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

had a chance to look at the bodies. The way they died isn’t consistent with how Gary usually murders heroes.”

“I wouldn’t open with that line when you try to protest his innocence, Beno. Leave out the murder part.”

“I’ve watched Gary fight countless times. He wraps his legs around people, and his leech teeth bite into them. Tear them apart chomp by chomp. If Gary had killed them, they’d be full of little marks. Hundreds of them. To me, their wounds looked more like long gouges. Too big for Gary’s teeth.”

“Again, if they decide to put on a trial, I’m begging that you don’t represent him.”

“A trial. Pah.”

“All well and good saying that those people were murdered the wrong way for it to be Gary, but the townsfolk are scared. Someone killed four of their own, and they want to put a face to the killer. If they can’t, then it means they don’t know who is doing it, and then that person may still be among them. They won’t want to listen to the subtlety between gouges and bites.”

“Unfortunately, people never do,” I said.

“It’ll take an awful lot to convince them, Beno, because if they admit that Gary is innocent, then it means the killer is still out there. It gives them a reason to stay scared.”

“You’re right. Jopvitz? Did you hear anything else useful?”

“No, Dark Lord.”

“Then I’d like you to carry on observing. I’ll cast more core visions for you. Thanks for your work so far.”

“Thanks, Anvil,” said Gulliver, giving him a wave.

Jopvitz headed off. When he was gone, my confidence left me and I let myself feel vulnerable. I hadn’t wanted to do it in front of a dungeon creature. Morale was low enough as it was. But I knew I could let my guard down around Gulliver.

“I’m worried about Gary,” I said. “Everything you said is true. They need someone to blame, and they couldn’t have a more perfect someone than the drunk monster who was found in the same building.”

“You’re sure about the teeth and gouge-wound thing?” said Gulliver.

“Slaughter is sort of my area, Gull. I know the subtleties.”

“Then we know it couldn’t be him. We have to do whatever we can to show them that.”

I resumed floating in circles. It helped me think. I went around and around the loot chamber. Past the bookcase, the mana lamps, the mana spring, the satchel one of the traders had left behind. I still needed to return it. It would have given me an excuse to meet with them again. Another attempt to try to influence them.

Looking at the satchel, I forgot all about meeting them. It reminded me of something else. Of our conversation about the missing people.

“Gull,” I said. “Does it strike you as at all coincidental that people are going missing in the wasteland, and that at the same time, four people are murdered in town?”

“You think they’re connected?”

“It’s as good an explanation as any.”

“People say the simplest explanation is usually the best. What’s more logical? That whatever is responsible for the missing people came into town, killed a bunch of folks, and then pinned the blame on a drunk monster? Or is it simpler that the drunk monster is the one responsible?”

“You’re doubting him?”

“I told you, Beno. He’s my friend. I trust him, and I trust what you’ve said. But I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t play the skeptic. I’ve never had blind faith in anything. It’s not how I work. I weigh the facts.”

“Are the facts are telling you that Gary did it even after what I said?”

“They’re telling me that you’ve done enough for me to earn my trust. And that I better listen to you for a while before I make any judgments.”

“So that’s it, then. We find out why people are going missing, who’s doing it, and see if that leads us to whoever killed the baker and his chums.”

CHAPTER 5

“Gary?” I said.

There was no answer. My core voice should have reached him wherever he was. I had created him, and that meant we’d always be linked. His lack of response meant one thing: they were keeping him in one of the new town cells. One lined with an alchemic paste that dulled anything telepathic and stopped my core voice getting through.

And it was my fault they had a cell like that in the first place.

On my advice, they constructed such a cell after we’d had a bunch of trouble with a telepathic witch called Anna. Anna could read thoughts and toy with emotions, and that made her dangerous to anyone with half a brain. That meant that many of the Yondersun folks were safe, but it still seemed like a sensible precaution.

If the girl ever came back to town, I wanted a place we could keep her prisoner, and stop her using her powers. The last time she’d had free reign, she’d controlled Shadow’s mind and made her kill one of her fellow kobolds. Shadow still hadn’t gotten over what Anna made her do.

I’d never expected that one of my own dungeon monsters would be in the new cell. After all, town-dungeon relations had been good. We’d reached a symbiosis.

Now, things were going to hell. One of the hells, anyway. There were so many it was hard to judge exactly which underworld we were hurtling toward.

It made me feel bad that I couldn’t talk to Gary. I just wanted to reassure him that I believed him and that I was going to sort this out. He’d be in the cell, alone, probably doubting himself. Wondering if he’d done it. It would hurt. Gary was good at killing heroes, but he wasn’t cold-hearted. The idea of hurting a normal, non-hero person would upset him.

I pushed my own feelings