I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

After the assault team for eliminating the outpost returned with numerous casualties, South Korea was turned upside down.

The fact that the Hive Mind had forcibly incorporated another monster, and that the incorporated monster was the Mountain Lord (山君), considered South Korea’s strongest monster, was conveyed by the returning assault team.

Of course, our secrecy-loving government treated this information as top secret, on par with the Pyongyang Hive Mind, believing that if it leaked externally, it could cause great confusion in society, but separately, shocking news was inevitably announced.

And that news was that the great hunter and hero, Choi Seo-rin, ranked 5th in South Korea and 107th worldwide in monster subjugation achievements, died in the process of retreating allied forces.

Fortunately, in the midst of misfortune, the Hive Mind ‘Bomb Spider’s’ outpost was destroyed, perhaps annihilated by her, but this doesn’t justify Choi Seo-rin’s death.

As she is an irreplaceable resource by any means, from the standpoint of South Korea as a country, it would be less of a loss if everyone else was annihilated but she survived.

Therefore, South Korea’s high-ranking officials gathered in a closed room and began to reach a consensus.

“Everyone has gathered. From now on, we will start the emergency countermeasure meeting.”

The President, Prime Minister, ruling party leader, representatives of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd opposition parties, ministers and vice ministers of each department. High-ranking generals from the Army, Navy, and Air Force. And guild masters of guilds with at least one high-grade hunter, along with those high-grade hunters.

The topic that these individuals, who could be considered the brains of South Korea, began to discuss was the deployment of anti-psychic weapons.

In other words, it was the issue of whether to use nuclear weapons, if compared to reality.

“Then, the deployment?”

“Of course… we should do it.”

Naturally, almost everyone agreed that the Hive Mind ‘Bomb Spider’, which had incorporated the Mountain Lord, should be eradicated, but that wasn’t the problem.

The location of the ‘Bomb Spider’s’ main body hasn’t been confirmed, and the air defense network is so thick and wide that anti-psychic weapons with moderate range can’t strike the main body wherever it might be.

However, since the Bomb Spider’s main body location is quite close to the South Korean region, to attack areas outside the air defense network to strike the main body, the range of anti-psychic weapons would inevitably reach South Korea.

In other words, they find themselves in a paradoxical situation where they want to use anti-psychic weapons but can’t.

“…The worries are mountainous.”

“Still, that’s fortunate.”

“You mean the dragon?”

“Yes.”

Fortunately, thanks to the dragon’s attack starting again on the Hive Mind ‘Bomb Spider’s’ main base, the offensive has been suppressed and there’s no immediate risk of the Mountain Lord invading, but still, no one could view the situation positively.

This is because currently, the number of high-grade monsters the Hive Mind is expected to possess is at least 3, including the Mountain Lord.

However, despite these successive misfortunes attacking South Korea, the economy itself didn’t collapse.

Other countries also experienced monster attacks similar to or no weaker than South Korea’s, and thanks to this situation, Nano-Tech grew crazily, stabilizing South Korea’s economy.

One might wonder how the growth of just one venture company could stabilize a country’s economic collapse, but this can be somewhat understood by checking the current status of countries around the world.

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The peace that humanity found by counterattacking monsters with anti-psychic weapons was short-lived, and monsters that grew in the gaps of internal strife bred by that peace began to rampage all over the world at some point.

In Siberia, abandoned by Russia due to monster activity, the Winter Wolf Lord, an animal-type monster that grew to grade 1, began to eye mainland Russia, crossing the Ural Mountains with about 100 grade 3 Winter Wolf Generals and tens of thousands of medium-grade Winter Wolves.

In China, the world’s largest and officially only top-grade Hive Mind, Demon Insect (魔蟲), which grew by freely devouring China’s population, somehow used monsters resistant to anti-psychic weapons to split China in half.

In the American Midwest, in the wilderness where only desert can be seen, Blue Dragons adapted to the desert environment repeatedly competed and explosively increased their numbers, finally beginning to threaten the transcontinental railroad.

