Chapter 35
Chapter 35
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: Birth of the Colossus
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The structural analysis of the Nesephala was complete.
This creature ingests inorganic matter and reconstructs everything except the components it needs for its own activities, excreting the rest.
In other words, it devours asteroids and creates a pseudo-asteroid on its head to drift through space.
Given that it eats its food and carries around a massive clump of it, you could call it a gigantic cosmic dung beetle, in a way.
Only difference is that its food consists of inorganic materials unimaginable on Earth, and on a scale beyond comparison.
That asteroid-like appearance must be a huge help with camouflage.
It's the kind of camouflage suited to a creature living in space.
Or maybe it's just a coincidence.
With a body that size, there probably aren't many lifeforms in space that could challenge a Nesephala anyway, so it might not even be coincidence.
Dung beetles don't actually camouflage themselves as dung, after all.
And as expected, the Nesephala's method of locomotion relied on its constructed asteroid and tentacles.
It uses the asteroid's mass to harness gravity for movement and employs anti-gravity genes in its tentacles to generate thrust in the desired direction.
These were genes that closely matched the Space Whale's anti-gravity genes, making them easy to understand right away.
Their appearances are completely different, but if you trace back far enough, they might share a common ancestor.
Why am I suddenly talking about regular Nesephala instead of the giant one?
Because their genes are almost identical.
The causal relationship is reversed from what you'd think.
It wasn't that a massive Nesephala grew huge and acquired a satellite-sized shell.
Rather, the shell grew to satellite size, forcing the Nesephala to grow massive in response.
Dung beetles roll dung balls to lay their eggs in, but Nesephala uses it for its own growth.
The Nesephala is a creature that grows its head shell and then scales its body to match.
That doesn't mean the giant Nesephala's genes were meaningless, though.
Regular Nesephala simply can't grow to that size.
They're the same species, but it's like comparing an average human who tops out at 2 meters to a rare giant that reaches 20 meters.
Hm, maybe that's not quite right.
Fundamentally, like how they're both Homo sapiens, the giant Nesephala is the same species as the regular ones.
Probably came with some trade-offs in lifespan or durability or something.
Evolution works that way, after all.
So does that mean there could be planet-sized Nesephala somewhere in this galaxy?
It's not impossible, but no need to worry about it right now.
If a 20-meter giant is already absurdly rare, what are the odds of a 200-meter one?
And how vast is this galaxy?
Who knows what other entities we'll encounter going forward—something like that is just a trivial possibility.
The important thing is that I obtained a mutant specimen that had grown to satellite size.
Of course, I tried applying it immediately.
Since the Nesephala's main body doesn't inherently grow massive on its own, mass-producing satellite-class monsters right away was impossible.
The same went for regular Nesephala size.
Even ordinary Nesephala are larger than Treegalaon-Alpha, but because of their reliance on asteroids for growth?
Utilizing them as-is still proved difficult.
And feeding them asteroids like the original wouldn't be very useful either.
The original got shredded by Treegalaon just recently, after all.
Consuming entire satellites one by one to make satellite-class Nesephala was way too inefficient.
I needed a different approach.
Why do Nesephala use asteroids as food?
Because asteroids are the most abundant resource in space, obviously.
You have to be able to survive on inorganic matter like that to make it in the void of space.
So what's the most abundant resource in the Lushaka Kingdom?
Organic matter, naturally.
If inorganic works, why not organic?
If it can't grow big without a dependency on asteroids, just make something asteroid-sized for it to depend on.
Like how the Nesephala itself made its own asteroid.
With the blueprint set, all that remained was experimentation.
There were enough failures to make it clear just how freakishly lucky that 20-meter giant's birth was.
It was a stark reminder of how easy it is to manipulate genes in Earth's lifeforms.
Adding functions that occurred to me during testing led to even more failures.
Thanks to the giant Nesephala specimen, at least I could steer the random mutations in the desired direction.
Anyway, after pouring in massive amounts of time and resources, I finally completed it.
Artificial Nesephala_Final Complete Version Real Final Last final.
