Chapter 11: First Blood

I continued looking at the turrets for a couple more seconds before I turned back around towards the main tunnel that wasn't illuminated like the mine entrance and started heading into its depths to get the xp farming I came here to do done.

...

About 100 feet in, small pockets of earth and rock missing along the tunnel's surface began appearing. Finding it odd, I curiously walked up to several of them and checked them out and upon closer inspection; they seemed to be made up of an accumulation of clawing and gnawing marks.

I suppose I'm within mole rats' territory at this point... Well, I better take one of my weapons out and keep it at the ready so I can dispatch them as I come across them.

As soon as I finished that thought, I brought out my 12G Laser Pistol that I had hidden in a pouch on my War Belt and holstered it on one of the magnets on the belt for ease of access. The moment I had it in place, I continued heading further into the mine along the main tunnel. Sometime later, the pockets that I noticed initially had begun to transform into tunnels of varying sizes ranging from 3 to 4 feet in height to even an odd one here and there reaching 5 or so feet in height.

I should've made those caltrops. They would've been quite helpful here to slow down any mole rats from coming out of these holes, since there is a possibility they could use these to flank me and cut me off from the entrance. However, it's a bit too late to turn back now, so I'll think about making a lot of them for my next trip into the mines.

Done thinking about making additional equipment for my future hunting trips, I proceeded onward, into the darkness of the main tunnel, where I eventually started to pick up what sounded like clawing and chittering further up ahead.

And what could that be...

Prioritizing caution, I stopped in my tracks and paused for a moment, focusing both my vision and my head mounted light down the tunnel to see if I could locate whatever was making the noise. The very second I did, I spotted a group of 3 mole rats digging away at the floor and walls of the tunnel's surface, searching for food, I presumed. However, on second thought, that didn't seem to be the case since they wouldn't be able to find much of anything down here, so they must be digging for some other purpose.

Hmm, they appear to be unbothered by the light I'm shining at them, so I guess they are truly a blind variant of mole rats, just like I heard. Now do I want to dispatch them now or should I test out their other senses... I'm in no rush and information is king, hence I might as well go with the latter.

Scanning around the general vicinity around me for a second, I found a small rock nearby, picked it up, and lightly chucked it, around 15 feet away from them. Once the small rock landed, they all stopped what they were doing and immediately looked in the direction of where the stone landed. A few seconds later, the 3 of them collectively returned to what they were doing previously.

This species of mole rat appears to have a very good sense of hearing or the ability to sense vibrations in their surroundings and, if not that, maybe it's a combination of the two. Let me perform another test so I'll know exactly how they sense their surroundings.

To test out their senses further, I reached my right hand towards my war belt where my 12G Laser Pistol was holstered and released it from its magnetic hold. When I had the pistol within my grasp, I pointed it at the tunnel wall about ten meters away and pulled the trigger letting off a scatter of several laser beams that lit up the tunnel with a red hue for a split second in a relatively tight grouping.

*Zzztt*

Before I could register the laser beams, they impacted the tunnel's wall, leaving behind multiple scorch marks on its surface in a similar pattern to 12 gauge buckshot, although tighter and more uniform. As I registered the sound made by the laser pistol, all three-mole rats began turning in my direction.

Guess I have part of my question regarding their senses answered now. I'll just need to do some further tests at a later date to make further determinations... actually that probably won't be necessary since I will more than likely get my answer as I eliminate more of the pests.

With that part of the test finished, I swapped targets to the nearest mole rat and let off one shot, scoring a crit and disintegrating the mole rat nearest to me instantly. Once that fella had been killed, I rapidly swapped targets again, took aim at the one directly right of its deceased friend and repeated my actions, getting the same result within seconds minus the disintegration part.

That the second-mole rat finished off, I started changing targets again to the last remaining one that was located along the opposite wall of the tunnel. Just as I was about to have my 12G Laser Pistol lined up with it, I saw it stand up on its hind legs to perform some sort of unknown action. But before it got the chance I lined up my weapon with the poor bastard and pulled the trigger for the final time, letting off my fourth shot of laser fire, disintegrating part of its body into ash and leaving a good portion of the rest charred and bloodied.

My prey easily dispatched, I scanned my surroundings for any immediate danger. After a short period scanning said surroundings and what I could see of the tunnel's depths, I didn't detect anything. So I re-holstered my 12G Laser Pistol on my War Belt along my right side, just above my hip.

Well, that was easier than expected. But before I continue my farming trip further into the main tunnel, let me play back my fight in my head to see if I missed anything of importance and do a bit of thinking.

Whilst I was replaying my very short encounter with the small group of mole rats in my head, I noticed one thing that I hadn't thought of previously.

This didn't occur to me previously, but this species of mole rat could also have a decent sense of smell. I don't know whether they do or don't with certainty, therefore I'll need to perform additional tests later on to confirm whether that is the case or not. However, seeing how they weren't able to pick up my scent even with me being as close as I was to them, most likely means that isn't the case, otherwise they would've detected me and been on my ass right off the bat.

The other thing I noticed from this encounter was the strange movement that the third-mole rat was going to perform. That rat was either going to go for a leap attack or it might've been getting ready to make a screech of some kind. I'm not 100% sure what it was going to do, but I have a feeling in my gut that it was trying to perform the latter.

