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

by Konrad Ryan

  Ethan rapped Tad’s forehead, breaking him out of his trance. “But let me introduce everyone. That’s Fat Jack, and the muscled one is his handler, Tony Ricci. That over there is Alizandra Denth.” the man pointed to the dancing pair of gauntleted feet, still upside-down.

  The figure flipped upright and Tad’s breath caught in his throat. “Call me Liz.” The girl was stunningly beautiful, long blonde hair extended down past her waist. Tad’s hands were instantly clammy, and his nervousness multiplied. His face grew warm, and he turned, breaking contact away from her brilliant blue eyes and back toward Ethan’s. His heart pumped, even harder than it had before raising his courage at the dungeon entrance. He knew her from somewhere. Recognized her… Hadn’t she been at his rebirth? If so, she had seen him reborn as voidboy. His stomach sank as a voice continued to drone.

  “…and that’s Ol’ Reliable, Gary Ludgate,” Ethan pointed to the sleeping man with the eyepatch. “Well, that’s everyone.”

  Tad knew he missed some names in there but smiled, nodding to each of them. A familiar awkwardness settled into his bones, one he hadn’t felt since he first raised his charisma. Where had his previous confidence gone?

  Tad even almost forgot to introduce himself. “I’m Tad Harrington…” Something that Ethan said finally registered, but made no sense. “what do you mean Tony is Fat Jack’s handler?”

  A mischievous grin grew across Ethan’s face, though the slender man had more missing teeth than Tad did. “Well, Fat Jack is the best shield in the entire warrior rank, but the fat bastard can’t even walk.” Ethan said the words far louder than Tad would have liked. Fat Jack grimaced, or maybe he smiled as he cut Ethan off.

  “-It’s not fat, my man, it’s pure power, baby.”

  Even his voice sounded thick, but Tad felt a pang of regret at the thought. Surely the man couldn’t have gotten that fat naturally, it had to have been a side effect of his rebirth. The man was a living, breathing, fat crab. No, he even put the fat crab to shame. Bunta was chubby, sure, and even Tad had gotten thicker once he raised his constitution. But this was on another level. Tad marveled at the man in front of him. Fat Jack’s constitution score must be out of this world. He couldn’t help but wonder how high it must have been. His blue aura surged and swept around the room like a cyclone, overwhelming everyone else’s aura’s. The sheer power of the man was an incredible sight.

  “Didn’t I tell you it was rude to stare, boy? Fat Jack is a very delicate man.” Ethan said, though his teasing smile danced on his face. Fat Jack let out a loud guffaw at the jab. “It’s like this. Fat Jack can’t walk, hell, the dumpling can’t even stand, so big, strong Tony carries him around everywhere. But as long as Fat Jack is around, monsters don’t even see other slayers. He’s like a big fat juicy steak dangling before rabid dogs. Pure monster magnet, that one. Even some bosses can’t resist his sexy, succulent body. That’s why we brought three healers. Fat Jack soaks up healing like syrup on flap jacks. Although bringin’ three healers kinda bit us in the ass this time.”

  “What do you mean?” Tad said, immensely glad that the conversation turned away from how fat Fat Jack was. Ethan clearly felt far too comfortable describing the large man.

  “Before you came, we only had four blades. Me, Liz, Bunta, and Ol’ Reliable Gary Ludgate. It was a perfect fit. But had one of us failed, one of us would have had to fight twice.”

  “Oh, I see. How long has Bunta been in there?” Tad’s concern for his friend swelled. A glance to the stick figure doing battle showed Bunta straddling the back of the wolf, stabbing with hands that blurred, even on the animation.

  “Oh, just an hour or so. But don’t worry, Bunta is the best blade I’ve ever seen. He’ll handle whatever is in there. Should just be regular monsters. Probably. Except maybe that big one.” Ethan hesitated for a moment as if reconsidering what he was about to say, but continued anyway. “So the problem is we have three healers and Fat Jack. None of which can fight a one-on-one battle, but even though I can’t feel a lick of power from ya, you look sturdy enough, and to walk into a dungeon by yourself, you’re either confident, or suicidal, both of which work for me. So pick a door, any door.” Ethan’s smile stretched wider. “Of course, it most likely won’t come to that, cuz we got dibs first. And between me, Gary, Liz, and Bunta, I don’t think there is a fiercer quad of blades in the entire warrior rank. So sit back, relax, grab some chips. Things only get exciting for you if we die. Or until the boss I guess.”

