Chapter 39: First Blood

As we journeyed further and further into the mine, I kept up my scanning of the environment, keeping an eye out for anything that would pose even the possibility of a threat. After walking for many minutes through the boring tunnel that was mostly the same throughout except for an occasional branch leading off somewhere else.

And the hollowing out of the tunnel wall most likely because of ore or other resources being extracted, I saw the branch of mine tunnel we were traveling on was coming to an end via the mini-map. What lay ahead at the end of the tunnel was the entrance to an extensive network of caves that held the target we were after.

With the tunnel ending and the cave beginning, I directed most of my focus ahead and what would you know here come the molemen reinforcement, and fuck, there were a lot of them. Using the non-verbal signals I rehearsed with gramps in the past, I gave the signal that a significant amount of enemies were up ahead and coming towards us. Upon giving the signal, they came streaming out of the cave's entrance armed with numerous firearms.

The enemy, unaware of our presence due to us being covered by my presence hiding field and the lightless environment we were in, we took the initiative and opened fire from our spread out formation we've been proceeding in this entire time, sending a shit load of lead at the incoming swarm. Although that lead mainly comprised laser fire instead of actual bullets.

Bracing my light machine gun, I held down the trigger and dumped my 100 round mag into the many molemen running in our direction, putting plenty of holes. Their heads popped one after another similar to watermelons in my previous world being shot, though a hell of a lot more grotesque with blood and brain matter flying about the mine tunnel.

While the bunch of us were laying into them I was continuously scanning the weapons of the incoming swarm and directing most of my fire at the targets that possessed larger caliber rifles, the ones that could potentially cause harm to gramps, I, or one of my robots. Thankfully, they didn't possess too many of those sorts of weapons, so I spent most of the time just unloading on whatever molemen gramps and my robots weren't shredding to pieces.

Shortly into the bout, they began shooting back, thus we had to deal with bullets whizzing by us. I even had a few hit me in the chest and the stomach, but because I had my armor, they were unable to do any harm, so I shrugged them off like they were nothing and kept on blasting one moleman's head after another.

The old man took a few hits too, but he had a sturdy set armor as well, hence he wasn't really affected all that much by it other than some of the beefier rounds messing with keeping his aim on target. As for my robots, they were more heavily armored than either of us, so they were essentially invincible against the molemen and just kept pouring laser fire on anything that moved.

…

Our cacophony of gun and laser fire continued for the next couple of minutes when their numbers began to trickle; thus we kept it up till we mopped up the remaining ones, leaving our weapons hot from the continuous gunfire. Unsure if there were any more remaining ahead and not willing to leave things up to chance, I went forward with gramps and my robots following right behind me.

Quickly closing in on the cave entrance, I checked everything around the entrance and including the area on the other side.

Finding nothing but the corpses of dead molemen reinforcements and whatever weapons they were carrying strewn about, I announced my findings simply. "Looks clear. Let's back up and check our gear before we proceed further."

Having us back off, we retreated the way we came, no more than a hundred or so feet, so we could take a breather and check our equipment.

Before I could go through my equipment checkup, gramps wandered over to me and placed his hand on my shoulder and asked. "You good kid?"

"Yup, why do you ask?"

"Well, most people have the predisposition to feel a certain type of way when they've killed for the very first time."

"Ohh, you're talking about that, yeah, I don't feel bothered by it all. I just see it as something that needs to be done. Can't leave a molemen nest unchecked, now can I."

"Mmm, correct, and it's good that you feel that way. That's the sort of mentality you're going to need to accomplish that dream of yours."

"For sure." I agreed whilst nodding my head.

Gramps and I talked for a short bit longer when he gave me some words of encouragement. "Alright, I'mma go check my weapon over and make sure everything is right. And Dom, you did good, and your call to check the equipment is smart. Keep that kind of thinking up because it will one day save your life."

"Will do and thanks, gramps. Those words coming from you mean a lot."

Gramps going off to check his gear, I started doing the same. In the process of doing so, I began reflecting on the slaughter I played a major part in, with my second thought process while my main one checked over my gear.

I thought I should've felt some kind of way or had some kind of bodily reaction due to exterminating over a hundred humanoid beings, but for whatever reason I don't feel any different than I normally do… Actually now that I'm giving it thought I don't feel the least bit remorseful or saddened about all the lives I took. In fact, I'm actually quite happy about the whole thing because I got a shit ton of exp from slaughtering the whole lot of them.

That, and I finally got a reason to use my weapons and combat skills I've been training and working on for so many years. Though now that I've had my first kill, I wonder if I'll feel something when I inevitably take my first human life… If it's a me or them type of situation I believe I won't feel a damn thing, same for if some asshole is trying to hurt my family and friends.

However, in a hypothetical situation, I end up accidentally killing an innocent bystander or many. I know I would feel remorseful and upset about it, but that's all. I definitely wouldn't let it consume me and take over my life to the point where I'm left as nothing but a shell of my former self.

The goal I'm pursuing is a path of war and conquest, hence it's a foregone conclusion that there's going to be plenty of unfortunate casualties. That's just an unfortunate part of war. Obviously, I'll do my damndest to negate and reduce it as much as possible, but it would be naïve to think I could prevent it entirely. That just isn't going to happen.

All that said, whatever mistakes I end up committing in the pursuit of my goals, I'll try my best to right.

My second thought process wandered off from there, running through various scenarios I might face soon, as I went over my gear. Within less than 5 minutes myself, gramps, and everyone of my bots had everything checked.

