Chapter 34: A Chance Encounter...?
'This place feels super ominous...' thought Vahn, raising his gaze to the sky above, populated by a swirling mass of black clouds that produced an eerie crimson glow that seemed to encompass the entire world. To make things even creepier, the forest they had teleported to seemed devoid of life, the trees an endless sea of gnarled wooden flesh and leafless fingers stretching to a sky that offered no clemency.
"I-Is this place the Familiar Forest...?" asked Issei, swallowing nervously as he, similar to Vahn and Asia, felt like the sky would suddenly open and swallow them whole.
"Vahn-sama..." muttered Asia, grasping Vahn's sleeve and moving closer to him from behind as Rias assured, "There's no need to be frightened. While it's true that the Familiar Forest is exceptionally dangerous, what you're seeing right now is the result of a barrier created by the Dragon Queen, Tiamat. It causes the forest's inhabitants to behave significantly more docile than usual, so unless you go out of your way to antagonize or provoke them, there is little danger."
"That's right...!" exclaimed a deep, enthusiastic, and masculine voice, prompting everyone to look up at a spindly, middle-aged man standing on the twisted branch of a large tree. He had neck-length red hair fixed into a low ponytail, beady black eyes, and large eyebrows, but his most notable feature was his clothing. Despite appearing to be in his late fifties, maybe even early sixties, he wore a white tank top, black cargo shorts, a green sweater fastened around his waist, white socks, brown sneakers, green fingerless gloves, and a blue, inverted baseball cap with a large yellow rucksack. In essence, he dressed like a middle schooler trapped within the body of an old man...
"W-Who goes there...!?" exclaimed Issei, prompting the man to point to himself with his thumb and respond, "I'm the Familiar Master, Zatoushi! And welcome to the Familiar Forest, Young Devils!"
Though it was fairly obvious from the man's title, Akeno took it upon herself to explain, "Zatoushi-sama is one of the foremost experts when it comes to Familiars. At age ten, he set out from his hometown with the goal of capturing and taming every Familiar in the world. And thanks to his efforts and advances in the fields of Familiar Breeding, many at-risk and endangered species of Familiars have gradually started to recover to stable populations."
"Ho-ho, this Ojou-sama is well-informed," remarked Zatoushi, rubbing the underside of his nose with a broad, extremely wrinkled smile before front-flipping down from his perch, dropping well over thirty feet but somehow landing softly, barely producing a muffled pa.
Striking another pose with his thumb pointing at himself, Zatoushi exuded the enthusiasm of someone much younger as he asserted, "Stick with this Zatoushi-sama, and any Familiar you desire is yours for the getting! Gotta get 'em all!"
Seeing Zatoushi form a G with his hands, Vahn exhaled from his nose, a smile adorning his face as he thought, 'He's got a lot of spirit...and the air around him is strangely pleasant. Is he carrying some kind of incense...?'
"So, which of you young'uns is here to obtain a Familiar?" asked Zatoushi, crossing his arms and inspecting the members of the ORC. He met with a lot of different Devils, so while he felt that Rias was familiar due to her red hair, he couldn't remember what she had contracted.
"It's this lucky young man right here," said Rias, gesturing to Issei as she explained, "He's only been a Devil for a short while, but he's been working hard to improve. I thought a Familiar would make a suitable reward."