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

dictionary-definition hero, before I even spoke to Bolton, then surely that would count in my favor?

“Oh Gary,” I said. “Get ready. You have work to do.”

CHAPTER 35

One-Eyed Sanders had just enough time to hear the girl say something before the door started to close.

“This is for George Costitch,” she said.

And then the door slammed shut, leaving Sanders alone.

George Costitch? Who the hell was that? Was he supposed to know the name?

He might not have recognized it, but he knew the intention behind her words. See, you didn’t spend decades as a bandit without occasionally having the family members of people you murdered come looking for revenge. They usually said things like, “This is for my father, mother, uncle, donkey, blah blah blah.”

And then Sanders would kill them.

Now, though, he was alone. He hadn’t brought his men with him because they were all out west, waiting for a merchant who they knew would be heading over travelers’ pass with boxes of gems in his cart.

Sanders was always happy to delegate, and he’d trusted them to do the job alone while he relaxed at camp. And then the little girl had come to him, saying she knew a place where there was treasure, but she was too scared to go. That she’d lead him there if he gave her a cut of it.

He’d planned to follow her, get the treasure, and then murder her.

But now a locked door separated them. Sanders tried its handle, but it wouldn’t budge.

Damn it, little girl!

There was nothing for it but to explore.

Sanders took one step, and then almost fell down a bloody hole in the ground!

He leaned over and saw a corpse at the bottom of it. What the hell has happened down here?

Sanders hadn’t known fear for a long time, but he felt it now. Steeling himself, knowing what a story this would be if he survived, he looked around the room, and he saw a door.

He walked through it, following a tunnel into yet another room, with even more corpses. A dead bard was lying next to some kind of frog creature.

In the next room, he saw a mage with a mutilated face, and two dead owls on the ground.

What in the gods’ names was going on?

Onwards he pressed, gripping his sword. Right now, he didn’t care much about treasure. He just wanted to get out of here. Course, when he told the rest of the camp about this, he’d miss out the part where he felt his hands shaking.

He walked through another doorway and into a tunnel, and then into another room. A much wider one, oval-shaped and with a chest in the center.

Ah, was this the treasure?

Then he saw the dead barbarian with his hands caught in a bear trap.

There was a squelching sound.

Sander’s pulse raced.

Movement to his left caught his eye, and that was when he saw it; a monstrosity of a spider mixed with…what…leeches? Leeches for legs?

How could such a thing exist?

That was the last thought that crossed bandit Sanders’ mind before the monster was upon him.

CHAPTER 36

                                                    Two Days Later

The overseers loved to make a show of things, and it really annoyed me. Not long after they called an end to the evaluation period, they summoned all of us cores away from our dungeons and back to the academy.

There, in the great atrium filled with statues of famous cores and models of famous dungeons cast by waves of mana light, they made us all wait.

The other cores and I floated on our pedestals, all of us lined up in a row. I looked around and saw my old classmates, and I wanted to talk to them, but I knew better.

This was it. The final evaluation. No sense any of us saying anything now, because we might say something stupid. Cores are prone to doing that.

So we all waited in silence as, one by one, the overseer called us into the judgment room.

Finally, it was my turn.

“Core Beno, hop into the judgment room, please.”

I did so, finding myself in the judgment room. Though actually it was Overseer Butte’s alchemy lab and they’d just tidied away all his vials and bottles and stuff.

In front of me were four hazy beams of light, vaguely resembling giant faces but disguised enough that I couldn’t tell who they were.

“Core Beno,” said one of them. His voice was distorted, but I guessed it was Bolton. I would have been shocked if Bolton had declined to sit in on my judgment.

“How would you say your performance was?” the anonymous overseer asked.

Good question. Very good question, and one I had prepared for.

“I believe that my total essence advancement was in the top percentile of all cores. My dungeon was one of clever construction, if I can be so bold, and my trap placement was exquisite. As was proven in its effectiveness, if you happened to notice the hero corpses. Furthermore, I did kill a party of heroes.”

“Party?”

“The peg-leg man who met his unfortunate end at the hands…leech legs…of my boss monster.”

“One man is not a party, Core Beno.”

“According to the technical definition, there is no set number to describe a party.”

“He was no hero. He was a bandit.”

“Again, technically, he entered my dungeon of his own volition, with his own motives.”

“Ah, technicalities,” said the overseer. “You do love those, don’t you?”

“I merely comply with the academy guidelines.”

“And do your guidelines state that you should let two young heroes escape your dungeon?”

“They were not heroes,” I said.

“By definition, Core Beno, they were.”

Damn it. They had me then. I knew it. I had one last thing to say.

“Learned overseers, if I may speak freely, I believe that-”

“Silence! We have evaluated your