The dragon's harem

“Move… now.” The deathly pale gnome woman looked at Ganta with a terrified face and only spared her dead people a glance. She was already used to seeing this. The drakaina had been hunting them like this for days now, no, maybe for weeks. Without the dragon, they can’t even figure out if it’s day or night.

They were lucky this time. The drakaina must’ve heard their footsteps but thought it was only the two gnomes.

“Scary one.”

Ganta whispered as the two moved into the darkness, slowly approaching the gnomes’ hideout.

The gnome woman looked back at Ganta for a second. “Shadow… kill?”

She was asking if Ganta could kill the shadow drakaina. That question was expected. Compared to the tiny gnomes, Ganta looked like a giant, and with her surviving a battle with the drakaina, the gnome woman probably wished that, by some miracle, she could kill the drakaina.

“No, weak, dragon, monster.”

The gnome woman’s face paled at her words, but she put on a fake smile, trying to cling to what little hope she had.

“Plan, many, together?”

Would Ganta have a chance of defeating the shadow drakaina with all of the surviving gnomes working together to help her? Will leading them on a suicide attack work? Definitely not. It’ll be a massacre.

The main problem is that they have no way of resisting the drakaina’s shadow control. She can just snuff their shadows, thus killing them without any effort.

“Monke, alone, weak. You, not Monke.” It was as simple as that. If Ganta had her whole clan backing her up, she might’ve been able to stand a chance against the drakaina, but alone, with gnomes that she can barely talk with. No chance.

Strangely enough, her only hope now was Arad finding her, if he could even face such a horror.

After almost an hour of walking, the two finally reached the hideout of the gnomes. It was a wide series of intertwined tunnels, locked away from the drakaina’s shadow sense with magic.

As soon as Ganta and the gnome women walked inside, the gnome elder rushed in, “Frizda!” He looked at the gnome woman with a worried face, then shifted his gaze to Ganta.

“Tongue?” Asking what language she could speak, seeing that she was large and had horns. The elder didn’t expect her to be a human or a dragon. Since with the latter, they would be all dead.

“Great Ape.” The language of Ganta’s people was rare, only spoked by their race. Even though they were considered a part of the beast people, they didn’t share their languages due to their risky lifestyle of facing and eating dragons.

“Don’t.” The elder shook his head- he only knew a few languages, and such a rare one wasn’t in his book.

“Human?” Ganta raised an eyebrow. Human language was the most common in the world thanks to how easy it was to learn. If the gnome elder didn’t know, their best bet was the hard dragon language.

“That… I can speak.” The elder smiled, “Welcome to our little hiding hole, stranger. You can call me Elder Twince. How may I call you?”

“Ganta, just Ganta is enough. But, we should talk about that drakaina. The hell is she? What happened to your dragon master?” She looked at Elder Twince, and he paled.

“Our master is dead, killed by that monster. Using his last shred of power, he made this sanctuary for us.” He waved his hand, then rubbed his long beard, “Follow me. You need rest. We’ll talk when you’ve recovered a bit.”

From the look on his face, it was clear that he was hoping she could help them kill the drakaina or at least carve a path for them to escape.

“Before you get your hopes up. I can’t beat that thing, not in a million years. I barely escaped with my hide, thanks to pure luck. You should’ve seen her. She can erase someone’s shadow, killing them.” Ganta walked after the gnome elder with Frizda still walking by her side.

“I know, there isn’t anyone in this world who can beast such a monster alone. But we’ve got weapons. We’ve got spells. The spearhead is sharp and ready.” He stopped walking and looked at her, “All we need is a hard, solid shaft, a powerful warrior to stab that monster in the heart and kill it. We gnomes are weak, physically weak. You, on the other hand, are large, powerful, and fast.” He pointed at a large hole in the wall.

“Your hole, rest and fill your belly. We’ve got food. But when you’re fully healed, I hope you can at least hear our plan.” He looked at her, and she sighed.

“Damn it, why no one listens to me?” She scratched her head, “I’ll listen, but keep in mind, I doubt there is a plan that can work against such a monster.”

Ganta then retreated to her hole and fell on the soft bed of dirt, looking at the glowing blue mushrooms on the wall. “What a shitty luck.” She closed her eyes. Now that she relaxed, all of her wounds started screaming, jolting her with indescribable pain.

After a while, Frizda came in with a bowl of boiled mushrooms and lizard meat, probably harvested from an underground pond. “Food must be scarce.” Ganta looked at the large wooden bowl. To her, it was a decent size, but to the gnomes, this must’ve been four to five people’s worth of food.

“Yes. You… need… food.”

Haring her words, Ganta sighed. The gnomes were really placing their hopes in her, a stranger who had just shown up. They must’ve spent days locked here without any hope. The only thing they saw in the caves was the murderous drakaina and nothing else.

Ganta wanted to refuse the food. Taking it felt wrong. Like she was accepting payment for a job that she’d never do.

But.. the hunger and the stinging pain of her wounds made it clear. She needed to eat something.

After eating and sleeping for two hours, Ganta was woken up by the cries of gnomes outside. She stood and looked out of her hole. Three more gnomes were unfortunate enough to meet the drakaina, and she had fried their souls, leaving their corpses stuck with contorted expressions of utter terror and pain.