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

It was too quiet. Quiet enough that I could hear Yondersun soldiers retching, wounded beetles scuttling, townsfolk crying out for someone to heal their injuries.

We’d beaten overwhelming odds, but was it worth the price? Looking at the mass slaughter, I wasn’t sure. Practically speaking, there were so many bodies that I’d have to expand my alchemy chamber and perhaps even create a dedicated corpse dissolution squad. I’d have to be quick, though, because I wasn’t the only one nearby who had a use for the dead.

The sound of squawking drew my attention to the sinister presence of the carrion birds waiting on the edge of town, eyeing up all the dead flesh on offer.

“Plenty in my profession write about the thrill of battle and the glory thereafter,” said Gulliver. “They don’t write about the smell of blood and crap.”

“I imagine it wouldn’t be as appealing to read.”

“Perhaps. Well, it’s over, Beno.”

“No, it’s only just begun. Do you think we can destroy a duke’s army without the ripples reaching the murkier, deeper parts of the lake?”

“Ah. The chain of nobility.”

“The nobles are like the carrion you see over there. Waiting for a corpse to fall so they can pick at it. The birds might have gotten here faster, but the nobles will arrive eventually.”

“What are you going to do?”

“For now? Clean up the town. Take things one corpse at a time, that’s my motto.”

I floated away from Gull and to my dungeon mates. I tried not to focus on the ones who had fallen.

“I know you’re all tired and you have lots to think about, but our work isn’t done. Take any wounded dungeon mates back to our lair. The rest of you, surround the duke so he can’t escape, but don’t get too close to him,” I said.

As Wylie, Tarius, and a few townsfolk encircled the duke, I floated over to Galatee, who was sitting on the ground with Reginal’s head in her lap.

“I’ll get Cynthia,” I said. “She’ll be able to brew a medicine or something. And we can send for Reginal’s healer. He’ll-”

“He’s dead, Beno.”

I looked at Chief Reginal, and I knew that it was true.

Reginal was gone, the thrill of battle having been too much for his overworked heart. As a core I should have been unfeeling about this, but the strangest thing was that I felt sad when I looked at his face. Reginal and I had begun our relationship in animosity, but we’d slowly warmed to each other.

I thought then of Namantep and her healing powers. Could I restore her, somehow?

No, I was grasping. Reginal was gone, and that was that.

Unless…

“Smit,” I said.

Galatee rubbed tears from her eyes. “Beno, we will deal with the duke later. I don’t have the energy.”

“Just one second.”

I floated over to Duke Smit who was standing up, swordless and surrounded by my kobolds and beetles.

“You’re an epochian,” I said.

“What of it?” answered the duke.

“See the goblin over there? You can bring him back.”

Smit shrugged. “If I had someone to feed on, yes.”

I looked around at Jahn’s Row, at the street filled with groaning, mortally wounded men. “I don’t think that would be a problem.”

“I have conditions,” said Smit. “I will bring the goblin back. In return, you will let me go back to my fort, unhindered, where I will collect my children and leave. You will never see me again.”

“You don’t have enough bargaining power to impose terms.”

“Ah. You expect me to perform this act from the goodness of my heart?”

“I don’t expect anything of the sort. I think a nice round of torture might make you more helpful.”

“How long do you expect it would take for your torture to work?” asked Smit. “A few hours? Longer? Certainly too long to be of any use to your friend. If you want my help, it must be now. Leave it too long, and I cannot roll time back far enough.”

“You expect me to bargain with you?”

“Unless you’d prefer that the goblin stays dead?”

“You came to our town and slaughtered half the townsfolk. We didn’t provoke you. We had barely heard of you until you started sending your letters.”

“Perhaps your little town grew too big for its own good,” said Smit. “But that’s beside the point. It need not have come to this. You could have peacefully submitted to me. Instead, you paid a grubby little mage to conjure a lightning storm. You fled underground like rats and used your traps to murder good men and women. All I wanted to do was to welcome your town into the bosom of Xynnar. Instead, you want to remain alone in this hellhole, cornered like rabid rats, lashing out at anyone who gets close.”

“Moralizing while you’re sitting atop a mountain of corpses. Now I’ve seen it all.”

“Time is not your ally, core. What do you want? To lecture me, or to help your friend?”

“I can’t let you go.”

“Why ever not? You will never see me again. I’ll take my children, take a new name, and that will be that.”

“Don’t make me laugh. You’d give up your dukedom? Your fort?”

“I never liked it much anyway.”

“Then what in all hells was this about?”

“Necessity, core. Necessity. It occurs to me that this battle, this mound of corpses, might be what I have needed all these years. You need only let me go, and tell anyone who comes to visit your town that I died in battle. I, in turn, will help your friend. As simple as that.”

“You don’t deserve a second chance,” said Gulliver. “Look at what you’ve done and the deaths you’ve caused.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that a dungeon core? The floating block of stone who you are all taking orders from? My brain might