I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

17th floor of the Seonggwang Guild headquarters building.
The newly established 7th Division’s exclusive lounge, which was entirely reorganized and newly built due to casualties caused by the sudden appearance of Mountain Lord.
The lounge, with an overall clean interior mainly in white and black, has various amenities.
A soft sofa that can be used as a bed, a high-end massage chair, the latest game console French Fry Station 37, and snacks packed tightly in the refrigerator.
On the sofa in this room, which is essentially used like a personal room by the 7th Division’s leader, a woman—the person in question, 7th Division leader Lee Soo-jin—was burying her face in the sofa cushion and sobbing.
‘…Unni.’
This is the aftermath of the death of Choi Seo-rin, her senior and sister figure with whom she was particularly close, inheriting even the lounge she used when she died, leading to her suffering from depression.
Of course, the symptoms she suffered from witnessing acquaintances and all sorts of people being helplessly slaughtered before her eyes were not just simple depression.
Early PTSD, slight paranoia, and mild auditory and visual hallucinations are tormenting her.
Thanks to being a psychic user, there’s a slight abnormality in brain function, so she didn’t completely break down despite experiencing such a catastrophe, but… there’s also a problem that arises because she’s a psychic user.
The psychic energy that circulates throughout the body and enhances overall physical abilities also enhances the brain, so no matter how strong the medicine, general-use drugs have almost no effect on the brain.
Physical injuries can be recovered with psychic user-specific drugs made from monster by-products, but drugs that can directly affect the brain are prohibited.
They were banned after a monster-made antidepressant that was still in circulation at the time caused abnormalities in the consumer’s brain due to residual monster factors in the drug, killing humans.
Therefore, as she, unable to do anything, was lying face down on the sofa depressedly with her ears covered and eyes closed, the door opened with a light knock and a familiar voice was heard in Soo-jin’s ear.
“Excuse me.”
A voice so calm and emotionless that it felt cold, without even a hint of wavering or fluctuation in the mind—it was none other than her subordinate and 7th Division vice-captain, Theresia, who opened the door and entered the lounge.
“You came, Theresia?”
“Yes.”
Trying hard to hide her tears as she greeted her, Theresia, famous for her worst sociability despite her appearance, finished her one-word answer and headed to the lounge kitchen.
“Dumplings? Are you going to eat those?”
“Yes. I’m hungry…”
Taking out a 3KG frozen dumpling pack from a famous food brand, she opened the huge bag containing the dumplings, poured them all into an auto-cooking bowl, and put the bowl into the auto-cooking machine.
Whirrrrr…
While someone seeing this for the first time might be shocked at the eccentricity of cooking 3KG of frozen dumplings all at once, for Soo-jin, who was used to Theresia’s occasionally oddly silly behavior despite her coldness, it was nothing out of the ordinary.
Ding!
And as Theresia took out the bowl full of cooked frozen dumplings and sat at the table to prepare her meal, Soo-jin suddenly realized that she hadn’t eaten anything for two days.
‘…I’m hungry.’
Feeling the hunger that finally hit her with the aroma wafting from the well-cooked frozen dumplings, Soo-jin raised her heavy body and walked heavily to open the refrigerator door.
Chicken, seasoned chicken, soy sauce chicken, cream udon, jjamppong, dumplings, various other frozen foods or convenience foods, and various snacks were packed in the refrigerator that opened.
‘Cream spaghetti… no, maybe I’ll eat canned soup.’
After pondering for a moment what to eat for her first meal in two days, Soo-jin eventually took out the food she had wanted to eat from the beginning.
“…This is it after all.”
Frozen, but insanely expensive with all sorts of weird technology crammed in, yet at the same time truly the best frozen food with unbeatable taste.
The latest product released just 4 weeks ago by E&E (Eat and Eat), a subsidiary of Nano-Tech, a weird food that claims to heal internal injuries and promote digestion just by eating it using nanotechnology.
A dish that makes you wonder if it can even come out frozen, pane pasta, which is cream pasta served in a bowl made of tough bread.
Beep.
[Starting cooking.]
The moment she pressed the button on the packaging, the translucent packaging turned opaque and steam began to rise.
And exactly 10 seconds later, the packaging made of nanomachines disappeared, and in the bowl where the packaging had vanished, a large pane pasta with steam rising was placed.
Yum. Munch munch…
Although she nibbled quite a bit, Soo-jin, defeated by her appetite, deliciously ate up the pasta, and after finishing her meal, she was about to return to the sofa and lie face down.
But then.
“…Cheer up, Captain.”
Theresia, a being who was never thought to say such words, awkwardly and clumsily comforted her.
“——?!!!!”
Shocked by Theresia’s completely unexpected words, Soo-jin froze in place, and perhaps embarrassed by Soo-jin’s reaction, Theresia left the lounge.
‘Abnormal phenomenon observed. Emotional variable detected. …I need to report this to Mother.’
And Tetra, who happened to be watching the scene while monitoring Theresia as she also manages the monsters that have infiltrated the human world, inwardly made that judgment.

