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

by Satoshi Wagahara

  “Um, yes, ma’am. Kind of sightseeing…ish.”

  “Oooh! Well, good. Wait’ll you see the sun rise above the horizon for the first time. Why, I bet you’ll flip your lid, son! Been watching it every day for years, I have. But even now, it just cleanses my heart. Get as old as I am, and you’ll start waking up that early, too. Oh, yes!”

  “Y…es?”

  Amane Ohguro mentioned that, didn’t she? Kimigahama, their ultimate destination after reaching Inuboh, saw the sunrise before anywhere else in Kanto.

  “Oh! And if you’re going to Inuboh, I assume you’ll want to try some of our nure-senbei. The nure-senbei, I said. Try those. They’re scrumptious!”

  The conversation continued anon until the train was due to depart, allowing Maou to escape Suzuno’s ever-vigilant eye for at least a little while.

  It was a tad uncomfortable for Maou at first, but soon, the woman was giving a rundown of every station along the Choshi Electric Railway, in detail that would make a tour guide feel wholly unqualified. Chiho and Emi joined the fray as she went on, and despite nobody knowing one another’s names, the chat took on an endearingly affectionate tone.

  When the appointed time arrived, the demons and humans helped themselves onto the De-Ha 1001 train car before it languidly departed the station.

  The car was fuller than the trip on the Sobu Main line, but from Maou’s spot, he enjoyed an excellent view of the conductor’s seat and the tracks ahead of them.

  “Wowww! The tree tunnel!”

  Chiho let out another now-familiar squeal as she took in the view.

  “This is turning into…quite the adventure.”

  “Whoa…”

  Ashiya and Urushihara found themselves similarly stirred into words.

  The train ran through a tunnel of sheer green, the sun trickling in through the tall trees that loomed over it on both sides.

  Summer flowers bloomed just clear of the tracks, the old “iron horse” under the train roaring into action as it thundered its way uphill.

  They passed by a crossing, a simple affair composed of a few lines on the ground and a wooden electric pole.

  It felt like an era from the past, one that only ever existed on paper from Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara’s perspective.

  “It’s…quite nice. Quaint.”

  The old woman nodded sagely at Ashiya’s blurted-out impressions.

  “Ooh, it is, it is!”

  The woman eventually excused herself at Nishi-Ashikajima, an unstaffed station—little more than a platform and a vending machine.

  “We didn’t think to ask her name.”

  The thought occurred to Ashiya after they departed from the station.

  “Ah, well. Maybe it’s better that way. To her, we’re just another echo from the modern era. Someone she can touch, but never really embrace herself.”

  “…What’re you talking about? Did you finally get heat stroke?”

  The rude rejoinder came from Emi, eyes transfixed on the view out the conductor’s window as she held Alas Ramus. It didn’t faze Maou much.

  “Yeah, well, I was just thinking a little about… You know. World conquest, and so on.”

  “Oh, really? Ready to give it up and live out your life in Japan yet?”

  Emi, like Maou, put little heat into replying. Maou fell silent after that, and she pursued it no further.

  The train shuffled its way on from Nishi-Ashikajima, through the Ashikajima and Kimigahama stations before finally reaching Inuboh, the easternmost point in the Kanto region of Japan.

  Ashiya, leading the crew as he wheeled their bag along, wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “Certainly a fancy-looking station, isn’t it?”

  The station was done up in white tile, evocative more of Mediterranean Europe than Japan. Several station agents manned it, ready to handle the regular trainloads of summer tourists.

  Maou stepped off the train, dodging the onlookers photographing the car before it moved on to its final stop in Toyama, and followed the group to the station building. The scene was drenched in summer sunlight outside, but the brown tile–lined interior was refreshingly cool, calm, and refined.

  As they followed the other passengers into the building, Maou noticed a woman in the shop on the right-hand side grilling up senbei rice crackers by hand.

  “Oh, hey, are those the nure-senbei that lady told us about?”

  Chiho descended into the shop.

  “That’s it! The savior of the Choshi Electric Railway!”

  “Mommy, what’s that?”

