The 《Nectar Spring》 had greedily sucked in divine power, but after a while its pulse stopped on its own.
And this time, the divinity I had used did not come back.
「<Grant Intelligence> used on 《Nectar Spring》 has failed. It appears that more <Divinity> must be bestowed.」
So it won’t work.
“Of course it won’t. Bestowing intelligence on a fragment of a god isn’t exactly easy.”
I had only thought that if it gained intelligence and became a life-form, I could evolve it into something that produced nectar more efficiently.
“Then raise your <Faith> stat. Of course, putting aside the question of how exactly you plan to gather <Faith> when you don’t have a single intelligent species to worship you... It’s honestly amazing you’ve managed to evolve life-forms at all with <Faith> at zero.”
That was because I wasn’t tampering with the fundamental functions of living organisms. I was only making organs that were sufficiently possible and evolving them efficiently.
My base divine power was fairly high to begin with, and evolution itself surprisingly wasn’t a function that consumed much faith...
And I had already taken related Traits.
「World Collision will begin shortly. Only surviving players will advance to the next round.」
Already?
“I see. To be honest, I’m expecting an easy victory. Right now the average score is around 1,100, since the first collision already filtered out about half the players.”
「Nonhuman’s World
Life LV.4: 1,567
Military LV.1: 132
Industry LV.1: 175
Technology LV.0: 0
Culture LV.0: 0
Politics LV.0: 0
Mysticism LV.0: 86
Faith LV.0: 0
Total LV.2: 1,960」
Roughly double the average. Under normal circumstances, I would not lose.
The Angel added an explanation.
“In truth, Player Nonhuman does not possess the strongest world in existence.”
“Really?”
“Yes. The world with the highest Military has over 1,400 Military by itself. There are also worlds with total scores above 2,800.”
That was impressive in its own way. What kind of management produced numbers like that?
“However, those players are also engaging in abnormal play, just like you. When you gather over a billion players from across the universe, you’re bound to get some truly bizarre ones.
But I can assure you of this: no world could defeat yours in a one-on-one clash. At best, the most they could hope for is not losing...”
“In other words, I absolutely cannot lose right now?”
“Yes. No world that exists in this game can ever drive the life-forms of this Dessert Desert out through its own strength alone. I’m certain of it.”
That much was obvious.
But while I had poured everything into Life alone, other factions would eventually gain explosive growth through synergy between multiple fields. No matter how desperately I clung to Life alone, there would be a ceiling. If I wanted to keep winning, I would have to devise other means.
That total of 2,800 was troubling, though. What kind of monster was it...? Even by simple arithmetic, that meant an average of over 350 in every category. In this game, I had always thought Military was high if it broke 400, but a world with 350 Military and every other score also around 350...
Or that other monster whose Military had already reached 1,400. Enough overwhelming combat power to deliberately smash my entire ecosystem to pieces by force.
It was unfortunate that I had no way to know in advance what kind of world it was, but that was a problem I could think about after I won this next match and saw what Trait card I received.
∞
This was bad. No matter how she looked at it, this was bad.
Queen Teimong, who had once ruled a place called the Meiya Kingdom in another world, came to that conclusion.
As a queen, she had been a wise ruler. During her reign, the nation had grown rich, had lorded over the whole world, and all her people had been happy.
That was why, when she had been old and dying and an Angel appeared asking whether she wished to become a god, she had naturally accepted. She had believed that with her abilities, becoming a god would pose no difficulty at all.
The thing she had misjudged was this: if she herself had been the greatest wise ruler in her world, then naturally her opponent would be the greatest wise ruler in theirs.
During the preparation period, her first tribe had developed <Mysticism>, <Faith>, <Culture>, and <Military> in balanced fashion. It had numbered not even 200 people. The enemy it met in its first collision had been a nation developed to an almost similar degree.
Teimong’s tribe had been physically weak, but gifted in mysticism.
The opposing player’s tribe had possessed overwhelming physical ability, but next to no mystical power at all.
A desperate bloodbath followed.
In the end, victory had gone to Teimong, who had achieved distinction in domestic rule and also possessed experience as a commander who had personally led wars to victory. But her tribe’s population, which had once exceeded 130, had been cut in half, and both nations’ lands had been devastated.
Fortunately, because the conflict had been settled quickly, there had still been much of the Protection Period left. Teimong had used that time to rebuild her population and expand her military strength and infrastructure.
But regrettably, her score had still fallen below average.
