The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 13 Read online

  “No more of him, I suppose…”

  Kotaro was a college student, Chiho in high school. One would think their relatively close ages would let them hit it off more, but the two had never engaged in any particularly deep conversation. They weren’t enemies, of course, and they talked well enough when they shared a shift. Kotaro, the more experienced of the two, had given her training on more than one occasion even.

  But—looking impartially back—apart from the university he went to, the fact he lived somewhere in Hatagaya, and the video games he played as a hobby, Chiho knew nothing about Kotaro Nakayama. She wasn’t a gamer at all, so they couldn’t talk about that, and when it came to chatting about college life, he was more than likely to do that with fellow student crewmembers Takefumi Kawata and Akiko Ohki.

  In more private matters, there was one time when Chiho had mentioned she was on the school team for kyudo, the Japanese martial art of archery, and Kotaro replied that his girlfriend practiced Western archery. They then chatted for a while about bow-and-arrow sports—something they kind of but not really had in common. But even that was just ten minutes or so during break, it felt to her.

  Really, when it came to veteran part-timer Kotaro Nakayama, Chiho could summarize everything she knew about him in the space of a few minutes. But even so, he was still part of her life, something she treated as a given—and now he was threatening to disappear from memory for good.

  It was, to her, quite a surprise. In a way, it felt kind of like when she graduated from middle school. It wasn’t like she was besties with the entire student body, but in the space of a single day, the people she always hung out with were gone. It created an unsettling sense of loss.

  “What’s up, Chi? What’re you scowling at?”

  “Oh! Ms. Kisaki…”

  Mayumi Kisaki, the manager, strolled into the room, removing her hat and earpiece. Chiho looked up at her.

  “I was just copying my schedule into my notebook, and I noticed that Kota’s shift isn’t on here anymore.”

  “Ah, yeah. I kinda hoped he’d stay on the rest of the year, but even with job interviews and stuff starting later for students than they used to, I guess he really wanted that extra month to balance his course load with all the other prep work he had. That’s gonna be a hard hole in the schedule to plug up with new staff, too. It’s a big headache.”

  Kisaki didn’t seem too affected by it, but when it came to work, she absolutely never joked or told lies to her staff. Kotaro’s absence did produce a major hole. With the Hatagaya location in particular, the shift schedule was one thing, but having someone so intimate with all aspects of MgRonald operations depart put that much extra stress on everyone else’s shoulders.

  “Are you off for today, Ms. Kisaki?” Chiho asked as Kisaki began undoing her tie.

  “Nah, there’s an emergency regional meeting at another location after this. At this time of the day, no less. Marko’s off today, too, so I hope we don’t have an emergency here.”

  She looked at the clock and sighed. Having the main manager out of the restaurant just before the dinner rush made everyone on staff nervous, to say nothing of the other managers not on-site today. With Maou not making any appearance all day, Kisaki honestly wished she could ditch this meeting. In a business like this, having a single person disappear, or not be there, often wound up having much greater impact than at first glance.

  “Around the dinner rush, pretty much every location has to deal with personnel shortages…even as our workload keeps going up. If things get any worse, we might have to assign shifts to some of the corporate front office staff.” She shrugged. “When it rains, it pours, huh? I got a bunch of other stuff to wrap up, too, so I won’t be back today. I’ll have my phone on for emergencies, so if anything comes up, just ask Kawacchi or Aki or Saemi, okay?”

  “Oh… All right.”

  Her not being back today struck Chiho in a way Kisaki didn’t intend at all. It made the wrinkles around her eyebrows deepen even further. Seeing this, Kisaki (for a change) found it difficult to piece the correct words together.

  “Yeah… Though, speaking of, if you think something like that’s gonna happen with you, Chi, please let me know sooner than later.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  Chiho didn’t quite get her point.

  “To be honest, Chi, I really hope you won’t fall away from your current schedule, if at all possible—but that’s probably not gonna happen, huh?”

  “Oh?”

