Expansion Phase: Great Nature
The game was structured around thirty rounds.
Every three rounds brought an elimination phase. Every four rounds, a shop phase. Every five rounds, a disaster phase. And any round that was neither a multiple of three, four, nor five—a prime number round—was designated an expansion phase.
In simple terms, it was an event where my ecosystem grew even wider.
“Then I shall explain the rules of the expansion phase.”
I’d already heard it all before.
“Please listen anyway. To prevent any possible misunderstandings, I will explain. Expansion phases occur on prime-numbered rounds. This world, containing a god fragment and spanning roughly ten square kilometers, is a bountiful space capable of sustaining an entire civilization in one way or another.
However, no-man’s lands without god fragments are bound to exist within the world. The expansion phase extends your world into precisely those no-man’s lands.”
Even if it was called a no-man’s land, it wasn’t a completely empty wasteland. The direction was simply different.
“For the Material Realm’s no-man’s lands, there are three worlds.
The Great Ocean, where a vast and boundless sea unfolds.
The Great Underworld, an underground realm whose bottom cannot be seen.
And the Great Nature, a colossal world where civilization cannot survive.”
Sea, underground, nature. My own world already had a path leading down to the Great Underworld. I just never used it.
“For the Spirit Realm’s no-man’s lands, there are likewise three worlds.
The Great Firmament, where a vast sky unfolds.
The Great Boundary, filled with the lingering thoughts and consciousness of the dead.
And the Great Phantasm, an endless space of illusion and dreams.”
The Great Firmament already touched some of my territory and was being used quite well—sky islands, the Sky Garden, cloud spaces, that sort of thing.
“And finally, the Great Cosmos, where material and spirit are nearly absent yet powerful substances and flows still exist. These seven no-man’s lands will be linked across the seven prime-numbered rounds.
By stepping beyond a world that contains only a god fragment and connecting to the sea, the underground, nature, the sky, the afterlife, illusion, and even the cosmos itself, you will at last complete a single true world and be reborn as the genuine god who rules it.”
Setting-wise it sounded grandiose and impressive.
“But the god fragments are just Mihun’s flesh and mind anyway, right? In the end, isn’t this just the work of inheriting all his shed skin?”
“It is slightly different. It would be appropriate to call it a reestablishment of spirit and flesh. The world before it was broken, the broken world, and the fused world are all distinct from one another. By gaining this newly reborn body, Mihun himself will be able to transcend his status as a true immortal and ascend as an immortal.”
Hmm.
“So about the rules for the expansion phases—as I mentioned earlier, the prime rounds consist of three sets following the 2-4-2-4-2-4 pattern, plus the solitary 29th round.
The rounds with an interval of ‘2’ are [7], [13], and [19]. Those with an interval of ‘4’ are [11], [17], and [23]. These form their respective sets. You must first choose whether to begin with the Material Realm or the Spirit Realm. The 29th round is fixed to connect with the Great Cosmos.”
“In other words, I can’t pick consecutive no-man’s lands from the Material Realm?”
“Correct. The same applies to the Spirit Realm. You must alternate between them.”
I had heard the explanation in advance, but since the event wasn’t upon me yet I hadn’t bothered asking pointless questions. Now was the right time.
“Is there any benefit or penalty depending on which no-man’s land I choose first?”
“Whether it is a benefit or a penalty is unclear, but there is a difference. The world you select will gain a certain amount of additional area each time you win a world collision afterward. In other words, the first one you choose is designated as having the closest connection to your world.”
“I see.”
“Even so, the later-chosen no-man’s lands will still receive quite a generous amount of territory. Of course, not as much as the very first one… Still, even the no-man’s land decided in the final determining round—the 23rd—will be enormously vast by the time the last round arrives.”
That made sense.
“And immediately before the final world collision, the no-man’s land chosen in the 29th round will be the Great Cosmos. Since the final opponent will naturally have no other choice, the collision will occur across cosmic space. By winning that collision and achieving complete fusion, you will finally be reborn as a true god and claim victory.”
Hearing it again, the scale of this fight was truly staggering.
“Please state whether you will select the Material Realm or the Spirit Realm as your first no-man’s land. I will then display the trait cards corresponding to the three worlds in that category. The card you choose will become the no-man’s land now adjacent to Biin’s world.”
There was no reason to hesitate.
“Material Realm.”
“I knew you would choose that! Since you are constructing a 〈Life〉-based build, selecting the Material Realm is only natural. Very well. Please examine these three trait cards.”
Salt Breeze: Expands into the Great Ocean. Sea winds and salt content grant advantages to 〈Life〉.
Dungeon Exploration: Expands into the Great Underworld. Grants advantages in adventures within the Great Underworld and adjacent worlds.
Power of the Wetlands: Expands into Great Nature. Significantly increases wetland terrain within that no-man’s land. Life inhabiting that terrain becomes far more resilient.
All three offered me advantages.
Choosing the Great Ocean would let me create powerful marine lifeforms and eventually colonize islands beyond the sea.
The Great Underworld was directly adjacent to my territory. Although it belonged to the material side, it still possessed magic and a plausible ecosystem. Digging into it wouldn’t be a bad option.
The Great Nature was the safest, most standard choice. It would produce a wide variety of species and suited me best, since I focused on growing an ecosystem rather than a civilization.
Any of them would work. The Great Ocean in particular would help stabilize the climate, which was appealing.
