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

A few nights later, a figure that looked nothing like Vike but was vaguely human, crouched beside the ruins. As before, three men and a woman approached him.

“Is it the boy again?”

“Nobody would be that stupid,” said the woman.

“He’s the only person we’ve seen here in years. He must have made his way back.”

“Well, we gave him a chance before. This time, we’ll have to kill him. Serves him right.”

“Needs must, if the Republic is to rise.”

“The Republic will rise,” chanted all four of them.

They approached the boy beside the ruins. He still hadn’t turned around to face them. Just like last time, he hadn’t even heard them approach.

The woman drew a sword silently from a sheath. She raised it in the air and without any hesitation, swung the blade at the boy’s neck.

His head fell off.

But there was no blood. Just hay. Lots and lots of hay.

Vike stepped out of the shadows, crossbow held tight.

“Well, well, well. What should I do now, huh? Bind your arms and ankles and leave you to the wolves? Tie you up next to a river, maybe?”

They looked at him in shock.

This was the first time he had actually seen the people who had left him for dead. They were wearing leather armor that looked ancient. A symbol was etched on the front, though it was too weathered to make out anything except a giant shield.

The men and a woman stared at him before the woman broke out into a laugh. The men joined in.

Their laughs reminded Vike of his father. He thought about firing the crossbow but doubted his ability to reload quickly enough to kill them all. It was better to keep it as a threat.

“What’s so funny?”

When the four of them finally stopped laughing, it was the woman who addressed him. “Perhaps we had you all wrong, boy. When was the last time you had a warm meal?”

“A few days ago.”

“Okay…when was the last time you had a warm meal that you didn’t steal?”

Vike didn’t have an answer to this.

“Come,” said the woman, and four of them turned their backs on him and headed deeper into the ruins.

Chapter 4

The tournament administration office was housed in a grand wooden lodge that had five black star sculptures perched on the roof. Gulliver, Anna, and Shadow went to explore the city of Heaven’s Peak, while Bolton, Jahn, and I headed inside.

We were met by a giant owl standing in the entrance. She was as tall as a man yet twice as wide, and she had the disconcerting habit of swiveling her head all the way around.

“Do you have an appointment?” she said.

“I’m afraid not,” I answered. “But this is tournament business.”

“Hmph. This way.”

We headed into her office, where she settled onto a perch behind a grand oak desk. On the surface were piles of papers, and a little bowl filled with mouse heads. Our conversation was punctuated by her tossing a little rodent head into her beak and crunching its bones.

“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” she asked.

“We are here to register for the tournament,” Bolton said.

“The Battle of the Five Stars?”

“Of course the Battle of the Five Stars. What other tournaments would we be registering for?”

She tossed another mouse head into her beak and chomped on it. “There’s also a carpentry competition going on in the city. Soon, actually.”

Bolton leaned forward. “I am an ex-overseer of the Dungeon Core Academy. With me are two dungeon cores. Do you think we are here to whittle tables and chairs?”

She crossed her wings over her chest. “Well, you can’t register.”

“Why not?”

“Given that you are an ex-Dungeon Core Academy overseer, I thought you would know. For a dungeon core to enter the Battle of the Five Stars, he must get sponsorship from an academy.”

I should have known that it wouldn’t be so easy. Things rarely are. But I wasn’t about to be turned back by some administrative red tape.

Well, technically I was being turned back, because we had to get back in the mana- carriage and leave Heaven’s Peak. Metaphorically, however, I would continue undeterred. It just meant that we had to take a diversion.

So, despite Gulliver’s wish to go straight home and Anna complaining that she was getting carriage sick, we took a longer route, calling in at a place I knew very well. As we got closer, I began to get a weird feeling. Nostalgia, perhaps? I didn’t know. It was hard to place. I have never been good with feelings.

 The carriage pulled to a stop. “Here we are,” I said.

“Where are we?” asked Anna.

I put a lot of grandeur into my voice. “Behold... the Dungeon Core Academy!

Most people, when they think of the Dungeon Core Academy, expect a gothic castle with hundreds of rooms and dozens of towers. Spires and turrets that reach to the heavens, gargoyles perching on roof ledges. That kind of thing.

Most people haven’t really thought it through. A building created to forge and train dungeon cores wouldn’t be much use if it was above ground.

We climbed out of the carriage and onto the field. Ahead of us was a single wooden signpost driven into the mud.

Anna turned in a circle. “I don’t get it. Where is it?”

“It’s underground, of course,” I said. “The clue is in the name. Dungeon Core Academy.”

If it had just been Jahn and me visiting the academy, they likely would have turned us away. After all, we had failed to graduate from the academy after our evaluations had gone wrong. I was still bitter about that, but I had grown as a person, becoming the dignified core that I was today. I was too noble to harbor a grudge against