The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 8 Page 4

  “Welcome back, Your Demonic Highness! Ah, what a breath of fresh air this is, not having Emilia breathing down our necks! Shall we kick back and pay a visit to that yakiniku place, perhaps?”

  Ashiya was acting quite out of character. If his idea of something to do when the Hero was gone was sitting around a griddle and cooking up bits of beef and pork, Maou mused, it might already be too late for both of them.

  “My liege?”

  “Oh, hey, Maou, did you get my text? I asked you to grab some custard for me at the convenience store on your way back home.”

  “…You did? Guess I didn’t notice.” Maou took out his cell phone, only to find a twelve-minute-old message waiting for him.

  “Aw, duuude!” Urushihara grumbled. “Ashiya said it was okay for a change, too!”

  “Damn it, guys…”

  “My liege?”

  “Hmm? Somethin’ up, Maou?”

  The way Maou was still standing bolt upright at the door unnerved them both a little. Maou paused, then lifted his face up. It betrayed his anger, an uncommon emotion for him as of late.

  “The Hero’s gone, and all you’re going on about is meat and custard? See, this is exactly why Emi’s put so much trust in us, guys! Where the hell is all of your Demon General pride, huh?”

  The shouts from Maou, and the subsequent wailing and moaning from Ashiya and Urushihara, were clearly audible through the wall. Suzuno scowled to herself, hands over her ears, as she rode out the storm.

  “As if he is in any position to talk…”

  The Devil King next door, forced to chide his subordinates over yakiniku and cheap desserts, had clearly been poisoned by the everyday objects of Japanese society. And as Suzuno found herself forced to listen to an all-too-typical family argument from beyond the wall, she suddenly recalled a conversation she had with Emi a few days ago.

  “The angels were human all along. In which case…”

  What were demons, then? Especially the demon next door, currently studying the traffic laws of Japan in order to obtain a motor scooter license, and also a little frantic at the idea that the Hero and his unrequited crush trusted him.

  Certainly, between Maou and Ashiya, demons certainly looked quite a bit more unhuman than angels. Unlike the denizens of heaven, who harnessed holy magic to materialize their wings, they were often of enormous size and sported things like pointy tails and horns that humans would never have. A few of them—such as Camio, the avian Devil’s Regent who showed up in Choshi—hardly resembled humans at all.

  But Suzuno had seen the Devil King Satan, the Great Demon General Alciel—even Farfarello, top officer in the Malebranche—in forms that were no different from any man or woman on the street.

  “Perhaps I could investigate what that…means, exactly.”

  She sprang to action, grabbing her cell phone—but then stopped, shaking her head. It wasn’t that her trust in Emi was gone, but having her go off by herself to see how things were on Ente Isla painted too murky a picture for her to be comfortable with. Casting too wide of a net would make it easy to overlook matters—matters that might impact Japan, and Chiho, in unpredictable ways. Emi said she was looking for clues leading to her mother—so why not let her focus on that, and that alone? The other mysteries unfolding in Ente Isla could affect the entire world. There was no point in hurrying things along too quickly.

  The real issue right now, after all, was…

  “Ugh, enough of this bickering! Settle down before I file a noise complaint!”

  …She needed to quell the chaos next door as soon as possible. The flustered, frustrated Maou; and the quivering Ashiya and Urushihara…it wasn’t a position she enjoyed. She knew that Emi entrusted her with watching over Devil’s Castle for any suspicious moves, but…

  “Stop your ridiculous arguing, start studying, and then go to bed! Don’t you have work tomorrow?!”

  …Intervening in a children’s quarrel like a day-care supervisor wasn’t meant to be part of the deal. She was starting to dread the next few days before Emi’s return.

  Walking back into her room, Suzuno closed the door with a hand behind her and let out a heavy sigh.

  “Still…this is a form of peace and serenity, I suppose…”

  It was wrong, yes, but it wasn’t a bad thing. That was the simplest way of putting it.

  Monday rolled along surprisingly quickly.

