The dragon's harem

Arad left to tend to his business as usual, and Matilda got out of bed just minutes later. He had healed her well, and that entire fight now felt like a dream from the past. She wanted to go back and check on her parents in the Beastlands, but that would have to wait until Arad is done with his work later this day.

She looked down at herself for a moment and found that the maids had taken off her bloodied and disgusting clothes and changed her to a fresh pair of pajamas, which was nice, but it didn’t fit going outside, so she had to change once more.

Like usual, she wore a pair of wide pants, a tight shirt, and a leather jacket on top. Unlike most girls, she didn’t like fancy clothes and instead preferred something that would allow her to move freely. She had tried a few cute dresses and fancy robes, but what did the maids mean by they could see her panties when she climbed the walls?

“Arad was cutting trees for Mira; I’ll go check on them.” Matilde stretched her arms, and Selina sighed. “Fine, but weren’t you supposed to be training today?”

Indeed, Matilda was training when Arad came and picked her up. Right there in the castle’s training ground, she was practicing her climbing and parkour skills.

“I already had plenty of exercises today.” She exhaled with a deep chuff, then looked at the door with a sad face. She’ll have to get out, go downstairs, through the halls, and the main palace before being able to get into the courtyard… that was long. She wasn’t in the mood for walking down a thousand steps of stairs.

She turned her head, looked at the window with a moan. That is her way out. She might not be in the mood for stairs, but she can go for a drop from the seventh floor. With a single leap, she threw herself out, and Selina cried. “AGAIN!”

As Matilda fell, she kicked the wall behind her and sent herself flying into a tree, where she grabbed one of the branches with one arm, swung from it, and landed on the inner walls of the castle with grace.

The guards who were patrolling there cried in shock and surprise, but by the time they could take another breath, Matilda had already jumped down from the walls into the sprawling city outside.

In the room, Selina sighed as she watched Matilda jump away. With a tired face, she walked toward the closet and opened it up. Inside, a girl looking exactly like her was sleeping. “Time to work, take the broom.”

The Selina copy inside the closet opened her eyes and immediately grabbed the broom, looked at the true body with a smirk. “You’re ugly today as well.”

“Scram, or I’ll never wash you again. Flesh bucket.” The real Selina sighed, and after a short moment of silence, the two giggled. “Talking to myself, how stupid.”

The clone rushed toward the window and jumped away, taking a seat on the broom as it took flight and followed Matilda. The real Selina sighed, then found a chair to sit on and read a book while drinking a cup of tea. She even called one of the maids to give her a massage.

Matilda jumped from the castle’s walls and landed on the rooftops of one of the countless houses, and then burst forward, running and jumping from one rooftop to another with impeccable grace and agility, all without making a single sound.

Just like cats, Matilda’s feet and hands were padded, being strangely soft and puffy even though they looked normal. Arad was terrified when she could clap her hands without making a sound. But that silence only persisted while she focused on moving her body. If she extended her claws out to get more traction or started putting more weight into her steps, she would make a lot of noise.

Her goal was clear: Mira’s Divine Hall. She threw a glance behind her and saw Selina following her on a broom and smiled. “You’re coming as well?”

“I can’t leave you alone!” As Selina replied, it was the first time anyone noticed them moving above the buildings, and the citizens’ reaction to seeing two of their queens zooming above their heads was just sheer horror and bafflement.

Arad might’ve been a good emperor, but his taste in women was probably the weirdest of them all. How come two queens, royalty that must look dignified and follow the code of etiquette and noble conduct, are running on rooftops like stray cats? One of them was a wild tigress, yes… but it didn’t make it normal. Especially not when the other one is flying on a broom like a witch.

With each step, Matilda accelerated further and further, until she reached a top speed too fast for regular people to spot her. Above their heads, she flew from one rooftop to the other like a flying bird, too fast and too silent to follow with mundane eyes.

Matilda had two ways of accelerating, one was instant, the same way she moved against the Tallneck to slash its leg, which she used her powerful thigh muscles like powerful springs to instantly accelerate. The other was to slowly build speed as she runs, which is how she accelerated now to her top speed.

