The Dungeon Destroyer: A LitRPG Level-Up Adventure (The Dungeon Slayer Series Book 2)

by Konrad Ryan

  “Wear that and other’s will recognize you as a guild member, but I’ll tolerate no more behavior like this. If you want an item, go through the proper channels.” Somehow Blaze seemed more hesitant in dealing with Tad than with the others. More wary. Tad had bared his fangs, and the message had gotten through.

  Tad nodded his acceptance. When he became dungeon leader, then only Blaze would be in front of him in line, and with Tad’s valuable skill set, if there was truly anything he wanted, he was sure he could get Blaze to budge.

  Suddenly Blaze’s mindvoice only included Tad. “And I see our lovely Sara has taken a liking to you. You should go for it.”

  Tad looked at the man, bewildered. Was he talking about Sara? The curvy blonde woman stood by his side, closer than he’d realized. She was attractive, her cheeks flushed from exertion, but she was like twenty years old! He was barely sixteen; he was pretty sure that wouldn’t even be legal. She was like a fully grown adult!

  He tried to change the subject, but his cheeks betrayed his motivations, burning more than he would have liked. “When is the next dungeon? I want in.”

  “Already? Don’t you need some time to heal up?” Blaze looked deep in thought, though one eye winked conspiratorially. “I must check with Jannette, but I think we have two dungeons scheduled for tomorrow.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll make up for my misstep here. I’ll give up treasure rights for the next two dungeons, no matter how much they’d help me.”

  Blaze seemed appeased.

  Finally, Ironfang returned to his human form, grumbling something about ‘spoiling the lad’, but with that, the oppressive atmosphere melted. Tad let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He had been waiting for the pin to drop. He had been ready to spring into action. To defend himself and escape if needed. He didn’t think anyone could have stopped him, but he had used his might and strength to get his way. Wasn’t that what Zero would have done? Was he becoming more like Zero with each passing trial?

  No.

  Zero would have killed them all, the second he got his hands on the item he wanted. Probably would have stolen Blaze’s trinkets. Tad had told them his terms and allowed them to make their own decisions. He had even allowed them to prepare for battle. Somehow Tad knew Zero would have never done either, because his lust for power drove his actions. Tad was not like Zero.

  Not yet.

  * * *

  The next morning, Tad sat on his couch with a bowl of cereal, casually listening to the news for any mention of Brad, when the front door unlocked with an audible click. Liam had already left for school, it could only be his mom. Tad sat shirtless, his arms were thick and roped with muscle, his chest and abdomen a bodybuilder’s fantasy. He couldn’t face his mom like this! He sprinted up the stairs and slammed the door to his room, all before the front door opened. The door to his room exploded into tiny splinters from the force of Tad’s pull, a booming echo reverberated through the house. The crumpled doorknob, still in hand, looked like putty after a good squeeze. This fighter strength was something else!

  “Tad? Is everything okay?” His mom sounded more than concerned. “Was that a gunshot?”

  “Mom! No gun, everything is fine.” Tad shouted from his room. “But I have something to tell you. Can we talk?”

  “Sure, what’s up?” She sounded weary. She had likely driven through the night to make it home before Liam went to school, but had missed him by minutes. She always said she’d rather be tired at home than have to wake up to a half day of driving. Soft steps climbed the stairs. Panic bloomed in his chest.

  Tad leapt onto his bed, and threw his covers over his entire body, like a child in a blanket fort. Then he activated stealth, the darkness adhered to his body.

  “What on earth happened to your door?” His mom sounded more shocked than before. That was good. At least she hadn’t gotten mad. Even with positive charisma, he could feel his anxiety rising. What was he so nervous about?

  “It, uhh, was an accident.” He could feel his mom standing in his doorway, eyes on his covers. This was going so much worse than his conversation with Liam. He should just cut to the chase, get the truth out there. “Mom, my rebirth worked. I went into three dungeons while you were gone and I look very different, but it’s still me. It’s still Tad.”