  Chiho tilted her head a bit. She never recalled asking for new shifts or extended time off. But it made Kisaki look all the more flustered.

  “It’s winter of your next-to-last year in high school, isn’t it? I bet all your friends are going crazy with college admissions by now.”

  “College… Ah?!”

  She yelped a little louder than she meant, as she finally got Kisaki’s gist.

  “You’re the one in high school, aren’t you?” Kisaki smiled a bit, realizing Chiho honestly had no clue. “I don’t wanna impose on you simply because you forgot about that, but keep it in mind, all right? It’ll be your last year soon, starting in April. I know how much you worry about that kinda thing, so I doubt you aren’t treating it seriously. Once you have to start studying for college exams for real, that’s gonna hurt your shift schedule, right?”

  “Y-yeah, I guess it will.”

  Chiho realized her heart was racing—as if someone had leaped out from around a street corner and yelled, “Boo!” Just the other day, at Emi’s friend’s place, she had been made to think about the exact same thing—but if the topic shocked her that much this time, then all those ideas of college and exams must have still felt like a distant world to her. Kisaki knew it concerned Chiho greatly, even more than her own family, teachers, or friends knew. It had come up in the middle of her job interview, and Chiho had asked for advice from her manager about the subject several times before.

  “Well, when…when the time comes…I’ll definitely talk about it with you.”

  “Great, thank you. It’s for your sake as well, after all.”

  Then, without another word, Kisaki went into the changing room. Hearing her boss close the door behind her, Chiho took a peek at the scene on the dining floor.

  “When…I won’t be here any longer…”

  It hadn’t even been a year since she’d begun working here, but sooner or later, she would be leaving the MgRonald family. Chiho didn’t know when, but it was definitely coming—and that unavoidable truth felt like a snake coiling itself around her chest. There wasn’t any outside air, but it still felt like a cold gust of wind was coming over her. She buttoned up the puffy coat she wore on her way to work and sighed.

  “Oh, you’re still here?”

  “Eeep!”

  Chiho leaped into the air at the sensation of someone patting her shoulder from behind.

  “Pretty bundled up, huh?”

  Kisaki, in her trench coat, gave Chiho a curious look. The teenager hadn’t stopped at just her coat—from head to toe, there was hardly a square inch of skin that wasn’t covered in several layers.

  Chiho meekly explained, “Oh, um, I’m going somewhere else after this, so…”

  “Ah. Well, stay warm out there. It’s already dark out, so don’t stay out too long.”

  Chiho nodded at the grown-up advice. Kisaki stood next to her, peeking into the restaurant space like Chiho was doing.

  “If you don’t mind me saying…”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t think this is someplace you should be intent with staying at forever. It’s merely a stepping-stone in your life—for you, for Marko, for Saemi, and for me, too. Everyone needs to find their own place to settle down, you know?”

  “…But it hasn’t even been a year for me.”

  Kisaki smiled at the way Chiho assessed her words. “Well, if it seems like just yesterday since you started working here, then I guess you’re liking it, huh? But don’t be afraid to f
ret over it. It might seem like you’re surrounded by a bunch of older people who’ve got it all figured out, but they all have the same worries you do, really. Things like, Did I make the right decision back then? or Am I going to make the right call from now on? and all that.”

  Hearing this made Chiho realize exactly how obvious it seemed, but until she did, it was difficult for her to even imagine it. She looked at the backs of the MgRonald crewmembers at their stations through the crack in the door and sighed. Guess everybody’s like that. Maybe even Maou and Emi.

  “…Well, I better head off for now.”

  “Sure thing. Take care.”

  Either way, this wasn’t the sort of problem she could solve by endlessly stewing. Chiho bowed to her manager, briskly put her things inside her bag, and left. The air just outside the automatic doors was crisp against her skin, taking the floor space’s warmth away from her cheeks.

  “Am I going to make the right call from now on—huh…?”

  Her sigh melted into the cold air. But she took a decisive step forward anyway.

  “Better hurry.”

  She had to. This was the first day she’d be visiting Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka as part of Maou and Laila’s negotiations.

