Both titanic monsters glared at one another, hissing and growling as they began to circle around one another. That was until the saurian kaiju's back was turned towards the now flooded coast and the crustacean kaiju charged at it and hit it square in the stomach. Roaring in pain and fury, the reptilian kaiju bit down the invertebrate's backside, but found no grip on its carapace. It claws at its opponent, but to the same effect. Meanwhile the other kaiju pushed its opponent deeper onto land, until it fell over onto its backside, sending another strong tremor through the area and water splashing all around the two monsters. The reptilian kaiju roared and flayed around its limbs to get back on its feet, its opponent was unrelenting and struck down on its underside with sharp claws. The downed kaiju let out a screech of pain, before lifting its head off the ground and firing a beam of blue plasma at the assailant.

The breath weapon managed to knock the invertebrate kaiju away as it let out a pained roar. This gave the saurian kaiju enough time to stand back up, while the other was hunched over from the scorching hit to its underside. Seeing its chance it charged at the opponent with righteous fury, but in that moment the other kaiju spun around faster than one would expect a creature of its size and swept at the saurian's legs with its tail. The kaiju lost its balance and fell to the ground once more, right before its opponent, who wasted no time to pin it down with two of its legs. It roared in pain and was ready to fire another plasma breath at the enemy, only to find its head ensnared by the long centipede-like arms of the crustacean. It pushed the head away, making the breath fire into the ground around it, tearing into the flooded coast and evaporating the water into a thick fog.

For a moment no one from outside could see what was going on, but the sound of flesh being torn and blood splattering could be heard along with pained screeches and the sound of loud clicking. When the smoke settled back down, the reptilian kaiju was no more and the victor was chewing on its neck after having torn it and the head off the body. Thick black blood flowed out of the now headless body and the severed head, painting waters of the flooded coast dark.

A holographic window opened before the invertebrate kaiju's face a moment later.

{CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE DEFEATED THE BOSS [NESSIE, THE MONSTER OF LOCH NESS]! QUEST [MONSTER OF LOCH NESS] COMPLETED! REWARDS ARE SENT TO YOUR ITEM BOX!}

'Well, I guess that's that. Then again Nessie was just a low-tier boss that can be defeated by any lower high tier player, who knows to not fight her in the water.' The crustacean kaiju thought as it kept eating the fallen monster's head, slowly sucking in the neck and head as if it was a gummy snake.

This crustacean kaiju was the avatar of a player going by the name Cambrian. It was a simple name, but also a fitting one. He was one of the few players who chose to make an invertebrate kaiju, whereas the majority of players stuck with reptilian ones. Not that he judged them for that or anything, but he found it rather monotonous that most people chose to make essentially the same radioactive t-rex all the time. At least that was the case back when he started the game right after its launch. Since then 9 years had passed and the community had become more diverse when it came to making new kaiju.

Cambrian let out a sigh as he didn't bother to walk back into the sea, but instead moved deeper into the highlands. His steps sent tremors through the ground and scarred off smaller NPC animals and kaiju as it strode through a land of old and broken roads, ruined and abandoned cities and of course the natural beauty of the highlands. Due to the level difference between him and the NPCs of the area, low level mobs like them avoided him automatically or at least didn't actively seek out to fight him. As he walked, he watched the sun in the sky beginning to set, turning the blue sky slowly into a crescendo of yellow, orange and red all while descending further and further to the horizon. When he was surrounded by no one and all the NPCs around him had fled, he stopped his lonely stride and laid down on the ground, tucking his long arms towards his body while watching the sunset.

It felt like yesterday that the game launched and all seemed well with Colossal Kaiju Combat.

But CKC's image had began to crumble a long time ago. It was subtle at first like a small crack on the walls of a building, but overtime they became more and more visible as they got larger and tore holes into it up until the building itself was little more than an uninhabitable ruin. Next to maintaining the game, fixing issues and running the servers, the developers eventually just couldn't come up with more content for the players to enjoy as the game had achieved its greatest possible size. For a long time, no significant numbers of new players came to join the community and the players themselves soon fell into a state of stagnation and regression.