  Tad felt his stomach drop. He was pretty confident in his strength, but that he had to fight solo in his first ever warrior dungeon was a worrying proposition. If something went wrong, he was on his own. The mortality rate for warrior dungeons was even worse than soldier dungeons, 70 percent. With six out of ten people dying in warrior dungeons, odds were Tad was going to have to fight. Ethan patted him on the shoulder.

  “Don’t worry boy, we’re a pretty sturdy group. And the boss is the scariest part of warrior dungeons, that’s where all the death happens. If the last door isn’t the boss, then we can bring Fat Jack, and his girth will keep us warm and safe, snuggled like a baby bird under the wing of its mama.” Ethan’s smile widened further. “In the last five dungeons, we haven’t lost a single member. Unheard of, right? Well, not counting the last dungeon. There we lost half, Fat Jack’s magnetic personality didn’t work for some reason. But that dungeon was weird. But we got you now, right? And Bunta is a monster if I’ve ever seen one, so we’re good?” The question was more earnest than Tad had expected. Maybe the man was nervous too, if so, he didn’t show it.

  Suddenly, the door with the giant ‘1’ slammed open. A very weary-looking Bunta stumbled through across a short distance, then fell into a cushioned chair. Blood streamed down his ashy face, and he pressed both of his gorilla hands into a messy gash in his side, staunching the blood. Ethan jumped to his feet.

  “Healers!”

  The three figures, whose names Tad had missed, rushed to Bunta’s side, but Tad was faster. At least, he would have been faster but Ethan appeared in front of him, and gently pushed him backward onto a couch. His sharp knuckles rapped the top of Tad’s head for the second time.

  “Not you boy, give the healers some room to work. But nice to see your speed, might not let us down after all.”

  Oh. Right. Tad sat stunned. He hadn’t even seen the man. Were warriors really that much stronger than soldiers? Bunta’s strength had seemed legendary, but Tad had been so weak, it was hard to get an accurate perspective. He had been an ant behind a cherry, unable to see how truly big it was.

  The other healers poured health into Bunta, and the color finally returned to his face. Bunta let out a grunt of pain, followed by a relieved sigh. The anticipation of other people getting healed always made Tad’s teeth itch, and once again, these healers clearly hadn’t done it painlessly. That champion healer had been full of crap. In Tad’s experience, tissues always painfully stretched across open wounds, ripping and tearing new scabs, regrowing flesh and nerves. It was almost as bad as initially receiving the wound.

  The one eyed man introduced as Gary Ludgate stepped up toward the second door, his eyepatch had been swapped to cover the gruesome hole in his face.

  “Looks like I’m up.”

  Ethan wished him luck, but the rest of the room was sullen. If Bunta was as good as Ethan had said, then this dungeon might be hard. Very hard.

  Gary stepped up to the door, but even under his eyepatch, the right side of his face was horribly scarred. His gruesome visage wouldn’t lose to whatever monster waited for him beyond that door. Gary took a deep breath, with a hand on his chest, then grabbed the handle. The chalk-drawn padlock dropped to the floor with a clang, Gary completely disappeared in a blue light. A scarred and one-eyed stick figure appeared on the front of the door, taking up a good portion of the middle.

  The battle had started.

  Commotion in the small waiting room brought Tad back from his thoughts. Bunta pushed through the group of heal
ers that had been surrounding him, his face lit up as his eyes settled on Tad, but there was a shadow around the man, a darkness that hadn’t been there before. A sharp, quiet edge hid beneath the chubby man’s soft-spoken and optimistic demeanor.

  “Tad? What happened to you? You’re all skinny and deadly looking. I swear that you’re half chameleon, you look different every time I see you!” Bunta looked genuinely excited to see Tad.

  So why hadn’t he called him?