  After turning down an invite from her friends and wrapping up lunch early, Chiho was standing near the so-called chamber of horrors—the old school building that students and teachers usually never went near at all. She was staring intently at something in her hands. It was her ring, the small, purple Yesod fragment shining on top of it. As an upstanding, sensible high school student, Chiho couldn’t bear having such a gaudy piece of jewelry on her finger during class.

  Although no one had gotten around to explaining the process in detail, Chiho knew that “Gates” were a special sort of magic that let people traverse extremely long distances in an instant. Emi had gone through one to come here, and so had everyone else—Suzuno, Emeralda, Albert, Urushihara, Ashiya. Maou, too. And something told Chiho that when Emi and Alas Ramus went through their Gate this afternoon, this Yesod fragment would probably react to that in some manner or other.

  She eyed the ring intently, making sure nobody else was around as she did. Then:

  “…Ah!”

  Suddenly, the fragment began to glow a dull purple. Then, for an instant, it sparkled brightly, like a camera flash, before fading and going back to a plain old gemstone. She had figured, with her magical training, that she’d feel some sort of force within her own body as well, but nothing special happened on that front.

  There was, however, a new text on her phone. A simple notification from Suzuno: “Emilia has safely set off with Emeralda.”

  Emi, one of her best friends, was officially no longer in Japan. Or Earth, for that matter. It felt so strange to Chiho, who had yet to see a Gate being used in person. It was like Emi Yusa—Emilia Justina—was now just this kind of vague concept, neither extant nor gone forever, and it made her chest tighten.

  Still, she said she wouldn’t do anything dangerous, and Emi had Emeralda with her, besides. Any peril she might run into couldn’t possibly be enough to overwhelm her, whether Chiho worried about it or not.

  Chiho grasped her cell phone and closed her eyes as she recalled Emi’s phone number in her mind. Her hand, her ring, and the phone began to glow a little.

  “Here’s hoping the Ente Isla you return to is just a little bit more peaceful than it was before.”

  Would her prayer be strong enough to traverse Gates and worlds and dimensions? There was no way this novice spellcaster could know.

  Even now, she didn’t know.

  Because after two weeks—after September 12 came and went—Emi still had not returned.

  THE DEVIL HAS AN ENCOUNTER

  Chofu Station was one of the main nerve centers of the Keio rail line, one where every type of train—from express to local—always made a stop. Keio trains going westward from Tokyo ended their journey either at Hachiouji and Mount Takao, or Hashimoto Station in the Kanagawa Prefecture city of Sagamihara—and Chofu was the point where they split toward one direction or the other. The front of the station housed a large bus terminal, offering connections between all of the local rail lines run by Keio, JR, and Odakyu.

  It was still short-sleeves weather, but an advancing cold front in the afternoon meant there was a 60 percent chance of rain called for on this weekday.

  Maou was there, departing the station through its northern exit.

  “Umm… I think my stop’s a little farther ahead…”

  He searched for a certain bus stop—one he was at just the other day—only to find a line already forming at the spot he needed to wait at. The sign at the end read KEIO BUS: FOR TEST SITE FRONT GATE AND JR MUSASHI-KOGANEI STATION. He was just about to take a study guide out from his tote bag for some final brushing-up bef
ore the bus arrived, when:

  “Mommy!”

  Maou blinked, then instantly whirled around toward the voice. There, he saw a young girl, hands extended out to grab the attention of her mother, who was studying a station map.

  “…”

  Maou didn’t know them at all, but he still spent a moment staring at the pair. The mother traced a finger along the map a few times, then picked up her daughter. “All right, I’m sorry,” she said. “Doing okay? Not too hot?” He could hear her continuing to speak as they quickly disappeared.

  It was crowded around Chofu Station, but the vision of the mother and child remained on Maou’s mind as he sighed and took his hand out of the tote bag. He knew there was no point to studying. He had already memorized every sample question in the Conquering the Motor Scooter Exam guidebook he’d purchased.

  “Well, try number two, I guess…”

  Maou shrugged as he grumbled to himself. He was headed for the Fuchu License Examination Center. Within the city of Tokyo, potential two-wheel drivers had their choice of three test sites, located in the Fuchu, Samezu, and Koto neighborhoods respectively. Today marked Maou’s second visit to Fuchu this month.

