World Collision - The Sixth -
New Life Excellent Trait 『Shuc-rimmurath Enhancement: Increases Shuc-rimmurath's by 79,451.』
Shuc-rimmurath handles restoration for my ecosystem, so she absolutely cannot die. Of course there are countless beings who aren't allowed to die, but this one truly cannot be permitted to fall.
That's why I took the brute-force approach with a level-10 trait and nearly quadrupled her stamina. With zero offensive power but an absurdly inflated life force, even an average world's full military probably couldn't kill her if they hammered away for an entire day.
There weren't any other noteworthy changes to my ecosystem. Industry is actually just a hair away from level 8, which would unlock another new trait, but it's nothing critical. Everything else—Tech, Mystery, Faith—had slowed to a crawl.
Or perhaps I should consider it fortunate that they were growing at all?
Shuc-rimmurath was roaming around with the spiritual realm known as Creamland and the Syrup River, twisting the entire flow of my world into utter chaos.
That doesn't seem like something that should be allowed… Sesaisa is probably going to be furious.
Still, Sesaisa appeared to be extremely busy himself right now.
If that was how things were, what could I do? I simply waited for the sixth collision that would arrive soon.
Fortunately, I had more than enough foundation to win the coming match.
Powerful creatures, freshwater organisms cultivated in sufficient numbers to devastate the enemy ecosystem, vicious gamchi bred to destroy farmland, and the supreme entities Yogur-tosoth and Shuc-rimmurath.
With this much, I figured I could either win outright or, even if defeat seemed likely, do something close to outright blackmail.
“Um… Lord Biin.”
“What is it, Angel? Don’t tell me there’s another weird announcement.”
“No, it’s not that. This is… simply a question from me in my capacity as host.”
She wasn’t going to ask why I refused to create intelligent beings, was she? What could it be, then?
“Everything you’ve done so far seems somewhat contradictory.”
“Contradictory?”
“You claim monster builds have limits and that you despise intelligent life. Yet in practice, your victory plans appear to rely heavily on extremely intelligent entities. You wouldn’t call Yogur-tosoth or Shuc-rimmurath natural life forms, would you? Shuc-rimmurath may act simply, but her intelligence itself is quite high.”
Ah. So that was what she was pointing out.
But that was an environmental problem.
“Environmental problem?”
“As you surely know… my starting zone was desert. Even with that fraudulent resource called nectar, the fact that it was desert never changed. The few other terrains that appeared were rocky mountains and dry plains. It was a landscape that couldn’t support many species.”
“That is true.”
“I somehow figured out how to use magical terrain and the open-pit mine, but fundamentally I received terrible ground for the build I wanted to run.
So a sub-plan—the monster plan, specifically one relying on powerful high-tier entities—ended up becoming the main strategy.
Anyway, the monster strategy isn’t bad in the early game. In fact, if we only look at the opening phase, it ranks among the best builds in the entire game. When Tech is lacking, Life is king.”
“Then will you switch builds in the mid-to-late game?”
“If I can’t attempt the main plan before round ten, wouldn’t it be fair to say I’ve already lost? The main build takes a long time to establish, after all.
The silver lining is that after round six comes the elimination phase, so I can obtain the terrain I want. It would be nice if I can scavenge something suitable from an eliminated player’s world and modify it.”
She had no idea how shocked I was when I first received my terrain. It was lucky there was at least a nectar spring; if it had been pure desert, I would have witnessed hell itself.
“And I simply hate humans and civilization… I rather like intelligent beings that aren’t human—elephants, dolphins, apes, that sort of thing. Yogur-tosoth is powerful, intelligent, and even develops his own magic, but he cannot form a civilization. He is nothing more than a single entity incapable of reproduction.”
If I hated every ‘intelligent being’ from the start, the only things I could release would be bacteria. Even plants or sea-cucumber-level organisms are capable of something called learning.
Would I really have spent a game I’m playing for fun cultivating bacteria? Within the limits of not forming civilization, I’ve tried every bizarre thing imaginable.
I just hate humans. Always have.
“But don’t creatures like elephants, dolphins, and apes commit sufficiently cruel acts as well?”
“How could I not know? Elephants are violent, dolphins are cruel, and apes wage war.”
“Then is there any need to show such hostility exclusively toward humans? Dolphins and apes clearly torment others purely for ‘fun.’ Please don’t say humans are worse. Humans can be far more noble than lower-intelligence creatures.”
……
“Hey, Angel.”
“Yes?”
“Look. I believe most of the problems humans and civilization represent originate from biological factors. So what do you think is the greatest flaw in the system called civilization?”
“Huh? Well…”
“Biologically speaking, the problem with civilization is this: the system requires high intelligence from every member to advance, yet it becomes more stable the more low-intelligence individuals it contains.”
“……”
“To put it simply, a system that collapses when there are too many idiots is one that cannot function without them.”
Among humans there are individuals with lower intelligence than smart gorillas—those called intellectually disabled or borderline. Yet why do they exist evolutionarily?
Socially, anyone smarter than necessary is actually detrimental to maintaining the system.
The moment a worker wonders, “Why do we do all the labor while the king, boss, or landlord takes more?”—once that number exceeds a certain threshold, every system collapses.
What’s even funnier is that an equal system where workers and managers receive identical wages makes those smart ones think, “Then there’s no need to work hard,” and they ruin the system again.
But if there are plenty of idiots who roughly mutter, “Who cares? They give us food, don’t they?” and shut up after being clubbed into silence, quietly conforming to the system, then the system maintains itself astonishingly well.
