The dragon's harem

Chapter 996: Law And Evil

”What do you mean? How many people would die if Echidna and I fought here?” Mesharra glared at Arad, ”Countless homes burned, souls snuffed, livelihoods wrecked, dreams crushed, hops vanished. Itʼll rain blood, no one would be able to take responsibility for such an end.” She approached Arad, ”What do you say? Hero brought by the goddess, do you think your authority alone could fix that?”

Arad smiled at her, ”Iʼm not saying what you speak of is wrong. Iʼm saying you donʼt care.” He stood and approached, ”You and Echidna are quite similar, both are monsters. She kills for her fancy, and you kill for the royal and noblesʼs fancy.”

”Donʼt lump with her. Weʼre not the same.” Mesharra growled back at him, and everyone could feel the two might start fighting any second now.

”Sorry.” Arad apologized first with a gentle bow, ”You arenʼt like her, youʼre worse. A mindless weapon in someoneʼs else hand. She might find it in her heart to spare a life, but you wonʼt, you arenʼt allowed to.”

Mesharra swung her fist at Aradʼs face but stopped right before hitting him, her wrist shaking.

Arad looked at her with a smile, ”See? You canʼt even hit me, assault is a thing after all.” His expression softened a bit, ”I know someone similar, sheʼs called Lydia, a paladin to a goddess in my world called Amaterasu. But unlike you, she doesnʼt claim to be good, she only claims to uphold Amaterasuʼs will.”

Arad smiled, ”A beacon of light, darkness trembles at hearing her footsteps. She fears no man, fiend, or god. She fought an abomination with enough power to level a kingdom, she punched a devil lord so hard that he started to question his life choices.”

”Youʼve been babbling for a while, get to the point.” Mesharra glared at him.

”Follow the law if you want, worship those nobles and royals who wrote it for all I care. Donʼt pretend to be good, understand what you fight for and protect it.” He sat back on the bed beside Echidna. ”They want Echidna dead since she was killing their taxpayers. If they were seeking to help people, they wouldnʼt even risk giving her a chance, they wouldʼve ordered you to kill her in her hut.”

Arad looked at Mesharra with a smile, ”What would they not do to protect themselves? Everything would be on the table. Theyʼll change the law in a heartbeat to protect themselves from me and the freedom I was granted by Yog.”

A large smile crossed Aradʼs face as he looked at her, his eyes burning purple. ”Iʼm not oblivious, I know of the orders you got, that Mary got as well.”

”There are no...”

”We donʼt want him to experiment or rape our daughters, pay some of the girls in the slums to surround him.” Arad looked at her, ”They knew those girls in the slum wouldnʼt eat dinner if they ate lunch. When an order comes from a high noble or a royal to sell their bodies, they are forced to take, and for nothing more than chump change.”

Arad went silent for a second and then growled. ”Maybe I should just kill those royals and nobles.” At that moment, everyone in the room felt as if they were hit with a hammer on the head. Mesharra jumped back with sweat rushing down her face and back, her finger shaking in fear.

Echidna had covered herself in curses, sacrificing her left hand to form a powerful shield around her whole body. Plum on the other hand cried above Aradʼs head, jumping into the ceiling, ”Arad! Calm down, what was that, Iʼve almost leaked!” She looked at him, ”Wait, I leaked a bit.”

Arad sighed, ”Sorry about that. This city and the one we were in before are good.” He reached for his hair, but nothing was in it.

”Arthur seems to have several daughters with the women in the slums so heʼs firmly against those orders. And the guards in the previous city opted to hire prostitutes. Iʼm not mad at them fearing me but at them abusing and exploiting the weak and poor.” Aradʼs closest friend Jack had grown up and was raised in the slums, he often talked about how hard life was and how some nobles tried to exploit them.

When Arad got word of the orders making their way around the city he couldnʼt help but feel both enraged and disgusted. Those people are suffering like Jack and his sister did, like how Tina and Miraʼs mother did in the first years after their husbands died.

”Itʼs lawful, they are given an offer of a work to be done. But itʼs not good, itʼs exploitative, scummy, and quite pathetic...coward didnʼt even think of talking with me directly.” He smiled, ”How about I show them something funny?”