  One could say the archangel Laila was the original source of the chaos sowed between the two worlds of Earth and Ente Isla—the villain pulling the strings from up above.

  As the mother of Emilia Justina, better known as Emi Yusa around here, Laila had finally appeared before Maou and his cohorts. Having known Miki Shiba for the past sixteen years, she was thought to have a great deal of information about Alas Ramus, Acieth Alla, and Erone, the children born from the Sephirah. The two born from the Yesod Sephirah were, by now, indispensable parts of the local residents’ lives, and to Maou and Emi, Laila was like a walking, talking font of wisdom that couldn’t be more vital to their futures.

  To Emi, however, Laila was also a riddle. On one hand, her mother had forced her to slog her way single-handedly through a litany of chaotic disasters; on the other, this woman before her seemed so goofily irresponsible, not at all the evil puppet master she pictured. It made her refuse to deal with her at all—and Maou was the same, his attitude toward her hardening as he attempted to fish information out of her. They had both fought on the front lines up to now, even as Laila lurked around in the shadows, and their discussions had not only failed to bear fruit—they were drifting even further apart than before.

  And only a few days after she had appeared in their lives, someone had attacked the subway train Emi and Chiho were riding on, a dark shadow of an attacker totally unfazed by Emi’s holy sword and even able to shrug off the powers of Amane Ohguro, child of planet Earth’s Sephirah. Laila seemed to know this shade’s identity, and as Maou and Emi understood the situation, it was yet another symptom of her machinations. It didn’t help relations between them much.

  The one thing the demon and half angel agreed on was that neither of them wanted to be dancing to someone else’s tune any longer. That applied all the more now that the MgRonald they both worked at began offering delivery service after a long run-up period, making it hard enough just to keep up their regular human being lives.

  But they were both half dragged back to the conference table by none other than Miki Shiba and Amane Ohguro. They had captured the shade that had attacked the subway and even gravely injured Laila, reporting to Maou and Emi that the dark fiend was Erone, child of the Sephirah Gevurah paired to Ente Isla. The mystery transformation of his body and Laila’s own secrets certainly weren’t unrelated, and if they continued to ignore the baggage Laila came to Earth with (as she had put it), there was no telling what would happen to Alas Ramus and her sister Acieth Alla.

  Realizing Emi was still reluctant to talk with Laila despite all this, Maou came up with a deal where they would negotiate with the archangel only within the confines of Room 201, with Maou taking Emi’s place at the table and accompanied by either Ashiya, Urushihara, Chi, Acieth, or some combination thereof. Laila claimed what happened to Erone wouldn’t occur to Alas Ramus or Acieth anytime soon, but between that and the danger to Ente Isla’s humanity Shiba had talked about in Urushihara’s hospital room, the future facing Maou and Emi seemed dark, foreboding, inscrutable, and ready to pounce upon them at any moment.

  Chiho had been to Villa Rosa Sasazuka more times than she could count by now, but tonight it seemed like a completely different building to her. It must have been the butterflies at work.

  The light in the windows would normally reassure her that she’d be seeing familiar faces soon; now that light seemed oddly cold and indifferent. Normally she’d be able to hear Ashiya and Suzuno and Urushihara yelling at one another by the time she took her first step up the stairway, but today all was quiet. The landing upstairs almost seemed deserted. No sign of Suzuno or Alas Ramus anywhere. It almost made Chiho feel like everyone dear to her had left her in the lurch, as she gingerly pushed the Room 201 doorbell.

  “Chi? C’mon in. It’s open.”

  She unconsciously let go of a deep breath. The voice sounded wooden in tone, but it was unmistakably Maou’s. The impending (and evidence-free) sense of doom that overcame Chiho made her hang her head a bit, before she recalled the role she was tasked with. Steeling her resolve, she opened the door.

  “Hello, it’s…”

  Then she froze for a few moments.

  “…H-hello, Chiho…”

  “Hey, Chi. Hope your shift went okay.”

  “Close the door. It’s cold.”

