The Anti-Intellectualism Demon King’s World Invasion

Chapter 38. Disaster Period -First- 3

Why can s*xual reproduction solve the three disasters of beauty, culture, and parasites simultaneously?

This is surprisingly simple. It’s a biological principle.

The story goes back to Charles Darwin, the founder of the theory of evolution. He had many achievements besides the theory of evolution, and like many scholars of his time, he researched a lot.

He studied carnivorous plants, barnacles, and discovered that barnacles are not mollusks but crustaceans like shrimp, crayfish, and crabs. He also discovered that earthworms make the soil fertile.

However, among the concepts he proposed, there is one truly remarkable concept.

s*xual selection. It was a theory about s*x, which was taboo at the time, stating that organisms evolve to compete to be seen favorably by the opposite s*x and to outcompete same-s*x rivals, leading to the development of seemingly inefficient organs.

For example, the peacock. The flamboyant peacock is the male. The female just looks like an ordinary bird. Even chickens have flamboyant males and plain females. Deer also have antlers only on males.

And although it is somewhat different from human aesthetics, only male orangutans have puffy cheek pads, and only male gorillas have high crests and silver fur. There are also creatures like the stalk-eyed fly, whose eyes are bizarrely far apart.

The antlers of deer are easy to understand. Males fight by clashing their antlers.

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But what use are the peacock’s flamboyant feathers, the orangutan’s cheek pads, and the stalk-eyed fly’s wide-set eyes?

In the case of the peacock, it is interpreted as a display of ability, meaning “I can live well even with these inconvenient and flamboyant feathers.”

And the orangutan’s cheek pads are simply because female orangutans have a fetish for puffy faces.

Gorillas have high crests because female gorillas have a fetish for high skulls.

In short, these organs evolved because they are useless but look cool. Just to look impressive.

But why do they look impressive? Surprisingly, isn’t it the same for humans?

Why do human rulers wear such flamboyant and unnecessary ornaments and pointy crowns?

Why do they wear medals, flamboyant uniforms, and elaborate hairstyles? Even though they will look outdated in a few decades.

So, humans, having civilization, developed such flamboyant structures directly or bought them as property instead of developing physical structures on their faces or skulls.

Other creatures without civilization couldn’t create such things, so they evolved them on their bodies.

“So, when s*xual reproduction begins, it inevitably develops such unnecessary structures, and as we saw in the last game, they all become ‘attractions’ and develop into ‘culture’?”

That’s right. The Gamchi already reproduce s*xually. So they sing, dance courtship dances, and decorate their bodies with colorful feathers, crests, claws, and all sorts of patterns.

They even perform Bisyakits. Bisyakits are crazy confessions where they cut off the tentacles of the Aphojus and regurgitate the nutrients from their stomachs to offer to the females (surprisingly, a common way of sharing food).

What if they fail? They get killed by the Aphojus. If they succeed? Congratulations. They become fathers. Only by bringing the tentacles of the Aphojus can the Bisyakits succeed in reproduction.

But the majority of my ecosystem is made up of Jellies. Just teaching these as*xual Jellies the concept of s*xual reproduction would greatly enhance the culture of my world.

“But why haven’t you made them reproduce s*xually until now? It seems like they all reproduce by division or budding…”

“That’s because as*xual reproduction is obviously much more convenient.”

“Huh?”

Why question it? It’s obvious. How much resources are wasted to attract the opposite s*x? Fancy structures? Fierce competition among the same s*x? Beautiful songs and dances, appearance, clothing, wealth?

The majority of male creatures on Earth die without ever getting a chance to reproduce.

It’s no different for females.

When males attract attention and gather food, females, in turn, have to go through the incredibly difficult and resource-consuming tasks of pregnancy and egg incubation.

There are creatures where males actively help with nurturing, but that only proves how difficult pregnancy is for females.

As*xual creatures don’t need any of that.

They just eat and live well on their own, and one day, when they gain a bit of weight, they tear their belly and a small version of themselves is born.

If they raise the small version well, a biologically identical individual continues their life.

“It sounds a bit like horror, but also kind of cool?”

