The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 4 Read online

  This would normally be Alas Ramus’s cue to jog around the low table in the center of the room to hug Maou. This time, though, the child executed some nimble cornering to collide straight-on with Chiho instead.

  “Chi-Sis!”

  “Wow, Alas Ramus! Somebody’s sure excited, huh?”

  Chiho deftly scooped Alas Ramus up mid-bullrush, boosting her into the air and away from the disappointed Maou, his hands still aloft in anticipation of being imminently full of toddler.

  Emi Yusa, her “mommy” and greatest threat to the continued existence of Devil’s Castle now that she dropped by after work, grinned wryly to herself.

  “Glad to see someone’s making the right decision.”

  “Shut up! Yeah, hit a man while he’s down, huh? Hey, Alas Ramus, I’m here, too, y’know!”

  “Chi-Sis!”

  She was oblivious.

  “Welcome to your domain, Your Demonic Highness. Please, take this hot towel.”

  The sensible Ashiya, stepping up to soothe his supreme leader’s bruised ego, whisked over an oshibori towel he had just warmed up in the microwave. The king of all demons wiped the sweat he worked up on the way home, scrunching his face in an attempt to shake away his fatigue.

  “Ooooooo, that feels good…”

  “And welcome to you, too, Ms. Sasaki. Please, take a seat right here.”

  The ever-thoughtful gentleman of the house passed a cloth to Chiho, Alas Ramus still in her arms, before inviting her to a corner of the center table. She nodded a greeting at Ashiya and Emi.

  “Sorry I kind of came uninvited.”

  “Oh, I don’t care. Not like I really have a say in it, but it’s fine. You’re making her happy, too.”

  A refined female voice emerged across from Ashiya.

  “You may always consider yourself welcome, Chiho. But…”

  She flashed a scornful look at the two demons, both far taller than herself, as she brought a bowl and set of chopsticks for Chiho.

  “I had no objections to you tossing those silly hot towels around, but I beg of you, please stop rubbing it against your face and neck while grunting like some horrid beast. You are the Devil King, remember. You have a reputation to uphold.”

  Suzuno Kamazuki, decked out in her trademark apron and triangular hair cover, was unreserved as ever in her complaining. She was, after all, just as much Maou’s enemy as Emi was, a full-fledged cleric aligned with the Ente Isla Church.

  “Why should I care about my reputation around you freaks at this point?”

  Maou’s reply was defiant as he tossed the hot towel back to Ashiya, enough so to make Suzuno heave a mighty sigh as she crept back to the kitchen to mix a bubbling pot of miso soup.

  “You do realize that Alas Ramus is learning her table manners from you, yes?”

  Suzuno’s snide observation came just before Chiho’s harried voice re-entered the picture.

  “Agh! Wait a minute, Alas Ramus! You’re supposed to use your hands!”

  The group turned to see Alas Ramus snatch away Chiho’s towel and vigorously rub her own face with it, in a perfect imitation of Maou’s classic “dad” move.

  “Ooooo! Goooooood!”

  “Alas Ramus! You will not act like some middle-aged lout around this house! That’s Chiho’s!”

  Emi snatched the towel away from the pudgy fingers of the triumphant-looking Alas Ramus.

  “All right, Alas Ramus. Let’s get your hands nice and neat, okay?”

  The towel back in her hands, Chiho softly took up Alas Ramus’s little hands as she sat in Chiho’s lap, and calmly wiped them clean.

  “Pfft.”

  Suzuno, her concern now a reality, let an ironic smile cross her lips. Maou’s own face darkened as he awkwardly turned his back to the table, enlisting Ashiya’s help in changing the topic.

  “Uhh, so where’s Urushihara?”

  Ashiya’s face darkened for its own reasons.

  “Playing around on that silly computer again, no doubt, over in Devil’s Castle. Bell refuses to let him bring it in here.”

  Suzuno, tray tucked under her arm, chimed in.

  “And why would I? I tell you, if we left that fool alone, he would be glued in front of that screen from dawn ’til dusk—and far beyond, too! I fear for your electric bill, but more than that, the mere sight of him…irks me.”

