The dragon's harem

Aella and Arad kept marching through the capital, and this time they weren’t alone. Yuwaku had joined them. From this day, the people knew that she was Arad and Zephyr’s daughter. Strangely enough, the humanoids weren’t as surprised as the spirits were.

The humanoids only thought that Zephyr was one of Arad’s wives, one of their queens, and didn’t question it. But the spirits could quickly notice that Yuwaku was neither a spirit nor a dragon, but a Nymph.

She was a Nymph born to Arad’s beauty and Zephyr’s magic, an occurrence that was uncommon, but possible in their eyes. The spirits had two paths of reproducing: Sexual reproduction and magical reproduction.

The sexual reproduction is the same as that of all other races, simple. But all the children born would be pixies and would have to slowly develop their powers. They might have high potential if their parents were strong, but they’ll start as pixies no matter what. If one of the parents wasn’t a fairy, then there is a small chance they’ll be of that race or of mixed blood.

The magical reproduction was rare, but it happened a few times. A powerful fairy, or a spirit spontaneously spawning another. But whatever they spawned is usually a fair bit weaker. A spirit would, for example, spawn a fairy, and a fairy might spawn a pixie.

But there were even rarer cases of fairies spawning Nymphs from their magic, especially when they terraform a forest into a grove for them to live in. When the fairies turn a regular forest into a sprawling ethereal garden of emerald plants, towering trees, crystal water, and beautiful flowers, often a Nymph or a Unicorn gets spawned.

Now there was a huge problem with that. Usually, that happens due to the combined magic of hundreds, if not thousands, of powerful fairies. The entire colony of fairies would be considered the Nymph or Unicorn’s parent.

There was a case in the past where a fairy was born to the collective magic of a colony, and that fairy had been seen as the daughter of everyone and eventually rose in power to become a Spirit Queen. That Fairy’s name was Rilyeh, and she is now still the Water Spirit Queen.

Her name, Rilyeh, referred to the name of the sunken city she was born in.

In another case, there was a tragic accident where a bunch of humans attacked a fairies’ colony to enslave and steal their wings for alchemy. They were successful and had killed all the fairies there and set the forest ablaze. From the cries of the spirits, the hellish flames, and the furious rage of Mother Earth Gaia, a fairy was born, and she immediately went on to burn every human city in sight. That fairy was Nar, the current Fire Spirit Queen.

Her rampage had lasted until Zephyr came, and as a surprise, Zephyr wasn’t there to stop her, but to track those humans who burned the forest. When the two found and killed them, Nar finally calmed down.

In all of those cases, it took extreme circumstances and powers for such a thing to happen. For Zephyr alone to give birth to Yuwaku, and with Arad’s beauty as a medium. That was a level of insanity that the fairies found hard to believe.

The parade around the city lasted all day long, and through it, the people could eat and drink for free in the feast plaza. Chef Joey had managed to salvage the situation, and thanks to his efforts, the ceremony had gone smoother than Arad expected.

But, as the day ended, that was only the start of Arad’s troubles. Because as many had already noticed, someone was missing today. Aella had a single mistress called Lexi, who was her maid, and a single concubine called Ganta.

Ganta, the dragon-eating ape, had gone back to her clan down south over a month ago to mediate the situation. Sebas, who was Arad’s butler and an elderly ape, went with her as well, and they were supposed to return this week.

Arad was now slowly becoming worried since they didn’t enter his detection range, and that meant they might not return for a few weeks. The apes actively hunt dragons, so he couldn’t just fly to them because they would see it as a sign of war, and in fact, Ganta already told him that they were stressed about him.

“Should we send someone after her?” Aella asked as she walked behind Arad into the private quarter. He stopped for a second and looked at her. “I don’t know about that. I want to trust her and Sebas, I even gave them a few of my scales.”

She looked worried. “Her clan was the one who wanted to marry her to you and sign peace. But… don’t tell me they took her hostage or something.”

“I don’t think they would do such a thing.” Arad looked around. “But something must’ve happened. I can’t go and check, so…”

Almost immediately, Aella felt something heavy on her shoulder. She looked down and saw two legs wrapping around her neck. Betty had suddenly appeared on her shoulders with a smile on her face. “You called me?”

“Yes, can you go check on Ganta and Sebas? See if they are doing fine or if they need help.” As Arad asked, Betty jumped from Aella’s shoulders and landed on the ground. “Leave it to me. I doubt they are hurt; those apes aren’t stupid, and I had a deal with them before I even allowed Ganta to enroll in the university. I think a blizzard or a similar natural disaster is what held them up.”

She waved her hands and then disappeared like she was never there.

Arad sighed as he was still a bit worried, even Aella shared his feelings as Ganta was her close friend. But now, all they could do was wait for Betty to return.

Outside the castle, Betty ran at the speed of light, moving at the universal speed limit. Everything turned into a blur around her, draconic magic coated her body, and only her head bopped up and down as her legs ceased existing from how fast they moved.

It only took a fraction of a second for her to reach the southmost mountains and stand at their peak, already several thousand kilometers away from Arad’s castle. She was indeed too fast, even if someone were to use teleportation magic, they would never catch up to her.

Mana moved at a third of the speed of light, and teleportation magic lagged just a tiny bit behind that speed. So if a wizard wanted to cast a teleportation spell to teleport a hundred kilometers, they would have to wait for the magic to activate, for their mana signal to travel to the point they wanted to teleport to, and then for that magic to disintegrate their bodies and load them back on the other side.

Generally, wizards consider teleportation magic to be roughly equal to traveling at a quarter of the speed of light. That was still almost 75 thousand kilometers a second{46.6 thousand miles a second}. She was four times faster than that.

When Betty looked over the mountain at where Ganta’s clan should be, she immediately frowned. It wasn’t a natural disaster that delayed Ganta and Sebas’s return; it was civil war.

The massive clan, which once looked like a sprawling kingdom amidst a flourishing jungle, had turned into a charred wasteland littered with ape corpses, dead dragons, and still burning buildings.

Should she bring Arad here? No, his presence might make things worse. She’ll have to deal with this on her own. Before Ganta became a concubine, she was a student at Betty’s university. She is the chairman, and no one is going to start a war and drag her students into it.

She lifted her hands up, smiled, and struck a pose. Her body exploded with light, flashing like a second sun on the mountain peak, sending a clear signal that she had arrived and that the civil war would have to stop.

Betty the Bright was about to blind the entire world.