They had achieved their goals and made their dreams come true in the game, so it was only natural that they would leave once they had nothing more to achieve. With the decline of the players, it became harder to enjoy the game itself. While PvP was not the whole game, PvE was sometimes straight up impossible without the assistance of others, leaving weaker and newer players without the option to overcome a certain threshold. Frustrated with that some of these players also quit the game all together. What had made the game so unique in the beginning soon faded away and became a thing of the past.

In the end, the company had to declare the shutdown of Colossal Kaiju Combat about 3 months ago via both a public notification on the game's website as well as e-mails directed to the players, apologizing for the shutdown and thanking for all the support over the past years. What followed was an exodus of those players, who had no more reason to log in at all, and a wave of sadness and anger online before that quickly died down. Those who remained wanted to make the most out of the situation and have fun for a last time, before all their efforts would be erased with the game.

From what Cambrian had heard, some of the players returned a last time to celebrate with friends and random players in all sorts of ways. Some laid waste to the big cities for a last time, others hung out and reminiscent about the 'good old days' when they thought that they would get a 10 year anniversary event of the game. As for him, he went and killed boss monsters he could take down on his own to make a few last good memories, before going to a place that was both isolated and tranquil to enjoy the fantastic game world the developers had built for a last time. Honestly the only thing he regretted was the fact that it was not some planetary level boss he defeated as his last kill, but since Nessie was so close to this place he found it more appropriate. Plus, it wasn't like he hadn't killed some of those the last few days, so there was no reason to get upset about baking a smaller bun at the end.

Cambrian or rather Theodore Meyer was not a social person whether it was in-game or out of it. He enjoyed the calm and quiet and solitude. Where others wanted to go on loud concerts and binge drink until their livers would fail, he simply enjoyed a good book, nice music and a cup of tea. In CKC, he may have had good acquaintances and maybe a few friends, but no one he was really attached to like a friend in real life. He did ponder whether he should contact some of the contacts on his list, but ultimately decided against it.

"What is there to say in the first place? 'It was a great game? Hopefully there will be a sequel some day or at least a spiritual successor? Sure was fun knowing you all, now goodbye forever?' No, that would be sort of stupid..." He mumbled to himself. 'Plus, I'm not good with people anyway...' He thought to himself, imagining how much more awkward such a situation would be with him.

The real Theodore Meyer was sitting on his computer with his wireless headset on in the middle of the night as the room was only illuminated by the computer screen. He was tall young man in his late teens with short messy hair, wearing a hoodie and a scarf despite being indoors as a window was open to let fresh but chilly air inside the room. Sighing he leaned back on his chair as he looked away from the game and onto his bookshelf. On one level sat various small fossils of snails, clams and even a few trilobites, which he had used as a basis back when he made his game avatar. Some of them he had found himself, others he had bought.
On another level was a 3D printed model of his avatar he had made using the game model to make a virtual one for a 3D printer, before painting it by hand. It made him rather popular in the community after he showed his craft in the forums looking for advise on how to paint it when it was still unpainted and immediately receiving requests to make models of some of other player's avatars or tell them how he had done it. At least he had made some money out of it back then...

It was a shame none of the people he knew IRL shared his passion for CKC or kaiju movies in general. He had tried talking them into playing the game with him, but they all either declined or just dropped the game some time after getting started. It was a bit disheartening since he had no one to talk about his hobby and interests, but he couldn't force them to like what he liked. It was still rather lonely.

Looking over to the clock, he checked the time once more. Only a minute before midnight and before the game would be erased forever. Looking back to the screen he saw how his kaiju laid on the ground in the middle of the Scottish highlands as the sun was setting. Leaning back forward, he typed a few commands into his keyboard, making the kaiju lift its upper body off the ground and face the setting sun.

