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

CHAPTER 25

I was in my dungeon’s core chamber when Wylie knocked on the door. It was hard to hear him at first, with all the racket going on throughout the dungeon. Monsters were packing up weapons. Hauling trinkets and ornaments out of the lair. Dissembling any traps untouched by Riston, and taking them outside, ready for transport.

The loot room was filled with boxes stuffed to the brim with dungeon fixtures. Kobolds were stripping out tripwires, covering spike pits, prying up puzzles tiles. Some of them looked excited, some of them sad. I was felt somewhere in the middle. Mostly wedging on sad. This had been a home to me. Not for long, maybe a year, but a home. My second dungeon, technically, but the first that I’d made my own.

I would have helped with the physical labor, of course, but I didn’t have hands. My abilities were best suited in a more supervisory manner. Gulliver said I was being lazy, but this was something different.

Wylie knocked again.

“Come in!”

“Visitors in dungeon, Dark Lord!”

“Heroes?”

“Big, fat men with purses. Jangle when they walk.”

“Traders, then. What the hell do they want?” I asked.

Wylie looked at me as if it was the strangest thing in the world to ask a visitor what they wanted. “Don’t know.”

“Let them in.”

I met the traders in the loot chamber. Things were different since the last time they’d been here. The dining table was gone. I’d taken down most of the nice mana lamps. There was no music. No food. I also didn’t give a damn whether I was impressing the traders or not.

The main difference was the traders themselves. Gone was their finery. Their expensive clothes, their jewels. They were wearing simple, practical clothes suited for a dungeon. They didn’t seem so snooty, either. One of them even smiled at me.

Baby was the one to speak for them. “I hope you’re not going somewhere, Mr. Core?”

“Not far, but I’ll be leaving Yondersun.”

Baby scratched his ear. “So the rumors are true. We had something to ask you. It’s a rather, uhm, delicate-”

“We want you to become chief!” blurted another trader, a dumpy gnome with his beard oiled into three forks.

“We want to support your bid to become chief, that is,” added Baby. “There is still an election, after all.”

So now they wanted to use their influence in my favor, huh? And all it had taken was for me to stop giving a crap about it, and to mercilessly slaughter a psyche-mage in front of the whole town.

“All we’d ask is you make one or two promises to us. We won’t ask anything too great, Mr. Core. We just need to know our gold is in safe hands.”

They waited for my answer. Though they had shown a modicum of humility, at least more than when they had last been here, Baby still managed to look smug. As if he was the king, offering pardon to a man sentenced for death if only he would serve him.

“Nah,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“No thanks, Baby. I’m removing myself from the race. Consider this my retirement from politics.”

Baby looked ruffled. He glanced at his trader friends. Tried to stay composed, but failed, badly.

“I don’t think you understand, Mr. Core. We are offering-”

“You’re offering to make me chief. Something I don’t need or want. I’m a dungeon core. I’m not supposed to be ruling a town. Deciding whether we need to build a new water well, or if the town hall needs redecoration.”

“That’s not all a chief does.”

“I think I covered the gist of it. To that effect, I also gave up my seat on the town council.”

The traders looked anxiously at one another.

They’d come here to make me an offer. They thought they had something I wanted, and that they could use it to control me. I saw it on their faces; they were salivating at the prospect of having a dungeon core being grateful to them.

Now, they were leaving with nothing.

When the traders were gone, Jahn and I went to my core chamber to talk alone. Jahn was on the pedestal in the center. He hadn’t earned the same float ability as me, which I had won through killing enough heroes. Jahn would probably get it another way. After all, all the cores in Ray’s vision had been floating.

Jahn looked around the room. This was the last chamber we had to pack. My bookcase was still there. My vast collection of adventure books. A painting Wylie made for me. I hadn’t gotten around to doing anything yet. This place was my sanctuary. A place I went for peace and quiet. A place from which I acted as general and planned the doom of the heroes who entered my lair. So many fond memories.

“I suppose we should…” began Jahn. He tried to put on his most confident voice, which was something he’d been doing since learning who he was. He made a special effort around Bolton, who insisted on reminding Jahn what a responsibility he had.

I waited patiently, but he didn’t finish. That was why he was here, talking to me. He wanted me to finish the sentence for him.

“We have to find the ancient cores,” I said. “That’s why I can’t be chief. Can’t be on the chief council. Can’t even have my dungeon under the town anymore. I’ve been stretching myself too thin. Trying too hard to fit in with civilized people, while doing core things. The two don’t mix. While you and I have a job to do, I’ll focus on my core instincts.”

“Aren’t you sad to leave?”

I was. But I also knew Jahn was miserable about having to leave Yondersun. He’d built most of the town, after all. I didn’t think we should both