I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

Dragons, that is, true dragons, are basically hermaphroditic, having both male and female characteristics… or rather, they are closer to asexual life forms without any sexual distinction.

Considering that most other animal-type monsters, even sub-dragons born from true dragons, have male-female distinctions, this can be said to be a characteristic unique to dragons, and thanks to this, dragons have one feature.

As mentioned earlier, that is, they can reproduce on their own, but in exchange, the eggs they produce always give birth to sub-dragons, which are degraded dragon species.

The cause of this phenomenon is none other than the fact that originally, two true dragons are needed to create a true dragon egg, but one tries to handle it alone.

One dragon gathers psychic energy to form the material elements of the egg, while the other consumes psychic energy to correct the form of the dragon growing inside.

The psychic energy consumed in the process is by no means insignificant, and the process itself is so complex that their high intelligence must be invested solely in this one act.

But if one tries to perform this process alone, it naturally becomes too much.

The psychic energy included in the egg itself is relatively reduced, and the work of composing the dragon’s form, which requires delicate tuning, becomes distorted midway due to decreased computational power.

Therefore, at least 2 dragons are needed to create an egg from which a true dragon will be born, and here lies the problem.

Theseus, being a monster of the Hive Mind originally manufactured for combat, cannot produce eggs because the resources that would be invested in such egg production functions are invested elsewhere.

‘…What should I really do?’

Anxiety pressures the mind, and meanwhile, the Fire Dragon continues to let out courtship cries towards the majestic (in the Fire Dragon’s eyes) and cool Theseus.

And finally, unable to bear it any longer, Theseus used his secret move.

‘—It has become so.’

[…What?]

That is, calling mom—the Hive Mind—and dumping all his worries onto her.

※ ※ ※

‘Sighhhh… I gave you a task, why are you bringing up such a troublesome topic again…’

After receiving the full account of the incident from Theseus, I grabbed the flower-like part of my head with my hands and showed a negative reaction internally.

That’s because, honestly speaking, such problems don’t have clear solutions and are just annoying.

If done well, we might be able to recruit a grade 1 boss dragon as a force on our side, but we can’t do anything about it right now.

If they try to mate and the Fire Dragon finds out that Theseus is sexually impotent, it will undoubtedly turn hostile, and then I would inevitably have to kill a being that I could have recruited.

Therefore, I fell into deep contemplation to somehow avoid this situation, and by mobilizing all of my advanced collective intelligence, I was barely able to come up with one solution—and immediately put it into action.

First, I ordered Theseus to accept the Fire Dragon’s confession while simultaneously leading it to a cave at a location I designated.

‘Theseus, can you do it?’

[It’s an order, I’ll gladly follow.]

Theseus, who said that with a slightly lacking confident voice, conversed with the Fire Dragon using psychic communication that he wasn’t very good at using as he had only recently acquired it, and somehow managed to bring it to his fake nest.

‘Move quickly! Hurry, hurry!’

And now that we’ve somehow succeeded in luring the naive? Fire Dragon, I had to handle things even faster than it would take for the Fire Dragon to fly to the base.

I moved noticeable Hive Mind monsters from the expected flight path and mobilized tens of thousands of monsters to create a trap cave disguised as Theseus’s nest.

As I could mobilize tens of thousands of times more troops and biological heavy equipment than a division commander capable of performing the mountain-vanishing magic, Wingardium Mountaingonesa, it didn’t take much time to create the cave.

With the expected arrival time of the Fire Dragon being within 1 hour, a cave large enough for a giant dragon with a body length of 60 meters was completed in just 17 minutes.

Anyway, now that the environment setup is complete, all that’s left is to wait.

Quietly waiting in the cave where all preparations have been completed, I detect Theseus and the Mount Baekdu Fire Dragon approaching through hidden detection monsters deployed in a concealed state.

In just 30 minutes, twice as fast as the expected 1 hour, the Fire Dragon arrived at the cave following Theseus’s guidance, and without any suspicion, followed Theseus into the cave interior with large strides.

And after entering appropriately inside and following the first corner that appears, Theseus walks in. The moment the Fire Dragon, following closely behind, enters the corner.

‘—Now!’

As my thought waves resonated throughout the cave, suddenly the entrance part of the cave began to collapse with a thunderous sound.

Krurryaaaaaaa?!!!

And at that moment when the Fire Dragon was bewildered by this incomprehensible phenomenon and the felt thought waves, Theseus swung his front paw, which had been secretly prepared from the moment of entry, with all his might, surrounded by a force field so thick even when compressed.

