I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

“…A mercenary group formed by Chinese refugees and remnants of the Russian Siberian garrison troops.”

“Yes. As a result of our confirmation, it seems that this assumption is generally correct.”

“Then what about this 7-meter class Giant Armor and more than 3 armored vehicles? Do you think remnants or refugees could use such things?”

“The Giant Armor was captured after being abandoned, and upon inspection, the armored vehicles are made by welding iron plates onto tractor bodies. We can’t say… it’s completely impossible.”

A week later, in the chairman’s office at Seonggwang Group headquarters.

The chairman was having a meeting with the head of Seonggwang Group’s intelligence team, who was reporting the results of the investigation into the mercenary group his daughter had mentioned.

“So, are there no strange parts or involvement in serious crimes?”

“No. Dealings with brokers or smugglers are common in the North, and we’ve confirmed there were no problematic criminals or criminal activities.”

“…That’s fortunate then.”

The chairman said this while calmly reading the mercenary group’s capabilities written in the report.

[Detailed list of the mercenary group
· 67 infantry
Comparable to low-grade hunters. All armed with Russian standard laser weapons.
· 6 psychic users
Members of the refugees. The strongest psychic user is lower middle-grade, the rest are average low-grade level.
· 3 improvised armored vehicles
Tractor-based. Welded with iron plates and equipped with rotating turrets and Chinese-made laser medium machine guns.
· 7-meter class Giant Armor
Pre-4th generation model. Core systems intact but in poor condition.
· Additionally, 94 refugees under protection exist.]

“Would this be… problematic?”

“It’s a level that could be wiped out by just one of our Seonggwang Guild’s hunting teams. Of course, considering they survived in the harsh North, they must have potential, so it wouldn’t be bad to put them in the young lady’s newly formed team.”

At these words from his bodyguard, who was also a high-ranking hunter belonging to Seonggwang Guild, the chairman could finally be sure that there was no problem with this investigation.

Even if there were problems, it was all the more so as his guarantee that he could make them non-existent was added.

“Good. Then handle it that way, Intelligence Team Leader. And our Guild Master.”

“Understood, Mr. Chairman.”

“Yes, Mr. Chairman.”

※ ※ ※

‘Great! I succeeded!’

I, who was grasping the situation through the Hive Mind, was extremely happy that I had finally succeeded in infiltrating a mercenary group disguised as humans.

This is because, through this success, I was able to give identities to the Nina 79 series, and using these identities, I can really do all sorts of things.

I can infiltrate specific groups, build up a position to secure political influence, or detect early on attack operations against me or reconnaissance operations that could expose me.

Furthermore, I can actively move from this side to infiltrate monsters disguised as cargo into the enemy’s interior, or even cause disruptions such as assassinating key figures.

It might be a bit exaggerated, but the important thing is that these fake mercenaries can serve as a bridgehead to the human world.

After repeated improvements, the Nina 79 series have developed to the point where the differences from humans are indistinguishable, despite being monsters clearly subjugated to the Hive Mind, so there’s no need to worry about being discovered.

And to prepare for any possible situation, I separately produced an infiltration team commander monster with an independent ego despite being subjugated to the Hive Mind.

‘Can I entrust this to you?’

“Yes, mother. Gladly, if you wish.”

‘Mother… Hmm…’

This one, who always calls me mother every time I see her and puts me in a difficult position, is Theresia, a Giant Armor crew member and a grade 4 single-species monster.

To the eye, she’s a voluptuous blonde-haired, blue-eyed Slavic beauty that anyone would recognize, and even through general physical examinations, only results showing she’s thoroughly human would come out.

But her true nature is a monster created by modifying the Hive Mind’s biological tissues into a humanoid form, partially distributing the ability to control subordinate entities to separately control soldiers disguised as a mercenary group.

Although she’s a grade 4 monster, most of her capacity is invested in functioning as a proxy for the Hive Mind, and in reality, she has psychic abilities at the lower end of grade 7 monsters.

