Sky and Water

I switched perspectives to right after the sixth collision. I couldn't help but feel utterly dismayed as I stared at the three cards the angel held out to me.

All three Excellent trait cards I'd received as rewards for the sixth collision were garbage.

"They're not that bad," the angel said.

"No, no matter how you look at it, none of these are useful to me right now."

At that, the angel's expression turned rather awkward.

"It's a bit difficult when you put it that way. Most traits are designed to support the development of civilizations. But since you're playing by completely excluding civilization, the majority of traits end up being useless."

"Still, can't you at least use your discretion to only give me good ones?"

"I'm afraid not. The rules binding angels prevent us from guiding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠players in any specific direction. We must instead provide a variety of options. Of course, we won't hand out completely unusable, inefficient traits—like ones that only benefit you in forest terrain—but we still can't tailor them exclusively to what the player wants."

Once she put it like that, I had nothing left to say.

After all, the game itself was built around encountering diverse environments and opponents. Specializing in only one thing wouldn't make sense. If they'd only given me life-related traits, I probably would've complained and demanded something else.

That left the question of which one to pick. World traits obtained as collision rewards had far better performance and versatility than the specialized traits gained by raising stats, so if I was going to choose one, now was the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠time.

But when I actually considered them, there was nothing worth taking except Sky Territory.

My ecosystem's culture was nothing more than the creatures' appearances and courtship behaviors anyway. Different cultures didn't clash.

The same went for the ritual bonus in deserts. Without intelligent beings, I couldn't perform rituals even if I wanted to. Sure, I could order Yogur-tosoth to do it, but why bother?

When I thought about it that way, a trait that provided advantages for living in the sky would benefit the gamchi, the flying Yogur-tosoth, and the yogurts as well.

The moment I selected the card, the world shuddered and transformed... or so I expected.

In truth, I didn't really understand how this trait would change the world. What was the underlying principle? And before that, what even was a "trait"? As I pondered, Yogur-tosoth spoke to me.

"You can feel it?"

With that, Yogur-tosoth demonstrated movement roughly thirty percent faster than usual. Thirty percent might not sound like much, but going from seventy kilometers per hour to ninety was an absurd increase in speed.

"Level up..."

"Probably not quite..." the angel muttered.

The points in my ecosystem that touched the sky—the mountain ranges and cloud islands—saw their resident life forms become far more active, as if living had grown much easier. Even the yogurts that had simply drifted through the aerial spiritual realm began moving faster, devouring more mana flows. They grew larger, became quicker, and underwent various evolutions.

It was better than I'd expected. A pure sky-based ecosystem didn't exist on Earth, so it felt unfamiliar yet surprisingly promising.

"What is it? Is there a problem?"

What? Was he just being greedy for land?

Still, I couldn't think of a good reason to refuse. It would be better to let Yogur-tosoth—who had both brains and ambition—manage them directly rather than let someone like me, who barely understood them, fiddle around.

But I couldn't just hand them over so easily. Maybe I should play hard to get.

"Yogur-tosoth. In this world, land is equivalent to fragments of the divine. Bestowing such a thing is no trivial matter. To give it lightly is to imply it can be taken lightly. That wouldn't feel like true territory at all, would it?"

He seemed unexpectedly excited by that fact. Well, he'd probably been worried it could be taken away at any moment.

"I might take it back if you commit some catastrophic blunder. But I doubt someone of your caliber would do such a thing, so there's little difference."

"With that in mind, let's say you're the right one to rule the skies. But then how much of the world should I hand over to you afterward?"

After dangling the bait like that...

"So, tell me about these magnificent life forms you plan to create. If I could do a better job myself, there's no reason to hand it over. You weren't thinking of just making some lightweight creatures that live on clouds and calling it a day, were you?"

Because that's exactly where I would've stopped.

"...I see."

Uh-huh. Keep talking. I still don't get it. I'm completely blind when it comes to magic.

Wait. What?

"So you're saying living beings could control the climate?"

I wasn't entirely sure what it meant for the climate itself to become a living being, but if it could manipulate climate, that meant it could pour endless rain on enemy ecosystems or trap them in eternal drought...?

Huh? I'd thought he'd only make creatures that never came down from the sky, but this was a far more insane idea than I'd anticipated. Hmm.

"Exceeds expectations, Yogur-tosoth."

"It's worth more than a simple bestowal—it's worth investing in. However, since it will consume a massive amount of the ecosystem's resources, failure is absolutely not an option."

And so I granted him the mountains, cloud terrain, and so on. I also had a Constellation terrain, but he said he had no need for it. That was a space-adjacent terrain, not a sky-adjacent one.

Having received new territory in addition to the space-time boundary, Yogur-tosoth immediately set to work. He'd explained everything at such great length and with such confidence that I'd honestly expected him to produce results right away.

