Even Creations Have Personalities

Even the created possess personalities.

It was actually perfectly obvious. If the players were gods, then the creations were humans—for the most part.

Not only the unique creations forged from divinity and wielding transcendent powers, but even ordinary people could all think, feel emotions, and hold personalities and egos.

That meant there were delinquent individuals who ignored divine commands and committed crimes (this appeared even with fairly high political scores), and there were disloyal creations as well. (Of course, if a creation directly betrayed its god, it likely meant the god had made some catastrophic mistake.)

Once a civilization’s scale grew beyond what the gods could manage, this became a rather significant conflict. To Biin, who had chosen pure survival of the fittest from the beginning, it was an utterly meaningless system.

Therefore, Tademoira—who had been Mugite’s creation—along with the four narrative-level entities under him, the thirteen hero-level entities, and the civilian monkey-like race numbering just under seventy could not decide whether they should feel despair or cling to hope.

“Tademoira, sir. What should we do?”

Tademoira asked back, somewhat dumbfounded.

“Vidiva, wasn’t politics your role?”

Vidiva, who had originally been the hero entity in charge of Politics and governance, hesitated.

That had been true in their original world, but in reality Tademoira was far stronger, held higher authority, possessed a superior rank… In any case, he was the more important figure.

“I’m sorry. I misspoke…”

If one had to describe Tademoira’s current mental state, it was as if he had suffered a complete psychological collapse, been rebuilt, yet remained only half-repaired and functioning at half capacity.

He understood that the creator who had made him was dead.

He also understood that even after their creator’s death, he and the others had survived.

Yet the opposing god—or rather, the one who had now become their god—did not particularly want them.

“I can understand up to this point…”

He would not kill them deliberately. If they wished to live, they could live as they pleased. They could even interfere.

He simply assumed they would die and hoped they would.

This part none of them could comprehend: Tademoira, the four narrative entities, the thirteen heroic entities, or the seventy civilians.

In a way, their numbers had returned to what they had been when they first created their world. It was also a group where the weak had died first, leaving a balanced number of males and females.

“Are we meant to live on here?”

“I suppose so…?”

“What if the opposing world invades?”

“If this vicious world loses, the opposing god will surely annihilate us.”

“But we could betray them.”

“Still, would this overwhelmingly powerful world lose? They might even view our betrayal and surrender as a deception tactic…”

“Should we side with this world’s god instead? I truly hate that idea. That being killed our gods without even speaking to them.”

Worry. Contemplation. Speculation…

But in any case, they had to survive.

The higher entities especially, far more than the civilians. After all, those of heroic rank and above did not age.

Heroic entities lived on indefinitely unless killed by external causes. (Or they could perfectly pass their abilities to the next generation.)

Narrative entities, even if slain, could transfer their powers if someone inherited their ‘narrative.’ The conditions were rather strict, however.

Legendary entities could be revived if sufficient resources were invested, even after death.

Mythical entities—the strongest rank in the game—were not present, but even if they died during a world collision, they would revive without consuming any resources once the protection period ended.

There were various restrictions depending on classification, yet every one of Mugite’s creations here shared the same grim realization.

For heroic and narrative ranks, death was final.

The opposing world had neither the will nor the capacity to revive narrative-level entities. What sort of being in this horrific world would inherit the narrative of politics or religion?

Tademoira, a legendary entity, might be different. Unlike Sikadoz, the [Symbol] who could not revive if his species went extinct, Tademoira was a creation capable of resurrection.

Yet he doubted they would bother reviving him after death. Unless he remained an active collaborator, why invest resources to bring him back?

“……”

Tademoira grew somber. Still, he was ultimately Mugite’s creation, and he carried the duty to properly raise the race Mugite had cultivated. (He did not know that Mugite’s original race had gone extinct and that the current one had been inherited from another player.)

“Then… shall we begin by farming?”

Everyone nodded.

The flow of time within the game was rather complicated.

First, there was ‘absolute time.’ It was the universal timeline in which world collisions, protection periods, and all other major events occurred.

The time the angel could pause was also this ‘absolute time,’ and every player was granted identical intervals of it.

Then there was ‘world time.’ As the name implied, it was the flow of time within each individual world.

This could be accelerated or decelerated using divine power. Acceleration and deceleration were measured relative to ‘absolute time.’

In other words, if absolute time advanced by one hundred years, you could make several centuries pass inside the world—or merely a handful of years—so long as you possessed enough divine power.

However, the acceleration or deceleration of world time scaled with the world’s size. Now that no-man’s-lands had been incorporated, such adjustments would gradually become more difficult unless Faith points overflowed, or—like Biin—one possessed traits that granted vast divine power, or there existed entities who had mastered Space-Time mysteries.

Finally, there was ‘perceived time.’ In Biin’s case, he had accelerated his perceived time so that several years felt like mere days or weeks. Otherwise, grasping the gradual process of evolution would have been nearly impossible.

Unless one was a madman like Mihun, who maintained a strict 1:1 ratio between perceived time and world time while micromanaging everything, most players accelerated their perceived time somewhat. After all, even a divine mind would find hundreds of years unbearably tedious.

