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

No. I couldn’t take it!

But I had to. She was testing me…trying to break me…

I sensed something then. People on the far western edge of my dungeon, where a dungeon door led to the Wrotun clan’s old underground cavern. Someone was knocking on it.

I quickly used my core voice. “Rusty? Go to the door on the western edge. See who’s there.”

Not many people knew that door even existed. Even fewer would just stand there knocking on it. This might not turn out so badly after all.

“Fine,” I said, feigning despair. “Put out the fire and tell me what the hell you want, you trollop.”

Anna patted the flames until they died out. She pulled her hand away, wincing. “Ow, ow, ow,” she said, shaking it. She wiped ash on her shirt and smiled at me. “Good, Mr. Core. You can be nice when you have to be! Now, everyone out. Utta and I want to talk to Mr. Core.”

A voice spoke to my inner core. “Yip! It’s Chief Reginal and some goblins at the door, Dark Lord!”

“Let him into the dungeon and send him to the cultivation room.”

“Yip!”

“It’s okay, Tomlin, Gary, Brecht. You can leave,” I said. “The day I fear a brat is the day I give up being a dungeon core and become a botanical garden core.”

“She is a very scary young lady, if I may say, good core,” said Gary. “And her friend is ill-mannered bordering on obscene. Are you sure you wish to be left alone?”

“I’ll be fine, Gary. Thank you.”

They left us. Tomlin muttered as he walked, and he glared at Anna. “Burn Tomlin’s plants…Tomlin will show her….”

Anna ruffled his hair as he went by. “Sorry about that, wolf-thing. I didn’t know you liked them so much.”

“Stupid girl and her fire…”

And then we were alone. Me, Anna, Utta, and Shadow, who was nursing her leg and groaning.

“Does it hurt?” said Anna.

“Tremendously, Miss Anna,” said Shadow.

Anna scrunched her face. “Now?”

“It feels lovely!”

“That was one of the first blankets I learned to make in school,” said Anna. “Turning pain to pleasure. What fun! Although, I used it too much on Tucksy Mupu and gave him a complex.”

“What do you want?” I said. “You’ve made your threats, and now I’m listening. What do you need?”

“It’s simple, Mr. Core. I have to kill you to fulfill my prophecy. Utta, can you absorb enough essence to destroy him?”

“It will take a while, Anna.”

“We’ve got all day. Braggart Mr. Core here has an eternity. Or, he did…”

Goblins rushed into the cultivation room, so many of them, so quickly, that Anna and Utta couldn’t even react. The well-drilled goblins surrounded the intruders and held their spears against the teenagers’ throats.

Anna smiled at the goblins, and then scrunched her face.

Nothing happened.

“Damn it. Used it all up, didn’t I? Mum always said I needed to learn some self-restraint…”

Chief Reginal stomped in now, adorned in full battle armor that clanked when he walked. He held his sword in his hand. This was the real Chief Reginal; not the man who suffered through chief meetings because he had to. This was Reginal back in his prime, who as much as he always said he was tired of battle, would never give up a chance to wear his armor and brandish his sword.

“What’s going on here, Beno?”

“Not much, just a bit of trouble. Thank you for coming, Reginal. Now, if you’ll just keep an eye on the brats for me, I need to excavate chambers to put them in. Separate chambers, obviously. I’ll need guards posted to keep watch on them.”

CHAPTER 13

Gulliver had almost made his escape when a hand seized hold of him and gripped him firmly.

“Do you have to go?” she said.

He looked longingly at her, naked except for the bed covers but still a temptation all the same. Her hair was short, which he had always had a thing for, and as a former soldier and head of the town guards, she was easily capable of subduing him if she had to. Again, this was something Gulliver had always found attractive. He supposed he could find the source of this fascination in his memories if he cared to, but that would rob his pleasure of its mystique.

“I have to go I’m afraid, my beautiful and well-satisfied darling,” he said.

“But why?”

“Because, Kathryn, you have clearly forgotten that your husband is one of your town guards and his shift ends soon.”

“Easily solved. I’ll get the word out that we need him to cover a double shift. I am in charge of the whole guard force, you realize?”

“I’m tired, Kathryn. Bloody knackered, in fact. I have work to do, and I’m already working at 150% effort. That means I could dial my energy levels back a whole 50%, and I’d still be working as hard as can be! And people say soldiers have it tough. They’ve obviously never been a scribe.”

“I wouldn’t class your lie-strewn leaflets as a scribe’s’ work.”

“No? Almost every written word in existence is a lie in one way or another. Known facts are but the truth filtered through someone’s mind.”

“And what about science?”

“Science doesn’t mean much in my world, my sweet. My job is to spread whatever Beno…whatever truths Dullbright wants me to. I could stop to question their accuracy, but what would be the point?”

After spending a while in Beno’s dungeon, Gulliver had been glad of the chance to go to a real town. Beno and his monsters were great company, and to be sure not many people could boast of having a dungeon core for a friend, but sometimes a guy needed taverns. Beer. Wine. Excitement. He wanted a place with a little nightlife. Beno’s