The screen had an interface that looked like a parody of an Earth community site. They must have customized it for me.
Each post carried a huge number of tags, and there was even a board where you could browse those tags by themselves.
If I had to pick the tags closest to me, they would probably be [Desert], [Life Score], [Life-Forms], [Mysticism], and [Pollution].
Sure enough, with more than 200 million players still left, an absurd number of posts came up. I clicked one at random.
「Title: Even so, isn’t a desert world just too much???
Content: I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind because my starting point was a dead desert with nothing but sand and cacti. I only barely won twice because the mana pressure was crazy high, so I built spirit-based life and a spirit civilization. But both of my opponents were deserts too lol」
“That little ‘lol’ written at the end there…”
“A free translation. That player is a silicon-based organism from another dimension.”
There were more comments than I expected, but the comments were even worse.
「Comment 1: Your desert has cacti??? Mine doesn’t even have that. It’s just naked gravel.
Comment 2: Please trade worlds with me. My mana pressure is too low, so I couldn’t even make a spirit civilization.
Comment 3: At least my second opponent’s land had grass. Please let the next one be grassland grassland grassland grassland grassland」
I got curious for a moment and asked,
“What kind of land did these idiots get, exactly?”
The Angel answered as if it were nothing.
“They’re all exaggerating. For example, the player who made that post can get all necessary nutrients from cacti. The first commenter’s world is full of remains and ruins left by a god.
“The second commenter has grassland attached to their world, so they have no problem surviving.
“And the third player’s world has such absurdly high mana pressure that magical civilization is possible.”
Even so, the suffering of desert players seemed broadly similar. “It only rains once a year.” “I want to build a spirit civilization, but I can only raise fire and light spirits.” “There’s no way to increase my <Technology> score.” “Your desert has sand? Mine is a polar region where it doesn’t even snow.” Things like that.
Still, it looked like they had all received some kind of bonus in exchange for getting wastelands, just as I had—either a fragment of a god, unusually powerful mysticism, life-forms that could live in the desert, or even an already existing civilization.
I looked at other players for a bit. In my view, the most livable terrain would be… grassland?
The grassland players whined just as much.
「Title: Please, just give me one hill
Content: I’ve already won twice, but there is not a single rise anywhere in my world… Not a hill, not even a mound of dirt. How exactly am I supposed to develop industry and technology on land like this…?
Comment 1: Looking at that enormous plain, you could raise enough sheep to feed a thousand people till they burst. Have you no shame?
Comment 2: How about working with me? I’ve got hills and sheep, but no grassland. If we combined our two worlds, wouldn’t it turn into an absolutely perfect land? Contact me if you’re interested…」
“Humans really are trash.”
“How did you arrive at that conclusion? There should be more nonhumans than humans.”
“Then call intelligent species trash.”
They were all whiners. Every last one of them spat out complaints as if the land they’d been given was the worst in the universe.
Of course, the complaints were genuine to a degree, but give it a little more time and half of them would get culled, then half again, and the worlds would merge. Different terrains and different ecosystems would appear.
When that happened, those bastards would obviously find some new reason to whine.
If I let myself get pulled into the community, I could probably forget about managing my world and spend all day staring at it instead. So I decided to look away from this board entirely.
What mattered was buying life-forms made by other players that could enrich my ecosystem.
[Remaining Points: 2,012]
Before the World Collision, it had been 1,960, but after the collision it had actually gone up. So the Points must be settled based on the exact moment of victory: 2,012. Since that was probably pretty close to the top ranks, maybe I could buy whatever life-form I wanted.
“Purchasing elements from other worlds is a highly recommended playstyle. Doing that alone already counts as proper community activity.”
[The Fantasy World Creator], or TFWC for short, was not a civilization simulator. It was a world simulator.
Unlike the famous civilization-simulation games, it was a game where you could build a world’s entire magic and mysticism, science and technology, and ecosystem.
“Even so, to be perfectly clear, it was fundamentally a civilization-simulation game. Every element in the game is focused on intelligent species forming civilizations and developing them.”
The Angel insisted on that, but viewed on a geological timescale, civilization existed only for an absurdly brief period.
If it was truly a world simulator, then the proper thing to focus on was the mana-ecology made possible by a fantasy world.
