At the call of the Abigail Flower.
Two enormous insects joined the Tribe.
At first.
Many people were especially frightened and uneasy at the sight of such colossal creatures.
"Don't be afraid."
"They, too, are servants of the Messenger of the Gods."
Boer stepped beneath the enormous insects, his expression filled with reverence.
Even though people knew they were servants created by the Messenger of the Gods and posed no threat to the Tribe, just like the Rot Spirit Insects.
They still couldn't shake the instinctive fear brought on by the tremendous difference in size.
The Bobbit Worm on land was especially intimidating. Its massive body was in no way smaller than that of the enormous Hermit Crab from the ocean.
With Ned and Boer calming them down.
The Tribe gradually accepted the giant insects.
From Ned's account, people also learned the names of these two servants of the Divine Envoy and the powers associated with them.
The Shell Insect and the Bobbit Worm.
They respectively represented the ocean and the earth.
The Shell Insect could roam the sea, while the Bobbit Worm could easily bore through hard stone.
After thinking it over several times.
Ned came before the Abigail Flower and asked for its permission.
When he saw a group of ants crawl past.
They formed a written pattern devised by the people, and he immediately brightened with excitement.
After bowing to the Abigail Flower, Ned handed his younger brother Boer the Brand corresponding to the Bobbit Worm.
He himself held the Brand symbolizing the ocean—the one for the Shell Insect.
Each Brand allowed him to control up to one of these enormous insects.
The two kinds of insects soon demonstrated their unique abilities to the people.
Ripples spread across the calm sea.
On the shore, under the gaze of his people, Ned raised the Rot Spirit Staff.
"Splash!"
White waves burst upward.
The Shell Insect shot out of the sea and formed a brief arch above the surface. Water sprayed everywhere as it plunged beneath the white waves again, soon vanishing without a trace.
Far out at sea, it appeared again.
"It swam over there!"
The people craned their necks and looked to the left, marveling at how fast it moved, like a fish.
But before they could get a good look at it.
The Shell Insect surfaced again on the right.
"It swam over here!"
Everyone hurriedly turned their heads to the right.
Men, women, and children from the Tribe gathered by the sea, their heads swiveling back and forth with the Shell Insect as they watched it move with more agility than a fish.
No matter how many times they saw it.
They were always amazed by a creature that could roam beneath the waves.
Such was the power of the lifeforms created by the gods.
As Ned controlled his Shell Insect to roam the sea, learning how to command it more skillfully.
The other two Shell Insects also returned from the ocean.
Bursting through the waves beneath the sunlight, they spat out treasures from the sea, spilling them onto the beach.
Whenever these creatures that roamed the ocean returned, they brought the Tribe unexpected surprises.
Sometimes.
They brought Sea Clams containing beautiful pearls.
Other times, they brought the hard shells of dead Giant Sea Turtles.
These enormous, sturdy shells made excellent material for carving letters.
They were sturdier than ordinary leaves or Hemp Paper, easier to carve than stone, and durable enough to preserve what was written on them.
"Praise the gods!"
"This pearl is so beautiful. It would be perfect for decorating the temple of the gods."
"That turtle shell is huge. Just how big must that sea turtle have been?"
"By the way, what do Shell Insects like to eat? Next time, let's offer them a few Brown Rats and see."
After the tribespeople left.
Ned remained alone on the shore.
He stroked the Shell Insect's back, which gleamed in the sunlight, and felt the sea through the memories still lingering within it.
"God, the lifeforms You created are so wondrous. Even the ocean can be conquered with ease."
"Will we ever get to see the world beyond with our own eyes?"
Ned murmured.
And he wasn't the only one.
The creatures granted by the gods, able to roam the sea, had also ignited many people's longing for the ocean.
Especially among the Artisans who had built the first boats.
The sight filled them with excitement, rekindling their old desire to build ships and explore the sea.
In the forest.
The Abigail Flower's light flickered continuously.
Mona listened quietly as the Abigail Flower described what its kin had discovered in the ocean.
Although the Shell Insects weren't true marine animals.
They had to surface regularly for oxygen, to lay eggs, and to bask in the sun, and they also had to do so on dry land.
Still, they had explored a stretch of coastal waters and made some discoveries.
Though the Shell Insects hadn't found any islands in the nearby waters, they had found two young Hermit Crabs.
At the Abigail Flower's command.
The Shell Insects killed all the last "remnants" of Hermit Crabs in those waters, then followed the trail to their nest.
It was a coral reef on the ocean floor.
Giant Nautiluses lived there.
Inside them were several Hermit Crab eggs.
Some fossils of ancient creatures were buried in the reef as well.
The Abigail Flower controlled the Shell Insect, using its sharp pincers to dig up the fossils.
It brought them, along with the Hermit Crab eggs, back to the god.
Mona gently touched one of the fossils.
Judging by its remaining shape, it was clearly an ancestor of the Hermit Crab.
After examining the faint fragments of life structure left in several fossils and comparing them repeatedly, he confirmed some of his earlier suspicions.
The Hermit Crab species.
A thousand years ago, it had undergone a violent, collective mutation.
That mutation seemed to have caused their bodies to grow rapidly.
Even their life structures and instincts had changed in some strange way, turning them into ferocious monsters with extraordinary sensitivity to humans and certain other things.
Such a mutation.
Had clearly been caused by the deliberate influence of some kind of force.
Mona gazed out at the ocean.
He quietly pondered.
In this world.
He was always an outsider.
Here.
Nothing was known to him.
And that was precisely what made everything feel so new.
Only by slowly savoring these precious novelties could he resist the eternal loneliness in the river of time.
In this game of civilization.
Most of the time, he played the role of an observer.
He wouldn't rush the process.
Nor would he deliberately stand in its way.
He would simply give things a push when the time was right or necessary, or remove certain factors.
However.
When he had first arrived, the unknown nature of this world had led him to consider one question:
The uniqueness of God.
As a former materialist.
Mona had a fairly strict set of categories for defining gods.
This stemmed from his reflections on "himself."
At its root, he divided "gods" into three types.
The first type had not transcended life.
They remained within the realm of living things.
At most, they were simply more powerful lifeforms.
Like the gods depicted in the myths of his previous life.
They grew old, and they died.
But in the eyes of ordinary lifeforms.
They were still beings so powerful as to be incomprehensible, and were worshipped as gods.
The second type.
Had transcended life, but not matter.
Though powerful enough to rival the gods of myth, they remained bound by matter and its laws.
Perhaps they could indeed escape aging, but they could still die.
The last type.
Was one like him.
A being that transcended the river of time and the material world.
Though this world was unknown to him.
Mona was certain.
At the very least, a "god" like him did not exist in this ocean.
After all, if one did.
With such immense power and such proximity, he would certainly have sensed it.
However.
Whether the first two types had ever left traces in this ocean.
That remained unknown.
But now, civilization had developed some ability and desire to explore, and the Abigail Flower had begun to grow.
It was time for civilization to go out and see the world.
Before you continue