Stigma Effect - Chapter 22: Encounter

…Ring! [ The Unique Skill ‘Grand Devourer’ has been acquired! ]

That’s how it first started.
And then… it didn’t stop:

[ The Unique Skill ‘Evolve’ has been acquired! —
[ The Passive Skill ‘Jelly-like Shapelessness’ has been acquired! —
[ The Passive Skill ‘Resistant Body’ has been acquired! —
[ The Unique Skill ‘Dwell’ has been acquired! —
[ The Unique Skill ‘Skill Copy’ has been acquired! —
[ The Passive Skill ‘Mana Perception’ has been acquired! ]

Up until…

[ The Passive Skill ‘Consciousness’ has been acquired! ]

And then I was through—

Normally, monster-type creatures don’t just pop up in some random place—let alone a human place—out of the blue, and without notice.
Yes, if we’re talking ‘normally’, monsters belong more to places like remote, hostile grounds: they ought to be from dark, nasty forests, old caves, or abandoned, ancient ruins.
As I said, it was only so long as we spoke of the usual deal, however. For better or worse, I wasn’t your regular mob.
So, forget about all the remote, uneasy places humans hardly go to—all the abandoned forests, caves, or dungeons I, a monster, should have been from—and picture a bright, lively family restaurant, in an oh-so-peaceful human village. A restaurant where people ate, chatted, and jested together, all having a good time, blissfully oblivious to the fact that, very soon, I would be cutting them all down.

By magic, a monster-type creature spawned in such a place. It was me.
So far, for the few seconds I had been living, it was quite the good life… I got to listen to a fantastic story being told and shared a cool moment with people.
However! Following an uncertain course of events, I happened to be put up against a wall, with a sword aimed at my chest, before I was mercilessly killed.

I, a unique monster, just spawned in that restaurant, with no clue regarding what was going on.
All I knew was that I wanted to live and survive.
Also, I knew I wasn’t your regular kind of monster.
Thankfully, I’d been granted unique abilities before I showed up.
That is how I managed to survive.

Tang Shaoyang, an orphan who dropped out of the middle school to fight on the street as he found out school was useless for a penniless orphan like him.

Tang Shaoyang dropped out of his school, fighting on the street, and made a name for himself. Berserker Tang from Youyouliucun.

Afterward, Dragon Wing triad recruited him and everything was good for him. Even though the public deemed him as a tumor of society, Tang Shaoyang was having a decent life. Until one day, everything changed as an absurd and strange game started.

[… Game starts! Stage one: Survival for The Fittest!]

After the game started, zombies appeared out of nowhere.

Reincarnated as a baby who was in his mother’s womb for a hundred years, the moment Lin Xuan was born, the whole world was shocked.

Nine years ago, humankind almost perished the day monsters came out of the Cracks– aka dungeons– that appeared all over the world.When all hope seemed to be lost, a select few awakened as Hunters equipped with a System.Thanks to them, the civilization recovered faster than one would expect after the apocalypse.However, another conflict presented itself later: the more the Hunters used their powers, the quicker they lost their sanity.Fortunately, among the Awakened People, there is a group classified by the System as Guides– and only these Guides have the power to soothe the Hunters and bring them back to their senses.Sounds great, right?But what happens when a Civilian is in a relationship with a Hunter who has a high matching rate with their Guide?“Let’s break up, Wonhee.”Yep, this is what happens when your Hunter boyfriend has a 76% matching rate with his Guide.Wonhee was dumped by her long-time boyfriend because she’s just a Civilian…… or so she thought.