The dragon's harem

Chapter 1643: Feeding Haru

Arad looked at the counter, inspecting one pristine pan. He was hungry and wanted to cook something nice. It’s been a while since he ate something decent, and by decent, he means just adding salt that isn’t seawater.

Arad was a dragon, and he barely ate cooked food. While he did dine each day in the castle, that was just a formality, something he does because everyone does. He didn’t need to eat two plates of food each day, because that wasn’t worth more than a single drop to him. He needed to eat a lot of whales, giant monsters, and tons of cursed metal to get enough calories to stay alive.

Arad mostly preferred raw meat over anything cooked, so his taste in food was generally bad. That’s why he decided to stick to a simple palate of spices whenever he’s cooking.

It has worked well for him. His wives, and even the maids, seemed surprised by how good his cooking is, especially since he barely used any spices or any complicated technique.

When Aella asked him to make her something, he grabbed a head of lettuce, an onion, and a tomato, chopped them all in a bowl, and added a drizzle of oil and a pinch of salt. With a burning hot loaf of bread, Aella and the maid found the simplicity and straightforwardness of his cooking stunning.

Through his short life, Arad learned a few things that he was proud of. First, aged meat tastes better than fresh meat. All that good meat needs to taste good is salt, black pepper, garlic, and a charcoal grill.

Charcoal leaves a charred flavor that Arad loved. The type of wood changes that flavor a lot. So Arad had a whole warehouse filled to the brim with all kinds of charcoal, from oak, to apple, to cherry, and even bamboo.

But the maids in the castle seemed to disagree with him. They hated the taste of charcoal left in the food. They say that it masks and messes with the exquisite flavors they can create.

All nobles and royals had already abandoned the old-fashioned grills decades ago. Commoners are the only people using natural fire anymore because it’s cheaper and easier to achieve. They only need to pick up some firewood. No need for spells, no need for expensive magic crystals, and no need for a skilled cook.

Arad was the only one still having those ovens built in the castle, and the maids were appalled, as did all the nobles and even Baltos’s royal court.

When the nobles asked, Arad did what he does best and told them to go pound sand, because they aren’t taking his grills away. He built some advanced magical ovens for the maids to use, but the old-fashioned wood and charcoal grills were there to stay.

And who was going to argue with him? Even without doing anything, he’s three meters tall. And, every noble that spoke at least has one daughter working as a maid in Arad’s private quarter. They can argue with anyone in the empire besides Arad.

The second thing that he learned is that the onion is the king of vegetables, and that the tomato is the queen. But many debated it, with some saying that while those two are good, potato is the only S-ranked vegetable.

Arad didn’t agree at first. Until Mira explained how potatoes can almost grow anywhere and how they can be cooked a hundred different ways, making them stand with wheat and rice as a stable food for many.

Besides, it tasted good when fried in oil or fat... so it won. Strangely, Arad couldn’t argue with his wives and maids about this like he did about the grills. So a huge chunk of the empire’s farmland was dedicated to farming potatoes.

The third thing he learned is that all of that doesn’t matter. What the cook thinks is irrelevant. Most of the time, all chefs are cooking for someone, and that someone is the one who matters the most. Aella hates meat with passion, but she’ll still cook it for Arad. That’s why he had to consider the opinion of those he’s feeding above everything else.

The maids couldn’t argue with him about the charcoal grills because they are cooking for him, and he couldn’t argue with them about the potatoes because they are eating them.

”So, what do you want to eat?” Arad looked back and asked with a smile.

At the dinner table sat a red-skinned woman with a blindfold over her smooth and round face. She shifted slightly, pushing her long raven hair behind her sharp ears and long horns.

Haru the Seer, Priestess of Asmodeus. Out of all of Arad’s women, Yog decided to pull her in here. She can’t fight, but she can see the future a bit and use divination spells, which were useful. But in any case, Arad wasn’t going to complain. In fact, he didn’t want Yog sending any of his women here to get stuck with him.

”Stir-fry, sinner’s liver with black tomato and fresh ghost pepper.” She replied with a calm, friendly tone. But seeing her hand gently rubbing her belly, and her lips curling to the side, Arad knew she missed the taste of home.

”Got it.” Arad nodded. ”One fried bear steak and a salad.”

Sadly, he couldn’t give her anything worthy of a resident of hell. She had to put up with an even worse diet here than in the castle.

”What about all that talk about how the opinion of the one eating matters?” Haru asked with a faint smile, and Arad looked back at her with a grin.

”Well, we cook with what we got. I can’t get a sinner here or anything that you asked for. So bad luck, we only have bear meat.” He started cooking.

She sat there, listening and waiting. She had nothing else to do, because she would become a burden if she got out of her chair.

Haru was blind; she couldn’t see and relied on sound and memory to move. She was extremely good at that, but only in places she was used to, like her house in hell or the small quarter of Sara in Arad’s castle, where she lived now.

Ever since Yog summoned her here, she had to rely on Arad guiding her everywhere. He walked her across the hallways, took a bath with her, and instead of her washing him, he ended up washing her. She even had to rely on him to wear warmer clothes because this place was colder than Alina’s mountain peak.

She was doing her best trying to remember the layout of this house, but to achieve that, she needed time and someone to guide her around the entire place several times. She didn’t want to ask Arad to do that, but it seems he already knew and suggested they go on a walk around the house after they eat.

Haru asked how he knew. And he told her that the maids rarely keep secrets from him.

After a while, she spoke in a calm tone. ”Don’t check the oil temperature with your finger, you’ll get burned. Remember, you’re a human now and not a dragon.”

Arad stopped his finger just an inch away from the boiling oil. He almost fried his finger.

Looking back at her with a smile, he chuckled. ”Thank you. Almost got fried.”

She moved a bit, happy, but then gasped. ”Ah!”

At that moment, an oil bubble burst and splashed hot oil on Arad’s hand and face, causing him to jump back. ”That hurt!”

He quickly found a bucked of ice-cold water and cooled his burns.

”Sorry, when I saw it, it was already too late.” She shifted a bit on her chair. ”But, did it hurt that much? I know you can endure a lot of pain.”

Arad shrugged. ”There is a huge difference between being able to endure it and not feeling anything. I feel the pain and agony; if I were in a fight, I would ignore it, but here, I have no reason to keep it in.”

Haru is a Seer. She can see the future to a degree, and the cost of that power was her vision. In terms of physical power and speed. She is no better than a regular human girl, but the extent of her clairvoyance powers is immense. She can either keep the stress low and only look a few seconds into the future, or push her mind and soul to the limit to see days, weeks, or even months into the endless future.

She had explained her power to Arad before when Sara decided to take her as a concubine, because she didn’t want them to overestimate the extent of her ability.

Looking into the future is hard, and it becomes harder the further ahead a Seer wants to peer. Divining two seconds into the future isn’t twice as hard as a single second; it’s four times as difficult. Because the further one tries to prophesy the future, the more possible alternate futures appear and exponentially increase the volume of information dumped into the Seer’s mind.

But that wasn’t the only problem. For some reason, using her power here was far harder than before. This world they are stuck in wasn’t normal, and Haru was certain Yog brought her to help Arad solve its secrets and escape.