NOVEL WEB chapter 3
Chapter 3. Consumer
Unlike the anxious angel who was restless, thinking, ‘The protection time is almost over, and soon we will collide with another world,’ I was calm. Because I knew that the creatures I created would never be defeated by the creatures of the other world.
Now. Anyway, there is one problem with my ecosystem that consists of Nectar Spring-Nectar Jelly-Rock Jelly-Gravel Jelly-Soil Jelly.
“Is it that there is no civilization?”
No. The thing is, this ecosystem ultimately ends with the soil jelly spitting out sand, and since the number of rocks is limited, it will soon be filled with sand.
The desert world could become a place like a midsummer white sandy beach with a sea of nectar and jellies bustling around, but by then, all my jellies would have starved to death. If they devour the world to the end, it could become an ecosystem filled only with sand and a sea of nectar in the middle.
“You’ll be eliminated from the game before that happens.”
I won’t be eliminated. And if I win, the size of the world will increase by absorbing the opponent’s world.
But the opponent’s world won’t be an ecosystem full of rocks like mine. So I need to build my ecosystem more perfectly in preparation for the future.
Currently, the ‘producers’ are the jellies, and the ‘consumers’ are, so to speak, the Nectar Springs that absorb magic and produce nectar. It would be better to add a more proper consumer here.
「[Rock Jelly] has evolved into [Jelly-Eating Pudding].」
I named these carnivorous creatures, which have a slightly firmer body than jellies, pudding. They can crawl or roll towards the crawling jellies with slightly faster movements and consume them to acquire nutrients.
“Then the production of sand will be delayed, but it won’t be a fundamental solution, right?”
「[Jelly-Eating Pudding] has evolved into [Gravel Jelly-Eating Pudding].」
「[Gravel Jelly-Eating Pudding] has evolved into [Soil Jelly-Eating Pudding].」
“Oh. Yes. Feel free to create as you like.”
In the peaceful desert where jellies lived sucking nectar without any external threats, suddenly, evil puddings appeared.
These ferocious jelly-eating creatures, with relatively firm bodies and jaws, devour jellies, easily seizing the nutrients made by others instead of bothering with nectar synthesis.
With the appearance of puddings, the number of jellies will drastically decrease, then the number of puddings will decrease, and the number of jellies will increase again, eventually reaching a balance at some point.
I didn’t want that balance to last long. I artificially, very quickly, evolved the jellies.
“Are you going to make them intelligent and establish a civilization?”
Ah. No.
The jellies’ strategy to counter the predators is as follows.
First. Increase in size. In the natural world, size is power. Just by increasing their size, they won’t become prey. The rock jelly, which decomposes the most minerals, grows larger, followed by gravel and soil in that order.
But this naturally leads to the predators also increasing in size. The puddings grow larger to catch the big jellies.
Second. Escape. They start to enhance their mobility. The era of playing in the sun in the desert is over. The jellies now independently develop methods of movement, such as creating tube feet like starfish, arms like clams, or crawling like snails, and start to flee. Naturally, the puddings also start to become more agile.
And there is another way to escape. It is to dig into a place where the enemy cannot enter. However, since jellies need sunlight, they enter water where sunlight can reach and live an aquatic life instead of going underground.
Heavy puddings cannot enter the lake, but I deliberately evolved them to create puddings that swim in the water and eat jellies on the surface.
Third. Making poison. By carefully combining the organic components of nectar, poison is created. Instead of fully releasing the “magic power” generated during the nectar synthesis process, some of it is used to contain heat and cold, causing puddings to die or suffer damage such as ruptured palates when eating jellies.
Naturally, the predatory puddings develop stronger intestines and tougher mouths.
“You’ve created magic? It’s primitive, but still.”
“I also like mysterious mechanisms that don’t use intelligence. It’s possible because it’s a fantasy world.”
“So, you won’t raise intelligence after all…”
And finally, fourth. Hardening. Jellies create exoskeletons. If they become hard and difficult to eat, they naturally won’t be eaten.
Jellies, contrary to their name, become hard as if coated on the surface, and some adopt the strategy of covering their soft bodies with hard shells like clams and snails. Others develop scales, and some even grow spines like sea urchins. They are diverse.
Naturally, the predatory puddings become stronger and harder.
Now. Hardening doesn’t come for free. Jellies and puddings extract all the salt components from minerals to harden their bodies, leaving only hard, useless residue like sand.
“Oh. This is quite impressive.”
The Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones. However, the desertification of my ecosystem ended because they ran out of sand.
The most successful and popular strategy among the jellies was the shell-making strategy. This was because the puddings, with their soft jaws, were protected by the hard glass-like shells.
As a result, puddings began to develop organs to break hard shells.
Hard jaws, teeth, spines, and muscular tentacles. They evolved at a pace reminiscent of the Cambrian explosion, and I artificially accelerated their movements.
As a result, all the sand disappeared, and jellies and puddings developed shells. The creatures that entered the lake evolved hard scales, excellent tails, and fins to escape predators that followed them into the water, converging evolutionarily to resemble creatures from the Cambrian explosion.
“So?”
The first jelly, the nectar jelly, could not stop evolving. The nectar jelly evolved in two directions.