Exactly. As*xual reproduction is really convenient. No resources are wasted on s*xual competition, and I can eat and live on my own.

The Dessert Legion found as*xual reproduction much more advantageous. They needed to increase their numbers quickly, and I could artificially evolve them.

“But isn’t s*xual reproduction a very common mechanism? If as*xual reproduction is so convenient, why did s*xual reproduction become mainstream?”

It’s because of parasites.

“Huh? What’s the connection there?”

Well… Of course, it’s not 100% because of parasites, but it’s one of the reasons.

In short, as*xual reproduction is ultimately cloning oneself. It’s creating clones with identical genes. Of course, sometimes mutations occur, and slightly different versions of oneself are born… but basically, that’s it.

And identical individuals are naturally equally vulnerable to the same diseases. Like the potato blight that devastated Ireland, or bananas that are all genetically identical and get wiped out by disease.

To overcome this? You need to change the genes. You could just have many offspring and wait for a mutation to appear.

But the generational turnover of parasites and bacteria is much faster than that of their hosts. While humans go through one generational turnover, parasites go through dozens, and bacteria go through tens of thousands, evolving rapidly.

Can you compete in the evolution race? But by reproducing s*xually and exchanging genes with different partners, this problem can be somewhat overcome.

“Because the genes mix.”

Exactly. Mixing genes with others produces something different in the next generation. So they can resist rapidly evolving life forms like parasites and bacteria.

“Oh… So parasites reproduce as*xually?”

They reproduce s*xually. Because if they fall behind in the evolutionary race, they will perish.

“······.”

Anyway, by incorporating s*xual reproduction mechanisms into my jelly-like creatures, I can roughly break through both “culture” and “beauty.” It can also solve the parasite problem.

So, as soon as the disaster phase began, I was busy evolving the jellies in my ecosystem simultaneously with many of my clones.

There are stages to s*xual reproduction.

First, it starts with hermaphroditism. It’s just a stage where they exchange genes with each other.

Secondly, it’s hermaphroditism, but in reproductive activities, one side acts as the male and the other as the female. Here, being female means laying eggs or getting pregnant, in other words, directly producing offspring.

In this case, sometimes they fight because neither wants to be the female (producing offspring requires an enormous amount of energy), and the winner takes on the male role.

Thirdly, it’s dioecism. Males and females are distinguished. This can be incredibly diverse if you go into detail. Some plants have both male and female flowers simultaneously, some fish can change s*x, and some, like humans, are determined from birth.

From a biological perspective, the concept of “gender,” which humans consider extremely important, is not that significant.

This is because humans can’t change their gender, leading to the bad habit of distinguishing and discriminating based on it······.

Among fish, it’s quite common to have the ability to change gender depending on the surrounding environment. Some mushrooms are said to have tens of thousands of genders. In short, there are tens of thousands of ways for individuals of the same species to mate.

“Then, at what stage do the jellies start?”

Of course, it’s hermaphroditism. They start at the stage where they just exchange genes. After that, they will naturally split into males and females.

Jellies originally reproduced through methods like fission, spore formation, budding, etc.

From there, I thought of a mechanism where jellies meet and exchange parts of their bodies containing reproductive cells.

They could intertwine spores to create eggs, or carry them inside like mammals.

Or they could use budding, inserting foreign genes to create clones that are partially others. I tried various methods.

I collectively and diversely injected the hermaphroditic s*xual reproduction I knew into various jellies, and the most popular and competitive mechanisms would survive and evolve to the next stage.

“Oh. But aren’t candies and nectar jellies excluded from s*xual reproduction?”

“Ah······. Those are better off as*xual.”

Candies originally use up all their energy in one body slam, and their generation turnover is fast. There’s no need to look for energy-wasting mechanisms like s*xual reproduction or s*xual selection.

Nectar jellies are fundamentally microorganisms. They can just divide themselves, and their generation turnover is insanely fast, so there’s no need to incorporate s*xual reproduction.

So, only the jellies that crawl on the ground, jump on the ground, make shells, and the puddings and gummy trees undergo s*xual reproduction.

