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

themselves and keeping order. When one man bumped into a guard and drenched his trousers with water, the guard glared at him. Rather than bow to his authority, the town resident snarled. “Grab a bucket and help, you useless lump. That’s your mana-oil burning up too!”

The whole scene of panic was amusing enough that Shadow felt strangely relaxed as she stole through the streets. She passed a statue of a man holding a sword, who could only have been Dullbright, and then crept by a mage tower. Coming to a steep hill, she climbed it as quickly as she could, noting how the houses all increased in size and splendor the higher she got.

Finally, she reached the largest, grandest house at the peak of the hill. A ridiculously fancy abode of whitewashed stone, with an exquisitely carved façade and big pillars that just seemed plain unnecessary.

Give me the dungeon any day, she found herself thinking, to her surprise.

With all of Hogsfeate in a state of panic, there was just one guard outside, and he was too busy staring at the flames on the outskirts of town to notice Shadow creeping by him. Using her sneak ability, she slinked across the foyer of the house, through a dining room with a table laden with half-eaten plates of fancy food, and then to a set of spiral stairs.

Reaching the top, she found a room with the door ajar. A man was inside, staring out of the window with his back to her.

Dullbright. The same as the statue, but fatter. Seems like the governor eats well.

Shadow took her bag from her shoulder and opened it. A mimic jumped out, landing on the marble floor with a barely audible splat.

Drawing her blade, she inched across the room. Carefully. Silently. Every step carefully controlled to make not the slightest tap.

Almost there…

She was a foot away from Dullbright. Close enough to smell the booze wafting from him.

She tensed her dagger in her hand.

“Sir Dullbright!” shouted a voice.

Dullbright turned around and saw Shadow behind him.

“What in the name of the gods?”

“Stand back, Sir!”

 Shadow spun around, saw the guard standing in the doorway. She threw her dagger, seeing it spin through the air on a course for the guard, turning and turning and turning…and hitting the door plinth above his head and clattering to the floor.

The sound of two swords being drawn made Shadow keenly aware that she was sandwiched between Dullbright and the guard.

She drew two more daggers from her belt.

“Take the little rat alive,” said Dullbright. “We must find out who sent it. It’ll be that damned Mage Hardere, no doubt. Hurt it, by all means, but make sure it can still speak.”

Shadow stepped away from Dullbright, putting herself further between them both, giving herself some room. Her pulse pounded. She felt a fear that she hadn’t felt in a while now, not since she had been trapped in a dungeon chamber with three hero werewolves in what seemed like so long ago.

But this time, there was no Core Beno to help her. She was alone, and she was in a fight entirely unsuited to her. She worked from the shadows, she plunged daggers into backs. Her skills didn’t lie in looking a person in the eyes as she killed them.

The guard advanced a step, sword held high. “Right, you little rat. Time for yer to squeal…”

A man appeared in the doorway.

An axe blade appeared through a newly-made hole in the guard’s chest.

A look of fear appeared on the newly-dead guard’s face. He cried out, fell to his knees, and coughed blood onto his chest.

Eric the barbarian wrenched his axe free and let the guard crash face-first to the floor, dirtying the perfect marble with a spray of blood.

“She’s not a rat,” said Eric. “She’s a wolf. Or a kobold, if yer want to use the correct term.”

“Who sent you?” said Dullbright. “Whatever they paid, I’ll pay double. Triple. Name your price.”

Shadow, both daggers gripped tight in her palms, advanced on Dullbright. “Seems to me that we don’t need you to pay us anything, you tub of lard. We’ll take what we like while your corpse festers.”

“Then I suppose you have me,” Dullbright said, dropping his sword. “I see that. Can you at least allow a man a minute to contemplate his last breath?”

“No,” said Shadow.

“I didn’t think you would.”

Dullbright lurched toward the window, desperately trying to reach the sill. Shadow was on him before he had a chance. Two quick stabs and Dullbright went limp, sprawled across the floor with one hand on the windowsill.

“Fantastic work, little wolf!” said Eric. “That’s how it’s done, you see? Never let a man have any last words before you kill him. I’ve never understood why people do that, yer know. Allow someone to speak before killing ‘em. They almost always try to run or pull a surprise on yer. What now?”

Shadow nodded at the blob of goo on the floor. “You know what Core Beno said to do next.”

As the mimic began to change its form, Shadow sat on the bed. A strange feeling built inside her, one that felt like the adrenaline pumping in her veins, but different at the same time, almost like a sibling to that wonderful concoction of fear and excitement.

It was a power, she realized.

Whenever she helped Beno kill heroes, the very act of slaughter made her stronger, and sometimes it even gave her new skills.

What had Dullbright’s murder earned her?

She didn’t know. She could sense the growth of power inside her, but she couldn’t tell exactly what it was. Only Beno would know, she supposed. Once he told her what it was, all she had to do was practice with it.

“By the axe, that’s a creepy sight,” said Eric, watching the mimic