“You are aware that the organizers are the developers of that game, right?”
All I could say was that game developers are often surprisingly bad at their own games. Sometimes the player understands a game’s real intent better than its creators.
In any case, from that perspective, TFWC described the life-forms in the game not as mere “resources,” but as parts of the world itself.
To put it simply, say you only create three things: grass, cows that eat the grass, and humans that eat the cows.
Here, the “cow” does not exist for the sake of being eaten by humans. Nor does the “grass” exist for the sake of being eaten by cows. Even if the god who created them intended it that way.
In the game, mutation and evolution happened at an absurd pace. Come to think of it, that was still true now. Probably because of the mysterious force called mana.
If cows start eating the grass, the grass starts producing toxins.
Then the cows shrink in size and develop stronger guts.
Then what happens to the humans? The cows have gotten smaller, and they’ve started accumulating poison, so humans have to change their own bodies too.
Repeat that process enough times, and you get vicious poisonous weeds, cows that eat poisonous weeds, and dwarf humans adapted to eating those poisonous cows.
Repeat it further, and once the process accelerates enough, the humans eventually lose so much intelligence that they give up on civilization entirely and evolve into carnivorous predators specialized for hunting cattle whose bodily fluids are full of toxins.
That was something beginners who were bad at the game ran into all the time. They would create animals or slave species with artificially assigned functions for the sake of their civilization, only to watch those slave species or created animals undergo repeated mutations due to mana and turn into bizarre life-forms they couldn’t use for anything.
So how do you prevent that?
To use the earlier example, you increase the number of plant species. Then you increase the number of species that eat plants, and conversely, you increase the symbiotic species that help those plants reproduce.
And then you make species that eat those species, and species that eat those species…
Only after repeating that process again and again does the ecosystem finally become healthy.
Different grasses that, because they are eaten by many different creatures, begin developing survival strategies other than poison.
Cows with large bodies and strong guts because they have to eat many different kinds of grass.
Humans who raise those cows. Small herbivores and insects that eat the grasses the cows do not. Birds that eat the insects. Humans who eat those birds. That was how ecosystem balance was achieved.
Skill at the game was measured there too. There was a reason the stat was called <Life>. Not “population.” <Life>. A measure of the health of the entire ecosystem, and of its scale and quality.
Strictly speaking, my ecosystem currently had a high score, but it was not healthy. That was why I wanted to bring in the custom life-forms created by players across the universe and make some minor adjustments before putting them to use in my own world.
“Huh? Isn’t your ecosystem healthy, Nonhuman? Honestly, among the more than 200 million players still left, you’re overwhelmingly first place in <Life>. If yours isn’t healthy, then what world would be?”
To begin with, I wanted to say that my world itself was still too small.
“Well, that’s only because you’ve only won twice so far.”
Even so, forty square kilometers was reasonably large. Especially since my ecosystem was effectively aquatic. To measure it properly, you had to think in terms of volume rather than area.
Let me use the flaw in the Dessert Legion I created myself as an example.
“So Dessert Legion really did become the official name in the end.”
At first glance, the Dessert Legion seemed invincible. They were life-forms that ordinary organic organisms could not consume, while they themselves could consume other organic organisms.
But the Dessert Legion had one truly horrible weakness right now. Their chemical defense mechanisms were seriously defective.
“…?”
“Keep it simple. Look at the freshwater lake zone in my wetland right now. Do you see jellies or puddings there very often?”
“Come to think of it, the jellies and puddings hardly go into the freshwater region.”
“That’s because, when I checked, they avoid it because the water is dirty.”
“What? It’s so clear you can see the bottom.”
That was true. By Earth standards, it would have counted as first-rate water. Clean enough that even humans could drink it straight.
But first-rate water wasn’t the same thing as unpolluted water. Microorganisms still lived in it, and all kinds of organic matter were mixed into it.
In other words, because of things like the urine and feces of fish and frogs, or the grime flowing in from the river, the Dessert Legion currently cannot live in the freshwater lake.
“Good grief.”
The only ones barely enduring it were species like [Meat-Eating Pudding].
Thanks to the 『Carnivory』 Trait, they had gained resistance to organic matter like that.
But because [Meat-Eating Pudding] was adapting to an ecosystem that was gradually becoming more polluted, it too was evolving into an ordinary life-form.
