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

Gulliver clinched in surprise. “You speak common tongue?”

“I wasn’t born with snow for brains, little fleshy one.”

I laughed then. It was hard not too, seeing the look of both humiliation and shock on Gull’s features.

“I suppose I owe you an apology,” Gulliver said. “I was a touch rude.”

“If little things like words hurt Razensen son of Goralsen, he would long ago have gone to the ice. Do not be suspicious. I have given my word. If I desired to send Stone or Little Fleshy One to the ice, I would have done so.”

“I suppose I should leave you to it, then.”

“Razensen thinks he can travel faster than a wagon,” I said. “As much as I loathe it, he’ll carry me. I just don’t have the time to argue. Though, I think he might be bragging about his speed. Is that right, Razensen? Are you blowing smoke up your own arse a little?”

“I do not brag, Stone. I have no need.”

“Right,” said Gulliver, somewhat awkward. “I s’pose I’ll see you both soon.”

We watched him head toward Hogsfeate until soon the darkness had completely swamped him and we couldn’t see more than his vague outline.

“Tell me something, Razensen,” I said. “When we saw you cowering by that rock-”

“I do not cower, Stone. I was shielding myself from the sun.”

“When you were shielding yourself, I thought that perhaps you had been captured and brought here, and you found yourself stranded. But something tells me that you aren’t the type to be captured.”

“I heard tell that my brother had come this way.”

“Ah, you’re looking for your brother?”

“Yes.”

“You must really need to find him, coming all the way up here.”

“Yes.”

“Is it save him from poachers or something?”

“To send him to the ice.”

“Right.”

I was about to pursue this line of inquiry, when I saw light across the wasteland, near Hogsfeate. There were two dozen little balls of light moving away from the town walls and then forming a circle.

At first, I was confused, until I realized that they were torches. People carrying torches, who had formed a circle around something.

That something could only have been a someone – Gulliver.

There were nine town guards, all boasting an oddity of body shapes from obese to skinny, with none looking athletic. Their uniforms were as spotty as their physiques, with some adorned in leathers, other wearing chainmail.

Three other people were with them. I had the displeasure of meeting two of them already, and while I had never personally met the other, I recognized him all too well.

The man before me was Sir Dullbright. While his town statue was the epitome of heroism, the real Dullbright looked like he had swallowed a beer barrel. His clothes were so fancy that they made Gulliver, who was stranded in the middle of the circle of guards, look like a beggar. He had a sword lazying in a sheath on his waist, though I guessed it had been so long since it had been drawn that the rust alone would take years to chip away.

Sir Dullbright eyed me with a look of pure venom, a glare so full of hate that it would have disconcerting, if I cared. I wasn’t used to such an expression; even when heroes came to my dungeon, there was no hate between us. It was a business transaction, after all. They wanted loot and glory, I wanted to murder them. Everybody was happy, and there was nothing personal. But Dullbright…you’d have thought that I had killed his cat or something.

Next to him were two loathsome creatures named Pvat, leader of the Hogsfeate heroes’ guild, and Claus, the cotton merchant with a perversion for whipping horses’ bottoms.

“Sir Dullbright, I presume?” I said.

He ignored me and spoke to Pvat. “This is the core you mentioned?”

“That’s him. Floating around town like he belongs here. Disgusting.”

“Disgusting indeed,” agreed Dullbright. “And dangerous. I would say like an animal that cannot be tamed, but animals at least behave according to their instincts. Cores have no such excuse for their evil. Did we not see as much in our fair town, before I saved us?”

“Exactly that, sir,” said Pvat.

“Then it appears it is time for me to rid our home of evil again.”

Dullbright drew his sword with much more fluidity than I had expected. The blade itself shined bright, as though it was a light source in itself. It glowed in the darkness like no sword should, bringing one image to my mind.

A tooth-shaped core split down the middle.

The weapons that could destroy a core were few, but they existed. And I already knew that Dullbright, however much he’d let himself go, had once destroyed a demented core.

Until then, I hadn’t been too worried about our odds here. Razensen was capable of handling a bunch of the guards on his own. Once the guards had seen a few of their friends impaled on Razensen’s horns or pulverized by his great fists, they’d probably decide that their wages didn’t justify such a gruesome end.

Besides which, the little trinkets they called swords wouldn’t have posed any threat to me. Not even Pvat, head of the heroes’ guild, would be much danger.

But now? Dullbright’s sword made me itch to be back in my dungeon, secure in my core chamber.

“Now fellas,” said Gulliver, from within his circle of guards. “I was merely heading to town to secure passage on a wagon. Beno here was going home. There’s no need for anything more than that. All of us can turn around and go back to our own beds to rest, rather than being laid to another kind of rest.”

“To the ice,” said Razensen.

The guards muttered to each other. One, who I recognized as one of the guards manning the gates that morning,