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

I channeled essence.

I wished I could have made something cleverer, but I didn’t have time for anything fancy.

Steel Door created!

Essence Remaining: 4500 / 4738

Steel Door created!

Essence Remaining: 4370 / 4738

Steel Door created!

Essence Remaining: 4240 / 4738

The sound of mosquitos hammering through new steel doors met with the thump of those who were caught off guard and slammed into it.

Three doors gave me a little more time.

I paused. Hovered in place.

I needed something that would slow them for a little longer. A trap that would keep them in place, and maybe take a few of them out.

What was good against flying creatures?

Tough one. All my traps were geared toward hero slaughter. Heroes didn’t tend to fly.

Maybe I had something that would work.

I channeled essence from my core.

Trap created: Lava Rain

Essence Remaining: 3240 / 4738

Normally, a trap is a thing of beauty. A work of art to be admired. Studied. To look at and see what was good, what I could do better.

This was no time for self-evaluation. I trusted in my trap and flew on. There was a thud behind me. Then a hiss. I smelled fire. Steam channeled through the tunnel.

Soon I emerged into a cavern. Sunlight shone from a hole way, way above me.

“Hold on tighter,” I told the girl.

She couldn’t answer me, but she adjusted her grip.

I flew upwards now, toward the daylight. For a brief second, irony flashed through my mind. I was a dungeon core, yet I was fleeing into the daylight to escape danger. Trying to escape the darkness. Usually, it was my job to bathe in the darkness and send heroes running.

The giant insects gave chase, refusing to let their prize go. Steel couldn’t stop them. Lava hadn’t stopped them. What the hell were they?

I shot out of the caverns and back onto the crater. I found more people waiting for me than before. Geologists. Town guards.

And Riston.

“Shove your offer up your arse!” Eric was shouting just as I emerged above ground.

What the offer was, I didn’t know.

He was surrounded by town guards. Riston was talking to Eric, but staying at a safe distance. Shadow was across the crater, with two guards pressing spears against her. And then there were the children, being looked after by the geologists.

What the hell had happened while I was gone?

A guard pointed. “Holy shit of the gods!” he shouted.

Faces turned to the sky, where sixteen giant mosquitos hovered. Wings flapping. Abdomens writhing, their sacks full of blood but thirsty for more. Bum spikes ready, sharp enough to tear a hole through steel.

The guards, those armored, armed, and trained men and women, suddenly looked like lost children. Never mind that, on Reginal’s request, I had let them all spend time in my dungeon. They were supposed to be desensitized to monsters. But these grotesque insects were something else.

It wasn’t just the way they looked. It was the dark aura they carried with them. They seemed to turn the air thick with foreboding. Even the wasteland carrion-eaters and vultures would be silent as they passed.

The girl let go of me. She fell ten feet to the ground, landing on her back.

“It’s her!” shouted the orc girl from across the way. The kids tried to run to her, but the geologists stopped them.

The mosquitos circled overhead. Corralled us like we were cattle. Some guards looked terrified. Others gripped their weapons harder and got ready to fight. Shadow appeared to be the most scared of us all. She hadn’t been the same since Redjack, and I knew we couldn’t depend on her in a battle.

Only Riston, Eric, and I were calm. As a core, I had nothing to fear from insects who drained blood. Eric had lived with danger so long that he’d made peace with it. He told us he still felt it, but he didn’t let fear sap his energy. He and danger had forged some kind of coexistence.

Riston, on the other hand, had never looked anything but assured in the short time I’d known him. Whether he was giving a speech to the townsfolk, walking through a corpse-laden bakery, or facing a bunch of giant insects, he never showed a hint of distress.

Two guards pulled bows. Nocked arrows. Squinted, drew the strings back, and released.

One arrow sailed over a mosquito. The other stuck in a swollen abdomen. The stricken insect wasn’t hurt. It didn’t fall from the sky.

Instead, a perfect copy of it entangled itself from its own body. Now, there were two insects hovering with arrows stuck in their abdomen.

The guard released another arrow. Hit another mosquito.

Another copy.

“It shouldn’t need to be pointed out that firing another arrow would be a very stupid idea,” I said.

The guard, nocking another arrow, looked to an older guard to his right. The captain of his unit, maybe. He shook his head. The guard relaxed his bow.

We all waited as the mosquitos buzzed. I wracked my brains. Tried to remember if I’d ever learned about a monster like this at the academy.

A giant mosquito that made a copy of itself when you tried to hurt it. Something invulnerable to lava. Something that could hammer through a steel door.

No. Nothing. That meant it was something new. Or at least, a monster type that had been created since I had left the academy, and thus wouldn’t be mentioned in academy texts.

The girl was crying. No sound, of course. The only way you’d tell was from the tears on her wraith-like face. The guards, who’d noticed her appearance, wouldn’t look at her. Only the other children wanted to go to her, but the geologists held them tight.

Riston glanced at me. “This is your game, is it?” he said. “Kidnap children. Bring them here