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

“Come on!” he yelled, his face flushed red, clearly under the spell of battle. “Anyone else want to try before I murder your chiefs in front of your eyes, you set of cowards?”

Three guards came running from the back of the house, rushing at Stramper from behind. Yet another three closed in front.

Swords clanged off Stramper’s metal. The man twisted as if he wore no armor at all. He slashed throats and stabbed bellies. After wedging his sword firmly into the gut of a gnome and dropping his curved blade when a goblin cut his wrist where his armor didn’t fully join, Stramper bit ears and noses and he punched faces with his great metal fists until finally, all the guards were on the ground. Nobody stood in the way and him and the chiefs.

It was a surprisingly quick spectacle. Barely two minutes between him launching out of his house and destroying Reginal and Galatee’s guards. In that time, most of the Yondersun onlookers had retreated behind the safety of locked doors, yet couldn’t resist watching from their windows.

I used my core voice now, projecting it back into the dungeon. “Gary, Brecht, Razensen. Get up here. Now.”

“I told Gilleasberg that a protest is no way to get what you want,” said Stramper. He put his foot on the chest of a dead gnome and wrenched his sword free. “Gilleasberg wanted your power for himself, the berk. He thought the way to do it was to stand around with stupid signs and sing stupid songs. Told me that if he got enough people behind him, he could do anything. And the way to get people behind him? Give ‘em something to hate. Doesn’t matter what, just needs to be a target everyone can get behind in mutual dislike. Not the worst plan, I suppose, but too slow for my liking. Start a conversation with words, sure, but if it ain’t going the way you like, then finish it with a sword.”

My monsters weren’t going to get here in time, and there was nothing that I could do on my own. When it came down to it, at times like this, I really was just a lump of rock. Damn it!

Nor would anyone else be able to help. The bulk of Reginal and Galatee’s forces were either doubling as laborers and thus were a few miles away with Jahn, or were on their damned training exercise in the wasteland.

“We can’t just watch,” said Gulliver.

“Razensen is on his way, but not soon enough.”

“Times like this I wish I’d learned a thing or two about swordplay,” said Gulliver. Then he watched Stramper kick a groaning goblin in the face. “Or perhaps not.”

Stramper advanced on the chiefs, the sun beaming down on his metal armor and glinting off it. For all the metal’s weight, for all his exertion, he barely looked out of breath.

That was when I realized why; the armor was artificed. Such an obvious answer! Like Cael with his bag of stones, Stramper must have paid for the metal armor to be artificed to weigh less than it should. But demons below, that must have been an expensive order.

“I was going to give you the option of letting me take a cart out of town without making any more corpses,” he said, “But you’ve annoyed me, to put it mildly, you sun-drenched cretins. Curse the day I ever met Gilleasberg, the lanky git. Curse the day I ever took his gold. Curse the gods’ damned day I ever thought it would be nice to earn a few coins the peaceful way. Should have known no such bloody way exists.”

He sprinted toward the chiefs, sword raised. He brought it down with a roar, the blade set to slice Galatee’s skull in half.

Clang!

Another sword met his and held it back. Chief Reginal stared into Stramper’s eyes as he strained with all his strength, trying desperately to force his metal armored foe into giving up ground.

“Should have given peace a chance,” grunted Reginal. “All those scars, and not a single one ever taught you anything.”

Finally, I saw something that I could do. I floated toward them, straight into Stramper’s face. He flinched, lost concentration.

It was just for a second, but that was all it took.

Still holding his sword in his right hand and pushing back on Stramper with it, Reginal used his left to slip a dagger from his belt and plunge it into the gap in Stramper’s armor where the metal ended and his fleshy neck began. He buried it to the hilt, forcing the man to the ground with a crash that sounded like an elephant falling over.

Stramper hit the ground face-first, blood pooling around him, having received a final wound that would never get the chance to scar over.

Galatee, unused to fighting, was paler than sandstone. Reginal took her arm.

“Come on, now. Let’s get you something to drink.”

She let him keep his grip for a second, before shrugging him off. She acted as if she had recovered herself, though a longer look at her eyes told me this wasn’t true.

Nevertheless, she gave her most chiefly expression and began pointing fingers at the closed doors of the lodges lining Jahn’s Row.

“Regardless of the blinding yellow tint of your bellies, I want everyone with arms and legs to get out of here and bloody well use them. I want the rest of the No-Cores found and arrested. Above all, get me Gilleasberg. I’ll shove a spike up his arse and leave him under the wasteland sun smeared in oil.”

One goblin, wearing his armor once again, approached nervously. “They say Gilleasberg’s gone, Chief Galatee.”

“Gone?”

“Took passage with a corn trader. He’ll be long gone.”

“We have carts of our own, don’t we? Try and run him down.”

“He has a head start, Chief.”

“I don’t care!” roared