「Teimong’s World
Life LV.1: 69
Military LV.1: 147
Industry LV.0: 35
Technology LV.0: 67
Culture LV.0: 98
Politics LV.2: 233
Mysticism LV.1: 186
Faith LV.1: 200
Total LV.1: 1,035」
If the average was 1,100, then she fell a little short.
And if the average was 1,100, that meant that while some were below it, others might be far above it.
Perhaps everyone was still clustered around that range for now. But the greatest weakness of Teimong’s world at present was population. With stable Politics and Faith, control was perfect, and thanks to her high Mysticism, her military was solid as well. But every single death was too devastating. Her population had not even surpassed Life Level 1. Industry and Technology were even more pitiful.
For now, she had no choice but to request cooperation. There had been an <Alliance> function besides <Surrender>. Through an alliance, she could stabilize first and continue growing.
If they refused, then although she disliked inhumane methods...
She had to win the next battle somehow. And then she would enslave the opposing species.
She would enslave them, secure Industry, Technology, and population through them, and later, little by little, free them from slavery.
That was the only path left.
Praying that the other side would respond with friendly contact, Teimong dispatched one capable emissary to the enemy world.
The possibility of losing even one talented subject was a loss in itself, but scouting had to come first...
And then Teimong saw the enemy world and nearly pissed herself. If she had possessed a body, she absolutely would have.
“H-hiiiiiiik?!”
Jelly. Jelly. Nothing but jelly.
“Huh? What is this? There are species like that? I know they said they gathered players from across dimensions, but I thought at least I’d meet something vaguely similar to my own race!”
Teimong herself was roughly humanoid, so the sight was grotesque beyond words.
And before she could even feel embarrassed for telling her dispatched scout to deal with things on his own, jellies had already begun pouring into her own world as well.
“S-stop those jellies first!”
Their proper name was [Meat-Eating Pudding]. They were not jelly.
And regrettably for them, the [Meat-Eating Pudding]s were horribly weak.
Teimong’s superior mysticism pulverized them into powder with nothing more than simple long-range mana projection.
“What a relief. The enemy isn’t actually that strong...”
By the time she learned that the river supporting her world—the lifeline and core of it all, the bizarre river that crossed the world and somehow returned to the place it had first flowed from like a snake eating its own tail—had already become infested with jellies within a matter of days, and that her fertile floodplain farmlands had begun vanishing under layers of sand, the “passage” between the worlds had not even fully opened yet.
Teimong’s vision went dark.
∞
「The opposing player ‘Teimong’ requests <Surrender>.」
「The opposing player ‘Teimong’ requests <Surrender>.」
「The opposing player ‘Teimong’ requests <Surrender>.」
「The opposing player ‘Teimong’ requests <Surrender>.」
「The opposing player ‘Teimong’ requests <Surrender>.」
I should block her. How many times was she going to mash the surrender button?
“If I had to be precise, she’s probably just screaming ‘I surrender,’” the Angel said.
「Player ‘Teimong’ has been blocked.」
Teimong’s world didn’t even last a year. In fact, there had been no need to wait for harvest season.
Once I dropped a few hundred [Meat-Eating Pudding]s into it, that low-population world exhausted its combat power almost immediately, and before long it had been reduced to a desperate survival struggle against puddings.
「You have won the World Collision against Player ‘Teimong’.」
「Your world expands.」
The two worlds were stitched together.
Bizarrely, the enemy world’s river had no distinction between its beginning and its end. No, then what principle was even making it flow?
By exerting divine power, I could edit the terrain of the world slightly. I manipulated that strange river so that water would flow into Oswald Oasis.
Once I did, the water came out of Oswald Oasis, circled the world once, and returned to the oasis again, creating an even stranger structure. My world doubled in area, bringing its surface to roughly forty square kilometers.
Still only deserts for enemies, apparently. Though to be fair, forty square kilometers was tiny by desert standards. Even so, the other side had apparently cultivated it enough that it felt more like grassland than desert.
“That was an easy victory.”
“The enemy was weak.”
“That too. It seems they suffered terribly in their previous battle. If Player Teimong had managed to accept her opponent’s surrender and preserve her power, perhaps...”
Perhaps?
“She might still have been able to inflict meaningful damage on your world.”
Right. But reality was to be trampled.
The first victory had been skill. The second had been luck, perhaps, but even with slightly worse luck I would still have won.
So there was no reason to talk about good luck or bad luck.