  Emi, wiping Alas Ramus’s sweat away with a handkerchief after sitting her on a nearby bench, turned toward Chiho as she scurried inside the shop.

  “They’re called senbei. Sen-bei. You like them, don’t you, Alas Ramus?”

  “Oh! Senbeeeiii!!”

  The mention of the word was enough to make Alas Ramus bat away Emi’s hand and toddle toward Maou and Chiho.

  “Hey! Wait! You’re going to trip and fall!”

  “Daddy! Chi-Sis! Senbei! I want senbei!”

  “Hmm? Oh, you having Mommy buy some senbei for you, Alas Ramus? Kind of young for that, isn’t she, dumbass?”

  Maou directed the final sentence at Emi.

  “They have soft vegetable senbei for babies. She can chew on her own, so she’ll be fine with that.”

  “Well, the nure-senbei are moist enough, she could probably handle those, too. Oh, but I wouldn’t want to ruin your lunch. Would you like to go halfsies with your big sis, maybe?”

  Chiho crouched down as she asked. Alas Ramus raised both arms to the air.

  “Halfsies!”

  The instinctual drive to eat, writ large.

  “Well, you heard her. …Oh, don’t worry, Chi. Emi’ll pay for it.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to say ‘I’ll pay for it’?”

  “Yeah. You.”

  Emi made a face at Maou as he took the extraordinarily chintzy approach of currying Alas Ramus’s favor with other people’s money. Ashiya looked on, his face far more morose. His liege was in full-on, fanny pack–sporting tourist mode.

  “…Your Demonic Highness! We need to contact our ride.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry, sorry.”

  Maou awkwardly nodded an apology as he took out his cell phone and walked outside, into the forecourt.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Emi spotted Maou exiting while she stood in front of the shop’s cash register.

  “All right. Can we talk a second, Chiho?” Emi’s voice was hushed as she called Chiho over, pulling her to one side of the building.

  “I was really surprised yesterday, you know. You did get your mom’s permission, right? Because if so, wow.”

  “…Sorry I called you out of the blue like that.”

  Her mother had all-too-readily agreed to her blatant cover story of touring the Choshi rail line—as long as she was allowed to speak with her traveling companions Emi and Suzuno first, that is. Emi had been shocked, but agreed to the idea nonetheless.

  “I was figuring I’d make sure you were totally safe first before I staked out the Devil King. So this is kind of a godsend for me. And also…”

  Emi grinned as she turned back toward Suzuno.

  “Chiho. I have a message for you from your mother.”

  “Um?”

  Suzuno removed a sheet of paper from the carrying bag.

  “According to this, as long as we report to the inn your mother specified and one of us telephones her on regular occasions, you have been granted permission for a two-night stay.”

  “Huh? Um? Huh?”

  Chiho almost dropped the nure-senbei she went halfsies on with Alas Ramus.

  “Now we all get a chance to see whether they’re actually doing any work or not. No repercussions!”

  “Wh-Why…?”

  Chiho was more than content with a simple day trip—so she convinced herself, anyway. That was her full intention, too. And why would Emi and Suzuno have a message from he
r mom in the first place?

  “Well, if I’m traveling with you, your mom needed someone to contact in an emergency, you know? So I gave her my phone number, and then she called me up later on.”

  “I may perhaps be a tad biased, but Chiho is such a bright young lady. She never lies to me, either. She’s worried about what will happen to Mr. Maou, of course, but I think she’s also concerned that if something goes wrong with his job, that’ll make all of you drift away from her, too.”

  Riho, on the other end of the line, was serious, almost somber in tone.

  “And if Chiho is willing to relate that much to me, I’m sure there must be something inspiring all that concern. To me, it seems like you and Ms. Kamazuki are very important people to her. Someone she relies upon on a daily basis. So I apologize in advance for such a selfish request, but I just thought, if there’s something you could to do to help wipe away Chiho’s fears…”

  Emi gladly accepted Riho’s request—she was far more apologetic for involving Chiho in the affairs of Ente Isla than anything her mother could have guessed. The two then engaged in a drawn-out period of friendly bickering over who would pay the hotel costs.

