Chapter 689 Stress
?Arad sucked all the vampires back to his blood and looked down, Zia still sitting on his lap, dangling her legs down.
"Call me whenever you need help," She looked at his face.
"You're awfully quiet," Arad stared back at her, his eyes glowing red.
"The vampires' first and last wish was for our king Vlad to finally find the peace of death. You gave him that so I'm not that angry about it," She lifted her hand, pinching Arad's cheek, "But splitting me apart wasn't fun at all,"
"Talk about it with Eris, she's your senior." Arad sighed, ignoring the pinch, "And don't expect that you'll get off just with that. I'm sure she'll give you something in return for stepping on her face when we get back home,"
"Let her come, I'll step on her face again if needed."
"If she calls me again, I'll be happy to split you apart once more so don't get overconfident," Arad growled.
"You can split me in half in more than another way…" She stared at him with a smirk, "For that, I might even…"
Arad immediately sucked her into his stomach. "Strange one…" He sighed; Jumping down to go hunting.
****
Arad returned to the ruined capital, looking at the massive central church. A nun was boiling water over a fire pit right outside; Beside her was a pile of bloodied rags that needed cleaning.
The nun stood, looking at him. "Sir Arad."
"I hunted some monsters for food. Where do I put them?" He asked; eyes looking around for an empty space.
The nun gasped. "Oh! The food group already went to salvage the market for any surviving rations, where are the monsters?" She looked around; Almost panicking. "We lack strong people to move them here from the forest."
"Don't worry, just show me a place to put them." Arad pointed to an empty space behind the church; the small garden was used to host common events every now and then.
"You can, it's cold so the mean won't spoil." She nodded.
Arad approached the empty space and extended his hands, the void crackling from between his fingers as he started pulling the monsters out. Reindeers went to the left, woolly rhinos went in the middle and the buffalos went to the right. A total of seventeen carcasses were put down and the nun gasped, holding her mouth closed as she saw what Arad pulled.
As the nun stood still watching in shock, Arad shifted into his draconic form and sat beside the church, expanding his wings over the area. "I'll keep the snow at bay," He turned his head and looked toward the capital's market.
"You there!" He called the people salvaging for food, "Send a group of you to skin some monsters that I've hunted."
The people in the market gasped, seeing Arad's head towering over the destroyed buildings, "Sir Arad?! We'll be back at once." A man cried, looking back, "Get anything that isn't crushed or drenched in blood."
They quickly gathered what they could and rushed back to butcher what Arad hunted for them.
Time quickly passed by as Arad sat in place, watching them skin, butcher, and cook what he hunted. They cut the meat into small pieces, diced vegetables, and threw everything into massive pots that were meant to be used to cook large quantities of food for weddings.
Some old women gathered inside a house beside the church and brought large bags of flour to bake bread. It only took them a few hours to start getting bread out, and that happened to be exactly at the same time the large pots of soup finished cooking.
"Sir Arad." One of the men approached Arad, "You can take the left pot, it's done."
"I don't need food," Arad replied, pointing with his claw at the church's door, "Get it to the sick and injured as soon as possible. A warm bowl of soup and a soft loaf of bread could save their lives,"
The man stared at Arad for a second before smiling, "As you wish," He rushed toward the pots and wrapped his hands with an old cloth; picking the pot and taking it into the church where even more people followed him with bowers and bread, ready to started serving the injured in the secret basement beneath the church.
CRACK! Meryem emerged from the ground, shaking the dirt of her hair and arms, "I'm back," She looked at Arad with a smile.
"I can see that." Arad replied as he smiled, lowering his head toward her, "They got food ready, get yourself a bowl and rest."
"I'm not hungry," She shook her head, jumping over his head and sitting on the back of his neck. "But, I don't mind satisfying another form of hunger." She rubbed her face on his neck.
"Fine, but you'll have to wait until we get back home. This is neither the place nor the right time,"
Meryem's eyes sparked with joy, "Really? You sure?"
