The Anti-Intellectualism Demon King’s World Invasion

Chapter 23. Sweet Tooth 2

The ecological status of the Sweet Tooth is almost identical to that of birds or bats. In fact, as flying creatures, birds and bats have similar ecological statuses from the beginning.

Considering how prosperous birds and bats are, their potential is quite exceptional. Already in this world, there are at least 22 species… No, it seems there are 22 families (科) of Sweet Tooth.

The 22 families of Sweet Tooth are completely independently composed based on food, size, habits, intelligence, form, etc. There is room for further differentiation at the genus and species levels.

Since they differ at the family level, they don’t even feel like similar creatures with similar ecologies, despite their roughly similar shapes.

Of course. Saying they differ at the family level means they are as different as dogs, bears, and weasels (all of which belong to the suborder Caniformia but are different at the family level).

I don’t know why the previous opponent made only these guys so prosperous. Maybe a few created lives overwhelmingly won in ecological competition, or they evolved existing creatures similarly, or instead of evolving new species in ecological competition, they just created Sweet Tooth with the ecological status of that position.

These guys now only have some species that eat puddings, and those that eat grains or fruits that the puddings couldn’t gnaw on, while about ten other species seem to be on the verge of extinction. I decided to save those guys too.

「[Unknown Membrane Bird] evolves into [Seaweed Jelly-Eating Sweet Tooth].」

「[Unknown Membrane Bird] evolves into [Pudding-Eating Sweet Tooth]…」

Membrane Bird? Is that a name given by the original player? It’s not much different from bat-birds.

Anyway, utilizing large-scale divinity. Evolving all individuals of all species simultaneously.

Some can now eat not only fruits but also seaweed jelly, and they can hunt and eat puddings, jellies, and various other Dessert Legions.

And they can also eat cacti. Come to think of it, it seems like it’s time to turn cacti and camels into part of the Dessert Legion too.

These creatures are so highly complete that it seems like it would take an enormous amount of divinity to invest, but it’s worth it.

While watching over the ecosystem of Sesaisa, I used divinity generously on my ecosystem and each creature to make them part of the Dessert Legion.

But the most important thing is the Sweet Tooth. And for the diversity of the ecosystem, Sweet Tooth that directly hunt jellies are more important than those that eat plants or corpses, or those that gnaw on ears of grain.

Let’s return to the ecology of the jellies. What is needed in the ecology of the jellies is as follows.

Nectar.

Water.

Rock.

Sunlight.

These four. The amount of each element needed varies by species, but as mentioned earlier, there are species that move, but there are also species that are slow and solid, and rather take root and become like plants.

These jelly trees that synthesize nectar are called jellies, but their outer surface is made of insanely hard minerals, and their insides are also close to minerals, absorbing all the inorganic and organic matter in the soil, and evolving to absorb a lot of sunlight with leaf-like lenses. In other words, it is a jelly that occupies the ecological niche of ‘plants’.

But, about these guys’ ‘leaves’. This is pure jelly. Of course. If they were covered with glass or mineral shells, they wouldn’t be able to receive heat and light properly.

This was fine. After all, among the puddings, the species that climb jelly trees are extremely rare, and most of them roll on the ground or dive into the water. So, the strategy of creating ‘height’ was the most successful among the strategies of the jelly trees.

But then a flying predator appears. It just flies high, sits on the branches, and starts ruthlessly eating the jellies spread out nicely on the high trees.

And the slow jellies crawling on the ground are also helpless against the gamchis that break their shells with long or strong beaks. Especially the puddings are a problem. The rolling and running movement of the puddings couldn’t cope at all with the gamchis that dive down from above and peck at them.

The creatures of the dessert legion are extremely flustered. (That’s just a saying) A new survival strategy is needed.

I continued to exert my divine power to control their ecosystem.

The first strategy was counterattack. The jelly trees started to create thorns or poison.

But of course, gamchis that adapt to this appear, ignoring the thorns and eating, or digesting the poison, or even using magic to break through the counterattacking jellies with just their physical specs.