It was a painful goodbye for him, but also an inevitable one. All he could do was to accept it and move on. Checking the general chat of the game, he saw the last messages of many players saying their farewells to the game, the people they had met here and so on and so forth. But one particular line caught his interest.

{It was really fun, wasn't it?} Someone had written. A lot of responses to it voiced out their agreement to this before the chat was once more dominated with people saying their final goodbyes and beginning their countdown to midnight. Still, the message just now made a small smile form on his face as he typed in his response.

"Yeah. It was fun." He said to himself as he sent the same message in the chat, but no one paid any heed to it as they continued their countdown.

{7}

{6}

{5}

{4}

{3}

{2}

{1}

Immediately afterwards an error message appeared on the screen as it turned pitch black for a moment and then returned to the title screen of the game. It was a dystopian looking city laid in ruins with multiple fires burning and smoke plumes rising into the sky while multiple giant monsters stood in the ruins of the once great city, bearing claws and teeth while military helicopters, fighter jets and even a mecha could be seen. Over all that the title of the game stood in the middle in large bold letters.

{Server Connection Lost}

With that Theodore felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, but also as if another one was dropped right onto him. Not that he could do anything about it. So he simply clicked the notification away and turned the game off.

'Goodbye old friend. Hopefully a game like you will be released once more in the next 5 years or so.' He thought to himself as he turned the game off for good. But he was not quite done yet. Typing away at the computer, he had recorded his last session in the game, namely the stride through the Scottish highlands and the battle against Nessie. 'There should be some fitting music for that in a folder. I can find it later and turn this into a nice AMV. Might even upload it just to see the reactions it would get, given that I'm no professional streamer. But that can wait until tomorrow.' He thought to himself as he felt too tired to work on the video material right now.
What he didn't feel to tired to do though was to turn the last screenshot he had made was into his new desktop background. After 10 minutes he was done with the most basic work and looked upon the picture with a fond smile. It was picture of Cambrian sitting in the highlands, facing the beautiful sunset in the last moments of the game.

"I probably can add some effects later to turn it into an animated wallpaper later. Maybe some fireflies as well as adding a bit of a motion effect on the grassland around Cambrian." He said to himself before yawning. "Though not now. Maybe tomorrow." With that he entered the command for his computer to turn off and went to bed as the pc was still shutting down. Not bothering to change into pajamas or something, he just laid down and pulled the blanket over himself , before turning his back to the machine and closing his eyes. As soon after he was fast asleep.

Then the screen turned off and the room turned pitch black.


Location: ?

The first thing Theodore noted when his consciousness began to return to him was the strange feeling of being underwater. The way the water pressed against his body from all sides usually should make him wake up immediately as the human body would try to get out of the water to avoid drowning. But for some reason it didn't bother him as he didn't feel like drowning at all. He had apparently no problems to breathe at all. Still the light from above was flickering over his eyes, making him quite uncomfortable.

'Ugh... what is this? Didn't I pull the curtains shut last night?' He groggily thought, still unable to process the situation. Another flicker of light shone over his eyes, making his whole body curl up in an attempt to escape the light. But in that moment he noticed something strange. When his body curled up, it felt like he was laying on his stomach. While that normally would be nothing strange for some people, Theodore most definitely could not sleep like that. But more importantly, it felt like his legs limbs were not just spread out to all sides, but actually underneath him. And there were more limbs than there were supposed to be.

'Huh? What the...?' His consciousness began to clear up more as the world around him was still fuzzy. Still he could feel just fine. Such as the multitude of thin legs under his body and the heavy weight bearing down on his entire backside. He tried lifting his head, but Theodore found himself unable to do so as there was no neck to lift the head with. Immediately, his senses sharpened and finally his vision cleared up.

He was apparently laying on his stomach at the bottom of some body of water. Around him was nothing but yellowish white sand as well as some larger pieces of gravel and a few water plants. Other than that there was only water above him. Clear blue water as far as the eyes could see. More shockingly his field of vision was rather messed up with only a small part being at the ground level and the rest above. He could even see the water surface with the light shimmering through for crying out loud.

