The Stars Beyond - Chapter 16: The Silver Beastskin Scroll

I lived like any ordinary person when a stranger suddenly approached me, “You are… a hero.”

A thousand years have passed since the Variants first appeared from the Rifts. God answered the prayers of the human race and gave them a chance to fight back.He bestowed special marks called crests upon twelve who were worthy, granting them unfathomable power to fend off the wave of attacks.Well… that's what the church wants us to think.Man, being man, found a way. And in the present day, large numbers of the population have crests, and those that don't are treated as second-rate.This was the case with Marcus, who spent most of his life doing odd jobs—until one of those jobs led to his demise.At the hands of whom??The son of a major crest-bearing house.Marcus is reincarnated into the body of his killer and soon finds that despite being from a major house, the boy did not have a crest.At least, not one that was bestowed upon him by God.

I wrote a book once.It was an unhinged fantasy born from my high-school brain, driven by loneliness and too many hormones.It was a world of beastmen, wild freedom, and the kind of romantic attention I could never get in real life. I poured every impossible desire into it: adventure, danger, and yes… a 'lot' of handsome partners.Before I knew it, I had a thousand chapters of pure escapism and pure thrill.Then on a college camping trip, I fell off a cliff.I expected to wake up in a hospital room but nope. I woke up on a soft field of grass, with air too fresh to belong anywhere on Earth.And then something moved behind me.Sticking out of my tailbone was... A tail.My tail?Yellow and black stripes and very, very real.I touched it. Completely real.My ears? Also gone—well, moved. They were now perched on top of my head like a confused jungle cat. And the outfit? Quite revealing, made of animal hide which matched my tail.What was going on?At first, I thought it was a prank. Or a dream. Or maybe karma is finally cashing in. But the more foreign memories evaded my mind, the clearer my situation became.This wasn't cosplay and it wasn't Earth, either.And—surprise—it wasn't even the world from my own book. Welp.I had been transported into a completely different Beastman world as a beast girl called Arinya.Sounds fun, right?Well… it would be, if I weren't apparently the ugliest duckling in the entire freaking savannah! Rejected by every potential mate I stumbled across and sneered at like a freaking eyesore.This was not how I planned my fantasy to come to reality.Trust me—if this is my fantasy come true, then someone needs to fire the author.But then again, after entering this world, I'm suddenly... Attractive.I mean, there's no change to my face and the freckles are still there, but for some reason, handsome beastmen begin to flock around me, because I smell... Pleasant.What's that all about?

[Sweet, satisfying, pampering, lots of face slapping.]Zhang Caishen's era had come to an end and he could never rise again, or so they said. But why did he seem to be getting richer and more powerful even if he was now crippled and abandoned by his betrothed?Why was he suddenly so unnaturally lucky?The answer was simple; his new wife!!Lin Alix was not lucky when it came to her family. She was the older, less loved and less talented one in comparison to her younger sister who stole everything from her.But fate intervened and she got lucky when it came to a husband, not only was he wealthy but he loved to spoil her.Suggested by her infinite luck gaming system, Alix married her sister's unwanted crippled husband to be and stepped on the path of a winner in life.She swept up music awards, gained international recognition and got her revenge on her cruel family while becoming Beijing's most envious wife.“Are you crazy, you willingly married a crippled man?” her friends asked.“Yes, but have you seen how much he pampers me?” she asked in turn.“She will cheat on him, he is a cripple and he can't perform his husbandly duties.” others gossiped.Alix looked at the so called crippled man who climbed into her bed night after night and laughed. Sorry, he was more than capable.“Honey, I am here to perform my husbandly duties.” he would always say coquettishly when he flipped her over.This book is participating in the WSA and the author will appreciate all your support.Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, nothing should be compared to the real world no matter how similar.