Master of the Hoard: A Reincarnation LitRPG Adventure (Dragon Core Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  MASTER OF THE HOARD

  Dragon Core Chronicles Book One

  LARS MACHMÜLLER

  Copyright © 2022 by Lars Machmüller

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Newsletter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Afterword

  About Lars Machmüller

  About Mountaindale Press

  Mountaindale Press Titles

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Tina.

  Never would I walk this road without you

  Gonna take some words to tell you why

  Give me but a moment now to tell you

  You will be the one until I die

  Up until I met you I flew solo

  Never knew I missed you ‘till we met

  Gonna stick with you for the long run, though

  Let me reassure, that’s not a threat

  You are one that I could never forego

  Down on my knees I fall, my brave brunette.

  NEWSLETTER

  Don’t miss out on future releases! Sign up for the Mountaindale Press newsletter to stay up to date. And as always, thank you for your support! You are the reason we’re able to bring these stories to life.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey.

  At other times, it is allowing another to take yours.” – Vera Nazarian

  “I died once, you know?”

  That probably isn't as uncommon a sentence as one would think. I've heard it said twice myself. My aunt followed the revelation with a long story about how she'd changed her lifestyle, gotten better friends, real hobbies, stuff like that. Years later, it was my old high school friend who explained to me the earth-shattering experience he had from being electrocuted. Then, he tried to get me to jump on board with some MLM scheme. So yeah. Dying? It's overrated, in my opinion. Especially the way I went.

  As these things are supposed to go, my death was kind of boring. Mainstream, even a bit cliche. I'd just gotten myself a third slice of pizza and was ambling toward the living room to catch the tail end of the game, when it felt like somebody punched me in the chest and proceeded to squeeze the life out of me. I looked around in confusion, only for the pain to spread toward my neck. I cried out, I believe, confused about what was happening, even as I grew weaker. I fell to my knees, panting as I ran out of breath, and the room spun, and... that was it, really. Fade to black as my face hit the floor. Or, at least I think it hit the floor.

  I'd been warned. My doctor had been busting my ass for decades to clean up my act, eat healthy, start exercising, all that jazz. Sometimes, I even contemplated listening to him. Cait, my beloved ex-wife, had been more direct about it, always trying to get in the last word. "You're getting fat, Carl. Not chubby, either--fat. You need to do something about it." Cait was better at getting through to me--she didn't pull her punches. But then the new open-world installment in my favorite Nordic fantasy RPG came out, and... well, my new membership to the gym was kind of forgotten. Besides, she wasn’t around all the time anymore, and it was easy to ignore her dire warnings. I mean, really, what’s the worst that could happen?

  The afterlife is supposed to be something special. I mean, regardless of who you listen to, stuff is supposed to happen. Fluffy clouds filled with angels or fiery brimstone. Or... any sort of other phenomenon, depending on which piece of scripture you decided to read up on. It was not supposed to be just darkness. But that was what I was presented with. No lights, no movement, nothing at all. Just an endless moment of nothingness. I couldn't even feel anything. Crappy afterlife. 1 out of 5. Would not die again.

  The black sea of nothingness did give me time. Way too much of it. Time for thinking back on my life. I pondered my accomplishments. I had helped build, plan, and oversee countless buildings, from a hand-built outhouse in the boondocks to helping with skyscrapers. Lovingly, over the course of three decades, I restored my own house from a moldy ruin to a home with authenticity and plenty of soul. I completed the original UFO: Enemy Unknown on the hardest difficulty. Heh. That one still made me proud.

  Unfortunately, I also had time to consider my failures. I married a lovely woman and proceeded to grow apart from her over the course of the next decades. I had a baby girl, loved her, raised her, and proceeded to spend way too much time away from her until we were no longer close. In the end, though, what did I really have to show for my life? I mean, yeah, besides my own house, what had I actually accomplished? I helped build things for other people. For other people to enjoy, to take pride in and call their own. What had I actually accomplished that I could look back at and say, “Yes, I did that.” Not much, really.

  When something did happen, I was almost happy. I had started concluding that maybe this was hell - being forced to spend eternity alone with just your thoughts for company. Going over things that you couldn’t even fix. regretting not doing more or somehow better. Instead, gradually, something shifted. My sense of touch returned, little by little. That didn't help much, though. My sense of direction kept insisting that I was being tossed around, up and down, switching places constantly.

