The Anti-Intellectualism Demon King’s World Invasion

Chapter 39. Disaster Zone -First- 4

Jelly creatures were originally classified into four types.

Jelly. Producers that synthesize nectar and consume rocks. Some have mobility, some don’t.

Pudding. Consumers that eat jelly because they can’t digest rocks. All have mobility.

Gummy. Creatures that root like coral or trees, create solid structures, and either contain jelly inside or synthesize nectar themselves.

Candy. Predatory animals that evolved from pudding to perfect body slamming.

Gel is not a jelly creature but a separate entity, and the common ancestor of nectar jelly is only those four.

However, since these creatures are surprisingly closely related, when a s*xual reproduction mechanism was introduced, they all became hybrids, making their classification a mess.

“So, did candy become hybrids too? Didn’t you say they reproduce as*xually?”

“Oh. Pudding raped candy.”

“What?”

“In nature, forced mating is common. So, what happened is, instead of inserting reproductive cells into candy, pudding attacked and tore it apart, then absorbed the reproductive cells to give birth to a hybrid of itself and candy.”

“Uh… I don’t know what to say.”

Weird things happen in nature, so it doesn’t matter.

So, we need to classify the four types of creatures differently now. Because now there are carnivorous jellies, gummies with extended tentacles, and pudding-like gummies. There’s a variety of them.

First, [Jelly]. Slow and large creatures that create elaborate structures like shells, horns, and spikes. They use these for hunting and protecting themselves.

Producer-type jellies that eat nectar and rocks develop defensive horns and shells, while predator-type jellies that eat other jellies or plants develop strong tentacles or protruding teeth. They are herbivores or producers.

[Pudding]. These are fast and small. Instead of ‘expensive’ and ‘hard’ structures like shells or horns, they attract attention with courtship dances, vibrations (songs?), or ‘manes’ or ‘hair-like’ tentacles with low mobility, or colors. They are much faster, jump higher, and are muscular, taking an aggressive carnivore position.

[Gummy]. These are animals but lack the ability to move. They just root, synthesize nectar to emit magic, and absorb nutrients to live.

So, instead of shells, they have flashy scales, branches, or spikes, and use methods like spreading fragrance or emitting light from the syrup inside to attract from afar.

Some of them actually have chlorophyll and perform photosynthesis, while others have evolved to consume magic and convert it into nutrients.

Coral gummies and gummy trees are similar species, only differing in habitat. They grow faster compared to actual corals or trees.

These creatures are also incredibly large. By incredibly large, I mean they are obviously bigger than Homo sapiens, and some are as big as trees.

[Candy]. Candy, which hunts camels by perfecting its final body slam throughout its life, still reproduces as*xually. So, it hardly cares about its appearance. It’s okay no matter how it looks because I love myself.

However, the most aggressive predators in my ecosystem, such as fox candy that persistently chases enemies alone, or long snake candy that attacks camels, have shown horns, flashy patterns, and courtship dances.

Roughly observing, they have diverged into these four directions. There are a few exceptions, but… no, actually, there are more exceptions than the general cases…

“Impressive changes. The life score, which was close to 70,000, has now been devastated to around 20,000.”

“It can’t be helped. It’s a miracle that we barely succeeded in optimization as species mixed through s*xual reproduction.”

The important thing is separate.

“The world’s [Culture] score has exceeded 100 points, and the level has risen to 1. You can now choose a new [Culture] trait.”

Another avatar recognized it. Give me the trait card.

“Here. I have drawn three traits for you.”

‘(Choice) Attractive Body: Creatures will prefer certain body parts. The [Attractiveness] of those parts will increase.’

‘(Choice) Courtship Encouragement: Courtship behaviors will become more [Attractive].’

‘(Coral Reef) Beautiful Structure: The [Attractiveness (Beauty)] value of the selected structure will greatly increase in proportion to its level, and it will become a unique structure.’

Oh. If I choose the last one, won’t it solve the core disaster right away?

“I can’t be sure, but it will be very helpful. However, the other two traits are also good.”

I turned my gaze to Yog-Tosos, who was practicing magic on the opposite side of the nectar spring. Yog-Tosos originally had an attractiveness of 729, but now it’s over 2,500. It’s really insanely increasing its attractiveness.

