The Unmotivated Breads
After successfully breaking through the disaster section, I first examined the new Level 6 Culture traits of Excellent rank.
Promotion Support: Provides 4,085 Culture points that can only be used for promoting unique entities.
Theme - Love: Gains major advantages in Culture projects themed around love.
Religion (Yogur-tosoth): Creates a religion that worships the creation [Yogur-tosoth].
They're all so vague.
“It can’t be helped. You have Culture but no Civilization, so…”
Still, it’s pretty disappointing. The points needed to upgrade the coral reef at Mount Gu were sixty-three thousand, weren’t they? And I only got four thousand? My score had climbed all the way to two hundred and ten thousand, so restoring the ecosystem and offering a bit more should easily cover it.
The love-themed culture is the same. Can we stop pouring resources into mating and copulation already? Having high Culture doesn’t even give me any real benefits.
And what the hell is this religion? Why do I have to create a religion that worships that guy when I don’t even have a civilization yet?
“Then you simply need to create a civilization from now on.”
Yeah, forget I asked.
“Is getting new traits the same as in the game?”
“Unfortunately, yes. If you do not select a new trait by Level 7, you may replace the Level 6 trait instead.”
Then I’ll put it on hold for now…
I opened the community forum. (Technically I did both at the same time, but it gets confusing.) The community functions had been locked during the disaster section.
Apparently quite a few players had cleared the disaster section earlier than expected. It looked like roughly a million people were active in the community. (The current total number of players was 33,554,432.)
Some were top-rankers who had broken through easily, others had luckily drawn an easy disaster, and some, unlike me, hadn’t received any additional disasters at all. Everyone had their own story.
“Hm? Is Sesaisa still inside?”
I tried to send a message, but it said he was still in the disaster section. He had probably received three additional disasters too, and it seemed he had drawn even nastier ones than I did.
I shifted my viewpoint to another clone. This one had been steadily managing the bread, yogurt, and Creamland in the open-pit mine area.
And that version of me was feeling rather troubled. Since I had felt it all ‘simultaneously,’ I’ll organize the memories now.
I am the clone in charge of [Bread] and [Yogurt]. I’m also the one who taught these guys sexual reproduction and poured effort into developing Culture.
Compared to the other clones who were busy with urgent tasks, I had been given the relatively peaceful job of managing this new ecosystem. So I observed it with extra care and attention.
And my conclusion was simple.
These [Breads] don’t qualify for the Dessert Legion.
“That’s a rather harsh evaluation.”
First of all… the [Yogurts] are mostly fine. They stick close to Yogur-tosoth, learn magic, and fly around. They can definitely be used as combat troops.
The problem is the [Breads]. These creatures have evolved in a direction I absolutely did not want.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
The [Bread] is a fusion of the metal-eating jelly I named [Dough], the primitive spirit I named [Milk], and [Syrup], the medium that connects spiritual and material elements.
But what is their main energy source? The precious metals and gemstones in the open-pit mine don’t have much nutritional value, so they’ve been eating the cream pouring out from the connected Creamland.
The first problem is that there’s simply too much cream…
Of course there is. Every spiritual realm in the entire world is gathering here to squeeze out cream. There’s so much of it that these things don’t need to compete aggressively for food.
As a result, their aggression has been almost completely castrated.
The second problem is that they’ve used all that excess energy to endlessly increase their body size.
After all, if they stay small, the gamchi will come and eat them. So these guys have grown until they’re the size of large herbivores like hippos and rhinos. They haven’t reached elephant size yet, but even this much makes them nearly impossible to hunt.
I’m not sure even a bisyakheet could take one down… On top of that, their skin is basically iron armor and their bodies are made of minerals. There’s hardly anything edible even if you do kill one.
And since they don’t even taste good, there’s no reason for other creatures to attack them.
There’s nothing else to eat in the open-pit mine anyway. Rather than fighting these things to steal their cream, it’s far more efficient to just head over to the wetlands or the nectar lake.
Even the camels whose territories overlap a little would rather nibble on cacti than cross the wetlands to compete for cream.
The third problem is that they’ve basically given up on competing with their own sex.
Even herbivores normally have territorial instincts, and even if they don’t, they usually have enough aggression to fight members of the same sex for mating rights. Often even more than carnivores. Just look at how viciously bulls fight when released in a pasture.
Powerful muscles to overpower rivals, imposing horns or spikes, pointless energy-wasting displays of stamina, threatening postures, fights to the death, victory dances performed while the losers act as backup dancers; all of it is a way of showing off how much healthier and sexually attractive you are compared to your competitors.
“What was that last example?”
But these things are overflowing with energy, have almost no reproductive urge, live longer because of their size, and have no threatening predators…
So they have no passion for breeding. Even when breeding does happen, there’s no competition, and it became more advantageous to move slowly and stuff their faces than to waste energy on reproduction.
This kind of evolution was entirely predictable. The real problem is that dealing with it is a pain.
“You’ve been testing an anti-intellectualism build from the beginning. Don’t you have any countermeasures for situations like this?”
