The dragon's harem

Chapter 1731: Crawler

“You can heal her now. She won’t be able to harm us.” Gojo’s magic would allow him to prevent her from harming them, but it was far from perfect, and if the Ice Brood Mother wanted to kill them, she could probably still do it if she was smart enough.

That was the catch; she is a monster and won’t be able to outsmart his magic. She cannot directly attack them or order her brood to do so, but she can easily abandon them in a fight, or kill them using the environment, like suddenly taking on her spider form inside the cave and causing the whole place to collapse.

Arad reached toward the Ice Brood Mother, and divine light rushed from his fingers into her festering wounds, mending them. Seconds later, her pale face eased up, and she sat, glaring at Gojo with hungry eyes.

Yes, she was hungry and wanted to sink her fangs into him and swallow him whole. Then eat Arad right after. The earlier fight had drained too much of her stamina, and now she was starving. As a queen, she usually just sat, laid eggs, and lazed around. She had probably moved in the last hour more than she did in a year.

“Sorry to bother you…” Arad stood, “But we still have to find the sewer entrance.” He looked outside. “Yeah… that might need to wait. Let’s head back to the cave. Gojo, you need to rest well.”

Haru was resting fast, and soon he’ll be able to fight at full power again. But Gojo was still injured and needed rest. He wanted to find the sewers today so they could start digging as soon as possible, but that doesn’t seem feasible anymore.

Gojo smiled. “Worried about me? I’m fine.” He turned toward the Ice Brood Mother. “Now, lady Crawler. Do you know where we could find that?”

Gojo had already named her. He never had a problem coming up with names, because he never thought them through. To him, a spider is a bug that crawls around, so the Ice Brood Mother should be named Crawler. If she wants that name changed, she can do that herself later on.

As expected, the Ice Brood Mother couldn’t understand human speech, and she just stared at them in confusion. Luckily, Gojo had spells to converse with monsters, like the one he used with the Yetis. Those spells were simple, but hard to use.

Monsters weren’t intelligent in the same way humans were; they couldn’t understand speech by nature. So, the easiest way to converse with them is through emotions, instincts, and magic signals. Using that spell, Gojo tried his best to convey the meaning of sewer to the Ice Brood Mother, and after a while, she seemed to get it. Even though for a while she was only thinking about food.

“Good, lead us there.” She reluctantly started moving and rushed forward, prompting the two to follow her. Arad and Gojo knew it was bad to keep looking for the sewers in the current state, but if Crawler could lead them directly to it, then the extra effort would be worth it. They can confirm the entrance’s location, and then immediately return to the cave to rest and recover.

But as they moved, Eris spoke in Arad’s head. “Are you two sure trusting that spider is a good thing?” She sounded worried. “Not that I have anything against her, but I think she might be a tad bit too… lacking in the knowledge department.”

Arad kept moving, but asked right back. “What do you mean?”

“Her mind, it’s scrambled like an omelette. First, all of her memories of anything that happened more than a few days ago are fake, and Gojo might’ve scrambled her brain even further during their fight.” She paused for a second. “Don’t forget. Yog has created this entire world, with all of its monsters, with magic. They are real, but they didn’t exist until recently.”

Looking at it like this, Arad could understand how scary Yog’s power is. All of the troubles they had here were because of her. She could’ve just created a safe place for them to rest and wait; in fact, Gojo’s island was safer.

“So, what do you mean? She is an agent of Yog?”

“No… I’m saying there is no way she’ll know what a sewer is.” As those words rang in Arad’s head, Crawler finally stopped. They were at the place she wanted to lead them to. The place she thinks Gojo wants to find.

It took them a whole five minutes to reach the place, a massive hole that reeked to the sky, and just by standing at the edge, Gojo felt that he was about to faint. Turning around, he grabbed the Ice Brood Mother by the nose and pulled her toward him.

“This isn’t it! I asked for where the human dumped their waste, not where you dump yours. What would I do with your shit hole here?” He sighed, then never took a breath. “Let’s leave.”

Eris was right. The Ice Brood Mother knew the forest well, but she had no idea what they were looking for. It was like asking Arad to look for Mr Burny, who Arad knew nothing about. Who is Mr Burny? It’s Gojo’s teddy bear, a gift he received from Lucy months ago. A mix between a rabbit and a bear, as large as a melon.

They rushed back and found themselves having achieved nothing. The Ice Brood Mother can’t lead them where they want to go. It was simple, just as Eris predicted; she didn’t understand or know what they were looking for. More likely than not, the sewer entrance is already buried deep underground.

Time was running out, and so they decided to stop it here and go back. They’ll need time to travel after all, and Gojo was all but wanting to take a dip in the hot water and sleep for hours after overexerting himself like this.

Gojo could walk, but not for long. And even if they were willing to let Crawler suffer a bit, Arad was against it if it was unnecessary; otherwise, Mira would kill him. So, in the end, he carried them both on his back and walked.

To Arad’s surprise, Crawler weighed just as much as a human of her size would in her humanoid form. Usually, that wasn’t the case, and only a few monsters could achieve such a perfect human form. If she weighed several tons, Arad would’ve been happy to let her suffer and walk.

In the end, no monster attacked them on the way back, because Crawler’s mere aura was enough to scare most of them away. Not to mention, a battalion of powerful briders was always following them to keep their Queen safe.