Always Ending Up as an Animal Cub

Yu Tong asked the system if it had ever heard of raising "Gu" – putting various poisonous insects in the same container and letting them fight each other, with the surviving insect becoming the "Gu."
This orphanage was like that container, and the monsters inside were like foreign world "Gu" insects.
The last surviving monster, after going through long-term fighting, would have strength and combat experience far beyond the other monsters.

It would become a man-made deity for the human race. Once the Beastmen went to war with humans again, this monster would be humanity's hope.
The system, although slow to react, wasn’t actually stupid.
It crossed its arms, thinking for a long moment. "Hold on, that doesn’t make sense. If the humans could create so many monsters to nurture a god, why would they still lose to the Beastmen?"

‘I didn’t say the monsters were created by humans.’
"Ah? Then where did they come from, just appeared by themselves?"
‘Yes, they appeared by themselves.’

"???"
"Do you remember the day I first arrived? Chen Xi was thrown to the ground and beaten by Sister Ai because he refused to go to the confession room. To help him, I ran outside and shouted with an adult’s voice, distracting Sister Ai."
The system thought for a moment and remembered that it happened.

After realizing there was no one in the hallway, Sister Ai muttered to herself, saying, "Is there another one?"
She wouldn’t have said that for no reason, and she seemed unusually calm about it. Unless this orphanage frequently had things appear for no reason.
Things that could talk, things that would make the nuns feel a sense of crisis, forcing them to drop their work and leave quickly.

After seeing the monster manual hidden under the mattress by Lily, Yu Tong’s hypothesis was confirmed.
The manual mentioned a crying child who met a mouse in the utility room. She befriended the mouse, and from then on, the orphanage had a mouse with a human face that cried every night.
This meant that the monsters in the orphanage did indeed appear by themselves. These children locked in the orphanage were the key to the monsters’ appearance.

Yu Tong thought of a few common possibilities.
First, summoning monsters in the orphanage required the children’s blood, souls, or lives.
On the day he arrived, there wasn’t a large number of children dying in the orphanage. The children in Chen Xi’s dormitory were in stable mental condition, not as if a large live sacrifice had just been held.
There was no ritual, so the nuns would link the appearance of monsters with something else.

The first possibility could be ruled out.
Second, the original novel that created this magical world also mentioned something special apart from magic, knights, and dragons—ancient gods.
The novel didn’t describe ancient gods in much detail. When the system was binge-watching the show, Yu Tong went through the novel multiple times but couldn’t find much information on ancient gods.

He wasn’t sure what these ancient gods were or in what form they existed, but based on the nuns’ behavior—constantly beating and intimidating the children—Yu Tong speculated that ancient gods might be attracted to emotions of fear and despair.
The little girl, scared out of her wits, was crying. To avoid her killing them, her roommates locked her in the utility room.
Alone in that small, dark space, with the Ice-Cool Trio still roaming the hallway, looking for children who hadn’t gone to bed, the girl’s fear reached its peak. That was when a mouse-like monster found her.

Chen Xi, being beaten to death by Sister Ai as the lights were about to go out, his despair and pain skyrocketed in that moment.
This fulfilled the conditions to attract the ancient god. So even though what appeared wasn’t a monster, but just the unfamiliar voice of a man...
Sister Ai, being a native of this sword and magic world, quickly linked the appearance of another monster to the orphanage. She didn’t think it could be a thief or a wizard sneaking into the orphanage.

The system thought Yu Tong’s explanation made sense, but with so many people suffering in the war, why hadn’t monsters appeared before?
Yu Tong responded that monsters also existed outside, and when he was still a big egg, Chen Xi and the little mushroom had mentioned magical beasts.
Magical beasts, the pretty ones, could be pets, tamed by humans.

The ugly ones were monsters. They were thrown into the midst of other ugly monsters to fight each other until one emerged as the strongest.
Humans were that realistic.
Even though magical beasts and monsters had different appearances, and different methods of creation, they certainly began appearing and becoming well-known after the human race was defeated or steadily lost.

Buying a magical beast cub at the market cost only fifty silver coins.
When Yu Tong shielded Chen Xi with his wings and survived the Ice-Cool Trio, Chen Xi wasn’t too shocked. He was still thinking that the magical beast cub would definitely fetch a good price.
This showed that, in Chen Xi’s mind, magical beasts were supposed to be strong.

