[I did nothing. I kept my promise and changed them just as you wanted, so there is no need for me to take responsibility. (Verified Truth)]
Tademoira could tell that the god, Vein, spoke the absolute truth, though he did not know why.
"Haa… but this is not the change I wanted. They were reduced to mere animals."
[Is that a bad thing?]
Tademoira was at a loss for words.
"It was not my intention to turn the last of our species into animals."
[I didn't turn them into animals. I only made it so they could survive by eating plants. (Verified Truth)]
"That is nonsense! Did you not know this would happen?"
The god of this world spoke cruelly.
[It was easy to predict the direction of natural evolution]
"!"
[of course. The increase in the size of the intestines and jaws required for herbivory causes a decrease in the function of other organs that require a lot of energy, namely the brain. There are no natural enemies in this environment, nor was there a motivation to develop tools for civilization. Intelligence is a very useful mechanism, so it will not deteriorate further, but even in their current state, there is no problem with survival.]
"Why did you not tell me that?"
[Even if I told you, you would not have been able to sense the fact that their intellect decreased. Now I will ask you again. How would you like your species to evolve? They could simply continue living the life of being large herbivores.]
Tademoira was worried.
The species of Muji-te are currently divided into two groups: the dull large herbivorous primates that eat plants; and the nimble omnivorous primates that eat birds, bats, as well as the vegetables they grow.
The only ones that were reduced to animals were the herbivorous primates. The agile primates that hunted birds and bats still maintained a high level of intelligence and civilization. The same was true for the Heroic and Epic entities. They too had extremely high intelligence and civilization levels as well as a strong willpower.
"I wish for their intellect to be increased"
[How?]
"Uh, how? So…uh…"
Although Tademoira is an expert in flowers and gardening. He is not an expert in animals. He looked back at the other members of the group but they were also very troubled, so he said, "Please let them handle magic."
[Oh.]
"I am not talking about mystery, but 'Magic'. It is a mysticism that one can learn and use. Let them learn magic."
[No.]
"Uh, why?"
The answer he got back was beyond imagination.
[Because I can't do something I don't know how to. (Verified Truth)]
Tademoira was shocked.
"Yogur-Thoth used magic!"
[That's because Yogur-Thoth had an aptitude for it. He learned it on his own.]
"The spiritual realm here is amazingly fluid and complete, do not lie!"
[I consulted with another god. I know of the spirit realm, yes, but I have no knowledge of magic.]
"Then I would like them to learn magic from Yogur-Thoth !"
The response to this request was despairing.
[Yogur-Thoth doesn't like your species. (Verified Truth)]
Tademoira was in despair.
The mystery of a flower spirit was a mysticism based on
In the end, this task has to be left to the Epic wizard of their group, but the problem is that he is useless.
Magic is a subject that is greatly affected by an individual's characteristics and ability. What that means is, that guy doesn't know how to teach magic to an idiot.
"Oh, I see. Then I would like you to at least grant me support for my magic research."
[I can't just give it to you. That's obvious.]
Of course, even Tademoira was not the kind of person who would shamelessly ask for something.
"I will pay the price"
[What price?]
"In this world-"
[Ecosystem.]
"...There must be something in this ecosystem that needs our help. If you give us an order, we will follow you."
The god of this world then had his eyes sparkle.
[If you make such a suggestion, then there is only one thing I want. Can I release predators into this hanging garden?]
""?!""
[Predators are necessary for intelligence to increase, and also for my dessert army to become a little stronger. In addition to the Jelly, I need a diversity of species with creatures like birds and bats. Pure life forms that are not part of the dessert army.]
"If it has to be a predator, how strong would it be?"
[I must continue to increase it until the ecosystem is balanced.]
Tademoira looked back at those who believed in him with a trembling look. They too seem to be in great distress.
Should he follow this god's suggestion?
Even in its current state, it's really not bad. Their species can eat and live. And that god has never broken a promise so far. Even if he is a villain, at least he is not a villain who outright lies and deceives people, but a villain that follows the contract carefully. Eventually, their discussion ended.
