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

A rock smashed through the window.

I rushed in front of Galatee, let the shards patter against me and fall.

There was a hush for a second.

And then someone reached in from the street. They ripped the curtains off their hooks.

Another rock caved in the second windows.

Warrane, spear in one hand, darted over to Galatee. He tried to pull her away from the danger, as he’d been taught. She shrugged him off.

“Let me face the rabble.”

The crowd was up against the broken windows now, staring in at the corpses and the blood. Mouths open. Eyes wider than I thought a person’s eyes could go. Taking in the horror in a different way to me. I was resurrected for the sole purpose of slaughter. To me, seeing a bunch of corpses was as normal as looking at the sky.

To them, it caused revulsion and fear, and with those feelings came anger. Faced with something so horrendous, they needed someone to accuse.

On the one hand, who could blame them? There were four mutilated corpses in the bakery. People murdered, people who they knew. People who…

Wait a second.

Staring at the bodies, I noticed something.

A man ran up to the crowd. “I just finished talking to Tsuen. He says the spider freak is in there!”

“The one who plays in the Scorpion?”

“That’s him. He did this!”

“Kill him!”

One orc used a shovel to remove the broken glass from the window, clearing the frame so they could climb through it.

Segul and his fellow guard stepped forward, made themselves big. It didn’t matter how big they were or how tough their armor was. They were outnumbered, and that was that.

The crowd rushed past them. Barged through the door. Climbed through the windows.

Warrane and Galatee backed off.

I floated there, facing the crowd.

If we were in my dungeon, I’d conjure a trap or a monster. That’d send them running for sure. But I couldn’t use my essence above ground. Some cores could. Cores like Jahn, who used his essence to construct most of the town. It wasn’t something I’d ever been able to master.

I never said I was perfect.

Five townsfolk became ten, twenty. Some of them armed, all of them angry. They looked more like rabid dogs than people. A few dared look at the bodies but most avoided the sight. The blood was too much. All they knew was that someone had to pay, and a spider monster made a good debtor.

I used my core voice. “Gulliver, I need you to bring everyone from the dungeon to Jahn’s Row.”

“I’m just having my breakfast…what’s happening?”

“Gary’s in trouble.”

“I’ll round everyone up.”

That was one thing about Gull; he acted when it mattered.

More townsfolk piled in until Galatee, Warrane, and I were facing thirty of them. The crowd knew Gary was in here, and they wanted him to pay. I wanted to protect him.

What about Galatee? No reason why she should risk herself for a potential murderer. And standing in front of her, Warrane had one job: to protect his chief. Neither of them had any loyalty toward me right here and now. I wouldn’t have blamed them for just leaving me.

This might end with me, a core who couldn’t use his essence on the surface, facing up against an angry mob.

Galatee stepped forward. Some of them withered under her stare. That was what she banked on; that her authority would overpower their anger.

“Anyone still in this shop when I count to five will spend the next month digging in the desert,” she said.

Galatee had chosen to help me and Gary. As much as we’d had our run-ins in the past, I was beyond grateful to her then. Pressure either cracks a person or it shows who they are, and right then, I’d learned I could trust Galatee to do what was right. Even in the face of a mob.

We waited to see if her authority took hold.

The man, the one who’d been the loudest, snarled. “This isn’t a clan anymore! This is a town! You can’t order us into the desert!”

“That’s right, she can’t,” someone agreed. “You’re not a dictator. You’re a chief. You serve us, Galatee. That’s your job!”

The man who spoke stepped forward.

Warrane placed himself in front of Galatee. Twisted his spear so it was horizontal. Jabbed with the tip, giving them a warning.

“This one will run his spear through your gut, Kempton,” he said.

The loud guy, Kempton, eyed the spear. He was realizing that anger didn’t armor you. The spear would stab through his fat belly flesh no matter how furious he was.

But then the look in his eyes showed he’d realized something else.

“There’s two of you and that floating rock, and you’re guarding that…that…monster. You can’t protect him from all of us!”

“Galatee,” I said quietly. “Where the hell are the rest of the guards?”

She looked worried, and that worried me. It wasn’t often she showed anything but utter confidence. The last time I’d seen fear on her face was when her husband, Reginal, had a heart attack.

“On a training exercise, Beno. Out in the wasteland, while it’s early morning and it’s cool enough for them to be in combat armor.”

“Damn it. My monsters won’t get here quickly enough.”

Kempton took a step forward. He was testing Warrane. Like how stupid people put their hand near a dog’s mouth to see if it wants to bite.

Warrane, faced with the choice of having to kill a fellow townsperson, failed the test. I saw it in his eyes. Saw his confidence break. He wanted to do his duty and protect Galatee, but he couldn’t kill one of his own.

That was when I knew we were utterly screwed. I couldn’t use essence, my monsters would take too long to get here, and Galatee’s