The very next opponent might be a world that surpassed even mine, or one that perfectly countered my ecosystem. Unfortunately, if that happened, I would simply accept it as fate.
In any case, I was about to ask her to hand over my victory reward Trait when the Angel said something unexpected.
“Nonhuman. Since you’ve achieved a second victory, there is an announcement I must make.”
Hm?
“From now on, interaction functions with other players are unlocked.”
“Interaction functions?”
“Yes. Just thinking about it simply, in a game where half the players are eliminated every round, winning twice means you’re in the top twenty-five percent. The chaff has been filtered out. You now qualify to interact with other players.”
Calling them chaff was a bit harsh.
“Even if you call it interaction... We’re going to keep fighting until only one remains in the end anyway. What exactly does interaction mean?”
“Since you’ve experienced it in game form, perhaps it’s easiest to think of it as community activity... Since, in simple terms, there are overwhelmingly many players you’ll never meet anyway, some people simply use it to form acquaintances.
Or you may agree in advance to form an alliance and arrange to collide with a particular world in the next World Collision. Alternatively, you can attack a player you dislike, or one whose territory you covet.”
Team play. Or, put more viciously, teaming.
Neither option appealed to me. More importantly, why would I want to converse with filthy intelligent beings in the first place?
“Or you can share things your worlds have created or produced—technology, culture, life-forms, and so on. Not mere sharing, but sale.”
“If it’s a sale, then what currency is used?”
“Score. Or rather, not the score itself. At the end of every collision, you receive currency equal to your score—literally [Points]. In other words, if your total score is high, you can buy many things, and even if your total score is low, if you possess excellent technologies or creations, you can sell those and gain greater profits.”
“And unused points?”
“They carry over to the next game.”
“What else can you do with points? To put it another way, is it possible to buy new Traits or resources my world doesn’t have from a neutral shop?”
“Traits cannot be purchased. Resources and creations can only be exchanged for or bought from other players. Materials are traded by opening dimensional gates between worlds.”
“If currency is only useful for exchange, then it’s worthless. No exchange would happen in the first place.”
“Ah. Of course it has another function. If you withdraw from the game after Round Three, it’s better to have many points. Would you like me to explain in detail?”
No need. It was probably some function for preventing soul erasure or something along those lines.
Still, if that was the mechanism, then this was effectively mandatory participation, wasn’t it?
In other words, even if unused points carried over, there was no real concept of saving. Scores exploded upward every game.
Even in my case, my score had been 568 in the first collision, but 1,960 in the second. Inflation was severe. In other words, if you couldn’t spend the currency you earned that day before the next collision, it would become cheap junk.
And before that, there was no guarantee you would even survive the next game. The whole structure was designed to expand exchange between players.
And by the logic of commerce and trade, the side that interacted more would inevitably become stronger.
“Exactly as you thought. The system was fundamentally designed to force interaction between players.”
Disappointing. Rather harsh on a single-player type.
“I suspected you might be the shy type. If you had accepted the other player’s surrender, you could have made them handle interaction and trade on your behalf.”
“Maybe.”
“Even so, don’t worry. There are other ways to spend points besides that.”
Fine. Though I doubted it would be a method I’d like.
「As a victory reward, you obtain a new world Trait.」
I would think about the rest after taking this first. I had to build my world.
“Now then. I’ve selected the three options that would be most helpful to your ‘civilization.’”
Persistent.
『Skilled Hands: Your creations become adept at crafting tools. Favorable for the development of <Industry>.』
『Fairyfication: Turns terrain, structures, low-intelligence life-forms, or mystical entities in the world into immortal fairies. Fairies are intelligent beings absolutely devoted to the player’s world, civilization, and creations.』
『High Intelligence: The intelligence of your creations rises dramatically. Highly intelligent species are favorable for the development of <Politics> and <Technology>.』
She was really determined to shove civilization down my throat. Which one of these pieces of trash was I supposed to pick...?
Wait. One of these descriptions was odd.
You could use it on terrain, structures, and mystical entities too?
“I’ll take 『Fairyfication』.”
“Hm. A choice meant to create a fairy of a river, a lake, or perhaps a coral reef... Ah. Ahhhhh!”
Ignoring the Angel’s belated scream of realization, I drew the 『Fairyfication』 card and immediately used its power.
「Using 『Fairyfication』 on 《Nectar Spring》.」
Throb—! Throb—! Throb—!
The 《Nectar Spring》, that fragment of a god, began pulsing as blasphemous intelligence—something my ecosystem had never tolerated—started taking root within it.