The price wasn’t too expensive, and even newborn cubs displayed extraordinary strength.
If magical beasts were a permanent species in the human race, how could humans lose so badly?
The magical beasts that appeared in the war and the monsters in the orphanage were probably the same type of creature.

Perhaps the magical beasts outside hadn’t gone through the same battles, so their combat abilities weren’t as strong as the ugly monsters that had been fighting constantly in the orphanage.
Perhaps humans were constantly fleeing in the war, their fearful emotions scattered everywhere. There wasn’t a stable supply of negative emotions, and the big shots didn’t care about such fleeting despair and suffering, only the small fish being attracted.
It was also possible that the monsters attracted by negative emotions were, as Yu Tong suspected, the legendary ancient gods.

They weren’t feeding on despair but wanted to help those long trapped in despair to become their followers.
In doing so, they would become true, revered gods.
All three possibilities could coexist to some degree.

The last possibility was confirmed in Lily’s monster manual.
Among the twenty-something monsters mentioned in the second volume, only the Ze Di Shen had a proper name, while the names of the other monsters were all very vague.
The Ice-Cool Trio, three-headed, were called the Ice-Cool Brothers.

The one that meowed was called Big Meow.
The one that resembled a snake and worm, always crawling into the sewers, was the stinky longworm.
The crying little girl and the mouse were called the Crying Little Mouse.

It was supposed to have a follower, but unfortunately, its appearance was too special. The follower had to merge with it, and so it lost its only follower.
————
At this point, Yu Tong still didn’t know what benefits having a follower brought to a monster.

And whether the monsters had to have followers to become ancient gods, or if they were ancient gods or their descendants, just lacking followers.
The system tried to follow Yu Tong’s reasoning, working its little brain.
It hesitated and asked: "I understand the reasoning, but what’s the purpose of locking so many children in the orphanage?"

‘To keep the children in a state of fear and despair, attracting monsters to a fixed location. These frightened children have a chance to become the monsters’ followers, and once a monster has followers, it will follow them.’
‘Refer to the Ze Di Shen description, it likes humid environments, but to protect its followers, it stays with them in the same building.’
[Ah…]

‘If you still don’t understand, think of Lily and her Little Bear Warrior. The Little Bear Warrior could communicate with Lily but never told her that it was her mother.’
‘Lily’s mother was tied under the sun and exposed until she died. Her body was then cremated. But the woman’s soul, living in the teddy bear, had pale skin, and she died of starvation, not matching the cause of Lily’s mother’s death.’
Yu Tong flipped through the pictures of the beautiful women he had collected earlier and pointed at the image of the woman.

‘She wasn’t Lily’s mother; she was a monster attracted by the desperate little Lily. Lily didn’t know there was a monster hiding in her teddy bear. She only knew that the toy her mother gave her came alive, and she had a little bear warrior who would protect and comfort her.’
Lily was young, and her thoughts were simple.
When the Little Bear Warrior told her to kill, she would stab people with a knife. When it told her to go off on her own, she would leave her friends behind and sneak off.

Lily trusted the Little Bear Warrior completely and took everything it said as truth.
She became the most devout follower of the woman in this world, and the monster became known as the Little Bear Warrior, just like the Ze Di Shen.
The system, thinking for a moment, suddenly clapped its hands excitedly. "Ah, I get it! No wonder the nuns and priests don’t dare to mess with Lily—they’re afraid of the Little Bear Warrior taking revenge on them."

‘Yes, but it’s not just fear of revenge. This ties into the fundamental purpose of the orphanage. They’re raising Gu, nurturing humanity’s strongest deity.’
The orphanage had nuns, priests, theology classes, pictures of the Virgin Mary, and goddess portraits.
With all these important elements gathered, it was certain that the country where Chen Xi lived had gods and a corresponding religious system.

This could also be found in the original novel.
Before the villain destroyed his family, the protagonist, Ye Yong, often went to the nearby church with his parents to pray.
Combining that with the fact that Chen Xi wasn’t a believer, yet still recited a prayer out of intense fear in the utility room...

It was clear that the country had a goddess who had many followers, widely known.
For various reasons, they ultimately chose children to be the victims of war.
Compared to adults, children were more vulnerable and easier to scare.

