The Nebula's Civilization

Chapter 144: Messenger of the Gods

“What do you think about creating hell?”

Wisdom said, “In my opinion, I think everyone takes the Afterlife too lightly. If we change one of the worlds into hell, the others would become more faithful.”

Lunda said, “Then what roles would the other worlds play?”

Wisdom replied, “A slightly less terrible hell than the original one. It would be for those who haven’t committed bad enough sins to fall into the first hell but still deserved punishment.”

“What about the next world?”

"A slightly less terrible version of the second hell?"

"...So, they're all going to be hells?"

Wisdom shrugged.

“It doesn’t really matter since the real world is what directly affects the Lost World, not the afterlife, right?”

Eldar raised their hand.

“Then how about the same approach, but making it heaven?”

“Eldar, people are fundamentally more responsive to punishment than reward. And while everyone shares an aversion to suffering, what they enjoy differ. Just because it’s heaven, not everyone will like baby angels playing trumpets and choirs singing praises to the gods.”

“Well then…since we have six available worlds we could use right away, why don’t we tailor them to each desire?”

“For example?”

“Pursuit for wealth, desire for honor, appetite, desire to sleep, lust…”

“That’s a shame.”

“Pardon?”

“Since you mentioned the seven deadly sins, I was going to say that wouldn’t be much different from hell.”

Crampus then said, “If we go with Eldar’s suggestion, wouldn’t that not be much different than hell either?”

Lunda then said to Eldar, “You said lust, so you take that one.”

“Pardon?”

Lowering his system window, Sung-Woon said, “All the priests have come, so are we going to do as we discussed earlier?”

“Nebula, I’m curious about your opinion on a reward and punishment system.”

Hearing Wisdom’s question, Sung-Woon seemed to think for a moment.

“Hell itself doesn’t seem so bad, but…”

“But?”

Sung-Woon had effectively used the concept of hell in The Lost World before.

Afterlifes like the current one Sung-Woon had, Prairies of the Beginnings, didn’t need much management. It could be left alone, and it wouldn’t cause much trouble to even allow the legendary figures to be in charge of the other dead. However, because not much happened, there were also little benefits.

‘Of course, there are other things on the Prairie of Beginnings.’

The place where the star catcher and his descendants were was a kind of scientific research institution within the Afterlife. And in addition to that, exceptional warriors like Yur and Tatar were still training the dead as warriors, which could have some influence on the warriors’ descendents through dreams. But passing down knowledge to descendents through dreams consumed a significant amount of Faith points.

‘Things would be different with the adoption of a concept like hell.’

If people were to receive eternal punishment after they died, certain doctrines could be put into place, which would be beneficial to the core gameplay.

If a specific religion was branded heresy or demonized, there would be dramatically less cases of people being influenced by or even converting to the religion. Additionally, it would also be possible to correct the habits of the followers by saying that they needed to wash their hands and keep their bodies clean, that they must not be lazy and needed to be hardworking, or that they needed to keep their desires in check.

Emphasizing cleanliness would reduce infection rates for diseases, which would in turn lower mortality rate. If a culture that rejected laziness was made, the overall development of society would become faster. And if restraint was agreed on as important by the community, crime rates would drop.

‘It is nice and simple, but…’

.

When things were enforced this way, naturally there were also side effects.

Washing hands would be considered a religious ritual, and that would provide the grounds for a denomination or faction to replace it with a different action. If hardworking became important, people would become that much more desensitized to culture, art, and entertainment, so development related to those things would slow down. And if desires were suppressed, the economy would decline.

Sung-Woon said, “Flexibility is important.”

“Flexibility?” Wisdom asked as if that was an unexpected term.

Sung-Woon replied, “In a normal game, it would be good to have a clear goal at this point. Set a clear direction and develop civilization accordingly. That way, unless the remaining players pull an extreme anti-meta strategy, we would be in a more advantageous position as we would have started developing first.”

“But?”

Sung-Woon continued, “But the game we’re playing now can’t be considered the same as the game we knew before. Not only because this world is real, but also…”

“Evil gods exist.”

Sung-Woon nodded.

“So we should leave ourselves open to different possibilities so that we can deal with various situations with ease. But to be honest, I’m not even confident if the condition for victory is the same as before.”

“How come?”

The condition for victory in The Lost World was simple. It was to turn every other player, except oneself and one’s allies if there was any, into a vassal, or in other words, kill them. Since Divinity level followed the size of a player’s civilization, there wasn’t a need to destroy the opponent's entire civilization. Just by destroying the opponent’s main apostles, creature creations, priests, and temples, the drop of XP would exceed the enemy’s Divinity level.

“But among them, there is an additional hidden condition. Does anyone know what it is?”

Sung-Woon looked around. Wisdom and Eldar seemed to know it, while the other players looked puzzled.