"Very well. If we have magic support, it will be easier to learn magic, and then we will be able to rebuild our civilization, so I accept this deal."
[Okay, I will increase the predators gradually over a long interval. I will also increase the magic pressure of this land. Live to your heart's content.]
— — —
What is intelligence?
Homo Sapiens on Earth are very intelligent. The only intelligent beings who have succeeded in consciously building a civilization were naturally considered to be the most intelligent creatures on Earth.
And that is true. In fact, Homo Sapiens overall have a higher intelligence than any other creature on Earth. The highest score is high, the average score is high. If the score was low, it would be considered a "disability."
The "superior" Homo Sapiens once thought that all animals on Earth were inferior to humans and so they hunted and killed these animals to their heart's content.
But because I dabbled in many studies, I found out that wasn't entirely true.
Elephants, whales, apes. There were many highly intelligent animals on Earth. And as I studied, I discovered something even more surprising.
On average, chimpanzees have a much better "short term memory" than the "average" human. What this means is that when a large number of cards are spread out and shown to the viewer for a very short amount of time and then covered again, chimpanzees are much better at listing the cards in the order they just saw than humans could.
Of course, Humans can be trained to be better at this task, but chimpanzees can also be trained and a trained chimpanzee could clearly do better than humans.
At that time, researchers on Earth came to a conclusion.
"There are many types of intelligence."
Chimpanzees live in the forest and must be able to clearly see and remember what they see in an instant, so their instantaneous memory is far superior to that of Homo Sapiens , who originally lived in the open grasslands. In other words, the direction of intelligence is different.
But to put it another way, it means even sufficiently intelligent creatures might not be able to form a civilization.
Building a civilization requires not just high intelligence, but a specific type of intellect. Namely, the intellect to "create tools". Beyond the simple form of a stone tool, the intelligence to think of using a stone to make a tool and process it. The intelligence to create needles to make clothes, the intelligence that knows that iron must be mined, heated with a furnace and tempered to make a sword.
Without such deductive reasoning, civilization cannot be built, even if one is highly intelligent. In short, many primates can use human-made tools for their intended purposes. Among these tools, there are cutting-edge tools such as smartphones.
I don't know how a smartphone is made or what the principles behind it are, but I can use it anyway. Right. In fact, there are very few people, even among the highly intelligent humans, who know exactly how to make a smartphone.
So, to conclude:
"Why…?"
Tademoira tried to develop weapons called "magic", for the species that was reduced to the level of very intelligent primates.
The herbivorous primates were able to learn and master magic. They were also able to handle mystery and the flow efficiently, and their intelligence, which had been declining, actually rose quite a bit.
However, they became good at just memorizing things. In terms of the discipline of magic, they became a "foolish magician who uses magic by memorization without understanding them", the lowest and the worst.
Memorizing and using magic by itself is amazing, but they don't want anything more than that, and in fact, it seems they have no need for more. They just graze on grass, and when outside invaders come, they repel the invaders with magic, then go back to living their leisurely lives.
The same goes for the hunting primates that maintained their humanity with relatively high intelligence. Their intelligence has also deteriorated quite a bit.
Their intelligence is still high but they have developed incredibly sensitive sensory organs as they try to resist the constant, stealthy hordes of insects, giant birds and fast-swiping bats. And their senses developed in a way that was different from simply improving their "eyesight" or "hearing".
For example, did you know that mantis shrimps can see 12 colors? In fact, humans can only see red, green and blue. Most mammals are red-green color blind so they cannot distinguish these two colors. But in reality, humans can see tens of thousands of colors because their brains are so powerful that they can perceive combinations of color as different colors. Conversely, mantis shrimps supplement their poor brain power by developing a vision that allows them to differentiate 12 different colors.
In short, primates can distinguish many "colors"(there is a theory that it is to find water and pick out fruits from the leaves), and their ability to distinguish objects is also high(there is a theory that it is to quickly identify snakes).
