The dragon's harem

^She noticed before me…and cut her without hesitation. What a fearsome woman. Carrying any bullshit plan with her around is stupid. She’s the type to cut first and then think later.^ Gojo smiled as the students started running to the edges of the canteen, terrified by the murder.

“Calm down,” He said, waving his hand. “That isn’t a real body. It’s a fungal-controlled flesh golem.” As he said that, the body started disintegrating as the blood splattered everywhere started evaporating into white smoke.

As the teachers ran in, they saw the corpse and immediately noticed it. “A flesh golem? How?” Some of them gasped.

“Aron,” Gojo looked at Arad with a smile, “You’ve never seen one before. They are interesting. They create a body using monster bones and flesh, then infuse it with a type of fungus that responds to magic and then remotely control it from a distance like a doll.”

Gojo stood and looked at the corpse.

“Their strength is limited by the type of monster parts used to make them. Their magic is capped by the fungus’s transmission rate, and their look is created through the art of the craft.” He wiped the girl’s face with his hand, pulling parts of her skin and showing the stitches beneath. They are as close to a zombie as you can without being a necromancer, a marvel of alchemy and magic craft.”

“What are you talking about!” Matilda screamed, her eyes darting between the disintegrating corpse and Gojo.

Arad stood, “Brother, this is fantastic.” His eyes shifted toward Merida, “Thanks for saving us.”

Merida looked away with a blush, “I doubt she had the strength to harm any of us… I didn’t do anything.”

Merida stared at the corpse. Whoever made this. They used monster parts as Gojo stated, in a more accepted way than what I do… She could remember how her fungus can infect people and turn them into demonic spawns that she control. In the same way, the crimson rot infected the area around Riverside when the demonic infection started, she could do the same. A mushroomancer!

^I use humans instead of flesh golems. But as it’s a technique close to what I do, I noticed it immediately.^

“So, what would we do?” Jack looked at the corpse, “This will clean itself when it disappears, but where is the caster?”

“Don’t worry. Aron, you’re taking care of it?”

Arad shook his head, “Brother Jogo, I’m not taking care of it. She’s taking the job,” He smiled.

****

“What did happen?!” A girl cried, scrambling around a messy desk in the dark as she pulled several crystal balls. “I lost the signal. What was the last image?” She kept trying until she managed to see it.

A horrifying smile by Merida a fraction of a second before she cleaved her head. “AHH! Scary, what’s with this crazy woman? Did she destroy my precious body? I would’ve died if that was me. I was right to never go out.”

CLACK! The handle of her room’s door moved, and she gasped, looking back and closed her mouth.

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

It stopped, and an eerie silence filled the room. ^Did they go? What was that?^

CRACK! A finger burst through the keyhole, and the door was forced open as a pink and purple-haired woman walked in. Her pink eyes glowed in the darkness as she smiled at the girl inside.

“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” The girl cried, crawling away scared and hiding under a pile of clothes.

“So you’re here, little wizard…” Doma said with a twisted smile, “You didn’t think we won’t find you? Did you?”

FLAP! The girl threw the clothes away and pointed her right index and middle finger at Doma while holding a scroll in her left hand.

[Light Beam] [Light Beam]

Doma pulled Arad’s Adamantine sword out of nowhere, slashing beams of light in half and deflecting them with the polished side of the blade.

“Impossible!” The girl screamed as the deflected beams cut the walls, and the scroll in her hand burned after being used. “Reacting to light magic!?!”

CLENSH! Doma grabbed the girl from her back, clenching a fist on her robe. “I didn’t react to light. I reacted to your moves and magic flow.”

ZON! The scenery in front of the girl shifted, and she fell face-first in the canteen before Arad and everyone else.

^[She controlled the golem from 36km away to the north in her house’s attic. I already disable all of her weapons, including scrolls and staves.]^ Doma said in Arad’s head. ^[She is harmless, besides the magic she can use on her own.]^

“So you’re the real Selina?” Arad looked at her.