  There. He had said it. His heart pounded in his chest, louder than when he fought any dungeon boss. Or even when he was plummeting to his death in the class tower after the battle with the blade falcon.

  Tad dragged the blanket off his head, and the shroud of darkness dissipated. Tad watched his mom’s face intently, looking for any reaction. Her eyes went to his head.

  “Hey, you cut your hair!” Her face lit up. She had been bugging him for months to cut it.

  His hair? That is what she noticed first?

  “Yeah… It kind of got burnt up in the first dungeon, so I had to do something with it.”

  His mom seemed to mull his statement over in silence, her gaze sharpened, face emotionless. She walked over to where Tad was sitting and brought her face really close to his. Any signs of weariness from the long drive had disappeared.

  “Do you like raiding dungeons? Being a slayer?” Her tone was calm. Way too calm. Tad’s battle hardened senses felt the trap but nodded his head, regardless.

  “Do you know what I like?” Mom said, voice colder than ice. Tad’s brain screamed danger. “I like knowing what my son is doing, especially when it could kill him.” Her voice was softer than a whisper but it was razor sharp, a blade of ice lightly covered in snow.

  Finally, her voice returned to normal levels, more imploring than Tad would have thought. “What were you thinking! Why didn’t you call? What if you had died while I had been out on a job? That would have destroyed me!” Tears burst into her eyes, her voice caught at last.

  Somehow, that hurt deeper than any of the physical wounds Tad had sustained in the dungeons. Tad embraced his mom in a hug. He was careful not to crush her like he had his door. He would need to practice controlling this strength in non-combat situations.

  “I’m sorry, mom, I know. I should have told you…” Tad wasn’t sure what to say. His mom pulled back, looking at him once more, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  Then her eyes went wide. “What happened to you? It’s still you. But… the awkwardness, its gone.” her eyes danced suddenly. “Thank the creators above, I’m going to get grandchildren after all.”

  Tad’s cheeks filled with heat. Once again Tad was filled with bewildered dismay, that’s what she was worried about?

  Her words brought him from his thoughts. “You seem happy. It’s been a while since I last saw you this happy.” Her mischievous grin had disappeared, instead replaced with worry. “How dangerous are they? Dungeons.”

  Tad’s eyes dropped at the question. Tad started from the beginning. His story was a much different one than he had told Liam. Liam seemed to thrive at the danger, where his mom’s face scrunched up in worry. He also left out how leveling up worked, it would be too much to explain to his non-game playing mom.

  He started his story with him riding her hot-pink handled bike to the first dungeon, the mosquito boss. Their triumphant return. The start of the second dungeon, the slayers that were controlled. Giant roaches. The lizard boss and finally, carrying Bunta through the dungeon entrance until they revived him. He felt his eyes tearing up several times throughout the retelling, but his mom listened intently, not taking her eyes off his face for a moment. Her own eyes were filled with tears more than once. There was a poignant pause as the story ended.

  Finally, his mom broke the silence. Tad braced himself. He was going to go into these dungeons no matter what she said. At this point she couldn’t stop him, not legally anyway. Slayers stronger than civilian were considered emancipated adults, even if they were younger than eighteen. But it would feel bad to do it against her wishes.

  ““If this is what you want to do, I won’t stop you. I haven’t seen you so vibrant
and full of life in such a long time.” She teared up, but her voice went suddenly stern and a hint of anger flickered across her face. “But you be safe, Tad Harrington! I do want those grandchildren, so if you are planning on dying in there, you better get to work with your love life quick.”

  Tad’s jaw dropped. Was this really his mom? This fiery, confident woman? Tad had completely misread her. His negative charisma was a plague he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. Well, maybe just on Brad. “I’m not planning to die.”

  That seemed to pacify her.

  For a moment, his mom looked off wistfully toward the shattered remnants of the door. She then pulled out her phone and navigated through several webpages without a word. Finally she showed the phone to Tad. Tad tried to make sense of the chart for a second before realizing it was mortality rates of slayers at various ranks.

