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

“Over here, young Gulliver! Oh, and this is your pet core, is it?”

“Beno isn’t my pet Gill. But it’s good to see you all the same. Gill, meet Beno. The Dark Lord. His Dark Magnificence. The Prince of Pain. Beno, meet Gill. The Old Git, they call him.”

Gill lifted a pint of beer from the table. I wondered how he was going to drink it, but I didn’t have long to wait. He parted his shirt at the middle, to reveal his chest. On his chest, were two eyes, a nose, and a mouth where his belly button should have been.

I understood what Gill was now. I knew about people like Gill from a book in the academy library. Shapers could alter the face on their blank head, allowing them to disguise themselves. As such, many were employed as assassins and thus looked upon with suspicion.

This was why many of them kept their heads blank and spoke through their real mouths, on their bellies. As strange a sight as it was, their blank faces were supposed to reassure others that they were not assassins and were not assuming a disguise.

Mainly, though, it was because making a face appear on their heads caused them great pain, and it would be impossible for them to keep it up long enough to trick the rest of society for regular periods.

Gill tipped the beer into his belly mouth. His stomach fat wobbled as he glugged.

“Seen something interesting?” said Gill, talking through his stomach while his featureless face stayed perfectly placid, like a mannequin.

“Of course not,” I said. “Only a talking stomach. A yapping gut. A conversational tummy.”

Gulliver elbowed me. Or, he tried to. I floated out of the way, making him elbow thin air. “I told you not to stare. I thought that not mentioning…his condition… was implied,” he hissed.

Gill laughed. That was an extremely disconcerting sight, seeing his belly mouth ripple as he guffawed, and hearing the chortle coming from his gut.

“I like this core already,” he slurred, unmistakably drunk. “Come on then. Get your questions out of the way. I’ve heard ‘em all, and I don’t mind answering.”

“Err, okay. What happens when you go to the dentist?”

“Same as everyone else,” replied Gill’s belly. “They make me wait for an hour, sit me down in a chair and poke and prod at my teeth, then charge me a fortune.”

“And when you drink, where does it go?”

“Out of my bloody pecker, same as most blokes. Anything else?” he said, in perfectly good cheer.

“I think that’s everything,” I said, though it wasn’t. I had about a thousand questions.

“You said you had a proposition for me. As it happens, I need beer money.”

For the next ten minutes, I outlined my plan of opening a Dungeon Core Academy to Gill. To his credit, he didn’t show me any of the condescension I had received from the permit office goblin and Overseer Tarnbuckle. He didn’t make it seem like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

However, in that short space of time, Gill poured five pints of beer into his belly mouth. His posture and words became increasingly unstable, to the point that when I was finished, he said nothing.

“Gill?” I said.

Snores came from the opening in his stomach.

“Thanks a lot, Gulliver. The guy’s drunk himself into a stupor! I can’t have this man being an overseer in my academy. Look at him. He can’t even stay awake. I can’t have him teaching cores, can I?”

“Beno…you aren’t really opening an academy. It’s just to get into the tournament.”

“Still, think of all the prestigious academies that will be in the tournament. They are already going to look down at me, especially when Tarnbuckle spreads the word about my core quality test, and whatever else he slanders me with. Can I turn up with this guy stumbling around, burping out of his gut? What’s next? We recruit an overseer who talks out of his arse?”

“I thought you already asked Bolton, and he said no?”

I laughed. “Seriously, Gull. I don’t doubt that this man was once a great overseer. But right now…”

“Gill said he can pull strings and get his license back without taking the full test. Plus, all he wants is beer money. What other choice do you have?”

I thought about it. Gulliver had a point. What option did I have? I already did my best to persuade Bolton, but the man didn’t want to go back to his overseer life. I didn’t blame him. He’d earned his retirement. And none of the other retired overseers would come anywhere near us. I either accepted this drunk belly-snorer, or I gave up.

“Gill,” I said.

Snores came from his stomach.

“Gill?”

He didn’t stir.

“Free ales all round!” I shouted.

Gill coughed from his belly and bolted upright. “What was that, now? Where am I? Oh, it’s you. The core. So are we agreed, then? Am I to become your new master?”

“That’s not what we discussed, is it?”

“Ah, yes. An overseer at your academy, is what I meant. We are agreed?”

I paused for a second. Gulliver gave me a smile that was half an apology, half on the verge of laughter.

“I suppose we are. Welcome to the academy.”

Chapter 9

Back in my dungeon the next day, I floated through the passageways and tunnels until I came to a chamber with a nourishing, fragrant smell. Heading in, I saw purple leaves and vines spread all over the walls.

The room throbbed with heat, and even standing there for just a second, I felt the vines begin to nourish me like a warm shower. They replenished my essence no matter where I was in a dungeon, of course. But the feeling was always stronger when I was in