As we journeyed further and further into the mine, I kept up my sing of the enviro, keeping a for anything that would pose even the possibility of a threat. After walking for many mihrough the b tuhat 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 beiracted, I saw the braniunnel we were traveling on was ing to an end via the mini-map. What y ahead at the end of the tunnel was the entrao aework 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 e the molemen reinfort, 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 signifit amount of enemies were up ahead and ing 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 enviro we were iook the initiative and opened fire from our spread out formation we've been proceeding in this eime, sending a shit load of lead at the ining swarm. Although that lead mainly prised ser fire instead of actual bullets.

  Brag my light mae gun, I held dowrigger and dumped my 100 round mag into the many molemen running in our dire, putting plenty of holes. Their heads popped oer another simir to watermelons in my previous world being shot, though a hell of a lot mrotesque with blood and brain matter flying about the miunnel.

  While the bunch of us were ying into them I was tinuously sing the ons of the ining swarm and direg most of my fire at the targets that possessed rger caliber rifles, the ohat could potentially cause harm to gramps, I, or one of my robots. Thankfully, they didn't possess too many of those sorts of ons, 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 uo do any harm, so I shrugged them off like they were nothing a on bsting 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 thaher of us, so they were essentially invincible against the molemen and just kept p ser fire on anything that moved.

  …

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

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

  Finding nothing but the corpses of dead molemen reinforts and whatever ons they were carrying strewn about, I announced my findings simply. "Looks clear. Let's back up and check ear 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 gh my equipment checkup, gramps wandered over to me and pced 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 o be done. 't leave a moleme unchecked, now I."

  "Mmm, correct, and it's good that you feel that way. That's the sort of mentality yoing to o aplish 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 encement. "Alright, I'mma go check my on 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 ing 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 refleg on the sughter I pyed a major part in, with my sed 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 rea 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 sughtering the whole lot of them.

  That, and I finally got a reason to use my ons and bat skills I've been training and w on for so many years. Though now that I've had my first kill, I wonder if I'll feel something when I iably 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 actally killing an i bystander or many. I know I would feel remorseful and upset about it, but that's all. I definitely wouldn't let it e 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 quest, he's a fone clusion that there's going to be plenty of unfortunate casualties. That's just an unfortunate part of war. Obviously, I'll do my damo e and reduce it as much as possible, but it would be o think I could prevent it entirely. That just isn't going to happen.

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

  My sed thought process wandered off from there, running through various sarios I might face soon, as I went over my gear. Withihan 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 ear in tiptop shape. I hadn't ever used it before, so I ied the incredibly minor wear and tear on my mae gun to see what would happen. Seds ticked by as I saw the wear slowly begin to revert to its inal state when the on 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. heless, it'll make our ons 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 age. We will soon duplicate. Walking through the puddles of red blood and stepping over the many body parts, I reached the cave entrand took a moment to s the path ahead with my perception field.

  Not deteg 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 eime. Finally, entering the molemens' home turf, I checked my minimap in the er of my vision a moving forward.

  …

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

  The 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 t 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 ges the new perks and improved stats will cause my body to undergo. Looks like I'll be in for a world of hurt ter, sigh. Hopefully, I'll be able to adjust to the ges my body undergoes quicker the more level ups I experience.

  Not looking forward to having to undergo that experience again, I ramped up my killing two fold and took my feelings of distent out on the poor molemen. Sucks to be them. We tinued hter through the cave system and 15 mier, our squad neared a rge chamber, the only one we would enter 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 orao the chamber. Not deteg anything with my perception field, I stuck my head out from around the er and peeked inside. I immediately saw a rge cave chamber lit by lumi moss, mushrooms and other pnts 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 uhey 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 bay group and once I informed gramps of what I found; we started moving towards the chamber. As soon as we he entrance, we all collectively aimed our ons, each finding our own target to eliminate. I grabbed gramp's attention silently and ted down from three with my fingers and upon putting the st finger down we poured ser and guo the chamber.

  Due to us having the element of surprise, we dropped two hundred of them dead ihan thirty seds. After making quick work of them, we made our way into the chamber and dispatched whatever survivors were ging to life. Following that, we looked around to see if we could locate anything of i, but we didn't find much besides the lumi pnts which I took note of sihey might hold some value for research, specifically medical.

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

  "Alright, let's go."

  Heading out of the grow chamber, we tinued off into a unnel making our way in the dire of the main chamber. Minutes into departing from that chamber, we entered anroup of molemen that likely heard all the gunfire from a short while ago and so with more eo deal with; we got to bsting.

  …

  An hour of traversing and battling throughout the cave system ter, my robots, gramps, and I arrived at a stretch of tuhe st stretch we o gh to reach the rgest chamber in this massive cave system.

  "We're almost there, gramps, we just o gh this passage and we're at the rgest 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 sed!"

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

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

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

  "Yeah, everything is clear and ing in without issue. It hasn't dropped even ohis eime."

  "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 fident you'll have gotten adjusted to it after all the molemen have bee 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 wao this versation up a a move on; I said. "And Alice, if things look like they are going to bee dire, you know what to do, although I highly doubt we'll enter arouble."

  "I got you covered, Dom."

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

  "Good lud stay safe, you two."

  "We will. o worry." I replied.

  "Let's go, gramps."