'What-' He wanted to say, but instead of his human face structure Theodore felt how multiple parts of his mouth region were moving all at once in an almost chaotic fashion. Now that made him jump a little, kicking up sand from beneath his body and tossing it into the water above, when he took notice of some of his legs. They were thing appendages, covered in a chitinous exoskeleton much like those of a pillbug.

'Wha-' He wanted to cry out, but his erratic movements caused him to suddenly take off the ground and float in the water for a second, before he fell sideways onto the ground. Now he felt the grains pressed against the entirety of his body and how whatever was on top of his backside seemed to move with him like segments. Multiple legs unconsciously scrambled around the water to pull himself out of the ground. This frantic movement allowed them after a few seconds to actually dislodge his body from the sand, before it gently sank back onto his stomach.

For a moment he remained completely silent at this. Then...

'WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?!' He would have shouted, but it was more like clicking mouth pieces and high pitched screeches escaping his mouth. That didn't calm him down in the slightest however as he began walking around in circles, scuttling along the ground on his many multi-jointed legs. 'Oh god! Oh god! Oh god! Oh god! Oh god! Oh god! What's going on here?! What is this? Am I dead? Is this the afterlife or did I straight up reincarnate as some sort of aquatic insect? No no no no! This can't be! I was always a good person in life! What did I do to deserve this? Oh please God, Jesus, Buddha, Flying Spaghetti Monster or any other deity out there! If you can hear me, please send me a sign and answer me!' He wanted to shout up to the heavens, but only clicks and screeches escaped him while still running in circles like a headless chicken and leaving a circular depression in the sand.

That was until he hit one of his legs at a rock that was now partially exposed from the sand on top of it by him digging the circular trench into the ground. Instantly, he lost his balance and took off the ground, before stumbling onto his backside. Immediately, all his legs scrambled around the water and his body squirmed around in an effort to get back on his feet. All the while he was facing into the direction of the rock almost as if it was mocking him for stumbling over it in a panic. This only infuriated him even more when he finally managed to swing his body over to the side and land on his stomach.

'GRR! I don't have time for this! Get lost!' He said as he marched up to the rock. It was then that from the frontal part of his head a pair of tendril-like appendages unfolded. They were covered in segments of beige carapace and on the side towards his face he could see multiple small teeth lining them. They grabbed the rock and lifted it off the ground, before chucking it away a short distance. But Theodore froze as he realized something.

'Haven't I seen those things before? They look familiar..." He asked himself as he looked at the strange looking appendages. Lifting them up as high as he could, he took a long hard look on them as they gently waved in a current of water. Then it finally clicked.

'Those are the grasping appendages of Cambrian! But how?' His mind finally began to piece together the situation unfolding before his unblinking compound eyes. 'Oh no... I have become Cambrian. So that means...' He trailed off at that, while the reality of the situation began to sink in. 'No, this isn't so bad. In fact, I couldn't ask for anything better really. This is going to be great! I mean, I basically get to live out any anime fan's wildest dream! Yup, stay positive! I'm in another world now. I can do whatever I like. I could go and become an adventurer. Or even a hero on a quest to defeat the demon lord. Or maybe even buy a bunch of slaves and have them do all the housework once I can buy myself a mansion. Yeah, that sounds much better already. Isekai Life, here I come!' He told himself, before trying to do a guts pose, though it looked really strange given his now invertebrate anatomy. And so he stayed perfectly still for a few seconds with nothing happening except a few bubbles of air escaping from the sediment and floating upwards.

But the facade he put up crumbled almost immediately.