Hmm. In the anti-intellectualism strategy, when defensive creatures like turtles, sloths, or armadillos appeared, we responded by releasing creatures that could form symbiotic relationships with them.
“Oh?”
Alternatively, we made sure the defensive, resource-conserving creatures could still damage enemy ecosystems in their own way. Or we created life forms that could only survive because of their existence, thereby making the overall ecosystem healthier.
None of those options work right now.
Fundamentally, I only created the [Breads] because there were no living creatures that could survive in the open-pit mine. I forced them into existence.
Suddenly creating yet another life form to break through this situation feels too contrived. I barely managed to make the dough and bread as it is.
“From an angel’s perspective, those [Breads] aren’t even living creatures.”
“Huh?”
“They are golems. Artificial bodies given artificial minds and turned into weapons. Similar things exist in other dimensions as well.”
“……”
“In short, having no reproductive desire, being abnormally relaxed, giving up on competition entirely; all of it makes sense if you think of them as golems that never received proper commands. They are golems created through biological mechanisms, nothing more.”
God damn it. For real?
“The closest comparison would be the undead.”
“What? Like skeletons or zombies?”
“Yes. Beings where a spirit resides in a dead body and moves only through the flow of energy. They have no reproduction or desires, yet they must consume energy. Aside from the fact that every part of their bodies is technically alive, their movements are no different from the undead.”
“……”
In the end, the only thing I could do with the [Breads] was increase their size and numbers to at least raise my Life score a little.
I thought that if their numbers increased they would at least fight over territory, but these damned creatures really did have their aggression removed. They simply adapted to the environment by not reproducing and living leisurely lives.
Their defensive capabilities as living creatures are so high that fighting costs too much energy, so their personalities ended up becoming gentle. For someone who wanted to create a tough, metal-bodied Dessert Legion, it’s nothing but disappointing.
So that’s what happened.
I still haven’t solved this problem. But now that the community is open and I have some free resources, maybe I can find a way.
Specifically, if I can find an expert on artificial life like golems or the undead, I might get an answer.
“Or I could just create an intelligent being to give orders to the breads…”
Right. Let’s take a look at the community.
“You’re not even pretending to listen to me anymore.”
“This is about civilization.”
Exchange in the community was still quite active. That made sense. Five battles had already been fought, leaving me with twenty-five opponents, but there were still thirty-three million players remaining. There were far more benefits to be gained through exchange and cooperation than through pointless hostility.
I first made a post on the community.
As a bonus, can provide ecosystem consulting from the current #1 Life Score ranking!!!
While messing around with magic I somehow created something that’s either a golem or an undead, but these things just sit there eating all day and refuse to work . Can anyone teach me how to make them actually do something?
The replies came faster than expected.
The reactions were somehow lukewarm. Not actively cooperative, but not rejecting me either. A very ambiguous response.
“It seems Sir Biin drew too much attention by reaching thirty thousand Life Score. Top-rankers probably feel awkward offering more help.”
Yeah. That makes sense.
I left the post up and kept checking the reactions while searching for related experts. Soon after, right as a new comment appeared on the post, a message flew toward me.
Comment 35 (Mihun): If it is a problem where powers such as granting intelligence cannot be used, I believe I may be able to assist you.
Considering how few players proactively reached out first, this was quite bold and refreshing.
Let’s see. I’ll accept.
I was about to shift my consciousness to the chat room as he requested when the angel called my name in an unbelievably serious voice.
“Sir Biin.”
“Yeah?”
“This is one of the very few exceptions to the game rules, which is why I am telling you. Even if Player ‘Mihun’ is defeated in the game, his soul will not perish.”
……
“What? Hey. Wait. Why? That completely breaks the fundamental condition of the game.”
“That is precisely why I am telling you now even though you did not ask. In exchange, Player Mihun agreed to pay a corresponding price, and his cooperation is absolutely essential to the progress of the game. There was no other choice.”
That’s not something you can just gloss over. What the hell are you talking about?
“Wait a second! What is this?! Weren’t we all supposed to be risking our lives? No, weren’t we risking something worse than life; soul annihilation? Yet there’s a player who doesn’t have to worry about soul destruction just because he has money or is a sponsor of the organizers?! Then why the hell am I risking my life in this game? That player is participating with zero risk and deceiving all the other players who are fighting desperately!”
The angel panicked and poured out excuses.
“T-that is… I knew you would not accept it based on surface facts alone, which is why I am only telling you now that you have come into contact with Sir Mihun.
B-but it truly cannot be helped. With a single explanation, everyone including you, Sir Biin, will understand why Sir Mihun’s soul cannot be destroyed, and you will also acknowledge that the price he paid is perfectly reasonable.”
“There’s a magical explanation like that???”
Then a dimensional gate opened, and my clone’s consciousness was sucked somewhere else. It wasn’t the usual feeling of being pulled into an open chat room. It felt like I was being dragged along by an irresistible, overwhelming force.
The angel spoke in a hushed voice.
“……Sir Mihun is the one who provided the stage for the game you are currently playing. In other words, the original owner of every god fragment embedded throughout the terrain. The being who was once called a god. Himself.”
“?!”