I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

Despite feeling terrible pain from the barrier field tearing through the armor plate and infiltrating his body, eroding his flesh, Sejun somehow resisted and quickly fired his secondary weapon—a single-shot pistol loaded with monster-piercing rounds.

Taang!

Kieeek!!!

Unfortunately, however, the monster-piercing round was designed to penetrate thick armor plates, not barrier fields.

Although it wasn’t without damage, the monster could block the penetration with its barrier field, so it had no problem moving and was about to charge at him again—when suddenly it pulled back.

“What’s with this one!”

It’s a characteristic of monsters, proven after decades of research, that while they might attempt ambushes, they never flee due to their genetic hostility towards humans.

Yet here was a case that completely negated those research results. Monsters that just quietly scout, monsters that hide silently and fire without revealing themselves, and even medium-grade monsters that retreat when their ambush fails.

‘This, this is dangerous!’

There was fear due to the life-threatening situation, but more than that, they were imagining the worst future as hunters.ity has been struggling so hard even against Hive Minds with no strategy other than brute force until now, so what kind of results would they produce if they faced these monsters showing new behavior patterns?

“Miss!”

“I know, let’s go back and report no matter what!”

At this moment, the opinions of these two hunters aligned. They must somehow escape from these and report the appearance of this mutant Hive Mind to the association or wherever.

If it’s not rooted out in advance, this Hive Mind will expand its forces in Gangwon-do and completely devastate South Korea.

Monsters with patience and flexibility—and a Hive Mind at that—could give reality to implausible hypotheses.

“Show me the shortest route!”

“Understood!”

Therefore, they chose to flee.

After Sejun searched for a route with the chip connected to his brain and transmitted it to Sujin’s holographic information display, they started fleeing at full speed.

Sujin intensively circulated psychic energy in her legs, while Sejun advanced quickly, using his mobility-assist jet pack in short bursts.

Their goal was just one: to alert anyone, anywhere, about the danger of these monsters.

※ ※ ※

“Good, keep pushing them that way!”

After hurriedly producing and releasing numerous surveillance monsters on the battlefield, I was moving monsters to herd the hunters to a prepared location to block their escape.

Normally, it would be impossible to guide intermediate hunters’ escape with low-grade monsters and lead them to a specific route, but I can do it sufficiently.

I gave Hive Infantry laser shooters and positioned them along the expected route, then had them provide covering fire when the enemy approached.

This behavior pattern, which was in the early game but disappeared due to balance issues after patching, was commonly called in the community “Zerglings fighting like Marines,” named after an old game.

Of course, firepower just using laser shooters is manageable for intermediate hunters. Unless hundreds focus fire on a single target for dozens of seconds, the lasers fired by a dozen or so scattered monsters can be easily broken through even by low-grade hunters.

So I pulled out a secret weapon that I couldn’t deploy against raptors due to their speed and the risk of friendly fire.

Fwoo—Boom!

Hive Infantry carrying Energy Blasters, a biological weapon I obtained by completing the reverse engineering of the Giant Armor’s energy cannon recently.

If the Shooter is like a rifle in monster biological weapons, the larger Blaster can be considered artillery. Of course, its projectile speed isn’t very fast, so small medium-grade monsters or hunters can see and dodge it, but if hit, they can’t survive unscathed.

[B-Blaster!]

[I know, Sejun!]

Unlike monsters whose basic thought process is cold, humans become intimidated as long as there’s even a slight possibility of it hitting them.

[…We’re being guided, aren’t we.]

[This isn’t the time to talk about that! For now, detour, detour!]

Therefore, these hunters were inevitably being guided due to the fear of being hit by the Energy Blaster, even after realizing they were being led.

[Wait—Miss, there’s a cliff ahead! It’s a dead end!]

[…What?! That’s… No, let’s move there for now! We can cross the cliff if we have to!]

Good, move there. Yes, there. Number 3, wait there, and Number 4, hide a bit deeper.

To the area where I had been preparing to set a ‘trap’.

[That cliff?]

[Yes!]

[Alright, let’s climb!]