Finding no issues with our equipment, I toggled Restorer's repair field on to help keep our gear in tiptop shape. I hadn't ever used it before, so I inspected the incredibly minor wear and tear on my machine gun to see what would happen. Seconds ticked by as I saw the wear slowly begin to revert to its original state when the weapon was first produced, though at a stupidly slow pace.

The ability to have our equipment repaired passively is pretty cool, however given its current rate, it won't prove all that useful until I have a ton of points in my repair skill. Nevertheless, it'll make our weapons and armor more durable and cut down on the frequency of actual maintenance.

With that perk's effects tested out, I started leading again, keeping my wits about me as I passed through the bloody carnage. We will soon duplicate. Walking through the puddles of red blood and stepping over the many body parts, I reached the cave entrance and took a moment to scan the path ahead with my perception field.

Not detecting any dangers, I pushed on with the old man and my robots following close behind in a spread out formation that they've been keeping up this entire time. Finally, entering the molemens' home turf, I checked my minimap in the corner of my vision and kept moving forward.

…

At some point, our group arrived at a split and since I've checked the minimap already, I chose the path that would lead us to the largest chamber in this entire cave system. As we kept progressing deeper and deeper into the cave, my prospectron kept doing its job of scanning the cave for resources, finding plenty of veins and different deposits of minerals that I would later have my bots harvest once this entire ordeal was over.

The next couple of hours we kept moving further and further into the cave system, occasionally killing off entire groups of molemen, adding more and more kills to our kill count and increasing my banked level ups.

I wish I could spend my level ups, but I don't have the time to adjust to whatever changes the new perks and improved stats will cause my body to undergo. Looks like I'll be in for a world of hurt later, sigh. Hopefully, I'll be able to adjust to the changes my body undergoes quicker the more level ups I experience.

Not looking forward to having to undergo that experience once again, I ramped up my killing two fold and took my feelings of discontent out on the poor molemen. Sucks to be them. We continued our slaughter through the cave system and 15 minutes later, our squad neared a large chamber, the only one we would encounter on our route to the main chamber. Unsure if there were any molemen up ahead, I had everybody hang back while I stealthily snuck forth to check things out.

Within moments, I was upon the entrance to the chamber. Not detecting anything with my perception field, I stuck my head out from around the corner and peeked inside. I immediately saw a large cave chamber lit by luminescent moss, mushrooms and other plants and tons of unarmed molemen moving about, appearing to be farming cave shrooms on mounds of dark substance spread all across the floor and walls of the cave.

This looks to be their growing area and food supply. I take this out and there goes their food unless they have more of these and seeing how many molemen we've exterminated so far, this isn't the only growing site they got.

Having seen enough, I backed off and slunked back to my group and once I informed gramps of what I found; we started moving towards the chamber. As soon as we neared the entrance, we all collectively aimed our weapons, each finding our own target to eliminate. I grabbed gramp's attention silently and counted down from three with my fingers and upon putting the last finger down we poured laser and gunfire into the chamber.

Due to us having the element of surprise, we dropped two hundred of them dead in less than thirty seconds. After making quick work of them, we made our way into the chamber and dispatched whatever survivors were clinging to life. Following that, we looked around to see if we could locate anything of interest, but we didn't find much besides the luminescent plants which I took note of since they might hold some value for research, specifically medical.

"They're all dead and there's nothing of any real interest here. Let's continue moving." Gramps said.

"Alright, let's go."

Heading out of the grow chamber, we continued off into a new tunnel making our way in the direction of the main chamber. Minutes into departing from that chamber, we encountered another group of molemen that likely heard all the gunfire from a short while ago and so with more enemies to deal with; we got to blasting.

…

An hour of traversing and battling throughout the cave system later, my robots, gramps, and I arrived at a stretch of tunnel. The last stretch we needed to go through to reach the largest chamber in this massive cave system.

"We're almost there, gramps, we just need to go through this passage and we're at the largest chamber. Are you ready to do this?"

"Yeah, but if things go south, Dom, you leave your robots and I all behind and escape, you hear me!"

"But-

"No buts-"

"Gramps, just shut up for a second!"

He wasn't pleased, but he did as I asked, so I began explaining why it was completely unnecessary. "You're worried and being over dramatic for nothing, gramps. All those robots can self-destruct if necessary, so we're basically walking with a bunch of mini-nukes that can cover our backs if the need arises."

"Oh… Disregard what I just said then." Gramps replied nonchalantly, playing things off as if he wasn't ready to sacrifice himself if the need arose.

Turning my attention to Alice now, I asked. "Alice, is everything still clear on your end?"

"Yeah, everything is clear and coming in without issue. It hasn't dropped even once this entire time."

"Good, have you been having any issue with what you've been seeing so far?"

"Not really, just general disgust for all the blood, guts, and gore."

Imagining Alice looking green, I said. "Yeah, I hear you on that, but you're a strong girl, so I'm confident you'll have gotten adjusted to it after all the molemen have been dealt with. That aside, getting used to seeing this kind of gruesome stuff will be a big help to you when you have to take a life down the road for the first time."

"The kid's right about that one." Gramps chimed in.

I talked about a couple of other things with her and when I wanted to wrap this conversation up and get a move on; I said. "And Alice, if things look like they are going to become dire, you know what to do, although I highly doubt we'll encounter any real trouble."

"I got you covered, Dom."

"Alright, I'll leave it to you, Alice."

"Good luck and stay safe, you two."

"We will. No need to worry." I replied.

"Let's go, gramps."

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