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

Hmm. I had to think about it. On the one hand, I did like her. And the two brothers weren’t heroes, despite the fact that they, unfortunately, met the technical description. Killing them wouldn’t give me anywhere near as much pleasure as it had with the barbarian and his gang.

But then again, I was a core. My human instincts had left me long ago. Really, they had. When the other cores used to tease me and say I’d kept too much humanity, they were wrong, and they were idiots. Especially Core Jahn.

So yes, on reflection, I would kill someone close to Vedetta. I was a core; it was my job, my purpose, it was the reason my soul was resurrected in the first place.

“Sorry, but you know the rules,” I told her.

“Can I talk to you properly?” she shouted.

Her brothers looked at her strangely. “Detta? Who are you talking to?”

“How did you find us?”

“Later,” the girl answered. “Beno, I need to speak with you. You won’t be harmed.”

Won’t be harmed?

I won’t be harmed?

This was my bloody dungeon, and I had her brothers on a plate! No matter how old Vedetta really was, she was still a little girl. She was nothing but a morsel to Gary.

“Please, Beno,” she said. “Just come and hear me out.”

I used my core powers to amplify my voice through the dungeon. This needed to sound terrifying and serious.

“Why would one such as myself talk to one such as…yourself?”

Damn it! The effect wasn’t what I had intended. The amplification made my stupid voice sound even worse.

“There’s something you need to know, that you won’t find out if you kill my brothers.”

“Oh?”

“About the overseers. Something you don’t know about them.”

Ah. Now, this might change things.

I supposed I could talk to her. After all, the moment to issue an order for Gary to slaughter them had sort of passed. I could find out what the hell she knew, then kill her brothers.

“Fine, child. Tell me.”

“Come here.”

“Heh. Not a chance, have you lost your mind?”

“Come and talk here, core, or not at all.”

I wanted to know what secrets she held about the overseers, but I couldn’t just pedestal hop into the loot room. That’d leave me right in the center, and I’d be too exposed.

No, it was time to do something I had avoided for all this time because I found it demeaning.

“Tomlin? Come here please.”

My core room door opened and both Tomlin and Wylie shuffled in. I couldn’t justify keeping them out of the fighting while sending my other clan monsters into it, yet I didn’t want them to get hurt. They were my favorites, after all.

At any rate, I had posted them outside the core room as guards, which technically meant they had a role in things.

“Dark Lord has almost destroyed his enemies,” said Tomlin. “Tomlin is impressed.”

“Almost, but not quite. Tomlin, I’ll need you to carry me.”

He arched the little strip of hair that counted as a kobold eyebrow. “Carry you, Dark Lord?”

“Yes, I know. It’s demeaning as hell to be carried around by a kobold, but I need to get to the loot room, and I don’t want to be stranded in the center.”

“Dark Lord can move to other pedestals.”

“And if the mage hits me with a fireball and knocks me off it?”

“Ah, Tomlin understands.”

“Good,” I said. “I’ll need you to carry me to the loot room entrance, where I will speak to them. If there is the slightest hint of trouble, you carry me back here. Got it?”

“Tomlin will protect his friend.”

That felt like a dagger of emotion in my cold, dead, completely non-existent heart. “Thank you, Tomlin.”

The kobold carried me to the loot room, where I saw Gary, Vedetta, and the brothers. There was a dead barbarian with his hands stuck in a bear trap, surrounded by his own blood. It was beautiful.

“Vedetta,” I said. “Tell me what I should know.”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I just needed you to come here so you could see my brothers properly. Look at them! They’re scared. Barely out of their teens, but with simple minds and cowardly souls. They aren’t made for fighting.”

The swordsman eyed his sister now, but I suppose he knew better than to spoil her blatant attempts to get me to spare them.

Yes, I understood what was going on. I don’t know how or why, but Vedetta’s brothers had joined a party of heroes and had come to loot my dungeon. Now, Vedetta wanted me to spare their lives. Apparently, actions shouldn’t have consequences after all. Who knew?

“Vedetta, you know as well as I do that sparing a hero’s life willingly is the most disgraceful breaking of core rules that is possible.”

The mage brother spoke to his sister. “Detta? You know this…thing? You know about dungeons and cores? What the hell is going on?”

Vedetta patted his arm. “Sweet brothers, it would be a great idea if you didn’t speak a word until I’ve negotiated your release.”

If I had a face, I would have been giving her a very serious frown right now. “Oh no. Nope. They’ll be no negotiation. These guys came into my dungeon willingly and with their own motives, whatever those motives are. You know what that makes them. You know what it means.”

Vedetta nodded. “I thought you might feel that way. I would have, too.”

“You would have too? What?” said the swordsman brother.

I was about to give Gary his kill order when Vedetta pulled something from her bag.

It was a mana lamp. Small, made of metal, with a green flame inside.

“Gary, tear these two to-”

Before I could say anything, Vedetta ran at me, barged into Tomlin, and then ran past us. Her footsteps echoed all the way