  “…Dammit, Emi,” he whined.

  As if on cue, the bus chose that moment to arrive. The line—either commuters or test takers like Maou, it seemed—filed into the vehicle and took their seats here and there, Maou being lucky enough to grab a free one near the door. He found himself reading through the exam-prep textbook again, despite himself. He couldn’t afford to make another mistake. Not after he’d blown it last time.

  A few days back, he had taken off one of his shifts, paid the city 300 yen for a certificate of residence, paid the local pharmacy 700 yen for the first ID photos he had shot since applying to MgRonald, paid Keio 170 yen for the one-way train ticket and a further 220 yen for the bus fare, and then capped it all off by failing the written exam.

  When he realized his number wasn’t on the electronic board showing the test results, he was gripped by a shock he hadn’t felt since the news arrived that the Hero’s group had laid waste to Lucifer’s army on the Western Island. A shock perhaps more powerful than that, even. He thought he’d had every question perfect. He had studied to the point where he could rattle off the exact wording of every law related to two-wheeled vehicles. He couldn’t figure out where he went wrong.

  Then he made the most pathetic little noise of his life.

  “…Auh.”

  His superior memory skills, backed by his natural talent, effort, and demonic strength, reminded him of the cold truth.

  “I put my answers in the wrong columns, didn’t I…?”

  The test was a basic true-false affair, with a couple of columns to the left of each question for marking in your answer. And while marking all your answers off by one column in a true-false exam would still earn you some correct answers, a passing grade in this one involved getting forty-five out of fifty questions right. There was simply no chance.

  Thus, Maou’s first attempt at scoring a driver’s license was met with utter defeat. MgRonald added the costs of earning the license to your paycheck after you sent a request with a copy of the license—but, as was likely proper anyway, they only covered one exam. The abject sadness on Ashiya’s face when Maou told him he’d have to pay 5,700 yen out of pocket instead of having the company cover it reminded him of the heartbreak when the Demon General advised him to abandon the Eastern Island following the humans’ counterattack.

  “…It’s all that idiot Emi’s fault,” he muttered just as the bus’s engines sprang into action, sending it softly forward after the driver issued one final “Everyone hang on, please” into the microphone.

  “Why,” he continued to himself, “does she have to get in my way all the time…?”

  The past half month could be described in two simple words: Couldn’t focus. Neither Maou, nor Ashiya, nor Chiho, nor Suzuno, nor anyone else. Urushihara, he couldn’t tell.

  Emi had departed for Ente Isla two weeks ago, on that Monday. Maou had work, Chiho had school, and Ashiya and Urushihara had no particular motivation to see Emi off. Suzuno said she was there, and around midafternoon she sent a simple text over to report that she was safely on her way.

  Where she was headed was nowhere near Earth. And, of course, Emi had no obligation or reason to keep Maou and his demon cohorts abreast of her activities. Maou didn’t bother doing anything on his end, figuring that Chiho or Suzuno were probably keeping tabs. He was too busy worrying about the upcoming driver’s exam to pay too much attention to the people around him.

  Things were peaceful. Mitsuki Sarue, manager of the Sentucky Fried Chicken across the street, was firmly devoted to his work. He was still eternally in love with Kisaki, manager at the MgRonald, and thanks to helping Chiho with her magical training, he was now able to interact with her on a regular basis again. A great leap forward—in his mind, at least—and he had been much friendlier with Maou and Chiho as of late.

  Not having Emi griping at him all hours of the day was also doing wonders for Maou’s work (and study) ethic. The sense of release was even affecting Ashiya’s tight grip on their purse strings, to the point where there was always an additional item on the menu for dinner each night, and he didn’t yell at Urushihara for ordering random crap from the Internet again.

  Chiho was worried about Emi, of course. But, thinking logically about it, she was the strongest human being in the universe. It was clear that she’d be back soon and that it was useless dwelling on the subject, so Maou didn’t bother trying.

  Things had started to change on Saturday that week.

  “Has Emilia returned, Devil King?”

  That was the question Suzuno had for Maou at the door to his apartment, asked before he departed for work.

