The Breaking Point of Culture
The primary function of the Culture stat in Panwol is to support promotion to higher entities and increase the probability of excellent or unique individuals being born.
As the term “primary function” implies, other functions exist as well.
The second function is to raise the satisfaction of one’s own species while earning goodwill from other races.
In short, high Culture makes people happier and makes it easier to draw in other races as allies during gameplay. In so-called “cooperative play,” Culture becomes far more important than Military.
The third function is the development of religion. Culture and religion are closely intertwined, converting the passive stat of Faith—which the player (god) must personally expend—into an active stat that individual entities can use on their own.
And then there is the fourth function. In a sense, this is why Culture is considered at least passable.
Even if you only raise Culture, you can still handle Mystery, meaning there are no issues with combat power.
In other words, Elguano’s world was defending against the Dessert Legion’s onslaught far more effectively than expected.
“Fire at will! Those insane evil spawns can’t handle spells!”
The heroic entity—an iguana-human raised as a commander—shouted, and beams of various lights evaporated the charging candy army. Though the casters were completely drained afterward, they had succeeded in exterminating hundreds of the deranged candies.
“These things multiply into hundreds from just one! All spellcasters must be ready to die today if it means exterminating the evil spawns!”
There were simply too many types of Mystery. Even in Biin’s [The Fantasy Creator], the game compressed them into a manageable number for playability, yet there were still over ten. When expanded across all dimensions, trying to categorize them individually became meaningless.
In short, there existed a form of Mystery that could be used with nothing but Charm.
The prime example was shamanism. Shamanism was cast using Charm. Charm wasn’t merely about physical attractiveness; it represented the aggregate of presence, spirit, and aura an entity possessed.
The advantage was that once awakened, it could be used and trained like a part of the body, turning casters into immediately deployable combat forces.
The disadvantage was that awakening couldn’t be achieved through desire or effort alone—it was 100% dependent on talent.
However, high Culture raised the Charm of newly born entities. When combined with Mystery and specialized traits, it became possible for every child born to inherit latent shamanic talent.
Elguano’s world had not yet reached that level.
Still, children with shamanic talent were born at an extremely high rate. Because shamanism covered such a broad range, warriors who fought with their bodies, archers who shot from afar, and even true mages who hurled lightning with mana all fell under the shaman category. As long as they used Charm to cast spells, they were shamans.
As a result, the Puddings—who had almost no magic resistance—collapsed one after another after being struck by distant mana waves.
“W-We did it. We’ve exterminated all the evil spawns that appeared through this dimensional gate as well!”
Another advantage of shamanism was that even newly awakened casters possessed considerable power.
While their legendary entity, Sicadoz, crossed dimensions and devastated the opposing world with powerful shamanic spells, the survivors had to deal with the constant opening of gates and the endless flood of evil spawns (man-eating candies) every single day. Yet they managed to maintain a decent defensive line.
The same held true when the enemy sent different types of evil spawns.
Whether it was the massive camel that burst human bodies with a single kick, the wolf-candy that relentlessly pursued and tore apart its prey, the jelly that turned soil into sand near water, or the giant Pudding that stripped grasslands bare—against all these absurd creatures, they continued their defensive battle well into the second year of game time.
Of course, there were times when defense became impossible.
“A-Ah! The demon bird! The demon bird has appeared!”
“O God! Quickly recall Sicadoz!”
The “demon bird” the residents of Elguano’s world referred to was the ultimate Gamchi—the Bisyakheet.
And this Bisyakheet possessed truly demonic combat prowess.
The Bisyakheet was originally a colossal beast that drank Nectar while enduring the tentacle whips of Abhojuth, the Fairy of the Nectar Well, in Biin’s ecosystem.
In its youth, it hunted the numerous giant jellies and Puddings near the Nectar Oasis. Once it reached adulthood and had no natural predators left, it tore apart Abhojuth’s tentacles and freely devoured the flesh and Nectar jellies above the oasis—until Yogur-tosoth culled its numbers.
Now Biin had abandoned population control of the ecosystem’s apex predator. Instead, he opened dimensional gates and simply hurled the overflowing Bisyakheets into opposing worlds.
