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

them slaughtered a party of heroes in front of my eyes. Yet, even with your penchant for murdering people, you’re the most decent of the lot.”

“That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard in a while.”

“How about you repay me by stopping doubting yourself, and ripping this Cael idiot apart? He’s only flesh and blood.”

“Only flesh and blood,” I agreed.

“Then what are we waiting for?”

“Nothing, I suppose.”

I used my core voice now.

“I want every dungeon mate to meet me in the loot room. Kainhelm, that means you. Use your alchemical paste and come join us. I will see you all there in five minutes exactly.”

Tomlin was the last to enter the loot room. Everyone in the dungeon turned to face the kobold as he entered, grumbling and still wearing his cultivator mitts.

“That was a long five minutes, Tomlin,” I said.

“Tomlin was busy. He doesn’t see why he must attend.”

“Because although your spine is made of jelly,” I began, and then glanced at my angry elemental jelly monsters, “No offense to you, Peach and Gore.”

“None taken, master.

“Shove your no offense up your-”

“Although you are about as brave as a nervous mouse, Tomlin, you are a part of the dungeon. Our best fighters are going out to battle on behalf of the dungeon, and you will show them the respect of attending meetings like this.”

“Dark Lord is right. Tomlin is sorry.”

“Now, my friends, my dungeon mates,” I said, “We will shortly battle with a hero who you all know well. Cael Pickering, that arrogant worm. That stain upon the wasteland. That gloating gutbag. He has vowed revenge against me, my friends, and by extension, against you. And for what? Because we merely killed his brothers? What did he expect from coming to our dungeon?”

“Yip yip!” shouted Rusty the kobold, waving his shaman staff in the air and dancing side to side. “What did he expect?”

“Fight!” cried a fire beetle.

“Death!”

“Kill!”

“Quite right, my friends. As always, you verbalize with sophistication what the rest of us, even Gulliver, cannot. Now…though we have slaughtered many heroes in many delightful ways, this battle will be different. This hero will not be skulking around our home. We will take the fight to him, entering through a portal and tearing him apart before he has a chance to pull up his britches!”

“Yip yip!” cried Rusty, dancing side to side, his cloak flowing behind him and his bone crown rattling atop his head. “Britches! Britches!”

“Once the portal is activated, it will open to Cael’s current location. I do not know where it is, and so we lose our usual advantage of knowing our field of battle intimately. There will be no traps, at least none of our own devising, and no puzzles. But, we are not without advantages. We have the benefit of surprise. We have the benefit of courage. We have the benefit that we aren’t arrogant, self-serving heroes with no sense of morals or decency.”

Cheers rose in the dungeon. Rusty yipped and danced, kobolds shouted, jelly’s warbled, Gary slapped his leech legs together in thunderous applause.

“Now, onto specifics. First, Razensen and his unit will spearhead the attack. Depending on whether…”

“I will ask a poxing question, if I may,” said a voice.

I noticed that even though Kainhelm was wearing his alchemical paste that blocked his deathly energy, the other dungeon creatures gave him a wide berth. Only Razensen was standing next to him.

“Yes, Kainhelm?”

“I will fight alongside my friend Razensen and those beasts who are under his poxing command.”

“I’m not sure, Kainhelm. Razensen has been drilling his unit in a specific way.”

“I would be honored for old Kainhelm to fight by my side,” said Razensen. “With him and his glorious skin cape, we will send all heroes to the ice!”

“Then who am I to stand in the way?” I said. “Now, onto formations…”

Gathered in the loot room, I could feel the mixture of tension and excitement coming off my army of monsters. Bogbadugs leaped around, full of nervous energy. Rusty wrung his hands on his shaman staff. Brecht tensely beat his tambourine with his fingertips.

“It is time,” I said. “Gulliver?”

Gulliver pranced to the center of the room.

“My dear friends. Monsters, beasts, creatures, critters of all wonderful shapes and sizes. There comes a time in everyone’s life, be you human or otherwise, when you must look within yourself and-”

“Just use the damned stone, Gulliver.”

The scribe took a small purple pebble from his satchel. He held it up like a dice player ready to roll, and he tossed it on the ground. It landed with a clink.

Light spread out from it, pluming upwards like smoke until soon it formed a swirling portal that reached from the ground to the ceiling. I couldn’t see where it led, but I knew that we couldn’t delay.

“Quickly,” I told my monsters. “The portal will remain open for 12 hours, no more, no less. It may open to a place far away, and we do not want to get caught there if we take too long and the portal closes behind us. So go, destroy Cael, and then we will celebrate!”

My monsters poured through the portal. First Razensen, Kainhelm, and the bone guys and kobold bowmen of his unit, followed by bogbadugs, jellies, fire beetles. I went last, floating at the rear and following them through.

CHAPTER 18

We emerged in a sun-drenched land, a vast spread of orange and yellow rocks broken only by the cracks in the ground that ran like earthquake tremors into the horizon. The sun – the stupid prat - beat down mercilessly and gave only plant life such as cacti and brittlebushes chance to grow. It was a depressingly familiar place. There was even a town nearby that looked exactly like Yondersun, down to the row of wooden shacks lined