Selina lifted her head, staring around and seeing a bunch of people around her. She screamed, crawling away to the corner of the canteen and curled into a ball, hiding beneath her large hat.

^What’s her problem?^

^[She seems to be afraid of us. No, she’s afraid of people in general. That is why she had a golem attend in her place.]^

^How we’re supposed to deal with that?^ Arad sighed, but he saw Matilda trying to calm Selina down, and her efforts were working.

Arad turned toward Merida, “I doubt it being a golem is enough of a reason to attack her.”

“She tried using magic, so I killed her before she could harm anyone.” She replied.

“That was an appraisal spell though.” Gojo looked at Arad with a smile, “She sensed the faint change in the fungus’s magic before the spell could even initiate. You can think of the golem as a separate entity from the mage. For it to cast magic. It needs the formula to be sent and loaded into the fungal network first.”

Merida sensed the mushrooms downloading a spell from Selina before the magic could even initiate, so she cut her. That is how she managed to be ahead of everyone else.

“Apprisal magic? Is that a spell?”

“It isn’t,” Gojo shook his face. “It can only be used with rare crystals collected from dungeon cores. I bet that golem had one infused into it’s body,”

By that time, neither the corpse nor blood were left. Every last drop had disappeared.

Arad turned toward Matilda and Selina, “How is she doing?”

“Aron, stay back. She’s afraid of you lots.” Matilda pointed at him.

“Calm down,” Sena appeared behind Matilda and patted Selina’s head, “Aron might look big and scary, but he doesn’t bite.”

Selina stared at Sena’s face, getting a weird feeling. Each time she saw other people, her skin would crawl, and she couldn’t help but feel terrified. Yet this one seemed strange. Her words sounded gentle, caring, and loving.

“Don’t cry, don’t fear. The world isn’t out to harm you. I won’t let them.” She hugged her.

“Guh! She’s at it again.” Selica growled, “That dirty.”

^[Illusion magic, and a powerful one at that.]^

Sena being the perfect life form, is an expert at mimicking other creatures’ biological functions. Since the goal was to make Selina feel safe, Sena’s goal became clear. She first looked at what type of creature Selina was down to the genetics functions, copied and reversed it back, and ended as close as possible to her mother’s genetics. She then copied everything from tone, scent, feel, and way of speech.

She could’ve used that to transform her shape and voice, but since that would be too freaky for a human to achieve, she opted to cover that part with illusion magic, a good way to cover her powers.

Selica stared at Sena. ^The perfect living being, she uses that power to pacify animals and monsters, but she never told me it can work on humans. She gets more terrifying the more I see what her power can achieve.^

Selina seemed to be calming down, so everyone returned to their seats, and Lydia brought some extra chairs. Albeit they managed to convince Selina to sit and eat, she preferred to sit on the edge beside Matilda, whom she trusted.

****

Teacher Lucia rushed across the hallways as she heard Aron and his group might be getting into some trouble. But the moment she ran into the canteen, she saw them all sitting around one table, eating and bickering about their first morning in the school. The only sign of trouble is the confused students on the other tables.

“Aron! Mira!” Lucia rushed toward them, and Selina gasped, hiding behind Matilda. “Did something happen?”

“Just a misunderstanding. We’ve already solved it.” Arad pointed at two other teachers who arrived before her, “They were here.”

Lucia headed to talk to the other teachers while Arad turned his attention to Selina.

“How does that golem thing work? You’re with me in class, so you’re aiming for alchemy, right?”

Selina gasped, “Who’s the pink-haired one?” She replied with a question while hiding behind Matilda.

“She’s….” Arad tried to come up with an identity on the spot, but he didn’t think of anything. Doma couldn’t shut up in his mind, shouting one thing.

“…Older sister.”

“Heh?” Everyone stared at him.

“Yeah,” Gojo laughed, “She’s a scary one, isn’t she?”

Updated from frewebnovl.(c)om