I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

Chapter 10 - Close Combat Infantry



Hearing this, you might wonder why the enemy queen ant didn’t mass-produce and distribute such weapons to the ants, but in fact, it’s not that she didn’t want to, but that she couldn’t.

The reason is very easy to understand. It’s because the production cost of this Laser Shooter (D) is astronomically expensive.

The cost to produce one Laser Shooter (D) biological weapon is roughly twice that of the Hive Flamer, which is already very expensive for a grade 7 monster.

Yet, even if you produce just one, its achievements on a battlefield where hundreds of monsters are fighting fall far short of a Hive Flamer’s.

If you’re determined to mass-produce this, there are two methods.

One is to install auxiliary facilities specifically for it, then mine minerals to reduce production costs and mass-produce.

The other method is to simply evolve into a grade 4 high-level Hive Mind and then start mass production. By that time, the energy supply would be incomparably greater than now, so just churning them out wouldn’t be much of a problem.

‘…Let’s give up for now.’

And my choice was the latter of these two methods. Rather than laying down facilities to mass-produce these and supplying vast amounts of energy to produce a few rifles, it seems more useful to just strengthen the ones we’re using now.

※ ※ ※

Right after giving up on mass-producing the Laser Shooter (D), I was considering what monsters to produce with the energy I’ve gathered so far, and came up with an idea.

That is, to try creating a monster that’s cheap and affordable for a grade 7, yet moderately strong and easy to mass-produce.

Now there are over 17 Hive Flamers deployed into the ant nest, but the problem is that no corpses remain to obtain nutrients due to the numerical limitation and the attack method of psychic flame.

Anyway, the role of the monster I’m going to create this time is clear.

A monster that’s moderately strong, moderately fast, can engage with the enemy while maintaining the front line and launch offensives – in short, a monster that plays the role of infantry.

And for this, after much consideration, I first determined and selected an appearance suitable for performing this role.

First, the base monster is, of course, the Hive Spider. With six antenna-like legs, it can move in most terrains, and using legs that can be used like arms allows for flexible combat.

Therefore, I didn’t change much in its appearance. At most, I increased its size a bit and changed it so that the body part could be raised quite high, though not to the point of having an upper body.

And immediately after, I carefully selected and chose 5 traits and 1 skill to equip this monster with.

Close Combat Expert (D) for close combat, Cooperative Combat (D) for organic cooperation in battle, Regeneration (D) for survivability, Lightweight Reinforced Exoskeleton (E), and Tenacity (D) are the five traits.

On the other hand, the skill is simply Heat Detection (E) for enemy detection. After all, as infantry, the purpose is to endure while rubbing shoulders with enemy soldiers on the front line, so there’s no need for trump cards.

Lastly, for biological weapons… surprisingly, I didn’t equip any!

No, to be precise, it’s not that I didn’t equip any, but it would be more correct to say that I changed the front legs that act as arms into a kind of biological part that can be replaced at any time.

If you need to carry something, a hand with claws; in a full-scale battle situation, a Hunter Claw; when facing a strong single entity, attach a shield or biological crossbow, and so on.

As the number of monsters increases and it becomes difficult to immediately disassemble and reconstruct upon return, this method is better than operating hundreds of the same monster with just different weapons.

Hive Infantry

Grade :: 7
Level :: 27
Abilities
Strength :: 20
Agility :: 20
Vitality :: 20
Intelligence :: 10
Resistance :: 10
Energy :: 10
Leadership :: 0
Traits
Monster Gene (E), Predator (E), Hive Mind (E), Subjugation (EX), Close Combat Expert (D), Cooperative Combat (D), Regeneration (D), Lightweight Reinforced Exoskeleton (E), Tenacity (D)
Skills
Heat Detection (E)
Biological Weapons
None

This is the completed monster, the Hive Infantry. As the name suggests, it will perform the role of infantry, and these will be the main characters in the counter-invasion operation that’s about to unfold.

Huh? What do I mean by counter-invasion?

Ah, of course, it means we’re going to invade their main base.

Conveniently, they’ve opened a passage connected to the main base, perfect for sending monsters as soon as production is finished.

