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

As such, I wasn’t part of the academy, even as an ex-student. I had no right to be evaluated the sponsorship, as it turned out.

“Behold, cores, overseers, kobolds, and guests,” announced Tarnbuckle. “The core competing for the Dungeon Core Academy in this decade’s Battle of the Five Stars is… Aethos!”

Chapter 6

The mana carriage ride back home to the dungeon was a quiet one. Bolton and Shadow were napping, and Gulliver and Jahn were on the roof. Gulliver had promised to show Jahn the constellations, and demonstrate how a person might navigate using them. I preferred using signposts and asking people for directions, like a normal person.

As much as I usually enjoyed the quiet time so that I could read or think of new traps or just have a minute’s peace away from the constant jibber-jabbering of kobolds, I didn’t enjoy the silence that night. With the absence of chatter, gloomy thoughts filled the gap.

I thought about the academy and how they’d used regulations to discard me. Not that I could complain, given I’d cheated with the golden scale. But I guessed that the worse thing was their desperation to be free of me. The lengths they went so they didn’t have to sponsor me. As though I would bring them shame, or something.

And then delving deeper, there was the fact that I had to cheat to win. My core was of such low quality, that had the golden scale been around back then, I would never have been forged in the first place.

What bothered me - what this meant - was that any idea I had of entering the tournament, earning glory, and winning the rewards was gone. No other academy would even think of sponsoring me. I only had a chance with the Dungeon Core Academy because I used to be a student there.

Maybe I just had to accept my new place in the pecking order. That even though I had my dungeon, Jahn would be the most important core in it. That I should fall in line and get behind him, forget about personal glory and just focus on Jahn’s task and being a faceless cog within it.

It wasn’t that I begrudged Jahn anything. It was just... I don’t know. It had always been my dungeon, and my wishes had always been at the center front.

“What’s got you brooding so much?”

I was surprised to see Anna climb to the front of the carriage and sit beside me, dangling her legs over the ledge as the scenery whizzed by. I couldn’t think of a single time when Anna had spoken to me out of choice. Likewise, the only time I’d spoken to her of my own volition was to interrogate her after she had magically possessed Shadow, my kobold rogue.

“Shouldn’t you be studying?” I said.

“It gets boring. And sometimes I find it hard to take in. I read so much that my mind can only keep up with part of it, and Bolton won’t ever let me stop and just think things through. Y’know, get everything straightened and stored properly in my head. He’s always saying, ‘Five more chapters before tomorrow, Anna!’”

“I always used to love studying. As many books as possible. I couldn’t get enough of them.”

“I prefer to learn more about my magic by doing things. Using it, and stuff. But Bolton says the way I used to use my power wasn’t very nice.”

I thought about how Anna had once used her Chosen One power to possess Shadow, and then get Shadow to kill one of my minor kobolds.

“Yes, a cynic might say that you weren’t very pleasant, Anna.”

“And you have a halo around you, do you, Mr. Core?”

“I was forged to slaughter heroes. Any death or murder on my part was just me acting according to my nature.”

“Oh? And what are you doing now? Is brooding in your nature?” she said.

“What would you know?”

“That you’re moping around like a little baby.”

“I expect I’m feeling like you did when they kicked your arse out of the Chosen One school. When you learned you would never match up to the standards they set.”

“Except that I was kicked out of the school for using my powers on an instructor, not because I wasn’t good enough. And I only did it to help...a friend.”

Anna still hadn’t said her best friend, Utta’s, name since he had died. I knew that some of my more earnest, and less perceptive, dungeon monsters like Wylie had asked Anna how she was feeling from time to time. But most people didn’t even bring the subject up.

“I’m sorry about Utta,” I said.

Anna looked at me, shocked. I was just as surprised. What the hell had just come out of my mouth? Empathy?

No, not just that. Not just that horrible thing called empathy, but empathy for a girl who I could quite cheerfully throw into a vat of boiling oil.

“I don’t think you should give up,” said Anna. “Utta always used to say that unless you’re dead, you always have a chance. Although, I suppose you are dead, aren’t you, core? Or does having a second life count as being alive? Or are you half-dead? For that matter, what’s the difference between a resurrected thing and a reanimated? I’m sleepy. And if Bolton is allowed to nap in the mana carriage, then so am I.”

Part of what Anna said was sinking into my mind. I could feel an idea stirring, and I just needed a little time alone to work it out.

As Anna shifted towards the back of the carriage, I turned to face her.

“If you want to remember more of what you read, and avoid having to read books twice, then I’ll teach you my memory palace technique someday.”

She said nothing for a moment. “Thank you, you stupid core.”

I suppressed