This perceived time applied not only to gods but to their creations as well. In short, creations experienced perceived time in an unconditional 1:1 ratio with world time.

Put simply, creations were beings who could only live within the flow of world time.

Naturally, immortal higher entities felt no boredom and suffered no mental illness no matter whether perceived time stretched across centuries or millennia. From a player’s perspective, it would be absurd if a long-lived creation simply went insane.

Yet they could still receive severe mental shocks from other causes, and if those shocks were intense enough, mental illness remained possible.

“Get out of our fields!”

Kkik-kkik.

The new life forms that had entered the world by selecting Great Nature were swarming into the Sky Garden.

The existing life forms—the Gamchi—had mostly evolved to prey upon the Dessert Legion. As a result, the bat- and bird-like creatures of Great Nature had descended upon the Sky Garden, where normal crops were cultivated.

With over a hundred mouths to feed, even Tademoira’s powers had limits. He could control insects and plants, but he could not manipulate these particular entities.

They did not suffer from typical pests, yet fruit bats devoured their fruit while flocks of birds tore apart vegetables and grain. The suffering was immense.

At least those could be hunted and eaten. But soon a massive bird appeared and began carrying off monkeys. When a small child was snatched, the horror was indescribable.

“What in the world are we supposed to do…”

They had a magic specialist, but he could not spend every waking hour casting attack spells across vast fields. Magic was not such a convenient force.

Just as two hours of intense exercise could leave one bedridden with muscle pain the next day, excessive use of mystery led to exhaustion, unstable flow, or spells that simply refused to manifest.

“O God!”

The narrative entity formerly in charge of religion cried out in desperation. Having lost his god, he was the most pitiful of all narrative beings. This world had no religion.

“?!”

He had not expected any answer. It was not their god—or rather, it now was their god, yet one they did not particularly worship. ‘Biin’ had descended through an avatar.

“Uh… uh?”

“Ah, no. I didn’t expect you to actually come… sir.”

Everyone’s minds spun at full speed. In their current situation, the most appropriate request was—

“Save us!”

“N-no, I mean—please raise our quality of life!”

“How…? With your divine power…”

Color returned to both civilian and higher-entity faces alike.

All eyes turned to Tademoira. He spoke for the group.

“The birds and bats are stealing our crops. Our people are suffering. Please resolve this matter.”

“Well… by killing the birds and bats…”

Tademoira was profoundly shaken by Biin’s attitude of placing humans and animals on equal footing.

Come to think of it, this being was a lunatic who refused to cultivate civilization at all. It made sense he would view people and animals the same way.

Then what ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠exactly should they pray for? Tademoira pondered deeply.

“Could you grant us greater magical power?”

“Th-then could you drive the birds and bats away?”

“Could you perhaps evolve them somehow…”

Then what exactly did he want them to do?

The words nearly escaped. Had he come merely to mock them?

Yet Tademoira could not break Biin’s logic. Just as he had spared them, he was sparing the birds and bats as well.

The vegetables being easily devoured was the natural consequence of artificial selective breeding that had made them fragile. In other words, their disaster was partly self-inflicted.

But if they could not eat these crops, what were they supposed to live on?

Their race barely needed meat; they could survive mostly on vegetation and the occasional insect. Yet no matter what, they could not graze on the overflowing weeds that filled this place.

So he was essentially telling them to starve…

‘Hmm?’

A different thought occurred to Tademoira.

“Could you make our race capable of surviving by grazing on grass?”

“What is it?”

Tademoira looked at his people. They understood ‘evolution’ as receiving divine grace that transformed their very constitution.

While the resulting bodies might appear somewhat grotesque, they could also be seen as improved.

In any case, it was better than dying.

“Yes! I would rather graze on grass and live!”

“So would I!”

“And is there any way we could eat the birds and bats too…!”

“Yes!”

“That’s better than dying! And if you’ll adjust the aesthetics too…”

Thus Biin evolved them. Mugite’s monkey-like race transformed into something resembling a fusion of Earth’s gorillas and sloths, though they retained long tails.

They became somewhat sluggish but could truly eat grass. Their faces now looked rather dim-witted, yet he claimed he had not touched their ‘intellectual ability’ at all.

“Wow! The grass actually tastes good!”

“Oh!”

Everyone eagerly accepted the herbivorous evolution. Some who preferred hunting received smaller bodies that preserved monkey agility, becoming higher, faster, and far more energetic despite their reduced size.

The heroic and narrative entities unfortunately could not receive it—the cost was simply too high. But what did that matter? It was common for creations and the main race to look different.

“Thank you!”

Tademoira felt moved, thinking this god was not entirely impossible to communicate with.

And then—not too long a time passed, at least by immortal standards.

In this game world, where the influence of mystery and flow produced incredibly rapid evolution, the weeds that could serve as food grew on their own. With no natural predators and little need for intelligence, the herbivorous primates’ minds all regressed to roughly the level of clever gorillas.

They moved on pure animal instinct. With the few intellectual fragments that remained, they conversed in clumsy speech, leisurely grazed on grass, and the males crudely fought one another to establish dominance. That was all that remained.

“Aah…”

Tademoira, who had suggested the evolution for their sake, fell into utter despair.