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

beings. Reginal and I are trying to build a home here. A settlement constructed through ambition and sweat, a place for our people to live and, one day, flourish. We cannot build such a place on a foundation of slavery, which is what you and core Jahn’s servitude amounts to.”

“What are you saying?” I said, doing my best to sound dumb. And succeeding all too well.

“That with your agreement to continue helping us – in your case by defending us from intruders and in Jahn’s case by assisting in surface construction – I will release you from your contracts.”

I let the words echo in the core room, and I imagined them floating around the chamber like little fairies made from light. They were so pleasing to hear. They were words that sparked a core’s equivalent of joy.

Had I actually done it?, had I earned my freedom by using my mimic to convince the First-Leaf?

“Can I just ask who influenced this decision, Galatee?” I asked.

“Who? Why, myself, of course. I have been thinking about what kind of leader I want to be. About what sort of settlement, and thus life, I want to help create here. I have decided that forced labor is no foundation on which to foster a new era.”

“You came to this epiphany on your own, hmm? Well, I have to commend you for that. Really. It takes a strong leader to make such a decision.”

“Well then. With your agreement to continue serv...assisting…us, we can formally sever the contract.”

“Just what would that agreement entail?” I asked. I had to be careful not to push this, but I was also a core of my word, and I didn’t want to make a deal that amounted to forced servitude in all but name, and thus have to break it.

“I won’t ask for contracts nor promises,” she said. “Just that you will, of your own free will, continue to defend the clan until we are in a position that we do not need it.”

“And Jahn? The same terms apply to him?”

She nodded. “I will speak with him separately, but yes. I would ask him to continue his efforts on the surface until we have the materials and expertise to complete further construction ourselves.”

I let the silence hang for a few seconds. The trick in any deal, even one overwhelmingly favorable to you, is to not seem too eager.

“I will accept your proposal,” I said. “And I commend your good leadership.”

She smiled, and for that split second the years seem to fall off her. It was only for a blink because then the worries and stresses of leadership returned to her face, and I felt a little sorry for her.

“I will go and speak to Jahn. Consider your contract severed, Core Beno. Henceforth, you will labor here as a clan equal.”

CHAPTER 29

Hold it in, I told myself. Hold it in. Just wait until she’s gone…

The second that Galatee exited my dungeon, I spun around on my pedestal like a puppy who had just scored a treat, and I let out a great cheer that echoed out of my core room and brought Tomlin scampering in to check on me.

“Tomlin heard noises, Dark Lord. Everything okay?” His face was wrought with concern.

“Ah, I see your confusion,” I said. “Those were happy noises, intended to express joy.”

He arched a furry kobold eyebrow at me. “Joy?” he said, as though the word was poison burning his insides. “Are you sick, Dark Lord?”

“I’ve never been better, my friend.”

“Then Tomlin will get back to work.”

“Good,” I said, with glee in my voice. It was unbecoming for a core, but I didn’t care. “You’re doing a brilliant job, Tomlin. Superb. Pat yourself on the arse.”

Tomlin left with a smile on his face, and I felt a smile deep within my core. For the first time since I had been resurrected as a dungeon core, I was free.

I wasn’t beholden to the Dungeon Core Academy, whose forgers had made me.

I didn’t serve the Wrotun clan, who had bought me.

I was a free core with a giant dungeon, one that I had recently expanded by gobbling up the dungeon next door like a hungry troll. I had two boss monsters, a narkleer, and a clan of kobolds, jellies, ravens, and beetles who looked upon me like a god.

Did I feel guilty that I had accomplished this through trickery?

Pah. I didn’t know the meaning of the word. After all, I hadn’t asked to be resurrected as a dungeon core. The academy core forgers hadn’t said to my deceased soul, “Would mind terribly if I yanked you from the place of eternal rest, stuffed you into a mineral body, and granted you immortality? Subject to the condition that you live it in servitude, of course.”

Cores were created to be tools. No, weapons. Ones wielded by the academy, who sold the services of their best cores to the highest bidder, and sold their failed cores to less scrupulous owners.

As far as I could remember, I was one of the only cores to win self-determination. I surely had to be one of the youngest to do it, anyway. Even Overseer Bolton had spent decades as a core before earning freedom.

And I hadn’t killed a single person to get my way.

Well, besides the heroes I had killed to earn a high enough level to create a mimic. But heroes don’t count; they aren’t real people.

No, I felt no guilt about my tricks. In fact, the events of today left me with a thought that I hadn’t had since my resurrection; that things couldn’t be better.

*

The novelty of my freedom still hadn’t worn off when, hours later, a being materialized beside me on the pedestal. It was a dungeon core, as orange as pumpkin flesh and shaped like