A deafening roar shook the royal palace. Arthur II and his cohort of loyal knights observed from the terrace as the dragon flew overhead, lowering closer to the capital with each passing second.

  The guards' quivering hands strained to keep the bows tensile. It hadn't launched any breath attacks or thrown any fireballs, but that could change any second.

  Arthur could see from his vantage point the faces of the citizens in his city—combatants and others—darkened by the grim prospect. The adventurer's guild manager issued orders to the high-ranking individuals, but against a catastrophe-level threat like a red dragon, there simply weren't enough numbers.

  The bankers hid in their vaults and the insurance companies' operatives prepared their void clauses.

  Arthur could see his capital set ablaze, the exquisite, baroque, and lavish architecture turned to rubble under the dragon's weight. Every time the dragon swiped his tail, the kingdom would suffer hundreds of thousands of gold coins in infrastructural damage, and they were already indebted to numerous creditors.

  The red scales on the dragon's body shimmered under the sun like fire rubies—a natural armor as strong as adamantium, if not even tougher. There would be no money for reparations, and the nobles would spark public outrage by raising their taxes, which would compound with his own inflated taxes.

  The dragon settled by the palace and stared at him with its door-sized, gilded azure eyes. The court magician threw a sidelong look, the wizard troops in line, ready to spring into action. Arthur gulped. If it attacked, maybe, pooling every resource, they would manage to drive it out, maybe even wound it severely so it would retreat, but the kingdom would default, revolt and starvation would ensue, and the other kingdoms would seize the opportunity to take over their land. Even winning, they'd lose.

  "Human King," it uttered. Its grave voice made him flinch instinctively. A dragon, the apex predator, a nation-wide calamity. If he could negotiate, even depleting the treasure would be better—buy them time. The third princess had barely any political value; maybe she would work as a bribe. "Yes," Arthur thought. "Maybe, if I offered my youngest daughter—"

  "I would like to make a request," the dragon's voice thundered.

  Arthur gripped his legendary, royal sword. Dragons had never been reasonable creatures; they were greedy, sadistic even. If push came to shove, he'd make sure the dragon paid.

  "What is it?" he spat, feigning bravado.

  "I want to become a citizen of your kingdom."

  Silence. A gust of wind blew past as everyone collected their thoughts.

  "What!?"

  "You heard me. Point me to your customs office. I wish to be issued an official identification chart."

  The king's mind spun trying to figure out the thing's angle, but he didn't find anything solid, just the whimsical delusion of a magic beast. He laughed a bit and commanded his guards to lower their weapons.

  "With pleasure, my scaled friend. We will issue an official chart for you, and as a sign of good faith, we will not impose property tax for three entire months!"

  The dragon smirked. The foolish king had made a decision that would ultimately cause his downfall, and all it took was a piece of paper that acknowledged the dragon as a citizen.

  ***

  Ophion sighed while taking in the stench of the latest party of fools—another set of rogues and thieves that tried to lay claim to his magnificent hoard. He gestured to the trembling kobold in a corner to pick up any artifacts that hadn't been rendered useless by the fire and toss them into the pile with the others. An assortment of goblins, gremlins, and gnomes carefully polished every gold and silver coin, jewel, and magical artifact, keeping a tidy record and sorting by comfiness—but Ophion wasn't happy. Every other week, adventurers would come, kill his precious minions, stain everything with blood and smoke, and most importantly, disturb his sacred sleep schedule.

  Nodding to himself, he realized that as long as he remained a monster, humans would come to try to steal his property, so he came to the very natural solution: stop being a monster.

  His kobolds had informed him that reputable nobles didn't suffer from adventurer raids, and that each could be easily identifiable by a paper called a "validation chart" issued by other nobles, sometimes by the king himself.

  Attaining it was surprisingly easy. He flew to the capital and simply demanded the chart be given to him, to which the humans naturally complied.

  But as he returned to his lair, the words kept ringing in his ear: "property tax." He blinked repeatedly as Tinknob explained to him that to maintain the kingdom's infrastructure—roads, guards, construction—the king demanded a portion of everyone's income and of everyone's property.

  "I heard that Arthur has raised the property tax this year to 5 percent, boss," Tinknob said. "Royal accountants will probably come at some point to assess the value of your, err, hoard, so the king can take a claim."

  Ophion did mental math, thinking that if his hoard shrank by five percent every year, then in twenty years his hoard would be gone completely! His eyes burned like the tip of a dwarven welding torch. No, wait, that's not right... He redid the math and, imagining the tax collector stealing every piece, it would take longer than twenty years, probably twice as much.

