The dragon's harem

Denki’s question was quickly answered as Arad flew past her. Something about him felt off. While she had to protect everyone else from Tiamat’s storm, the storm was evading him, particularly.

Whatever he was, after facing Azorn and technically winning, Tiamat herself doesn’t seem to be in the mood to attack him, not even once. She has either gone through the troubles of giving an exception, or he had some kind of power that protected him from her authority.

“Follow me!” Denki flew forward, chasing the ray of light streaming from the dark cloud, and so everyone followed her. The people in the village could see the draconic shadows disappearing into the storm, and even the poor woman looked out of the shed with a terrified face, praying to whoever god out there that those dragons don’t turn around and blast the village.

Aku, the demoness, held tightly to her leg, shaking and pretending to be terrified. “What are those…” She asked, and the woman looked at her with a smile, “Dragons, evil dragons. Now, if you don’t go to sleep, they’ll come and eat you alive.”

Imagining Arad eating her, Aku actually felt terrified. What if Arad and Kali both came to kill her?

She nodded and rushed back to her bed alongside the other kids, while the poor woman stood guard. It was still early morning, and the kids needed to sleep. She’d better get something ready before they wake up.

She walked out the door and stumbled, falling on her face in the cold mud. “What was…” She looked back at the door and found something massive resting on the old porch, a large basket.

“Who put this here?” As she approached, she noticed that the rain wasn’t able to hit the basket, a sign of barrier magic. Even the uneducated commoners can tell when magic was being used, and for this, it must’ve been a powerful wizard to be able to waste their mana on such a thing.

She grabbed the basket and took it inside. She stared at it for a whole minute, and then finally decided to look and see what was inside.

The moment she lifted the fabric covering whatever was inside, a gust of wind rushed out, followed by an explosion of clothes.

The woman cried and took a step back, baffled at the strange scene, but then quickly realised what was in front of her. Winter clothes, travel shoes, and many rolls of fabric and threads to modify them. There were clothes for the kids, and even some that were her size.

Granted, some of them looked old and used. Probably someone wanted to give them away instead of throwing them. She looked at the clothes and the kids behind her. She’d better get them sorted out.

When she was going through the clothes, she found something else, a tiny bag that fit in the palm of her hand. When she opened it up, she immediately dropped it back to the ground.

The bag was filled with shiny, clinking, silver coins, a lot of them, and there were some gold coins here and there, too. In that bag was more money than she would earn begging for ten years.

“Who would…”

But soon, she saw something else, a scroll of fine leather. Her hands started shaking; she had never seen such a thing in her life. As she unfolded the scroll, she was greeted with a black seal in the form of a dragon.

Not a single commoner could miss that seal; the royal knights have been running all over the kingdom in the past months spreading them. The insignia of the royal court. This wasn’t just a letter or a scroll; it was a royal decree.

The content of the letter was simple, but shocking.

The City of Rain, that shall be this village’s name from now on, and the village chieftain had already been informed by the emperor. The emperor already sent supplies from the capital to rebuild the village into a walled city, and she was going to be the director of the orphanage.

The money and clothes were meant to last them for a few weeks, at least until the main supply batch arrives from the capital and the shed is rebuilt into a full orphanage.

How did the emperor know about such a small village in the middle of nowhere? She didn’t know. “What are those?” Aku approached her, rubbing her eyes.

“Go back to sleep. Those are clothes for you all, I’ll give them to you when the morning comes.” She still needed to sort them after all, and mend some that were torn.

Aku looked at the scroll, and she could see something that no one beside a demoness like her could see, a mark of Kali, a spec of her magic. The Demon goddess had noticed her, which was both good and terrifying.

Aku went back to sleep. Now, she had a new mission: To keep the orphanage and everyone in it safe and make sure the renovations go well.

Rapid change was approaching, and with it, danger would surely arise. Aku understood well that nobles might try to take this chance and profit, harming the city’s development. Her job is to ensure none of their stupid plots reach the orphanage.

****

Back in the sky, Arad flew right behind Denki with everyone else following after. Surprisingly, nothing got in their path as they were under the protection of Tiamat.

Crossing the storm took just one hour, and soon they could see it showing up on the horizon. Arad first thought it was a massive ant hill. Chromatic dragons love mountains and caves, so their kingdom was a titanic mountain filled with caves.

“That’s a lot of holes.” Arad approached Denki, and she pointed with her horn, “Look above it. That is where the queen lives.”

When Arad saw where the Chromatic queen lived, he almost fell. It was a massive mountain, floating on a cloud carried by rainbows above the Star Mountain.

The Star Mountain was massive, so massive that Arad looked like a tiny ant in front of it. It was probably bigger than the whole Storm Titan kingdom, and it was a miracle that it didn’t cover the horizon.

But what shocked Arad was that the Queen’s floating mountain thing was even larger, several thousand kilometers wide.

Denki looked at him, “The Metallic Queen has a steel fortress that’s over three thousand kilometers wide floating in the sky, did you think the Chromatic would let herself look weaker? Those two had been playing like this for thousands of years, comparing who could make the biggest floating palace.”

Arad stopped flying, and so did everyone behind him. “So, one has a floating steel continent, and the other has a real floating continent. This one is made from earth magic, right?”

“All of the elements mixed to form it, earth, water, fire, wind, lightning, everything. The Queen’s magic is immense; she is only second to Tiamat herself.” Denki said with a proud face.

Arad pointed, “So? Why the rainbows?”

“She is the Chromatic queen, and rainbows show all of the colors. Those are streams of her magic that keep the Chromatic Palace afloat.”