Abhojuth was happy because it no longer got hit. Yogur-tosoth was happy because it no longer wasted unnecessary energy. The Bisyakheet was happy because it could now feast on the fragile residents of Elguano’s world instead of fighting monsters like Yogur-tosoth or Abhojuth.
In exchange, everyone else became miserable—but the player Biin was not human. He was the Demon King.
Originally, the Bisyakheet had been tuned so that its population would grow excessively, to the point of disrupting ecosystem balance for a final predator. This allowed Biin to stably send roughly three of these ultimate predators into enemy worlds every month.
When this monstrosity was thrown into an opposing world, it first searched for Nectar.
But of course, there was no Nectar in the enemy world. So what happened? It reverted to its juvenile instincts and simply devoured every moving, large lifeform it encountered.
And in Elguano’s world, that usually meant people or large livestock. It also happily consumed shamans, who were filled with mana and possessed high Charm, making them particularly delicious.
The Bisyakheet wasn’t truly a monster capable of defeating heroic units. It was, after all, a natural lifeform.
Nevertheless, at Elguano’s current world level, it was extremely difficult to hunt. Therefore, only the legendary entity Sicadoz could confront it.
The problem was that this required Sicadoz—who had crossed into the enemy world—to open another gate and return.
Which meant there would be no mana left to cross back into the opposing world afterward.
Or no mana to conduct terrorism after crossing.
Or no mana to return after conducting terrorism.
Biin had exploited exactly this weakness. The moment Sicadoz crossed over, he hurled Bisyakheets into the enemy world. Thanks to the mythic trait Deity-World Oneness, he could perfectly detect the exact moment an enemy crossed.
And occasionally, when luck favored him, Sicadoz would fall directly in front of Yogur-tosoth, forcing the legendary entity to immediately open a gate and flee—a complete disaster.
Yet overall, the battle itself had reached a stalemate.
Elguano was also a high-ranking player. He had many shamans. And Yogur-tosoth simply could not catch Sicadoz, the dimensional traveler—chasing him only wasted energy. But if he didn’t chase, Sicadoz would continue destroying everything in place, so pursuit was unavoidable despite knowing it was pointless.
With current Nectar Well production, sending more than three Bisyakheets per month was impossible.
Meanwhile, Sicadoz thoroughly scouted Biin’s world, indiscriminately burning cacti in the cactus forests instead of camels, attacking Nectar jellies filled with Nectar at the well, boiling freshwater lakes, and unleashing violent spells that effectively destroyed the ecosystem.
And then the third year arrived—the period when dimensional passages would open.
Finally, enough time had passed that Elguano’s world could send expeditionary forces on round trips rather than one-way trips. That was when the limit was reached.
Finally, “dissenters” began to appear.
“U-Um… O God… When will this war end?”
The creatures asking already knew the answer. It would end when the dimensional rift opened and the “bubble-tentacle demon” in the enemy world invaded and swept everything away—unless Sicadoz destroyed the enemy world first.
They understood that much. But what they were asking wasn’t the “condition” for ending.
It was the “timing.”
They needed the certainty that they could win within a short period.
And Elguano and his fellow gods could not possibly answer that it would end soon.
That uncivilized madman (Sicadoz had confirmed there were no intelligent beings no matter how much he searched) seemed to possess infinite divine power, endlessly opening gates and dropping monstrous creatures. Every single day, without rest.
And under the relentless flood of monsters, the shamans finally reached exhaustion. The real battle hadn’t even begun yet.
It wasn’t simply a matter of growing tired from fighting too much. There was a deeper problem beyond physical stamina.
It was the greatest weakness of Elguano’s Culture-focused build and Charm-based Mystery.
Neither Culture nor Charm could exert any power when under attack.
That was only natural. How could one enjoy cultural activities during war?
In an extreme situation where not just war, but colossal monsters rained down endlessly, how could anyone maintain Charm, spirit, presence, and aura under infinite accumulated stress?
In a prolonged conflict like this, Politics needed to be high.
But Elguano had barely raised Politics at all.