※ ※ ※

The number of monsters to be deployed through the passage was decided to be exactly 300.

20 Hive Commanders to command each individual unit, 20 Hive Flamers paired with 20 Psychic Storages for passage clearing, 30 Chief Brains for rear support using psychic powers, and the rest filled with Hive Infantry.

These grade 7 monsters are essentially monsters produced after turning all the ones we could raise into nutrients, except for those fighting on the front lines.

Moreover, I put in particularly experienced veteran personalities, so for me who prefers stable methods over bold gambles, this was quite a big challenge.

‘Enter!’

As soon as the preparation of the troops was complete, I pushed the monsters through the passage.

The monsters walking briskly into the interior quickly entered through the passage, and just 10 minutes after entering, they encountered ants approaching from this side.

The ants included dozens of pupa-form ants that were psychic users, perhaps thinking to counter my overwhelming psychic abilities, but unfortunately, there was a natural enemy of psychics on our side.

‘Burn them!’

The moment they encountered the monsters, the ants reflexively deployed psychic shields, but psychic flames spewed from the mouths of the Hive Flamers standing at the very front began to pour down.

No matter how many layers of psychic shields are deployed, unless the output is overwhelming, shields are no different from straw in front of a flamethrower.

[Level has increased.]
[Level has increased.]

The psychic flames that burned through the shields turned the experience poin… ant monsters behind them into a handful of ashes.

And even after the flames stopped, in a situation where the sturdy vanguard ants in charge of the front line were annihilated, it was impossible for the soft rear ants to win against monsters specialized in close combat.

[Level has increased.]
[Level has increased.]
[Level has increased.]

Even though not much time had passed since the monsters charged in, the ants were completely annihilated, and only the level that had risen by 3 stages proved that ants had been there.

‘At this rate, they should be reaching their limit soon.’

And seeing the monsters passing over the swept-away ants like this, I was aware that the number of ants my monsters had taken down so far was by no means small.

Usually, 500 ants move as one unit in an invasion, and we’ve annihilated at least 10 such units.

In addition, counting roughly the small ants killed after entering the ant nest, it’s about 200, and the larvae killed easily exceed a thousand, plus they’ve plundered every cultivation room and food storage where they were growing food—monster mushrooms—that they’ve seen.

So, roughly speaking, the number of ants killed is at least 6,000 excluding larvae, and I’ve blocked most of the ways they can recover their numbers.

In other words, no matter how much the ants are monsters that push with numbers, there’s no way to maintain a corps of tens of thousands with that much force in this forest, so by now, the queen ant’s remaining forces are at most 1,000 or less, even being generous.

Given the characteristics of ant monsters where most individuals are grade 9 Giant Ants, at least half would be grade 9 even at the most conservative estimate, so there’s no way to win against a corps of 300 monsters that are all grade 7.

※ ※ ※

And in reality, most of the scenario unfolded as I had predicted.

The remaining forces were all guarding the spawning room where the queen ant stays, and their condition was truly pitiful and insignificant.

About 700 in total, with 500 being grade 9 Giant Ants. Even among the remaining 200, more than half, about 140, were support types, so the actual combat force was only about 60.

But here, there was one thing that deviated from my expectations. It was because those 60 were quite strong as a kind of queen’s royal guard.

The queen’s royal guard ants, all of the same grade 7 species, moved as if they were extensions of the queen’s body.

Moving in perfect unison according to pheromone instructions, they used their pheromones to enrage the 600 ants under their command and then charged, which was quite a deadly attack.

The enraged ants moved normally even with injuries that would normally lead to death, and like zombies, they had to have their heads crushed to die.

In the end, even they, that is, the royal guards, enraged themselves and charged in, but in return, we had also gathered all our forces.

Monsters that were mopping up remnants inside the ant nest joined, and additional monsters produced from collected corpses joined, so in the end, the ants fell victim to our brute force attack of pushing with numbers and became our nutrients along with the queen.

And the time it took to get here was—exactly 67 hours after the discovery of the ant nest.

An ant colony in the underground forest, consisting of ants rivaling nearly 10,000 in number, was completely subjugated by a Hive Mind that was exactly 6 days and 11 hours old.


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