The Pauper's Strategy, The Tycoon's Strategy
The world score currently sat at roughly 3.5 million points, and would likely reach 5 million by the time the next World Collision arrived. For the sheer size of the world, the points were coming in rather slowly—largely because the native creatures of Great Nature had yet to be fully subjugated, and the Dessert Legion had not grown in number due to insufficient mana.
I asked the Angel.
“If I cash out in Round 9 with 5 million points, how far could I go?”
“Five million points? At that level, superpowers would be far more valuable than physical assets. Immortality, permanent health, superhuman strength, telekinesis—buy the whole set and you’d become the strongest being on Earth, capable of killing any world leader bare-handed. A superhero or a villain would be born. Though you’d still die if hit by a nuclear bomb.”
Is that so.
Then I would aim for an even higher round. As Mihun had said, there would be no cashing out in Round 9.
‘Don’t think about how to live—think about what kind of life to live.’ Mihun’s words had left a deep impression, but that was all.
Because I had not yet reached my destination. I would not consider cashing out until I could survive a nuclear strike and achieve the complete extinction of humanity.
“The organizers do not judge the morality of one’s motives. Still, deciding to keep moving forward is an excellent choice! So, how do you intend to improve this world?”
First, I possessed an enormous quantity of mana stones that one of my clones had been continuously importing from other worlds.
I could not survive on extortion alone. Those targets would eventually find backing, and if the number grew too large, they could simply declare war on someone they knew to block future declarations.
According to the game rules, collisions were strictly one-on-one. Once someone had declared war on another player, there was no way to cancel it.
In other words, if I pressed too hard, the target could simply declare war on any acquaintance and immediately cash out in the next round.
So I took only what was reasonable. I even provided some consulting in the process. While doing so, I gradually replenished the mana that had been severely lacking.
With the mana I had obtained, it was time to move to the next stage.
I looked down at the god fragment that had been almost completely devoured from the ground.
Sand Desert LV.0: A desert terrain filled with sand. It has now completely lost its function.
Details: A terrain that stores <Light> and <Heat> mana. Once the resting place of a being once called a god, it once held immense light and heat, but was completely destroyed by the player ‘Biin.’
Still, this Sand Desert was strange. I had no idea what would happen if its level rose. So I shifted my perspective upward.
Looking at the sky, the same god fragment now displayed a different description.
Blazing Flames LV.0: A terrain connected to the Great Firmament that intensely draws in the <flow> of the <Sun>. It has now completely lost its function.
Details: A terrain that absorbs <Light> and <Heat> mana. Once the resting place of a being once called a god, it once possessed the ability to summon the power of the sun, but was completely destroyed by the player ‘Biin.’
Whether the fragment lay on the ground or in the sky depended on one’s point of view.
In short, the Nectar Well stood at the center of the rocky desert. So what was the rocky desert? And what of the sunlight pouring down upon it?
The Nectar Well, the desert, the valleys, the aquifers—everything called a “god fragment” was in some way connected to the six no-man’s-lands.
The desert valley, if dug deep enough, led straight to the Great Underworld.
The wind blowing through the valley carried the influence of the Great Ocean, even without an actual sea.
And every living thing in the valley fell under the influence of Great Nature.
Above the valley stretched the Great Firmament.
Everything that died in the valley passed through the Great Boundary into the underworld.
Those who dreamed in the valley moved toward the Great Phantasm.
And highest of all—the vast Great Cosmos was also connected here.
God fragments were more closely linked to certain regions, or even fused with them, yet in truth they were connected to all seven no-man’s-lands.
“You have reached this point through your own power. Impressive.”
Conversely, the no-man’s-lands themselves had no connection to such things.
If I expanded Great Nature, there would be no “sky” above it and no “underground” below—only Great Nature itself.
That was why my world, as Great Nature grew, had rapidly darkened and ceased to receive wind or rain. It was no longer adjacent to any other realm, only to my own world.
In other words, the other terrains in my world—those containing god fragments—could, if I wished, draw power from other worlds at any time.
