The dragon's harem

As Arad walked through the dark streets, he passed by several people, and they couldn’t help but stare, terrified and confused at the large being. He was taller than most doors, thicker than most mules, and moved as silently as a cat, making many drunkards confuse him for a ghost.

A young man who walked by saw him for a second, and started crying and ran away, terrified to the bones. That young man was a devil from hell, and he had just seen that horror once more.

The Emperor of Nothing. But after running for a while, the poor devil couldn’t even remember what he was running from.

Soon, Arad made it to a house that looked like any random building in the alleyway. Newly built, like everyone around, but dusty, the door was unpainted, and so were the walls. The windows were made of wood, and they didn’t even have curtains. As Arad stood there, he could smell an old, musty smell coming from the inside of the house.

Normal people won’t ever notice the smell, but he would; this house was his target, one of many. He needs to step up his game, or the empire would crumble before it could even stand.

He stood there in front of the door, looked at the handle, and then turned it open. He could hear the door scream; those hinges were probably never oiled, not even once.

Inside, there were two people. A woman was cooking, and her young daughter was playing with dolls on the dinner table. The two froze in place, staring at Arad for a second. The mother paled, and the little girl looked confused.

Arad could smell the pot, water, and flour; nothing else was in it. But that wasn’t the reason he was here. He was here for a much bigger problem, one that needed to be rooted out before it could grow out of control.

The woman finally spoke with a pale face, trying to stay calm and not scare her daughter. Who is this strange person who just barged into her house, and what does he want?

She quickly looked at her daughter and swung her hand, pointing at the door to the pantry. “Go, get inside.” The daughter seemed reluctant for a second, but when her mother glared at her, she ran away as fast as she could.

As she saw her daughter lock the door, the woman took a deep breath and turned toward the stranger. She looked at him for a second, and fear slowly started seeping into her bones. He was huge, taller and wider than the front door, and what’s more, she couldn’t even see his face. There was nothing but darkness beneath that hood.

That wasn’t normal, and she knew magic had to be at play. Those pesky wizards can make everything happen. Anyway, she knew this could not be good for her. It never is.

“If you’re looking for money, I’ve got nothing.” She growled, knowing well that her words won’t sway him. She ready for what was to come, but only hoped that her daughter would be spared.

Arad pulled one of the dining table chairs and sat in the shadows. When he did, she could almost forget he was even there.

“I didn’t come here for you, but for them.” He looked at the door, and someone started knocking on the door so hard that they almost shattered it. “OPEN THE DAMNED DOOR!” The man outside shouted in rage.

The woman flinched, staring at the door with sweat rushing down her face. She threw a glance at Arad, and he pointed. “Open it. I’ll get them.”

She didn’t know what was going on, but had to do something. She had heard of those guys outside before; they started going around demanding money from people last week, protection fees. The people, of course, informed the guards, and the first group of thugs was captured, only for others to replace them.

This city was growing, and criminals were now moving in, trying to establish their domains. The reason Arad had Jack, Abel, Sara, and the vampires try to dominate the underworld here was to block those kinds of people from growing.

But those people never end, you kill ten, a hundred shows up. It will take a while before Arad’s friends dominate the area and spread their influence, so he had to step up and sow fear.

He needed to give these fools something to fear, something to keep them awake at night.

As the woman unlocked the door, the guy kicked it open and smacked the woman across the face, sending her rolling back. But strangely, she felt no pain; it was as if she wasn’t hit. The darkness around her flowed like water, and she crawled away.

“What took you so long to open up for?” The man started walking toward, flailing a knife. “Lord Farumon came all the way here to see you, and you won’t…” It was then that he saw Arad, towering over him like a giant.

“Who are you? Has this woman been throwing up her…” But before the man could finish speaking, Arad grabbed him by the face and lifted him up. The man cried, struggled, and tried to stab Arad so many times that the knife shattered.

