Chapter 21: Investigation

After a second, I found exactly what I was dealing with: a couple of molemen armed with nothing but their claws and sawed-off double-barrel shotguns.

This could be very bad. When there's one-moleman there are always many more not too far away.

With them having the propensity for violence and slaughtering everything, not moleman, it would be best to eliminate them in their entirety before they become a problem for me and the undercity at large. I should probably inform my family and get the governor involved... On the other hand, if I do that, I definitely won't be getting this property. There is also the fact that this could also be a big opportunity for my growth in the way of exp and skill gain, the latter of which is accelerated with combat.

Not to mention I can probably get a pretty sweet deal if I go and have a word with the current owner regarding what I discovered in the mine. If I play my cards right, I should be able to pick up this facility for pennies on the dollar as long as I bring that up. And in the event they put up a bit of resistance, I'm sure both my family and Alice's family would love to hear about what's in that particular mine and why the owner thought it was such a great idea to not say a single thing about it to the authorities.

I really don't understand why the owner wouldn't have informed the relevant authorities… Hmm, on second thought I guess his or her facility would have been taken over by the government thereby losing his property for a temporary period along with any income it would have been generating, maybe that's the reason. Well, whatever, it doesn't really matter what braindead reason they had for what they did. All that matters is I'll be taking advantage of the information I've learned of and benefiting from the situation.

Now what do I actually want to do… it doesn't seem like the molemen have any intention of clearing the rubble and coming through the mine just yet, if at all. In the case they did, I'm pretty sure there would be a hell of a lot more than just two of them sitting on the other side. For that reason, I should have plenty of time to get the relevant machines and equipment I need to make a decent bit of kit.

Although even if I have a good bit of kit to use against them, I have no clue how many of them there are. If there's a lot of them that won't necessarily hold up against a large group of them, not to mention a horde of molemen. Not wanting to throw my life away this early on, it looks like I'll need to put my ass into gear and either start amassing robots as soon as absolutely possible or buy some with the intent of using them for combat.

Except if I do the latter, my family will be more than aware that I'm up to something dangerous and it's much too early for any of that to be going on just yet. I don't particularly want to fuck up my plans because I was too short-sighted.

Besides all that, I'll also need to monitor the situation in the mine very frequently, multiple times a day, at least for any changes or movements they make while I'm making my preparations to exterminate them. I definitely don't want to end up getting surprised by a bunch of ruthless molemen while I'm unprepared.

On top of that, I'm going to have to make some preparations in the meantime to ensure that if they do try to come through the mine, they won't be able to get very far or make any substantial progress whatsoever.

Haa, I didn't want to, but I suppose I'll be converting a couple dozen of those microfusion cells in my stash not into grenades but into mines. It's unfortunate, however, the gains far outweigh the loss of some fusion cells that I'll be able to easily replace in the coming days. Though I'll be making the improved version, the microfusion breeder cells.

My decision pretty much made and thinking about all the gains I'd soon be making, I turned back around and proceeded to where everyone else was, with the exception of Alice, who followed beside me as usual this whole time.

Leaving the grotesque human mole rat hybrids behind, Alice and I rejoined my family and Mr. Birch. After viewing the mine, we had basically explored the entire facility pretty much, thus with nothing else left to see, we collectively headed for the van.

As we were making our way to said van, my Grandpa Henry slowed down until he was walking alongside me and asked. "What did you think of this one, Dom?"

"I like the place. The facility appears to be the best of the three we visited today. Other than that, it should accommodate the various things I would need it for." I answered him.

"However, there must be an issue with the place if the property owner is so anxious to get rid of it."

"That is correct. Any normal person would not sell off a prime property such as this. I wonder what the issue could be." My grandad Henry responded also curious about what the reason could be.

"Since there could be a possible problem with the place I would like to go do a bit of investigating before I come to a final decision, but in the meantime do you think you can delay the sale of the three properties until I can find out what's wrong with this one." I replied, withholding that I already knew what was wrong with it.

"That shouldn't be an issue, but don't drag out your investigation too long."

"Will do, and thanks again Grandpa for always helping me out." I responded gratefully with a slight bit of excitement in my voice due to me getting closer and closer to putting all the knowledge I've gathered over the years into actual use.

"Anytime, grandson." He replied, happy to help his precious grandson once again.