"As long as the girls don't disagree." Arad added, "You'll have to talk with them yourself,"
"Don't worry about that, I already got permission from Aella."
"And what about the others?"
"I'll manage…they've already told me that keeping you busy at night is becoming quite hard," She giggled.
"Wait, what? I never heard of that…" Arad gasped.
"Especially Mira and Isdis, they always wake up too sore to move," Meryem looked at him, "Only Eris doesn't seem bothered."
Arad scratched his head, "Why didn't they tell me?" He sighed, "I should probably slow down with them a bit more…"
"A bit more?" Meryem stared at him, confused.
"It started with Aella, but I'm already holding down a bit as it seemed too sore after our first night. I didn't know it was still hard on them," Arad looked up, "They should've told me. No, I remember asking Isdis and she said it's fine."
"They probably didn't want to ask you to be gentler with them even more. Probably trying to be considerate."
"In Zephyr's words, relationships are those of compromises. But this isn't what she meant." Arad sighed, "I should talk with them once we get back."
"You don't need to be gentle with me," She smiled, staring at him with a smug smile, "I might be better than them for you."
"Who knows? I don't know if…" Arad was speaking but he suddenly stopped, "No, it's not about eggs this time.
"Then what is it about?" Meryem stared at him with a smug face.
"We'll talk about it when we get back, this isn't the place." Arad looked around, "Especially with a lot of people,"
Meryem jumped from his neck and sat on the church's roof, looking at the destroyed city, "I can't wait,"
"Once the injured ones get healed enough to be stable, we'll have Merlin pack them up on my back with that magic wagon spell of hers then we'll head back home," Arad looked at the sky, "I only hope things get better from here on," He sighed, "I should probably avoid fights for a while and try to relax a bit,"
"You've almost been fighting non-stop since birth, right?" Meryem looked at him, "It's impressive to watch your growth, but…"
"But what?" Arad looked at her.
"I was talking with Amber before. She said that life isn't only about fighting, focusing too much on the bloodied battlefield causes people to lose themselves, which is sad," She looked at Arad, "She said that she for once can't handle the stress of fights without drinking, killing people, and the adrenaline rush of fights takes a toll on her mind."
"Is that why she drinks a lot?" Arad could easily imagine Amber sitting on one of the guild's tables, downing a beer bottle after another, looking in the distance with an empty stare.
"Yeah, and drinking a lot is why she almost has no money."
"I don't know if dragons react to that the same way humans do," Arad looked at Meryem, "Would fighting continuously stress us out? Are we even affected by that?"
"Even if dragons aren't, you've been growing rapidly, forcing yourself through stages that should've taken you decades. You even compromised sleep for that," She looked at him with a worried face.
"You might not notice it, we might not notice it as you've only been born recently and we don't know how you actually act unstressed," She looked at him.
"I might have an idea," Merlin looked at them from the ground. She waved her hand casting a spell, [Fly] And flew to them.
"Arad, remember the first day you came to the guild? You've had one long sharp tongue and a strong attitude. Now you've gotten calmer and less aggressive in speech." She sat beside Meryem, "That could be character growth or stress buildup."
Arad looked forward, clearly recalling those days in his mind. "I don't know. I probably should take a nap and relax for a while, yes, you're right." He took a deep breath, stretching like a cat.
"I'll give it a try," He looked at them with a grin, "Someone just called me a villain for blasting the vampire's kingdom and now killing their king,"
"Wait? What did you just say?" Merlin stared at him.
"The bastard's a silver dragon, a wyrm at that." Arad laughed, "The idiot said vampires are humanoid's natural predators and that it isn't evil for them to kill humans, so killing them was bad,"
The two girls stared at Arad blankly for a second, "And what do you think?"
"Dragons are the natural predators of whoever messes with them," Arad smiled, "The vampires had it coming,"
"That's a way of thinking about it," Merlin smiled.
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