They often panicked and despaired, but their thoughts weren’t as developed as adults. After receiving proper comfort, their emotions calmed down faster. The chance of them committing suicide or going mad was much lower than adults.
Moreover, children were younger, with fewer life experiences and weaker bodies than adults.
If a group of adults had been locked in the dormitory instead of Chen Xi and the others, they would have climbed out of the windows by now. They wouldn’t have been hiding in the dormitory, dodging and hiding.

Whether in terms of psychology or physical strength, children were the most vulnerable group.
This meant that even the smartest child couldn’t escape such an extreme, harsh environment by themselves and could only wait for external help.
The most important thing was that children had no faith.

Even if the people around them worshiped the goddess, they would only imitate the adults and pray, without truly understanding the meaning of faith.
For example, Chen Xi, who didn’t believe in the goddess. He just knew that using the prayer could bring him some luck when he was scared.
His thoughts were simple: whoever protects him is the good person.

Even if the one protecting him was just a little chicken, that little chicken could still become his god.
A group of desperate children were trapped in the orphanage, and monsters attracted by their crying would choose their followers in various ways.
Unfortunately, the orphanage was filled with monsters, hidden surveillance cameras, and artificially controlled robots.

Outside the orphanage was a town already occupied by outsiders. Beyond the town, was the country that secretly supported and funded the orphanage.
Even if the children had their own gods, they couldn’t break through so many layers of blockade and escape the country.
They would remain in the orphanage until they and their gods killed all the monsters, at which point they would be allowed to leave.

In the end, the god would become a killing machine for the empire, and its child would be the Empire’s pawn to control it.
Nobles would send their unwanted children to the orphanage, hoping they would gain the favor of the god, which would bring their families good fortune.
The common people knew nothing about this. They either lost their families or had their children stolen. Losing children in the midst of war was a normal occurrence.

The children who were brought in and stayed too long, grew older, learned more, and couldn’t be easily controlled anymore.
Since they had deep impressions of the monsters, it was hard to imagine them as anything but killers. They weren’t easy to become followers.
So, children over ten who hadn’t died were mostly sold or sent back to their families.

Chen Xi’s family was gone, but he was still handsome and from a former noble family. On the Day of the Descent, he would be bought by the noble lords as a plaything.
The little mushroom was unwanted and used as a bonus gift.
This was also why the girls didn’t have to worry about their periods attracting the Ice-Cool Trio.

Before their first period arrived, they were sold away.
————
The system looked confused and clearly didn’t quite understand.

Yu Tong gave it a simple summary.
Locking up the children was to attract monsters.
The monsters that came had a chance to choose the children as followers, transforming the relationship from predator and prey into god and believer.

The god would fight other monsters to protect its followers. Through constant battles, they would become more in sync, and their power would grow stronger.
After killing all the competitors, the god with followers would become the strongest controllable war machine.
When the war with the Beastmen started again, it would be humanity’s hope.

The system blinked its eyes. "Got it, but not fully. This topic is too heavy; I don’t want to think too much about it. Little Yu, how did you know all this?"
‘I explained my reasoning earlier. Compared to the last world, this world actually has a lot of clues.’
[Oh... Okay, Little Yu, what are you planning to do next?]

Yu Tong thought for a moment. ‘I plan to stay in the orphanage and guide Little Chen Ge to clear this place. Chen Ge isn’t someone easy to control. Right now, he’s full of hatred for the nuns, priests, and the masterminds behind the orphanage.’
‘When the empire finally lets us out and treats us as treasures, I’ll take down those royal fools and establish my own way.’
Yu Tong exhaled sharply and blew out a puff of smoke.

Looking at his seemingly delicate but incredibly resilient host, the system fell into deep thought.
How had Yu Tong, full of cunning and clearly strong, been so easily killed by Chen Qing back then?
From the death video, when Yu Tong was attacked, he seemed like an ordinary person who had never faced danger before.

When the first knife went into him, the fried chicken in his hand fell to the ground, and he stared in disbelief.
The second knife, he froze in place as if he went completely dumb.
After taking two stabs, he didn’t even react, just stood there and let Chen Qing keep stabbing.

If this happened to an ordinary person, such a reaction would be completely normal.
But Yu Tong wasn’t an ordinary person. His family business was human trafficking.
Other kids helped their parents with groceries, but he helped bury bodies.

Even if he was too injured to fight back, he would’ve at least slapped the killer before dying. Missing that would have ruined his reputation.
Why had Yu Tong been so slow to react during the critical moment of life and death?
The system thought harder and realized something wasn’t right.