Coming closer and closer to putting all the knowledge I've gathered over the years into use, my grandpa rejoined my grandma up ahead while Alice got closer to me before suddenly reaching out and holding onto my hand. When I looked over in her direction to see what was up, I saw her shoot a smile my way. Understanding that she just wanted to hold hands, the two of us continued following behind my family along with Mr. Birch.

Several minutes of walking later, we made it back to our transportation, so we all piled in again and were driven to the real estate office. Directly after coming back to the office, my grandfather told us he had something to discuss with Mr. Birch and asked for us to wait for a few minutes while he had his conversation with the older gentleman.

Thus, whilst my grandpa and Mr. Birch went off to talk, likely to arrange a hold on all three listings for me. My family and I, with the addition of Alice, made small talk amongst ourselves in the meantime while we waited for my grandpa to return. Not too many minutes passed when my grandpa Henry came strolling out of the entrance along with Mr. Birch, who wished us all a good rest of the day prior to him heading inside to continue whatever work he had to do.

Formalities handled, thanks to my grandpa. We continued through the parking lot of the real estate office and hopped into my dad's SUV. Right as everyone loaded in and had their seatbelts clicked in, my dad drove everyone to our home. Following our return home, my grandparents decided to stay for lunch before they took off to go do whatever they had planned originally.

Well, that was a productive first half of the day, but it's time I get back to my regular activities. Though when night falls, I'll scour the undercity web for the details I need on that property owner. It shouldn't take me more than 10 minutes to find what I'm looking for.

With plans of searching the net for the property owner's details tonight, I got back to grinding my skills via reading the various things I still needed to learn about on my laptop, with Alice obviously doing the same, of course.

…

Alice and I spent the day being productive as usual, doing the activities we normally did. After a good many hours passed of doing that with the addition of some gaming at the end, the day had come to a close.

"Alright, you two, it's about time you go to bed." My mom came and told both Alice and me in her usual sweet voice as the clock reached 10:00 PM.

"Okay Mom, we'll head to bed in a second." I responded to her whilst Alice and I were in the midst of playing a cooperative game I picked up this week.

A couple of minutes later, the two of us reached a point where we could save, so we did so and wrapped up our gaming for the night. Now that it was time for bed, us two peas in a pod made our way to my bathroom, which was basically our bathroom at this point, not just mine any longer, and went through our usual hygienic routines that we needed to perform every night.

The minute that was taken care of, I went out to the living room with Alice in tow, where both of my parents were and wished them a good night. "We're going to bed. I'll see you in the morning, Mom and Dad. Have a good night."

"Goodnight, Mr. and Mrs. Woods." Alice said directly after me.

"You two have a good night as well. We'll see you both in the morning." My dad responded.

"Sleep well." My mom said lastly, getting up from the couch and giving Alice and I a hug before letting us go.

Now that everyone wished each other a goodnight, Alice and I exited the living room and started retracing our way through the hallway to my room. On the short journey there, I had the bright idea to farm a few brownie points before bed, so I grabbed hold of Alice's hand. Directly resulting in a small as well as satisfied smile making its way onto her face so mission accomplished.

A couple brownie points successfully farmed, we made it back to my room. The two of us were already in our sleeping attire, with me in woodland camo boxer briefs and Alice in her fox onesie. Thus, the two of us got into my bed, which has grown in size even further to a queen due to me needing a larger bed, not to mention my bed gaining another occupant in the way of Alice.

The moment the two of us climbed on in, I got settled into my usual spot while Alice came my way and rested against my chest as she always does nowadays and got nice and comfortable.

For the next several minutes Alice and I talked about this and that and when there was a break in our chatter I decided it was time Alice and I got some shut-eye, don't want to stunt our growth. Even though in my case I would likely be fine thanks to my system and the superhuman amount of endurance I have.

"Alice, let's get some sleep."

"Okay, I'll see you in the morning, love you Dom." She responded sweetly, suddenly surprising me with an I love you.

That's new, she hasn't said that previously but I guess she wants to progress to that kind of stuff now, and with how intently she's looking at me I better respond in kind if I don't want to have to deal with some kind of incident right before bed.

Leaning my head down a bit I responded in kind and said "I love you too Alice." Followed by a peck on her forehead which got a nice pink flush going on her cheeks as she latched onto me further.

Looks like she won't be sleeping for a bit, but she'll start to, eventually. I'll just go on ahead since I need to start my investigation when I wake up in four hours.

While Alice was dealing with the mixture of feelings I caused her to have, I relaxed, closed my eyes, and quickly fell asleep.

Zzz…