I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

The Switcheroo plan. There are three main conditions to become a target of this plan I’m currently carrying out.

First, they must be able to exert strong influence on the world in some way. Since the purpose of the plan is to exert strong influence, it’s meaningless to do something to an ordinary person A.

Second, they must have completely severed family relationships, or originally have no parents, to minimize the possibility of suspicion. Additionally, if possible, it’s even better if they have no close friends in their relationships.

And the final condition is that they must have no spouse, girlfriend, or children, regardless of blood relations, so that there’s no problem even if they’re absent for a long time.

As the conditions themselves are so strict, there aren’t many suitable candidates, and execution is difficult, but nonetheless, I considered this plan absolutely necessary.

We can carry out all kinds of covert operations to interfere, or use it for public opinion manipulation. Also, if we switch out military personnel or high-ranking officials, it’s possible to know in advance about various military operations that could be dangerous to me.

Even theoretically, if we could switch out the President or one of the senior members of the ruling or opposition parties, we could gain influence over the country of South Korea.
…Although the difficulty would be extremely high.

Anyway, this highly effective Switcheroo plan is divided into two stages, the first of which is the biological tissue implantation I did to the youngest daughter of Seonggwang Group and the monster department reporter.

This monster—biological tissue—that replaces part of the lower brain and spinal cord, as mentioned before, is only considered part of the brain even when examined unless directly opened, and it functions as such.

Also, if I wish, I can peek at the vision and thoughts of a person with biological tissue implanted in their brain at any time, and exert indirect influence on their behavior to make them think or be guided in a certain direction.

However, there’s a clear limit to this indirect influence, as it’s merely guidance, so if you try to guide the person to do something completely opposite to their will, it won’t be effective.

You can guide a human whose memory has been manipulated to believe they’ve received a favor to repay that favor in a certain direction, but you can’t make the memory-manipulated human suddenly donate all their property saying they want to repay the favor.

Therefore, to solve this problem, there exists the second stage of the Switcheroo plan, “Human Switcheroo.” Switcheroo, literally a plan to switch out the target person from a human to a human-mimicking monster controlled by me, called Nina 79.

As we need to separately create monsters made to replace that person from the genetic level with intent, it takes time, and therefore complex preparations such as taking long-term leave in advance are necessary.

For this reason, it’s very difficult to execute without implanting biological tissue in the brain in advance, but in return for this difficulty, various advantages are given.

There’s now a human who follows any order as they’ve been completely replaced, even if a situation arises where they die, if they die in human state, the corpse is also a human corpse, and if discovered, the original of the switched human can be taken hostage.

In addition, the switched human is physically connected to the Hive Mind and made to move by inhabiting Nina 79 during normal times. Even if they try to act impulsively, there’s no problem as we can just cut the connection if necessary.

Besides these, they should be able to do almost everything that can be thought of in the head, so anyway, for me, the more I switch, the more beneficial it was.

Of course, as it’s only been a week since we started, the actual number of people switched out is only 6 in total.

※ ※ ※

Even while the reporter’s brain tissue switcheroo was in progress, I was carrying out various tasks using divided thoughts.

I’m gaining combat experience through mock battles with the grade 1 monster dragon—named Theseus—and continuously sending out spider monsters capable of self-destruction towards Gangwon-do to prevent any possible suspicion.

On the other hand, I’m actively utilizing the increased energy generation ability that came with becoming a grade 1 Hive Queen to continuously produce or design monsters, and I’ve built an air defense network somewhere on the ground and constructed a shield to block satellite imaging to make my location misunderstood.

In addition to preparing to create new high-grade monsters and carrying out several other tasks, among these, what I’m doing now using my main personality? is reconnaissance.

And for this purpose, I produced a monster solely for reconnaissance.