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The second strategy was to increase size. They just needed to get bigger and taller. To deal with the bigger jellies, the gamchis also got bigger.

The third strategy was to increase durability. They made the shell structure more complex and coated the jellies more solidly, even if it lowered the efficiency of nectar synthesis. But of course, stronger gamchis appeared.

I continued to accelerate time and sowed the seeds of various strategies with divine power, allowing them to grow infinitely through conscious repetition.

The only drawback of the gamchis is that their growth rate is measured in years.

In comparison, the longest-living jelly is 5 years.

In the current system, where eating a lot, growing quickly, and reproducing a lot is advantageous, the jellies’ lifespan shortened, but their evolution speed and reproductive power increased tremendously.

As a result, I only needed to adjust the evolution speed of the gamchis. The gamchis, divided into 22 families, still have 22 families, but the number of species increased to 560.

“Wow. You really are amazing in this field.”

Now, even if left alone, the gamchis will be able to eat and grow the jellies on their own. But there’s something more important.

“What is it?”

Give me the trait.

“The world’s ‘life’ score has exceeded 18,016 points, and the level has risen to 8. You can now choose a new trait.”

“Level 8. Level 8?! How on earth did the world’s stats exceed 18,000 after experiencing four collisions?! Other people are struggling to even reach 1,000!”

It’s because a predator appeared.

From my experience playing this game, an environment with a lot of predators has a higher life score than an ecosystem with no predators at all.

Perhaps the diversity and stability of an ecosystem are higher the more interacting entities there are.

The angel showed the “Excellent” trait card.

『(Choice) Evolution Acceleration: The evolution of organisms belonging to this category is greatly accelerated. The speed of evolution is inversely proportional to the number of species designated as targets.』

『Plant Growth: The energy efficiency and growth of life forms belonging to the “Plant” category increase.』

『(Pudding) Hunter: The success rate of hunting for species belonging to the [Pudding] category increases.』

“Evolution Acceleration. Classification: All ‘Gamchi’.”

The evolution of the Gamchi accelerates. They eat trees, eat jelly, eat pudding, face large and giant jelly, small and fast jelly. They confront all sorts of things.

Meanwhile, freeloaders also appeared. Some creatures started going directly to the nectar springs to eat nectar. This is probably normal. Eating pure life energy, nectar, rather than unnecessary hunting, is probably normal.

But, that place is hell.

【Iyaaahaaa!】

Aphozus makes the tentacles reaching towards the sky sticky, catching the gathered Gamchi and digesting them alive like a sticky flytrap.

Aphozus, being in charge of managing the nectar springs, nectar jelly, and coral gummies, cannot just leave the Gamchi that come to suck nectar alone. It must be hard for Yogurtosus to suck them up too.

The Gamchi, avoiding the dull senses of Aphozus, sip nectar bit by bit, hunt nectar jelly on the water surface, or dive to catch jellyfish inside, and some even evolved into aquatic forms. They are similar to penguins. I accelerated such growth.

“But won’t it be a problem if the Gamchi become too strong?”

“Not really. Because the desserts evolve accordingly.”

Especially the evolution of the man-eating candies, which I evolved extremely, was dramatic.

To hunt the flying, fast, and light Gamchi, they evolved to leap multiple times, becoming more stable, longer, sleeker, and compressing their thorns and horns into one.

The camel-eating candies and man-eating candies I initially created were soon eliminated in the extreme ecosystem. Instead, more stable and diverse candies appeared, replacing their ecological niche.

There are still candies that focus on the final rush of their lives to target the abundant camels, but most evolved to hunt agile predators like the Gamchi, jumping high, running fast, tiring quickly, and thoroughly carnivorous, eating even the bone fragments in the marrow.

These candies, by the way, have no ‘eyes’. Instead, they have developed tactile, vibration, and olfactory senses, roughly jumping towards the flying Gamchi, spreading their bodies wide just before pouncing on the enemy, catching and tearing them apart.

As this process repeated, there was a clear change in the entire ecosystem.

