Compared to general powers, anything useful in obtaining the Holy Grail took precedence. With that decision made, Su Mo from the No Game No Life world shifted his gaze to the others. Su Mo from the Ultraman world had no particular interest in acquiring new powers. Neither did Su Mos from the DanMachi or Daily Life worlds. Only the one from the A Certain Magical Index world spoke up after thinking for a moment. "If you can, I'd appreciate it if you could analyze the structure of the Ex-Machina species."
As an esper, he was especially interested in their almost unfair level of computational power. They could not only analyze and replicate any magical attack they'd previously suffered but even generate entirely new spell formulas from scratch. As research assistants, they were practically perfect — useful in magic and psychic development alike. If he could decipher their structural design, he could perhaps create an artificial intelligence with similar computing abilities to assist his magical studies. That would exponentially boost the speed of his spell development. Still, he didn't expect much. After all, the only Ex-Machina unit realistically within reach was Schwi, and Su Mo wasn't the type to dissect an ally. He was just casually mentioning it — maybe luck would be on his side, and they could get more Ex-Machina somehow.
The No Game No Life Su Mo understood his intent and nodded. Ex-Machina wasn't an urgent priority — the real target remained the Dragonia. After a general rundown of their next plans, Su Mo from the DanMachi world suddenly remembered something.
"Right. Are you planning on granting humanity any power?" He looked at his counterpart seriously. "If we go by the original timeline, even with the rules forbidding plunder and slaughter, humans are still at a severe disadvantage in terms of strength."
"Even under Tet's protection, humanity was constantly on the verge of extinction."
"If you want to avoid that — if you want humans to have a future without relying on a savior — you can't let them remain so weak." Survival of the fittest is the law of all life. Even if the rules governing the world were rewritten, this fact couldn't be changed. The strong would inevitably crush the weak. Therefore, no matter how refined the rules were, no matter how strictly violence was prohibited—so long as humanity remained weak in terms of raw power, their plight and oppression would persist as an unsolvable dilemma. Even Tet, the One True God of the original story, couldn't change that.
In fact, it was precisely because Tet favored humanity that he instinctively believed that beings without any power or spirit affinity—that is, the weak—were the true embodiment of humanity. For that reason, it had never occurred to him to grant humanity any real strength. Instead, he thought that humans should overcome their final challenges relying solely on their wits and intellect. As a result, the situation became so dire that he had to enlist help from other worlds just to reverse the tide.
The Su Mo from the Fairy Tail world didn't believe the version of himself from this world would share Tet's rigid thinking. Weakness defines humanity? Only those with frail bodies and no magical abilities count as human? What kind of nonsense was that? Look at the mages of the Fairy Tail world, the demon lords of the Campione world, the magicians of the Index world—they were all human too, weren't they? And many of them possessed extraordinary powers. Some could even take on divine beings from the No Game No Life universe without batting an eye.
Having seen so many different versions of humanity across the multiverse—each possessing diverse powers and thriving civilizations—it would be outright foolish to cling to the notion that weakness alone defined humanity. Humanity was defined by its shared culture, its lineage, its collective civilization—not by how powerful or powerless one individual was. So, Su Mo from the Fairy Tail world didn't see any issue with empowering humanity. He didn't believe it was some betrayal of humanity's roots. Upon hearing this, the Su Mo from the No Game No Life world was stunned.
"You can do that?" he blinked. "That's actually an option?" Only now did it occur to him—there was nothing stopping him from giving humanity power. It wasn't that he was dumb. He had simply grown used to carrying the burden of survival all by himself. Even after acquiring divine power, his first instinct was still to tackle the entire game alone. Everything else could wait until the Holy Grail was secured. But he never considered that he could give others strength too. After reflecting for a moment, he nodded solemnly. "You're right. It's necessary."
Humanity was far too fragile in this era. A single shockwave from a fight could wipe out their last settlements. If he wasn't around to protect them, extinction would be all but guaranteed. And Su Mo couldn't always be on standby. If he wanted to defeat Artosh, if he wanted to claim the Holy Grail and end this never-ending war, he would have to head out—observe other races, understand their capabilities, and make his move. While he was gone, the human settlements would be dangerously exposed. And even if he had a few protective tricks up his sleeve, they weren't foolproof. In fact, they might even backfire.
If humanity remained weak, high-ranking races would simply ignore them as insignificant. But if they suddenly had new, unfamiliar defenses—that could attract attention. What if a curious Flugel took interest and casually launched a Heavenstrike to see what would happen? Or worse, called in reinforcements just for fun? No level of magic barrier could withstand that.
So, it was clear now—humanity needed a power that could protect itself. Otherwise, even if Su Mo won the Grail, the human race might already be extinct by the time he returned. That would be a failure as a leader.
"But what kind of power should I grant them?" he murmured, troubled. Thanks to his shared memories from across worlds, Su Mo had access to many power systems. The problem was finding one that suited this world. The magic system from Fairy Tail had a high ceiling and wasn't too hard to learn. But it required absorbing magical particles from the atmosphere. In the No Game No Life world, that meant relying on "spirits" generated by the world's unique Spirit Circuitry. And humans had no affinity with spirits. They simply weren't compatible, and Su Mo didn't have any power that could rewrite their spirit affinity. So that ruled out Fairy Tail magic entirely.
The magecraft system from the Fate world was more viable. It didn't rely on external mana but rather refined magical energy from one's own life force. But that system had its own fatal flaw—its combat effectiveness was too low. Sure, high-level mages were powerful, but the average mage was more researcher than warrior. Their actual fighting capabilities left much to be desired. The same applied to the superpower system from the Index world. Su Mo never expected everyone to reach Level 5. But considering that Academy City had over a million students and only produced seven Level 5s, the odds weren't in his favor.
His human settlement only had about three or four thousand people. With bad luck, they could all end up as Level 0s. Worse still, developing superpowers required vast technological infrastructure on par with Academy City. That alone made the whole endeavor impractical. After reviewing every option, Su Mo realized there was only one power system left that truly met all the criteria. One that could be broadly distributed, had high growth potential, and didn't rely on external resources. The divine blessing system from the DanMachi world. With it, people could grow stronger just by fighting and exploring.
And in a post-apocalyptic world like this one, survival was already a daily life-or-death adventure. The kind of "epic deeds" needed to level up in DanMachi were practically routine in this world. In such an environment, even the biggest hurdle for adventurers in Orario—meeting the conditions for growth—was barely a concern. As their leader, Su Mo had full confidence in his people. Except for the children, every adult in their settlement had what it took. There was no way they'd be stuck at the beginner level.
In fact, just by living, hunting, and surviving normally, most adults could probably hit Level 2, with the trained warriors starting at Level 3. That wasn't wishful thinking—it was a calculated conclusion. Because in this world, the weak didn't survive long enough to worry about leveling up. By now, all the weak had long perished. The ones who still survived were the elite among humanity. Even an adventurer at Level 2 already possessed notable strength—more than enough to deal with ordinary beasts. A bit stronger, and they could probably wrestle evenly with beastkin. With that level of power, the safety of human settlements was largely assured.
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