  The air was chilly. Not metaphorically, either. There was no draft working its way into the apartment, but the ambient air within Room 201 was a good five degrees or so cooler than outside. That much became eminently clear once Chiho caught sight of the three people waiting for her inside.

  Maou was wearing a wool cap on his head, the zipper on his UniClo superlight fleece hoodie zipped all the way to the top, and he had two pairs of socks on his feet. The layers covering Urushihara, his back to the front door as he sat by his computer desk, made his shoulders padded and frumpy looking. The collars on each layer of his clothing were haphazardly draped over one another, and even then he had another blanket covering his lap. The only one with a normal-looking outfit was Laila; she wore a dress of somewhat thick fabric but otherwise wasn’t shielded from the cold at all. She looked more than a shade paler than before, thanks in part to the way her hair went purple following the subway attack.

  The apartment was so chilly that Chiho wondered if that gelatinous block of demonic force they were storing in the closet had sprung a leak. But it wasn’t—she felt perfectly fine not having to utilize any of her own holy force to block it. The place was just freezing is all.

  “Yeah, see? I told you, when it comes to stuff like this, Chiho never misses a beat. She’s always two or three moves ahead of everyone else in the way she preps for stuff. You should learn from her.”

  “Er…?”

  The enigmatic praise from Maou the moment she came in did nothing to cure Chiho’s confusion.

  “Well,” Laila countered, “how was I supposed to expect this? Didn’t they renovate this apartment several times by now? Why’s it even more freezing than outside?!”

  It was exactly the question Chiho had, and the tenant had a terse answer for it.

  “It’s just that kind of building, man.”

  “…!”

  The archangel was forced into silence by the Devil King’s frosty declaration.

  “Dude, close the door already!” Urushihara called.

  “Oh! Sorry!”

  Chiho hurriedly did so. It did nothing to warm the room up, but it was still apparently enough to satisfy Urushihara.

  “…Did you know about this, Chiho?”

  “About…what?”

  “About…how cold this place is…?”

  “Uhmmm…”

  Chiho gave Laila’s query a level amount of consideration before remembering the outfit she had on herself
: Her favorite earmuffs and scarf. A heavy coat with a sweater under it. Heat-retaining bottoms underneath full-length denim. The low temperature for the day was forecast at around forty degrees, but it’d reached fifty-seven in the afternoon, enough to make her sweat a bit. Right now, though, this wardrobe was perfect for her.

  “I…I didn’t know exactly, but I knew I was coming here in the evening, so I just kind of naturally went with this.”

  “Naturally?”

  This seemed to amaze Laila.

  Maou gave Chiho a satisfied nod. “Yeah, because you know that we don’t have any real heating equipment in here. You see? Chi can prep for this kinda thing, I’m sure, because she knows how to pick up on stuff.”

  “And you’re proud of that?!” Urushihara and Laila muttered at once.

  “You shouldn’t let Maou treat that as a badge of honor, Chiho,” Urushihara went on, feeling confident enough as a local resident to take Laila’s side here.

  “Oh, um, I didn’t mean to…”

  “Well, you are! Thanks to you siding with him, Ashiya’s all obsessed with the idea that we don’t even need a heater!”

  Urushihara took a heavy-looking bag out from beneath his legs.

  “This is a hot-water bottle! He says we don’t even need to bring out the kotatsu table heater until the new year as long as we have this!”

  “Um, well, what’s so bad about that? I use that when I’m sleeping, too…”

  “Yeah, when you’re sleeping! You ever try cuddling with a hot-water bottle all day at home?!”

  “Well, no…”

  “Enough, Urushihara,” Maou interceded. “Chi isn’t wrong. Those things are nice.”

  “They ain’t nice, dude! If all the Devil King’s Army troops who gave their lives in the invasion of Ente Isla heard you say that, Maou, they’d cry their eyes out until they all became withered husks!”

  “Shuddup. We buy an AC or a heater, it’s our bank account that’s gonna dry up.”

  “So what’s our demonic force for, dude?!”