The dragon's harem

Chapter 1766: Shirikodama

In the past couple of days after Arad’s disappearance, Doma and Tina were left in the dark. None of them could contact the mortal world or check to see what had happened. As expected, Tina panicked for a few hours, but luckily Doma was there to support her.

Doma knew several facts about Arad, even though they lost all contact thanks to a few tricks. The first trick was that she herself was still alive. On the day they met, she had placed a curse on them both. If any one of them were to die, the other would feel it. To make this curse stronger and impervious to all interference, she added a condition on her side. If Arad dies, she’ll die with him, melting her soul and all of her power into a curse that would emerge from Arad’s body to haunt whoever killed him.

She didn’t die, so Arad was alive. It was that simple.

The other trick she used was observing the World Tree, Yggdrasil. The aloof tree always avoided Doma’s gaze, and for good reasons. But Doma managed to read into that attitude to guess what was going on outside.

When Arad was around, the World Tree kept an eye on them, but when he was gone, those eyes became sharper, even though the tree itself looked a bit shaken, confused, and busy. Doma knew something big happened, and she also knew that Yggdrasil was trying to do something about it.

The last trick Doma used to learn about what happened outside was the goddess of magic herself, Yog. Usually, trying to encroach on her red lines would draw some kind of reaction, but when Arad was gone, so was Yog’s reaction.

Doma had even created a little statue of Yog that consumes mana, turns it into a curse, and then shatters it, effectively breaking the fabric of mana on a smaller scale. It was something that Yog would burn automatically before, but now, even that was spared. That meant whatever troubles Arad got himself into, it was big enough to annoy the goddess of magic and keep her attention.

Using all of those tricks, Doma knew something big happened, knew that Arad was alive, but couldn’t tell the details.

^Indeed, several days without contact. Nothing major happened on our side, so what about you?^ Arad could see black sap slowly seeping out of the tree behind him and sinking into his ear. She was trying to get back inside his stomach and was going to flow through his ear, down his throat, and down to his belly.

^Stuck in Limbo. It was quite the hassle. Take a look.^ As he relaxed his mind, Doma sank into his brain and merged back with him, quickly finding her place in his void. Her voice now sounded clearer inside his head.

^{Limbo, the plane of chaos. If only I were there with you. That looks like a fascinating place to study.}^ She saw the endless black sea, the frigid Arctic Lands, how Yog made it, and all of the fights they went through there.

She looked deeper, spreading her thoughts into the casual life Arad went through, and she found many things to see.

^{Ohhh... Poor Haru, her back must’ve cracked open. But she at least didn’t need to use her curse. That is good. I wonder if she can let me use it.}^ Knowing that Doma and the Fates were on bad terms, he could only imagine the chaos Doma would cause if she got hold of Haru’s curse.

After looking at Arad’s memories for a while longer, she finally reached the bath and smiled. ^{Arad! That witch, the one who infected everyone. I want to check her out, take care of Tina here.}^

Doma quickly flew into Arad’s stomach, then took a leap through space to reach the bath.

Arad’s first incarnation was still there with everyone, resting on the edge of the water as Matilda humped over him. The tigress never seemed to get tired; in fact, she got more energetic with each trust, and now, her hips were moving fast enough to crack bones. She held onto him with her sharp claws, and each moan sounded like a loud roar.

He looked up as Doma came crashing down from the lightless sky and landed right in the middle of one of the craters, causing a massive wave to wash over the maids and knock almost all of them to the ground.

Due to that Impact, Matilda stopped moving her hips for just a second, looked over to see who arrived, and when she saw it was Doma, she started moving her hips again without a care in the world.

Doma stood, stretched her arms, and then looked around at everyone there. ”It’s been a while. How are you all doing?” As she spoke, her clothes melted into nothing as she asked Arad to take them off for her, using the void of his stomach.

Aella looked at her with a smile. ”We’re doing well, but the maids aren’t.” She pointed at all the maids on the ground. Doma’s crash had caused a wave massive enough that most of the maids were swept away like leaves.