Moreover, in the Mediterranean, North Sea, and the eastern coast of the Atlantic, sardine-like monsters even advanced to land, devastating coastal areas, and small to medium-sized Hive Minds began to increase dramatically throughout Europe.

Africa, which had already fallen into the hands of monsters long ago, is just the same as usual. Thousands of high-grade monsters each occupy territories about the size of moderate countries, fighting madly with each other and rapidly evolving through survival of the fittest.

In South America, part of the ground was suddenly submerged by the overflowing Amazon River, like a mangrove forest, and the man-eating giant crabs, piranhas, and tree-dwelling man-eating apes and black panthers that lived there are slowly advancing from the jungle into human territories.

Even South Asia, that is, Southeast Asia, India, and the Australia region, was also a tremendous demon realm.

The coastal areas became uninhabited zones due to suddenly increased numbers of marine monsters like Shark Wolves or Dolphin Men, and in the jungles, various animal-type monsters are swarming and expanding their spheres of influence.

As the whole world is literally becoming a mess, naturally, the demand for various weapons or resources needed to make weapons is crazily skyrocketing—

And as such a resource, nanomachines exclusively supplied by Nano-Tech were currently the highest-rated material.

This material, which can theoretically be used in almost all tools as it can turn any substance into nanomachines, and has countless applications, was desired by all manufacturers.

Moreover, nanomachines are so cheap compared to their performance that they are preferred items for people who actually use them.

Even the conservative military chose new combat uniforms with optical camouflage effects using nanomachines in their next-generation combat uniform selection project, and even civilians are buying at least one set of one-touch underwear-type protective clothing using nanomachines.

Various products with just nanomachine technology applied are selling like crazy, and anything with professional nanomachine technology applied is starting to be considered top-class.

Even a wealthy person in the Middle East bought a 5-story mansion of 500 pyeong made entirely of nanomachines, so there’s no need to mention the status of Nano-Tech, which exclusively supplies nanomachines, in this nanomachine boom.

Even the factories producing nanomachines employ a total of 30,000 simple laborers despite automation systems accounting for over 80%, but Nano-Tech is not just a company that produces nanomachines.

The Nano Suit powered suits, starting with NS-01, have been developed up to NS-11 and continue to be sold, and especially the newly released NS-11 has been adopted as a standard weapon in 17 countries worldwide due to its excellent performance.

NS-11. This luxury powered suit, the 11th version of the nanomachine-using powered suit, Nano Suit, is the first Nano Suit powered suit developed as a heavy armor powered suit.

Of course, due to the limitations of being a heavy armor powered suit, it can’t be compressed into a single bodysuit like other Nano Suit powered suits, but instead, this powered suit has even more advantages.

It’s much easier to wear compared to other powered suits, to the point where one-touch wearing is possible, and naturally, like the characteristics of the Nano Suit series, it can move unbelievably flexibly for a heavy armor powered suit.

Inside, a small bio core can be inserted to flow force fields on the surface of the powered suit, and it can even deploy psychic shields, so its defense is excellent.

The high-grade artificial muscle fibers unique to nanomachines are made of superalloy particle nanomachines, making them very sturdy, and although they break easily due to the characteristics of muscle fibers, they are also easily restored.

And this NS-11 has one function that previous models didn’t have, which is a learning function built into the powered suit itself.

The more frequently the user wears this NS-11 and engages in combat, the built-in weak artificial intelligence(?) adjusts the structure of NS-11 according to that user’s movements, like a ‘living organism’.

And if this function is used to a certain extent and learning is completed by the weak artificial intelligence, from then on, NS-11 itself becomes almost indistinguishable from a living being.

It can detect attacks that the user hasn’t noticed and defend automatically, or if the internal life form loses consciousness, it can move on its own to evacuate to a safe zone.

It’s even possible, although a bit dangerous, to switch to a completely automatic operation mode and have it engage in automatic combat like a mobile phone MMORPG.

It’s only natural that it’s preferred by the military, as it can turn even first-time wearers into veterans of combat at once, reducing the need for training.