I Became a Hive Mind in the Game

After absorbing the Mountain Lord and its territory entirely, my next target was naturally to eliminate the Fire Dragon of Mount Baekdu and seize its habitat.

And since it should appear on the surface as Theseus (Hive Dragon)’s territory expansion, I prepared monsters that resembled Theseus’s appearance, as if they were created by Theseus’s true dragon’s sub-dragon generation ability.

Sub-dragon generation ability.
It’s a kind of reproduction method possessed by true dragons often in the form of Western dragons, simply put, producing degraded dragon species without the help of a separate opposite sex individual.

The degraded dragon species produced this way can never become high-grade monsters no matter how strong they are, but instead, they grow very quickly, hatching from eggs in 3 days and becoming adults in a week.

Of course, to grow this fast, they need to consume an enormous amount of food, so individuals born among sub-dragons almost all have growth rates similar to ordinary animal-type monsters.

Anyway, if it were a normal dragon species, it would produce individuals, but in the case of Theseus, a fake dragon—Hive Dragon—that only looks like a dragon, naturally has no reproductive ability.

Therefore, Theseus set out towards Mount Baekdu, leading various monsters resembling sub-dragons that I produced.

12 Hive Wing Drakes, 20 Hive Wyverns, 60 monsters directly copied from ordinary wyverns, about 200 drakes, and a total of 441 Hive Raptors were mobilized.

This was not only to deal with the sub-dragons produced by the Mount Baekdu Fire Dragon but also forces to expand territory by hunting bosses in areas passed through while advancing.

Thus, after the Fire Dragon’s advance began, Theseus is progressing smoothly.

Hive Raptors scout, Wyverns air raid, and then Drakes come out to completely push through, easily handling monsters up to medium-grade.

Only once, when encountering a high-grade—grade 2 monster Gumiho, Theseus personally came out to face it.

As it was an ordinary monster, lower grade than Theseus, and even at a disadvantage in compatibility while bringing subordinates, naturally, the Gumiho was crushed.

Its soft golden fur was completely burned, and only 3 of its 9 flexible tails remained.

The Gumiho, literally left barely breathing, was eventually transported to my side and fell to the fate of a puppet like the Mountain Lord.

Besides this, Theseus advanced relentlessly while facing various minor groups of monsters, and finally entered the Fire Dragon’s territory—near the foot of Mount Baekdu.

‘We’re entering. Everyone, guard the surroundings.’

Following Theseus’s order, the black dragon army began to advance proudly, starting with the Hive Raptors in scouting roles while guarding the surroundings.

Scattered Hive Raptors and Wyverns scout, Drakes with thick armor stand at the front, and behind them, Theseus moves its huge body majestically.

‘Yes, keep engaging.’

Meanwhile, as the scouting monsters encountered sub-dragons with red scales and began combat, naturally accelerating their movement to support those dragons, at that moment.

KKKKkkrrrrrrRRRrrraaaAaaaAAAaAaAAAAA—–!!!!!!

‘…Damn it.’

With a majestic roar resonating, a giant dragon with red scales cast its shadow towards the dragons with black scales.

Sensing the presence of its kin? invading its territory, the Fire Dragon of Mount Baekdu quickly flew to find and eliminate the intruders.

Its size is about 45 meters, not much different from the average size of grade 1 dragon species.

Its scales are the color of basalt that’s about half melted and reddish, but due to the smooth surface and faint metallic luster, it doesn’t look like basalt.

Overall, its body is slimmer compared to Theseus, but instead, its chest, which contains the high-pressure fuel sac necessary for spewing flames, is quite swollen.

Uniquely, the membrane part of its wings looks like solidified burning flames, and there’s an additional small pair of wings near the waist.

On its head, there are three pairs of rough horns that look like they’re made of obsidian, but they’re not very long and are curled up, making them unusable for attacks.

In the tail part, flames are burning as if it’s some kind of Re■mon. As if to prove that it’s not normal flames, the dark red burning flames suddenly brighten and—

“Ku, kuuu kuuu (A, amazing handsome)…!”

‘—!! …………????’

Suddenly, it let out a cry towards Theseus that was definitely not threatening, filled with psychic energy, a low yet strangely shy-sounding cry.

‘…Courtship?’

At first, Theseus didn’t even know what kind of signal this was, but as the instinct engraved in the dragon genes making up its body belatedly awakened, Theseus realized this was a courtship cry—and was severely flustered.

‘W-what? Why? Aren’t I an invader?’

Thanks to the common sense as an intelligent being transmitted from the Hive Mind, Theseus, who had a relatively general way of thinking, was very flustered and looking up at the Fire Dragon in the sky.

And at the same time, Theseus accelerated its mind with psychic power to assess the situation, and roughly understood the reason for this event.

Theseus itself is about 58 meters long, much larger than other grade 1 dragons that are roughly 40-50 meters long, and its appearance is perfect as the Hive Mind created it with great care.

In addition, thanks to the implanted genes of other psychic-specialized monsters, Theseus emits more powerful psychic energy than ordinary dragons.

Leading hundreds of medium-grade sub-dragons is also a plus point, which is very impressive considering the sub-dragon production performance of other dragon species.

Over 80% of sub-dragons born from eggs are low-grade or below, and only about 20% have the potential to grow into medium-grade sub-dragons at best.

But once they become medium-grade sub-dragons, the food needed to maintain their bodies is not insignificant, so even the high-ranking Fire Dragon that dominates Mount Baekdu and its surroundings can only maintain about 100 medium-grade dragons even if investing all the food in Mount Baekdu to the maximum sustainable level.

Moreover, dragons usually abandon sub-dragons to grow in order to select strong individuals.

But here, a problem arises.

Low-grade sub-dragons can survive by just grazing while hiding well because their required calories are moderate, but medium-grade sub-dragons need to actively hunt due to their high calorie requirements.

Of course, newly born medium-grade sub-dragons are just low-grade sub-dragons that can grow into medium-grade, so inexperienced sub-dragons are naturally filtered out.

Therefore, most that ultimately survive are low-grade sub-dragons, and only a very small number of medium-grade sub-dragons born with innate talent survive.

But now, Theseus has given birth to (misunderstanding) and is leading around over hundreds of sub-dragons (not really).

Although these sub-dragons are all monsters of the Hive Mind, to the Fire Dragon, they are understood in a different sense.

That Theseus either has extremely superior genes to be able to raise hundreds of medium-grade monsters to adulthood, or has enough food to raise hundreds of medium-grade monsters, or both.

Moreover, the Mount Baekdu Fire Dragon also confirmed that the sub-dragons under Theseus follow his orders with absolute trust.

Considering that ordinary medium-grade sub-dragons naturally don’t have connections like Theseus has with the Hive Mind, and thus true dragons tend to directly dominate them by force, resulting in them often not listening well—this is an amazing achievement.

Whatever the method, it means Theseus is completely dominating sub-dragons close to medieval feudal lords.

So if we summarize this by human standards, Theseus is no different from an SSS-class super alpha male who is tall, handsome, rich, smart, with perfect charisma and leadership, and perfect genes.

Naturally, considering that other dragons encountered so far have been stupid and low-grade dragon species, or wild sub-dragons, or sub-dragons that absolutely refuse to listen—it’s not so strange that the Fire Dragon falls for Theseus.

If you only heard up to this point, anyone would think they could just use this as an excuse for a marriage alliance, but there’s a serious problem with this idea.

‘…Shit, we’re screwed.’

That is, the Hive Mind excluded reproductive ability from Theseus, a fake dragon—Hive Dragon—pretending to be a dragon, out of concern that it might create variables.