The Theory of Life and Death
Neither Mihun nor I had time to receive consulting while we were busy organizing our own worlds, and I had no intention of sending a clone either.
So I asked through one of the clones that had automatically gathered in the meeting room.
“Hey. Mihun.”
“Why does this immortal seek you?”
“From the way you’re talking in the meeting room, it looks like you’ve picked a fight with someone?”
“It’s too early for retaliation—our internal affairs aren’t even settled yet. Can’t we delay it for a while?”
But speaking through the meeting-room clone had the side effect of drawing reactions from Wahando and Sesaisa as well.
Damn. I should’ve just sent a clone directly to Mihun.
Still, it wasn’t anything particularly secret, so I decided to just say it.
“It’s not that. I just wanted to chat. There’s something private I wanted to ask.”
“How absurd! You call this a chat?”
“Must you bring that up at such a critical time?”
Sesaisa and Wahando said that, but Mihun, the one I had actually addressed, responded with his usual leisure.
“Huhu. If we do not even chat, then why do we live? There is nothing trivial in this world—every single thing shines with its own fate. What is your question? For reference, this immortal cannot discuss anything we have sworn not to speak of, such as the organizers or the game’s purpose.”
“I’m curious about that too, but it’s something else. I heard you’ve lived for hundreds of thousands of years.”
“To be precise, even this immortal cannot remember exactly, but perhaps eighty million years? That would be in this place’s absolute time units. In terms of subjective experience, it would feel far longer.”
If I remembered exactly, I would have been even more shocked. I myself was unsure whether I had passed thirty or not, depending on how I counted my age after becoming a game addict.
I’ll just say I’m around thirty. Including the years I spent as a shut-in gamer, I was definitely a little past thirty.
“I’m only thirty……”
“Be surprised! Thirty?! I naturally assumed you were at least seven hundred!”
“I’m surprised as well. I thought you were at least eighty, even if not seven hundred.”
Why had Sesaisa and Wahando guessed my age like that? It was ridiculous.
But Mihun, as expected of an elder, took it in stride.
“Mm. Your fate did seem short. So?”
“Just…… doesn’t it get boring living that long? More precisely, after living that many years and reaching near-omnipotence, I wondered if there was anything left you still regretted not doing. Why did you join the game?”
As expected, the other two each had something to say.
“How foolish! Does one need a reason to want to live?”
“I may be old even by my own race’s standards, but I believe everyone would agree that living longer and growing stronger is desirable. Why even ask such a thing?”
They kept nitpicking, making me wonder if I was the strange one. No matter how much you wanted to live, after tens of millions of years, wouldn’t there be nothing left you wanted to do?
Honestly, even if you experienced everything life had to offer, with Earth’s content alone, even an immortal life with infinite wealth and health would probably run dry after about three hundred years.
Unlike the other two, Mihun did not scold me.
“Do you know what cultivation is?”
“Ah. No.”
“Cultivation means polishing and refining oneself to elevate one’s spirit and body to a higher realm. A True Immortal is one kind of destination, and a Divine Immortal is its pinnacle—at least as far as I know.”
More setting talk. I felt like I had heard this before.
“Then what do you think is most important in cultivation?”
“Hmm. Talent?”
“Huhu. Talent is important, but it is not the most crucial thing. What matters most in cultivation is the reason one cultivates.”
It sounded obvious…… and yet somehow not.
“Raising one’s realm through cultivation increases lifespan. And one grows stronger. But ‘why’ must one live long? ‘Why’ must one become strong? Living long simply means having more opportunities to do something, and becoming strong means having more things one can do.”
“That’s true.”
“People cultivate because they do not want to die. Those of lower realms cultivate for that purpose. But…… what if, throughout your life, you could feel neither joy nor sorrow, and everything appeared only as a dull, murky gray—so tiresome that living itself became unbearable?”
“……”
“Well. In that case, you would have no desire to live any longer, would you? You might not go so far as to take your own life, but simply existing would bring no happiness. Therefore, living long cannot truly be the ultimate purpose of cultivation.”
