The First Withdrawal Interval
While pondering what kind of ecosystem to build upon that desert, time suddenly stopped.
This was no joke. Time had truly frozen. Every living creature’s movements halted in place. The air, the mana, the writhing tentacles, the water—nothing moved at all.
What the hell? A bug?
“It is not a bug.”
“Is this some penalty for not building a civilization?”
The Angel shook her head, flustered.
“Of course not. As I mentioned, we are all watching your build with great interest, Biin. The time stop was always part of the schedule.”
“?”
“The first and second collisions are essentially a tutorial to filter out the chaff. Since you’ve cleared the tutorial, the community feature has been unlocked. Players who survive the third collision are also given a choice.”
A choice…?
“Whether to press forward, or to step back.”
“I’ll press forward.”
“I thought you might say that, but please hear the explanation first.”
“……Fine, whatever.”
The Angel’s explanation differed slightly from what I had expected. Withdrawal wasn’t the same as giving up.
“Right after every third collision comes the withdrawal interval. Every player is given the opportunity to withdraw.
If you choose to advance, you continue participating in the game.
If you withdraw, you are given the chance to convert all the points and scores you’ve accumulated so far into divine power.”
“Divine power?”
“The fact that the organizers stopped time should tell you this: we can manipulate the flow of time however we please.
You will return to the moment you first joined the game and receive divine power that lets you freely reshape everything in the real world, just as you are doing here.”
What?
“Of course, the wishes you can buy with the points earned around the third game are limited. For example, ten thousand points might buy you about a million dollars’ worth of real assets or equivalent services.”
“That’s nowhere near enough to wipe out humanity.”
“Correct. However, if you accumulate enough points, you could truly reign as a god over Earth. Assuming your goal isn’t to become an actual deity, that is.”
“Then what if I win the final war?”
“Naturally, every world score you’ve earned so far, plus all future scores from the worlds you manage, will be converted into divine power. You could expand to other planets, join our organizing committee, or even govern multiple worlds if you wish. All of that would be permitted.”
“Why are you only telling me something this important now?”
“You could have asked when we first met. Instead, you accepted without any questions or complaints.”
Well. She had a point. That was on me.
Thinking about it, it made sense. With odds of one in a billion, who would join just to become a god or have their soul erased? I’d vaguely assumed it might be possible if enough dimensions participated, but there had been a mid-game withdrawal system all along.
“Then let me ask this now. If someone withdraws, what happens to their world?”
“A world without its god continues to develop independently. Even so, it can still become a target for world collisions.”
“So the player who collides with that world gets to devour it for free, since there’s no opposing player…… Or am I wrong?”
“You are correct! That is why withdrawal applications are only accepted up to the halfway point of the designated protection period.”
That alone didn’t seem to solve the problem at all.
“I haven’t finished explaining. The remaining players will begin an auction for the leftover worlds! The player who bids the highest number of [points] for each world will collide with it in the next round.”
“So you’re saying I can buy any world I want?”
“Exactly! If you find an attractive world among the withdrawn ones, you can spend as many [points] as necessary to designate it as your next collision target. Since it has no god, everything in that world will be yours to do with as you please! Its creations will worship you instead. Become the new god of a civilization that has lost its deity.”
“What happens to the ‘traits’ the original world owner had?”
“You cannot inherit them. Traits are unique to each player.”
“Then who gets the points I paid?”
“Naturally, the original owner of the world receives them. In other words, the more attractive a world you create before withdrawing, the more points you’ll obtain upon withdrawal. Withdrawing at the right moment is also a strategy.”
Hmm…… So with around ten million points, I could return to Earth, exterminate all humans, destroy every structure civilization had built, restore nature, and manipulate the ecosystem however I wanted while enjoying [The Real World Creator] on the actual Earth?
“Well, ten million probably won’t be enough. Three hundred million should suffice. I can also inform you that obtaining eternal life is surprisingly cheap in points.”
Wait a second. The more I listened, the stranger the game seemed.
“So withdrawal is only possible during the withdrawal intervals?”
“Yes. Additionally, even if no one buys your world after you withdraw, the withdrawal itself succeeds. You simply won’t receive extra points.
Withdrawn worlds will preferentially collide with other withdrawn worlds.
After that, those worlds also become auction targets. And if the number of remaining withdrawn worlds is odd, they will inevitably collide with worlds that still have owners. That part is simply luck.”
“Hmm……”
“Also…… There could be the absurd situation where you collide with a withdrawn world and your own world’s inhabitants end up ‘losing.’
Don’t worry. Once you collide with a withdrawn world, both worlds belong to you. It simply means your main species has changed. You can think of it that way.”
“Does that happen often?”
“Well…… It can occur if the world’s 〈Politics〉 score is high. You could say the original god was rather irresponsible, perfectly controlling the world only to abandon it.”
Even though I had only heard this much, countless thoughts raced through my mind.
“Hold on. Then what happens to players who surrendered?”