Doma laughed nervously, ”Sorry, I’ll be more careful next time.” And quickly looked around, finding Merlin relaxing in her spot in the water. ”Also, Sorry about this, Merlin. My curses must’ve disturbed this magic of yours quite a bit.”

Merlin looked at her with a smile. ”Oh, Dear. I told you before that I don’t mind. We all here owe you some gratitude.”

Doma smiled and then looked around and found Fernanda. The poor witch was buried beneath a mound of maids, unable to move. She could’ve used her inhuman strength to shove them around, but that would quickly drain her chances of being forgiven.

Each angry maid can cause her up to ten slaps from Arad later, so she had to treat them well to avoid that.

Doma approached and started helping the maids get up one by one until she reached Fernanda, and pulled her to her feet. ”Stand up, we’ve got a lot of fun time waiting for us.” She smiled, ”Albeit, I might be the only one having fun.”

Seeing the sadistic glow on Doma’s face made Fernanda flinch for a moment before she realized who she was talking to.

”Who are you? A witch?” Naturally, Fernanda immediately recognized another fellow witch.

”Yes, I’m a witch. And now, I might just be able to sway Arad from skinning you alive.” She looked at the maids and everyone in the bath. ”I’ll be taking her. Any complaints?”

Merida, who was in the bath, lifted her feet, showing the half-downing Zephyr and Plum to Doma. ”No chance. She almost killed everyone here. If she doesn’t die from the pain of Arad slapping her skin away, I’ll kill and turn her into a mindless fungus zombie.”

”Oh my, seems they caused trouble, and I’m here getting a pricier deal because of that.” She turned toward Fernanda and put a hand on her head. ”See what you caused me?” She then turned back to Merida. ”Ok, what do I need to do to get you to trust me with her?”

Merida glared at her for a long while, but then swung her legs, throwing Zephyr and Plum away. She stood, walked across the water, and stood face to face with Doma.

”Simple, give me a reason to believe no one else would be harmed.” Merida growled, and Doma smiled. ”Is that all? Then how about this?”

Waving her hands, strands of curses twisted around them, tying Doma, Merida, and Fernanda all together. ”A one-sided dominion curse. Do you like it? Both she and I would only stay alive as long as you allow us.”

Merida could definitely feel and understand the curse. With just one thought now, she could kill the two of them. If Fernanda tried anything funny, she could get rid of her in the blink of an eye.

Merida smiled, approached Doma, and leaned on her shoulder with a smug face. ”You even put yourself in the contract.”

Doma giggled, ”Of course. I need a way to make sure you won’t abuse the curse.” She wrapped her arm around Merida’s neck, ”Come on, I need her. Just look the other way this time.”

Merida sighed, ”What do you need her for?”

Hearing that question, Doma smiled, ”To make a body for Shi and me.” With one hand, Doma reached over and grabbed Fernanda by the butt, causing her to flinch. ”AH!” She could feel it, two fingers going into her back end and wiggling around. ”What... are you doing?”

Doma licked her lips, ”Shirikodama... you ate so many people that one grew inside you. Enjoy my fingers while you can, because painkillers would only damage the information I want to extract from you.”

With one jerk, she pulled her closer and looked back at Arad. ”Or perhaps, do you want him to do it instead? I’ll need to cut you open anyway, but since his hands are bigger, you’ll probably suffer more.”

”What is a Shirikodama?” Merida stared at Doma with a weirded glare.

Doma giggled. ”Well, this lovely witch here is a cannibal. As a part of her witchcraft, she ate people and had a curse scan and used the information of their bodies and magic to make herself stronger. Now, all of that information and souls are collected in her rectum after being fully digested in her digestive system.”

Doma shook her fingers even harder, and Fernanda gasped for air. ”Now, I can’t take that ball of energy out of her body because that would kill her, so my only option is to do my job on her directly.” She turned toward Merida, ”With the information of bodies and souls of over a billion people, I won’t be a problem to use Sena’s power to create new artificial bodies for Shi and me.”