Sung-Woon, AKA “Nebula,” is the #1-ranked player of Lost World, a fantasy Civilization-style video game. After obtaining all of the achievements in the game, he receives an invitation to try out the “real” game. Intrigued, he accepts and finds himself transported with several dozen other players into the actual universe of Lost World—as gods. The gods are set against each other in a battle royal of sorts; there can only be one winner, and the losers are condemned to a vague but ominous “ending fit for a god.” Each must pick one of the stone-age peoples currently living in the world and become their patron deity, guiding them as a people and deciding how their civilization will evolve.
And so Nebula sets out to find his, ahem, chosen people. After briefly considering a group of frogmen, he settles on a tribe of lizardmen who have been exiled from their homeland and are wandering through the desert in dire straits. The mechanics of Lost World prevent him from intervening much at first: He has a limited number of “faith points” to allocate to his actions, and must acquire and inspire believers in order to accumulate more faith and have a greater impact in the world. So the lizardmen, being sorely in need, are easy to impress with small miracles; and before long, they have begun worshiping the “Unknown God of Beetles” (as they call Nebula), with one lizardman in particular, Lakrak, taking the lead as high priest.
From there, for the first sixty-seven chapters or so (yeah, yeah, get your immature number giggles out), the story mostly follows Lakrak as, under Nebula’s guidance, he leads his people to a land where they can settle down, engages other peoples both friendly and hostile, and eventually establishes a kingdom and culture.
I’ll be honest: I initially skipped over Nebula’s Civilization in my Webtoon recommendations because the “reincarnated into a video game world” premise seemed so cliché, even for me as an inveterate isekai fan. But every so often, a story appears that sets itself absolutely apart from the crowd, a must-read—and Nebula’s Civilization is one of these. The basic trope has been done countless times, and yet NC manages to do something truly new—and even truly inspiring. (I actually found myself tearing up at least once.) For one thing, the world-building is phenomenal. And for another, as the title indicates, we are following Nebula’s civilization, not so much Nebula himself. While he does interact with the world, making and executing plans, and negotiates with other gods, the focus after the initial handful of chapters tends to be on the people he guides.
If you’re thinking there might be some parallels with a little thing you might have heard of—you know, THE BIBLE—well, you’re right! Whether the similarities are intentional or not, the Lost World game mechanics require Nebula to start small and slowly reveal himself to his people over time. Much of the narrative explores his followers trying to interpret his will and then figuring out how best to follow it; sometimes, this even means going against his apparent wishes when they think they’ve found a better way to accomplish his goals. When this happens, Nebula often revises his plans to account for their personalities and actions—much like how God, in his grace, incorporates our free will into his design for our lives and the world. Questions of fate, free will, and evil are raised and explored in the story, and often as not come close to what a typical Christian might profess. I often had the feeling that I was reading a fantasy retelling of the Old Testament, or at least the Pentateuch (i.e., the “Books of Moses” as they’re sometimes called; there’s a reason I think of the first part of NC as the “Moses Arc”), with maybe a touch of Joshua and I & II Samuel.
It’s ironic, in a sense, that Lost World is marketed in the story as being different from the real world because faith and prayer have real effects—as a consequence, the story ends up foregrounding theological and religious themes in a largely thoughtful and respectful way.
Anyway, I could talk all day about this story—unless you asked me to name something negative about it. I honestly can’t think of a single flaw. Granted, there are many chapters left for me to read, but this far in, I think I’ve got a pretty good feel for it. Nebula’s Civilization is simply one of the most unique and highest-quality manhwa I’ve ever read—don’t miss it.
Nebula’s Civilization is available to read for free on Webtoon.com.
