Chapter 268: No Dogs Allowed
Inside the banquet hall at the pantheon, someone said, "Dogs aren’t allowed."
It was Jang-Wan. "Of course, monkeys and cats aren’t allowed either."
As Sung-Woon reached for the system window to search for a list of all animals, Jang-Wan gestured toward the translucent window.
"What are you doing?"
"If dogs, monkeys, and cats aren't allowed, we need to look for other animals."
"No other animals are allowed either. There's no Laika in Avartin, alright?"
A considerable time had passed since Jang-Wan, who had sacrificed herself in order for Sung-Woon to challenge the Large Area, had returned. As the first to be resurrected, Jang-Wan often provoked Sung-Woon. Sung-Woon didn't mind. Apart from willingly sacrificing for the Pantheon, Sung-Woon believed Jang-Wan had the right to do so.
Sung-Woon said, "But someone has to get on the rocket. In the end, highly trained astronauts have to."
"I know that."
"And before those astronauts ride it, the rocket's safety has to be checked, but there are limits to just launching unmanned spacecraft."
"I know that too."
"Before carrying an intellectual being, carrying a non-intellectual one first seems to me like a better idea."
Jang-Wan shook the lion mask she was wearing. "That's not true."
The second moon, Loom, had been discovered behind the first moon, Yonda. Loom was captured on video, transmitted in real-time, and this footage, though lacking in fidelity, spread around the world.
It was a sight worthy of being called a second moon. It was dark and shadowed, captured when the sun hadn't risen, so the specific details were unknown, but even from its silhouette, its dignified presence was apparent. It was about one-tenth the size of the moon. Loom, docked on a giant crater on the dark side of the first moon, almost resembled the pupil of a giant eye.
The technical analysis team concluded that the entire surface of Loom was artificial, and eventually, it was concluded that Loom itself was a massive artificial structure. The moonstone from the crater dug to dock the first moon seemed to have been moved to the planet Avartin to offset the mass of Loom.
Closer imaging could have provided more information, but unfortunately, the first unmanned rocket could only achieve that much. It was then destroyed by an attack from Loom. Therefore, despite the successful rocket launch, it was agreed that there was a need to launch the next rocket sooner.
On the Pantheon’s side, they had only just discovered the opponent, while the opponent already possessed the means of attack and was merely waiting for causality to rise. Therefore, ideas for a manned rocket, more precisely a manned spacecraft that could operate various devices and respond to the opponent's attacks, were proposed from various places, and the Imperial Aeronautics and Space Agency sought to realize these ideas.
In this process, the necessity for a bio-organism rocket, preceding a manned rocket, emerged, which was a natural step to verify its safety before actual people would board. And Jang-Wan opposed this.
"Do you think that's so important?" Sung-Woon asked cryptically.
Unable to see the face under the mask, Jang-Wan replied angrily, "It is important."
"The most important task of all?"
"Not necessarily."
"Then what?"
Pointing with the tip of her finger at Sung-Woon, Jang-Wan said, "But not doing it when you can is a sin. We're not just winning. We can lay a better foundation and win on that. I'm not just talking about ethics or morality. If there's leeway, we naturally should do it because it will give us an upper hand in the next fight."
Jang-Wan's mention of leeway caused a stir among the players who were listening. Some doubted the existence of such leeway at the moment.
Sung-Woon didn’t comment on it. "Surely you didn’t say that without any alternative in mind."
"Oh, of course not."
"And the alternative is?"
"Obviously, a Sacrificial Lamb."
That somewhat convinced the other players. Initially thought to be just a tantrum, Jang-Wan had come up with a good idea. Sung-Woon also understood Jang-Wan's point. A Sacrificial Lamb referred to a creation by a player that served the role of a sacrifice. It wasn’t a particularly popular role for a creature creation, hard to find except in the early game.
The role of a Sacrificial Lamb was simple. In the early game, at the primitive tribal stage of civilization, a tribe could struggle to find prey worthy of offering to the gods. In such cases, players created a Sacrificial Lamb to be hunted and offered as a sacrifice.
'Though the amount of Faith points gained by doing so is very little...'
Even though it was somewhat inefficient, it wasn’t done for only increasing Faith points. In situations like drought, disaster, or extreme environments, such sacrifices strengthened tribal unity and produced other by-products from the food and the corpse of the Sacrificial Lamb.
However, as civilization advanced, there was no reason to adopt the tactic, so players of The Lost World generally agreed there was no need to make a valuable creation into a Sacrificial Lamb. Especially in the later stages of the game, the role was almost nonexistent, leading some players to forget their existence altogether.
Jang-Wan said, "But we, the Pantheon, and the Empire, even in this late stage of the game, still have a Sacrificial Lamb, don't we? That's where I got the idea."
"That's true."
Sung-Woon judged that such a Sacrificial Lamb could be used more effectively even in the latter stages of the game. Environmentalism, like secularism, was one of the major factors that could trip players up in the later stages of the game.
'It's not just a stumbling block.'
Ignoring environmentalism and rushing into nuclear warfare enhancement, accelerating the extinction of plants and animals and environmental disasters like climate crises led to a mutually destructive meta. A collapsing environment from a certain point, like a domino effect, was not something to idly watch given the resulting decrease in food resources due to diseases, radioactive fallout, shrinking living areas due to rising sea levels, and extinction of certain species due to ongoing warming.
Even in such an environment, someone could secure victory with difficulty, but such a victory hardly increased the player’s rating. Therefore, players typically chose a sustainable route that moderately damaged the environment while not being overly constrained by environmentalism.
Because of this, Sung-Woon brought a Sacrificial Lamb as a key element to overcome environmentalism in this game. Animal experimentation was an inevitable component in advancing science at a certain level of civilization, but if such a problem was confined to a god's creation unrelated to other environments, it could work.