“Close your eyes.” Arad looked at the woman for a brief moment and then walked out the door with the screaming man. There, he could see over twenty armed thugs surrounding him. The woman didn’t listen and kept watching as Arad broke the man’s arms and legs in front of the other thugs, and then proceeded to beat them all to an inch away from their deaths.

An hour later, in Alina, an old man was sitting on his nice sofa, drinking tea with a rested face. Business hadn’t been great lately, but it was better than nothing. It wasn’t like he was proud of his job; he just did what had to be done.

It was then that the doorbell rang, and he knew a customer had walked into the establishment. So, he stood, put on a smile, and then called. “Coming! Welcome to Alina’s slave market.”

But the moment he got into the reception room, his eyes opened wide. Arad was sitting there, waiting for him.

“Ara… The Great Emperor himself. Welcome to…” But before he could finish speaking, Arad smiled. “Drop the formalities, Ross.”

The old man pulled a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his face. “If you say so. How is Queen Aella doing? It’s been months since you broke her contract.”

Arad looked at the table, remembering the old days. “She is better than ever.” He then waved his hand, dropping over forty men into the hall, all of them were injured and at death’s door, but somehow, still alive.

Ross paled. “Arad… those are?”

“Bandits, thugs, pillagers, call them whatever you want. They have been killing, violating, and stealing from the people around here for a few days now. I just captured them all and got all the information out of their hideout and their brains.”

Arad handed Ross a few papers that he had the vampires inside his stomach quickly write based on the information he collected. “This is the total cost of the damage they caused, with interest. I want that for them all.”

When Ross looked at the amount of gold, he paled and looked several years older. “I can’t pay that much, even if I were to put them all for sale, it’ll take weeks, even months, before they all get sold.”

Arad smiled. “This is the catch. I’ll be the one buying them, or should I say, the empire would buy them. I’ll get different people to buy and send them to farms, mines, or even monster raids.”

Ross looked at Arad for a long minute before it clicked in his head. “You want to create a bogeyman. A thug comes here to make it big, kill a few people, and steal money. You then send an anonymous soldier to break all of their bones and sell them to the slave market.”

Arad nodded. “You’re smart. The money from the sale goes directly to the empire, and I’ll give it back to the victims as compensation and relief efforts.”

Ross laughed. “So, let’s say a thug kills a man and steals his horse and money. You send your man to capture him, then sell him for the price of the horse and the money stolen if it wasn’t retrieved.”

“Not just that. The man must’ve had a family he supported; the thug would have their cost on his back as well. That widow the man left isn’t going to feed herself out of nowhere.” Arad stood, “Then I’ll be counting on you.”

“Wait!” Ross called him back. “Who will come buy them? You won’t be paying directly, would you?”

“Got many, come to the castle later on. We’ll discuss this in detail. I’ve already got plans for a thieves guild, assassins guild, even a red district and a black market.” Arad looked at him with a stern face. “You’ll be joining them to form a tight chain around the empire’s criminal scene and keep it under control. We’ll soon have demons and devils prowling the streets, and I don’t want everything to get out of hand.”

Later that day, Arad sat in a meeting room inside the castle. Ross faced him with a sweaty face and then looked at everyone else in the room, terrified.

Jack looked drained and shriveled up, exhausted to the bones. But he somehow looked at peace, ready to die in bliss.

Abel, on the other hand, rested at the table with a smile on his face, humming and waiting for the meeting to start. The sooner it starts, the sooner it’ll end and the sooner he can go back to his girls.

Sara looked the calmest of them all, drinking tea as she cheerfully chatted with Haru. The content of their conversation wasn’t all that nice, and it made Ross want to forget every word he heard.

The last one, Eris, Arad’s wife, is the new goddess walking the mortal world. She was sitting on his lap, a happy smile on her face, showing the vampiric fangs. Ross had just been informed that she is the goddess of murder and not the goddess of a small sun, which made him almost faint.

Why did he almost faint? Because he knew who she was. The butcher of Rita, the murderous vampire, and the woman who once was the head of Rita’s funeral parlor.

Poor Ross, he didn’t know what kind of mess he had just walked into.