The dragon's harem

Another half an hour had passed, and by that time, all of the orcs’ world leaders had gathered in a massive round hall to meet Arad, this alien who managed to overpower their entire civilisation. He had destroyed all of their great weapons, buried their mines and factories, and even dragged them here as hostages.

The situation was bad, very bad, and half of the world leaders were already convinced that they had finally bitten off more than they could chew. They had faced countless worlds, and many of them put up great fights. But this was the first world to fight back like this, and the first to go through the rift and attack.

Sitting around the table, each of them was guarded by one of Arad’s angels; they could barely breathe normally, and that got even worse when Arad finally walked into the room, looking like a massive titan of black steel.

Arad was huge, even by the standards of the orcs’ Power Armor guards; they barely stood at four meters tall, yet he reached a whole five meters in height. And unlike their soldiers, Arad had the same normal proportions of a muscular man, wore a simple set of unmechanized plate armor, and still moved with the grace of a cat.

Arad wasn’t the only one who looked scary; those angels of his were also terrifying, especially since everyone in the room had already seen them flying faster than missiles.

Arad leaned on the table as he barely sat down on the massive chair provided for him, and glared at everyone. ”I’m the guest here; would you like to give the first word?”

He asked, and after a long minute of painful silence, one of the orcs finally opened his mouth to speak. He was old, so old, in fact, that Arad could tell that he didn’t have that many years left. ”What do you want?”

Arad smiled, ”Straight to the point, wise.” He then gave the old orc a stare. ”It’s not about what I want; that doesn’t matter. It is about what your kind needs.”

All of the orc leaders froze. ”What... we need?” One mumbled, and Arad closed his eyes.

”Exactly. You should already know that if I wanted you all dead, I could’ve done that long ago.” He waved his hand. ”But I’m not here to kill you all; I’m here to make sure you don’t kill any more people. First, did you lock the rift, or do I need to do something about that?”

One of the angels leaned toward Arad, ”The rift is locked. Convincing them was easy, since they don’t want more of you to just show up.”

Arad laughed, ”Well, that means Lucy should be fine now.” He then turned his glare back to the orc leaders. ”So? I heard you have something akin to a king and queen. Where are they?”

The orcs looked at each other in silence, and once again, one of Arad’s angels spoke for them. ”They refused to come and asked that you come to their fort.”

Arad stared at the angel, ”And you let them stay?”

She looked at Arad for a second, felt a hit of fear creeping into her bones, but then took a deep breath and replied, ”Yes, we determined that it was a wise decision to let them stay in their fort.”

”I guess you got a very good reason for that.” Arad sighed, and she nodded, ”Just in the past five years, there have been more than a hundred and sixty-nine assassination attempts made against them. They don’t want to come here not because they don’t trust you; they don’t trust those orcs.”

”It’s fine then; I’ll go visit them later.” Arad gave the orcs’ world leaders a glare. ”We’ll discuss them another time, for now.” He cracked his neck: ”Food, water, safety, and abundance.” Arad counted on his fingers, ”You lack a lot of things, and this meeting is about how to fix those without relying on invasions.”

They were all silent, so Arad had to keep talking. ”First, we get rid of everything that is destroying your world, then we rebuild it from scratch. Which means that for a start, no more death curse.” The angel standing beside Arad leaned forward. ”They call it radiation here.”

”No more radiation. It prevents life from thriving, so we stop the sources first, and then cleanse the air and ground.”

”No radiation, no nuclear power?” One of the orcs looked at him, ”Do you know what you’re talking about? It’s an inevitable byproduct of mining and terraforming; without it, we won’t have either material or land.”

The angel beside Arad leaned once more. ”They use those massive bombs to dig the ground and extract minerals from deep down. They also use it to level down mountains and build cities atop them. The orcs have a high resistance to the curse, so they can survive in it, and with their numbers, the deaths are negligible.”

”No means no. The more radiation there is, the harder it is for life to take hold. If you don’t stop, and if we don’t clean what you’ve already tainted, we won’t be able to grow crops even if we bring mountains of fertile soil here.” He sighed, ”So, no, I don’t care what you need it for; no means no.”

”We also use it for power...” One of the orcs mumbled, ”If we stop production, many would die of cold.” Hearing him, Arad gave the angel standing by his side a look. She didn’t know anything about that.

”Explain more.” He asked, and the orc explained how they have massive fusion and fission reactors all around the globe to produce electricity, which both heats and provides energy for all the orcs to live. Since they have no sun, something has to keep the lights on.

”I see... as long as you can contain the radiation, it shouldn’t be a problem.” Arad glared at them, ”The problem isn’t using the power; it’s the death curse released.”

Arad smiled, ”After we’ve gotten rid of that filth, now it’s time for the cleanup.” He waved his hand over the table, and four tiny women appeared. None of them was taller than an orc’s thumb, yet for some reason, all of the orcs could feel a deep sense of terror just looking at them.

Those four were Zephyr, Gaia, Nar, and Rilyeh.

For a second, the room was silent, but then Gaia broke that silence with a loud scream. ”You bastard!” The entire building cracked, and the planet itself stopped rotating for a second. ”You’ve killed them!”

”Calm down... otherwise I won’t be able to stay calm either.” Nar grabbed her by the shoulder and gave the orcs a deathly glare. ”If not for him, I would’ve incinerated your race to less than ash.”

”I agree...” Rilyeh approached, ”We should just drown them all.” Water was already bursting out of the ground outside, and it was raining. ”Arad, what do you say? Can I drown them all? If you don’t want them extinct, we can keep a pair.”

”I know you’re all angry.” Arad shook his head. ”Zephyr, can you help me calm them down?”

Zephyr rubbed her temples, ”I too think we should just kill them all and start over in a new world; that would be faster and easier. But if you want them to stay alive, I’ll help.” She approached the other three queens, ”Calm down and follow orders. I know you’re angry; I’m the same way, but we can’t let emotions run wild.”

Rilyeh looked back at Zephyr, ”Come on, it’s not the first time. They can build a boat in no time.”

Arad looked at them, ”Start cleaning the elements and bring any cursed matter to me to eat. Our first goal is to make this world as habitable as possible. Start around cities where orcs live so we can get them farming as quickly as possible, and I’ll get Plum working on that side.”

Zephyr looked back at him. ”We’ll do our best to clean what we can now, but the process itself might take years, if not decades. We need to assign new Spirit Queens to maintain things; otherwise, this place would crumble once we leave.”

”Don’t you need sunlight for crops to grow?” Nar stared at them, ”Those bastards even killed their sun; they can’t grow anything even if they wanted.”

”As long as it’s warm light, anything would do.” Arad smiled, ”Luminous would take care of that for now.”

”She can illuminate an entire world?” Nar gasped, and Arad smiled, ”Just the half she faces. She is bright enough.”