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

a scroll from her pocket and placed it on the table. I hovered over it, understanding Reginal’s anger more with every sentence.

“What is it?” said Gulliver, from the corner.

Reginal pounded the table. “I tolerate your presence, scribe, but you are to be silent!”

“Don’t talk to Gulliver like that,” I said, “and don’t pound my table again unless you come here with the gold to pay for it.”

“You wretched lump of-”

“You are in my dungeon now, chief. You will not utter a single more derogatory comparison between me and a stone, you wrinkled old frog. You will not be rude to Gulliver, and you will not be so disrespectful to my fixtures and fittings.”

“Or what, Beno?”

“Gentlemen, we are forgetting ourselves,” said Galatee. “We are here to discuss the almighty turd that Beno has landed us in.”

“I ask again, what does the letter say?” asked Gulliver.

Reginal kept his lips closed while staring at Gulliver with the look of a man trying to crack an egg using only his mind.

“Dullbright has written to Reginal and Galatee,” I said. “Explaining our recent…troubles. He writes that as long as the chiefs tolerate me living in my dungeon so close to Yondersun, they will not consider completing a single trade deal between the two towns. Any travelers from Yondersun will be turned away from the Hogsfeate gates, as will any merchants suspected of being covertly employed by Yondersun.”

“So you see,” said Reginal, his voice barely controlled and his tone dripping with anger, “No more fertilizer, which means no more crops, which means we can barely feed our people. Most settlements are but a few missed meals away from collapse.”

This was bad enough, but something occurred to me then. Reginal’s ridiculously angry reaction was the clue.

He was holding something back. A weakness that he didn’t want to show in front of me or Galatee.

This wasn’t just about crops for Reginal. If Hogsfeate wouldn’t trade with Yondersun, then Reginal couldn’t get the chemicals he needed for Cynthia to create his son’s lifesaving orbs.

I understood why he was so angry now. Crops were one thing, but Dullbright’s letter cut even closer to the bone for Reginal. His anger was that of not just a father worried for his son, but a father who was expected to hide it and put his peoples’ interests before his personal ones.

This was a problem indeed.

And a delightful opportunity. I just had to work out a way to use it.

“Why not just have Cynthia make the fertilizer? She’s one of the best alchemists around.”

“The greatest chef in the world can’t bake a cake if all he has in his pantry are rotten eggs and curdled butter.”

“It’s a matter of supplies, then.”

“Damn it, Beno,” said Reginal, “Until we’re completely self-sufficient, everything is a matter of supplies.”

“Then what do you expect me to do?” I said. “Move my dungeon across the wastes just to keep that old fraud happy?”

“Not provoking fights outside of his town would be a start,” said Galatee.

“Dullbright attacked me, actually.”

“Why would he do that?”

“The man is demented. He hates cores more than any hero I’ve ever seen.”

Lacking Galatee’s subtlety, Reginal eyed me with blatant suspicion now. “What were you doing in Hogsfeate, anyway?”

I saw no reason to lie. “Getting something that I needed to help me murder heroes more efficiently. What do you expect? That I was sightseeing?”

“None of this matters now,” said Galatee. “Because it gets worse. You haven’t read the other side yet, Beno.”

Gulliver, sensitive to my lack of arms yet subtle enough not to draw attention, turned the letter over in the pretense of wanting to read it. There was just a single paragraph on the other side. It didn’t make for happy reading.

“He knows that Core Jahn lives here, too,” I said.

“Yes. Core Jahn, who builds all of our houses, our shops, our wells. Core Jahn, who is working on a personal project of mine; a memorial to commemorate the lives lost in the forging of our town. Core Jahn, who helps with our farms, who actually contributes to our town, and is a large part of why we have been able to grow it so quickly. Lovely Core Jahn, who doesn’t lurk below ground only concerning himself with slaughtering heroes.”

Reginal spoke at almost a growl now. “You’ve gotten poor Jahn into a bind, Beno. You should do the decent thing.”

I read the last paragraph of the letter again.

To settle matters and restore relations with our fine towns, I would request that one of your cores – it matters not which – is given to Hogsfeate. I must show my people that cores cannot run amok, slaughtering guards unprovoked.

If you fail to send one, I fear that our trading relations are irrevocably ruined. My own standing in my town may suffer, and perhaps I would have to do something drastic to recover it.

Yours expectantly,

Sir Dullbright

Reginal raised his fist above the table, caught my eye, and then stopped himself. His anger had faded now, and I saw something else in his eyes. Fear, perhaps.

“Do you see, Beno? It’s you or Jahn. One of you must face up to this so we can keep this dunce happy. And if not…”

“His threat is quite clear,” said Galatee. “I expect that he’ll bring his full force upon our town.”

Reginal got up. “I have things to do, and I don’t want to spend another second in this grubby little kobold guesthouse. Beno, I expect you to do the decent thing. I’ll give you three days.”

Reginal left the dungeon, but Galatee stayed. She put on hand on the table and placed her other on top of it and she sat there calmly, her gaze never lifting from me. When the sound of Reginal’s feet trailed off, she spoke.

“You aren’t winning