Hive Flight
Grade :: 6
Level :: 82
Abilities
Strength :: 45
Agility :: 255
Vitality :: 100
Intelligence :: 60
Resistance :: 45
Energy :: 95
Leadership :: 0
Traits
Monster Gene (E), Predator (C), Hive Mind (C), Subjugation (EX), Bio Core (C), Aerial Combat Expert (C), Lightweight Armor (D), Stealth-type Psychic User (D), High-speed Maneuver (D), Constant Levitation (D)
Skills
Acrobatic Flight (C), Psychic Stealth (C), Psychic Acceleration (C), Composite Detection (D)
Biological Weapons
Laser Shooter (C)

Thanks to adopting the appearance of a military drone, this monster has the form of a typical unmanned reconnaissance aircraft except for its mouth, with a wingspan of 3 meters combined and a body length of 2 meters.

All abilities, skills, and genes are thoroughly composed to enable fast reconnaissance without being detected, so its combat power is ambiguous for a grade 6 medium-grade monster.

Its attack means are limited to the laser shooter fired from its head and direct ramming, and with no legs or claws, it would be mercilessly torn apart by other aerial monsters in close combat.

Still, in exchange, this monster has advantages that other flying monsters don’t have.

It can easily reach heights even above the clouds where ordinary monsters can’t reach, and while supersonic speed might be too much, it can comfortably reach subsonic speeds.

In addition, it can fly all day without issue and can precisely detect the ground even from above the clouds. I was moving this monster, which can be seen as created solely for aerial reconnaissance, to scout the surroundings.

After flying along the Baekdudaegan and confirming famous named entities like the Mountain Lord and its group or the Fire Dragon of Mount Baekdu, this time I came back down towards Hwanghae Province to check the locations of various monsters.

Right now, in the great forest (jungle) of Hwanghae Province, lizard people—Lizardmen—are living, with a total population just under 10,000, but the problem is that all these Lizardmen form a single group.

Thanks to having communal child-rearing and a hierarchical social structure, they live in a huge city in the middle of the jungle, and even have primitive educational facilities and a crude market.

Especially in those educational facilities, they teach newly hatched Lizardmen how to tame reptilian monsters and combat methods, as well as how to make primitive weapons from monster by-products.

They even built an Aztec pyramid-like structure in the center of the city, and perform religious ceremonies offering sacrifices on the altar at the top of that building.

And in contrast to these Lizardmen, the plains next to the great forest are teeming with Orcs with green skin, an average height of 3 meters, large tusks, and brawny bodies.

They live in villages of a few hundred each, with large villages having over 1,000 Orcs, and there are about several hundred such villages, so the total population probably exceeds 100,000.

Barbaric, violent, and so low-grade that it would be an insult to primitive humans to treat them as such, but they were fighting with the Lizardmen due to their excellent physique, swarming numbers, and instinct to unite only when fighting others.

Especially as they have characteristics that contrast with each other and form complex social structures not seen in previous game series, it seems that one of the playable monster races might be these Lizardmen or Orcs.

Anyway, now that the confirmation of humanoid monsters in the northwest is complete, I sent the Hive Flight south to reach the airspace of the area I should monitor most closely.

And right after the Hive Flight arrived in the airspace of Pyongyang, a living hell where over 7 Hive Minds are engaged in a fierce competition with each other.

‘…Wow.’

I was at a loss for words at its miserable state and unconsciously uttered that exclamation.

Over the land where only ruins spread widely due to explosions, countless tentacles, just like in my base, stretched out and collided with tentacles that seemed to have different origins.

Fighting above are tens of thousands… no, hundreds of thousands of monsters. These monsters, all different in form, size, appearance, and grade, were fiercely fighting each other, biting, slashing, and shooting psychic attacks at each other.

When hundreds die on the front lines, thousands of monsters rush in from the rear to replenish. On the ground, underground, in the air, wherever it is within Pyongyang, these monsters eat and are eaten by each other.

It was truly a state that fits the phrase “war of all against all” more than any other sight.

‘…What a complete mess.’

While thinking that, I simultaneously understood why the government was hiding this state of Pyongyang from the citizens.

If it became known that such a scene where several medium-grade monsters die every second and thousands of low-grade monsters die was happening to their north, no one would be able to maintain their composure.

‘Whew, then let’s check the grade 1 monsters lastly…’

So I was thinking that and about to move the Hive Flight that was circling in the air again, but… suddenly I discovered something.

‘What is that… No way.’

And that was enough to make me, who has Imperturbability (A), momentarily terrified despite myself.