Selina, on the other hand, gracefully accelerated on her broom. She herself couldn’t fly with magic, but she could imbue her broom, which was a magical item, with mana to fly. While the magic item wasn’t too expensive, controlling it was too hard and carried too much risk that not many mages even bothered owning one. While Selina owned just one cheap broom, Merlin seemed to own a whole collection of them, with some costing as much as an entire mansion. The amazing part was that Merlin didn’t buy them; she made them, and Selina’s broom was one of the first brooms she made and sold back in the day.

Since the two headed directly toward the Divine Hall through the rooftops, it didn’t take them long to arrive, and they were there in just a minute or two. Matilda jumped from the rooftops and rolled on the ground to break her fall, and Selina slowly floated down with her broom and landed beside Matilda.

Selina stared at Matilda for a second and sighed. “You’re full of dust now. Can you not roll on the ground like that?”

Matilda shook her body and patted the dust away. “A bit of dirt won’t hurt anyone. It doesn’t really matter.” She walked forward and looked through the Hall, spotting Mira’s massive workshop where she worked with tens of carpenters to process the wood Arad just brought them.

“Mira! What are you doing?” Matilda rushed in and called, causing all the workers to stare at her in surprise. They almost asked how she got here since the place was locked and guarded by soldiers, but then they remembered that she was a queen as well, and they must’ve let her in.

As if to answer their question, several guards rushed in, arms in hand as they shouted. “Intruders! Halt! This is a…” But then the guards froze as Matilda stared at them with a clueless face. “What?”

“I’ll handle this.” Selina sighed and waved her hand to the guards. “Sorry about her. We should’ve gone through the front door.”

“Ah, no.” The guard gasped. “We didn’t know it was you. Please, go ahead.” The guards quickly retreated now that they confirmed the two’s identity, leaving Matilda and Selina with Mira.

“Weren’t you injured and resting?” Mira stared at Matilda with a worried face and got a smile from the tigress and an exhausted face from her friend. Mira had heard from Arad that Matilda fought a Tallneck, a creature as massive as a dragon, and got severely injured.

“I’m fine.” Matilda swung her arm up and down, “Arad’s healing magic is amazing.”

Mira smiled and looked back at the other carpenters as they turned the logs into planks. “Don’t make them too thin, and leave some for foundation. The plans are on my desk, just don’t forget to order nails from the smithy.”

She took off her gloves and threw them away. By this time, she only wore them out of habit, but she didn’t need them anymore. As a demigoddess, she can even grab red-hot metal with her bare hands and shape it with ease; wood splinters can’t even scratch her, and it would take more than a few hits with a hammer to hurt her fingers. Right now, Mira had developed a new habit of driving nails into the wood with her thumb instead of using a hammer, since that was faster.

“What are you making?” As Matilda asked, Mira pointed toward the pile of wood. “House parts. We got an order for a new settlement for the barbarians living on the other side of the mountain, Nina’s clan. They were used to living in caves and tents like nomads, but that lifestyle won’t work around here, where it can get so cold in the winter.”

“Can’t they just… live close to the city where Merlin’s barrier can reach them?” As Selina asked, Mira shook her head. “First, they hate civilization and would rather live in the woods, and they just don’t get along with regular people that well.”

Mira smiled. “Besides, I’m a carpenter; they asked me for houses, and I’m going to give them that. If they want new land, they should talk with Sena.”

“I see…” Selina looked at all of the wood. “Then, how about installing a smaller barrier around the village? Or building it into the houses?”

Mira’s eyes sparkled. “A home heating system with barriers and fire magic stones… that might work, but I’ll need to redesign all of the houses, and the bill would be quite high.” She scratched her chin, “And I can totally see the houses catching on fire since the barbarians won’t be able to maintain the system on their own.”

Matilda smiled. “So, you need to make it child-proof, if that child could twist metal with their hands.”

Selina stared at her. “No, she isn’t making it. That would be too much unneeded work.”