One direction was to continue covering the surface of the lake, absorbing sunlight and heat. The other direction was to go a little lower, eventually reaching the bottom of the lake, where they began synthesizing nectar with the faint light, and some puddings evolved to eat the aquatic jellies that filled the bottom.
The nectar spring. The source of pure life energy became a lake overflowing with life.
On the surface, countless jellies proliferated like water hyacinths. They reproduced the fastest and died the fastest. These creatures had to stay afloat on the surface, so they evolved to be light and reproduce quickly, and the creatures that preyed on them also evolved to eat a lot and reproduce quickly.
Below the surface, floating jellies gradually developed mobility, evolving like fish or jellyfish, or drastically increasing their reproductive rate, living a microbial life where even if 999 out of 1,000 died, the remaining one would multiply a thousandfold.
The most successful creature was the anomalocaris pudding, which had “eyes” and swam with multiple fins, crushing and eating clams and snails with their shells.
At the bottom, numerous creatures reminiscent of crinoids, starfish, clams, and snails inhabited, continuing endless battles of defense and attack strategies.
The most successful creature was the starfish-like pudding. It split open the hard-shelled jellies like sea urchins, snails, and clams with force and ate the contents.
Both consumers and producers became incredibly diverse. And here, I created a third type of creature.
“I have created [Gel].”
It is a creature even softer than jelly. These creatures cannot grow large. They are just small bacteria, and their job is very simple. They eat the corpses of dead creatures.
These creatures decompose the corpses of jellies and puddings to obtain nutrients and convert them into primordial magic, and they are also eaten by other creatures that eat gel.
Change continues. Among the puddings, the larger ones now start targeting other puddings instead of the jellies that have become too difficult to catch. They have become secondary consumers.
The jellies on land have been divided into those that move quickly and those that move slowly. The slow-moving ones have now transformed to resemble plants, forming a hard exoskeleton and extending glass branches and leaves made from decomposed sand to absorb sunlight, while their main bodies burrow underground and remain stationary like plants.
The fast-moving jellies have gradually evolved to burrow into the ground and consume rocks and stones, becoming a type of herbivore, or rather, lithovore (岩食動物). And the pudding predators that eat these jellies have grown larger, faster, and more ferocious.
This has created a perfect balance of producers, consumers, and decomposers. A perfect ecosystem.
“Honestly, it’s pretty cool…”
Yeah. I’ll call this magnificent ecosystem the Dessert Desert. What a fantastic name. I’ll have to create the next life forms with a similar vibe.
“The world’s ‘Life’ score has surpassed 441 points, and the level has risen to 3. You can now choose a new trait.”
The system message is blessing me. So, let’s decide on the third trait.
I looked at the angel and gestured for the trait cards, but the angel hesitated for a moment.
What is this? Is it lagging? Is there a bug? Is it loading? What’s going on?
“Excuse me, but are you aware that the protection time is about to end?”
“I am aware.”
“Then let me ask you. How do you plan to win with these jellies? Of course, I know. The Nectar Spring has grown, and the life forms that depend on it have increased tremendously. Achieving level 3 in any field during the first protection stage is extremely rare, as far as I know.”
That’s right. It’s originally a game that’s incredibly difficult to level up.
Starting from level 0, the world rises by one level each time it collides with another world, but it’s impossible to raise all fields, so if one field advances, another falls significantly behind.
Then I’ll ask this.
“So, my score is severely lacking right now?”
“Of course. Look. The average score of all players is 300 points, but you, Biin, have a life score of 441 points, so you appear to be in the upper ranks. But in reality, you only have a life score…”
The angel, who was about to continue speaking, seemed completely frozen after seeing the status window of my ecosystem.
“What is this? How did these numbers come out?”
“Biin’s World
Life LV.3: 441
Military LV.0: 62
Industry LV.0: 25
Technology LV.0: 0
Culture LV.0: 0
Politics LV.0: 0
Mystery LV.0: 40
Faith LV.0: 0
World Total Score LV.0: 568″
“How on earth did I get this score! There’s no civilization, so how did I get military, industry, and mystery scores!”
The military score must be the total combat power of the predators in my ecosystem.
Industry is probably due to the series of processes that turn rocks into sand.
Mystery came from the jellies and nectar springs that continuously developed primitive magic.
And the rest are all zeros. Because there are no intelligent beings.
“Wait a minute. This is a bit different. Actually, the military power shows as 62, but that’s the total combat power of all living creatures. If we actually fought a world with strong military power, we’d just be prey. The mystery and industry scores are high not because they’ve mastered great magic, but because there are just so many creatures that have mastered primitive magic.”
That’s right.
“And politics is zero. Faith is zero, so it’s impossible to control the creatures according to the player’s will. But how do we win in a clash with another world?”
The angel’s tone was uncertain whether it was worried or complaining. I pondered for a moment.
“Hey, angel. You just asked me, ‘How do you plan to win?’ So let’s change the question.”
“?”
“This game is won by achieving complete cooperation or perfect conquest after clashing with the opposing world.”
“Right. It’s impossible with these jellies.”
“So here’s the question I want to ask. ‘How on earth can I lose?’ Think about it seriously.”
The angel looked at me as if wondering what I was talking about, then suddenly realized and was startled.
He understood. The angel isn’t stupid, just lacks imagination.
「The world clash will begin soon. Only the surviving players will advance to the next round.」
So show me the level 3 trait card. I can’t lose even if I want to right now.