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

great things for you. Great, great things. Who knows? I won’t be in my chair forever. A clever guard should always be looking at the job above theirs.”

“Me? Head of the guards?”

“Let’s not count our brain leeches before they’ve burrowed out of our skull. You have made a good suggestion, is all. Alright. Let’s do this your way, Lonas. You lot head west. Carry on your patrol. I will take these disgusting, slippery criminals to the barracks and lock them back in their cells.”

Lonas saluted. “Yes, ma’am!”

The guards marched away, their boots clinking on the cobbles. Kathryn watched them until they were out of sight, and then turned to us.

“I swear, I need to sort out my recruitment policy. I seem to have hired the biggest idiots in town.”

“Thank you, Kathryn,” I said. “But haven’t you just landed yourself in a great big bull pat? How are you going to explain things when you turn up at the barracks without us?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. Lonas and his three pals are more corrupt than a judge with a gambling problem. They have been on the take ever since they got a job with the guards. I have enough evidence to do what I please with them, and I have been saving it for a rainy day. Perhaps it’s time they faced the cells.”

“If they’re so corrupt, what in the gods’ names were they doing in the town guard?” said Gulliver.

“A job like this attracts the corrupt. It’s useful for me if their corruption is one that I know about, but that they remain ignorant of my knowledge. It’s always good to keep a scapegoat handy, for situations where somebody needs to take the blame. I try to keep as many such goats as I can. You might say that I’m something of a shepherd. Now, I think you better be off. I’m afraid the guardship doesn’t have a wagon we can spare you, though.”

“I came here on my own wagon. It’s parked near the town gates, and the horses are in the stables,” I said.

“I’m sure I can fetch it without much trouble. See the patch of darkened bricks in the town wall just there? Push firmly on the third brick from the right on the thirteenth row, and a hidden door should open. Wait for me outside the walls.”

Gulliver and Kathryn stared at each other for a moment.

“Come on,” I told Klok and Rusty. “You don’t want to watch two lovers parting. Trust me. The horrors of a dungeon don’t even compare.”

CHAPTER 19

“I think we’ll stop for a while,” said Overseer Bolton, gently tugging on the reins to slow the horses.

“Why?” said Anna.

“Because we have been traveling for hours.”

She shrugged. “So? It’s the horses doing the work, not us. I’m fine.”

“You really are a brat, aren’t you?”

She shrugged again. “I suppose I am.”

“Well, at least you can admit it. You’re an honest brat, I’ll give you that much. My horses are tired, and we are stopping to give them a break. Be thankful I don’t make you and your friend pull the wagon in their place.”

Utta, sitting beside Anna, snorted himself awake. “Huh?” he said.

Bolton opened his artificed satchel and took a roll of tarpaulin out. Using iron rods, he erected a shelter for the horses, and he set a bowl of water and a bucket of hay down for them.

“How come they get the shelter and not us?” said Anna.

“Because they’re the ones pulling the wagon and sweating for us,” said the boy.

“Correct, Utta,” said Bolton. “Judge a man by how he treats his beasts of burden.”

“If they’re beasts of burden, then isn’t dealing with burdens part of their job?” said Anna.

“Spoken like a girl who never had burdens of her own. You Chosen Ones are brats if you ask me. With your exception, Utta, because you seem like a decent lad. I don’t know why you hang around with such a horrible girl. You, Anna…you’ve sailed through your life, no doubt. Marked as special from the day you were weaned off your mother’s tit. Told how gifted you were at every opportunity. Cooed over like a prize pig, then sent to the Chosen One’s school. You don’t know what it’s like to shoulder a burden, and as such, you have weak shoulders.”

“My life hasn’t been so great.”

“It’s true,” said Utta. “She…her stepfather…”

“Shut it, Utta. Please.”

Bolton noticed Anna scratching a wicked scar on her bicep and decided not to pursue it. “Get some rest for a while,” he said. “Once the sun dips, we’ll set off again.”

Utta produced a deck of Turo cards from his pocket, and he and Anna passed the time playing a game instead of getting some rest. Oh, to have a teenager’s energy again. Bolton was well beyond the twilight of his third life, and he found that he needed to take a nap to recover from his naps these days.

As much as the girl was a pain in his arse, there was something about her that he liked. Her honesty, for one, even if it was usually employed in a derogatory way. Still, Bolton always thought that blunt honesty beat lies, even if lies were more pleasing to the ear.

But there was something else Bolton liked, too. The ease with which Utta and Anna enjoyed each other’s company. Bolton didn’t have many real friends, and watching the two almost let him enjoy their friendship vicariously.

Even so, his thoughts still strayed to a life wasted. He’d lived three lives - two as a human and one as a core - and what did he have to show for it? Sure, as a dungeon core, he had built what was widely regarded as the greatest dungeon to ever exist. That, in turn, had earned him resurrection back