  "But still! That goes against the entire purpose of the operation! Tinknob, we will refuse to pay this tax thing. We don't use roads anyway; let the humans pay for them!"

  "Err... My lord, if you refuse to pay taxes, the king will rule you out as a citizen and just enforce a seizure of the hoard..."

  Realizing the laws that he had hoped would protect his hoard would turn against him, he shouted, "No, impossible! How is this any different from theft?"

  "Well..."

  "Never mind. Humans are thieves, I get that. Can't we just hide the hoard where they can't find it?"

  Tinknob looked around the lair, large as a colosseum to fit the dragon's enormous size, all filled to the brim with riches.

  "I don't think that's a practical approach, boss."

  "Tsk." He looked up at the ceiling and started thinking of possibilities to solve his new, crowned thief problem. His eyes suddenly sparkled.

  "I got it! We must become a church. I know from all the gold I've plundered from churches that they don't pay a dime in taxes."

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  Tinknob furrowed his brows, seriously considering the option.

  "I'm not sure, boss... To qualify, we would need a divinity to worship—"

  "Me, of course."

  "—Yeah, and we would need holy scriptures, you see, a doctrine book that your believers would read in ceremonies," he gestured to the dragon, trying to convey how important this part was.

  "I guess I could write something up, if it's to protect the hoard. Ah, this option is looking more and more promising. We could even ask for donations, increase the hoard, make people pay to see me, the great God."

  "Well, boss, there's one more thing..." He winced preemptively and quickly shot out in a chain: "We need to make weekly charity events, donate money or goods to the poor and needy; otherwise we wouldn't be exempt from taxes."

  The dragon didn't rage again. He simply lost himself in thought, calculating how to solve this new conundrum.

  ***

  "My lord," a faithful attendant and dutiful son of the archduke reported to Arthur II, barely a few weeks after the incident. "It's the dragon again."

  Arthur raised his bushy, gray eyebrows. He had expected that the dragon would back down on his citizenship by the time the first tax collection was issued; he even expected to lose an assessor to the charade—but he didn't expect it so early.

  "So soon? Barely the thought of paying taxes must be as unnatural to the beast as bathing in lava is to us." He rose from his throne and calmly prepared for the second confrontation. He hadn't been idle, and the dragon hunt prospect had attracted a dozen brave, eager, high-ranked adventurers. It still wasn't ideal, but he could win. "I didn't hear him roar, nor were there clamors outside. Is the beast so delusional that it begin traveling by carriage?"

  "No, my lord. The dragon isn't here."

  "No? Then why did you startle me?"

  "Well, I don't know how to express it, but..."

  Arthur skimmed through the report, each passing word making his eyes bulge to the point it seemed they'd pop out their sockets.

  Biting his dry lips, he growled "That bastard... He's trying to avoid the taxes! But how...?"

  ***

  The merchant guild administrator of the Mistlake town shuffled through paperwork, glancing over his stack at the giant lizard perched on the town's walls, just outside the guild's building.

  "Just to make sure, you want to create a company?"

  "That's right."

  "He wants a company." Whispering to himself, he shook his head, searching for the right formularies. "What type of activities will this company of yours be engaging in?"

  Ophion narrowed his eyes.

  "Various activities."

  The merchant sighed.

  "That category doesn't exist, Dragon."

  "Fine art and artifacts appraisal."

  "Sure, why not. Name of the company?"

  "Dragon's Share, Corp."

  "Of course. You want to file it under corporation, then?"

  "Yes."

  The manager dropped the stack of papers to the side and raised his hands, sighing again.

  "Well, congratulations, you're now a proud, scaled corporate. Now, if there's nothing else I can help you with..."

  As the man started walking away, the dragon spoke again.

  "I would like to recategorize my hoard as Dragon Stock's startup investment."

  The man reluctantly got the pen back and started writing.

  "And I would like to hire one of your underwriters to assess the capital's value... So I can securitize."

  "What?" The man dropped the pen back down. "You want to sell stocks? Oh... Dragon's Share."

  Ophion nodded proudly. A large part of the week he had mulled over the name, most of them revolving around his status as a dragon or the hoard itself.

  "Do I need to come back here to sell the shares or to get the papers?"

  It had been a challenging decision, but he had reluctantly decided not to hold onto 100 percent of the stocks. All part of the strategy, naturally.

  The man hesitated but finally concluded, "You're not required to come during the initial public offering, but you should state to the underwriter how many shares you're willing to sell. Then, we will ship the remaining papers to your, uh, domicile?"

  Ophion smirked again. The plan was coming along greatly.

  ***

  The knight stood before Ophion, holding his gleaming sword against the smirking red dragon. His eyes darted through the room, past the quivering minions sorting the coins, thinking of how many lives all that money could purchase.