Not a member of the Dessert Legion that other organic life could not consume.
Of course, no matter what, the Dessert Legion was not going to die from something as trivial as fish shit. Still, it was enough to make them reluctant to enter the lake.
So what if an opponent deliberately tuned all of their life-forms toward poison?
That was not some absurd hypothetical. I had run into bastards who did exactly that all the time while playing the game.
Players who accepted the fact that it would ruin the energy efficiency of their entire ecosystem and just slapped poison onto every life-form they had.
“That’s definitely a problem. If ecological destruction is your main strategy, but your own ecosystem ends up being the one that gets wrecked…”
That was why I needed to bring in external organisms to overcome it. Those outside life-forms might end up destroying my ecosystem instead, but that could be overcome through evolution driven by divine power.
Answering the Angel’s question in my head, I continued looking through the community’s “Player Creation Exchange Space.”
In case I found something I could apply to my world.
And before long, I could not hide my disappointment. There was nothing especially impressive in the <Life>-related sections.
Knowledge in fields like science or magic sold for fairly high prices, but <Life> was often tied to a specific terrain. That made it extremely hard to find life-forms that would be exactly what someone else needed.
“To be fair, there aren’t many players who worry about ecosystems from the beginning. Though I suppose there aren’t that many who ignore them all the way to the end, either.”
Still, perhaps because there were 200 million players, I was able to find quite a few plausible life-forms.
I spent twenty and thirty Points at a time and bought freshwater aquatic creatures in bulk. Newts, fish, aquatic insects like diving beetles, and the water plants they could live among—things that would shore up the weaknesses of the Dessert Legion and could coexist with it.
After buying all that, I still had about 1,704 Points left. Too many.
“Well, insects and fish probably weren’t listed because their creators genuinely expected them to sell. They just put them up on the off chance.”
Maybe. I didn’t want to buy things I had no use for, but I also didn’t want to leave Points sitting around. So what should I do…?
“How about buying a civilization kit? I’ve already found species, technology, mysticism, and everything else that could coexist with your ecosystem, all matched perfectly to your Points total.”
Looks like I’d have no choice but to save them, inefficient as that was…
“Please. If you got isekai’d into a civilization game, then build a civilization.”
As I browsed the expensive items, though, I found something ridiculous.
「Player: Ei'kraun
Item Name: Fragment of an Old God
Price: 2,000 Points (negotiable)
Description: A fragment of an old god imbued with powerful <Mysticism>. It can be used to create a <Legendary Creation>.」
This was…
“That’s an insane item to see listed. Their world probably couldn’t awaken a fragment of an old god with its current capabilities, right? It’s exactly the kind of thing you need, Nonhuman, and it’s probably cheapest now. In the next match, some other player might snap it right up.”
“What a shame. I should have found it sooner.”
“Hm? You can just sell something from your world. Nectar is the sort of resource anybody would covet.”
At that explanation, I froze.
“Wait. What do you mean by that? Are you saying I can spend the Points earned from this sale immediately?”
“Yes. I never said you couldn’t. Why did you think you couldn’t?”
“What do you mean, why? If that’s true, then as long as both sides agree, they can exchange goods from their worlds without limit.”
“That’s right.”
“Is there at least a fee?”
“There isn’t.”
“Then the Points will just circulate between worlds and pile up forever.”
“That’s right. It’s a function designed to encourage trade.”
Well…
That seemed abnormally generous toward trade, but whatever. I had nothing I particularly wanted to sell anyway, and right now I needed to spend Points, not hoard them.
I asked Abhojuth to ladle out a pure mass of nectar from my world, about enough to fill a well.
The pure essence of life. The lump of nectar was listed for 296 Points, and three seconds later it sold to a player named Sesaisa.
「You have purchased Ei'kraun’s [Fragment of an Old God].」
“I didn’t think I’d be able to buy something this valuable.”
“The other player probably didn’t expect it to sell either. Still, they came out 2,000 Points ahead, so it’s not as if they lost anything.”
I had already decided on the name of the new Legendary Creation.
[Yogur-tosoth].
A magnificent name for a general of the Dessert Legion.
“I am telling you, please stop giving your creations names that sound like twisted ancient outer gods.”