  Bunta punched him in the chest with gorilla gauntlet shod hands, but his meager attack bounced off Tad’s strong pectoral muscles. Tad inspected himself. He looked deadly. Lithe and dangerous. It was a good look. Suddenly Tad felt other eyes on him and turned to catch Liz’s watching him. Awkwardness filled him once more as panic arose. Had he spilled something on himself during breakfast? Was there a stain?

  Tad couldn’t find anything wrong with his leather armor or his undershirt beneath, but by the time he glanced back to see where specifically she had been looking, Liz had already moved on, intently studying the stick figure battle of the second door. Tad thought it was nice of her to not make a big deal of whatever she had noticed. His previous bullies wouldn’t have been so nice.

  Wait, what was happening? He hadn’t thought about self pity, or bullies in quite some time. Also this awkwardness, it was like before, when his charisma had been negative! It was disconcerting to shift suddenly between his newer, confident self, and the shell of a person he had been before.

  Suddenly the room got dead quiet as Bunta stood on a chair, explaining exactly what he had fought. Wolf-men hybrids. Bunta’s eyes danced dangerously throughout his retelling of the fight, but the people stiffened at his story. Tad wasn’t sure why hybrids were bad news. After the questions died down Tad returned to Bunta’s side.

  “Why was everyone uncomfortable about the monsters being wolfmen?”

  Bunta’s eyes still gleamed dangerously. “Humanoid monsters are more dangerous than regular monsters. Like the lizard boss we fought, the closer to human a monster is, the stronger it becomes, generally speaking. Not sure why, but the strongest monsters are all human like.”

  It would be a tough dungeon after all, just like the Defector’s note had said.

  Tad found a seat before the second door where Gary battled inside. Wolflike creatures, these stood upright and used weapons, blow darts and knives from the looks of it. Gary flung fireballs and even made a vortex of fire that twirled and swallowed wolves whole. Lightning rained from the sky, striking wolf after wolf, but then the tides turned. A group of wolves shot darts into Gary’s back, and then a second group fell on him savagely with daggers. Gary lay on the ground motionless. Then, his stick figure suddenly fell to pieces, finally disappearing, just like the wolves Bunta had fought.

  Silence filled the room. Everyone understood the implication of what just happened. Except perhaps one. A husky voice broke the silence, it belonged to Tony, Fat Jack’s handler.

  “Guys, where did his stick figure go?”

  As if searching again would help, everyone returned their eyes to the door. They scoured it, studied it. But Gary was nowhere to be seen. Eerily, the white-outlined padlock floated from the floor and affixed itself to the center of the rough wooden door.

  Ol’ Reliable, Gary Ludgate, was reliable no longer.

  Chapter 24

  Tad couldn’t gather his thoughts, they swam through thick mud in a bog. The other members of his slaying party were in a similar daze. Some looked shocked, others showed loss, even others bubbled with rage, and there were some whose faces were painted with grief. Gary had been a stranger to Tad, but he had been friends or maybe even family with some of those here. Gruff’s spectre appeared in Tad’s mind, like he had at the top of a broken anvil, at exactly the wrong time.

  Like Zero, Tad banished the thought from his mind.

  Silence coated the room like a finger dipped in hot wax. To close the dungeon, someone else had to go in there. Go into the belly of the beast where one of their companions had already died.

  Ethan stood up on one of the comfy-looking chairs littered across the stone dungeon space. It was probably the wrong time to have the thought, but Tad couldn’t help but wonder where they had gotten all the furniture.

  “Official Forum. Three other groups of slayers failed in this dungeon before, so the bounty on this dungeon is huge, but we are only one door in, and this area isn’t very populated. We could still leave the dungeon and evacuate the nearby residents. Let it blow. The DDD estimates we got fifteen hours. It wouldn’t be fair to Bunta to leave now, but we can retreat if the majority wishes it.” Ethan’s face was stone. If he was hurting or worried, he didn’t show it.

  This was a good leader, and Tad knew it instantly. He seemed to care about those in his charge, unlike Elsie or Ironfang, who both had given up in their own ways. And especially not like Syphon, who took pleasure in the death of his followers. In some ways Ethan reminded Tad of Gruff. Ethan took charge, controlled his emotions, inspired confidence, although he lacked Gruff’s charm and affable nature. Tad’s heart ached painfully at the comparison. He didn’t want to think about Gruff. He had been a traitor, an unknowing pawn in the Defector’s hand, who had led them all into danger.

