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

like. In public, I would never have insisted on them using one of my titles. But in front of the whole dungeon, I couldn’t let this disrespect slip.

“Dark Lord, you mean,” I said.

“We need to talk, Dark Lord.”

“Then you can visit my core chamber later today.”

“It isn’t just for me,” she said. “We all wanted to talk to you.”

“Is this correct, everyone? Have I suddenly become popular?” I said, looking around.

Tomlin gave a cowardly nod. Wylie shuffled on the spot. “Need to talk, Dark Lord,” he said. Jellies wobbled in agreement, Beetles squeaked, Kainhelm tipped his head.

“Some of the others wanted to bring this up but were too scared,” said Shadow. “Your temper isn’t always as cool as you like to think, with the very greatest of respects, my Evil Eminence. Others were in favor of dropping the subject and trusting in you. But I-”

“You decided that whatever this is about, you do not have complete trust in me. Alright, Shadow. What is it?”

“Like Gulliver’s prose, I’ll be blunt,” she said.

Gulliver, silent and merely recoding events until now, sprung forward from the wall. “Hey! A quite unnecessary, and untrue, claim.”

“Some of us are concerned about dungeon affairs lately,” continued Shadow. “Several defeats in a row. Dungeon mates lost and not replaced. Or if you have replaced them, it is with inferiors.”

“Most creatures start as level 1 in their respective classes, Shadow. I can’t alter that. It takes time and hero slaughter to build skills.”

“That is our point, oh greatest Dark Lord. Not many heroes are being killed lately. We should be reveling in hero blood. We should have stores full of the weapons and armor we claim from their corpses. Instead, we find ourselves meeting in this chamber to remember yet another of our lost friends.”

“This sounds a little like you are losing faith in me.”

“Those are your words, Dark Lord.”

“I am merely attaching meaning to ones you used. A meaning that you didn’t dare say aloud, despite promising bluntness. Does everyone else feel this way? That I’m losing my hero-killing touch? That our dungeon isn’t as murderous as it used to be? That I, Core Beno, have lost my slaughtering prowess?”

Tomlin sucked in his cheeks. Wylie looked at the ground.

“A pox on it!” said Kainhelm. “I’ll say it, if you’re all too scared. Yes, core. That is what we believe.”

Shadow gave Kainhelm an appreciative glance. I made a mental note of that; while I wanted my dungeon mates to get along, I had to be careful about two of the more trouble-raising ones getting too friendly.

“Tomlin thinks Shadow is wrong,” said Tomlin.

Shadow huffed. “What a surprise.”

“Shadow doesn’t give Dark Lord credit. Doesn’t take into account that heroes are tough.”

“You’re just upset that I ended things with us,” said Shadow.

Tomlin’s wolfish cheeks blushed. “Tomlin was going to end it. Shadow just said words quicker.”

“You would join me under my furs at night if I merely blinked at you.”

“Enough!” I said, my voice booming, the volume shocking Peach the jelly and making his body wobble. “If you have concerns like this, do you really think it is appropriate to air them in the memorial chamber after we have just committed Dolos to the dungeon for the final time? To speak of them in front of the whole damned dungeon? One of you should have come to me privately.”

Wylie gave me a timid look. “Dark Lord will not always talk. Says he is busy.”

“I always have time for you all.”

Gary, at the back of the room near Gulliver, lifted a leech leg. “Actually, my dear core, young Wylie has a point. Meaning no disrespect, you are not always as generous with your time as one might hope. Only last week, I approached you asking to pick your brains about certain battle tactics, if you recall. And what did you say?”

Damn it, I remembered the conversation.

“I told you to scuttle off somewhere for a while and let me work.”

“Not exactly polite, my dear chap.”

“No,” I agreed, “That wasn’t. In fairness, it was mere hours after Cael had given us a beating.”

Shadow gave a smile, the kind that folks only give when they know a fly just blundered into their spidery trap. “Which brings us onto the main point, most diabolical dungeon king. The beatings we have been getting again and again.”

Borderline insurrection. Lack of faith in my abilities. Complaints aired in front of the whole dungeon. It was enough to make me want to unleash a rolling boulder trap on them all.

The worst part was that they were right. They had said nothing that I hadn’t worried about before. The difference here was how worse it felt when it was someone else saying it, and not me.

I had lost the confidence of my dungeon mates. For a core, that is not a good place to be.

I knew that if we exited the remembrance chamber now and left things as they were, the stigma would float around the dungeon for weeks, hanging in the air like the toxin from one of my gas traps.

The only way to mitigate the damage was to say something to get morale up right now, and then work on everything else later.

So, what to say? What magic words could I use?

“When a blacksmith is forging a sword,” I said, “do you know what he does? He puts the metal against the heat. He leaves it there for as long as it can stand. It may look like he’s weakening it, that he might destroy the metal, but he isn’t. He’s getting it ready, making it pliable so that he can hammer it into something so much better.”

“And you are the blacksmith?” said Shadow.

It was complete nonsense, of course. This example didn’t apply to the dungeon at all,