Chapter 20

After gaining the ability to walk on two legs, humans were able to wield two types of weapons.

One was the pair of hands capable of holding tools.

Instead of sharp teeth or claws, humans could grasp long tools, allowing them to attack other animals from a safer distance.

Especially throwing stones and such for long-distance attacks even let them hunt creatures much larger than themselves.

The other weapon was their endurance, which allowed them to run great distances without tiring.

While lacking in burst speed, humans gained incredible stamina, using it to chase and track other animals until they collapsed from exhaustion.

This also expanded the range humans could travel, greatly increasing their territory.

By obtaining these two weapons, the population of this animal called “human” exploded.

At first glance, one might say things were going well, but unfortunately reality can be cruel.

The overpopulated humans soon faced issues with limited food, living areas, and so on.

Naturally, human groups began expelling some members to deal with the excess population.

Of course, this made sense given they hadn’t started agriculture yet. Fruit from trees doesn’t grow year-round, hunts don’t always succeed…

Especially during hunts, encountering dangerous predators could lead to losing prey or even losing one’s life.

Though occasionally by sheer luck they’d get double the prey! But those cases were extremely rare. Most of the time, they ended up abandoning the hunt.

Anyway, thus expelled, humans began scattering across the world.

Some couldn’t survive the harsh environments outside their group and perished, but not all met such an end.

Life adapts and evolves, after all.

—

When I created the first creature, the slime, I made it prone to frequent mutations and evolutions.

And magical power reacts to willpower, bringing about change.

Combined, these factors sometimes caused astonishing transformations, like sea-dwelling lizards evolving into massive dinosaurs.

“These changes are somewhat unexpected.”

I discovered a group of about fifteen humans settled in a very cold forest.

Despite being wanderers, they were quite numerous, though fortunately the area was rich in game, so they didn’t seem to lack food.

But that wasn’t the important part.

Humans.

Gigantic humans.

Twice, even three times the size of regular humans.

It’s baffling how these creatures keep growing at every opportunity. Honestly.

Their enormous size drastically increased their food needs, making sustaining the group somewhat difficult… but thanks to the abundant environment, it didn’t seem to matter too much.

Watching them rip trees out of the ground to use as clubs while hunting large animals, they looked less like humans and more like humanoid monsters.

Truly, their behavior showed little sign of intelligence.

Is physical strength enough when you have such a powerful body? Or is this the result of focusing all their evolution and mutation potential on physical enhancement?

Well, whichever way, it doesn’t really matter. Such giants add a unique flavor to the world.

Incidentally, the animals around here seem to be growing larger too, influenced by these giants.

Perhaps they’ve judged that being small and fragile isn’t advantageous against giants. Though when I saw a giant deer nearly as big as the giants themselves, its head got smashed by a tree club.

For wild animals, size alone is immense power, but the required food intake to maintain that size limits their numbers, which is fortunate.

If these large creatures spread unchecked, chaos might ensue. However, they seem heavily influenced by their environment and haven’t dispersed far.

What’s this… hmm, let me search. Bergmann’s Rule? The tendency for animals to grow larger in cold climates? Anyway…

Whether such rules apply here is unclear. After all, the age of dinosaurs had a warm climate due to the lack of spirits. Perhaps the diverse environments brought by spirits created this scene.

Enough admiring the giants. I should check other places too.

—

Giants are a subspecies standing three times taller than normal humans.

Their intelligence is slightly lower, but they can communicate adequately and, with proper compensation, make fine workers.

However, beware: never anger a giant.

A giant wielding trees as clubs or throwing boulders is absolutely devastating. Even veteran adventurers would struggle against one.

That said, civilized giants can make good companions, physically destroying obstacles in an adventurer’s path.

Many have sought to harness the power of giants, but all attempts failed.

Reasons vary—giants’ reluctance to leave their homeland, their inability to function well in warmer climates—but the main issue is their limited understanding of long-term contracts.

Until the God of Wisdom bestows greater intellect upon them, controlling armies of giants will remain impossible.

—

From the Adventurer’s Guidebook: Chapter on Giants

—

Humans scattered across the world seeking survival.

The three original human groups appeared in the northern, eastern, and southwestern parts of the continent.

The giants I saw earlier originated from the northern human group.

“KYYYAAAAAA!!!”

“Settle down.”

I grabbed the back of the neck of a large bipedal cat trying to bite me.

Wandering around in human form seems to attract these wild animals. Quite troublesome.

If I wandered as a dragon… well, it’d just cause chaos everywhere.

Annoying, but what can you do.

“KYAAAHHH…”

“You’re not getting away that easily.”

This large bipedal cat walking on two legs, whose front paws resemble human hands, looks highly suspicious.

Just because monkeys came down from trees to become primitive humans and then giants doesn’t mean other animals can’t evolve similarly.

Lizardmen were originally dinosaurs who admired dragons and evolved accordingly.

So it’s not strange that other animals might evolve to resemble humans.

And thus we have this fur-covered bipedal cat currently restrained by my hand—a cat beastman.

The term furry comes to mind. Suspicious indeed.

Not just cats either—it’s oddly fascinating.

There were werewolves common in fantasies, creatures with cow heads, pig heads, scattered throughout the world.

With these bipedal animals potentially replacing humans as the dominant land species… it’s somewhat concerning.

“KYAAAAAA…”

This human-shaped cat now looks up at me with overly cute eyes.

While their claws and teeth can’t scratch my scales, I worry about how other humans might fare.

They still have beast-level intelligence, but if they continue evolving to match human intelligence, will they harm humans?

Sighing softly, I tossed the bipedal cat far away.

If humans evolve further, perhaps I should give them a little gift.

I prefer not to interfere directly, but I don’t want to see humans decline before other species.

Even with dragons and lizardmen in this world, humans should remain the main focus.

A world where various near-human races coexist with humans would look rather splendid.

Let’s see… what should the first gift be?

The answer came quickly.

What humans need right now is crystal clear.

Very well. Time for me to become this world’s Prometheus.

Let me gift fire to humanity.