NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3 - First Hunt
And thanks to that, I was able to find suitable prey not long after.
A monster that looks just like a large dog despite having a pair of curved horns growing on its head and protruding fangs outside its mouth. It’s a grade 9 Beast Hound.
This giant dog, moving in a way that suggests it’s not long since it became independent from its mother, was moving carelessly while looking around.
Judging by the fact that I couldn’t sense anything when I swept the surroundings with psychic power as a test, it’s probably a wanderer that couldn’t join a pack.
In other words, it’s optimized as the first prey to hunt.
‘Ready…’
Through the mental network connecting them, I give orders to the other three spiders. As the other three raised their Hunter Claws attached to their arms, my order fell.
‘—Now!’
[Psychokinesis (D) is activated.]
Woong!
Through the Hive Spider I was directly controlling, I used psychokinesis, and then the psychic energy emitted from the spider’s body converted into physical form and pressed down on the Beast Hound.
“Gae… gaeaeae…”
Under the strong pressure applied to its entire body, the Beast Hound made a whining sound that could have been a groan and slumped to the ground.
Slash!
Crunch!
“—!!!!”
And the three Hive Spiders pounced on the Beast Hound that had fallen to the ground and been incapacitated, showing skillful hand movements as if by instinct, instantly killing the beast-type monster one class above them.
[Level has increased.]
The moment its breath was cut off, a refreshing status message voice echoed in my ears. Due to the characteristics of the Hive Mind, level-ups apply equally to all, so it was as if everyone had leveled up.
‘The level goes up well since it’s level 1.’
The level went up by one stage just by killing one. Purely delighted at this fact, I ordered the transport of the corpse for now.
Shing—crunch.
Chomp chomp… gulp.
Then, the Hive Spiders approached the monster’s corpse, used their blades to cut the monster into pieces, and began to eagerly devour its flesh and body.
To the naked eye, it might look like simple predation, but in reality, this act is using the ability of the Predator (E) trait to decompose the corpse for easier transport.
Clearly, the mass of the Beast Hound is more than what can fit in the Hive Spider’s stomach, but by completely decomposing the corpse into nutrients and genes with the power of the skill, they could eat it all and even have space left in their stomachs.
And after storing the nutrients and genes like that, the Hive Spiders began to return to the cave, retracing their path.
Gae, gaeaeae—
Pshh!
[Level has increased.]
‘Good, one more!’
On the way back, we even had the unexpected gain of encountering one more Beast Hound.
※ ※ ※
Immediately after the Hive Spiders returned with the Beast Hound’s genes and nutrients for two bodies, they threw themselves into the gene pool without a moment’s hesitation.
Splash!
The Hive Spiders that jumped in were slowly decomposed in the meat porridge of the gene pool and converted back into nutrients and energy, and the genes stored in the absorbed monsters’ stomachs were stored.
[Trait ‘Blade-proof Fur (D)’ has been acquired.]
[Trait ‘Olfactory Detection (E)’ has been acquired.]
[Trait ‘Drive Hunting (E)’ has been acquired.]
[Skill ‘Pursuit (E)’ has been acquired.]
‘Everyone, good job’
And at the same time, I felt what was presumed to be the souls of the produced monsters being absorbed into the Hive Mind.
Then, making these souls share their memories with each other, and then creating monsters containing these souls again was the basic cycle of this Hive Mind monster.
At first glance, it might seem inefficient because energy loss occurs in the process of decomposing the monsters that were created and creating them again, but it’s actually a necessary process.
To begin with, the lifespan of monsters produced by the Hive Mind is not very long. Since the role of continuing the lineage is taken by the main body of the Hive Mind, it’s much more efficient to increase short-term combat power to protect the main body rather than extending lifespan.
And in this process, monsters that have gained even more experience are produced again with fully restored, sometimes even strengthened bodies, so it’s a kind of cycle for continuous increase in combat power… according to what was written on Treewiki.
Anyway, while organizing the absorbed genes, I sorted out the traits and skills I had acquired.
For traits, I got Blade-proof Fur (D) specialized in blocking blades, Olfactory Detection (E) / Drive Hunting (E) which are common traits of beast-type monsters, and the skill Pursuit (E) which informs the location of an enemy that has started to be chased.
Unless I make a pursuit-specialized monster later, most of them were useless right now.
Therefore, without modifying the monsters separately, I checked the quantity and types of monsters I could currently produce based on the remaining nutrients—energy amount.
Adding up the absorbed Hive Spiders, the nutrients in their stomachs, and the amount continuously absorbed through the earth’s veins, the remaining amount was enough for about 8 grade 9 monsters.
Roughly calculated, I could produce about 3 to 5 grade 8 monsters, or 1 to 2 grade 7 monsters.
Oh, for reference, this grade is broadly categorized into five grades considering the monster’s strength and other abilities, and in detail, it’s divided into a total of 11 grades, with smaller numbers indicating stronger monsters.
The five grades are not commonly used grades. They are divided into Lowest, Low, Medium, High, and Highest, but due to criticism that the differences within the same grade were too large, they were classified into 11 grades… according to the setting.
Anyway. The 11 grades are a further division of the previous five grades’ High, Medium, and Low-grade monsters into three each, with the Lowest grade being 10, Low grade being 9 to 7, Medium grade being 6 to 4, High grade being 3 to 1, and the Highest grade monsters are called grade 0 or beyond grade.
And the approximate combat power of each grade monster is as follows.
First, in the case of Lowest grade monsters classified as grade 10, they are commonly referred to as being at a level that ordinary people can beat down with clubs. As such, most grade 10 monsters are non-combat type monsters or embryos of existing monsters.
On the other hand, in the case of Low-grade monsters from grade 7 to 9, they are strong enough that usually well-trained heavily armed infantry are needed to defeat them.
By the way, this world has oddly stepped one foot into SF and uses weapons reverse-engineered from monster bio-weapons, so even regular infantry in the regular army basically wear power suits and carry rifles using special bullets.
So, this means that Low-grade monsters are at a level that requires this much to handle.
In the case of Medium-grade monsters corresponding to grades 4-6, depending on the species, they are often compared to armored vehicles or fighter jets.
Considering that the US standard tank with a plasma-firing main gun is theoretically evaluated to be able to exterminate large grade 5 monsters, but in practice often loses, you can understand their strength.
And in the case of the much-anticipated High-grade monsters of grades 1-3, they show a level of combat power that can be treated as strategic weapons or such without much issue.
There are ultra-large species that are no different from land battleships surrounded by energy shields, Hive Queens that produce monsters in the millions, and psychic-specialized monsters that are believed to be able to move small mountains with psychokinesis.
These monsters that make you wonder how to defeat them are High-grade monsters—and at the same time, the Highest grade monsters beyond grade surpass this level.
Lobriter, the final boss of the largest scale event in the 5th installment, with strong and wide mental control abilities enough to dominate all boss-level monsters in East Asia.
The ‘Aircraft Carrier’ S6 (Essex), a variant of the huge Hive Mind-type monster that mass-produced tens of thousands of grade 4 flying-type monsters and was the final boss of the 5th installment, and the Living Island, a giant turtle-shaped island monster the size of Ulleungdo.
These are monsters that are mentioned as having a different scale altogether, appearing mainly as background settings or terrain itself rather than actual bosses.
‘…I feel rather shabby.’
And I… well. I’m a young Hive Mind that can be killed even by a single psychic user above grade 6.
So to survive on this hell of a planet, power is needed.
Yes, we need the kind of power that can force humanity to choose coexistence instead of extermination in order to survive.