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

what you’re going to tell me,” said Shadow. “You’re going to shout at me and threaten to have me flattened by a boulder or something. I have said my piece, and I said it not for me, really, but everyone else. Threaten me with whatever nasty punishment you can dream up. Order me to go complete my task regardless of what I want in return. I know that you are able to do that, as my creator.”

“You will get a voice,” I said.

“Excuse me?” replied Shadow, surprised.

“You know, some provinces have systems of ruling where the sovereign doesn’t act alone.”

“I’m surprised your academy taught them to you, Dark Lord.”

“Oh, they didn’t. The academy preaches dictatorship, always.” I looked at my rows and rows of bookshelves. “But I have learned about other ways of doing things.”

“What are you offering me?”

“Complete this task, Shadow, and I will set up a council. A select panel of dungeon mates who have a say in dungeon matters. But notice that they only get a say; I will always have the overruling vote.”

“Beno…Dark Lord, I mean. I have to say, this is more than I expected.”

“Then all you have to do is perform as I expect, and things will change.”

Shadow smiled now. Not one of her snide grins or condescending smirks or one of her leers before speaking a withering put down. She was genuinely smiling.

“So… this Dullbright chump, Dark Lord,” she said, saying it without a trace of sarcasm. “Is he a hero?”

“He fancies himself to be. He was one, once. Now, he’s a grass-fed cow with a swollen belly and saggy udders. He rules, but he doesn’t fight. Not well, anyway.”

“He will have lots of guards, Dark Lord. The town will be full of them, too. I will do it under the cover of night, of course, but even I cannot sneak by a town’s worth of soldiers. That is without thinking of how I would get close enough to Sir Dullbright to plunge a dagger in his spine.”

“Don’t worry, Shadow. I have a plan for that.”

Footsteps came from the tunnel beyond the core room. Dainty, lazy steps, accompanied by big, booming ones.

“Speak of the devils!”

Gulliver entered the core chamber, accompanied by a man with the most glorious hair in all of Xynnar. Gulliver swept his hat and bowed.

“May I present to you, Eric…the barbarian!” He leaned toward Eric. “Sorry, but I realize I do not know your last name.”

“Just Eric will do me. No need for fancy things like surnames. We never had ‘em in my family.”

Shadow was in a crouch position, two knives drawn, in an instant. “He’s a hero, Dark Lord! Want me to gut him?”

“Don’t think I’ve ever been called a blood ‘ero before,” said Eric, rubbing his belly. “And I’ll keep my guts right here, if you don’t mind. Where I can’t see ‘em. Not that I doubt you could finish the job. I wouldn’t want to cross you, little wolf, no way.”

Shadow gripped her knives tighter. “Just say the word, Dark Lord. One word and I will decorate the dungeon with his intestines.”

“Relax, Shadow,” I said. “This is Eric. We met him in Hogsfeate. He was sitting on a log and eating chicken.”

“Nobody cooks chicken like Greasy Jonas in ‘ogsfeate, let me tell you.”

“What is this…muscled chicken eater with magnificent hair doing here?” said Shadow.

“I invited him. He’s going to Hogsfeate with you,” I said.

“What?”

“You were right to ask about how you could sneak through an entire town unseen, and then creep into the governor ’s house and murder him without making the slightest sound or alerting anyone. I had already thought about it, as it happens.”

“Aye,” said Eric. “An’ if you want a job doing right, you come to me.”

“A job?” said Shadow.

“While you’re sneaking through Hogsfeate, Eric is going to start a fire on the east of town.”

“That’s where they’ve stored a delivery of mana lamp oil,” said Eric. “It’ll light up like the underworld, and it’ll have everyone in the bloody town rushing around with buckets. Nothing gets folk moving like her prospect of their homes burning to cinders.”

“Eric informs me that nobody lives on that side of town, so there’s no danger to innocents,” I said.

“That’s right.”

“So I am to travel to Hogsfeate with this…this…”

“This bloody barbarian? Aye, you are,” said Eric. “But trust me, whiskers. By the time we’ve done this business, we’ll be the best of friends.”

“I do not trust him,” said Shadow, looking at me but not caring that Eric could hear.

“You don’t need to trust him. Trust the gold that we have promised him. He’s a barbarian, Shadow, not a hero. A very subtle, yet important, difference. He doesn’t care about good or evil. He doesn’t care who he kills, or how. He cares only for gold.”

“Not true, gem. I care about lots of things. Even barbarians have a place to call home. We don’t sleep in hollowed logs and spend our life alone until we die. It just so happens that I like to keep my work and my life separate, you hear? An’ that might translate to me comin’ across as a brute, but that’s the way things fall.”

“Even so, you are loyal as long as gold crosses your palms, yes?” I said.

“You won’t find a man in the whole of Xynnar who can say Eric doesn’t follow through on a pact made with gold,” said Eric, tossing his hair in a strangely mesmerizing way. “At least, none alive enough to speak the words.” He laughed at his own joke.

Gulliver, grinning, slapped him on the shoulder. “Eric is a riot, let me tell you. I have it in mind to follow him for a while after this, Beno. The adventures we’d have…the things I could write