  The rest of my senses weren't much help. I couldn't see anything. Literally. We were talking complete blindness here, like my eyes were glued shut. On top of that, my hearing was muffled and my limbs wrapped up in something that restricted my movement. As if that weren't enough, my body felt weird. Like... really weird. Added up, this had the total effect of me being unable to form a single coherent chain of thought while I was tossed around.

  The movement continued for what felt like an eternity. My challenged brain managed to conclude a couple of things. First, I was being rolled in... a barrel or something. Much like the hobbits escaping Mirkwood, only some material had me well and properly stuck. Second, maybe I wasn’t dead after
all? This could be a kidnapping or something. Sure, my last coherent memory was still that sudden flash of pain.

  Nausea washed away my inquiring thoughts, and it was all I could do to keep my dinner down as the ride went on. Finally, I decided enough was enough and started rocking back and forth, trying to escape my prison.

  That produced immediate results. The motion stopped, and I concentrated on staying completely silent as my faculties slowly returned. I was left lying inside the smooth, rounded container and for the first time I was able to discern words. My entire being focused as I tried to catch what they were talking about. No help there, however. Whatever sounds made it through were high-pitched and indecipherable.

  "Must be foreigners," I thought, resigning myself to regaining my focus, leaving me ready for whatever came next. Of course, this also lent credence to my idea of having been kidnapped. Though, I couldn’t think why in the world they would choose me.

  I was not at all ready for what came next. The first hint of light appeared, along with a stinging sensation as something scratched along one leg. Before I had the chance to complain, another ray of light arrived, followed by a burst of pain in my chest. I roared in pain, even as I realized I was being attacked. Any thoughts making themselves known, along the lines of: "Why would my kidnappers hurt me?" "No, seriously, what is wrong with my body?" or the like were forgotten as I fought for my life.

  In my youth, I was a bit of a scrapper. Not enough to result in a criminal record, but I didn't take shit from anybody. Right now, that served me well, as I ignored every question and threw my all at the material holding me back. It was working, too. My arms and legs slowly started acting like I told them to. Not entirely, though--even with my mind sluggish, I could tell my limbs weren't working as intended. The voices from the outside grew increasingly loud, and I hissed in pain at another stab to the abdomen. Fighting to retain focus, I braced my back against the container and strained.

  A moment later, I fell to the ground in a deluge of some slimy substance, granting me the chance to shake my eyes free of the mess and catch the first glimpse of my attackers. The moment I glimpsed them, my mind ground to a stuttering, confused halt. They were animals. Honest to God animals, looking like a cross between a mole and wolves, only standing upright and... wielding spears?

  They surrounded me in the middle of a wide, dirt-packed tunnel. As if my mind didn't have enough trouble processing that part, I landed with one arm stretched out before me, and I was stuck staring at it. It was grotesquely muscled, malformed, and covered with scales. I stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, just staring, until the mole people decided to “help” me out of my stupor. With a series of shrill cries and squeals, they charged in at me.

  The first cut almost took a finger--or was it a claw?--clear off. More blows followed. I tried to stand up and fight back. Even if I was horribly outnumbered, the animals looked like a scrawny bunch, and I figured I could take them on. Slight problem, though: my balance was acting up, and I instantly fell forward. With effort and a gasp of pain, I turned the fall into a leap and managed to hit one of the monsters with my lower body. An audible crunch confirmed that he was out of the fight. The remaining moles used my prone position to rush in again, to devastating effect. One of them managed to score a strike on my brow, and soon blood was dripping into my eye, partially ruining my sight. This was almost too much for me to handle, let alone comprehend.

  People have said a number of unpleasant things about me over the years, some of them true. I've never been called a quitter, though. At this point, I just snapped. I gave up all pretense at control and just went amok. Flailing, kicking, punching... hell, I might've even bit one of them at some point. What surprised me the most was that it actually worked.

  The animals were even weaker than they looked. A single glancing blow was enough to put one of them down for good. Still, I kind of lost it there for a while in what felt almost like animalistic instincts. I'm pretty sure I was struggling, flailing, and snarling for a while after the last one stopped attacking. When I finally lay still, panting, and my mind rejoined me, it was brought to a stuttering halt again by yet another impossibility. Right there, in the middle of my vision, was a floating box filled with writing.

  I shook my head, trying to clear my vision, but the damn thing refused to stop existing. The words both made sense and very much did not.