But when I considered that the first no-man’s land I picked would be the terrain I faced for the next four rounds…
I decided to expand into the Great Nature. After going in a full circle, I had chosen the standard option.
“An excellent choice. Solidity, rather than novelty, is the path that leads to victory.”
“You talk a good game.”
“Indeed. Which is why I would greatly appreciate it if you would please build a proper civilization…”
He still hadn’t given up. It was time to let that dream die.
Once you decide which world to expand into during an expansion phase, fissures begin to form across your world.
A no-man’s land is a region without a god. A place where divine providence does not operate. Therefore expansion begins from the area surrounding the god fragment—which possesses the lowest terrain level—and distorts the world that had previously taken the form of a perfect sphere extending in every direction.
In short, selecting the Great Ocean creates an “outside” for the world. From the moment you choose it, the world stops being spherical and instead stretches out as a plane.
Because the sea, along with the sky, exerts the greatest influence on climate, it also plays a role in stabilizing the climate of a world that had previously been influenced solely by the god fragment. In some cases, a single connected world may split apart across the sea and transform into islands.
The Great Underworld brings “depth” to the world. The underground of what was once a spherical world continues downward endlessly, creating an explorable subterranean realm.
Finally, the Great Nature creates an “inside.” The degree of expansion is less than that of the Great Ocean, and the change in elevation is far smaller than that of the Great Underworld.
However, it generates terrain where various living creatures can dwell. While the Great Ocean and Great Underworld do contain life, they are fundamentally desolate. In contrast, the “quality” of the Great Nature itself is extremely high. The diverse species and the ever-changing environments they inhabit are rich and varied.
If you later choose the Great Ocean or Great Underworld without having selected the Great Nature, there is a possibility that those vast seas and deep caverns will contain no life at all. (Conversely, this means a single no-man’s land can possess two attributes simultaneously.)
Biin’s ecosystem, which had chosen the Great Nature, began to experience fissures across its deserts, wetlands, and mountainous regions. New land emerged between them.
There was little change near the Nectar Well. The same went for the desert terrain that the Nectar Well had completely swallowed.
But between Mugite’s world—composed of a colossal desert, mountains, and the floating Sky Garden—and Biin’s world, countless wastelands, mountainous regions, valleys, rivers, wetlands, and hills of every size appeared the moment the two fused. Wild creatures were born there.
The Sky Garden was no different. The Great Nature terrain could exist in the sky as well. It became both Great Firmament and Great Nature.
Cloud islands floating in the sky, floating balloon-like or airship-like lifeforms, and even Eastern-dragon-style creatures moved through the heavens, creating new cloud terrain and lifeforms between Mugite’s mountain that held the Sky Garden and the yogurt mountain Biin had cultivated and granted to Yogur-tosoth.
It wasn’t only wild beasts and birds. Plants, bacteria, and parasites existed as well. Lifeforms a player would not bother to create because they “were not useful to civilization.” Creatures that simply lived because they had to live.
Unfortunately, the ecosystem they had to survive in was not a world consisting solely of well-constructed civilizations.
The Dessert Desert, which had already been the Great Nature itself, easily swallowed the countless wastelands, grasslands, and wetlands that attached to its desert and plain terrains. It triumphed in the struggle for survival.
In truth, even losing the struggle for survival would have been fine. Biin had meticulously guided evolution so that both the newly introduced creatures and the existing ones could preserve each other. He made the competition last as long as possible and burn as fiercely as possible.
The jelly-type lifeforms, driven to the brink of extinction, had now adapted to pollen. Insects that had never existed in the Dessert Desert evolved to suck nectar and the sap of gumi trees.
Creatures inhabiting the wetlands received the blessing of life on a scale comparable to the Nectar Lake. Some of those creatures even defeated the existing lifeforms of the Dessert Desert.
Aquatic creatures impossible to describe, nonexistent on Earth. Bizarre lifeforms that could not be clearly classified as dinosaurs, mammals, or giant amphibians naturally settled in, evolved, drove out the Dessert Desert’s creatures, and were in turn driven out themselves. In the end all of them were absorbed into the Dessert Legion.
The enormously expanded wasteland was traversed by Shuc-rimmurath. She devoured creatures, gave birth to new life, and scattered jelly, cream, and syrup in every direction.
The various terrains that had been unable to raise their levels because they were “too narrow” for the term no-man’s land to apply now devoured the no-man’s land and incorporated themselves into the god fragment’s domain.
Among these violent ecological upheavals, the area least affected was probably the Nectar Lake.
Not only did it possess the highest terrain level, it had become the complete domain of the Dessert Legion and the gamchi. As always, it was a hellish yet simultaneously the richest and most diverse space in this world.
Yogur-tosoth grumbled that “the work would have been far easier if we had received the Great Firmament instead of the Great Nature,” but he still received considerable recognition for his contributions. He claimed the expanded no-man’s land near the mountains and the sky islands as his own territory and was happily conducting research in the Yogurt Mountains. He trained diligently so that he would not lose to powerful entities like Tademoira again.
And there were those who could not adapt to these changes in the world at all.
“What are we supposed to do now?”
“Lord Tademoira…”
They were the remnants of a destroyed world.
They had not been acknowledged as useful by their new master.
Yet they had not been culled as unnecessary either.
They had merely been granted the chance to survive.
Now they had to live on in this horrific Dessert Desert.
When they considered that their new god likely hoped they would fail to endure this environment and simply die, they realized they had to survive here by any means necessary—if only to prove him wrong.