Because of the advantage of Culture—the function that “increases resident happiness”—controlling his subjects had been easy even without high Politics. Religious control of the populace could substitute as well.
Yet now the very foundation of that build—Culture—was shaking from its roots.
The shamans had declined. After three years of sustained maximum tension, they could no longer maintain their sanity. The residents lived in constant anxiety.
Elguano grew desperate.
“H-How could this happen? This is a situation I never anticipated at all.”
Originally… Elguano’s side should have been able to shake the enemy far more severely than what they themselves were experiencing now.
After all, while the daily opening gates and pouring monsters were threatening, no civilization could remain sane when a legendary entity capable of destroying an entire village alone appeared through a gate in the middle of their territory and began slaughtering with beams of light.
The problem was that the opponent had already expelled civilization from his own world.
The soft, sweet lifeforms of the Dessert Desert saw the unidentified terrorist who opened gates daily, fired beams, and fled—and felt nothing.
They simply thought, “Ah, the Dessert Desert was always this fucked-up place,” and moved on.
Those who failed to adapt had long since died. Only those who adapted succeeded in breeding. Such was the law of Great Nature.
“What the hell is this…”
Knowing that a Culture-centered build was vulnerable to prolonged wars, Elguano had created Sicadoz as a Dimensional Traveler to end things quickly in the early stages. Yet he had never even considered that the opponent might have no home base, no civilians, and no civilization—just pure wilderness.
If he had been able to imagine it, he would have been the crazy one.
Still, Elguano refused to lose. He desperately used religious authority to comfort the shamans while training elite troops capable of hunting Bisyakheets, holding on as best he could.
After all, Biin’s ecosystem had also suffered considerable damage from Sicadoz’s terrorism. If the war dragged on like this, victory might still be possible.
And then the dimensional passage phase finally began.
“From now on, elite troops will cross into the enemy world, slaughter indiscriminately, and return. It’s no longer one-way—it’s round trip now. And that guy doesn’t seem to have any way to control his creations, so we should be able to—”
Elguano, about to cross through the dimensional passage that had formed in his world, could not hide his bewilderment.
A passage had also opened in the sky. Probably because the enemy possessed aerial combat units.
And the bubble-tentacle demon—named Yogur-tosoth by its creator—pushed its massive eye and several tentacles through the small opening in the sky, writhing in the heavens while staring endlessly at the world beyond, as if to say that the moment the passage widened completely, it would turn the residents of their cities into strawberry-flavored yogurt.
“You son of a bitch!”
If it bothered them, they could simply fly up and kill Yogur-tosoth before passing through. In truth, they could just ignore it. At that height and through such a narrow passage, it couldn’t do anything.
However, the passage that had opened in the middle of the world would continue widening every day from now on. The residents would have to face the dimensional rift tearing apart daily, and beyond it, the gradually growing form of Yogur-tosoth and its staring eye—every single day.
There was no longer any room for Culture anywhere in the world. Elguano ultimately made a drastic decision.
“We need to change the system. We have no choice but to expand religion’s role, reorganize around Politics, gather troops, and prepare for war.”
It meant suddenly altering a build that had been running smoothly, and forcibly turning residents who had lived happily until now into soldiers and laborers. Faith would obviously plummet, but losing was worse than any situation.
After all, an opponent ranked in the top 6.25%—the fifth one—couldn’t possibly be a fool who would lose without resistance.
Yet at this point, something happened that Elguano, who had planned to change the system and spend half a year to a year preparing before launching an assault, had never considered at all.
From the dimensional passage they were supposed to enter, a massive army of monsters suddenly began pouring out.
“Huh? What? Didn’t that guy’s world have no civilization or intelligent beings?”
That was the thing…
“His Politics score should be zero! How the hell is he controlling those creatures?!”
It was an incomprehensible situation. But no matter how much they said it, the situation didn’t change.
Faced with the Dessert Legion’s insane offensive pouring out, they had no choice but to abandon system changes and somehow hold the line with exhausted, demoralized shamans and Sicadoz.
Elguano felt his vision gradually blurring.