And it seems to be researching beauty-related spells. It looks like it will break the disaster on its own.

After some consideration, I chose ‘Beautiful Structure.’ The reason was that the coral reef was already huge and useful, and it would be even better if it could increase the [Culture] value.

From noble mtl dot com

Then, a huge message appeared before my eyes.

∞

Ah, beautiful.

To think that such beauty still remains in the world…

I was satisfied… Thank you…

“The residual thoughts of the old god are satisfied. The inevitable disaster – [Desire: Beauty] has been resolved.”

∞

It felt like watching a game cutscene, with the fragment of the old god expressing satisfaction and retreating. Naturally, since it was an inevitable disaster, there was no accompanying reward.

And the message was not over yet.

“Gumi Coral Reef [Heroic Unique Structure / Unique Entity]

Stats (Expand▼)

Description: A massive coral reef formed by the members of the Dessert Corps, the Gumi Corals. It is treated as both a living organism and a structure. It enriches the ecosystem of the Nectar Spring, and many creatures inhabiting the Nectar Spring live near the Gumi Coral Reef.

The beautiful Gumi Coral Reef inspires those who seek to create works of art, and even if not, it is a strong life form with a will to transform itself beautifully. It greatly increases the “Culture” within the world and raises the probability of heroic entities being born in the Nectar Spring.

Heroic Trait – “Symbol of Gumi: Life forms of the [Gumi] series flourish in proportion to their level.”

“[Gumi Coral Reef] can be promoted to an ‘Epic Unique Structure/Unique Entity’ under the influence of the ‘Nectar Spring’. This attempt consumes a total of 30,259 points of ‘Life’, ‘Industry’, ‘Culture’, ‘Mystery’, and ‘Faith’.”

“[Gumi Coral Reef] can be promoted to a ‘Legendary Unique Structure/Unique Entity’ under the influence of the ‘Nectar Spring’ and [Apjuice]. This attempt consumes a total of 63,545 points of ‘Life’, ‘Industry’, ‘Culture’, ‘Mystery’, and ‘Faith’.”

“The world’s ‘Culture’ score has exceeded 210 points, raising the level to 2. You can now choose a new ‘Culture’ trait.”

“The world’s ‘Culture’ score has exceeded 441 points, raising the level to 3. You can now choose a new ‘Culture’ trait.”

“Wow. The efficiency of the traits was much better than I expected.”

I wasn’t particularly surprised. In games, it often happens that not raising any stats and then choosing a single trait leads to such outcomes.

The diameter of the Nectar Spring is now almost 11 kilometers, and its depth is about 120 meters. The Gumi Corals are densely packed on the bottom surface, forming a massive coral reef, and some are even protruding above the ground or encroaching on the terrestrial area.

Just considering the size of the coral reef, it would probably be at level 8. Its sheer size causes the level-proportional ‘Charm’ to skyrocket, and as the charm increases, the ‘Culture’ score also rises tremendously.

It is not surprising that it was immediately promoted to a heroic structure upon being selected as a unique structure, and it is not surprising that the terrain level is 10, and with the Apjuice correction, it opened the path to evolve into a higher entity of epic and legendary status.

“It’s a crossroads of choice. Promoting the Gumi Coral Reef to a higher entity requires an enormous amount of resources, but the benefits of such a strengthened Gumi Coral Reef would be beyond imagination.”

Except for the fact that we don’t have the resources to consume right now.

“In that case, it seems you should choose two more ‘Culture’ traits.”

Another avatar had already chosen them in advance.

“Color Art: Gains an advantage in ‘Culture’ that utilizes various colors or hues.”

“Optical Art: Gains an advantage in ‘Culture’ that utilizes light or contrast.”

As soon as I chose those traits, another message appeared.

“The world’s ‘Culture’ score has exceeded 926 points, raising the level to 4. You can now choose a new ‘Culture’ trait.”

This was truly unexpected. Choosing traits raises culture, and with that, you can choose more traits, creating a positive cycle. Shall I choose one more?

“Architectural Art: Increases the ‘Charm’ of structures. Gains an advantage in ‘Culture’ that utilizes structures.”