  Still, he couldn’t help but feel impressed by the composure Ethan showed. But would Ethan stay composed if retreating wasn’t an option? Like in the two dungeons with Gruff? The more Tad thought about it, the more he realized that Gruff had been in a tough position as the leader of their group. Only made tougher by the Defector’s pick of the dungeon. Tad shook his head to clear the thought. He couldn’t start thinking that way. It was Gruff’s fault.

  It had to be.

  Otherwise, some fault might fall on himself, and Tad couldn’t handle that. Not now.

  Not yet.

  Retreating was a luxury. They could abandon the danger and go back to comfort. These people might retreat, but not Tad. He had five days left to get as strong as possible, or face death itself.

  Without a word Bunta stood, eyes glistened dangerously, and he strode to the second door, grasping the iron wrung without a shred of hesitation. A few gasps came from the healers, but… nothing happened. Anger raged across Bunta’s usually pleasant demeanor, Tad couldn’t help but feel a little shocked at the display of emotion. Maybe Gruff’s death had affected more than just Tad.

  He felt a little guilty at the thought. Bunta had known him first.

  An alert popped up.

  *This participant has already won a battle. Select another participant.*

  Bunta couldn’t fight again. Even without the message, the others in the room understood. Dread redoubled in the small dungeon waiting area.

  “Oh c’mon ya pansies, I haven’t even been hit yet!” Fat Jack jeered from the corner where he was sitting. “I’ll go in and get slowly stabbed to death before I let ya cowards leave!” Under him was a massive cushion that fought to stay cushy under his tremendous weight.

  Liz stepped past Tad and stood onto her own chair, the faint scent of fruit and vanilla swam in her wake. “You don’t need to do that, Jack. Everyone else can discuss leaving if they want, but I’m going in. I didn’t come all this way to the middle of nowhere just to leave empty-handed.”

  With that, Liz hopped down from her chair with a grace that made Tad a bit envious. Her long golden hair trailed behind her. For a moment she rummaged through the pouch at her side, pulling out a gleaming sword embossed with gold and silver. A dragon seemed to pace up and down the blade, a shield that matched followed. The weaponry was breathtakingly beautiful, but more than that, Tad could feel just how deadly they were. The sword and shield had a distinct aura of power that almost hummed in resonance.

  Liz cut quite the figure as she strode to the door, a thin burnished breastplate hugged her slender form tight, chain mail jingled beneath with each step she took. Armored gauntlets and leggings covered her extremities down to her dainty armor-shod shoes, her golden hair trailed behind as she
walked. Just as she reached the door, she tucked her sword under an arm and gathered her hair into a tight bun. Her blue eyes scanned each person in the room but slid right past Tad. She then pulled on a helmet that matched her sword and shield, a dragon’s head that settled onto her own. The dragon’s mouth hung open, revealing her teardrop shaped face. She turned, grasped the handle of the door, and disappeared instantly. The padlock dropped, a feminine form of a stick figure, with a skirt, etched itself on the door, long hair flowed behind the figure, even though she clearly had just put it in a bun.

  Ethan whistled and stood next to Tad. “She sure is somethin’, ain’t she.”

  Tad couldn’t help but nod.

  “That armor is somethin’ too, but nobody would want to pay the price she had to pay for it.”

  Tad studied Ethan’s eyes, searching for the meaning of his words. But the man said nothing more. Instead, he sat in a loveseat facing the door, and watched the stick figure battle raging on its surface, with a deep and desperate expression on his face. It was the first time Tad had seen the man look worried.

  A strange sense of disappointment hung in Tad’s chest. She had looked right past him, despite meeting everyone else’s eyes. He had hoped to wish her good luck, or… something. What was wrong with him? How was that even important right now?

  Liz’s sudden action seemed to reignite life into the room. Plans of who was next were hastily made as Fat Jack sat in the corner piling a selection of meats, cheeses and crackers, on his belly in various towers. Like an enormous monster swallowing a skyscraper whole, he consumed tower after tower before he pulled more from an overly large dungeon pouch at his side.