※ ※ ※

That evening, at the Seonggwang Guild dormitory.
In the quiet dormitory corridor where everyone had gone on vacation, a woman with slightly damp hair from having just showered was making her way to her room.
‘I wonder if Soo-jin… is okay.’
This woman—Park Si-rin, who has the remarkable status of being both a childhood friend of Lee Soo-jin, the youngest daughter of the Seonggwang Group, and a medium-grade hunter (pilot)—was worried about her friend Soo-jin, who had become noticeably depressed recently.
Although she herself wasn’t feeling great as several hunters she knew had died in that terrible tragedy, she thought the shock Soo-jin received must have been beyond imagination, as most of her team members from before she became the leader of a division had died.
Anyway, after briefly worrying about her friend, she was heading to her dormitory room (a luxury single room) intending to spend her long-awaited vacation resting.
But then.
..k…..■.!! B….■■….!
As she was passing through the corridor, a small and strange sound that she could barely perceive even with her enhanced senses (hearing) through the enhancement procedure she had received as a pilot began to reach her ears.
‘…What is that?’
That bizarre sound stimulated her curiosity, so she wandered for a while searching for the source of the sound and eventually stopped in front of a room.
‘This is… Theresia’s?’
The owner of the room where she stopped was none other than Theresia, a hunter famous within the guild for her unusual background, characteristics, and high achievements.
As Theresia was someone she had enough familiarity with to be considered an acquaintance, if not exactly close, the kind-hearted Park Si-rin felt a slight concern in her heart.
‘Just in case…’
Worried that something might be wrong, Si-rin put her ear to Theresia’s door—and the sound that reached her ears was beyond her imagination.
Crunch! Crunch! Crack!
An explicit and feral sound of bones and flesh being crushed, which could never be heard in normal daily life, came through.
Thud! Squelch! Crunch!
‘…What the.’
Naturally, as such sounds couldn’t possibly occur under normal circumstances, Si-rin was startled and flung the door open—
—Bang!
Crunch!
“Munch munch… gulp—
—??!”
“Uh, uh, uhhhhh??!!!”
What she witnessed was Theresia, soaked in bright red blood, tearing and eating some strange lump of meat in the middle of a blood-soaked room.

“Th-th-th-this… what is…”
Both sides were unable to come to their senses due to the sudden situation, but unfortunately for her, the first to regain composure was Theresia.
“…You saw, didn’t you?”
Saying that in a chilling voice, Theresia suddenly used psychic power to immobilize Park Si-rin and then closed the door with tentacles that extended from her back.
Click!
“Mmph! Mmmmmph!!!”
Although Park Si-rin tried to somehow alert others of her situation, her strength was powerless before that terrible monster—Theresia, who was tearing and eating meat with horns and shells growing on it.
As Park Si-rin, who could only mutter, several tentacles growing from Theresia’s back—with ends shaped like strange metal tools—approached and—
[Censored]
“Good morning! Have a nice day!”
“Hmm… you’re still the same as ever.”
The day after the vacation ended, Park Si-rin cheerfully greeted her superior as usual right after arriving at work.
Today, for some reason, feels like it’s going to be a pleasant day for her.