  “Which rank are you?” Her voice was serious.

  Tad reluctantly pointed to the soldier column. His mom read the numbers and her face went slightly green. Soldier rank slayers had the second highest mortality rates, followed only by warriors. Soldier had a fifty percent mortality rate, but warrior rank jumped to over seventy percent. Five of ten, soldier ranked slayers, never came out of the dungeons they entered. Tad couldn’t tell his mom he planned to move up to warrior. Having entered dungeons he could see why they were so dangerous. So many things could go wrong. You could enter a slime dungeon with no magic users, for instance… He glanced at the other columns. Champion had a forty percent mortality rate. Warlord, thirty percent. His jaw dropped as he looked past those toward the top rank, creators. Zero percent mortality rate (Titan Excluded.)

  Were creators really that strong? He had heard rumors that they were nearly invincible. They could bring back the dead, restore limbs long lost and survive in the most extreme conditions. The public didn’t know how much of that was rumors, but Tad remembered a few years back when his favorite slayer, Li Wei Zhang the strongest living slayer, had even gone without food, air, water, and even clothes for an entire month floating in outer space. It was hard to imagine that much strength.

  “Tad.” Her voice had hardened even further. “Would you still do this if you knew this next dungeon would be your last?” Her voice was like ice. No… it wasn’t an icy voice, but it was sharp, like the edge of Raekast’s Fang. She was deadly serious.

  He closed his eyes. He had only been doing this for just over a week, but he had never felt so alive. Had never felt such crushing loss, nor such exhilarating victory. The contrast of the bad only made the good that much more potent. In contrast to staying in his room for years playing games, there was no comparison. It surprised him to find the answer to her question to be ‘yes.’ He would rather die in this next dungeon while trying to climb to new heights, infinitely more than returning to his reclusive life. Tad met his mother’s eyes and nodded.

  His mom let her held breath out in a rush. Tad flinched, startled at the sudden noise. A look of amazement turned into a beaming smile for the first time since she had entered his room. She looked him up and down, as if seeing him for the first time.

  “I can’t believe how much you’ve changed! Look at these muscles!” She grabbed his biceps with both hands, but her small hands couldn’t even go around them completely. “With muscles like these, I might have more grandchildren than I know what to do with.”

  Tad’s face flushed immediately. He couldn’t believe what she was saying.

  “Mom!”

  She let out a throaty chuckle, apparently amused at his shocked state.

  “You were never a bad-looking boy, but with a body like that you’re going to have to beat the girls off with a stick!”

  Tad felt his face flush further. He was sure if he looked in the mirror his face would be redder than a tomato. Somewhere deep inside him, however, a great weight lifted off his chest. He had always thought of his mom as mousy and overly worried, but she was neither, unless her worry over him had made her that way. He got the feeling that he was seeing her true self, unburdened by the immense stress that Tad’s… condition must have caused. He felt a little guilty, but more than that he felt happy. Happy that his mom who had always been there for him didn’t have to worry about him in the same way.

  Yeah. Now she only had to worry about him dying in the most brutal, most violent fashions ever known to man. He gulped involuntarily.

  His mom seemed to read his mind. “Tad. I would rather you die happy and satisfied than watch you live a life full of discontentment and regret. Well, actually, I’d rather watch you live happy and satisfied, but you get what I mean. Don’t be in a hurry to die, you hear me?”

  Tad nodded.

  “So, when is your next dungeon?”

  Tad felt a moment of panic as he whipped out his phone. He was late! Twenty minutes late! Tad jumped to his feet and gave his mom a kiss on the forehead, and sprinted from the room. He heard a startled gasp in his wake.

  “I’m late! Love you mom, bye!”

  Tad shut the front door behind him, but in his hurry, he broke it off the hinges.

  “Mom! I broke the front door, I’m sorry, I’ll fix it when I get back!”

  Tad heard some sputtering noises before he took off at a full sprint.

  He was so late!