That was exactly my question. Eighty million years was practically eternity, wasn’t it? It was a geological timescale. Lifeforms would change so completely that not even their original forms would remain.
“Growing stronger is the same. In other words, to use the game we are playing as an analogy—if you defeat every opponent, there will be no more opponents left to defeat, correct?”
“Is that the truth?”
Wahando asked abruptly. Mihun answered with a sly expression.
“Huhu. The organizers would say so, and I can only say the same. In any case, the game itself ends in victory after thirty wins. At that point, neither power nor strategy would be needed anymore. Gazing upon a completed world, or using that completed world as a foundation to fulfill other wishes—that is the end.”
Sesaisa, Wahando, and I all fell silent.
“Therefore, becoming stronger is not particularly important either. There is no thirty-first collision. If you have won, you will have already achieved something you can do, and you will already be strong enough. Once the goal is reached, cultivation naturally stops.”
Put another way, the story went like this.
“In that sense, this immortal still wishes to live longer and still possesses the desire to obtain greater power to achieve goals. That is why this immortal still has attachments to life and continues to pursue higher realms while living longer.”
“Even with the authority to manipulate time and space and destroy galaxies, what else is there left to do?”
“This immortal wishes to see insignificant creatures walk the path of cultivation, reach higher realms, and either surpass or stand equal to this immortal.”
……
“?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
When the three of us said that, Mihun simply replied.
“Is it truly such a difficult thing to understand? In short, this immortal’s hobby is raising disciples. Watching insignificant creatures gradually grow stronger, obtain power, and dare to stand equal to or even surpass me—huhu. It feels rather peculiar. Huhuhu……”
Drool……
“Seriously?”
“It is the truth.”
“You joined this game and risked your life for something so trivial?”
“Trivial, you say. It is a task worth devoting this immortal’s entire fate to.”
“And yet you kill every opponent you meet.”
“Hardship always accompanies advancement. That is their heavenly mandate. Besides, how many choose not to be greedy and simply get off at the point they themselves have decided? Those who stop cultivating there are no different from disciples to whom this immortal has granted power.”
I was at a loss for words. His way of thinking was truly unique.
Come to think of it, the fact that Mihun bought a mythic trait after Round 4 meant he had been earning points by interacting with other players and giving consultations even before that. Maybe he wasn’t as reclusive as I thought.
The fact that he erased every opponent he met was, as Mihun himself said, simply because he couldn’t receive help from anyone—it wasn’t out of malice.
“Then let me ask you all. Demon King, Marquis, Overlord. What are your goals in participating in this game?”
“This Marquis Sesaisa, should I be forced to withdraw midway, would like to return to my homeland and become emperor using the knowledge gained here. I have already told Biin this. If I do not withdraw, I wish to create a new title surpassing that of emperor and rule my world as its true sovereign! And obtain the most powerful meat as well.”
“I only ever lived in my own world, so this is the first time I realized how vast and magnificent the universe truly is. Whether I win or withdraw midway, I want to expand into a vast world, interact with others across the universe, wage war, and continue building my hegemony.”
After the two of them spoke, all three gazes turned to me.
I……
“If I win, I want to become a god and manage and watch over my ecosystem that will last for eternity.”
“Your wish is not so different from this immortal’s, despite questioning my own.”
“I wonder if that’s really fun. Honestly, I don’t find Biin’s ecosystem all that appealing, so maybe that’s why.”
“Then what will you do if you have to withdraw midway?”
I couldn’t answer that.
“Something? Why aren’t you answering?”
“Hey. Did something urgent happen to your main body? Or is it time for retaliation?”
Mihun looked at me, covered his mouth with his fan, and grinned before sending a message.
At his summons, I made some vague excuse in the meeting room and sent a clone to Mihun’s world.
Mihun, the giant Tyrannosaurus immortal, held his fan and looked down at me with a grin.
“What? Why?”
“You have no intention of withdrawing, no matter what happens, do you?”
And just like that, he struck straight at the heart of the matter.
It was far too easy to guess. I had only ever spoken about winning and never mentioned anything else.
Moreover, when I joined this game, I hadn’t even known that withdrawing was an option. I was one of the extremely rare players who had simply joined without a second thought.
