The Anti-Intellectualism Demon King’s World Invasion

Chapter 41. The Strongest Player

Having successfully passed the disaster section, I first checked the level 6 culture and excellent grade traits.

『Promotion Support: Provides 4,085 〈culture〉 points that can only be used for the promotion of unique entities.』

『Theme-Love: Gains a significant advantage in 〈culture〉 themed around love.』

『Religion (Yogurt-Tosos): Creates a religion that believes in the creation [Yogurt-Tosos].』

All of them are ambiguous.

“It can’t be helped. There is 〈culture〉 but no 〈civilization〉······.”

But it’s too disappointing. Isn’t the score needed for the promotion of the Gumi Coral Reef 63,000? But 4,000 points? Since my score has risen to 210,000, I can easily cover it by restoring the ecosystem and offering a little.

The culture themed around love is the same. Can we stop spending resources on mating and copulation now? Even if my 〈culture〉 is high, there’s no real benefit.

And what’s with the religion? Why should I create a religion that believes in that, when there’s no civilization?

“Then we just need to create a civilization from now on.”

Oh, shut up.

“Is it like a game where you get new traits?”

“Yep. If you don’t choose new traits by level 7, you can replace the level 6 traits.”

Then should I put it on hold for a while······.

And then I opened the community. (Actually, I did it simultaneously, but oh, it’s confusing.) The community function was locked during the disaster section.

It seems that many players cleared the disaster section earlier than expected, as roughly a million people were active in the community. (The current total number of people is 33,554,432.)

Some cleared it easily because they were at the top level, some got lucky with easy disasters, some didn’t receive any additional disasters unlike me and cleared it easily······. Various cases.

“Hmm? Is Sesaisa still not done?”

I tried to send a message, but it said I couldn’t because they were still in the disaster section. That guy probably received three additional disasters and got something more difficult than mine.

I shifted my perspective to another avatar. That avatar had been managing bread, yogurt, and Creamland in the open-pit mining area.

And there, I was quite troubled. Although I felt it ‘simultaneously’, should I retrace my memories for clarity?

∞

I am the clone in charge of [bread] and [yogurt]. I teach these guys as*xual reproduction and contribute to the development of their “culture.”

Compared to other clones who are busy, I received the relatively easy task of managing this new ecosystem. So, I paid close attention and checked everything meticulously.

And my conclusion is simple.

These [bread] are not qualified to be part of the dessert legion.

“That’s a harsh evaluation.”

First of all… [yogurt] doesn’t have much of a problem. They hang around the yogurt sauce, learning magic and flying around. They can be used as combatants.

But the problem is [bread]. These creatures have evolved in a direction I did not want at all.

To go back to the beginning, it goes like this.

[bread] is a combination of a jelly that eats metal called [dough], a primitive spirit called [milk], and a medium that connects the spirit and matter called [syrup].

But what is their main energy source? Precious metals and gems from open-pit mines have little nutritional value, so they eat the cream pouring out from the connected Creamland.

The first problem is, there’s too much cream…

Well, it’s natural since all the spirits of the entire world gather in this Creamland to squeeze out cream. There’s so much cream that they don’t need to fight aggressively to get food.

So their aggressiveness has almost been castrated.

The second problem is, they just kept growing in size endlessly with the overflowing energy.

If they’re small, the predators come and eat them. So these guys have grown to the size of large herbivores like hippos and rhinos. There’s no ‘elephant’ level yet, but even at this size, they’re almost impossible to hunt.

Even biscuits can barely hunt them… Moreover, their skin is armored, and their bodies are mineralized. Even if you catch them, there’s not much to eat.

Since they don’t even taste good, there’s even less reason to attack these creatures.

There’s nothing to eat in the open-pit mines except cream, and these guys are gobbling it all up. It’s much more efficient to just go to the swamps or nectar lakes instead of trying to beat them and take the cream.

Even camels, whose habitats overlap a bit, prefer to eat cacti rather than compete for cream by crossing the swamps.

The third problem is, they’ve almost given up on competition with their own kind.

Originally, even herbivores have territorial instincts, and if not, they at least have some level of aggression to win fights with their own kind. It’s often more intense than carnivores. Cows fight fiercely when left in the pasture.

Strong muscles to overpower their own kind, strong and cumbersome body structures like horns and spikes, or pointless energy waste and threatening body movements to show off their stamina, fierce fights to the death, a winning live performance with the loser as a backup dancer after a vigorous race.

All of these are to show that they are healthier and more s*xually attractive than their competitors.

“What is the last example about?”

However, these guys now have overflowing energy, little desire to reproduce, long lifespans due to their large size, and no threatening predators…

So they have no passion for reproduction, and even if they do reproduce occasionally, they can do so without competition. It’s more advantageous to move slowly and eat a lot rather than using energy for reproduction.

This kind of evolution is predictable, but the problem is that it’s hard to deal with.

“You’ve been testing the anti-intellectualism build from before, so what do you have to deal with this situation?”

Hmm. In the strategy of the ecosystem, when defensive creatures like turtles, sloths, and armadillos appear, the anti-intellectualism strategy responds by introducing symbiotic creatures with them.

“Oh.”

If not, then make those who devise defensive and economical strategies capable of destroying the enemy’s ecosystem in their own way. Or create life forms that can survive because of their existence, making the ecosystem healthier.

