Chapter 43: The SS-Class Criminal
"It's changed a lot, nya~" A black-haired busty catgirl mewed, lying casually on top of one of the many towering trees in the Familiar Forest. Below her, a collection of short men worked with evil-looking chipmunks to build a rather modern-looking house.
Kuroka was well acquainted with the Familiar Forest. In fact, she was likely more acquainted with it than nearly any other devil in the entire underworld.
When she killed her previous master to protect her sister, she had become one of devil society's most wanted criminals. It was rare for any stray devil to be granted the 'S-Class Criminal' ranking in general, but she had gone beyond that to get the almost-unused 'SS-Class Criminal.'
As a result, her face was plastered around the entire underworld and a huge reward was put out for her capture. At first, she had been strong enough to defend herself from anyone who was unlucky enough to be hunting her, but that couldn't last forever.
The reward wasn't large enough to draw the attention of any truly powerful devils, as any high or ultimate-class devils who could pose a serious risk of capturing her tended to have immense wealth already, but the constant running and fighting eventually took a toll on her. She needed somewhere to hide, and the Familiar Forest was the perfect hiding spot.
Just the requirements to enter the forest and look for a familiar - which included either having money, prestige, power, or connections - eliminated a large number of her hunters. Beyond that, the majority of the forest was off-limits because of the Maou's agreement with the Dragon King Tiamat.
That agreement wasn't well known, but Kuroka had learned a lot of things weren't public knowledge during her time as a criminal. She had spent a couple of months holed up in the forest as the heat around her name died down, then eventually managed to escape to the human world.
Now, she was back here, lounging on the very top of a tree, because she needed a peaceful place to consider her options.
After reaching the human world, she had been recruited by this generation's White Dragon Emperor: Vali Lucifer. The current group was filled with other powerful members, most of whom could at least match, if not exceed, even her in pure fighting power.
For a while, the group had been rather... stagnant. They were a 'team' in name, but they never really did anything. Kuroka didn't mind that - it wasn't like she was a truly evil or violent person. She had just joined the group for protection more than anything.
But recently they had been recruited by another group: The Khaos Brigade.