Whoosh!

Crack—Pshh!

Krurraraaaaaaa!!!

No matter how much a force field is usually surrounded, it wasn’t enough to block an attack that came in this completely off-guard moment.

As the claws passed towards its chest, scales shattered, and slicing through the skin and muscles beneath, blood hot enough to boil scattered in all directions.

Like that, swung 5 times. Theseus swiftly swung his claws at high speed, inflicting as many as 5 hits, but this seemed to be the limit of attacks that could be inflicted on the unresisting Fire Dragon.

KKkkrrrraaaAaaAAA—!!!!!!

The Fire Dragon, having come to its senses from the quite severe injury and felt pain, spewed out its anger stemming from the terrible pain of the force field eroding and the sense of betrayal—and simultaneously breathed out flames.

Whrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Although slightly weaker compared to Theseus’s energy breath, considering that this is the power of a breath that doesn’t need charging, it’s more than sufficient.

The high-pressure flames, which melt rocks just by grazing them slightly, flew almost in a straight line aiming at Theseus—

‘—Activate.’

[Activating Psychic Construct (A).]

[Activating Telekinesis (A).]

Wuuung——Kwaaaaaang!!!

At that moment, I suddenly appeared from hiding and launched a huge psychic construct siege weight that directly hit its chest—the flame sac, and the Fire Dragon stopped breathing out, coughing from the impact.

Of course, stopping an attack on an enemy during battle is no different from asking for a counterattack towards that enemy.

[Activating Physical Enhancement (A).]

[Activating Psychic Supply (A).]

[Activating Sensory Amplification (A).]

Crack—Slash! Crunch! Tear!

Utilizing the even more powerful physique received from my full support and his originally larger body size, Theseus wildly attacked the Fire Dragon in close combat.

Biting with teeth, swinging wings to push the enemy back, clawing and tearing at the exposed flesh of the part attacked earlier, wildly swinging the tail to strike, and persistently attacking with the spikes at the end.

This literally overwhelming attack naturally continued until the Fire Dragon became ragged and exhausted, and finally, the Fire Dragon gave up on close combat, retreated a little, and wildly activated psychic abilities.

It formed its specialty, psychic flames, enough to cover one side of the cave and launched it with telekinesis, and formed hundreds of explosive psychic constructs to pour onto Theseus.

As a fire-type psychic user, it has fewer specialized systems but a higher strengthening ratio, so it should undoubtedly deal quite significant damage to Theseus, but…

Whoosh—Kuung!

Surprisingly, Theseus, who ran through the flames and strongly hit the Fire Dragon with his tail, didn’t take much damage.

And the cause of this phenomenon was the effect of the psychic suppressors that I had hidden plenty of in the cave in advance.

Psychic suppressor. Just hearing it might sound like a biological facility, but its true identity is a grade 5 monster that I directly created.

Although its combat power is lower than even a basic Hive because it’s specialized only in interfering with psychic abilities by applying psychic jamming targeting psychic abilities generated by specific targets, instead, this psychic jamming is unbelievably powerful for a grade 5 monster.

It downgraded the psychic abilities of the Mount Baekdu Fire Dragon, a grade 1 and even a boss monster, to a level that could almost be ignored.

Kheok!

Anyway, back to the main point. The Fire Dragon, hit in the neck by Theseus’s powerfully swung tail, writhed in pain, and naturally its posture crumbled.

‘Move.’

[Activating Gravity Multiplication: 4x (A).]

[Activating Gravity Multiplication: 4x (A).]

[Activating Gravity Multiplication: 4x (A).]

[Activating Gravity Multiplication: 4x (A).]

Wuuuuuung–Kugugugugugugu!!!

And seizing this moment when its posture crumbled, I activated gravity manipulation psychic to slam the Fire Dragon to the floor, after which Theseus injected ‘that’ which I had prepared in advance into the Fire Dragon, which couldn’t move an inch due to the gravity.

Pshh!

That—that is, a syringe filled with concentrated fluid from a venomous porcupine containing poison that can take down even a medium-grade monster with a single drop, injected the poison inside the moment it was thrust in, and no matter how grade 1 it was, the battered Fire Dragon fell into a near-death state from the tens of liters of concentrated venomous porcupine fluid.

Although a bit unsightly, we had nonetheless won against the Fire Dragon and secured it.