The dragon's harem

"As I said, Loci might fall underground." Meryem sat on Nina’s couch as everyone looked at her, confused. "What do you mean by that? How could she fall underground?" Arad was a bit confused, as he already knew that the ground beneath Loci was stable and had carried her weight for centuries. You cannot just fall through solid rock.

"I don’t understand everything myself, but she told me that she is evolving into a Ground Ooze, and during that evolution, her body would become one with nature for a while, and she could fall. I came here immediately since I could sense you." She threw a glance at Arad. "We better find someone who knows what is going on."

Arad closed his eyes for a second to think about it. Loci is a titanic Ooze that is several hundred kilometres wide and carries the entirety of the Alina region on her back. Compared to regular slimes, she was on a whole other level of existence. Her power was that of nature itself, and she held an unshakeable will over the land itself.

What did she mean by fall? Did she mean it physically? If her body dropped to the core of the planet, then the entire region would be destroyed. That isn’t something he can save the people from. But what if she meant something else? He did try contacting her, but Loci was unresponsive.

Her evolution had already started, so she must be slumbering now. That only means that she could fall at any moment. "We have to move quickly." He waved his hand, and Gaia appeared on his wrist. She was the Earth Spirit Queen and should know what to do. If she didn’t, then they might be out of options for now.

Gaia looked around, her eyes stopping at the worried Nina and Meryem. "What is going on?" She asked, and Arad was the one to reply. "Meryem says Loci would fall. She is evolving now."

Gaia blinked several times as her eyes widened. She then cried. "Wait, what! No one told me!" She jumped from Arad’s hand and landed on the floor. Then, with a single tap of her foot, she shattered the floor and put her ear into the dirt to listen.

After a few seconds of silence, she finally sighed with a smile. "Good, we aren’t late." She immediately threw a glance at Arad. "We should prepare to celebrate soon. It could be days, weeks, or even months, but not years."

"What did she mean by fall? I still don’t understand a thing. Shouldn’t we worry?" Arad stared at Gaia. "Will Loci be fine? What about the capital and Meryem tunnels underground? What would happen to them all?"

As she looked at Arad’s face, she noticed that he really didn’t know what was going on, so she smiled and jumped on his shoulder to explain. "So, when a slime is happy and healthy for a while, they start to grow rapidly. Then added a bit of love and care, a lot of energy from some source, and a new life would blossom."

"She is pregnant?" Arad lifted an eyebrow, and Gaia burst laughing. "Not exactly, but close enough. Slimes don’t get pregnant or lay eggs. They split. Loci is going to split and give birth to a new Ooze as she evolves. That would cause her mass to shift, and might result in the ground level dropping by a few meters."

Basically, deflate was a more appropriate word than fall.

"Wait, the capital would be destroyed if that happens." As he gasped, Gaia waved her hand. "No, that won’t be an issue with me here. You might feel an earthquake that’s a bit violent, but nothing more than that." She expanded her wings and started flying around Arad’s head. "But there is a bigger problem."

"What is it?" Nina asked, excited to know that there would be another one like Loci around soon. "The newborn Ooze might fall into the core of the planet. It had been soaking in magic power from you all."

She flew to stand on Nina’s head. "Loci is basically a titanic earth slime, so to evolve, she absorbs power from earth monsters that live on it. In her case, it was mostly you, Meryem, and Arad. The worrying part is that the newborn slime has inherited the Tarrasque’s Earth Glide trait."

Nina didn’t need an explanation as she was now a literal Tarrasque, but Arad also had the monster’s blood, and Meryem herself was a powerful earth monster. With all three on Loci’s back, she was bound to absorb power from them and evolve.

Arad stood. "Okay, what can we do to help?" As he asked, Gaia’s eyes flashed with light. "I was waiting for you to ask that. Of course, we need to go underground and catch the baby slime before it falls into the core of the planet. For that, Nina! You’re up."

"Wait! Me?" As Nina gasped, Gaia nodded. "Of course, you, or Arad. As long as it is someone who can use Earth Glide, catching the baby slime is possible." She clapped her hands, and ten Earth spirits emerged from the exposed ground she dug earlier.

"Go underground and inspect Loci’s entire body. Find which part is about to split into a new Ooze and report back to me. If you fail, I’m skinning you alive. That baby’s life depends on us, so get moving!" As she gave her orders, the fairies bowed and jumped right into the dirt, disappearing into it like ghosts.

"So, what now? We wait?" Arad looked at Gaia, and she nodded. "Yep, we got nothing else to do but wait. You can’t really force a woman to give birth early. The same applies to Loci. We should let nature take its course." She flew away from him and waved her hand. "Then, I’ll call you if those fairies find anything of worth." She disappeared as quickly as she appeared, and Arad turned his attention back to Meryem.

"You’ve heard her. Everything should be fine for the time being." He smiled, and Meryem laughed. "I know I could count on you! Reliable as usual." She leaned on him. "It really helps knowing a lot of people with power, doesn’t it?"

She was right. Arad’s power didn’t end at his own, but at the power of those he knows and those who serve him. Today, Gaia’s knowledge came in handy, and tomorrow, the power of another of his wives would be of use. Even if a problem that he can’t solve emerges, someone else should be able to take it on.

"By the way, what were you all doing here?" Meryem then finally asked, and Arad pointed at the second door he made. "Linked this house with Merlin’s lab. This should allow Nina to go there whenever she wants."

Even though Nina isn’t living in this house but in the Private Quarter, she still uses it as a base and spends a lot of time here either dealing with extra work in Alina, or simply using it as a fast travel point to the Private Quarter, instead of having to go all the way to the castle, climb all of those stairs without breaking anything, and wait for the vampires to let her in.

"Can I come with you to see this lab? I’ve never seen it before." Meryem stood and stretched, prompting both Nina and Arad to stand as well. It was time to check Merlin’s lab, where she was studying Nina’s Tarrasque biology.

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