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

I realized. Getting caught outside of town with this monster. We should have left as soon as Hardere gave us the portal stone. Although it had taken Pvat and nine guards to beat Razensen, they had still done it, and none of those guards was a match for Cael. Razensen wouldn’t have been enough to defeat him.

“Have it!” cried a voice.

Sir Dullbright stood above Dolos-Dullbright, waving a goo-covered sword in the air and swinging it triumphantly.

“They also say that experience beats youth,” said Dullbright, flashing me a toothy smile.

Grievously wounded, Dolos-Dullbright became just Dolos again. A blob lying on the ground, unmoving.

As Dullbright advanced on me, and as Pvat stalked toward Razensen with his sword held high, two things happened.

The first was a flash of blinding red light from Razensen’s face. He roared as he got to his feet, and it was like the rumble of an avalanche careening down a mountainside. He punched guards so hard that they flew away into oblivion. He crushed heads, he pierced stomachs with his horns and carried on fighting while the poor guards were still impaled on them. He squeezed skulls, pulverized bones, stomped through ribcages.

Next came the war cry of a man. He charged at us from the darkness, the moonlight glistening on his naked torso and showing muscles that would have put a troll to shame. His long hair blew majestically in the wind as he ran.

“Gods’ fury! Power of the stone! Blood of yesterday!” he cried nonsensically, before cleaving Sir Dullbright at the waist.

Ting!

Dullbright fell on his back, but he wasn’t dead. I was forced to admit that he wasn’t quite as out of shape as I had thought; he clearly wore metal armor under his clothes.

Pvat picked him up and dragged him away.

“Pvat you coward!” said Dullbright, despite not complaining about being dragged away. “Let me finish this. Let me go…” his voice trailed away as they became silhouettes in the darkness.

The guards were all dead. Only Claus remained of their party, and he tried to sprint after Dullbright and Pvat.

“I don’t think so,” said Gulliver, on his feet again. He punched the wagon driver and knocked him flat onto his back.

He walked over to Dolos and kneeled beside him. “He’s dead, Beno.”

Another creature had fallen in service to me. I wished that I could say that it broke me. That I felt sadness welling inside.

Some beings just aren’t made that way. As a core, the academy forgers had made me without such feelings. Though tiny flickers of human emotions sometimes slithered into my mind, they were never strong enough that I couldn’t master them when I really needed to. And right now, I really needed to.

“Beno?” said Gulliver.

But my lack of emotions didn’t mean I didn’t know what was right.

“Collect him please, Gull. Dolos will not be left here for his body to dry in the sun.”

- Level up to 15!

(Exp from: Razensen [Bogan])

- Total essence increased to 1505

- Existing crafting categories expanded

- Dungeon capacity increased: 25 rooms, 30 traps, 17 puzzles, 31 monsters, 3 boss monsters

Since Razensen had joined my dungeon, however temporary our arrangement was, I would benefit from his kills. And demons below, I’d really benefitted today, judging from the corpses strewn around us.

But as I watched Gulliver place Dolos in his satchel, I found that I didn’t much care about improving my core level or increasing my essence.

I looked at the new arrival who’d helped me with Dullbright. It was a barbarian. A barbarian wearing a brand new leather thong, by the looks of things. I recognized him now; it was the barbarian who had been eating chicken near the bulletin board.

“Three leather thongs for the price one?” I said.

“Na. That turned out to be horse shit.” He looked at the guards' corpses scattered over the wasteland, most in various states of pulverization. “Looks like I missed the fun parts.”

As much as slaughtering guards rather than heroes wasn’t much to my tastes, I had to admit there was a certain element in fun to all this. It left me in no doubt that Razensen was dangerous enough for Cael, in the right circumstances. We would just have to get him mad enough.

“Oh, it’s you!” said Gulliver, rushing over to the barbarian with a grin on his face. “Eric! How goes it?”

The barbarian shrugged. “That’ll be five gold,” he said. “Three for knocking Dullface on his arse. Two for letting the scribe here have rights to my side o’ the story. Now, have any of you lot got something to eat?”

CHAPTER 8

- New level excavated in dungeon! [Total levels: 2]

- New chamber added to dungeon [Assigned to: Razensen]

- Wylie [Kobold] is now a level 17 Supervisor!

- Tarius [Kobold] is now a level 23 miner!

- Jopvitz [Kobold] is now a level 7 miner!

- Redjack [Kobold is now a level 7 miner!

- Klok [Kobold is now a level 5 miner!

- Maginhart [Kobold] is now an apprentice tinker/alchemist/artificer! 

[Progress to level 1: 2%]

Wylie and his kobold miners, three of which were new creatures I had created to bolster the workforce, were standing in a pack before me. Their shirts were covered in dirt and sweat, their wolfish faces plastered with dust.

“Dark Lord like it?” asked Wylie.

“I’m afraid not,” I said.

Disappointment crashed upon their faces.

“That’s only because I love it!” I said.

My miners grinned back at me. Wylie clapped his team on the back one by one. “Good job, lads! Good work. Wylie happy!”

“Go and take a break. You earned it,” I told them. “In fact, have the rest of the day off.”

“Woohoo!” said one miner. “We go to Yondersun? Anyone, yes? Anyone come?”

The idea of visiting the town was met with widespread approval from the