  [You have slain 10 x Talpus and 1 Talpus leader. 1500 experience points gained. Level 2 gained. Experience until next level: 500/2000]

  Okay. Deep breaths. First things first: this was not a dream! Everything was hurting way too much for that to be true. So, either I was looking at some sort of coma-induced hallucination, Thomas Covenant-style or... or what? I actually kicked the bucket, and this was reincarnation or something? Cait was going to be furious. She'd told me so many times that I needed to watch my cholesterol intake.

  Heh, also work less, exercise more, call my mom more often, stop wearing suspenders... I noticed that my mind was avoiding the issue here and shook my head. This was not the time to panic. Okay, so I was in a strange place, surrounded by dead monsters that had no right to exist in the first place. I would have to deal with that. I'd worry about survival first and consider any consequences later.

  Then, there was the question of my body. I tried to sit up, failed, and managed to find some half-kneeling posture that worked instead. Next to me lay a fragment of egg shell. I started to piece things together, and this betrayed exactly which kind of container I’d been trapped in. With a sinking feeling, I held up my arm before me, taking in the vision properly for the first time. That... was not my old arm.

  My arm, though muscular, was nowhere as ripped as this. Nor was it covered in scales, tipped with razor-sharp claws at the end, or liberally drenched in blood and gore. A lot of it was my own, though the bleeding was dissipating some. Were those entrails? I shook my head, fighting down the growing panic. Survival first. So yeah, kidnapping? Forget about that. This wasn’t me. This was my mind trapped in some monstrous body. Deep breaths. I could work with that. It seemed the idea of reincarnation was starting to gain traction. I mean, who would hallucinate that they were stuck in a monstrous body?

  Piece by piece, I investigated my new body, taking in the pros and cons, keeping it cool and analytical. Which, let me tell you, was hard. Hand first. Not a proper hand, though. It did have five digits, but one of them was backwards-facing. It was clearly better for grabbing prey than handling fine motor skills. These weren’t hands. Definitely claws. Arms and legs would be a challenge at first. This body, whatever it was, was not built for, whatchamacallit... bipedalling. Standing up. This body was made for walking on all fours. Alright, moving on. One long, prehensile tail, probably as long again as the rest of my body, studded with some sort of bony protrusions along the ridge.

  A few test swings told me I would probably be able to learn to manipulate the tail pretty well. My neck was definitely longer and more agile than I was used to. It was bendy enough that I was able to inspect almost every part of my body, simply by swerving the neck around. Huh. Stomach was a definite weak point. No scales and softer skin than the rest. Two still-bleeding wounds attested to the fact that I'd have to protect my stomach. I had wings, too. At first, I had attributed the weight along my back to leftover goo from inside the egg, but now that I was free, the wide, almost translucent wings folded automatically into place along the studded spinal ridge.

  Now, for the kicker: I used my claw-hand. Hand-claw? Whatever. I slowly let it move over my face, investigating my features and letting it all sink in. Hoooly fuck. Okay... definitely not humanoid. I guess a duh was needed here, but this just helped confirm it. I was endowed with a large snout and a massive set of sharp teeth, perfect for ripping or tearing. Again, scales covered everything except a crown of backwards-facing spikes surrounding my head.

  Conclusion? Everything about this body pretty much screamed apex predator to me. I had no real way of measuring size right
now--the tunnel I was in seemed natural, and who knew how large those mole guys were? Still, it definitely felt like this body would be at the top of the food chain. That boded well for my eventual survival. Ignoring the thousands of questions that were screaming inside my mind, I moved on to the next issue.

  Box. Floating right ahead of me like it was the most natural thing in the world. The hell? I tried a couple of things to see what worked. Waving at the damn thing clearly didn't. Speaking out loud... served to teach me that I was now a humongous lizard, and as such did not own vocal chords. Bugger. To my relief, however, mental commands did the trick, and I spent a bit playing around with the box, resizing, moving it around, minimizing it, changing the color scheme and other tiny details, before coming to the inevitable conclusion: "This is a game?"

  Intrigued with the thought, I mentally “clicked” in the middle of the notification, removing it. "If that's the case, then this should work," I figured, voicing different options inside my mind: "Character sheet. No. Stats. Nope. Information. Not it either. Personal info...wow." My momentary satisfaction at hitting the right button, so to speak, was blown away by what I saw before me. I had not been turned into a large lizard. No, I was a goddamn dragon!