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

lad who was probably a little too much under Anna’s influence. But because Bolton liked him, he’d respect his need to nap.

“All I’m trying to show you,” he whispered, “is that getting kicked out of the Chosen One School means nothing. If you try, you can still do great things.”

“I didn’t get kicked out. I left. Mutual accord.”

“Right.”

“What do you even care?” said Anna. “I’m not your daughter.”

Bolton said nothing. Just stared.

Three lives, and he’d never had children. Never had a wife.

Course, he couldn’t have had either of those things when he was a dungeon core, so that life didn’t really count. And he’d spent his first human life as a warrior. Killing things and whoring around.

But his third life? The resurrection he’d earned? He’d wasted it teaching at the Dungeon Core Academy. Training a bunch of stupid lumps of rock how to kill stupider sacks of flesh.

So no. Anna wasn’t his daughter. She never could be.

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt when she spat it out as an insult.

Bolton didn’t say anything back to her.

Anna had never met her father. Supposedly he was a soldier or something. He could be the king of Xynnar, for all the good it did her. If he was never around for her, what did it matter?

Say if she was allowed to pick any father. Like she could point at anyone, declare, “That’s my dad,” and it’d be true. Would she pick an old, bald, guy who worked at the Dungeon Core Academy?

Probably not.

So why did he act like that was what had happened?

And now he was giving her the silent treatment. Great. Like that had ever worked on her. She loved silence.

She gave the reins another tug. Just out of spite. The horses snorted, but Bolton didn’t even flinch.

Wow. She must really have hurt his feelings.

The stupidest thing was, she felt bad. He’d taught her and Utta a bunch of skills while keeping them in prisonry. Real-life, practical skills that you could actually use. Not like the hokum they taught at the Chosen One School.

Now, thanks to the stuff Bolton had taught her, Anna would be of some use when she finally got to join a pirate crew. When she found one worth their salt, anyway. Her last crew had been a bunch of rum-addled chumps.

“Are we going to Yondersun?” she said.

Bolton didn’t answer. He was just staring into the distance.

She refused to show him that she felt bad.

But…

She needed him to talk to her.

So that meant she’d have to say that stupid word people always wanted to hear. She’d say it because she needed Bolton to tell her things. And definitely not because she felt bad.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“About what I said.”

“I didn’t realize you had said anything I’d care about, let alone want an apology for.”

“Good. Because I’m actually not sorry.”

“Can you two shut up?” said Utta.

“You messed up, you know,” whispered Bolton.

Anna lifted the reins. “I know. I know. I won’t hold them so tight when Ham’s in a mood next time.”

“Not that. You were given a great chance, Anna. A poor village girl like you, getting to go to the Chosen One School. You could have become something great, but you ruined it. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.”

Anna had been a star student at the Chosen One School. Until an instructor had sentenced Utta to be whipped as a punishment for stealing. She’d used her mind control powers to stop them doing it, and that meant expulsion. The first rule in Chosen One School was that you did not use your powers on an instructor.

She shrugged. “I never wanted to be a chosen one anyways. I wanted to sail.”

“Ah yes. The choice of either becoming a great figure in history or living on a boat with a bunch of scabby sailors. You know, sometimes people sabotage themselves because the idea of failing is scary.”

“Sometimes old men prattle on because other people’s lives are more interesting than theirs.”

Bolton sighed. “You obstinate, surly, petty-”

Something smashed into the wagon, rolling it onto its side.

Utta yelled something. The horses whinnied. Wood splintered, and the cart rolled once, twice three times. Anna’s world spun around and around. Thud after thud, dirt blasting in her face.

Her head smashed into the ground. The pain was quick and intense. It made her stomach churn.

“Who? Bolton? Where?”

The words spewed out of her mouth. Her lips tasted of iron. Pain sprang from everywhere on her body. Far too many places to pinpoint a single injury.

It took every trace of effort to take a deep breath and close her eyes and enter her mindscape.

She saw dozens of colors flashing in her head. Dozens of blankets whizzing around and around. The blankets represented thoughts and emotions. Their colors told her what the emotions were. The way they flew told her what kind of control she had on them.

Right now, none. They were wrapped up in a tornado, sucked into the vortex.

There were red ones with flames around the edges. The color of pain. Yellow ones that fluttered and shook. The color of fear. There was blue, black, green…

…and then grey. Unmoving. Seeming to watch the rest of them. The color of death.

She wasn’t dying, but death’s specter was in her mind. Maybe as a threat of what might happen if she didn’t act now. Maybe the threat of death for Bolton or Utta. Her mind was telling her to do something. Now.

What the heck had happened?

The blankets refused to settle. No sooner did she have a thought, then it was sucked away.

She was no use to anyone like this.

Using her Chosen One power, she imagined a great big blanket. Big enough to cover all the