  "You greedy beast! I've come to stop you! Hand over the treasure!"

  "You fool, I've no treasure. It's all tied to the market. My wealth is merely speculative, hypothetical..."

  "What...?"

  "See for yourself!" With a flick of his hand, a gilded paper piece fluttered to the knight's feet. Over the dragon's thumbs-up drawing, the bold letters: "Dragon's Share."

  "This certifies Ophion as the owner of one share in the capital stock..." The knight read with disbelief.

  "Now, you're trespassing on a kingdom citizen's house. I would be in my right to defend myself, or I could even take legal action..." Ophion's eye sparkled. He pointed at the knight's pouch, and seeing himself cornered, he huffed and gave the coin purse to the dragon. "Guess I'll let you go for now, knight. On my good faith, ha, ha, ha!"

  The knight had to leave empty-handed, piping hot with indignation that a killer, a monster, was a legitimate, untouchable business owner.

  "Where was I...?" Stifling his laughter, Ophion mused. "Ah, yes. Hey, Tinknob." The dragon flipped a coin to the kobold, who was hiding somewhere in the hoard.

  "Oh, I'll clean it right away, boss."

  "No, Tinknob. That one is yours."

  The kobold looked at the dragon with suspicion. He had served under three different dragons, and none had ever given him anything but food scraps. Even that was considered generous.

  "I don't need gold, boss. Just serving you is payment enough."

  The dragon laughed.

  "By hiring you as an employee of Dragon's Share, I'm making it more difficult for the king to pierce the corporate veil that protects the hoard, and besides..."

  Still smiling, Ophion pointed at a chart he had been studying for days.

  "We're both eligible for tax returns."

  ***

  Arthur, struck the table with his solid fist. The mind of the Hero-King, readily for monster slaying and battlefield dominion couldn't wrap itself around what was happening on his own land.

  "What do you mean we have to pay that damn overgrown lizard? He's supposed to pay us taxes! Pay the kingdom!"

  The minister of labor sweated profusely. "Well, you see, my lord, the dragon is technically below the minimum annual salary and he's filed both EITC for the kobold workforce and WOTC for Dragon's Share, Corp..."

  "Wick, whack, woke! All nonsense you're talking!"

  "My lord, have you forgotten the decree you issued yourself a year after claiming the throne?"

  Arthur tried to remember. A foggy memory came from what must have been decades ago.

  "The low-wage workers were starving because of regressive taxes on consumption goods, so we tried creating a basic goods tax exception, only for adventurers to panic-buy and hoard all of them, starving the people..."

  "You're remembering? What happened then, my lord?" The minister was walking a fine line, but Arthur allowed it.

  "We created a tax credit system for the low-wage laborers, but even then other taxes ate them up, so we made the credit returnable..."

  "And then?"

  "Ugh... I should've been like my younger brother, just killing things in dungeons instead of getting myself into this headache."

  "Then the small business owners started to complain, since as individual workers they paid fewer taxes and had fewer liabilities and risks. 'Why own a shop when just working for someone else is more profitable?' is what they said, but that caused a recession and decrease in productivity, which led to the 511 mass starvation..."

  "Yeah, yeah. It rings a bell..."

  "Now all low-wage workers and low-income businesses depend on the Earned Income Tax Credits, which is what the dragon filed for the kobolds, as they can't write themselves, which also triggered our other measure..."

  "Oh, no. What did I do now?" Arthur pulled his disheveled grey hair and sighed

  "It wasn't a bad thing, my lord. When refugees from the Camila Kingdom migrated due to its collapse, businesses refused to hire them because of social resentment, just like they did to other marginalized sectors of the kingdom, but on a larger, impossible-to-ignore scale..."

  The king simply stared at the palace floor tiling.

  "So you created the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, which rewarded businesses for offering marginalized sectors of society job opportunities—sectors like illiterate, discriminated kobolds..."

  "But those aren't refundable! We shouldn't be handing over gold to the dragon because of that!"

  "Which is why the dragon simply used the credits to offset the royal security cut on the Initial Public Offering of stocks, and all the royal underwriting and marketing fees. The dragon, or more accurately, his company, is now a creditor to the kingdom."

  "What are you saying?"

  "We owe him money, my lord. We can try to stall, call in audits, but this will ultimately just postpone the inevitable."

  "Can't we just tax him on the dividends, the profit he's making off his so-called company? We know it's a fake to avoid taxes; he's going to want to liquidate eventually!"

  "He's made a no-dividend clause. All profits are reinvested in the company, according to his ledgers."

  "What company! It's literally just a pile of gold in his lair!"

  "Actually, my lord..."