Wisdom then said, “But the practicality of that is questionable, and even if it really is achieved, it would be meaningless…”

Jang-Wan became impatient and asked, “So what is that condition?”

Sung-Woon replied, “An all-player alliance.”

“...Isn’t that not possible in ranked games?”

“It’s almost impossible. But some have done it.”

“How?”

“Someone was curious, so they proposed the idea at the beginning of each game, and after getting rejected dozens of times, there was a game where everyone accepted it. After they succeeded in getting everyone to accept the proposal, the game ended the moment all the players formed an alliance. But it wasn’t very meaningful. They all got a victory message, but apparently it was treated as a defeat or a draw, so their rankings dropped.”

Eldar then said, “Oh, so if we can convince everyone this time as well…”

“It wouldn’t work because of an evil god that may or may not exist.”

“Ah.”

Sung-Woon then said, “Considering the worst-case scenario, the question is whether the game will end if we meet the victory conditions.”

The other players seemed lost in thoughts. It didn’t really matter if the game didn’t end because if they won, they would remain as gods. But even in that case, they would have to fight something forever, and if the threat of an evil god remained, that couldn’t be considered a victory.

Sung-Woon shook his head.

“Anyway, let’s forget about this topic for now. It’s not like we’ll find an answer if we keep thinking about it. Let’s handle the urgent matters first, shall we? Eldar?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“It seems like there are no objections, so make preparations according to what we’ve discussed before. Almost all of the priests have gathered.”

Jang-Wan slightly raised her head, but then she turned back without saying anything.

And Eldar hesitated, but replied, “Alright.”

***

“We’re here now.”

Lakrak took Shune Lak Orazen to what looked like the intersection of all afterlifes. There stood gray, sharply risen walls, and there were tall stairs leading into the architecture and a smooth iron door that connected the top of the stairs to the interior.

Shune asked, “Is this…where the gods reside?”

“Isn’t it a bit plain? It seems that he hasn’t been able to pay much attention to it because he’s busy.”

“Pardon? Well, I guess so…”

Shune was admiring the walls so big that it seemed impossible for even the people of the entire world to build.

Lakrak then tapped Shune on the shoulder.

“Well, it’ll be better to admire it next time. We seem to be the last ones, so let’s hurry.”

“What? Next time?”

Lakrak didn’t give him an answer and instead urged Anaske to walk up the stairs. During their ascent, the iron door opened on its own.

“This is amazing. The giant iron door is opening by itself…”

“By itself?”

At Lakrak’s words, Shune looked behind the door. The chain connected to the iron door was wrapped around a beetle’s horns, and the beetle was pulling it. And as if the iron door was too heavy for even this giant beetle that was more than 20 meters in length, the door opened slowly with its every step.

Lakrak said, “It’s Hekab, the temporary gate keeper.”

“The majority of everything here is temporary. Nothing has been decided yet. And the gods have gathered here to make a decision.”

Shune said, “Will I get to meet the gods too?”

“Yes.”

Hekab then said, “You are the last ones.”

Lakrak simply nodded and walked past Hekab. And when Shune looked back, Hekab was pushing the door closed again with its giant front legs.

Inside the door was dark and dim. As Lakrak walked between the large pillars, there was only a self-luminous firefly lighting the way a few meters ahead of them. Something big moved among the dark shadows, and it sometimes passed over their head as well.

As Shune lowered his head in fear, Lakrak said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. These creations are made by the gods themselves, and they only gather here for now because it hasn’t been decided where they will go yet.”

“Then is Night Sky’s barricade also here?”

“It just walked over our heads.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The guardians of the other gods were wandering around trying to intimidate you. So Sratis chased them away.”

Shune’s facial expression returned to one of calmness.

Then, Lakrak and Shune joined the clusters of light they could see from a distance. Six priests of different species wearing different clothes were all praying.

‘What are they praying about?’

Then a voice was heard.

-You’re late, Lakrak.

It was a clear and pure voice that Shune had never heard before.

Lakrak got off of Anakse and said, “It just happened somehow.”

Shune then followed suit and moved past the priests from behind to locate the owner of the voice. And he quickly realized why they were praying. At first glance, he saw an Elf with long hair, pointy ears, and a small body, which made it difficult to determine their gender. With Shune’s seventh or eighth sense that he had never felt before, he immediately sensed that the being in front of him was special and significant. And when he saw the Elf’s facial features, he found them beautiful even though he would never have felt that way as a Lizardman.

Lakrak then stuttered and asked Lakrak, “Over there…who is that…?

“It’s the god of Zarin and the Elves, Dancing Shadow God.”

It was Eldar. Eldar looked at Shune and slightly smiled, and that alone made Shune’s heart race. Then Shune dropped onto the floor as if all his strength had left his body and prayed.

Eldar said in front of the other priests.

-Now that all seven priests have gathered, as the messenger and storyteller of the gods, I will tell you about the events that occurred among the gods.