”Do...” Mesharra was about to say that she didnʼt think Arad would be able to do anything to the king or nobles, and she quickly remembered how he had just beaten Arthur. Arad would probably slap the king, and drag the queenʼs face on the ground while heʼs at it.

Echidna jumped in and sat beside Arad, ”Did you hear that Mesharra? Iʼm not the only bad one, I might be the loudspeaker, but I bet you most of the nobles had done more heinous shit than.” She leaned on Aradʼs shoulder, ”At least I was offering herbal medicine to the hunters and poachers passing by my hut. Unlike some little shit decided to burn down my home.” She glared at Mesharra.

Aradʼs gaze shifted toward Mesharra, ”She was a peaceful herbalist until you provoked her?”

”Not me, my previous master. The inquisitor that trained me with the sword and the one I got his medal.” To become an inquisitor one must rank up in the army first and at least become a commander. They then must be picked up by an inquisitor who trains them, and theyʼll get his rank of an inquisitor if heʼs to die or retire.

”I killed the rotten bastard.” Echidna smiled, ”He burned my hut, so I set his home ablaze at night.”

”With his family and two neighbor houses ended up burned, everyone died.” Mesharra glared at her.

Echidna looked at her with a mocking face, ”Why should I care? He didnʼt care about setting my house ablaze.”

”You werenʼt healing people, you were testing your concoctions on them.” The two seemed to be about to fight again.

”But I told them. If it worked, theyʼll survive, if it didnʼt, they are about to die anyway. Itʼll just be a bit more painful.” Echidna giggled, ”So they bought it like itʼs on a discount.” ”You started a plague, eight times! Then you took the sick people to experiment on!” Mesharra sat down, already getting tired from trying to reason with Arad and Echidna. ”Iʼve heard from the other victims, he screamed for five hours as you opened him up alive and pulled his organs out, one by one!”

”To be fair, I only pulled his liver, stomach, and intestine out. But thanks to that, his wifeʼs operation was successful and she survived. Well, half of her survived.”

As the two argued over Aradʼs head Mary walked in, ”Iʼve got what you ordered!”

Arad pushed Mesharra and Echidna away, ”Letʼs get to work.” He then turned toward Echidna, ”Stop arguing with her and go clean yourself. Take a bath, clip your nails, and make sure youʼre clean, Mesharra helped her shave any hair on her legs, arms, or back. I donʼt want a single hair strand to be left.”

”Why me!” Mesharra growled.

”Hold up! I donʼt have any hair!” She showed him her leg.

”So you can keep an eye on her. And I donʼt care how smooth your skin is, leave one hair, and youʼll be in for a whole night of itching.” As the two made their way to the bath, Arad and Mary approached the desk and he started mixing two separate mugs of ink. One for Echindaʼs nails, and one for some simple tattoos.

Witchʼs nail polish acted like an arcane focus to help them cast spells with a higher output. Humans mostly need an arcane focus to cast magic, some rare few can cast spells, they have one output source, witches can have up to twenty by polishing their nails, and all of Aradʼs draconic scales are output sources giving him millions of output points.

In short, a witch would have at least 20 times the output of an average human in terms of magic, which makes them the mystical and powerful beings living in the forest.

The tattoos on the other hand are small inscriptions of magic circles that could be written on

the skin like itʼs done with scrolls. This allows the witch to cast those spells or buff far faster than without them, and even have a free cast for each tattoo. Scrolls burn when used, but since the witchʼs skin is alive and attached to her, itʼs infinitely reusable.

For example, a witch can inscribe a tattoo on the back of her palm that shoots a fireball each time she flicks her fingers. The first fireball would be cast without costing mana, but then consume the normal amount afterward, this resets each time the witchʼs mana gets filled since the overflow of her regeneration afterward will recharge the tattoos.

What Arad wants is to increase Echidnaʼs precision with curses as much as he can help balance the vampire and lycanthrope curses he intends to enchant his powers with. Mary would be the stand-in healer and Mesharra would make sure theyʼve got the connection they need to track down a suitable vampire and werewolf. Plumʼs power would come in handy while trying to hunt those two, she could also help find a decent place for Arad to transform in. Alcott winged it while fighting Ginger and suffered for years because of that, Arad wonʼt make the same mistake and will make sure to be prepared beforehand. With both Vlad and Alaric defeated by him, Arad had quite the confidence that he could tame the violent curses.