This is not about having good eyes but about having a good brain. Instead of blindly improving their sensory organs, it was a method of supplementing the lacking sensory organs by greatly increasing the processing ability for the senses.
That's how the hunting primates evolved.
These primates fought against all kinds of poisonous insects and predators that roam the plains everyday. To do this, they analyzed everything in an instant, whether it be sound, shape, light or vibration.
So their heads are big, and their nervous system is incredibly developed so their reflexes are incredible. They can even turn their bodies to avoid bullets by "seeing" someone pull a pistol's trigger from 30 meters away. Of course, they can also dodge a human's punch as if they were in slow motion. They have a good memory and the precision of their imitation abilities is also excellent. In other words, they can learn martial arts and mysticism in their own way.
However, in the process of acquiring this ability, their deductive reasoning was reduced to almost nothing. They do not "judge" when they encounter a stimulus, but "react" to it.
The harsh environment, where you could die if you don't react immediately, made them focus on the "what do I do now" rather than "what will happen next".
As a result, both species of primates became very, very smart primates, super primates who transcended primates, but their ability to create a civilization was emasculated.
"Tademoira. Not cry"
"Heart hurts. When Tademoira cry."
They can speak. They are highly intelligent and, unlike earth's primates, have lower larynxes, allowing them to pronounce words.
But now they speak with a limited vocabulary, no different from a gorilla's grunt.
"Ugh...sorry…my species...my creator..."
Tademoira sobbed. The Heroic and Epic figures around him were the same. They were experts in battle, religion, politics and magic, but there was not a single expert in ecology, which became their limit.
"Ugh..."
"What is it? Angel, why are you crying as well?"
"A merciless act that reduces even highly intelligent humans into animals. Tears naturally came to my eyes."
Oh stop talking nonsense.
Anyway, the two primates were quite prosperous. The herbivorous species became magical beasts and the hunting species became martial arts practitioners.
Now, they were attempting to leave the hanging gardens and go down. I suppose they thought there were too many predators there. I welcome that change. Whether they live in the mountains or even further down, the speciation would grow more diverse that way.
I guess I should give them a name other than just primates. Hmm. It looks like they like to eat. They are a gluttonous and fat species who eat everything they can get their hands on, and they especially like sweets.
"You are now {Sugar Lumps}"
I guess I should separate them into Magic Beasts and Martial Beasts. I should try out different things based on those two races.
"It just makes me cry because there's no concept of civilization in what they are trying to do."
…
I will not listen to the words of the angel.
Anyway, some of the magic beasts went to Yogur-Thoth and began to worship him, trying to learn magic from him.
Yogur-Thoth was happy to finally have his own followers. If he's happy, then that's a relief.
As for the martial beasts, their leader, a battle-type Epic level entity, shouted as if he had made up his mind about something.
"Oh God! Please make me be more like my kin!"
When their fellow high level entities heard him, they questioned his sanity.
"Are you crazy?"
"I'm not crazy! It's this world that's crazy! To survive in this crazy world, I have to! Rather than deny my own kind, I would rather become one of them! God! Please allow me to be reborn into that body! Reincarnate me into that strong body with my memories intact!"
I laughed. Finally, someone who understands my philosophy has arrived.
[As you wish.]
As he was injected with an overwhelming amount of divine power, his body transformed. His body that was originally great at fighting changed into one with insane reflexes and sensory abilities of a martial beast.
The
"Me. Now meeting my family."
But it is certain that their intellect has declined.
Seeing their strength, others also decided to convert into martial beasts, and even those who were once in charge of politics, turned into martial beasts, saying that they had originally learned combat skills like swordsmanship.
Soon, the wizards and religious people also decided to convert into magic beasts...…
[Congratulations, Tademoira. Your creator's life form will continue their lives forever in my ecosystem.]
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH"
The flower spirit Tademoira screamed among the beasts whose intelligence has been changed forever.
— — — — —