I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

Having chosen human modification as the silencing method, I now had to decide what kind of human modification to perform.

The modified appearance or traits shouldn’t be easily noticeable externally, and it must necessarily involve manipulating the head to be able to distort memories.

After contemplating a method of human modification that satisfies these conditions, I decided to create a monster with a very small brainwashing ability and implant it in the brain.

Normally, this would be absolutely impossible for various reasons due to the strangely hostile nature of monsters towards humans, but that’s only if I were an ordinary Hive Mind and didn’t have a specimen.

It’s based on the human body composition method obtained from analyzing the corpse found inside the 7-meter class Giant Armor and the process of creating the Nina series, and the method of reproducing this with monster genes.

In addition, the result of applying the operation method of various implants made using the monster body implanted in the male reinforced soldier’s body, especially the thought acceleration implant located near the spinal cord and brain, is what I’m lifting with psychic power.

While it depends on the implanted human for all life activities to be considered a separate monster individual, it simultaneously has its own consciousness and behavior pattern.

The exact name of this life form, which is close to a monster’s internal organs or parasite, is Mind Stealer.

It was a parasitic monster of unclassified grade that I can confidently say has never been created before.

This monster, which parasitizes by completely replacing the spinal cord, medulla oblongata, and part of the brain near the medulla oblongata, appears as human brain tissue during normal times and functions as part of the brain.

But at the same time, the Mind Stealer influences the brain and gradually takes control of that mind.

Although there are clear limitations, so it would be limited to inducing behavior or manipulating memories for intermediate or higher psychic users, that memory manipulation is precisely my purpose, so it doesn’t particularly matter.

And even if this monster is discovered, there’s no problem. It has a self-destruct function built-in, and since it completely replaces the brain during the implantation process, separating it would kill the parasitized human.

…Even I thought it was a monster that seemed like only a truly malicious person or villain’s prototype would use.

※ ※ ※

A little while later. I scanned the two hunters’ bodies and memory data, and in the process, implanted the Mind Stealer.

And while at it, I completely analyzed and reverse-engineered their equipment, and only after that did I manipulate their memories appropriately and send them back outside, considering my energy’s revenge completely finished.

Thus, finally, all external factors that could interfere with me were removed.

Hunters, external invasions. Confident that these wouldn’t occur at all for the time being, I now unleashed the abilities of a grade 4 Hive Mind without reservation.

I made the tentacles that suck energy from the ground thicker and dig deeper, and worried about enemies entering through the cliff-side passage like last time, I blocked the hole with a flesh wall disguised as rocks.

And while this internal maintenance was repeated, I dispatched Hive Raptors and monsters externally, and began to restore the legion by continuously absorbing the genes and nutrients they brought back.

Compared to a normal grade 7 Hive Mind being able to control about 10,000 monsters, at around grade 4, my leadership expanded to the point where I could sufficiently control monsters in the millions.

Well, to create as many monsters as those numbers would require more than just moving bit by bit like now, so I continued expansion more actively.

With the intention of creating passages connected to this entire forest, I mass-produced mole-type monsters to expand passages, and placed miniature versions of my main body and production facilities here and there to be able to produce at least low-grade monsters, if not medium-grade ones.

Especially these miniatures—avatars—were Hive Minds in the form of my appearance from when I was grade 7, closer to biological facilities like gene pools or digestive glands than monsters.

And for these avatars of mine to produce monsters, they need energy.

At first, I thought about directly supplying nutrients to provide energy, but worried about the risk and energy loss during transit, I devised a new method.

That is, to create and use fake plants using monster genes.

Make monsters disguised as plants take the place of existing plants on the ground, and supply energy produced through photosynthesis to nearby avatars.

And instead, I made it so that the energy coming from the roots could be monopolized by my main body.

Since the energy consumed by the main body is beyond imagination, I had to prepare in advance so that I could survive even if additional nutrient supply from outside stopped.

Anyway, after setting up all the infrastructure needed for expansion. My monsters multiplied their numbers like crazy, and the main base also expanded rapidly.

Especially, the expansion speed of the main base was very fast.

Unlike before when it barely connected the eastern part of the forest, now virtually more than half of the underground of the forest has been infiltrated as my main base.