In addition, she’s designed to feel maternal love for me at the genetic level, and in case of emergency, a psychic bomb inside her body will detonate, among other measures taken to control an individual with an independent ego.

“Then, I’ll be going. Mother.”

‘…Yes, take care.’

Of course, there was a slight miscalculation in that maternal love was manifested from me in the process, but it was within the expected range.

So I watched Theresia for a moment as she put on her equipment, boarded the Giant Armor, and left the base, then set aside my worries and started dealing with the next task.

Apart from personal feelings, there are many aspects that need to be addressed in my legion, which has just entered an expansion phase.

※ ※ ※

I’m expanding my forces through underground channels in an attempt to hide, but obviously, there are more than enough monsters that can easily detect such expansion.

It’s extremely rare for them to notice exactly how and to what extent we’re expanding, but detecting vibrations is as easy as eating cold porridge for medium-grade monsters of grade 6 or higher.

Of course, there are hardly any monsters that can reach the detected location even if they detect it, but saying “hardly any” ultimately means there are some – and a typical example of this is the Kobold.

Kobold. An humanoid monster that looks like a mix between a mole and a lizard, born with various grades ranging from a minimum of grade 10 to a maximum of grade 5, depending on the individual.

As can be seen from their appearance, they mainly live underground, specifically in tunnels dug by Worms or giant moles, or ant monsters, or in natural caves, and separately, they are born with independent excavation abilities.

However, apart from these excavation abilities, Kobolds more frequently use low-grade mining slave Kobolds or tame animal-type monsters that are good at digging and live underground, rather than digging the ground themselves.

Their staple diet is ordinary meat or plants, but uniquely, they can eat and digest rocks or metals.

And these digested substances slowly melt into the whole body starting from the skin, so a fully grown Kobold becomes a monster that is very difficult to deal with in underground environments, as its whole body is no different from metal or rock chunks.

Therefore, Kobolds with these characteristics naturally became the first monsters we encountered in the process of expanding into the North Korean region, and the encounter soon developed into a conflict, and the conflict into a war.

At first, the Kobolds’ goal was simply to repel us who were invading their territory, but the moment it was revealed that we possessed large amounts of precious metals (shooters/blasters) for Kobolds, the frequency of engagements increased.

Thanks to this, the war, which was at the level of sporadic engagements, intensified over time, eventually developing into a great war where united groups of Kobolds and my legion clashed in units of tens of thousands.

But apart from this tremendous scale, the Kobolds’ strategies or tactics were extremely simple.

They like to use tactics such as deploying mining slaves raised only on rocks in the front line as meat shields and resources to wear down the enemy, then deploying elite troops to deal with the worn-out enemy.

This is a very effective tactic when dealing with ordinary Hive Minds or other monsters that mainly use close combat infantry, but if the enemy is a type that emphasizes long-range firepower like humans or me, the efficiency inevitably decreases.

Bullets can be replenished easily, and the rocky bodies of mining slaves are cleanly penetrated by energy weapons or laser weapons, and humanoid monsters tend to lack long-range firepower.

Even for long-range attacks, at best they only have psychic or throwing attacks used by a few shamans in the group, and even if Kobolds scrape together all their psychic users, it’s less than half of our legion.

Ah, of course, the medium-grade or higher Kobolds that were occasionally mixed in were tricky opponents.

They boast powerful close combat abilities by consuming large amounts of various metals, making their bodies no different from metal chunks, and on top of that, they are surrounded by force fields.

Moreover, since their bodies are not completely made of metal, despite their height exceeding 5 meters, they are quite agile, further enhancing their close combat abilities.

To give an idea of how good these close combat abilities are, a grade 6 Kobold could overwhelm a grade 5 monster Hive Tank in close combat.

…Of course, conversely speaking, except for just this, Kobolds are no match for me. They can’t surpass the Hive Mind in numbers, quality, or any aspect, so it could be said to be natural.

Thanks to this, just over a week after the full-scale war began, the Kobolds had virtually lost most of their available forces and disintegrated.

It was the futile end of the Kobolds on the Korean Peninsula, who were thought to number over 80,000.