More than an hour later...
It was already late. In a few more hours, dawn would come.
The Underworld had no sun and no moon, but its flow of time was deliberately synchronized to the human world. That setup existed for the sake of reincarnated devils and the devils who lived in the human world, so the Underworld also had the concepts of day and night. No one had to worry about the two worlds having completely opposite schedules and throwing everything into chaos.
Only now did Leo's group finally leave the Familiar Forest and make their way back to the forest entrance.
"I didn't think it'd end up taking this long. So much for planning ahead."
Leo glanced at the sky and scratched his head with a wry smile.
They still had school tomorrow. At this point, by the time they rushed back and got any sleep, it wouldn't be much at all.
"But it's not like we came away empty-handed, right?"
Yukino stroked the ice cat in her arms, her expression uncharacteristically soft.
A lot had happened tonight, but in Yukino's eyes, it had all been worth it.
Not only had she contracted a familiar she really liked, Asuna and Utaha had also successfully made contracts with familiars that suited them. Both girls were currently playing with them, looking very satisfied.
Asuna was teasing the Fairy perched on her shoulder, while Utaha was playing with a certain owl.
It was pure white from head to toe, with round eyes that gleamed with intelligence and wisdom.
This owl was the familiar Tiamat had helped Utaha find.
Since ancient times, owls had always been considered symbols and incarnations of wisdom. Many gods of wisdom had owls as their sacred or divine beasts, serving by their side. The most famous, of course, was the goddess of wisdom Athena from Greek myth, who practically used owls as her personal emblem.
The Familiar Forest happened to be home to a group of owls originating from Greece. It was said they carried the bloodline of those owls that once served as the sacred or divine beasts of the gods. As a result, they were born with extremely high intelligence and spiritual awareness, making them one of the most intelligent races in the entire Familiar Forest.
They didn't have much combat power, but they possessed a special ability: they could remember everything they saw and transmit it to others. On top of that, they had the ability to freely enter and leave almost any place. Even the barrier between the human world and the Underworld couldn't stop them from flying. As long as they wished it, they could move between the human world and the Underworld at will. They were the perfect tools for carrying messages and recording information, adored by everyone who needed to contract a familiar.
They also had a trait that guaranteed they would never get lost. No matter how remote a place might be, they could follow their master's orders and accurately deliver messages to any destination. If you made eye contact with their eyes, your mind would instantly clear and sharpen, making them practically a holy relic to all writers and artists.
Unfortunately, actually forming a contract with one of them was extremely difficult.
Because of their outstanding intellect, they were only drawn to people as calm and clever as themselves. Idiots and mediocrities would never catch their interest and would even be scorned and rejected. If someone tried to grab one by force, it would immediately slip into the void and disappear, then reappear by that person's side when they least expected it and exact revenge, directly or indirectly, until they were completely miserable.
So even though this group of owls was the dream familiars of countless people, very few ever successfully gained their favor and formed a contract with them.
And since these owls could freely move through different spaces and even between worlds, simply tracking them down was already incredibly hard, let alone contracting with them.
As a result, even though there were people who knew such owls lived in the Familiar Forest in the Underworld, the number of people who actually managed to take one away as a familiar was extremely small.
Leo hadn't expected to contract this kind of familiar at all. But when Tiamat heard Utaha's request, she disappeared for barely ten minutes before coming back with this owl. No one knew what method she used, but she somehow convinced it to willingly recognize Utaha as its master and agree to a contract, leaving even Leo stunned.
What else could he say? She really was the hidden ruler of the Familiar Forest. Her connections were outrageous.
But when he thought about the favor Tiamat had asked in return, Leo's head started to ache again.
"I want you to help me get one of my treasures back."
That was the first thing Tiamat said to them after inviting the group into her home.
Tiamat had once possessed many treasures.
Or rather, every legendary dragon had once possessed many treasures.
Some dragons simply had that habit. They loved collecting treasures from all over the world and piling them up in their lairs, turning their homes into treasure vaults. Countless myths and legends mentioned this.
History wasn't lacking in dragon-slaying heroes who, after defeating a dragon, found mountains of gold and jewels in its cave. That was thanks to this treasure-hoarding habit of legendary dragons.
The most famous case was the Evil Dragon Fafnir, known as the "Golden Dragon King." His title alone said everything about how much he loved treasure and how rich he was.
In the past, this Dragon King had been slain by the dragon-slaying hero Siegfried, then later resurrected by the Norse gods. From then on, he became the only Dragon King openly willing to form long-term contracts with others. As long as someone offered him a precious enough treasure, they could form a contract with him and command his power.