  “Uh? What’re you talking about?”

  “Oh, I just…wanted to see if she was back,” she repeated before falling silent.

  “I dunno,” Maou said, a bit annoyed at being asked this. “She isn’t?”

  There would be no reason for Emi to notify him about her return. If Suzuno or Chiho didn’t know, there was no way he’d know, either. He tried to explain this to Suzuno.

  “Oh,” she replied, her face a little troubled. “I see. I apologize for occupying your time.”

  “Mm?”

  Maou and Ashiya exchanged confused glances with each other, while Urushihara was too passed out in front of the computer desk to respond. Suzuno went out to the hallway, pacing back and forth for a bit before finally summoning up enough resolve…to call Chiho.

  “…Chiho? I apologize for calling so early,” the demons could hear her say. As the conversation faded in and out of earshot, Maou took a glance at the shift schedule pinned to the refrigerator. It was Saturday, September 11, and if Maou’s memory wasn’t mistaken, Emi should have come home yesterday. The square for the twelfth had “Happy Birthday, Yusa!” written over it in Chiho’s cutesy handwriting.

  Suzuno’s voice was no longer audible from outside. Just as he realized that, Maou’s phone started ringing from the corner of the room he had tossed it to. It was from Chiho. She sounded ready to cry at any moment.

  There was still no contact the next day. Maou had spent the previous day assuaging Chiho’s worst fears, but even he was starting to think this was weird. Emi’s personality was such that even if she didn’t mind leaving Maou to stew in his own juices, she’d never do anything to make Chiho fret over her. Plus, today was the twelfth, Chiho’s makeup birthday. Emi was a willing participant in that party, even if she didn’t like Maou’s presence there much. No way would she blow off that promise without so much as a “sorry.”

  Suzuno was back at Devil’s Castle that afternoon, checking up on Emi’s status. “Emeralda hasn’t contacted you or anything?” Maou asked her.

  “I am worried,” she stated in a low voice from the hallway, “precisely because I cannot contact Emeralda, either.”

  On the roof of Emi’s apartmen
t building, when the Gate opened up two weeks ago, Suzuno had personally traded phone numbers and e-mail addresses with Emeralda Etuva, the most powerful sorceress on Ente Isla. They couldn’t help but crack a smile about it—a Saint Aile court magician and a Reconciliation Panel cleric, two people who’d normally have zero contact with each other, using alien technology from Japan to do exactly that. Emi had used her own phone to send an Idea Link from Ente Isla indicating she was safe and sound at first arrival, which made her and Emeralda’s current silence all the eerier.

  Things on Ente Isla had gotten, if nothing else, much more complicated than back when it was simply mankind versus demondom. It was a huge mess of conflicting motives and power struggles, and it was nothing if not ironic that Emi’s bringing peace back to the land was the trigger for it. For one thing, the world had fallen into a state of war between the Eastern Island and the other four landmasses that made up the planet. A group from the Malebranche tribe had infiltrated the island, hoping to resurrect the Devil King’s Army, and they were being guided by Olba Meiyer, the Hero’s former friend and someone who had once fought hard against demonkind.

  That would make things knotty enough, but now the Malebranche were using an embodiment of a Sephirah—one of the core building blocks of the world and something the angels would do anything to recover. Secret maneuvering was taking place up in heaven, and only now was it bubbling to the surface.

  Very few people know about all of that, but no matter how things turned out, Ente Isla’s problems were definitely no longer the sort of thing that could be sewed up with a simple war or two.

  “I fear relying on the Idea Link to contact Ente Isla too often. The waves of thought might attract the attention of the Church. That is why I hesitate to do anything too hasty.”

  The secret mission Suzuno had been tasked with was still technically in effect, even if she was no longer making any progress on it. Here, in Japan, she was taking the initiative to help the Church return to the just and proper organization it used to be, which meant she was now defying orders. Those orders commanded her to cover up Olba’s activities—declaring to the world that the Hero was dead and even allowing the Devil King to do what he pleased. If that wasn’t possible, she was to defeat both Emi and Maou, turning Olba’s lies into a form of the truth.