I seized upon that idea.
Combining the knowledge I had learned from Sesaisa with my own, I inserted spaces of Great Nature between the god fragments that made up my world and reconnected every point where those fragments touched the sky—meaning the Great Firmament.
Using syrup and the principles of Yeong-rip-hak, I rewove the world itself. With the power of World Shaping, anything was possible. I simply had not used it much in my own world, but Mugite and Ogolraeot had cultivated plenty of terrains.
Terrains like Mirage, connected to the Great Phantasm, or Ultra-High Mana Zone, which simply contained an enormous amount of mana.
As I connected the terrains, their levels continued to rise. I kept linking the elevated terrains to syrup and Creamland, integrating the entire world and attempting to increase the amount of sunlight my ecosystem needed most.
“A remarkable attempt! If successful, it would bring tremendous benefits.”
And the attempt failed by more than half.
“Huh?”
The direction itself had not been bad. It was an excellent idea.
But my world was simply too vast, and its mana too scarce compared to its material mass.
Even though I had imported so much mana from outside, most of it had been consumed by living creatures, and what remained circulated within the ecosystem. There simply were not enough resources to move nature itself.
“In the end, you need a no-man’s-land connected to the spiritual realm.”
That was true. The simplest solution would be to connect to a new region after Round 11 ended. At that point, I could immediately declare a connection to the Great Firmament and reshape the world.
Or I could find a player connected to the Great Firmament in the upcoming Round 9 and simply seize their world.
But both strategies shared the same flaw: they were not plans I could execute immediately, and both required me to win the very next round.
And one should never play this game with that mindset. Of course it would be nice to face an easy opponent in the next round and win. But what if I lost?
What if I lost and became the opponent’s subordinate, or if resistance was so fierce that the outcome split evenly?
What if I could not even find an opponent connected to the Great Firmament, or if I did and they turned out to be connected to Great Nature as well—just like me—because they had defeated a Great Nature holder in their eighth match, leaving me with nothing but more land?
Who in their right mind built a strategy on the assumption of victory?
Even though losing meant there would be no next round, the idea of “I’ll win next time and obtain the Great Firmament, so let’s plan around that” was the thinking of a complete idiot.
“How wise. So what will you do?”
The simplest method was to shrink the land I had worked so hard to expand. That was the lowest approach, however, because the productivity and overflowing life that came from the land’s size formed the foundation of my operations.
The second method was to pour in large amounts of divinity to maintain sunlight levels and forcibly operate the Nectar ecosystem. That was not a bad idea either, but it was crude.
Especially if I consumed this much divinity, I might have very little I could do on my own in the next collision.
The third method was to create a lifeform that would continuously construct and weave the spiritual realm in my place. Dark Rim already possessed the ability to build territories and expand Creamland.
But there were no lifeforms capable of reconstruction from the sky. Creating something like that might actually be quite interesting.
And the final method: simply create an entirely separate ecosystem that was not based on Nectar.
“That’s rather intriguing. Is there a reason for it?”
There was. Simply put, it was the work of building a healthy ecosystem like my home world—one unaffected by the mysteries of <Nectar> or <flow>.
Earth’s Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus rex did not grow that large because of magic, did they?
Even without magic, an ecosystem could produce sufficiently powerful creatures.
Then a branch that did not rely on magic could be born, one that could occupy an ecological niche in a different way from the jelly-based lifeforms.
That would also allow Nyaltartep’s plants and insects—which had been quietly struggling—to thrive more easily.
“A wonderful idea. Creating lifeforms that can survive with almost no mana is an excellent strategy as well.”
The work began by modifying the existing wetlands and the expanded lifeforms of Great Nature.
Using Nyaltartep’s power, I incorporated the countless species living there—plants and insects—into the Dessert Legion, evolving them into “less sweet” forms that reduced mana consumption.
Lifeforms that could, for example, simply eat the Dessert Legion.