  Chiho never discussed anything about Ente Isla with her mother. But if she felt “something inspiring all that concern,” Riho was apparently willing to place her full trust behind it.

  To Emi, who had met Riho personally, it didn’t seem like a case of excessively free-range parenting. Chiho’s mother’s words were backed, no doubt, by the harmonious mother-and-child relationship they’d built over the years.

  She couldn’t deny that it made her jealous. She’d only learned who her mother was a little while ago. Then she went missing again. Plus, she wasn’t even human.

  “So basically, to sum up, Chiho, I think your mother’s given you her full support. And in exchange for leaving your father all by himself, she wants you to pick up some of the simmered tsukudani fish they make out of Pacific saury around here. We’ll go find some of that together, all right?”

  “…Boy, this… My mom is just…”

  Chiho’s eyes clouded just a bit as she hung her head downward.

  “But what’s this all for, anyway? I mean, why’d you make such a bold move in the first place? It’s not just because you’re worried Lucifer’s gonna get them all fired, is it? ’Cause if so, you would’ve volunteered to go the moment they played that video.”

  Chiho sniffled, just once, then placed Alas Ramus on the ground.

  “…Sariel told me something the other day. He said Gabriel hasn’t given up on Alas Ramus.”

  The sudden mention of Gabriel’s name made Emi and Suzuno both betray a slight panic.

  “And I know we beat him away once, but…Maou and you and Alas Ramus keep running into all of these dire situations, but you managed to work your way out of them…because you weren’t alone. Right? I’m not asking you to forgive Maou for everything he did in Ente Isla. Nothing like that. But if things get really dangerous again, I just thought having both of you nearby would be a lot safer. But…I dunno, it just kind of seemed like you were really happy to see Maou run off, Yusa, so…”

  “Ohh…”

  Emi unconsciously nodded.

  Their previous handful of team-ups were all the result of desperation. It just kind of turned out that way. Never by design.

  Emi had indeed avoided the worst, thanks to Maou or Ashiya or Urushihara being around. But she never actively pleaded for their help, either.

  She demonstrated no special interest in pursuing Maou to Choshi, given that he’d be under the watchful eye of the niece of that enigmatic landlord, Miki Shiba. But it must have aroused the suspicion of Chiho, not knowing what kind of woman this landlord really was.

  “I mean, the fact that Maou, and you, and Suzuno, and Ashiya, and Urushihara… The fact that you’re all in Sasazuka, right nearby me… It’s all just a bunch of little coincidences. It’s a delicate balance. And if we ever tipped it, you’d all go away, and that really scared me once I realized it. I know that’s really selfish, but that’s how I feel. So I thought I could try to keep things balanced on my side…”

  Chiho kept an eye on Ashiya and Urushihara, seated on a faraway bench and sharing what looked like a half pint of ice cream with each other.

  “I know you might all have to return to Ente Isla and settle things for good someday. But if you want to do that, then… I don’t know. I want you to work together for it. Just, when you need to. That’d be just fine.”

  Chiho, to her credit, wasn’t driven this far simply out of pure affection for Maou.

  “I don’t know if Maou himself’s realized all of this. But Sariel said something else, too. He said that he knew all along where your holy sword was, Yusa. All your attackers must have known exactly where you were before they came over here. So I thought that…that if Gabriel struck again while Maou was off in Choshi…”

  Emi beat Gabriel once in a one-on-one battle. But the archangel might not risk another brazen solo attack next time.

  Everything Chiho said, everything Chiho saw, was the honest truth.

  Even as Emi and Maou went around calling themselves the Hero and Devil King, neither of them solved any of the threats that followed them into Japan by themselves, strictly speaking.

  If anything, they were being too proud of their powers, far more often involving Chiho, Emi’s coworker Rika Suzuki, and all manner of other Japanese people in their battles—even if nobody besides Chiho ever realized it.

  “…You are a wise young woman, Chiho.”

  Suzuno’s whisper betrayed her admiration.

