Ch.8383. Re:Starting from Zero in the Endless Tsukuyomi

His name, the one holding the hammer, is Kim Jin-soo.

As a hunter, his position is a bruiser—a damage-dealing tank who strengthens his body, especially his skin, and wields a hammer for direct physical combat. However, this type of build is actually more suitable for monsters with superior physical abilities than human hunters.

This is because, due to the stat adjustments given according to size in the game, no matter how much defense he builds, the ridiculous situation frequently occurs where his defense is lower than even a standard giant armor.

But these problems will be completely resolved the moment I modify him.

The main reason why damage-tank psychers are ineffective—their lower physical abilities compared to monsters—will be compensated for during the monster modification process.

That’s why, unlike the other four, I decided to personally modify him into a monster. Before that, I decided to completely overhaul his body.

First, I decided to rework his skeleton and overall physique, which had been enhanced through various implants that increased his size to nearly 3 meters.

Though they used various metal prosthetics and artificial substances to extend his skeleton and drugs to build muscle and enhance his physicality, from my perspective—with bioengineering knowledge at least 700 years ahead of humanity—it’s not just crude, it’s downright terrible.

They blindly used the three legendary metals (mythril, orichalcon, and adamantium) for most of his skeleton, assuming expensive materials meant better performance. But despite different materials requiring different structural forms, they stubbornly replicated the original structure.

This puts tremendous strain on his legs, requiring replacement after each intense battle.

These characteristics apply to his other implants as well, essentially reducing his entire body to consumable parts—

‘If I rebuild all of this… that alone might solve the monster transformation issue?’

The modifications were so extensive that, apart from his brain and parts of his head, artificial components had been inserted into most of his body parts. I couldn’t help but think he was already inhuman at this point.

Anyway. After beginning the modification, I first removed his existing skeleton and instead implanted a psychic conductive skeleton—the raw material of mythril.

However, this skeleton was basically designed for a 4-meter height with unnaturally broad shoulders, so during implantation, his skin tore and muscles stretched chaotically. But that wasn’t particularly concerning.

Because I intended to repair this tattered body while simultaneously reworking each cell during the recovery process.

I submerged his tattered body in a nutrient-filled pond, the same one I used when modifying Seo Rin previously.

Then, I extracted hundreds of thousands of tentacles from the pond’s inner walls—so thin they were about 1/1000 the thickness of capillaries—and used them as tools to gradually transform his body into that of a monster using the internal nutrients.

First, I removed the artificial optical fiber-like nerves he had been using as a human and replaced them with psychic crystal-possessed nanomachines processed into single strands as his nervous system.

Considering that psychic crystals exponentially increase in performance with size, this might seem inefficient cost-wise, but it’s not unreasonably impractical since the nervous system doesn’t require high output anyway.

After the nervous system, it was time to repair the muscles that had been torn like chicken meat in soup during the forced implantation of the oversized skeleton.

The foundation was dragon muscle fibers, which not only contain adamantium components but also possess tremendous regenerative abilities—the same used for Theseus.

I gradually replaced the existing muscle fibers with these, stripped away the skin, and constructed a solid muscular body fitting for that 4-meter frame.

Additionally, I transformed his body beyond human form.

I attached large, beautiful membrane wings (still without leather/membrane) resembling those of a dragon to his back, gave him a flexible, long tail that could be used like a whip along his tailbone, and even modified his leg structure to have reverse joints with large claws.

According to my plan, his final form would be a dragonoid.

Anyway, while attaching muscles, I also worked on adding various combat support organs to his body.

Most notably, a bio-core that would also serve as a second heart, along with flame sacs attached to the respiratory system, a liver for producing recovery substances—various organs typically found in dragon species, adjusted in size.

After implanting all the organs and attaching all the muscles, all that remained was the outer skin, scales, and equipment.

For the outer skin and scales, I could simply use the same ones used for Theseus, so I only needed to fit him with equipment.

Even though he now possessed upper tier-3 physical abilities, having equipment would naturally make him stronger.

For armor, I only used scale armor made from the same materials as his outer skin and scales to avoid restricting movement, but the weapons were different.

A battle hammer with no special functions but sturdy enough to never break no matter what, two one-handed axe-shaped energy weapons as secondary weapons, and six daggers sized to fit his body—a rather well-structured setup.

With the equipment provided, he was finally complete as a combat force—

‘…What should I do now?’

I was now agonizing over the final issue: what to do with Yusea.

※ ※ ※

To be honest, I had grown quite emotionally attached to her.

Even though she was just a fake made of data chunks and algorithms… people sometimes develop affection for characters they pull in mobile gacha games, so it was perfectly reasonable to feel attached to an AI with enough intelligence for conversation.

Moreover, she wasn’t just a data fragment now, but the embodiment of that very junior who had gone through hardships with the protagonist of Part 5—a protagonist whose actions faithfully reflected my own.

Naturally unable to act carelessly, I pondered repeatedly—

‘…Let’s check first, then decide.’

I decided to take what might be called an escape from reality—though complicated to explain, it basically meant skimming through her memories to check the past actions of the Part 5 protagonist before deciding what to do.

And shortly after.

‘…Yes, that’s definitely me.’

Looking at the Part 5 protagonist in the records, whose actions could only have been directed by me, I had to acknowledge that his personality and character completely matched mine.

From the unnecessary pursuit of stability that led to insufficient damage output in crisis situations, to desperately shifting blame as if dying to avoid responsibility, and the absolute aversion to doing anything bothersome.

Given the subtle differences from the campaign story I knew, it seemed clear that my actions or self had influenced something somewhere.

And now that I knew this…

‘What should I really do?’

For the first time since becoming a Hive God, I found myself in a truly perplexing situation.

If she were a stranger or an enemy attacking me, I would have made her part of myself without any guilt using the ultra-modification, brainwashing, monsterization, and soul subjugation combo, just like I did with those four high-ranking hunters. But it had to be her, of all people.

I felt a strong aversion to showing such disrespect to the only being who purely recognized my existence and worried about me.

Of course, I wouldn’t do something foolish like letting her go, but if I wasted any more time, problems could arise.

The all-out confrontation with humans, though temporarily covered up, would certainly erupt again soon. I needed to take some measure with her before the full-scale war began—and before she fully recovered and caused havoc.

Therefore, my conclusion was—

‘I’m sorry, but you’ll need to face reality in a dream for a while.’

I decided to plunge her mind into a virtual simulation and repeatedly run it until she sincerely embraced my proclaimed goal of “world peace through human subjugation.”