  * * *

  Tad surveyed the other two guild members already waiting at the dungeon. The leader had not yet arrived. Tad sighed a breath of relief that he didn’t miss it. Blaze and Ironfang were not there today. Good. Tad didn’t want to run any more dungeons with Ironfang. Their philosophies were too different. They would clash constantly.

  He opened his stats. He had been thinking that since charisma was the stat that influenced dealing with others, that there had to be more to that stat than just attracting bullies. For a dungeon leader, it might be a very important stat.

  He had leveled up nine times in the previous dungeon, and had Forty-five stat points to allocate. He needed to be efficient with these, and while his previous plan had been to increase his dexterity for both speed and damage, it did little to take advantage of his class bonuses. Both Ironfang and Blaze had helped to defeat the boss, and he wouldn’t have either of them today.

  But he also wanted to be a good dungeon leader. Someone people would eventually want to follow. He wasn’t sure, but he may have even won Sara over. He bet she would run a dungeon with him. It might be a little premature, but he would need to increase his charisma, eventually. Why not now? Tad added nine points to charisma and brought it up to ten. Musical chimes rang out with a series of notifications.

  *Charisma has reached 5! You have learned the following skills:

  You have learned the passive skill: ‘Leader’s Sight.’

  Leader’s Sight: You can see the aura of allies.

  Charisma has reached 10! You have learned the following skills:

  You have learned the unique passive skill: ‘Encouraging presence 1.’

  Encouraging Presence 1: One ally of your choice receives 1% of your current stats.*

  Tad read the skills carefully. He could already feel the relative power of others, so leader’s sight didn’t seem that useful. Neither did encouraging presence. 1% of his stats was just too low to help anyone. Maybe someday, with a heavy charisma investment, he could bring that number up, but he wasn’t sure it was worth the points when he could just strengthen himself instead.

  Overall, Tad was disappointed with the charisma skills. Neither would be helpful in combat, and he had learned nothing immediately useful.

  Tad examined the two waiting slayers to test out his new ‘leader’s sight’ skill. A man with greasy black hair and a wizard’s robe, shone a bright red. The other person, a large man with various scars, emitted a dull red light. With just a glance, Tad could tell almost exactly how strong they were. If he were vetting people for dungeons, this would be a useful skill, but he wasn’t a dungeon leader. Not yet. Tad looked at his own hands, wondering what his aura looked like, but nothing had changed. What woul
d an allied void’s aura look like? The question burned in his mind.

  Suddenly, Tad had the intense desire to meet both Bunta and Gerald once again, to see their auras. Would they be different colors? All the ones here were red, but then again, there were only soldiers here. Too bad he hadn’t had this when the Defector appeared, although he probably wouldn’t have been counted as an ally. Once again, the skill seemed so lack luster. Why didn’t it just work for every person? That would be useful.

  Tad stared at his stats.

  *Tad Harrington

  Rank: Soldier

  Class: Fighter

  Level: 39

  Health: 700/700

  Mana: 42/42

  Str: 70

  Dex: 43

  Con: 60

  Mag: 21

  Cou: 10

  Cha: 10

  Points to allocate: 36*

  His stats were severely imbalanced. So far, he had eked by with only ten courage, but he couldn’t afford to come across another boss that could halve his stats. Luckily, the harpy’s intimidation had been low, but he couldn’t count on that. Tad pumped it to thirty. Musical alerts played in his head.

  *Courage has reached 20! You have learned the following skills:

  You have learned the passive skill ‘Intimidation Resistance 2.’

  Intimidation Resistance 2: Bosses with less than 250 intimidation, no longer halve your stats.

  Courage has reached 30! You have learned the following skills:

  You have learned the passive skill ‘Perception.’

  Perception: You can manipulate your perception to sense your surroundings.*

  Raising courage felt like cleaning his room. It needed to be done, but it wasn’t fun to do. Intimidation resistance was invaluable, but it wasn’t exciting. Perception at least seemed interesting. He had sensed enemies before, within a certain range, the stronger the enemy, the further away he could sense them. But now…