“If a higher god withdraws, all subordinate gods withdraw simultaneously. Even if they wish to inherit the world, they cannot. They receive points proportional to their contribution to the world.”
“What if there are two or more players in one world during a withdrawal interval? That’s possible if a war drags on.”
“In that case, they must sign a peace treaty right before the withdrawal window opens. Only then can they withdraw. If not every god in the world withdraws, the world auction does not take place. Naturally, a withdrawer who leaves other players behind receives only the points they personally hold and cannot receive the bonus points from the world auction.”
Huh?
The existence of so-called “withdrawers” had suddenly changed the very nature of the game.
This wasn’t a game where players fought for the single seat of the final god.
It was a game where you endured as long as possible, then “cashed out” at an appropriate point and left.
“Ah. So that’s why everyone was begging me to accept their surrender?”
“Precisely.”
“Then erasing their souls was the right call. If I ever had no choice but to withdraw and still had subordinate gods, they would’ve stolen my points.”
“No? Subordinate gods only receive points based on their contribution, while the higher god receives the total score. That mechanism was created specifically to encourage accepting surrenders.”
“Hmm.”
In a world where time had stopped, I truly had a lot to think about.
My first thought was that winning seemed easier than I’d imagined.
In reality, the number of serious competitors fighting for the god seat wouldn’t be a billion—it would be closer to ten thousand. A one-in-a-billion matchup was absurd, but one in ten thousand? That was like winning gold at the Olympics in a popular event.
Second, those serious competitors would inevitably meet later. With plenty of points to spare, they would cherry-pick the worlds they liked, devour them, and expand slowly. We would probably meet directly around round ten.
After three withdrawal intervals, when the number of remaining worlds had dropped to 1,048,576—roughly a million.
At that point, the gods of the surviving worlds wouldn’t be the same mediocre players I’d met three times already—the ones where winning was nice but losing and accepting surrender was fine. They would be the real deal.
And then there were the ten thousand who might be able to defeat Yogur-tosoth on their own, and the ten percent of those who could survive the aftermath and actually aim for victory against me—the thousand or so who were the true opponents among these billion players.
“An interesting perspective. Well, objectively speaking, you possess top-tier capabilities, so perhaps only opponents of that caliber register as competition to you.”
Only after reaching that conclusion did I speak again.
“Ah?”
“What is it? You look like you’ve had another sinister thought.”
Wait, wait……
No! This wasn’t a story that ended with “the game just got easier to win!”
“Angel. Can I assume that almost every player already knew the rules you just explained?”
“The vast majority would have known, and even those who didn’t would know by now.”
“I see……! So every player already understood the ‘environment’ of this game?”
“Well, yes.”
Good grief.
I had thought this game was a tournament to select exactly one winner out of a billion.
That was why I had only researched ways to guarantee victory in one-on-one matches.
But it wasn’t. After two wins, the community feature opened.
After the third win, the withdrawal intervals appeared—and there would be more.
Moreover, this game had a structure where surrendered players were absorbed into the victor’s faction, and if they worked hard within that faction, they could still earn points and exit on equal terms whether they withdrew or won.
This wasn’t a tournament at all! Every rule in this game pointed to something entirely different from tournament-style survival.
An environment where multiple agents made rational decisions to maximize their gains.
In academic terms, this was called a game situation.
At that moment, my eyes snapped open.
Why had the right to participate in a contest to decide the gods been given not to politicians, entrepreneurs, or scholars, but specifically to gamers?
Why were there a full billion participants?
Why was there essentially no penalty for surrendering, and no benefit for refusing to accept a surrender?
Because only then could a large sample size and a repeated, continuous competitive environment form—one where game theory could be applied!
Then the Angel smiled.
“Oh. To reach this conclusion on your own without any hints…… You truly are a highly capable player, Biin. Simply arriving here puts you in the top one percent.”
And the most representative environment where game theory and game situations occurred was—
An ecosystem!
An environment where lifeforms that had evolved differently competed using different strategies, where only the most successful strategies survived while the rest were weeded out!
The very environment I had been building ever since I abandoned civilization at the start of the game!
“Of course, game situations also include strategies between civilizations and nations, diplomacy, and so on…… That was our intention as well.”
The true essence of this game was a competition of strategy versus strategy, where a billion lifeforms (worlds) each strove to obtain the greatest possible benefit!
In that case, I had to change my own strategy as well. Since this was no longer a situation where you had to defeat your opponent in a tournament to survive, but rather one where “a good loss followed by withdrawal” was the optimal strategy……
From now on, I would no longer aim to win one-on-one matches against other worlds.
“Oh. So from now on, you’ll be aiming to lose well?”
Yeah, right.
I would become the most vicious and relentless predator imaginable—one who preyed upon players who built strategies around “good losses” rather than victory—crushing the souls of every opponent I faced, annihilating their worlds, and letting my Dessert Legion conquer the entire universe.
“Honestly, I figured you would.”