  Bucking his usual habit, Maou had fully avoided visiting his Devil’s Castle, room 201 in the Villa Rosa Sasazuka building, after work.

  This was room 202, currently occupied by Suzuno Kamazuki.

  After the battle against Gabriel, the Devil’s Castle decor was largely dominated by a gigantic hole in the wall. It honestly surprised Maou that nobody thought to call the police about it. Maybe his neighbors thought it was an improvement.

  As an emergency measure, the demons linked together a set of cheap waterproof bicycle covers purchased on clearance at the local home-improvement store to craft an extremely makeshift cover. But they couldn’t live with that forever. As remodels went, it wasn’t really up to code.

  So they trudged back to their real estate agent, the one who stuck them in there in the first place and refused to let them install an AC unit. He placated them with a promise that he’d try to contact Miki Shiba, the landlord.

  By today, the hole had become a familiar, semipermanent fixture. It didn’t present any critical obstacle, thankfully—they still had gas, electricity, and water, at least. Over the past sixty years, the building had survived typhoons, assassinations, even the ’80s. It could survive a bit of a puncture wound.

  Or so the demons hoped. But there was no telling what the force of the blast could have done to their apartment’s structural integrity behind the walls. Another misstep inside Devil’s Castle could compromise God-knew-what underneath the floorboards.

  So, on the basis that any further accidents could literally wipe their demonic domain off the map, Maou and his demon generals grew accustomed to the habit of inviting themselves to their Church-cleric neighbor for meals. Open flames and heavy electrical use was something they wanted to avoid for the time being at their place.

  Which explained why, to Suzuno and Devil’s Castle itself, the greatest threat to life and limb was very much Urushihara, sitting there browsing God-knew-what on his computer all day.

  If there was any silver lining to the cloud looming over the wholly-holey Devil’s Castle, it was that the past few days had been blessedly rain-free.

  But that couldn’t continue for long. Maou took his place at the table next to Chiho, contemplating another futile trip to the real estate agent first thing in the morning.

  “Daddyyy!”

  Alas Ramus, still on Chiho’s knee, reached out toward Maou with stubby arms.

  That act, and that smile, was enough to make the day’s exhaustion and apprehension fly away.

  “Ooh, you wanna move over to Daddy, huh? …Is that okay?”

  Noticing the rapt anticipation on Maou’s face, Chiho positioned the child over his leg, turning her head to check Emi’s response. She replied with a reluctant nod.

  Emi, as a rule, went pretty easy on Alas Ramus.

  Settled into position on Maou’s lap, the girl lunged for the chopsticks in front of her with both hands and began jabbing a drumbeat into the table.

  “Whoa there, Alas Ramus. That’s not what you use ’em for. You have to be polite around here, okay?”

  “Oooo.”

  Alas Ramus, for her part, tended to listen to and follow Maou’s and Emi’s admonishments, although rarely with heaping spoonfuls of enthusiasm.

  Frowning as she returned the chopsticks to where they were (albeit with each of them facing opposite directions), Alas Ramus was rewarded with a rub on the head.

  “Therrrre you go. Good girl! Can you sit tight for a little bit until your big sis Suzuno’s done serving your food?”

  “Okie!”

  Suzuno winced for a moment as she ladled rice into each bowl on the table.

 
; “…I wonder why. Every time I hear ‘big sis Suzuno’ from you, it makes the hairs stand up on my neck.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m really sorry about that.”

  “Ehh, ehh, ehh!”

  Alas Ramus joyfully recited Maou’s mantra, rewarding the demon with more dirty looks from Emi and Suzuno. He fell silent, returning the chopsticks to their correct position. When it came to his girl, at least, he didn’t want to screw things up.

  But it was time, he admitted to himself, that he thought a little more seriously about her future. He would need to discuss financials with Ashiya. Then he’d either brave the commute to one of the locations Kisaki showed him, or he’d do…something else.

  But there was no need to blurt it out yet. It’d just put him in a weaker position in Emi’s eyes. He could imagine her grinning ear to ear: “Guess what, Alas Ramus? Your daddy is unemployed! Can you say ‘unemployed’? Good! I knew you could!” It was hard to imagine life around the child after that.

