The Consumers

Unlike the angel, who was fidgeting anxiously because the protection time was almost up and we'd soon collide with another world, I remained perfectly calm. I knew the life forms I had created would never lose to the creatures of another world.

Now then. Anyway, there was one problem with my ecosystem that flowed from Nectar Well to Nectar Jelly, Rock Jelly, Gravel Jelly, and finally Soil Jelly.

“Is it the lack of civilization?”

No. What I meant was that this ecosystem ultimately ended with the soil jellies spitting out sand. Since the amount of rock was finite, the world would soon be completely buried in it.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠desert world might turn into a pleasant summer beach where the Nectar Sea lapped against white sand teeming with bouncing jellies, but by then every one of my jellies would have starved to death. If they devoured the entire world, the ecosystem might end up consisting of nothing but sand and the Nectar Sea.

“You’ll be eliminated from the game long before that.”

I won’t be eliminated. And if I win, I absorb the opposing world and my own grows larger, doesn’t it?

But the other world probably wouldn’t be a rock-filled ecosystem like mine. Which meant I needed to perfect my own ecosystem in preparation for the future.

Right now the “producers” were the jellies, and the “consumers” were essentially the Nectar Well that absorbed mana to produce nectar. It was time to add some proper consumers to the mix.

I named these carnivorous creatures, which possessed slightly firmer bodies than the jellies, Pudding. They could crawl or roll with noticeably better mobility than the barely motile jellies, and they hunted the jellies to absorb their nutrients.

“That will slow down sand production, but it doesn’t solve the fundamental issue, does it?”

“Ah. Yes. Do as you please.”

Into a peaceful desert where jellies had lived quietly, sipping nectar without any external threats, vicious puddings suddenly appeared.

These ferocious jelly-eating life forms possessed relatively tough bodies and jaws. Instead of bothering with complicated nectar synthesis, they simply stole the nutrients others had already created.

With the arrival of the puddings, the jelly population would plummet, which would in turn reduce the pudding population, allowing the jellies to rebound until the two eventually reached equilibrium.

I had no intention of letting that equilibrium last long. I artificially accelerated the jellies’ evolution at a breakneck pace.

“Are you going to give them intelligence and let them build a civilization?”

Nope.

The jellies’ strategies against their predators were as follows.

First, increase their size. In nature, body mass is king. Simply getting bigger meant they were no longer easy prey. The rock jellies, which broke down the most minerals, grew larger, followed by the gravel and soil varieties.

Of course, this also made the predators grow larger. The puddings became bigger in order to hunt the enlarged jellies.

Second, escape. They began improving their mobility. The days of lounging in the desert sun were over. The jellies developed tube feet like starfish, arm-like appendages like clams, or snail-like crawling methods, each evolving their own ways to flee. Naturally, the puddings became more agile in response.

There was another escape method: burrowing into places the enemy couldn’t reach. But because the jellies needed sunlight, they migrated into sunlit water and began aquatic lives.

The heavy-bodied puddings couldn’t enter the lakes, but I deliberately evolved some of them as well, creating puddings that could swim through the water and hunt jellies near the surface.

Third, produce toxins. They combined the organic components of nectar to create poison. Some used the mana generated during nectar synthesis not for emission but to generate heat or cold. When the puddings tried to eat them, they suffered damage—death or ruptured palates.

Naturally, the predatory puddings responded by developing stronger internal organs and tougher mouths.

“You’ve created magic? It’s still primitive, though.”

“I rather like mysterious mechanisms that don’t rely on intelligence. It’s a fantasy world, after all—some things are possible here.”

“So ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you’re still refusing to raise their intelligence…”

And finally, fourth: become harder. The jellies developed exoskeletons. If they became too difficult to eat, the puddings would naturally stop eating them.

The jellies’ surfaces hardened until they looked almost coated, losing any softness their name implied. Some adopted clam and snail strategies, covering soft bodies with hard shells. Others grew scales or sea-urchin-like spines. The variations were endless.

Naturally, the predatory puddings became stronger and tougher in turn.

Of course, becoming harder wasn’t free. The jellies and puddings extracted every last salt component from the minerals to harden their bodies, leaving behind only useless, hardened sand.

“Oh. This is actually impressive.”

They say the Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. Yet the desertification of my ecosystem ended because we ran out of sand.

The most successful and popular strategy among the jellies was shell-making. The puddings only had soft jaws, and the hard, glassy shells defended against them perfectly.

So the puddings began developing organs specifically for crushing those hard shells.

Powerful jaws, teeth, spines, muscular tentacles. Evolution surged at a pace reminiscent of the Cambrian explosion, and I artificially accelerated the process even further.

As a result, all that abundant sand disappeared. Jellies and puddings developed shells. The creatures that had entered the lakes evolved hard scales, powerful tails, and excellent fins to escape the predators that had followed them into the water. True convergent evolution took place, and jellies and puddings that genuinely resembled the life forms of the Cambrian explosion appeared in droves.

“And then?”

Even the original nectar jellies could not stop evolving. They branched into two directions.