'AS IF!' Theodore or rather Cambrian shouted, while stomping on the ground with his many legs as hard as he could. 'This is so messed up! Why the hell did I get isekai'd in the first place?! AND AS MY KAIJU GAME AVATAR OF ALL POSSIBLE THINGS!? That makes no bloody sense at all and is so unfair! Give me another game avatar of mine! At least one of my humanoid avatars!' As he continued to rant, his stomping kicked more and more sand up, completely clouding his vision with the cloud of sand engulfing him all together. But he was getting so worked up about his situation that he didn't notice and didn't care. 'I've been isekai'd as a bloody monster of all things! Now any adventurer who sees me will probably think I'll destroy their hometown or eat all their friends and relatives! Perhaps they'll also think slaying me would pay them really well by discovering a new monster species and taking care of it. Or maybe some demon lord will try to enslave me and make me their living weapon of mass destruction! Or worse, people could mistake ME as a demon lord! GAH! I DON'T WANNA LIVE ON THE RUN FROM NOW ON! DAMMIT! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?' After a minute or two of him panicking over all the different scenarios playing out in his head about any possible future, he finally stopped his tantrum and walked out of the sand cloud he had created.

'Okay, calm down Theo. You may have turned into a monster and got dropped off into another world, but that's alright. No problem. If I am actually my game avatar this should be a cake walk, right? I reached the level cap ages ago and kept improving my character build ever since. Not to mention that I just took down a NPC kaiju like Nessie without any real trouble on my own for the last couple of weeks. That should count for something. After all, isekai worlds are not supposed to have kaiju in it, right? And even if it is a more modern or even futuristic world, I doubt there is much for me to fear. All things considered, I may not have been a top rank player, but still alright when it came to prowess. So stuff like military or adventurers really should be no issue whatsoever. I'll just live my life as a gentle giant. Like an elephant. A massive crustacean elephant. Just walking around or swimming down to the bottom of the ocean, eating whatever I can find and not getting involved with any sentient being, while minding my own business. Yeah that sounds like a plan.' He told himself as he touched something with his foot. but without falling over like last time. Turning his sights towards the object, he saw that it was a snail shell he had tapped against.

That moment he realized that his foot was only slightly larger than the shell on the ground. So there was only two possible explanations. One was that this shell also belonged to a massive kaiju. The other was that it was just a regular-sized snail shell. Well a large one, but still a normal gastropod instead of a kaiju. He grabbed the object with his claws and began to examine it from all sides, but found nothing but an empty shell in his claws. If it was the shell of a kaiju, it should be a bit more special, right? But instead his claws easily broke pieces off the empty calcite vessel, letting them fall to the ground like flakes of snow. Slowly, the greater image in Cambrian's mind began to form and it was not looking good.

'Wait a minute... WHY AM I BACK IN MY LARVAL STAGE?!' He inwardly shouted, unconsciously breaking the shell in his claws in half.

Character creation in Colossal Kaiju Combat was not just limited to cosmetic choices. In fact, the game pretty much let the players write their own avatars' flavor texts by allowing them to choose their backgrounds, starting abilities, type of kaiju and so on and so forth. Such backgrounds included being artificially created and genetically engineered science experiments that escaped its containment, aliens that arrived on the starting planet via a meteorite or even something as exotic as elemental beings without a true physical form.
Since Theodore liked to collect fossils and had in general great interest in extinct animals, he chose the prehistoric background back when he made Cambrian. Essentially, his avatar was a trilobite that managed to survive the mass extinction event at the Permian Triassic boundary and through it evolved into the kaiju it became later. It then had gone into hibernation to avoid death under the hostile environmental conditions, but was buried under layers of sediments, thus prolonging its hibernating state for the past millions of years since the mass extinction event. Then it was awakened by humans performing drillings in sediment layers from that time and escaping to the surface through the newly made borehole. From that point on, it set out into the game world.

This correlated very well with the game's narrative as new players would first be tasked with surviving their infancy state. At that point in the game, the player's main goal was to feed and grow in size, while also avoiding detection from any military forces and other dangers. Most new players at this stage ended up being killed by NPC monsters, armed forces or even just regular animals for overestimating the strength of their avatar. A lesson that Theodore also had to learn the hard way. Only afterwards, the players could actually be considered the least powerful kaiju as they would be capable of great destruction, though at the start it would still be nowhere near the power required to lay waste to an entire heavily fortified city. Growth in size and power mainly came through the completion of quests, rewarding players for things such as destroying small settlements like isolated villages and towns, military outposts or simply killing NPC monsters.