Looked like it wasn't going to be easy... I'd expected as much, but now I was starting to wonder if this guy had just pitched some grandiose idea to secure funding like a venture capitalist.

In any case, his project was worth investing one of my clones in, so I decided to go see it for myself.

───And my perspective shifted to the Nectar Lake.

Thanks to Sesaisa's ongoing consulting, the Nectar Lake had leveled up once more. It now measured sixteen kilometers across, with a surface area of two hundred square kilometers. That meant it took up a full third of my entire ecosystem.

But as it grew this large, a problem emerged. Abhojuth simply couldn't expand to match its scale. Moreover, the nectar itself could only be consumed along the lake's edges, so efficiency had actually dropped. Even with the syrup river carrying nectar outward, the sheer volume far outstripped actual usage. The life forms existing in the Nectar Well itself weren't particularly useful for anything.

"You've run into quite the dilemma. What will you do now?"

"Hmm. I think this needs to be solved through game mechanics rather than pure ecology."

I used divine power to rip the Valley terrain—originally home to the hamster race—from both the enemy ecosystem and my own, then slammed it straight into the middle of the Nectar Lake.

"Oh ho."

I also brought in portions of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the rocky desert, sandy desert, and desert forest, inserting them into the lake. Once a terrain grew this vast, it became possible to embed other terrains—that is, more fragments of the divine—within it.

As a result, four islands now floated within the Nectar Lake.

The island that had once been a valley began sucking in nectar, channeling it underground to form a kind of cave terrain. The desert forest grew even denser, becoming a new home for various gamchi. In the rocky and sandy deserts—terrains that simply possessed high mana—jellies crawled up and formed gummy forests.

And because the jellies that had been starving for food now clung to the islands and began devouring them, and because these were divine fragments, the islands would grow on their own as long as mana was supplied. They had essentially become infinite veins that would never shrink.

I connected these to the existing Creamland through Sesaisa and artificially linked them to the Nectar Lake via syrup rivers, raising the level even further.

"A brilliant idea. Once one terrain grows large enough, it can actually contain others within it."

"That's the first bit of pure praise I've heard from you in a while."

"I only give credit where credit is due."

With four islands now in the Nectar Lake, jellies crawled across them, gamchi built nests, and the ecosystem grew far healthier.

Abhojuth's management area had shrunk, making the remaining space much easier to handle. Of course, the terrain editing process had caused massive ecological destruction, but that was something we'd have to resolve on our own.

There were still many world collisions left, but since the creatures within my world had already multiplied sufficiently, it was time to do some housekeeping.

"What do you mean by that?"

I carried out the task I'd been putting off.

"Ninety percent of the life forms inside the Nectar Well, and seventy percent of those in the surrounding watershed. Offer them all evenly."

I was sacrificing a massive amount of life that occupied a full third of the world's area. Since they counted as Life, Industry, and Culture, every creature sacrificed would raise those stats by the exact amount they dropped.

In the end, I didn't need to kill as many as I'd feared, but if I was going to make something, I might as well make it huge. I sacrificed roughly eighty thousand points' worth of life forms and decided on a final score of over two hundred and sixty thousand points to create a monstrous coral reef.

Abhojuth was delighted, pouring in power like a madman. With Sesaisa's help ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as well, we offered up a tremendous amount of mana and faith directly into the coral reef.

It wriggled—!

This thing wasn't a Dessert Legion commander. It probably wouldn't even become an intelligent being. At its root, it was a coral reef—a structure.

But this coral reef would soon become Abhojuth's palace. In that case, it needed a name befitting its status.

Let's see... hmm...

"The largest coral reef on Earth is called the Great Barrier Reef, right?"

"Yes...?"

"And there's a place called the Grey Barrier Peaks that gets mentioned in passing."

"I'm not sure where it's from, but the pronunciation is similar."

That settled it.

"From now on, this place shall be called the Guremmy Bear Reefs."

"Wowwwwwwww."

The moment the name was given, the appearance of the corals began to shift little by little, transforming into adorable bear shapes with two round ears.

As the lake overflowed, gummy corals crawled across the ground alongside the nectar. The islands within the lake were gradually stacked up from the bottom, giving the illusion that the entire lower half of the Nectar Well had been filled with gummy coral reef.

And at its deepest abyss, it shone without interfering with the movements of Abhojuth's extending tentacles. It created flows from within and fostered countless life forms. This clearly established that it stood on equal footing with Abhojuth, Yogur-tosoth, and Shuc-rimmurath.

Moreover, the Nectar Well's level rose once again. Its diameter now reached a staggering twenty-three kilometers. The islands inside grew larger as well, and the life forms flourished on an unprecedented scale.

Most of all, the bisyakheet thrived. Their numbers had skyrocketed, and speciation had occurred among them, producing even larger bisyakheet, smaller (though still large) bisyakheet, and ones with altered beak shapes. A wide variety had emerged.

"I predict an overwhelming victory."

Same here.