If it was indeed trying to make a screech of some sort and had gotten it off, it could have called in additional reinforcements, possibly. That would either be a positive for me if I can handle the amount they throw at me or a negative if I can't, which could lead to a game over for me, something I'd very much rather avoid after spending 10+ years building myself up so far.

Moving on from that, there isn't really anything of value I can retrieve from their corpses, other than maybe turning them into plant food. There are potential issues with that though, such as the plants absorbing the radiation from their corpses possibly, which would obviously be bad in the case of food crops. Thus, it probably won't be worth the trouble of taking them with me since they'll most likely end up tossed away, anyway.

Done thinking about how I could pull more value out of each mole rat other than the exp I receive for dispatching them, I activated my Pip-Boy to see how much exp each kill was worth. Once everything froze like usual, a holographic screen popped up within my vision, displaying my status as it normally did, I began perusing.

It didn't take long for me to find what I was looking for and what I discovered was that each mole rat was worth 20 experience points on average. And with my exp modifier added on, they were worth 35 experience points.

Not too bad I should be able to level up pretty quickly, as long as I can find enough of these vermin.

Following that, I continued browsing my status until I arrived at the skill section of it where I noticed a change in the value of one of my skills, specifically sneak, which had gone up by a point.

That's a bit odd, I wasn't being all that stealthy when I took the three of them out. I also haven't really been working on my stealth all that much recently. I wonder if it has anything to do with that small amount of combat I was just in. It may have been enough to raise the skill and push it over the limit... That's probably what happened, but that seems like a bit too much. Maybe combat raises my skills at an accelerated rate when compared to regular training. I'll have to keep a close eye on things to see if it truly does.

Alright, that's enough about that. Let's check the rest of my status to see if anything else has changed.

...

There don't appear to be any other changes aside from the slight increase in my sneak skill I already took note of. I guess I better get back to xp farming to find out whether or not combat has any effect.

With my status taken care of, I closed out of my Pip-boy screen, resuming time again within a few seconds as per usual. As soon as it resumed, I was unceremoniously hit in the face by the overwhelmingly strong stench of blood, courtesy of the other two-mole rat corpses that didn't disintegrate fully.

Hmm, I got an idea why don't I use these mole rat corpses to test out their sense of smell. And if any of them get drawn in by the stench, I can use it as an opportunity to take a few of them out right off the rip before moving in on whatever enemies are still remaining.

As I thought about that sudden idea more and more, it became increasingly appealing, thus I decided to go with it. Drawing one of my Custom Combat Knives from my War Belt, I walked over to the 2 mole rat corpses and started opening them up so the blood would drain out of the corpses and start pervading the surroundings more than it already was. Once I finished my gruesome job of cutting up the corpses, I backed up a couple dozen feet and waited to see if my recent kills would lure anything out.

Around the 15 minute mark, I began to hear a hurried pitter-patter sound approaching right for the three mole rat corpses. As the seconds ticked by, the sound of the movement got louder due to whatever was producing the noise growing increasingly near. Eventually, I was able to make out a dozen mole rats storming over toward my handiwork from the darkness.

The moment the group of mole rats finally arrived in front of the corpses, I observed them patiently to see what they would do. At the beginning, they started off by prodding each of the corpses and once they had done that for a short bit, something seemed to have clicked inside them and the whole bunch of them began to become more and more agitated by the second.

Several moments passed when, all of a sudden, the largest mole rat of the group issued a high-pitched chirp. Right as that chirp was issued, one of the mole rats near the rear of the group started to break off from the group and ran towards the depths of the main mine tunnel.

They seem to be quite intelligent for simple mole rats. But that aside, they also appear to have a sort of command structure and if my intuition is correct, that mole rat scurrying off down the main tunnel is heading off to get more reinforcements. I could be wrong but if that mole rat is indeed bringing reinforcements it shouldn't be too much of a problem for me since I've brought plenty of MFC Grenades with me. Ten in total, just in case I ever came across a blockage or got myself involved in a situation where there was an overwhelming number of enemies...

Hopefully that mole rat heading off into the depths of the tunnels brings its friends because I'm going to need as much exp as I can get so I'll have the best chance of survival in this harsh world. That said, let me prepare for whatever possible situation I may face in a short while here and move the MFC Grenades I have stored in the pouch on my War Belt and attach them to the belt directly. So I can have easier access to them on the off chance the backup the mole rat brings is a bit too much for me to handle.

As that idea finalized in my head, I started putting it into action the very next moment by opening the pouch on my War Belt and attaching the many grenades inside it directly to the belt one by one via magnetic attach points running along it. After around 40 seconds, I had every last one of the MFC Grenades secured to my belt.

Now that I got all those MFC Grenades attached, I might as well take care of the mole rats in front of me in the meantime while I wait to see if any reinforcements show up. And I think I'll swap weapons for this group of mole rats.

Ready to make a move, I picked up a nearby rock from the tunnel floor and slowly started inching my way toward the group of mole rats on the left side of the tunnel as stealthily as I could. Within moments, I reached my desired distance, hence I threw the rock I had in my hand further into the tunnel to get them to face the other way for a second. The instant the rock impacted the ground, all the mole rats within the area began turning in the direction where the small rock landed, just like I wanted them to.

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If you want something else to read, that's similar to this, check out my other webnovel Wasteland Conqueror. It has a lot more chapters released.