  “The road may have proven twisty and convoluted indeed, but Emilia’s ultimate goal is to settle things, as you say, with the Devil King. And in this world, if either Emilia or the Devil King is missing, nothing will ever be settled. We must never allow ourselves to mischoose the foe we must truly face up to, if we want to achieve our supreme objectives. …Is that what you are telling us, Chiho?”

  Chiho lightly nodded.

  Thanks to her “mischoosing” the foe she needed to face up to, Suzuno had once been in a position where she ruthlessly eliminated those that blocked the path to peace. She hated that “elimination” was the only method allowed to her. It pained her. Internally she screamed to herself, begging to know who her true enemy was.

  Now, the foe that Suzuno and Emi needed to slay was both the Devil King and not the Devil King.

  It was this…someone. Someone wearing the mask of righteousness, while attempting to empty the world of all that remained good within it.

  This someone, or someones, could prove far more powerful than either the Hero or Devil King. And, until now, they had never acted to throw this delicately balanced world of humankind into crisis.

  “We’ve all gotten along so far because I was so selfish. Because I didn’t know anything about Ente Isla. …But now we have Alas Ramus. Alas Ramus, who loves all of us so, so much. I don’t want anything to happen that would make her sad.”

  “This senbei’s yummy!”

  Chiho nodded slightly again at Alas Ramus’s meek reply.

  “Chiho?”

  “Yes… Agh!”

  Emi cut off Chiho with a gentle hug.

  “No wonder your mother trusts you so much. You were born into such a peaceful country, too. Where’d all that resolve in you ever come from?”

  Emi patted her on the back to calm her.

  “All right. I’ll sign on to your idea. This child’s just as important to me, too.”

  She released Chiho, then placed a hand on Alas Ramus at her feet.

  “But one thing I want to make clear: I have zero intention of making friends with the Devil King, or being together with him, or getting—pah!—close with him.”

  She spat visibly to drive the point home as she watched a sweaty Maou talk on the phone outdoors.

  “If things get really bad—like, if there’s just noooooooooooooooooooothing I can do alone and I’m absolutely positive I n
eed some help—I promise I’ll ask for it. No, I swear I’ll take up all the help I can. Consume it, right down to the core. And once I’m done with it, I’ll toss it into the compost pile.”

  The somewhat overaffected declaration was greeted by a beaming Chiho, bowing her head in appreciation.

  “I apologize for the trouble. Thanks a lot.”

  “Anyway, let’s just keep an eye on ’em while we kick back in Choshi, all right?”

  “Indeed. We have just completed a long journey. Traveling this far only to surveil the demons as they live their impoverished, pointless lives would be a wasted opportunity.”

  Suzuno’s wry whisper was just the wedge the girls needed to clear the lingering urgency from the air.

  Just then, Maou came back inside, sighing contentedly at the temperature difference, blissfully unaware of the portent of the girls’ previous conversation.

  “Oh! Hey, what’s that you’re eating there?”

  Maou protested at the cup of ice cream Ashiya and Urushihara were tucking into.

  “Nure-senbei ice cream. It’s pretty good.”

  “I apologize, my liege. I was so taken by curiosity over what it could possibly taste like, I couldn’t help myself… Would you care for some?”

  That explained why Maou seemed so oblivious of Emi and Chiho. He was too distracted by his demon cohorts resorting to frozen treats to keep themselves from dying of thirst before even reaching their new job.

  “Well yeah, of course I’d care for some!”

  Maou fished some coins out of his pocket as he sauntered toward the shop. Emi twisted her face in disgust as she watched him.

  “So I can’t protect myself unless I accept the help of a demon who can’t resist that tacky souvenir ice cream? That’s…kind of hard to swallow.”

  “Oh, but that nure-senbei ice cream is supposed to be really good! It’s a new local treat for the summer, I read.”

  “Chiho, Chiho, Chiho. The taste is not the issue.”

  Maou, meanwhile, licked his lips as he savored the indescribably unique flavor texture inside his ice cream cup.

  “So…what’s that chick like, anyway? Ohguro, right?”

  Maou and Ashiya stiffened at Urushihara’s casual tossing around of the name.

  “Could you try not to bring that up? I’m trying to keep that out of my mind for as long as possible.”