Dungeon Core Academy: Books 1-7 (A LitRPG Series) by Alex Oakchest (book suggestions txt) 📕

“Oooh, look at Mr. Special over here. Mr. King of Bones.” Then he looked at me. “I see our core favors his little wolf lizards. This is an outrage, I tell you. An outrage!”

“I’m going to have to build a meditation studio if I’m to have angry blobs of goo floating around,” I said. “Just try and tone it down, okay? Stress kills. This dungeon isn’t a place for negativity.”

“Do we get names? Or are we not special enough for Mr. Kobold Lover?” asked the jelly.

“Firstly, don’t use that nickname ever again. Call me Dark Lord, Dark Magnificence, Prince of Pain, or the Master of All that is Unholy. You can take your pick. Whereas your name, jelly, is Peach.”

“Peach??”

“If your attitude improves, I’ll give you a less silly one. Beetle, your name is…”

“Death!” squeaked the beetle.

“No, that is already taken by…well, by Death. Your name is…”

“Death.”

I sighed. When a fire beetle gets something into his head, there’s no changing it. “Fine, Rusty, Peach, and Death. You three are to train in the arena until you’re in better shape.”

With my pronouncement, my core vibrated, and a message appeared.

Rusty [Kobold, shaman], Peach [Angry elemental jelly], and Death [Fire beetle] are now training in the arena. Training is passive, and they will level up with time.

Footsteps announced the arrival of more creatures. I heard little scampering steps accompanied by great slurping sounds.

“Gary, Fight, and Kill,” I said, greeting the newcomers. “Meet your new clanmates.”

Three monsters entered the arena. The first two were Fight and Kill, my fire beetles. I had named them after Fight and Kill, the first beetles I had ever made, back in my original dungeon.

With them was Gary, my spider-rock troll-leech hybrid. Standing ten feet tall and half as wide, he was an imposing sight. Many people have a fear of spiders, I am told, but those people have never in their worst nightmares imagined a spider with leeches for legs could exist. Yes, all eight of Gary’s legs were actually great, bulging leeches with razor teeth. His skin was made from stone, weak against magic but able to take the punishment from most melee weapons. He was a monstrous creature.

“Core Beno,” he said, his voice light and sing-song. “Always a delight to see you. I was just remarking to the lovely Fight and Kill on the way here; I feel like you’re in great shape these days. Have you been exercising?”

Gary never failed to put a smile on my face. We’d had our ups and downs, mainly after I was forced to demote him from boss-monster status to make room for something more powerful, but we would always be friends. He was so damn nice, it was hard not to be.

Fight and Kill scampered over to Death now, and the three insects clacked their pincers against each other in their customary greeting.

“Fight?” said one.

“Kill.”

“Fight kill?”

“Death.”

“Fight death kill.”

Nobody ever said that fire beetles were great conversationalists. I faced my friend, deciding that he’d be the best one to give orders to.

 “Gary, you and your new clanmates here are going to train in the arena.”

Gary held a leech leg against his chin and looked around thoughtfully. “This place looks marvelous. Such exquisite carvings; did you do them, Core Beno?”

“Well technically, yes. But also no. I’ll leave you here now, I have things to do. Work hard, get tough. Gary, I want to see you hit level 20 before the cock crows.”

“My dear fellow, I am only level 4 at present. When is the cock going to crow?”

“It’s just a saying, I think it was created by farmers or something. What I’m telling you is, it’s time to dream big, big guy. No point dreaming in little morsels, let’s dream of having king-sized feasts.”

With that, I left the creatures in the arena, satisfied that my dungeon was slowly, but surely, getting deadlier.

CHAPTER 9

Sider

“Ooooo,” she said, howling like a wolf. “That musta hurt!”

She watched the fight from the cart, relaxing with her legs dangling over the edge and with four bottles of ale on either side of her.

She wore a shirt stained with the sweat of travel, and trousers she’d mended too many times to count. When you lived the life she did, you learned to be handy with a needle and thread. Either that or be prepared to buy yourself new clothes all the time. It wasn’t just her; all the guys knew learned how to sew. It was just one of those things you had to live with.

She had been embarrassingly bad at it, initially. This was years ago when she’d first joined the group, way before she became leader. She’d resisted learning the skill. “Why in all hells would I want to sit there playing with a needle and thread?”

But they’d insisted. After her initiation into the group, which involved way more goat blood and candles than she’d expected, it was a prerequisite to learn how to fix clothes, and that was that.

Set before her this evening was a scene lit by the glow of a campfire. The flames swayed in the wind but didn’t die, and they cast illumination over four half-naked men.

Muscled louts, all of them time-worn and battle-scarred, but still in the kind of shape that turned the heads of even of most prude ladies. Sider wouldn’t waste her time with chumps like these. Not in that way, at least. They were more like her brothers.

Two of the men were sitting down, while the other two stood, facing off against each other. It became a dance, each edging around the other, looking for weaknesses, waiting for concentration to wane, until…

Whack!

Sider winced as a fist struck a nose, spraying spit and blood everywhere. The men were at it then, throwing punches