“Overall, you seem to be investing in a direction that receives broad and shallow bonuses rather than strong advantages for specific life forms or means?”

It’s partly my personal preference, and I also prefer a strategy of pushing with ‘quantity’, but fundamentally, I don’t want to create an imbalance in the ecosystem.

When the balance collapses, eventually some life form becomes dominant, and that guy raises its intelligence and creates civilization.

“I respect the strategic choice itself. The ‘Charm’ score is rising significantly. Oh, look over there. Another mysterious change has occurred.”

What the angel pointed to was an enthusiastic courtship display. There was a pudding dancing, emitting light with the power of the syrup and the luminescent topping within its body. With bonuses from both Color Art and Optical Art, it was worth trying.

However, there was something peculiar. After observing them for a while, they started dancing in the ‘evening’ in world time.

Of course, dancing while emitting light in the evening would be more noticeable than dancing in the bright daylight.

But objectively and rationally, it’s a crazy thing to do.

First of all, the jelly-like creatures in the dessert desert become significantly less active when there is little sunlight. Moreover, emitting light through syrup is an act that consumes a tremendous amount of energy.

That’s not all. The Gamchi creatures roam around in the evening or at night. Dancing while emitting light like that is akin to self-harm, as if telling the Gamchi to come and eat them immediately.

It was truly a dance of madness that completely ignored common sense, reason, and logic.

However, as I continued to watch, a pudding approached after seeing it. The two hid in a quiet place, mated, and died. (About half of the jelly-like creatures die immediately after mating, offering their bodies as food for their offspring.)

As more time passed, a bizarre phenomenon occurred. Since dancing in the evening increased the success rate of reproduction, the creatures gradually began to dance during darker hours.

The light they emitted also became brighter. The tentacles they waved in their dance grew long, thin, and abundant, transforming into something like a cheerleader’s pompom solely for the purpose of reproduction.

Naturally, those who engaged in such madness began to die off, but those who survived continued to pass on their genes, continuing the mad dance in the evening or at night, clamoring for someone to notice them.

As this behavior repeated, at some point, hundreds or thousands of jelly-like creatures began to dance and emit light noisily at night.

As a result, the frequency of being eaten by the Gamchi decreased. They just needed to dance conspicuously enough to find a mate while being less noticeable to predators than the creature next to them.

And as for the opportunists… Instead of showing off their abilities through such madness, those who chose to spend their energy on creating offspring found mates in the frenzied dance and continued their lineage.

Over generations, they would evolve into males who displayed their madness to be noticed and females who evaluated the males and then gave birth and raised the offspring.

While observing, I was slightly taken aback by the sight of a pudding over 3 meters tall and a yokan nearly 4 meters tall engaging in such behavior, but they were relatively more reserved. The smaller ones were more active.

Thousands of them performed a group dance simultaneously, some being eaten, some escaping, and amidst all that, they desperately shook to reveal themselves.

Cruel, violent, and bizarre, yet, on the other hand…

“Yes. This is undoubtedly the most beautiful scene I’ve seen in this dessert desert. I’m not just saying this; it truly is beautiful.”

Well, of course.

Life is beautiful. Because they always do their best to live.

Their fierce struggle is incredibly beautiful and noble.

There was no need to touch something like coral; the brilliantly swaying, colorful group dance filled the dessert desert and the nectar spring.

「The world’s 〈Culture〉 score has surpassed 1,945 points, and the level has risen to 5. You can now choose a new 〈Culture〉 trait.」

From the card the angel showed me, I picked one without hesitation.

『Performance Art: Gain advantages in 〈Culture〉 that utilizes body movements or expressions.』

Since they are making such an effort, I should help them as a god.

“Excellent choice. Intelligent beings can do such things well…”

No, they can’t. Only creatures with low intelligence can do that.

Anyway, we’ve come quite far, but we’re still far from the target score of 4,085 points.

Filling the remaining points is the real challenge. The jelly-like creatures seem to be developing on their own, so maybe I should focus a bit on the Gamchi.

The Gamchi haven’t even solved their parasite problem yet, so I need to adjust quickly.