"They are my maids for life," Isdis looked at Arad, "They are coming with me,"
"That's another matter," Arad nodded, "Them being maids is different than what she meant."
"I know what she means," Isdis replied with a grin on her face, "Why not take them as well?"
Arad scratched his head, "Well, the other must approve first, and I was thinking of putting a standard," He looked at Ray and Rey, "They lack magic. I would prefer to not sustain more than Mira," Arad said.
Magic or more accurately mana, the resource needed to nourish a void egg. Out of all the girls, only Mira lacks it.
Arad can probably sustain several women like her with his mana, but that would weaken him a lot. He sees it as risking the girls and the potential eggs, which he doesn't want to allow.
"What?" Isdis stared at him.
"As I saw before," Arad looked at them, "You girls have standards like strength. I do need you to have mana, so I'm putting that as my standard."
Isdis sighed, "That's fair," She approached the two maids, tapping their shoulders, "Don't look sad. You two can start studying magic. I'm sure you will get strong soon enough,"
The two maids nodded with determination, "We will do our best,"
***
Isdis looked at Arad, "Well, how about you start with something else."
The twins smiled, "Massage time!" They approached Arad, "The stone bed is there, go and lay on your chest,"
Arad looked at the massge bed. A large white marble block with a cutout for the head in the front. Even with how large it was, he still barely fits on it. The only reason beds could fit him is because Mira made them specially for him.
Arad lay on the massage bed. Isdis and the twins approached him as the bathmaids watched from afar.
Rey approached Arad, knocking on his back with her fist. CLACK! CLACK! It sounded like knocking on wood. His muscles and skin were hard, or so she thought.
What she felt was the scales on his back as they formed a protective lair-like armor around his body.
"Sister!" Ray said, looking closely at Arad's back that her nose pushed against his skin, "His skin is strange,"
Rey stuck her nose in, getting a closer look. "Scales!" She gasped, "They cover his body!"
"Arad is a half-dragon. Didn't I mention that?" Isdis said with a smile.
"You didn't!" The twins gasped at the same time.
"We knew," The bathmaids said in the back. They had seen Arad's wings before."
CRACK! Arad expanded his wings, tail, and horns. The two maids lunged back, glaring at Arad. His two-meter-long and thick tail dragged on the ground, the tip scratching the ground like a blade.
His massive black wings expanded and retracted, moving the air in waves as they gleamed like polished steel. His three-foot-long horns expanded forth like spears, their tip ending in a sharp point.
"No wonder why," Rey gasped.
"Dragon's blood, thick and dense." Ray touched Arad's back. "How long does your blood run?"
"Mother was a dragon," Arad replied.
"A direct offspring of the dragons. Forget other draconic bloodline sorcerers. With such close relatives, you're one cut above the rest." Rey said.
It was true, that the more diluted the blood gets, the weaker it becomes. So the closer a sorcerer is to their ancestor, the stronger their blood is.
"Sister," Rey looked at Ray, "We should start. This is going to be exhausting,"
"You're right," Ray replied, "Should we skin regular massage and get to Ashiatsu?"
"No, let's try the normal way first. If that failed then we use that," Rey looked at Arad's back and cracked her fist. She swung down, punching Arad's back as hard as she could.
Rey growled, stepping back and holding her fist. Her knuckles started getting red. It felt like hitting a stone wall. "His skin! It seems soft when you push on it slowly, but it becomes rock hard when facing an impact,"
"Any technique that includes hitting or tapping is out of the question," Ray said, putting her hand on Arad's back and gently pushing down with all her strength.
"Sister, use your elbow," Rey said, using her to push at Arad's wing muscles. For a dragon, those were the largest muscles in his body. That's the reason why a dragon's punch is stronger than their kick.
Isdis approached, "You two are worrying too much about him," She started pushing down on Arad's lower back with all of her strength, "You can try to kill him, and he won't even feel it. Go as rough as you can,"
She was right. No matter what they do, they can't harm him even if they want to. At that moment, she can only imagine Nina or Meryem being able to harm Arad in a massage.
As the three worked as hard as they could on Arad's back, it started to prove more difficult than they expected. Arad had worked a lot that day, from killing dragons to moving boulders and running across all the capital.
His shoulder and back were really stiff, to a point that even Isdis was finding it hard to fix.
Rey and Ray looked at each other, "He's rock hard," They looked at the bathmaids in the back, "Bring the balancer. This will take some effort."
The bathmaids rushed to the back, bringing a large metal stand similar to a swing. But without the chains and chairs.
The maids dragged the balance above Arad and fastened it to the ground. "It's ready,"
Rey approached Arad's head, "Your back is too hard for us to work on without hands. I'm going to step on your back."
"Using your whole body weight?" Arad turned his head and looked at her.
"Look up," Ray showed Arad the balancer. "Usually, This is used to balance on someone while stepping. But for you, we're going to use it as leverage to push down even harder." She explained.
"Do what you want," Arad replied, "But, you better start getting stronger if you intend to come with Isdis." Even Mira had more muscles than them. That says a lot, even though she's a carpenter that works a lot.
Rey climbed on top of Arad and started stepping on his lower back, pushing down with all her might. Ray did the same on his upper back while Isdis went to massage his right leg.
Isdis glared at the three bathmaids, "What are you standing there for?" She called them, "You take his left leg. You two take the arms. Get to work!"
The maids rushed in and could feel just how hard Arad was to massage. It felt more like they were trying to bed steel rather than flesh.
"It's as if," One of the maids growled, "He isn't human at all." She gasped for air as she started getting exhausted.
Isdis giggled, ^If they only knew. He's a real dragon and a powerful one at that.^ She could feel her skin shudder. Arad was still a young dragon and she knew that he was only going to get tougher as he grew older.
Rey looked down at Arad, "Can blades even cut you?"
"They can't," Arad replied, "Swords dull and chip away when they strike me, and hammers and arrows bounce back unless they have magic."
"Holy gods," Rey gasped, "Sister, did you hear that?"
"Yes, I did," Ray replied with an exhausted face, "Really, what did you eat to get this tough, monsters?"
Arad blinked. She was right. He eats monsters. "Who knows? I might be," He replied. If they are going with Isdis, it's probably best to tell them he's a dragon. But, not now when the bathmaids are present.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l