Bears that could eat jelly. Foxes that hunted small puddings. Or ordinary birds that merely sucked sap… things like that.
Because there were only lifeforms that could be explained through purely ordinary biology rather than magic, the tuning was easy. All my clones gathered and began tuning the vast Great Nature I had drawn in, one piece at a time.
They were still the Dessert Legion, but instead of depending on Nectar and its ecosystem, they could survive on ordinary fruit, ordinary meat, and ordinary insects—occasionally capable of eating jelly-based lifeforms that were based on Nectar.
That was all I had attempted. Honestly, even at the time, I had no idea how great a change this would bring.
Until a two-meter-diameter toad suddenly appeared in the wetlands.
“Huh?”
The toad had already been large. It was much bigger than a human palm. But two meters in diameter? That was impossible. It had exceeded the size any living creature could achieve.
With its two-meter body, the creature began indiscriminately hunting much smaller wild animals and the lifeforms of the Dessert Desert.
“What the hell is this.”
How had it grown so enormous? I had no idea what I had created.
Since I did not want to waste points by immediately seeking consulting from Sesaisa or Mihun, I quietly observed for now. I watched to see how the giant toad had appeared.
The giant toad’s lifespan was short—only one-tenth that of other toads. Considering that even ordinary toads did not live particularly long, its lifespan was absurdly brief.
But in nature, as long as a creature lived long enough to reproduce—whether it was disabled or short-lived—that was enough. The giant toad succeeded in reproducing and left its genes in a clutch of eggs. The tadpoles that hatched were all normal in their early stages, and most grew into ordinary toads, though a very small number developed into giant toads.
Ordinary toads lived normally, eating insects and small lizards, but the giant toads, thanks to their enormous size and strength, could consume larger prey and reproduce more with the greater energy they obtained.
The problem was that these two were clearly the same species, and no matter how many mutations appeared in their genes, such dramatic gigantism should have been impossible. What was this?
I pondered the change for a long time before reaching a conclusion.
“Magic?”
“If you call everything that cannot be explained by biology ‘magic’—”
“Fine. I’ll call it mystery.”
If it could not be explained by biology, then it was magic, right?
I examined how the toads’ transformation had occurred. After a fairly thorough investigation, I discovered the cause.
The wetlands where they lived were adjacent to a terrain called Constellation. Constellation was a terrain that drew in mana from the Great Cosmos, something I had obtained long ago and left to Yogur-tosoth to manage.
Most of the mana emitted from this Constellation was being used by the yogurts and syrups. However, when those yogurts flew through the air and happened to die of old age, falling into the wetlands, they released large amounts of mana into the wetlands.
When the toads were exposed to this mana release, they gained the ability to gigantify, like superhumans exposed to radiation.
Even ordinary toads, when exposed to sufficient mana, grew enormous as if this were the moment for it.
So they were all the same species of toad, but depending on whether they were exposed to mana or not, they either gigantified or remained ordinary toads.
It was a property called phenotypic plasticity—the ability of the same organism to adapt to different environments and change its physical characteristics.
In an environment rich in mana, the toads recognized the presence of powerful predators nearby and grew enormous. In exchange for a lifespan reduced to one-tenth, they obtained a powerful physique, transforming as if they had acquired some kind of magic art.
“Interesting. Such a biological mechanism exists?”
“It is quite common in plants. The same genes can express themselves completely differently depending on the environment. I did not expect it to apply during the process of adapting to mystery as well.”
Hmm…
If I applied this, could I create even more dramatic changes?
For now it was simply gigantism in response to mana. In other words, creatures that remained ordinary when mana was scarce, but transformed into monsters when mana increased…
More specifically, in my ecosystem they would be ordinary creatures that consumed only a small amount of maintenance cost, but once they crossed into an enemy world overflowing with mana, they could use magic to gigantify, breathe fire, fire energy blasts, or teleport—could I create such monstrous lifeforms?
“I’m not sure whether I should be horrified or impressed by this idea. Strategically, however, it appears extremely effective.”