It suddenly remembered that Yu Tong’s data clearly said that he died suddenly.
Yu Tong had mentioned before that the technology in his world was advanced. Holographic gaming pods were very common, /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ and everyone had access to them.
Could it be that the death video didn’t record the real scene but the one inside the game?

Yu Tong wasn’t killed by a knife. He had a heart attack from playing games all night. As for why he was slow to react before dying, it was because his internet connection was bad and the game lagged.
The system felt it had uncovered the truth and excitedly told its host, hoping for praise.
Yu Tong, still sorting through data, absentmindedly said, ‘Wow, you’re really great.’

The system felt the sarcasm coming through the screen and realized that Yu Tong had probably already considered this possibility.
But since the logic didn’t make sense, he hadn’t shared it.
The system sighed.

It missed the days when it was paired with the naive, sweet system. At least they had some common ground.
————
Chen Xi waited in the utility room for over ten minutes, but the little yellow chick hadn’t returned.

According to Lily’s manual, the crying little mouse would go to the cafeteria during the day and only return at night.
But today, many children died in the morning, and the leftover food in the cafeteria was much more than usual.
Chen Xi was worried the little mouse might have eaten enough and would return to the utility room before dark.

After quickly flipping through the monster manual the chick had given him, confirming that no other monsters would appear in the dormitory in the next hour, Chen Xi stepped out of the utility room.
The hallway on the second floor was covered in blood, and he was the only living person left.
The old, thin walls weren’t soundproof, and Chen Xi vaguely heard hurried footsteps on the first floor.

Then came the sharp, short scream of the little mushroom.
Chen Xi frowned slightly.
The little mushroom was hiding in the bathroom, and the terrified scream—had the Ze Di Shen, who liked to stay there, returned?

No, according to today’s rules:
"During unscheduled periods, children can move freely within the orphanage but cannot enter any door."
Ze Di Shen would only stay in the same building as its followers. During theology classes, Ze Di Shen wasn’t in the bathroom, and its followers were supposed to go to class.

Returning to the dormitory was like entering the main dormitory door, which was against the rules.
If followers broke the rules, Ze Di Shen would definitely fight the monsters, and it wouldn’t be so quiet downstairs.
So why was the little mushroom screaming?

Chen Xi tightened the remote control for the little flying chicken in his pocket and quietly descended the stairs, carefully stepping around the bodies on the floor.
Near the first-floor bathroom, stood two children: the little mushroom and Lily.
The little mushroom clearly didn’t realize that, before 9 PM, Ze Di Shen, who was with its followers, wouldn’t return to the bathroom in the dormitory.

As soon as theology class ended, he rushed out, afraid Ze Di Shen would suddenly appear in the bathroom.
He was now leaning against the bathroom door, nervously watching Lily.
Lily was holding a steel knife in one hand and dragging a teddy bear in the other. She and the big bear were covered in blood, and the tip of the knife still had the right hand of a boy stuck to it.

The little mushroom took a deep breath and trembled as he asked, "Where’s Little Coal?"
Lily smiled sweetly at him, swaying the severed hand on the knife, "He had a demon inside him, and Little Bear Warrior and I killed him. Strange, where’s your brother?"
Just as the little mushroom was about to answer, Lily suddenly turned to look at Chen Xi, standing at the stairs. "So you’re here. Did you go upstairs? Little Bear Warrior was right; the Chicken Warrior really will protect you."

Looking at the teddy bear, which turned its head at the same time as Lily, Chen Xi pressed his lips together and tightened his grip on the
remote control.
The little mushroom, having harmed Chen Xi earlier, didn’t dare approach him. Lily had always been strange, and he wasn’t familiar with her.

He moved closer to the middle, keeping a safe distance from the two.
The white hair brushed his neck, and Chen Xi touched his slightly long hair, recalling the time when the little mushroom had pulled him down.
When he saw the apology letter, he thought his friend had really realized their mistake and that their relationship still had a chance to be repaired.

Though the chick had warned him, Chen Xi thought the bathroom was big enough and safe enough.
He thought he and the little mushroom could hide there together, use that safe time to talk things through, and stay friends.
Lily seemed to want to say something to the little mushroom and kept inching closer to him.

Chen Xi silently watched the panicked little mushroom, then suddenly extended his hand with a gentle smile on his face.
"Let’s make up, little brother. Come to me."