And since Cambrian was an invertebrate kaiju, he had to go through metamorphosis multiple times to reach his final stage as a daikaiju like he was in at the end of the game. Now back when this was just a game, he went all out on the creative part of all of this as he designed every metamorphosis stage for Cambrian with great love for the detail. And there was multiple ones as back then he wanted his growth as a kaiju to be somewhat sensible and gradual in appearance from his primary state as essentially a larvae all the way to that of the kaiju he aspired to become.

However, now that he was actually possessing this body himself and was all the way back to his first larval stage, he couldn't help but feel dreaded about this. Not just because his metamorphosis wasn't a simple one like it was for a butterfly to go from a larva to a pupa and finally an imago, but one that actually took course over more stages before he was even fully grown. Right now, he was essentially a large trilobite about the size of a dinner plate. In comparison to that, his daikaiju stage had been about 100 meters in height from his feet to his head and even longer when counting his tail and the whip like arms he had back then.
Not to mention the fact that this was not a game anymore, meaning there was no such thing such as quests to reward EXP to accelerate the growth like it had been in the game for all he knew. With other words, whatever growth his body was going to be subjugated to was most likely going to happen naturally and in its natural time. In other words, it might as well take millions of years due to how he wrote that he had originally hibernated since the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event roughly 250 million years ago.

'ARGH! Why did I have to go into so much detail when I was making this kaiju?! I completely screwed myself over with this just because I wanted to sound cool. DAMN THIS BODY! DAMN THIS WORLD! AND DAMN ALL OF THIS TO HELL!' He screeched angrily as he threw the shell's remains away. His brain began to kick into overdrive as he once more ran around restlessly. That was when got an idea.

'Wait! If this is my game body, I should still have some access to the game's system. I mean, my HUD with the bars and minimap is no longer there, but that's how it works in those mangas and animes. So let's give it a try! Here goes nothing...' He thought optimistically to himself as he ushered a mental command. '[Menu]!'

But nothing happened.

'Okay, maybe something else then. '[Status]!'

Again, there was no reaction.

'[Call GM].'

'[Message].'

'[Open Friend List]... pretty please...'

'[Inventory].'

'Show [Skill Tree]!'

'[Map].'

'[LOG OUT]!'

But no matter how he voiced his commands or how desperate he grew, nothing happened. He was still sitting at the bottom of this place underwater as a rather large Paleozoic arthropod. By the end of it, he simply laid down on the ground and buried his head in the sand out of sadness and frustration with what little hope he had being gone in the same instant it came to be.

'I can't access the game system anymore... This really is reality...' He thought to himself hopelessly. He simply remained still like this for a while as his mind went to a dark place and self-destructive thoughts came over him. His former life as a human was over for all he knew and now he was stuck as the monster of his own creation in some place he didn't even knew. He buried his head even deeper into the sandy ground as if wanting to become one with the earth and disappear forever. That was until he abruptly pulled his head out back out, sending a shower of sand flying.

'No! I'm not just going to wallow in my self-pity and let that be the end of me! How pathetic would that be? I put all my blood, sweat and tears into the game to create the kaiju I envisioned for all those years and now I'm just supposed to let it all die like that and have it all be for nothing?' He thought as he thought back to all the effort he had put into the game.

All the things he had done to improve Cambrian further and further to make him an even more powerful kaiju. Sometimes it had involved planning and preparing for weeks for certain events just to obtain items to increase his stats even more. Other times, he had to compete with other players in tournaments to win certain prizes for that. On top of all that, the game's goal was to build the kaiju that the players wanted to be, meaning to survive and overcome all odds that game threw at them. In comparison to all that, simply being reset to square 1 was nothing. All of that made him angry at himself for having wanted to immediately give up and die just now as his pride as a CKC player was hurt.