Considering the organic matter consumed to create this one, plus what it'll eat going forward, mass-producing more would be impossible.
I mixed in every useful gene I had access to, including the World Tree.
Since it'll devour organic matter at a ferocious rate like it did asteroids, I made it capable of self-evolution and reproduction, so it can produce what it needs from that matter.
This newly born larva starts by consuming anything and everything—organic or inorganic—without discrimination.
Then, just like the giant Nesephala, it begins forming a massive sphere.
The World Tree traits will maintain the sphere's form.
The sphere grows larger and larger, and the body grows to match.
If it needs anti-gravity tech, it sprouts fins using Space Whale genes.
If it requires ranged firepower, it generates laser batteries via Treepalagon genes.
For tough armor, it covers the sphere with World Tree genes and dons plating from ingested minerals.
Unnecessary parts get converted back to organic matter and reborn as needed organs.
As long as organic matter is supplied, this creature will keep growing indefinitely.
At the very least, it'll reach the size of this Nesephala specimen without issue.
Individual name: Colossus.
One night, a tiny asteroid slipped through Lushaka's atmosphere and ventured into space.
The Deneb Federation's extraterrestrial nation analysis team's Astronomy and Geography Division was currently tasked with surveying the star systems under Lushaka Kingdom control.
Lushaka was the Federation's largest ally—and its most dangerous potential enemy.
They were preparing all necessary data in preparation for any potential war with the Lushaka Kingdom.
Solar-03, the planet presumed to house the bulk of Lushaka's population.
The Solar Star System containing Solar-03 would be the top-priority target in any war with Lushaka—the first system to strike.
It was reachable via two hyperlane jumps from Deneb Federation borders, and with its massive population, it was bound to concentrate material and human resources.
Boris of the Astronomy and Geography Division was updating and organizing data from this month's reconnaissance.
The military would use these compiled reports to devise strategies, so he worked with a sense of duty.
"Orbital path and period... no changes. Radiation belts... normal. Stellar flare emission cycle... no anomalies."
Every time Boris reviewed the Solar Star System data, an inexplicable sense of familiarity washed over him.
It bore striking similarities to the Deneb Star System—almost artificial.
But that was impossible.
Just a miraculous coincidence.
"Planet Solar-06, number of moons... Hm? There's one more?"
Boris first considered the possibility of a newly discovered moon.
But he quickly shook his head.
With Lushaka's permission for free surveys, they'd confirmed it multiple times precisely.
Plus, recent gravity calculations for the planets showed no asteroids entering their gravity wells for the next few years, so Boris grew puzzled.
"Hm... Must be one they dropped while transporting it or something."
In recent years, everyone knew Lushaka Kingdom had taken an interest in metallurgical engineering.
The scientific community had buzzed for a while over their exchange of Deneb's metal tech for Lushaka's telomere-extension anti-aging gene tech.
Lushaka was suddenly buying up minerals across the galaxy.
Probably one of their transport asteroids got caught in the planet's gravity well.
"This planet has way too many moons already."
Lushaka merchant ships had been frequenting near Solar-06 lately—were they starting mining in the Solar Star System now too?
Lushaka hadn't used minerals before but was just getting started, so how much untapped potential did they have?
It must feel like humanity discovering oil after millennia without it.
"Just to be safe, maybe I should run a quick scan."
'Scan results: A typical rocky moon with no atmosphere, composed mostly of iron. No anomalies detected.'
A few months later, upon receiving that scan report, Boris quickly forgot about the new moon.
He was too busy analyzing Lushaka's newly unveiled Treegalaon-Beta monster.
Unlike previous models, Treegalaon-Beta was armored in actual alloy plating.
Now Boris understood why Lushaka had gotten into metalworking.
"Pardon? Collaborate with the Resources Division to predict Lushaka Kingdom's resource production... Did I hear that right?"
"Yeah. It's top priority, so drop what you're doing and handle this first."
"What about the regular reports...?"
"Those go without saying—submit as usual by month-end."
"Uh, well, a... Yes, sir. Understood."