'I was influenced by the perfect vegan strategy too.'
There was a strategy that once became an issue among players of The Lost World. It was a high-concept strategy about how far civilization could be maintained with all entities being vegetarian, even eating only fallen fruits or seeds, ensuring no one was harmed. It was feasible in a non-competitive scenario using complex in-game mechanisms.
Sung-Woon thought it was impossible in a competitive situation but worth considering, and managed to appease environmentally conscious players who were chronically dissatisfied with the Pantheon by attaching a rare breeding skill to the Sacrificial Lamb creation. Had the evil gods existed as the masterminds, dealing with aggressive secularists and eco-terrorists would have required more interventions.
Even at the current moment, a strangely shaped creation, Sepi, neither a dog nor a pig nor a guinea pig nor a chimpanzee, was being sacrificed in the laboratory under the Pantheon's ritual, feeling the joy of sacrifice of its own will, without pain.
'Although the number of experiments can't be dramatically increased due to the limit on the number of individuals, it's more genetically similar to people. In the end, reducing one risk factor is a benefit.'
Sung-Woon said, "But the problem isn’t resolved."
"Why do you think so?"
"The continuously cloned Sepi, our Sacrificial Lamb, may be less ethically repulsive, but...that's exactly the point..." Sung-Woon continued somewhat hesitantly, "It's too unintelligent."
It had enough intelligence to understand its situation and would willingly offer itself due to religious longing and will, but whether it could be trained to a certain extent like dogs or monkeys for rocket experiments was doubtful.
Jang-Wan said, "That's why we'll use something other than Sepi as well."
"Something other than Sepi? What else would you launch?"
"Not someone else. We put Sepi in the spacecraft and then we go into Sepi."
The shocking statement caused someone among the players to cough suddenly.
Sung-Woon replied, "We use Divine Control on Sepi in the spacecraft?"
"Yes. Then there’s no problem with intelligence. The moment we use Divine Control on Sepi, it becomes the smartest creature on the planet."
"Even though our current Faith resources and Divinity level are satisfactory, why risk losing Faith points..."
"We won't lose it." Jang-Wan brought up a system window she had readied. "Even if a player goes into the fragile body of Sepi, the spacecraft will be operable until the very end. I’ve done the calculations. With the current Faith level of the Pantheon, even if the rocket completely disintegrates, Sepi, being used for Divine Control, won't die. Of course, if the rocket explodes, there's nothing we can do...."
Sung-Woon and the other players were deep in thought.
Sung-Woon soon spoke up and said, "Alright, interesting... Should we draw lots to decide who will go into Sepi?"
The will of the Pantheon was conveyed to the Imperial Aeronautics and Space Agency, which then spread the news worldwide.
[The gods have borrowed the noblest of bodies.]
The rocket experiment commenced without delay, and the finest Sepis from around the globe were selected and brought to the Imperial Aeronautics and Space Agency for testing. The Sepis selected were publicized worldwide through photographs. Sepi dolls were sold, and people raised Sepis as livestock, while interviews with strong environmentalists who criticized the ecology of Sepis, their appearance, likes and dislikes, and the technologies sustained by Sepi's sacrifice spread.
Despite some opposition, the news that the gods themselves would use Sepi's body for the experiment ignited the Aerospace Agency's determination. Rocket engineers vowed not to sacrifice even a single Sepi, and ideas for Sepi's revival poured out like a storm.
'Not even making them die?'
Sung-Woon thought it was an unexpected turn of events, but refrained from intervening. It was all positive. If Sepi, with its fragile body, could survive, then surely people could too. It was all a procedure for what came next.
The first bio-organism rocket launch was immediately prepared, and Jang-Wan volunteered to go into the first Sepi.
In the cramped cockpit designed for Sepi, Jang-Wan thought, 'We have different souls, but at least as of right now we are one.'
Jang-Wan's monologue was met with a euphoric response from Sepi's body, as if burning in divine joy. Jang-Wan consciously avoided this sensation, feeling sad for this innocent creature.
Sepi, lacking a proper larynx, executed the procedures required by the Imperial Aeronautics and Space Agency in sequence through a Sepi-specific input-output device under Jang-Wan’s control. However, the rocket was still unstable. The engineers were competent but too busy and exhausted, and there were probabilistic flaws not even the gods had detected.
[System malfunction. Experiment halted.]
Sepi=Jang-Wan felt the heat as the rocket's thermal engines exploded, and the floor erupted.
'I can endure this.'
It was hot but not painfully so. The Faith level of the Pantheon had already reduced much of the physical damage caused by the explosion. The interior of the rocket was destroyed, but it wasn’t the worst-case scenario. At least Sepi's body hadn't been flung through the rocket's interior and out into space. If that had happened, Sepi would have died the moment Jang-Wan disengaged the Divine Control skill.
A message appeared on the last remaining window in front of the control panel.
[Thank you for your efforts, Overflowing God. The rocket is now transitioning to a distress recovery phase.]
[May the gods bless this pitiful life.]
Jang-Wan hesitated. If she maintained Divine Control and stayed in Sepi's body, she could save Sepi. That would appear miraculous.
'But it would dramatically consume Faith points. The ground is too far away.'
Of course, Jang-Wan believed she had that authority. If Sung-Woon alone used up all of the Pantheon's Faith points, no one would say anything. What she used was very little in comparison.
Yet Jang-Wan deactivated Divine Control and slowly left Sepi's body. Back in her divine form, Jang-Wan watched the rocket plummet, lowering its altitude.
'Survive, little friend. Even though your sacrifice is for us, and that's your will and desire.'
Jang-Wan trusted the hearts of those who wanted to save Sepi.
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