One direction continued to cover the lake surfaces densely, absorbing sunlight and heat. The other direction sank gradually deeper, eventually reaching the lake bottom where they began nectar synthesis using faint light. Some puddings evolved to feed on these bottom-dwelling, plant-like jellies.

The Nectar Well—the source that produced that pure life energy—had become a lake overflowing with life.

On the surface, countless jellies multiplied like water hyacinths. They reproduced the fastest and died the fastest. Because they had to remain floating on the surface, they evolved to be light, with explosive reproductive rates. The creatures that ate them also evolved to consume and reproduce in great numbers.

The free-floating jellies below the surface gradually developed mobility, evolving into fish- or jellyfish-like forms. Others dramatically increased their reproductive capacity, producing a thousand offspring so that even if 999 died, the single survivor could multiply a thousandfold again—an existence like fission microorganisms.

The most successful creature was the Anomalocaris Pudding. Like its namesake, it possessed eyes, swam using multiple fins, and crushed clam, snail, and shell-covered prey before devouring them whole.

On the bottom lived countless creatures reminiscent of sea lilies, starfish, clams, and snails, locked in an endless struggle of defensive and offensive strategies.

The most successful among them was the starfish-type pudding. It used brute force to split open jellies protected by hard shells like sea urchins, snails, and clams, then consumed their contents.

Both consumers and producers had become incredibly diverse. And here, I created a third type of life form.

These life forms were even softer than jellies. They could not grow large. They were simply tiny bacteria whose job was straightforward: they devoured the corpses of dead organisms.

They broke down the bodies of jellies and puddings to extract nutrients, converting them into primitive mana, and were in turn eaten by other creatures that consumed gel.

The changes continued. Among the puddings, the larger ones now found the jellies too difficult to catch and began targeting other puddings instead. They had become secondary consumers.

The terrestrial jellies split into fast-moving and slow-moving groups. The slow ones transformed into something resembling plants, forming solid exoskeletons and spreading wide, leaf-like and branch-like structures made of glass produced by breaking down sand. These captured sunlight while their main bodies burrowed underground, remaining stationary like true plants.

The fast-moving jellies began digging through the ground in search of rocks and stones, evolving into a kind of herbivore—or rather, lithovore. The jelly-eating puddings that hunted them grew even larger, faster, and more ferocious.

With this, producers, consumers, and decomposers had achieved perfect balance. It was a flawless ecosystem.

“Honestly, it’s quite impressive…”

Yes. I should call this magnificent ecosystem the Dessert Desert. What an excellent name. I’ll have to create the next life forms with a similar vibe.

The system message was congratulating me too. Then it was time to choose the third trait.

I looked at the angel and gestured for her to show me the trait cards, but she hesitated for a moment.

What was this? A lag? A bug? Was it loading? Why was she acting like this?

“Um… Excuse me, but are you aware that the protection period is about to end?”

“I’m aware.”

“Then let me ask—how exactly do you plan to win with these jellies? I know the Nectar Well has grown and the accompanying life forms have increased dramatically. Even so, reaching level three in any category during the first protection phase is extremely rare, as far as I know.”

Of course. This game was notoriously difficult when it came to raising levels.

Starting from level zero, the basic rule was that each world collision raised your level by one stage. Even then, you couldn’t raise every field equally, so if one area surged ahead, another would fall far behind.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

In that case, I would ask this:

“Then my score must be terribly lacking right now, yes?”

“Obviously. Here, look. The average score across all players is 300 points. Your Life score alone is 441, so you appear to be in the upper ranks, but since you only have a Life score…”

The angel, who had been about to continue, froze completely after looking at my ecosystem’s status window.

“What is this? How are these numbers even possible?”

“How did you get these scores! You ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠don’t even have a civilization—how can you have military, industry, and mystery points?!”

The military score was probably the combined combat strength of all the predators in my ecosystem.

The industry score came from the whole process of turning rocks into sand.

The mystery score came from the jellies that had continuously developed primitive magic along with the Nectar Well.

Everything else was zero. There were no intelligent beings, after all.

“Wait a moment. This is different than I thought. The military looks like 62, but that’s the total combat power of every single life form combined. If you actually fought a world with real military strength, you’d be nothing but prey. The mystery and industry scores are the same—they’re not from mastering great magic, just from having an enormous number of creatures that use primitive magic.”

Correct.

“And politics is zero. Faith is zero. That means it’s impossible to control the life forms according to your will. So how exactly do you plan to win a collision against another world?”

The angel’s tone made it unclear whether she was worried or protesting. I thought for a moment.

“Hey, Angel. You just asked me ‘how exactly do you plan to win,’ so let me flip the question.”

“?”

“In this game, you win by achieving complete cooperation or perfect conquest after colliding with the opposing world.”

“That’s right. But that’s impossible with these jellies.”

“So here’s what I want to ask. Think seriously for a moment: ‘How the hell could I possibly lose?’”

The angel made a face that said What on earth is this guy talking about? before her expression suddenly twisted in shock and horror.

She had realized it. The angel wasn’t stupid—she just lacked imagination.

So show me the level-three trait cards already. Even if I wanted to lose right now, I couldn’t.