Chapter 4: Endless Expansion (1)
[ cave lizard: 1c1601 ]
[ one-eyed hopping spider: 1d0080 ]
The Legion continued to consume everything in sight after ascending to the upper level, leaving devastation in its wake.
The gene pool they were acquiring increased as well.
Even the clusters of mushrooms and moss that had felt somewhat alive were thoroughly stripped bare.
[Now that you’re no longer providing energy, the Legion, which had been freely expending energy until now, began to worry about the efficiency of energy use.]
“I should’ve done this earlier.”
[Prioritizing efficiency inevitably reduces combat power. The number of soldiers decreases, and expansion slows down.]
“Time is not really an issue.”
Unless I were to take photos randomly at places like a supermarket and feed them with that.
If I can’t do that, they need to find their own answers.
At least the fortunate thing is that these beings, despite lacking a proper brain structure, were quite intelligent.
[Of course. The size of our colony itself is our brain.]
“Why are you so smug?”
I lay on the bed, staring blankly.
Today is a free day. Originally, I should’ve been studying, but I can’t concentrate.
“What kinds of races have other players chosen? Wolves? Rabbits, maybe?”
[There are a great variety. To name one, there are intelligent beings as well.]
“…What?”
I asked casually, but the answer came as quite a shock.
Intelligent beings? Weren’t we all just raising animals together?
[I said there are various types. That’s exactly what I mean.]
“No, that’s too unfair!”
Some are growing cells, while others are developing civilizations.
[That cannot be definitively stated.]
But it was clear that he was insistent.
Honestly, I couldn’t understand, so I just kept my mouth shut.
Complaining wouldn’t change anything, anyway.
In the end, I decided to set aside thoughts about the other players completely.
[The Legion has redefined efficiency.]
Constantly thinking and experimenting.
They established new policies regarding the problems they were currently facing.
This is right. I hoped that they would become self-sufficient as much as possible.
[By adjusting the number of soldiers and increasing their combat power per individual, they are finding the optimal number. Some nests that have already completed their growth have entered a dormant state and devised methods to conserve energy extremely.]
They armed themselves with newfound methods.
Of course, conquest and predation would not cease.
This second level was almost within our grasp.
Our territory was expanding in the updated map.
[The third level is primarily occupied by vertebrates. To hunt them, we also needed powerful soldiers.]
I brought in cola and snacks and watched.
At this point, it seemed more like a documentary than a game.
Suddenly, I recalled the ant-raising I enjoyed so much as a child.
[While we cannot produce results beyond the data obtained, it is possible to combine and manipulate it.]
The scariest thing is that compared to a mere beast, we are a Legion.
A colony that moves collectively with only one purpose produced soldiers for ‘war’ beyond mere hunting.
And with each soldier type corresponding to their roles, no matter how much we reduce numbers, unless we suppress them with overwhelming physicality like a bear smashing a beehive, I don’t think we would particularly lose.
We’re moving thoroughly through proper reconnaissance anyway.
The next level was filled with similarly sized creatures, so gradually increasing our size was the optimal condition.
[Once again, it was time for hunting.]
After a brief reorganization.
The Legion re-entered the upper level.
The poor indigenous creatures could not stop their evolution, being eaten at tremendous speed and were being hunted unilaterally.
“Shouldn’t we avoid investing all our size into a single individual?”
Munching on snacks, I muttered a thought that suddenly came to mind.
Right now, we’re managing a multitude of soldiers at a small size.
Wouldn’t it be better to grow that size even more and create a single powerhouse?
[Efficiency.]
That single word left me speechless.
It was an all-purpose term.
[And above all, we are still lacking in experience. You may not realize this while observing, but think from a different perspective. Our current world consists solely of a few pupils in this cave.]
“…I understand what you mean.”
[These are beings that do not even know what humans are. The information we’ve obtained thus far is extremely limited. They possess tremendous hardware, yet none of the higher-brained races have been encountered up to this point. In other words, it means there is no software to run the hardware.]
“If we keep ascending this cave, will we eventually meet other intelligent beings?”
I suddenly became curious, just like those currently growing vigorously.
What exactly is at the end of this cave?
Is this cave the entirety of the world?
Perhaps beyond this cave lies the real world.
[…That’s precisely it; you just need to continue observing and inform the children about that. About the curiosity and interest that humans possess.]
I couldn’t really imagine it yet, but it certainly seemed possible.
We had already made it this far in just three days from a single-celled mass.
“I brought bread.”
“…”
“This time I won’t let it get taken…”
The door burst open.
Then, it snatched the entire bag of bread I was holding and took it into the room, closing the door again.
[Quality nutrients…]
“Don’t joke with me. It doesn’t even satisfy my liver now.”
Sighing, I re-entered the room.
Today, I had been staring at my phone all day.
There was amusement in filtering the thoughts of life, soul, and games.
“The third level isn’t much different, and I can keep going like this.”
Compared to the lowest level, which only had a few mushrooms and moss, the third level had slightly more of them.
Flowing water and plants growing in the cave were discovered additionally, and the number of small animals active in that area also increased.
And we consumed all of them.
“Can’t we teach them the concept of farming? What if we just eat everything in sight?”
[Right now, farming is a luxury for us.]
True, while I spat that out, it wasn’t a great idea.
Farming in this cave was out of the question.
Above all, farming means substituting the energy that I cannot utilize with plants to produce fruits or grains for me to consume.
Our species can produce energy without the need for farming by directly mimicking the method of the fungi that serve as producers in this place.
The key is the absolute amount of energy.
And that amount of energy cannot be increased unless we prey on others or introduce it from the outside.
“Where are you going?”
“Uh… to exercise.”
Eventually, I left the house again now that the sun had set.
I thought I would look for a way.
Self-sufficiency is certainly necessary, but it seemed better for me to fill in the physically impossible aspects.
[Have you found a method?]
“I changed my way of thinking a bit. Not everything edible needs to be made by humans. Look, some animals derive energy by consuming this big tree.”
[Our species does not have the ability to digest wood.]
“What’s the problem? Just send some of those creatures over.”
I decided to more actively utilize the fact that I could intervene.
Our house was particularly clean because one creature was particularly finicky and couldn’t handle even a single cockroach, but the mountains behind our house were different.
I took out the camera.
With the thought that anything that was shot would likely do the trick if I went crazy photographing, I approached the hillside behind the house.
At the level of the hill, many people were out for a night walk along the trails, and I carefully scrutinized the surface of the fallen tree using the flash.
What I wanted was termites. Insects that feed on wood.
I saw on YouTube that they would just go to the mountains and catch them.
“What? Why?”
[It would be better to find the termites later; now, it seems better to just observe.]
An alarm went off.
I brushed it off casually, but it was something I couldn’t easily ignore.
[In the fourth level we aim for, there exists another Legion. They are ones that were not revealed by previous reconnaissance that swept through the skies. These primarily inhabit below ground and on the ground.]
“Ants?”
From the description alone, they sounded like ants.
On the screen, I saw creatures clashing with our scouting troops based on giant hornets, snapping their jaws together.
While they were large, the overall shape composed of their heads, thoraxes, and abdomens was reminiscent of ants.
“…?”
[Don’t underestimate them. Their Legion is the ruler of the fourth level.]
The white ants that were in confrontation suddenly opened their jaws wide and sprayed out some liquid like anti-aircraft fire.
The liquid hit the scouting unit.
As I watched in a daze, the area of contact dissolved away helplessly amidst smoke.
