The dragon's harem

“If it is too hard to lift and move the hardwood, then why not let the wet thing do the work instead?” Flatail smiled, and his teeth flashed brightly as they reflected the sunlight coming through the windows.

“Your Majesty, what is he talking about?” Lord Alina looked at Arad and asked he already knew, but the nobles here seemed to be still confused about it.

Arad rubbed his temples. “Flatail is saying that we should throw the wood into the river and let it carry it downstream to wherever we want.” He looked at the window. “There is a large river where the city of Riverside was before, so we can redirect that to pass by the forest then use it.”

The beavers’ plan was simple in concept, but hard to achieve. Throwing a massive log into a river then letting it float downstream sounded easy, but there was no river around, and the logs might get stuck. So to achieve the best result, they have to dig a new river and make it specifically for moving wood with round shores and a strong current.

“Beaver…” One of the nobles spoke, but Flatail threw a glare at him, and then Plum did the same, causing the poor man to freeze.

“It is Sir Flatail for you!” Plum stared at the noble with a grin. “We can’t have you disrespecting the beavers’ great Timber Tech master.”

“Sir Flatail.” The poor noble couldn’t believe he was actually talking to a mere beaver, the humiliation of having their work stolen by animals. “You surely don’t intend to say we have to dig the entire river? It would take several days to travel from Alina to where Riverside once was.”

The other nobles nodded. Shovels won’t be enough, and earth magic was expensive and exhausting to use. It would take a decent group of mages months, maybe even a few years, to dig the entire river and make it large enough to be of use.

Flatail looked at the nobles with a passive face. He knew they didn’t understand the extent of the power of Arad and his wives. To them, digging this river was as hard a task as building several castles, and so they naturally would be opposed to it.

But there was one thing he didn’t understand about their behavior.

“Are you… stupid?” Flatail stared at the noble, looking confused. “Is your brain made of rotten wood? Did a beetle crawl up your head?” After sighing, Flatail cleared his throat. “Since I’m here, with your Emperor, and the plant Spirit Queen, did you really think this wasn’t accounted for?”

The nobles stared at each other, and Arad spoke next. “Digging the river won’t be a problem. I’ll handle that. Your job is to make sure the wood doesn’t get stuck.” He pointed at several of the nobles. “You, you, you, and all of you over there. The river would pass by your land, so keep an eye out.”

Arad looked at the window, where a pot of flowers rested. “Loci, how is the river going?” As he asked, the flowers moved, grew a mouth, and spoke back. “The part that is on my back is ready. That is about two-thirds of the full track. The rest is up to you.”

The nobles cried and stood, and Arad had to calm them down. “Why are you all scared of a flower? Sit down.” It was going to be exhausting if all the nobles were this scared of anything he pulled off. He was about to tell them that the entire Alina region was on the back of a large ooze called Loci, but that might freak them out even more.

As the nobles sat down, Lord Alina laughed. “Give them a moment of rest. None of them saw anything stronger than a horned rabbit or a dire deer in their hunts.” He leaned forward. “I believe the remaining part of the river is also taken care of?”

Arad nodded, “Frida and Astrid are going to take care of it. I wanted to have Gaia do it, but she is feeling a bit under the weather.” Even though he had healed her, Gaia was still exhausted and tired from that massive wound that she got from Violet and Cain’s fight.

“Gaia? Astrid and Frida?” One of the nobles gasped, and another whispered. “The Earth Spirit Queen, she is Mother Earth! Those two are… daughters of the Beast Queen Hati!”

“Two queens? Digging a river?” Another one of the nobles couldn’t believe his ears. In the nobles’ eyes, the Queens were the most treasured, pampered, and protected women in the entire empire. They could only imagine them ruling from their thrones.

“My Emperor.” One of the nobles, an old lady, looked at Arad with a stern face. “I believe you mean to say that it is their responsibility to oversee the project. How many workers do they have? Do they lack mages? Do we need to coordinate with them for supplies?”

Arad blinked several times. “What? No… they are just going there, and digging the river with magic.”

The woman stared at him in horror. “You can’t make the queens work like that!”

The nobles knew that some of the queens were really powerful; they had even seen Isdis and Camilla fight a while ago. But, none of them had seen any real fights, and the best they could imagine Arad doing was defeating Vlad, and his wives weren’t seen as anything close to that in strength.

Eris, being a goddess of the sun, was a known fact. But the people saw her as a mere servant of Amaterasu, a vestige of something greater. Due to that, the nobles were more afraid of someone like Claug, whom they knew well.

This lack of awareness and knowledge was the reason Isdis was going through with the royal crowning. She wanted the people know how powerful Arad is, and how strong his wives are.

“Frida is a master when it comes to earth magic, and Astrid is strong enough that she could just dig the river with her bare hands.” Arad looked at the noble lady. “In fact, they are the ones who wanted to go there and dig the river.”

Plum flew up and took seat on Arad’s head, throwing a glance at all of the nobles. “You don’t have to worry about the Queens. Any one of them can take care of herself. They aren’t as soft as you might think.” She then pointed at Flatail.

“By the way, he is a baron. Baron Flatail will be ruling over the forest alongside his people. I suspect you treat him and the other beavers with respect.”

“I don’t really care for being a Baron, but you humans seem to think it matters, so I should respect that. So, I expect you to respect us beavers as well.” Flatail jumped down from Arad’s thigh, looked at him with a smile, remembering all of the destruction and mayhem he saw outside the universe.

Flatail could remember Arad rampaging through countless abominations colonies, mercilessly wiping them out in a fit of rage, leaving nothing behind but ash and death.

“One piece of advice, humans. You take Lord Arad and his Empresses too lightly. In your place, I won’t flaunt my wood around him.” He walked away, and Plum followed. As he walked through the door, he smacked his tail on the ground a few times, and he left the nobles with one sentence:

“May your wood stay forever hard.”