In short, some of the Gamchi became migratory birds. They raise their young near ‘safe’ freshwater lakes and hunt jellies around the nectar oasis for food.

And the closer the Gamchi or camels get to the nectar springs, the more insanely powerful creatures emerge due to the productivity of the nectar springs, making the nectar springs the most powerful and dangerous area, surrounded by the Teimong River (now connected to the mountain river instead of the nectar springs, making a slightly winding loop around the world before entering the freshwater lake), which is a middle ground where a bit of nectar still flows in.

And in the safe freshwater lake area across the river, migratory birds and swamp reptiles, frogs, and fish that couldn’t compete at the nectar springs and fled, followed by the water sucked in and expelled by Yogurtosus, making the whole world prosperous.

The cactus forest should be described as ‘lush’. It’s the camels’ area, where they eat the cacti that have taken the place of ‘trees’, and the flowers and grasses that grow madly whenever it rains, quickly growing and escaping from the insane camel-eating candies.

The camels also grew into monsters, undergoing speciation. They grew immensely in size, covering their skin with mineral bristles instead of mismatched shells.

These creatures also want to come near the nectar springs to eat nectar, but they get torn apart by the camel-eating candies that can only live between the Teimong River and the nectar springs.

Yet, they can’t resist the urge to eat nectar. Not because it’s addictive, but because it’s such an excellent energy source. So the camels either grow larger, faster, or start covering themselves with shells.

And finally, they appeared.

The largest and most powerful creatures, not the giant jellies of the nectar oasis, but those that evolved to tear apart the tentacles of Aphozus, the owner of the nectar oasis, and suck its fluids.

The strongest predator that can obtain the pure substance of life, nectar, with only physical strength. Its entire body is covered with a carapace like scales, with a wingspan of a whopping 15 meters, a body length close to 4 meters, and legs with strong claws and a serrated beak.

It can easily devour a cow, and even to face a Yog-Tosoth, one must use magic. The strongest and fiercest predator in my ecosystem.

Even the mighty guardian of the lake called Aphojus was defeated, its tentacles cut off, and the gushing blood and nectar, or from the spring, were greedily consumed by these nectar-sucking predators. They deserve a new name.

「The [Ultra-Giant Predator] is named [Bisyakheet].」

“It’s hard to know the etymology.”

“Only those who know will recognize it.”

I want to refine this mighty flying biscuit more, but I’ve spent too much time.

Even if I can accelerate time through divine power during the protection period, it’s now the timing when most have entered the ‘dimensional rift’ stage, and the community is now active.

「〈Life〉: 29,131」

Hmm. Can’t hit 30,000.

“You have no conscience.”

And with the 〈Military〉 close to 12,000, I can choose one more trait. I chose 『Aerial Combat』.

So, shall I post a promotional article in the community?

Ecosystem consulting business. Let’s see how well it goes.

[Bean: Sesaisa, if I post a promotional article, can you promote how good my advice is? ㅋㅋ]

[Sesaisa: I’d appreciate it if you could do the same for me. I’m also planning to start a mystical consulting business for the meats.]

While writing the promotional article, I suddenly had this thought.

“Can I post a recommendation anonymously?”

“No. But why are you thinking about backdoor advertising already? If you promote it properly, it will definitely succeed.”

“Listen carefully. I came here to succeed. I’ll do anything to increase my success rate by even 1%. Rather than regretting later thinking ‘I should have done backdoor advertising,’ it’s better to expose myself as much as possible even if there’s a risk of getting caught.”

“Your conscience is really broken…”

The path of the demon king is so ugly and tough.

“Anyway, anonymity is not allowed. The community is all public. Compete fairly.”

Fairly. Whether you get caught and criticized for backdoor advertising, or succeed in promotion without getting caught. It’s a fair competition.

“I might agree with the proposition that humans are trash. Anyway, there’s already a comment on your post. Want to see it?”

Let’s see.

「Comment 1: Is he crazy?」

High praise. It’s a good sign.