  “You. Alciel!”

  Suzuno, almost done with dinner, barked at Ashiya as she removed her apron.

  “Can you please fetch Lucifer for me? You know what a hue and cry he will raise otherwise. Tell him he will miss dinner if he dawdles any further.”

  “…Very well.”

  Suzuno, being human, and Ashiya, being demonic, were generally polar opposites of each other. But lately, with both of them manning the kitchen most evenings, they had started to reach a certain sort of détente, at least when it came to Urushihara and home chores.

  Ashiya was expressionless as he heeded Suzuno’s command, removing and neatly folding his apron before leaving the room.

  “That’s gotta suck, huh? Having to make an extra portion for him, too.”

  Suzuno blithely untied her head cloth.

  “The Devil King is paying his food bill. That, and there are certain monetary savings involved with cooking for many, over cooking for one. It makes menu planning easier.”

  “You better be careful, though. Keep saying that, and they’re gonna leech off of you forever.”

  “Hmm?”

  Suzuno flashed a confused look at Emi’s rejoinder, but decided to abandon the topic, folding her legs primly underneath her as she sat across from Maou.

  “Daddy, can we eat? Can we eat yet?”

  “Just a little bit longer, okay? You’re a good girl. We’re all gonna eat together, all right?”

  “Looshifer, hurry up!”

  Alas Ramus fully understood the cause of the delay.

  Emi fixed her eyes on Alas Ramus, making sure Maou never entered her sight.

  “By the way, what’re you gonna do with all the stuff in here? I mean, you still got a lot.”

  “Yes…well, given our current circumstances, I had my real estate agent refer me to a storage site. I intend to send it all there tomorrow.”

  “What about the stuff in the fridge?”

  “I used everything left inside today.”

  “Ooh.”

  Maou, idly listening in on the two women’s conversation, turned his eyes to the table once again.

  “Y’know, I was just thinking this looked a lot fancier than usual. Didja need to clean the fridge or something? You only just bought it.”

  A brimming plate of sautéed vegetables sat next to a bowl of miso soup infused with onions, eggplant, tofu, and wakame seaweed. Another bowl of deep-fried, marinated chicken steamed nearby a stack of minced-beef cutlets. A gaggle of pork dumplings was accompanied by a selection of nerimono fish cakes. There was even enough chopped salad for everyone.

  A menu like this, borrowing something from almost every aisle in the supermarket, was a change of pace from Suzuno’s colorful, more seasonally oriented spreads.

  Even with Chiho stopping in unannounced, it was a toss-up whether they’d be stuck with leftovers or not.

  Emi’s and Suzuno’s eyebrows arched upward in unison at Maou’s question.

  “Uh, what’re you talking about?”

  “I’m not sure this is any time to be fretting over me. What about you? Have you demons trundled away all your furniture yet?”

  “Huh? Whaddaya mean?”

  Returning that kind of a question with another question was never a good sign.

  It was just as Emi and Suzuno gave a quizzical look to each other that Maou felt something cold rush down his spine.

  “Dah! That’s freezing!”

  No streak of sudden dread, this: Only Alas Ramus, who had climbed off his lap somewhere along the line and was now sticking a bottle of chilled mineral water against his back, the condensation seeping through his shirt.

  “That’s all wet, Alas Ramus. Can I have it?”

  “Ahnn! Nooo!”

  The toddler tried her very, very best to keep the bottle in hand as Chiho waged a calm, composed battle to the death for it.

  “You realize, myself and all of you will have to vacate this apartment for a while beginning tomorrow.”

  “Hey! Alas Ramus! You gotta listen to Chi for a bit, all right? Hang on, vacating the…………………………………………………………………………………what’d you say just now?”

  Maou snapped to attention. The moment he did, he felt his body temperature plummet, his face attaining the pallor of a Noh mask as he turned to Suzuno.

  “Vacate…the apartment?”

  “Oh, for…heaven’s sake, Devil King…”

  The envelope Suzuno produced from her pocket looked familiar.

  That opulent lacework on the borders. The smooth, silken paper.

