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

discuss things with. Laying bare my troubles in front of people I command would lose some of my gravitas.”

“What about your son?”

“Devry is clever than me, to be sure, but he is too young. He would understand my troubles, of course, but I do not want him to. I want him to be a child. Little bugger is too intelligent for his own good. Look, you seem like you are trying to excuse yourself from this, Beno, and I am not so ignorant that I do not notice. Forget about it.”

“Come on, Reginal. I’m sorry if it seemed that way. Lay your burdens down on good old Beno.”

Reginal looked around once more, then leaned close. “It’s the most peculiar thing, Beno. All my life, I’ve been a warrior. First under Chief Dergino, my father, and then when I first became chief, and we were fighting to win this place back. And then after, with the troubles that we have had making this place grow, turning it into a place where our people can live. That was a war, of sorts. Every morning, without fail, I have woken up with a tightness in my chest, like some little imp is squeezing my ribs together. Sometimes it makes it hard to breathe, and the only antidote is to spring out of bed and get to it.”

“It sounds like you should consult with your healer.”

“That’s just it. Lately, the feeling has gone. I find that I can stay in bed without my chest aching. I feel no need to get up straight away, to get into action. I sometimes…I sometimes even stand at our lodge window and just watch the town as it wakes up.”

It was all I could do not to laugh.

“This absence of pain. This lack of urgency. Did it begin to ease when our crops started growing and the survival of the town wasn’t so precarious?”

“It’s hard to say.”

“I would guess that it got better when I procured the ingredients to ensure Devry could get his treatments, and you didn’t need to worry about him as much. And then it improved even more once you married Galatee and had someone to truly share your chiefly troubles with. Am I right?”

“It would seem that way. I’m at a loss,” said Reginal.

“Reginal, my friend, I don’t need to be a healer to diagnose your malady. You are content.”

“What?”

“You havening nothing left to fight. No struggles to come up against. For the first time in your long, goblin life, you are content.”

Deep within my dungeon, on the second level below my main tunnels, I floated around a newly created chamber. It was no larger than a standard tomb and had no decoration except a single mana lantern on the wall. Floating there in the deepest part of my lair, I could feel the darkness around me, I could sense the weight of the soil and rocks and mud and iron ores above and all around. The chamber was as silent as a grave, more so because it came without the accompanying whispers from corpse spirits, the ones that prompted the whole trend of people burying their dead. It was the coziest I had felt in a while.

“Dark Lord happy?” said a kobold.

Wylie, Tarius, Jopvitz, Redjack, Klok, and three new kobold miners were standing to attention, their faces tired but eager for my approval.

“Excellent. Just the right size. And the walls?”

Tarius, wearing a shirt with the words Hed of Dungeon Yunion written on the front, stepped forward. “Coated in solution purchased from Cynthia. Maginhart brought it. He helped make it himself.”

“Himssself, you mean,” said Klok, and tittered.

Wylie cracked his whip, and Klok yelped in pain and rubbed his rump. “No make fun of Maginhart’s talk!” he said.

Klok stared at the ground. “Sorry, enforcer Wylie.”

“Will be, if Wylie hears again! Maginhart would not make fun of Klok, so you will not make fun of him. Now stop crying, Wylie only nipped you with whip. He didn’t do it hard.”

I couldn’t help but be proud of the little rump-whipping kobold. I had recently promoted Wylie from mining supervisor to dungeon enforcer, and he had taken to it like a drunk to a barrel full of ale. Barely a day went by when I didn’t hear the sound of his whip, usually just lashing a wall in warning. It instilled some much-needed discipline, and the dungeon had never been so focused.

I had, of course, had a talk with him about using the whip on others, and I made him promise to only lightly whip his dungeon mates’ arses, and never enough to really hurt. The whip was supposed to be symbolic, more than anything. This might have been a dungeon, but corporal punishment was not acceptable.

“Good,” I said. “The alchemical solution on the inner walls should stop Overseer Bolton from being able to sense this chamber, as long as he stays on the first level of the dungeon.”

“Overseer is coming to visit?” said Wylie, hopefully. It always amazed me how much my kobolds all liked the old trout.

“I hope not, but perhaps. I would regret it if I didn’t get ready for it either way.”

“Yes! Wylie show him new whip.”

Wylie brandished his favorite toy, while Klok winced and stepped back.

“Good work today, boys,” I said. “Let’s see how you’re all getting on.”

I checked my inner core for information about their mining exploits.

Wylie [Kobold, Enforcer] has leveled up to 19 [Enforcer duties: motivation, rebukes, shouts]

*Wylie has learned proficiency: Whip*

Tarius [Kobold, Miner] has leveled up to 24 [Tunnel construction, chamber excavation]

Jopvitz [Kobold, Miner] has leveled up to 10 [Tunnel construction, chamber excavation]

Redjack [Kobold, Miner] has leveled up to 16 [Tunnel construction, chamber excavation]

Klok [Kobold, Miner] has leveled up to 7 [Tunnel construction, chamber excavation]

Hmm. This was interesting. Firstly, through his duties as