It’s all difficult now.

Fundamentally, the very reason I created [bread] was because there were no life forms that could live in an open-pit mine, so I forcibly made one.

But suddenly creating another life form to break through this situation is absurd. I barely managed to make dough and bread.

“From an angel’s perspective, actually, [bread] isn’t even a life form.”

“Huh?”

“That’s a [golem]. A weapon made by embedding an artificial spirit into an artificially created body. There are similar creations in other dimensions.”

“……”

“In short, they have no reproductive desire, are abnormally relaxed, or give up on competition altogether. If you think of them as golems that haven’t received any commands, you can understand their behavior. They are golems created only through biological mechanisms.”

Damn it. Really?

“If you want to compare, undead are the most similar.”

“Huh? Like skeletons or zombies?”

“Yes. Beings that move only by the flow of spirits embedded in the bodies of the dead. They have no reproductive desire or lust, but they need to consume energy. Except for the fact that every part of their body is alive, their movements are no different from undead.”

“……”

In the end, the only thing I could do for [bread] was to increase their size and number to raise their [life] score.

I thought they would at least fight for territory among themselves if their numbers increased, but these damn life forms seemed to have their aggression castrated or something, as they just adapted to the environment by not reproducing and living leisurely.

It seems that their defensive capabilities as life forms are so high that fighting consumes too much energy, making their personalities more docile. From the standpoint of wanting to create a strong dessert army made of metal, it’s just disappointing.

∞

I see. That happened.

I still haven’t solved this problem. But now that the community is open and there are surplus resources, maybe I can solve it to some extent.

Specifically, if I find an expert in artificial life forms like golems or undead, I might find an answer.

“Just create an intelligent being to give orders to the bread…”

Alright. Let’s look around the community.

“Now you don’t even pretend to listen to me.”

“Regarding civilization.”

The community was still active in exchanges. Well, that’s true. We’ve fought five times, so I have 25 opponents left, and there are 33 million players remaining. There are many cases where we can benefit from exchanges and cooperation without hostility.

I posted on the community.

“Title: ★Urgent★ Looking for an expert in artificial life forms ㅠㅠ Offering top-ranked ecosystem consulting as a service!!!

Content: I was messing around with magic and seem to have created something that might be a golem or undead, but they just sit around eating and not working ㅠ.ㅠ Can anyone tell me how to make them work?”

The comments came surprisingly quickly.

「Comment 1: If you made something like that, shouldn’t you just let the mystics of the world study it?

Comment 2: I don’t know exactly what you made, but if you share the data of the related entity, I’ll take a look.

Comment 3: Are you the player with the life score of 30,000 that became a hot topic? Can you get ecological consulting right away? I don’t know much about artificial life.

Comment 4: If it’s such a problem, can’t you just give it intelligence? You can already enhance existing intelligence with that.」

The reaction was somewhat lukewarm. Neither active cooperation nor rejection, just a subtle response.

“It seems that Mr. Biin has drawn too much attention with a life score of 30,000. It’s subtle to give more help to the top ranks.”

Well, that makes sense.

While checking the reactions after posting, I searched for related experts, and shortly after, a comment was posted, and a message flew to me at the same time.

「Comment 35 (Mihun): If it’s a problem where you can’t use powers like granting intelligence, I might be able to help.」

「Player ‘Mihun’ has requested a 〈conversation〉.」

Considering that there hadn’t been a player proactive enough to request a conversation first, it was bold and good.

Alright. Shall I accept it?

「You have accepted the 〈conversation〉 request from player ‘Mihun’.」

As I was about to move my consciousness to the chat room as he called, an angel called me in an unbelievably serious voice.

“Mr. Biin.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m telling you this because it’s one of the few exceptions to the game rules, but player ‘Mihun’ does not have his soul extinguished even if he loses in the game.”

······.

From noble mtl dot com

“What? Hey. Wait. Why? The fundamental condition of the game is broken.”

“That’s why I’m telling you now, even if you didn’t ask. Instead, player Mihun has agreed to pay a corresponding price, and his cooperation was indispensable for the progress of the game, so there was no choice.”

That’s not something you can just gloss over. What are you talking about?

“No, wait! What is that! Wasn’t everyone risking their lives? No, wasn’t it more severe than risking their lives, with soul extinction on the line? But there’s a player who doesn’t have soul extinction because he’s rich or a sponsor of the organizers?! Then why am I risking my life in this game! That player is deceiving all the other players who are fighting desperately without any risk!”

Then the angel, flustered, started making excuses.

“Th-that. I also know that you wouldn’t accept it with just the surface facts, so I’m telling you now after contacting Mr. Mihun.

B-but there’s really no other way. With just one explanation, all players, including Mr. Biin, will understand why Mr. Mihun cannot have his soul extinguished, and will also acknowledge that the price Mr. Mihun paid is perfectly reasonable.”

“Is there such a magical explanation???”

And then a dimensional door opened, and my consciousness was sucked into somewhere else. It felt like being dragged by an irresistible force, unlike the usual feeling of being pulled into a public chat room.

The angel whispered in a hushed voice.

“······Mr. Mihun is the one who provided the stage for the game you’re playing now. In other words, he is the original owner of the fragments of the god embedded in all the terrain, in other words, the being once called a god, himself.”

“?!”