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

at the town graveyard. It was still new, but getting bigger and bigger. Core Jahn usually did most of the town construction, but the townsfolk insisted on digging the graves themselves. Gary and the other dungeon monsters had helped. Rows and rows of grey stone-faced him. Each marking a life, most of them lost in the battle against Duke Smit.

Gary had fought in that battle. Risked his life for the people of Yondersun. All for them to laugh at him. Not just laugh, either. They had baited him. Set him up so they could embarrass him. It was all planned.

The beer in the barrel was half gone now, and his mind was half gone with it. The vision in his eight eyes was fuzzy. He drained the rest of the barrel, let the rest of his thoughts leak away.

That was when he heard them. Four voices nearby. Near the graveyard, the quietest part of Yondersun. Nobody around except a drunk monster. A hideous freak who was stupid to think he could fit in anywhere except a dungeon.

And the four people who’d arranged his humiliation.

It was them, alright. He knew their voices. Fred and James, laughing at something. Clarbeth telling George how she wanted one last glass of wine before bed, and maybe he should join her tonight. They pretended they weren’t together, but everyone knew.

Gary thought he’d drank enough ale to dull his anger, but it came back stronger than ever. He threw the empty barrel. It smashed into a gravestone. The wood splintered and the last dregs of ale dripped down the stone.

Standing up, he scanned the area with his fuzzy vision until he saw them.

Four shadows, walking in a shadowy part of town.

His thoughts seething, he stomped over to them.

CHAPTER 3

“Loss is an inevitability in a dungeon core’s life. You spend much of it fighting heroes, and in combat, someone has to win. That means someone has to lose. Either way, someone dies. You can’t help being a bloodthirsty monster.”

Deep within my dungeon, locked away in my core chamber, Gulliver was trying to make me feel better. He was drinking jasmine tea from a tin mug that he carried everywhere with him. As a traveling scribe, he kept his pack full of essentials and could be ready to travel with a minute’s notice. Usually, that travel only extended to the town of Hogsfeate, where his girlfriend Kathryn lived.

Lately, though, he had spent all his time hanging around my dungeon. Not that I was complaining. It was good having my best friend here. He’d traveled all over Xynnar and spent time with mages, lords, dukes, witches. This made his experience invaluable, and his advice was usually good…as long as he hadn’t spent time in the Scorched Scorpion before giving it. Besides, I liked having him around. We all did. He cheered us up.

 “That would usually be nice of you to say, but the fact I’m a dungeon core is the problem here. The traders won’t vote for me if they’re scared,” I said.

“Plenty of votes are won using fear.”

“By giving people something else to focus their fear on. Not by making them fear me. If you were a fly, you wouldn’t vote for a spider to become your next leader.”

“I suppose not. You’re focusing too much on whether they like you or not, Beno. There’s a structure to the world. Everything has its opposite. Good and evil, life and death. Even when you lose a fight or a vote, you’re contributing to the natural order.”

“The natural order. Making the traders watch a bloodbath means they don’t trust me to be chief. That’s the natural bloody order. They’ve got it into their heads that I just love killing things. Inviting them to dinner was supposed to show them another side to me.”

“Why do you care what those nitwits think? Unless you crap gold coins, they certainly don’t care about you.”

“They hold sway over the town. The chiefs run it, but the larger the town grows, the more golds flows through purses. The traders are getting more influential by the day, and whoever they endorse in the chief election is nailed on to win.”

“Okay, fine. But why do you care about becoming chief?”

“The town is right above my dungeon,” I said. “What happens up there affects things down here. If I have more of a say about town issues, it makes my dungeon more secure.”

“Are you sure that’s the only reason?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Back when I was an apprentice scribe…”

“Here we go. More tales from Gulliver’s youth.”

Gulliver carried on. He wasn’t to be baited today, apparently. “A few other lads and lasses joined the guild at the same time as me. Six of them. Five years later, I was the only one to pass my apprenticeship. Know why?”

“They found something more worthwhile to do?”

“Says the core who loves adventure books! Who do you think writes books like that, eh? Scribes, perhaps? Anyway, I was the only one to pass the apprenticeship, and that was because I actually wanted to be a scribe. The rest of them just liked the idea of it. You know, the air of mystery. The unconquerable charisma that being a master scribe brings. They loved what being a scribe sounded like in their heads, but they didn’t like the nitty-gritty.”

“I don’t give a damn about mystery or charisma or any crap like that. I want to be chief to secure my dungeon. That’s all.”

“Right,” said Gull, rolling his eyes and sipping his jasmine tea.

“How about you take your fat fingers out of my mind and stop kneading my brain,” I said. “I need you to help me come up with a new plan.”

He shrugged. “They seemed angry with you, Beno. Baby said he’s going to stop people voting for you.”

“Exactly. I need