There was a problem.
The MC noticed it the same way he noticed most problems—by accidentally tripping over it while checking something else.
He was skimming through system tabs, half-distracted, half-bored, when a thought occurred to him that made him pause.
"…Wait."
He opened a new pane.
Not stats.Not skills.Not environments.
Something deeper.
Something labeled plainly enough that he'd ignored it before.
ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS AUTHORIZED USERS: 1
He stared at it.
"…That's not right."
He refreshed it.
Same result.
He expanded the permissions list, expecting—hoping—to see something. Another name. A supervisor. A higher clearance level.
Nothing.
Just him.
The silence that followed wasn't dramatic.
It was worse.
It was the slow realization that no one was coming to check his work.
"No senior admin," he muttered. "No QA team. No 'this violates cosmic regulation' warning."
He leaned back mentally, rubbing his face.
"I am wildly underqualified for this."
He wasn't a designer.He wasn't a god.He wasn't even particularly good at planning.
He was just… here.
And since nothing else was happening, he kept going.
That's when he noticed another problem.
One he couldn't ignore.
The world had mana.
It had classes.
It had demons.
But outside of Hell?
Nothing strange lived there.
No monsters.
No magical wildlife.
No things that adventurers were supposed to adventure against.
"…That's bad," he said. "That's really bad."
A fantasy world without creatures was just a weird agricultural simulation.
He navigated deeper.
Past the tabs he'd already touched.
Past the comfortable stuff.
And found it.
CREATURE CREATION STATUS: CUSTOM (UNINITIALIZED)
"Oh," he said quietly.
"…Oh no."
The section wasn't empty.
It was too open.
No presets.
No templates.
No guardrails.
Just rules.
Sliders.
Environmental hooks.
Evolutionary toggles.
This wasn't a list of creatures.
It was a framework for life.
"I don't know how to do this," he said.
The system didn't respond.
So he sighed and did what he'd been doing since he woke up here.
He winged it.
The First Additions (Because They Always Come First)
He started small.
Safe.
Familiar.
Slimes.
Low intelligence
Mana-reactive bodies
Weak individually
Useful for testing combat, magic, and item drops
"These are basically mandatory," he reasoned.
Goblins.
Humanoid
Social
Low-level threat
Reproduce quickly
Adapt fast
Every fantasy world had goblins.
If nothing else, they'd serve as an early warning system for balance issues.
The Big Ones (Because Restraint Is Hard)
Then his eyes drifted to the size sliders.
"…Okay, but dragons."
He didn't overthink it.
Dragons.
Apex predators
High intelligence
Elemental affinities
Slow reproduction
Territorial
They didn't need to be common.
They needed to exist.
The world would feel wrong without them.
The Oceans (Which He'd Been Avoiding)
He scrolled to marine ecosystems and winced.
"Oceans are complicated."
So naturally, he made them worse.
Krakens.Deep-sea titans. Rare. Territorial.
Leviathans.Ancient, migratory, mostly passive unless disturbed.
Whales.Normal whales.
Then—
"…Sky whales?"
He paused.
Then shrugged.
Sky Whales.
Massive
Mana-buoyant
Live in upper and lower atmosphere
Filter magical particles
Peaceful unless provoked
"That's fine," he decided. "That's very fine."
Then he added something dangerous.
Magical Piranhas.
Small
Extremely aggressive
Mana-enhanced digestion
Capable of stripping a whale to bone
They hunted in packs—
—but he made sure they competed.
No coordination.No cooperation.
Just raw, destructive chaos.
"Because that feels right," he muttered.
Plants, Spirits, and Things That Should Probably Exist
He added:
Magical herbs
Carnivorous plants
Sentient trees
Golems formed from natural materials
Then spirits.
Because he'd already added mana.
Nature Spirits.Water Spirits.Wind Spirits.Fire Spirits.
Non-physical.Reactive.Bound to environments.
Not gods.
Not yet.
People of the Sea and Stone
The oceans still felt empty.
So—
Merfolk.
Humanoid
Amphibious
Limited siren abilities
Social, not evil
Then coral.
But magical.
Living reefs that grew, reacted, and occasionally defended themselves.
When He Ran Out of Original Ideas
He stared at the creature list.
It was… a lot.
And his brain was tired.
"…Okay," he said. "I'm out."
Then his gaze drifted.
To one last unused partition.
A place he knew what to do with.
"Skull Island."
He didn't even hesitate.
Skull Island.
Isolated
Hyper-hostile
Evolution accelerated
Ecosystem designed around gigantism
He populated it with:
King Kong
Everything that lived on Skull Island in canon
Much bigger
Much angrier
And then—
"Well, if I'm doing this…"
Godzilla (Species).MUTO (Species).King Ghidorah (Species).
Not individuals.
Species.
Ancient. Rare. Catastrophic.
He justified it quickly:
"They balance themselves out."
He didn't test that.
Looking at the Whole Mess
When he was done, he leaned back and stared at the list.
Slimes to kaiju.
Goblins to sky whales.
Spirits. Dragons. Titans.
It was absurd.
It was unbalanced.
It was absolutely not reviewed by anyone with sense.
"…This is a good start," he said.
Not because it was perfect.
But because it existed.
He finalized the section.
The system accepted it without comment.
Somewhere, oceans changed.
Forests deepened.
Islands grew teeth.
The world inhaled—
—and became dangerous.
The MC closed the menu and sat there in the quiet.
Alone.
Underqualified.
Technically responsible for everything.
"…I really hope future me knows what he's doing," he muttered.
The system did not respond.
And life, in all its monstrous variety, began.