Dungeon of Chance: Even Odds: A Dungeon Core Novel (Serious Probabilities Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (book recommendations txt) 📖

more special those times he could spare to be a very late-blooming 17-year-old and pursue a few romantic prospects he’d just recently become interested in.  Hmmm…I might even see Shara Perkins today—

As he was walking out the back, preparing to grab the handles on the handcart, the ground shook so hard that he tripped and fell right into the side of the cart, spilling its contents of mainly groceries all over the dirt, breaking a glass jar of pickled beets that Jered Perkins absolutely loved.  Oh, no – I don’t think we have any more of those until next week—

The ground shook again, though less violently than the first time, and Clay could hear screaming coming from the direction of town.  All thoughts of the tipped-over handcart shot right out of his head as he picked himself up and ran back inside, stumbling a little at another minor quake.  “Mother!  What’s going on?” he shouted as soon as he ran in, but there was no need: She was at the front of the store standing at the window looking out into the town proper.  It took Clay a moment to realize that she was standing on the remnants of the window, which had likely broken from the first quake.

“Are you ok?  These aftershocks are brutal—” he complained, nearly tripping over a bunch of uncoiled rope that had fallen off a shelf, but Clay’s mother wasn’t listening to him.

“Go get your sister – we need to evacuate,” she cut him off with a stern tone to her voice that he’d never heard before.

“What?  Why—?” he asked, before his voice was stolen away from him in shock.  Out the window, in the distance, Clay could see something moving in the early morning light.  For him to see it above the rooftops of the nearby buildings, it had to be extremely tall – and it was.

Giant Ogress ★★★★★★★★★★★

World Threat Level: Low

“Wh-what is that?” he finally managed to squeeze out of a throat that had seemed to close up.  This was the first time he’d ever seen the Star-rating of anything before, though he knew it was a normal part of being a Hero who delved through dungeons.  Everyone in the world could see the rating appear over any monster’s head, apparently, but it was rare for a non-Hero to actually see it happen because they weren’t allowed to venture into a dungeon.

“It’s a World Threat, Clay.  There hasn’t been one around here in at least 50 years,” she said softly, her voice nearly drowned out by the sound of the enormous monster stomping down, creating another minor quake.  It was a pale-green and sickly pink-colored figure at least 250 feet tall, with enormously muscled arms connected to a portly body, though Clay didn’t think it was all fat.  He couldn’t see its legs, but he suspected they were as heavily muscled as the rest of its body, which when he looked again, he realized that it was a her.  A Giant Ogress?  And its World Threat Level is Low?! 

The humongous wooden club in her right hand appeared capable of flattening half of the town of Renton in one smash, the validity of which was only punctuated the next moment when he saw the Giant swing the club as if trying to hit something.  It slammed into the ground to the sound of breaking trees in the Hideaway Forest south of town, and moments later another violent quake shook the entire house.

He held onto his mother as she stumbled and nearly fell into all of the broken glass from the window.  “Hurry!  Get your sister from upstairs!” she yelled at him and pushed him toward the back of the store where the staircase leading to their apartment was located.  He watched her in shock as she started grabbing the extremely expensive storage bags from their secured inventory and shoved in supplies by the handfuls.  “GET MOVING!” she screamed again, panic newly evident in her voice.

His feet seemed to carry him autonomously toward the stairs, but he stopped halfway up – Nina was already coming down with wide eyes framed by two strands of her dark-brown hair hanging limply across her face.  “C-Clay?  I saw—”

“I know, Nina; Mother is getting stuff together so that we can evacuate,” he replied, leading her downstairs.  Now that he had something to focus on – namely, helping his sister – Clay’s mind was finally starting to function again.  He grabbed one of the storage bags from his mother and passed it to Nina, then taking one for himself as he started to stuff it full of supplies, groceries, and anything else he thought might be useful.  The storage bags weren’t bottomless, but they were the same bags that Heroes created to supplement their inventories, which meant that they could hold dozens of different items.  And these were actually of the lowest quality; there were some expensive bags out there that could hold thousands of items, perhaps even tens of thousands.

He’d handled these bags before, but they were too expensive to mess with on a normal basis – even if they would’ve made his deliveries much easier.  Now, though, their value was in how much they could hold for him and his family and not in how much they could sell them for.  I just wish Father was here, as he could use the bag he carries with him to fit even more.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, considering what was happening right outside town), his father was on another trip, so the 3 bags they currently had on hand would have to do.

When they were all full, which took a grand total of just over a minute of scrambling and another few falls when the ground shook again, they raced outside of the store, joining dozens of other people from the town fleeing towards the north.  As they got outside, Clay could hear multiple explosions