“I thought as much. There are those kinds of people. Those whose purpose in cultivation is neither lifespan nor power, but rather downfall. Those who simply want to climb as high as they can before breaking and falling.”
“What do you know…… I can’t even criticize you for that, since you’ve lived far too long and must have seen plenty of people like me.”
“Exactly. So how should I put it…… It may sound arrogant, but I am your perfect understanding. No matter how different the race, culture, or world, ways of thinking tend to converge in similar ways.”
“Even across different worlds, survival strategies in nature probably don’t differ that much.”
“Indeed. Even emotions are strategies. Even thoughts are strategies. Everything exists for the sake of survival.”
Mihun understood this surprisingly well.
Why do people feel anger?
If they did not, the mechanism for retaliating against those who harm them would be deleted, resulting in massive losses.
Why do people feel sadness?
If they did not, the mechanism for cherishing what is precious would be deleted, resulting in the loss of things important to them.
Why do people love?
If they did not, they could not create lovers or children, and their genes would not be passed on. That is why they cherish their children and love their partners.
Human behavioral principles, the societies, cultures, norms, politics, and civilizations humans have created—all of it can be explained through the ecology of the human species.
Even human emotions are merely biologically programmed. Baseness, superiority, vulgarity, nobility—all exist because they have biological meaning.
Everything humans create and possess is nothing more than the survival strategy of a bipedal primate called Homo sapiens. Among those strategies, the unfit ones are simply eliminated.
Civilization is a system that allows unfit things to survive, causing all who think rationally to ultimately produce the worst possible outcomes.
That is why I hate it. Humans. Human civilization. For allowing things that should have been eliminated to survive.
Born an orphan, I earned tens of billions through understanding human madness and could have lived an objectively successful life, yet I shut myself away in the countryside in front of a computer.
Because I had no need for the system called civilization or the species called humans.
Whether Mihun knew all the thoughts running through my mind or not, he smiled as if he probably did.
“Most people like you meet tragic ends.”
“Probably.”
“But surprisingly, some also meet happy endings.
This is astonishing. After living for tens of millions of years and seeing an immeasurable number of people—numbers so vast they cannot even be expressed in billions—watching fate remains just as wondrous every time, does it not?
Some immortals dismiss the births, growths, and endings of mortals and ordinary people as merely the same fate seen from different perspectives, but clearly something different is visible each time—what can one do?”
Mihun roared and spread his massive arms wide as if to embrace the vast world—quite unlike a Tyrannosaurus.
Doing that in a world integrated with mine was just awkward, though.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“What did you think of what this immortal said earlier? This immortal truly enjoys such things.”
“How absurd……”
“Huhu. And it is merely an extension of the advice we give to opposing worlds.”
“What?”
Mihun smiled.
“How did you and I first meet?”
I had sought out an expert because I wanted to instill a firm desire in creatures that did not seem to belong in my ecosystem, and that expert had been Mihun.
“It is simply that I am still fulfilling the request from back then.”
“I didn’t contribute anything to your world, so I can’t give you any points.”
“That is precisely why your current attitude alone is enough repayment.”
More drool……
“Aagh. Mihun-nim~~ I told you not to do that for real.”
Mihun lightly ignored his sparrow-like angel’s chattering.
“I told you last time that you were wrong. Why did I say you were wrong?”
“……”
“When asking about life, one should not ask ‘how’ one should live, but rather ‘what kind’ of life one should live. The words are similar, but they are completely different. Live while looking at the destination and the end, not the process and the means.”
Mihun then flashed a refreshingly bright smile and said one more thing.
“The next round is a withdrawal section. You will probably win, and with the victory points you have saved up, you could live like a king in your hometown for hundreds of years.”
“……”
“If you withdraw after the next match, I will buy your world—which would be troublesome for all other participants to deal with—at whatever point you choose, even if I have to spend every single victory point I have at that time. (Truth certified).”
“What? Why would you go that far?”
Mihun only grinned while drooling.
After the Tyrannosaurus immortal disappeared without answering, I looked at my own ecosystem.
The endless wilderness that had always been a living hell.