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

mean. The sound they made was deafening. And their eyes! Ugh. Big, bulging eyes. Swollen abdomens covered in goo and blood.

Morphant quickly ran the plan through in his head.

Get the heroes to hit the ground with their shields when the insects get close.

Let the chemical work.

If all of the insects falls asleep, gently tie all of them up but one. Wait for it to wake up, and let it go.

The way the Dark Lord had explained it, it sounded so easy. But the key thing - and the Dark Lord had said this again and again rather pedantically - was to not hurt the insects. They must not be damaged. He'd explained why, and Morphant had to admit that it made sense.

Easy in theory.

A different thing in practice.

The insects attacked now, swooping in on the cart.

The heroes leaped off. They gripped their shields.

But one of them drew their sword.

Damn you, Katana Ken!

“I ain’t standing here like a moron banging my shield on the ground! I don’t care what stupid chemical you’re trialing! You don’t gamble with Katana Ken’s life!”

The sound of metal must have turned all their heads, because one by one, the other heroes drew their weapons, too.

“Your shields!” shouted Morphant, struggling to make his authority heard.

Only two of the heroes followed his orders. They smashed their shields on the ground. A thin mist rose. Yellow-green in color, like a rotten egg yolk. The smell was similar, too.

The heroes, breathing through masks, were unaffected. Two insects dropped. The others swooped in, spikes sticking out and ready to stab through flesh.

One insect rammed its pincer through a hero’s throat. He gurgled on his blood. Slapped madly at the thorn pinning him to the wagon. Then stopped slapping. Just slumped.

That was enough for utter chaos to begin.

Swords hacked at insect flesh. One after another. Grunting before every swing, in that way that all heroes seemed to do.

And then the insects multiplied. With every strike, they formed perfect copies of themselves, just as the Dark Lord said they would.

Morphant knew he’d lost control of the situation. He’d never win back the Dark Lord’s trust after this. The best he could do was head into the fray himself. Try something. Anything.

As he sprinted toward his people, a thorn burst through his leg.

It stopped him so suddenly that he lurched and slammed into the ground. Knocked three of his teeth out.

The pain made his vision white. The sounds of battle dulled. They weren’t sounds of battle anymore. Just fuzzy noises. Hit after hit, more insects were made. The buzz grew louder.

“Look at Pvat! Look at Pvat!”

Morphant saw that the heroes were pointing at him now.

Katana Ken screamed. But not because of an insect. Because of Morphant.

Morphant realized why; he’d lost his mimic form.

He was his own self now. A slug-like mimic lying on the wasteland ground.

I’d known that it would go this way. Well, mostly. I hadn’t expected Morphant to return to his normal form in front of the heroes. The insect had caught him by surprise. Stabbed its pincer through his leg. The pain must have broken Morphant’s concentration. Dissembled the disguise.

Shadow, Eric, and I had been watching the chaos from five hundred meters away. We saw the insect attack and the heroes be too stupid and arrogant to stick to the plan Morphant gave them.

Luckily, part of my own scheme was to rely on the subtle blend of stupidity and arrogance most heroes possessed.

“Eric, go get Morphant. Get him out of harm’s way. Shadow?” I said.

“I’m ready, Beno.”

The barbarian stalked off toward Morphant, while Shadow crept around the edges of the battle.

She walked carefully, choosing her target. Settling on an insect a little isolated from the rest, she sneaked until she was just inches away.

Then, she took a small glass vial from her satchel. An inch of it was filled with a red liquid. Blood, in fact. Blood donated by Tomlin, who had overcome his squeamishness and volunteered. If his blood would help get revenge for his essence vines, then he would do it, no matter how scared he was.

It hadn’t seemed like the time to point out that the essence vines belonged to me, and that Tomlin was in effect, an employee.

To my left, Eric was approaching me with Morphant cradled in his arms like a slug-shaped, slimy baby.

Way to my right, Shadow uncorked the blood vial. She gently held it underneath the insect’s pincer. She slowly raised the vial until the tip of the pincer was in the blood. After that, the insect’s instincts took over, and it drained the vial dry in less than a second.

“Good work, Shadow,” I said, using my core voice. “You can head back over here now.”

Eric sat with Morphant cradled in his lap. The barbarian was surprisingly tender, especially given that in his natural form, Morphant resembled an overgrown slug. Morphant had been injured in the fight, and Eric was gently dabbing an alcohol-soaked rag against his wound.

“You’ll be okay, pal. Trust me. I’ve been injured more times than a drunk blacksmith.”

Shadow rejoined us.

“Good work,” I told her.

“What now?”

“Now wait.”

And we did.

We waited and we enjoyed the show as the insects slaughtered the heroes. It was over frustratingly quickly; the insects didn’t toy with the heroes. They didn’t play games with them or make them suffer all too much. They simply killed them. What a waste!

And then…

…and then each insect pierced a hero like a kebab, and the swarm flew away with their corpses.

“They’re taking them back to their nest,” said Eric. “But why? Can you make a wraith from a corpse?”

Oh, hells.

A flaw in the plan.

“Unfortunately, yes,” I said. “You can make an undead wraith. Which I realize