Tiamat had also collected a vast number of treasures in the past, but those treasures had eventually all been "borrowed" by the Red Dragon Emperor of the Two Heavenly Dragons.
And once they were borrowed, they never came back.
After all, both the Red Dragon Emperor and the White Dragon Emperor had been defeated, their bodies destroyed and their souls sealed into Sacred Gears. The treasures Tiamat lent out naturally ended up lost, scattered across the world—claimed by others or disappearing without a trace.
Over the years, Tiamat had tried searching for those treasures, but it was like trying to put out a wildfire with a cup of water. In the end, the number she managed to recover was pitifully small.
This time, by a twist of fate, she met Leo. That was when Tiamat had the idea of asking him to help retrieve one particular treasure from among many.
"That treasure is called the Tablet of Destiny. It has the power to see the future and record the rising and setting of the stars."
That was how Tiamat explained it to Leo.
"Among all my treasures, it's one of the truly special ones. I lent it out twice in the past—once to a Sumerian god named Kingu, and once to the Red Dragon Emperor of the Two Heavenly Dragons."
When she got to this part, Tiamat was practically grinding her teeth.
According to her, both times she lent out the Tablet of Destiny, it ended up getting lost.
The first time, it was stolen by the Sumerian chief god Marduk. Tiamat had gone to demand it back personally, and the two sides had fought so fiercely she'd almost died at his hands. With no other choice, she had to ask the then–Heavenly Dragon, the Red Dragon Emperor, to intervene and help her take it back.
The second time was when she lent it to the Red Dragon Emperor. It was taken along with her other treasures, and when the Red Dragon Emperor was later defeated, all the treasures on him vanished. Her treasures never returned.
These days, Tiamat had basically given up hope of reclaiming everything. But if she had the chance, she still wanted to retrieve those treasures that had once belonged to her, one by one.
The Tablet of Destiny was the treasure she most wanted to find recently, and that was why she had set her sights on Leo.
"Come on… you're the strongest Dragon King. Why ask a newbie High-Class Devil like me to handle something like this?"
Leo really couldn't wrap his head around it.
But Tiamat had her own reasoning.
"Because the last person to possess the Tablet of Destiny was the previous wielder of Zenith Tempest."
And that was why Tiamat wanted to entrust this to Leo.
"The previous wielder of Zenith Tempest?"
Leo had been stunned at the time.
Was the world really that small?
"After the previous wielder of Zenith Tempest died, the Tablet of Destiny vanished again. I tried tracking it for a while, but I found absolutely nothing."
Tiamat had fixed Leo with a burning gaze as she said this.
"You're that person's successor. If it's you, you might be able to find some kind of clue."
It was basically a desperate gamble.
At least, that was what Leo and the three girls—Yukino and the others—had all thought at the time.
Still, Tiamat was very straightforward about it.
"I really am out of options, so this is all I can do. Just do your best. If you manage it, I'll fulfill my promise and give you those two children. If you can't, that's fine too. We'll just pretend this never happened."
From that angle, Leo was actually getting the better end of the deal.
Even if he couldn't complete the task, Tiamat had still helped his servants obtain some very rare familiars. No matter how he looked at it, he came out ahead.
That said, after hearing Tiamat praise those two "children" so much, Leo was still a little disappointed he hadn't gotten them.
To make it worse, Tiamat was deliberately keeping him in suspense. She wouldn't even let Leo see them, only saying that she would introduce them to him once the job was done.
That had Leo itching with curiosity, to the point he wanted to hang this Dragon King up and beat some answers out of her.
"What are you going to do?" Utaha looked like she really had gotten smarter after playing with the owl. She saw right through Leo's troubles in an instant. "Are you seriously going to help that Dragon King look for some tablet?"
Yukino and Asuna both turned to Leo as well.
"We'll see." Leo thought it over, but in the end he didn't abandon it outright. "I'll at least try. If it doesn't work out, then I'll give up."
He was feeling pretty lost, but that didn't mean he had no ideas at all.
Don't forget, he had already received feedback from the Sacred Gear twice now. Through Zenith Tempest, he had gained the experiences and memories of many previous wielders using it in battle.
Maybe, if this continued, he could obtain even more memories—and maybe one of them would lead him to the Tablet of Destiny.
"Let's head back." Leo pushed the matter aside for now. "We'll talk about it after we get a good night's sleep."
The girls all nodded in unison, agreeing with the plan.
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