I also made [bread] and [yogurt] undergo s*xual reproduction, but these guys evolved into strange mechanisms where two or three of them would group together to create one offspring, which was quite perplexing. They can figure it out themselves.

But the key is that the ecosystem is becoming healthier. My life score, which had been stagnant, started to rise rapidly. It seems like I might level up soon.

「Culture LV.0: 56」

The culture, which was at 36 just a moment ago, had risen to 56 as the average level increased. Smooth sailing.

But as I was watching the evolution, I witnessed something really strange.

“Hmm? What is that.”

“Why are you doing this?”

As I explained earlier, my jelly-like creatures had very few size constraints.

But when that mechanism combined with s*xual reproduction, a strange phenomenon occurred.

Small jellies ‘burrowed’ into the larger jelly and fused as if they were part of its body.

Then, like parasites, they absorbed nutrients and started producing offspring as if they were reproductive organs.

“Eh?”

“It’s like looking at an anglerfish. The much smaller male anglerfish is absorbed into the female’s body after mating and becomes an external appendage that only provides sperm for the rest of its life.”

“Really?!”

“No. Wait. That’s not the issue right now.”

It seemed that the jelly species were much closer than I had thought.

Just as similar types of organisms can reproduce and produce fertile offspring, the jellies, puddings, and gummies I had named differently began to interbreed.

It was an unexpected result. It seemed possible because I had unified the mechanism for delivering reproductive cells into a similar one and evolved them collectively. As a result, bizarre changes occurred, such as gummy trees growing shells or puddings that ran backward growing tentacles and shells.

“The ‘life’ score is dropping like crazy!”

“Do the offspring lack reproductive ability? Or is it just the result of inefficient hybridization?”

“Hey, the ‘life’ score is dropping, and you don’t care?”

Wait. Watch.

As the jelly-like creatures, which had almost no genetic exchange while reproducing as*xually, began to reproduce s*xually like crazy and undergo generational changes, the bizarreness increased, and most went extinct or were eliminated… But somehow, an ideal individual emerged.

These ideal individuals continued to reproduce.

Activating different survival strategies, the ecosystem around the nectar lake became a true maze where plants and animals mixed. I guided their evolution in a specific direction with my other avatars, observing some while leaving others alone.

As a result, a truly bizarre creature was born.

This creature is a hybrid of four life forms.

First, its body is pudding. It is that of the most powerful predator, like Anomalocaris pudding.

Its internal organs, however, are jelly. They move quickly and elastically, synthesizing nectar and digesting minerals.

And the shells and horns, or internal structures, are those of coral gummies and gummy trees, creating hard and beautiful structures.

Even syrup flows through its body, with the flow of magic wriggling through its gel and toppings.

Not only is it a hybrid of four life forms, but it also has the genes of four species ‘separately’ within its body. No matter which jelly-like creature it mates with, it reproduces s*xually only in that part, exchanging genes to produce a separate life form.

“It’s like a siphonophore. A siphonophore looks like a single jellyfish, but it’s actually a colony of multiple polyps forming one organism. It’s not as independent and extreme as that, though.”

“It’s amazing that such a creature exists on Earth. But… isn’t there something more important?”

Yes, there was something more important.

“From now on, that creature is [Yokan].”

“Not the name.”

“Oh? Your culture score has surpassed 100 and reached level 1? Show me the new traits. You’ll reach level 2 soon.”

“Well, um… that… never mind. I’ll show you the traits.”

〈Beauty〉 is truly a great thing.

“By the way, the highest 〈Charm〉 score among the jelly creatures is 337, and in the 〈Beauty〉 category, it’s 2 points.”

337 points? Does that mean a heroic creature has already appeared? That’s amazing.

One of these dreadful hybrids must be beautiful.

Even if not, there’s still Yogurtos and Coral Reefs, so we don’t necessarily need to use these creatures for beauty tactics. The important thing now is the overall rise in cultural level.

Ordinary jelly creatures, jelly, bread and yogurt, and gamchi. There’s a lot to examine. Let’s spread out the clones and check them one by one.