The dragon's harem

“My lord, I can see the storm. It’s around an hour’s walk to the north.” A vampire woman called back to Arad through their blood. “Should I investigate further?”

^No, return immediately. It’s too dangerous.^ Arad’s voice resonated inside her head. ^If you froze then I’ll have no way to find you besides sniffing in the snow. And I doubt it’ll be a good experience for you either.^

“It’s already freezing here. Getting into the storm shouldn’t be a problem.” The storm did look bad, but that was for humans. She’s a vampire, she should be able to endure it…

^You’ll die, that isn’t a normal storm, it’s sustained with magic. In my world, we would’ve called that an elemental expansion. Get in there and the Moving Glacier’s magic will freeze you to death, it’ll be a waste for you to get lost in the snow after coming back.^

After Arad saved her from the dragon’s den and she got to meet her parents once last time she wanted to help Arad through his trip as the last things she’ll do in life. After he leaves for his world she will give her vampirism up and herself and die to return to Yog’s embrace. She was a nun after all, and just like how hardheaded all of them, she still believed a monster like she had become now should only live for a noble goal.

Arad was sitting in a cafe in the city, sipping a large full mug of black coffee as he awaited the response from his vampire and werewolf scouts all over the area. In his old world, he had only seen tea, but in this world, he had found black coffee and found its powerful taste appealing.

“Sir, did you call me?” The waiter looked at him with a smile. He had never seen a man so large before.

“Bring me another full mug. No sugar, and make it as strong as you can.” Black, bitter strong coffee had found its place on Arad’s menu, and he plans on finding a way to get it back home.

Altair walked into the cafe and found Arad sitting alone in the corner, “You’re back here? You came in the morning, didn’t you?”

“You’re his wife?” The cafe’s owner called from behind the counter, “He drank three large mugs of coffee this morning now he’s drinking his second. Four large mugs in a day is too much, I fear he might hurt himself.”

Altair looked at Arad for a second, he isn’t a human for coffee to hurt him, right? After remembering all the chaos and carnage this man caused, she couldn’t image him getting hurt by drinking too much.

She sat with him, “He can handle it.” She sighed and the owner looked even more worried. She looked back and saw what everyone ordered, they all only had small cups akin to drink shots. While Arad was the only one with a massive mug before him.

“But…how much does this…” She looked at the waiter and he looked worried, “That’s the mug we usually serve beer or milk in, not coffee. It holds about thirty shots…”

“Wait! So he drank 120 people’s worth in a day?!” She snatched the mug from Arad and looked at it, he still had a bit in the bottom, but not much. “You need to stop!” She growled at him and looked again at the cup.

“What’s good about this anyway?” She took a sip and immediately spat it out, “Bitter! How the hell do you drink this?”

Arad took his mug from her, “I like it, that’s it. Now, why did you come to get me?”

“The others are at the lord’s house and the people there are asking about your whereabouts.” Hearing Altair’s words everyone in the cafe gasped and stared at Arad with a shocked face. If the people at the lord’s house are asking for him…those arrogant nobles…who could he be? If he was a normal commoner they would’ve sent the knights to drag him, and if he was a noble he probably wouldn’t be sitting in a no-name cafe in the streets.

The waiter looked at Arad again. Arad wore clothes like those of a lumberjack that you find out in the forest…and certainly didn’t have the noble’s charming, bloat. Now that he thought about it, Arad paid for his morning coffee without saying a word about the price, even though he drank three mugs, that’s 90 people’s worth and it did cost a pretty penny.

“Everyone is scouting and I want to sit in a quiet place to process the reports. The nobles keep asking questions and are annoying.” Arad replied with a straight face, that was the reality.

Everyone in the coffee understood it wrong, really wrong. If he had people scouting, he would have been in the army, and if the nobles were asking for him nicely, he would have been a high-ranked captain, no, probably a general. That would explain his large size and muscles, he’s a man who has seen countless battles.

Arad said he was processing reports but they never seen him meet anyone or pull any papers, which meant he was a mage communicating through spells. That quickly explained how he could sit alone for an hour looking at the wall and drinking nearly a gallon of coffee this morning.

Arad finished his mug and stood, “Let’s go.” Altair stood but the waiter looked at them, “They are already preparing the second mug, should I cancel the order?”

Arad looked at him for a second and sat back down, “No, since they started I’ll drink it.” “No, you won’t!” She growled at him but he just waved his hand for her to sit back down, “Relax, it’s not like the nobles need me for anything important. At least nothing more important than the current mission.”

“Excuse me, but can I ask?” The waiter looked at Arad, “Are you a knight?”

“Didn’t wait for me to answer. But no, I’m not a knight. But I do a similar job, just more dangerous.”

They knew it, if he wasn’t a knight but did something more dangerous, he’d certainly be a high commander or a general.

Arad had already started to plan an attack on the Moving Glacier. He’ll use the two red dragons he got to break through the blizzard and force a direct fight. The report he’s getting now mentions two adult white dragons and a flock of over fifty ice wyverns that accompany the Moving Glacier, which means he’ll need to look for more monsters for his army.

He needed monsters to face the wyverns, and his werewolf team had already spotted some promising candidates. A cult of pyromancers to the east, they’ve caused the locals enough trouble for rumors to start spreading. Confirming those rumors wasn’t that hard for a pack of ten werewolves so he had set them to work.

He’s now waiting for the werewolves to report back about whether they managed to turn the cultists into werewolves or not. In the meantime, some vampires have spotted a pack of griffins that were feeding on the horses of travelers and merchants in the past few years. Arad would’ve loved to face the Moving Glacier in an ice battle, but if that thing was to move around too much it’ll probably destroy a few cities and cause more damage in minutes than it did in the past years. Cold is also limited unlike heat which can rise infinitely, or Arad at least didn’t find a limit yet.

Absolute Zero, Isbert’s title. The closer cold magic got to that point, the difficulty and cost of magic rose exponentially with diminishing returns. What Arad understood from playing with temperature magic and trying to get things cold, it’s not worth it to make things colder than ice in most situations, unless you’re aiming for Absolute Zero, it’s not worth it.

Now that he has some serious sources of heat, he needs to look for a way to damage the Moving Glacier itself. For the lack of better words, that thing was a mountain of solid ice that moved. Ice is exceptionally tough to break and requires a tone of heat to melt quickly enough to cause damage or surpass any potential regeneration the Moving Glacier would have.

Arad could use the slashing techniques that Kayden taught him, but he’ll have a problem called range. Even if he extended his sword with blood he won’t be able to cleave a mountain. He can grow larger with Plum’s size magic, but that would just make him an easier target for the Moving Glacier’s crushing blows.

Even with how bad the situation looked, Arad still had a rough plan. The Moving Glacier can’t be all made of living ice, as far as he knows, Ice can’t be alive, it’s just frozen water. That thing is similar to a golem so it might have a core somewhere, probably deep inside its massive

body.

Arad can try to dig the ice to find the core but he’ll probably freeze in seconds, which means time is important. He must know exactly where the core is before the battle even starts to be

able to reach it.

In the past when he got the curse of death after Vorvadoss’s fight and hid inside the desert the wizard of the various kingdoms used detection magic to try and scan the area and detect him. Arad knows that he must learn that magic now to scan the Moving Glacier and find its core… knowing that Yog must’ve planned this to make him learn that magic made him quite frustrated, but she indeed knows to get him to learn the most boring of spells.

After finishing his coffee Arad stood, “Let’s go.”

“Finally, I bet those nobles are going…”

“We’re going to the library, there is something I need to look up.”