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

time, but he was doing it. This meant there was no physical barrier I could make that would hold him back forever. Nor did I have any magic ones I could use.

And though I didn’t want to murder townsfolk, I had at least thought I could employ some of my less lethal traps. But now that Riston was sending children through first, that was out. A dose of sleeping gas could easily kill a kid. Sure, I was sort of an evil being and my dungeon was full of monsters, but we hadn’t sunk that low.

“We can’t hold them back,” I said. “Eventually, they’ll get through.”

“Then we need to leave,” said Gulliver.

“Run from my own dungeon? Abandon my lair and let that bastard take it?”

Eric rested a meaty hand on me. The glow from the mana light caught his luscious locks and reminded me just how fabulous they were.

“Beno,” he said. “This reminds me of a time when I was in the Everdrenched Forest. It was cold. So rainy my arse was more wrinkled than a seal’s ballsack. After hours of searching, I found myself the coziest hollowed-out tree. Really snug. I was just beginning to fall asleep when a bunch of hungry wolves surrounded me. Had to run for my life, and give up my lovely little snug. Point is, sometimes you have to make a sacrifice to keep fighting another day.”

“You’re comparing leaving a hollowed-out tree to me having to leave my own dungeon? A place I have spent almost a year painstakingly constructing?”

Wylie gave a pronounced cough.

“Fine,” I said. “A place my miners have spent a year excavating, under my genius direction. One of the few places a core like me could call home. We can’t just live in houses in town, you know. I mean, I suppose we could. But it would be horrible. Houses have way too many cushions and blankets. And don’t get me started on doilies. What’s the point in them? Eh? They’re stupid and utterly useless!”

“Calm down with the doily hate, Beno,” said Gull.

“Sorry, I’m just stressed.”

Eric tossed his hair back. “Seems you have two choices then, Beno. Stay and fight the townsfolk and slaughter a few kiddies while you’re at it, or leave.”

“Call it a tactical retreat,” said Gulliver.

“Running away, tactical retreat. Same thing,” said Eric.

“Not so. Your choice of words can mean a lot. Some might call you a vagabond. Whereas you prefer the term barbarian. The connotations are different.”

“A sword has more power than a verb.”

“I could take you in a duel any day of the week, and I wouldn’t have to lift a sword.”

Eric scoffed. “That’s a good one! Let’s put it to the test.”

Before Eric could pounce on Gulliver, I floated between them. Eric banged his forehead into one of my sharper edges.

Eric shook his hand wildly as if that would get rid of the pain. “Ow! Beno, that hurt!”

“What’s got into you two?” I said. “You’re friends. Stop arguing.”

Eric folded his arms. “What’s it to be? A cowardly retreat…or do we stay and fight?”

“Yeah, Beno. A clever tactical withdrawal, or a senseless charge to death?” said Gulliver.

Gulliver and Eric both looked at me expectantly.

It made me sick to my core to think about leaving this place. To flee my own dungeon and let Riston prance around like a peacock. It made me feel so dirty that even killing a hundred heroes wouldn’t make me feel better.

But what was I supposed to do? Risk killing Yondersun children?

Some cores in the Dungeon Core Academy wouldn’t flinch at the choice. They’d kill Riston and keep their territory. But those cores didn’t have empathy. Empathy, that disgusting thing that was creeping up on me more and more the longer I spent time with humans. The more involved I got in Yondersun affairs, the more of it I developed. It was like an infectious disease.

Some cores, fresh out of the academy, would cheerfully classify the children as heroes, kill them, and then get on with their day. Why couldn’t I be more like them again? Why couldn’t I just kill indiscriminately, like I used to?

Those were the good old days!

So now, if we chose to fight, not only would we have to kill Yondersun town guards, but the guards would use children as meat shields.

If we gave ourselves up, Riston would order every single one of my dungeon monsters to be placed in cells. And what about after that? I doubted he planned on rehabilitating them for a life in society. The best they could hope for is he’d want to control their minds. The worst…well…I knew about some of the monster work camps and the fight pits that existed in grim places in Xynnar.

So fighting and giving up were as bad as each other. Like being asked to choose between uncurable scabies and fire poker enema.

My last option was to run. Abandon my own home and let that bastard waltz through it. The thought didn’t just stab at my pride; it made me so sick I wanted to split into a hundred sharp pieces of core and lacerate Riston until he was holier than a priest who’d just been stabbed full of holes.

Another explosion.

A crack appeared in the ceiling above us. The tunnels seemed to groan.

“Beno?” said Shadow. “What do we do?”

Gulliver and Eric waited for an answer.

Everyone stared at me. Warrane, Maginhart, Cynthia, Wylie, Brecht. All of them were my friends, all of them were under my protection.

“We have to go,” I said. “There’s no other way.”

Another boom marked Riston getting through all my steel doors. Somehow he was doing it without making the tunnels cave in completely. That made me think magic was involved as well as explosives.

I’d replaced the doors as he blew through them, but he had