  “This arrived right after you ran off to the real estate agent! A notification from our landlord!”

  “Huhhh?!”

  Maou’s chin fell halfway to the floor. The display made Alas Ramus drop the bottle she was cradling with both hands.

  “Daddy, don’t shout like that! You scaaaary!”

  But even Alas Ramus’s voice couldn’t reach Maou’s ears.

  He practically ripped the envelope away from Suzuno’s hand, ever-so-slowly removing its contents in fear of another grotesque photograph.

  It contained a rarity by Shiba standards—a copy of a notification typed up on a computer, and some kind of contract, filled with small, densely-spaced writing.

  “To the Residents of Villa Rosa Sasazuka,” it began. Maou noticed the date on top. Just about two weeks ago. Then he began reading.

  “This…has to be a joke…”

  This time, the earth really did flip out from under him. He fell unconscious.

  “M-Maou?!”

  “Would you look out?! You’re gonna hit your head on that thing!”

  “Daddy?!”

  “Did someone just trip, or… M-My liege?!”

  “Daaamn, I’m hungry! …Ooh, hey, Chiho Sasaki! Man, check out this spread today!”

  Ashiya’s eyes boggled as he was greeted by the sight of a lifeless master past the doorway. Urushihara wasn’t quite so moved.

  “Al-cell. Daddy went nappies!”

  Alas Ramus picked up the paper and handed it to Ashiya.

  “Ah, thank you. Hmm? A letter from our landlord to Bell…?”

  Emi and Suzuno couldn’t stop him in time. He ran his eyes across the notice.

  “…………Hoooohhh…”

  Then he crumpled to the ground, as if breathing his last.

  “Hmm? Hey, what’s up with you and Maou?”

  Without bothering to help his roommates, and without bothering to ask for permission, Urushihara found Emi, Chiho, and Suzuno ruefully glaring at him as he popped a piece of fried chicken into his mouth.

  Suzuno plucked the letter from Ashiya’s hand, then all but jammed it up Urushihara’s nose.

  “Read this, you walking personification of greed.”

  “Mngh! Wh-What, dude…? Huh? ‘To the Residents’…?”

  Urushihara continued to chew with his mouth open as he took in the letter.

  “Huh. ‘Due to refurbishment work to be done on the
main apartment building, all residents will be compensated during the period of temporary eviction from…’ What, what? We’re getting booted out?! The hell?!”

  It was enough to make even him panic. He threw his chopsticks aside as he read on.

  To sum up, the structural damage Maou had informed the real estate agent of two weeks ago had, indeed, made its way to the owner.

  The size of the hole in room 201 was no laughing matter. A simple patch-up job could destabilize the entire building.

  All the age their apartment wore so modestly also led to landlord concerns about the water, gas, and electric systems. In her eyes, the only move to make was a full building renovation.

  “…Uh, so, like, I never heard anything about this…”

  “I suppose so. If it was enough to make Alciel and the Devil King keel over like a timid goat, I somehow doubt you were any less in the dark.”

  “Bell’s gonna be staying at my place until they’re done with the repairs, but… Seriously? You guys haven’t done anything at all?”

  Urushihara listlessly shook his head, then stared blankly at Emi for a moment.

  “If you’re expecting me to invite you guys in ’cause I’m somehow nostalgic about living in a multifamily household, forget it.”

  “…Yeah. Guess not.”

  Not even Urushihara would dare it.

  Glancing at the sighing demon, Alas Ramus, unable to comprehend her guardians’ harried conversation, toddled up to her fallen housemates.

  “Daddy? Al-cell? What’s wrong?”

  “Uhhhh… I think they’re just tired, you know? Here, could you try waking them up for us, Alas Ramus?”

  Chiho, the only one in the room aware of Maou’s painful experience at work earlier, found herself in a panic. The job was one thing—now he might lose his place, even?

  “Mm. Daddyyyy! Allll-celllll! Wakey wakey! Dinnewww!”

  Tugged and pulled by Alas Ramus’s tiny hands, the pair finally sat up, looking like they just woke up from some incomprehensible dream.

  “…I feel like I just saw some kind of mirage.”