The dragon's harem

The moment the hand millipede spotted the guarded carriage, it growled from pain and rushed toward them, using the thick trees as cover. It moved faster than a horse and was considerably stronger. The mages didn’t know what its abilities were, but they knew it was best to kill it before it got closer.

The mages attacked once more with a volley of spells. Instead of [Stone Spear] that the millepede dodged earlier, they decided on a spell that was harder to spot and dodge, [Earth Spike], which worked in a similar way, just that the spear would suddenly burst from the ground instead of flying through the air, and it was perfect for stopping charging cavalry.

As the mages pointed their wands forward, mana surged through their bodies, reached the wands, sparked from them, then flowed right back into their bodies. From there, the mana moved like rivers of blinding blue radiance through their bodies, down to their feet, and into the ground where it surged forward like lightning, and the millipede could see that clearly.

Before the earth spikes could even appear, the millipede had already seen the points of concentrated mana in the ground where they would appear from, and dodged preemptively with ease. It was quite terrifying to see such a massive monster moving at such speed and dodging the spells like a slithering viper.

The knights rushed forward with their shields. Four made a shield wall to block the monster while the others pulled their spears to stab it. This monster seems to be at least upper B-class in power, so they shouldn’t drop their guard around it.

“Burn it when we pin it down!” The commander of the knights shouted as he lifted his spear and waited a second for the blind monster to crash head-on into their shield wall before jumping in with his spear. This monster might be large and fast, but it isn’t that tough, so the spear slid right through its flesh. The other knights did the same and stabbed the beast, quickly giving the mages a chance to finish it off.

The monster bled and growled for a second, and then went limp as its life faded away. The knights quickly gave it a few more stabs to confirm it was truly dead, and then sighed. “What is this thing? I never seen such an ugly monster before.”

“Yeah, why human hands? Should we send a search and arrest order for the wizard who made this thing?”

“Probably, we’ll report this to General Alcott and see what he has to say.”

“Don’t drop your guard.” Camilla looked out of the carriage’s window. “Lady Selina says two more are coming from the west. She’ll deal with one, so you all take care of the other one.”

As the knights gasped, horrified to hear that two more of these ugly things were around, Selina extended her hand out of the carriage’s window and pointed her wand toward the west. The battlemages saw her hand and wand, and their eyes opened wide.

Selina’s magic broke all of the rules they were taught as soldiers. It didn’t care about efficiency, reliability, or usefulness. It was messy, patched together, but still powerful. There was a massive difference between a wizard who learned magic in the army and those who learned it among other wizards in towers and magic schools.

First, Selina used the same spell the battlemages used first, [Stone Spear]. Instead of using mana to create stone in the shape of a spear and fire it, she used magic to pull dirt and stone from the ground and form it into a spear. The battlemages did the same thing before to save on mana, but Selina’s goal was different.

The mana that Selina saved from using the ground’s stone was then used to add a second property to the spear, and it was the possibility of controlling it remotely. In total, Selina’s [Stone Spear] cost almost double that of the one used by the battlemages, and it was more volatile and prone to failed casts.

As the spear was fired, one of the millipedes in the distance flinched and moved to dodge it, but the spear changed trajectory at the same time, and ended up hitting true. The millipede was cracked open in a single hit, and all of the battlemages couldn’t believe their eyes.

“You patched a homing script onto a stone spear? How is that even possible?” One of the battlemages cried, and Selina didn’t reply; instead, she pulled her hand back into the carriage and asked Camilla to speak for her. She wasn’t good at speaking with strangers, especially when all of the attention was on her.

“She says it is indeed impossible to place a homing script on a stone spear spell. The spear usually shatters midair. That’s why she made it with dirt and stone instead of just stone, so it’s more flexible and can rapidly change direction without shattering. This spell takes a lot of mental power and practice to get just right, but it’s still possible.” Camilla explained in Selina’s place, and then smiled. “And, this trick is useful for cheating on the magic accuracy test by controlling your spells directly. It costs more mana, but when the test is to just hit a moving target, this still works.”

“I see… that…” But before the battlemages could ask any more questions, the commander shouted. “All soldiers! Take your position! The bastard had shown its ugly face!” The last remaining millipede burst from the bushes with a raging roar.

Just like the first one, the soldiers managed to kill the last millipede without allowing it to get closer to the carriage. The battle was short, but scary. No one liked seeing unknown monsters in the wild because that usually resulted in a lot of deaths, but they were lucky today. If not for Selina taking down one of those ugly horrors, some of the soldiers might’ve gotten injured.

Four of the soldiers split up from the ground to carry one of the monsters back to the capital for inspection, while the rest quickly kept moving forward. Even though the news about a mad wizard being so close to the capital was a big deal, they couldn’t just abort the trip to the bridge.

As the carriage rolled on the bumpy road, Mira looked out of the window at the passing trees. A mad wizard nearby was awfully suspicious. Why didn’t they get caught before? Did they snap just recently? Then why? Arad didn’t put any pressure on the local resident of Alina, and she sure didn’t hear about any wizard living near these parts of the forest.

She should get someone to investigate this place later and find whoever this wizard is. But at that moment, she was looking into the boundless forest, her divine eyes that could see for miles more than regular human eyes, spotted something creepy on the horizon.

A little girl who looked no older than seven, ginger, with bright blues and a loving smile, looked at them from beyond the horizon. She wore a tattered and bloodied rag and seemed to have a bunch of those ugly horrors crawling around her.

When Mira blinked, the girl was gone.

^Arad, we got a problem. Poppy is here.^