Medium-grade monsters modified for excavation, which were no different from biological heavy equipment, played a decisive role in this expansion, with the speed of digging becoming dimensionally different from before.

Soil is nothing, and even rocks shatter when touched like in Min■craft. In addition, we can now penetrate hard bedrock that we had to circumvent until now without problems.

And being able to penetrate bedrock means we can dig deeper underground to mine minerals.

One might ask what monsters, mostly composed of living organism constituents like bones, proteins, and fats, would use minerals for, but in fact, there are countless uses if we have them.

Long-range biological weapons like shooters that necessarily require metal in their operating structure, metal armor often described as metal scales or metal exoskeletons, and bio cores whose efficiency increases when using various rare metals.

This means we can extract pure substances from ore, synthesize them with monster biological tissues, create various alloys, and use them in all sorts of places.

Oh, of course, it’s not that we can’t do anything without metals. Although Hive Minds consume a lot of energy, they can synthesize almost all substances at the atomic level.

But still, mining minerals is much more efficient. The energy required to synthesize substances is incredibly burdensome, so if it can be replaced, it must be replaced.

And to this is added the unique characteristics of Hive Factory, Excess Absorption (B) and Inorganic Matter Digestion (B).

Thanks to Excess Absorption (B), we can extract energy from the ground at a dimensionally different level from before, and now we can digest anything as long as it has mass and turn it into energy.

As a result, the amount of usable energy increases, and this energy is used again for expanding the main base, creating a virtuous cycle.

It can only be said that snowballing has succeeded, and indeed it has.

Just under 1 million low-grade monsters, medium-grade monsters that recently exceeded 6,000, and the continuously expanding scale of the main base.

Considering that the normal troop ratio for a Hive Mind is 1 medium-grade monster per 1000 low-grade monsters, it could be said that from this point on, we’ve developed to a level where we could fight against human armies if we went on the offensive.

But paradoxically because of this, my Hive Mind has now reached a domain where it can’t just rely on numbers alone.

Therefore, I want to try retrieving the seeds I planted a few weeks ago.

[…My head has been hurting lately. Is it because of that bat monster from back then?]

[Should I prepare an examination?]

[For this level? No, it’s not that bad.]

It was the seed named the hunter duo that had been bringing me all sorts of useful information until now.

※ ※ ※

The two hunters whose memories were manipulated returned to human territory a few weeks ago, and following my subtle guidance, they actively used their positions to send all kinds of information.

Blueprints for various weapons, concept books on various weapon theories. And even data that humans have obtained from fighting monsters while coexisting with them for hundreds of years.

As there were technologies conveniently made ready to use, I analyzed them with satisfaction using transcendent brains and collective intelligence, and achieved a high level of development by applying them intact to my monsters.

Especially crucial to this development was the fact that this female hunter was the beloved youngest daughter of the chairman of a company whose main focus is developing weapons using monster materials.

Even if she barged into the research lab and read all the blueprints for weapons under development or current main products, it could be resolved with just one act of aegyo to her father.

Thanks to this, I had virtually swallowed the essence of South Korean monster engineering. In other words, I absorbed all the various technologies that South Korea’s top defense company had developed with tens of trillions of won.

And while information related to such technology is good, I was also able to obtain information about history, which was most desperately needed for me now.

The first thing I investigated was which information from the series and main story, released in various forms such as comics, animations, and side stories, was reflected in this world.

Right away, the 5th installment is a work that slightly remastered the 1st installment to fit current trends and added some well-received settings or elements from the 4th installment to increase volume, while the 2nd and 3rd installments are prequels to the 1st installment’s timeline.

This is just for the main story, but if you go into side series or media mix, the settings become so vast that even I couldn’t memorize it all.

So as a result of my investigation using the two hunters, fortunately, there weren’t any major deviations from what I knew.

It had the newly established series timeline of 2-3-5 installments, with various side stories or animation series appropriately included between them.

Well, although some settings from the 2nd and 3rd installments were changed based on the 5th installment, in the end, it’s following exactly the timeline I knew overall.

And after finding out about the past like this, what I discovered was the facts about what happened from after the 5th installment until now.

From the investigation results, I found out how many years ago it was from the time of the 5th installment, what major events occurred in between, and most importantly—information about how the power dynamics had changed.