The two hunters started running towards the clearing in the middle of a steep cliff blocking three sides in the middle of the dense forest. Right into—the center of the encirclement.

‘Fire!’

Bang! Boom boom! Boom boom boom boom boom!

Woooooong—!!!

Hundreds of Hive Infantry waiting on top of the cliff, equipped with biological weapons I produced by grinding half of the remaining monsters, started firing indiscriminately.

From a general military perspective, it might seem like a foolish action to be lured into a place perfect for being surrounded and annihilated while fleeing, but if you say that, the hunters would feel wronged.

After all, the monsters with long-range biological weapons they’ve faced so far would probably just charge forward like front-line infantry while firing their long-range biological weapons instead of such complex tactics.

Of course, how to deal with such monsters that take cover and fire like real soldiers was something completely unknown to them, unless they were state-affiliated hunters—and that resulted in the current state of those hunters.

[…Sejun, what’s your status?]

[Barrier depleted, power unit damaged… 49% of functions have stopped. And you, miss…?]

[I’m at my limit too. Even considering supplements, my remaining psychic energy is less than a quarter.]

While the firing had temporarily stopped to prevent overheating, they were analyzing their condition in hushed voices amidst the dust.

They barely survived without major injuries by deploying overlapping psychic shields and the barrier built into the powered suit, but in return, the hunters were greatly depleted.

The powered suit was in tatters, and the female hunter looked visibly exhausted at a glance. To these two who had belatedly taken cover behind a large rock, I decided to give a gift.

‘Detonate.’

[Psychic Explosion (D) has been activated.]

[Mi—]

Boom boom boom boom boom—!!!!!

It was a gift in the form of an explosion—detonating the psychic energy of dozens of Chief Brains hidden underground, blowing away the entire clearing area under the cliff.

‘Oh? They’re blocking this?’

However, surprisingly, the hunters survived the explosion through barriers and psychic shields formed by squeezing out all their remaining strength.

[…Sejun? Park Sejun?]

[Ah…]

Of course, only one was unharmed. Thanks to the male hunter in the powered suit throwing himself to protect the female hunter, the male hunter was in tatters while the female hunter was in a relatively less injured state and able to move.

[…!]

So I expected the female hunter to explode in anger—but unexpectedly, she had a resolute expression and was raising her greatsword, preparing for the coming battle.

Well, if that woman were the protagonist, this would be the timing for an awakening, saying she shouldn’t let the sacrifice be in vain… but reality is cruel.

‘Go bite her up properly and bring her.’

Kishaaaaaaaaaak!!!

The four waiting Hive Raptors attacked her, and the female hunter managed to take down one Hive Raptor before being subdued by the remaining three, bitten until she fainted.

My all-out hunter capture operation thus came to an end.

※ ※ ※

After subduing the hunters, I first completely restrained them and brought them to the main base. Then I put them into a hastily made analyzer, conducted various detailed analyses, and extracted their memories. As a result, I learned one surprising fact.

‘That man kept saying “miss, miss,” and she really was a high-ranking person!’

It turned out that these two were hunters belonging to a guild directly under a large corporation that often appears as clients in the game, and they were the chairman’s late-born youngest daughter and her bodyguard.

‘What should I do… What should I do…’

If these two don’t return, the chairman who finds out his beloved youngest daughter is missing will undoubtedly send an investigation team, and then it’s over.

Over a hundred intermediate hunters and several high-grade hunters will swarm in, comb through the forest, find me, and that’s the end of me.

I, who barely managed to fend off two intermediate hunters, have no way to win against such an investigation team.

So I fell into deep contemplation. As I pondered how to prevent such a situation, there were prerequisites for a way to prevent it.

One is that these two hunters return unharmed, and the other prerequisite is that the hunters should not have any memory of this place…

‘Ah, that’s right!’

At that moment, I came up with a very good idea. It was Nina 7. Based on the knowledge of human bodies and monsters accumulated while creating that disguise monster, I can manipulate the bodies of those two hunters as well.

In other words, human modification. While I’m not without hesitation, there’s nothing more important than survival, so I should be able to handle that much.

…Actually, I did want to try human modification once.