The ideal structure within this is a good minority of intelligent beings caring for an evil majority of idiots. But realistically, it never works out that way, does it?
Just listen to stories about the so-called social elite. How much superstition they believe in. Whether leaders elected by vote are truly wise. Whether they fall for obvious, stupid scams.
Surprisingly, the intelligence required for a creature to create civilization is lower than the intelligence required to maintain it.
After tens of thousands of hours playing games, I would win and then simply watch without touching anything. Every single civilization ended in hopeless catastrophe. Even though it was a game, I couldn’t help feeling nauseated.
“In that sense, the civilizations in this game—where gods exist in the form of ‘players’—are relatively desirable. There are beings who intervene directly, purge the idiots, and maintain the civilization. My world apparently never had such a god, but if one paid steady attention, civilization might be tolerable.
However, that is not what I desire. I want a permanent nature that endures forever even if no one watches it. A nature where, even if intelligent entities appear by chance, they absolutely cannot build civilization.”
The angel asked back, seemingly flustered by my words.
“But according to that logic, since you can manage it as a god, there is no need to run an anti-intellectualism build, is there? You even called it inefficient.”
“Ah… That. The reason I’m running an anti-intellectualism build in this world despite knowing the most efficient one exists is different.”
“Huh? What is it?”
I couldn’t say the next part out loud.
But I could think it, and since the angel could read my thoughts, it reached her naturally.
It’s pitiful.
Life is originally garbage. The wild is originally shit.
I agree with that much, and I feel zero guilt about turning my dessert desert into a hellhole.
Everyone is simply struggling desperately to survive. To leave a piece of themselves behind. I consider that natural.
But for intelligent beings with clear egos and enough intellect to build civilization to be raised as soldiers in the name of a god’s will, manipulated, sent to fight and die, existing solely to elevate their god to the position of true deity… that is pitiful.
If they were mere game NPCs, maybe. But it isn’t something you do to living, breathing intelligent beings who are desperately searching for meaning in their suffering.
“Uh… how should I put this. That’s really unexpected…”
“Hypocritical?”
“No. That’s not it. Lord Biin is not hypocritical.”
This girl—was she trying to comfort me?
“To speak coldly, Lord Biin is simply a bad person… To be hypocritical you would first need to do good deeds, yet even when you have some kind intentions, the result is always turning the world into hell and killing everyone.”
The path of the Demon King is originally like that.
“Whoa…”
The world collision will begin shortly. Only surviving players may advance to the next round.
Anyway, preparations were complete.
There was nowhere left to retreat no matter what happened now. Come on, then. Whoever dares to face the Lord of Mass Extinction—show yourself!!!
∞
We’re fucked, Uancho thought.
The army’s morale and discipline will always remain at rock bottom.
The disaster phase had been unwinnable. There was nothing they could do. Even though they were supposedly cooperating, ten gods had essentially been in a state of civil war.
In a disaster phase that could only be overcome by everyone combining their strength, they could never agree on “who would sacrifice first.” The lower-ranked players even voted to receive additional disasters and dumped all responsibility onto the higher ranks.
The result was the current situation—three unresolved disasters still plaguing a world burdened with penalty traits.
The penalty trait they received was nearly the worst possible. A trait that rendered the army itself useless meant they could never win a war.
“These pieces of trash…”
There was only one hope. If the opposing world had also received a penalty trait.
Then they could cooperate, merge the two worlds into one, and every single one of them would immediately eliminate during the elimination phase. There was no other way to survive.
Fortunately, everyone had agreed up to that point. Honestly, what choice did they have? Elimination rights belonged to each individual.
“Please… I hope the next opponent received a penalty… Please… If we eliminate, we can at least keep around ten thousand points.”
The opposing player was ‘Biin.’
Uancho’s vision went black.
∞
You have won the world collision against player ‘Uancho’ and multiple other players.
The player’s world is expanding.
“You won very easily. Congratulations.”
What the hell. Why was it so anticlimactic?
I had worked so hard cultivating my world and prepared to the absolute limit, yet the opponent was so weak that all my preparations became meaningless… Who would have thought that sending twenty bisyakheet at once would cause their entire civilization to collapse instantly?
“At this stage such things can happen. But it isn’t a bad outcome, is it?”
She was right. After all, it was no different from minimizing losses and gaining rewards.
The opponent had surrendered, but honestly even if it hadn’t been me they couldn’t have accepted the surrender—because of the penalty trait. Accepting it would have transferred the penalty to me, and even if they all eliminated afterward, the penalty would remain on my world. I had to kill them all to advance.
“Every multiple of three rounds is an elimination phase. The sixth round only has that. Will you advance, or eliminate?”
“Advance.”
“Then the points earned from victory will be doubled. Congratulations. You have gained an enormous profit.”
The battle had ended so early that even Sesaisa and Mihun were still far from being able to chat. I was a little curious what kinds of worlds those two were fighting against…
That aside. I naturally sent out my clones and examined the enemy world, which now had nearly thirty-two god fragments embedded in it.
The foundation of the enemy world was still desert. Desert, mountains, hills, freshwater regions, plains, and magical terrain… Damn it. It was basically Dessert Desert 2 without any actual dessert.
“Still, it is fortunate that it is the elimination phase. Among the eliminated worlds, you may find one suitable for realizing your main plan.”
“Oh!”
“Whoa. What is it?”
I had found it. There was a seed in the enemy world that could evolve into the main plan.
Rather than anything else, this was far luckier than I could have hoped.