The dragon's harem

Arad dropped the massive long, and the miller approached with his mouth still open, “How heavy is that thing? You can carry that?”

“I’m decently strong and a bit big.” Arad tapped the log, “It is hard, but nothing I can’t handle.”

The miller scratched the back of his head. He had never seen a man as large as Arad was, but he was standing in front of him now. “Usually, I would weigh the log right away and pay you. But, I can’t move that, even with two bulls, it won’t move a finger.”

He looked at the mill, “This is my sawmill, we call it the west mill. As you can see, it’s covered up, and I can’t push this whole thing inside from the wide side as I usually do with logs.” He walked with Arad around the mill and pointed at the back.

“We can either chop it into small pieces and get those inside from the side where we were before. But that would hurt the price.” He smiled, “But, if I can get in from the back, like threading a thread through a needle, I can saw it into long and thick planks, those would sell really well, since they are hard to make.”

“Hard to make? Someone can make them here, so they can move the large logs?” Arad lifted an eyebrow, but the miller shook his head.

“We import them all, we don’t have a sawmill that is big enough, or a feeding system powerful enough to move those massive logs.” He then looked at Arad, “But, can you thread it through the back? If you could, I’ll only need to change the saw blades and get to work.”

Arad nodded, “That won’t be a problem.” He went around the mill, picked the long from the center, took it to the back, and pushed it inside with one move.

“By the tree.” The miller couldn’t stop smiling; he had never seen someone so strong, and had never gotten the chance to play around with such massive logs. “And you don’t tip over or anything?”

“As long as I carry it from the middle, balance isn’t a problem.”

“Well, since you’re done so quickly, let’s go up and see how much this beautiful one weighs.” He smiled and looked back, “Bring us two mugs!”

The miller’s daughter waved her hand and rushed back to their house as the two walked up and checked how much the log was.

The miller looked down and frowned. The log was on his massive scale, but the thing was pushed all the way down like it wasn’t set to handle tens of thousands of pounds.

“Give me a second.” He kept adjusting the scale, adding more weights to the other side, trying to balance the scales, and soon managed to do that, by almost using all of his counter weights.

“Now that is a fat one. Sixty-eight thousand, eight hundred and eighty-one pounds. Heavy, hopefully some of that extra weight bless our purses later.”

The miller looked at the log and thought about how to cut for a while, and then went back to his ledger. “I can pay you in three ways. A full amount now, and I’ll deal with finding a buyer later. A base price now, and when I find a buyer later, I give you more money based on how good that deal went. Or, you can leave it with me and wait until we find a suitable buyer and get paid there.”

Arad smiled, “I have five more of those back in the forest. Would having more help find a buyer?”

“Of course it would, with six whole logs like this, oh, the nobles wanting to build some fancy houses are going to be thrilled. You know, when it comes to big stuff like this, it is hard to find one that just needs one; most need a few.”

The miller smiled, “In fact, I can think of a noble house that has been looking for something like this. Get four more, a total of ten. And we’ll be both swimming in money.”

“Got it, but…” Arad looked at the city.

“Wife gotta eat, they always do.” The miller said with a large smile, “Let’s go with the middle deal, I give you the base price now and I’ll give you the rest, based on how the deal with the red foxes goes.”

“The Red Foxes?” Arad lifted an eyebrow, and the miller smiled, “I used to mill flour for them, and since this is a sawmill, I’m still called a miller instead of a sawyer.”

“I see, I’ll get the logs ready as quickly as I can.” Arad stood, and the miller reached into his box and pulled an empty pouch. “Give me a second.”

“The log is in perfect condition, almost perfectly round, and is quite massive and long. I’ll give you four shards a pound.” He looked at Arad with a smile, “How much would that be for the whole log. Can you count?”

Arad took a second, “Around two hundred seventy-five thousand shards.”

The miller smiled, “Counted it the easy way.”

“A silver shard is twelve shards, and a gold shard is twelve silver shards. They all go up by twelve.” He pulled several glowing red coins.

“Shards, silver, gold, royal, and divine amber. You’re around a hundred and fifty-nine royal shards, more money than anyone could dream to see.”

He started counting, “Sadly, I’ve never seen a divine amber before, so we have to do the boring part and count all of those shards. But I wouldn’t say counting royal shards is boring.”

“A hundred and sixty coins for you.” He handed Arad the bag. “I rounded it up, and I expect to get at least two hundred for long after it’s processed, so expect a share of that.” He smiled, “In fact, I’ll give you forty shards and take whatever is extra for myself.”

Looking at the miller’s thoughts, Arad knew he was getting a good deal, and an amazing one at that. The miller didn’t want to lose the tree because having such massive ones in one piece is extremely rare, and since Arad showed that he can carry and handle them, to him, this was the chance to start providing service that no other sawyer in the city could.

Arad took the money and left for the city first to buy everything that Tina asked for before delivering the rest of the trees. And with that, Tina’s time in the Emerald World with Arad started rolling.

****

Back in Sylph’s heaven, Cerilla had just gotten a divine seed from Sylph, a bright yellow lemon. “Eat it and you’ll slowly become a demi-goddess through the coming days. It won’t take years as it did with me, since I made sure you’re used to my divine magic by making you a warlock.”

Cerilla looked at the lemon with a frown. “This will be sour.”

“That is the worst thing I’ve ever tasted; it is so sour that it’ll cause all of your bones to scream. But you have to eat whole, munch on it like an apple.”

Cerilla looked at the lemon for a long while and smiled, “Can I cook it?”

“No, eat it as it is.”