'I'm definitely not just going to sit here and let all that hard work go to waste. Nor will I wait for some sort of savior to come and get me out of this mess. That is just not acceptable and it won't happen anyway! Since when did praying actually done anyone any good, huh?! I have no clue why I'm here or who or what brought me here, but if it thinks I'm just going to roll over and die, they are goddamn wrong. Just you watch me! I'm definitely going to survive in this place as Cambrian! JUST WATCH!' He proclaimed to the world and himself with newfound determination.

Then he felt a familiar and uncomfortable sensation of hunger making itself known in his mind alongside a rather loud rumbling coming from his stomach region.

'Way to kill the mood of an otherwise epic moment ... No what the hell was I even thinking? This is so embarrassing. Oh, if I had known something like this would have happened, I would have eaten something before going to bed.' Cambrian lamented when thinking back to all the food in his apartment, which he was probably never going to taste again. Depressed by the thought, he began to scuttle along the ground once more to find something edible in this new world. Though he doubted he would find something like as tasty as the leftover butter chicken from yesterday or the soft drinks in his fridge. The thought of the food made his heart sink even more. 'God, I'm already starting to miss convenience stores. I hope they got something similar in this world.' He silently hoped, but deep down knew that it was just wishful thinking on his end.


And that wraps up this first chapter for this isekai monster reincarnation story. Or maybe I should say kaiju isekai reincarnation story.

As many of you probably have been able to tell at this point, this story is mainly influenced by Maruyama's Overlord as it seemed to have been the inspiration for this version of Colossal Kaiju Combat in terms of player customization within Mr. Fernandez's story. I took a liking in this sort of approach and simply added a few more details in relation to Overlord's game YGGDRASIL to make the game feel more complete.

A shame really that the IRL Colossal Kaiju Combat game ended up never being made as recent games with kaiju in them have been rather disappointing for me. Not saying here that they were bad or that it is bad that recently kaiju games had been made like Kaiju Wars, but they were not what I had hoped for when I first saw their announcement under the premise of being a video game with kaiju.

Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to diverge a bit from the regular trope of getting isekai'd as one's own overpowered player character like Ainz from Overlord or Arc from Skeleton Knight in Another World. To improve the quality of the story as well as adding something more unique, Cambrian has been reset to his larval stage, effectively putting him back to level 1, which will make his survival in this other world a lot more difficult. But also it creates more tension in the story rather than just having him start out all powerful right off the bat. So the kaiju part of this story will have to wait a little until Cambrian grows out of his infancy state.

Finally there isn't much I can tell you about the setting this story will take place in at the moment. The reason for this is that it is a creation of myself just like this overall story and OC. I really had thought a long time about this to be honest as to find a fitting place where you can just suddenly drop a kaiju into without it being bad for the story itself due to the kaiju's sudden appearance and power levels in comparison to the native population. There really are not that many fictional places that can actually sustain multiple kaiju, let alone one.
So next to severely weakening the main character at least temporarily, I decided to use one of my own settings... Also yes, I did try my hand at world building my own story settings multiple times now in the past at least on the drawing board for original works like this one. Mainly because I had so many ideas swimming around in my head, but not findind any fitting setting to put them into as a normal fanfiction in a premade franchise. But also because for all my story ideas I always have to add complementary things to the existing setting or change a few facts up for the plots make sense, so it was also a form of training for myself for improving my writing skills and therefore the quality of future stories.

I really do hope I can pull this one off and leave you, the audience reading this story, satisfied with the world I'm building for it. Since this is the first time I'm making a story in a custom setting made from scratch, I cannot promise that, but I can promise to do my utmost best. So please, do leave some feedback in the reviews. If any questions about the story should arise, I'll do my best to answer them without spoiling the story.

For now, that's all dear guests and I hope to see you again the next time.