Ashiya kneeled down to gain a closer vantage point to the demon’s eyes.
“And, and you… Could it truly be…?”
“Camio, what happened to you? Tell us.”
Maou’s and Camio’s eyes made contact.
“Lord Satan… My Devil King… You’re alive…! What a glorious stroke of luck…”
“Yeah, sorry we’ve been neglecting the demon realms for so long. But I kind of wasn’t expecting to see you in Ja—in this world. What’s going on?”
“My…my apologies, Your Demonic Highness.”
The avian warrior Camio attempted to rise, in order to prostrate himself before his rightful king. Maou tried to stop him, but he shook his head in refusal.
“I…I was unable to keep your realm protected during your long…departure. I can hardly bear to face my Great Demon Generals…nor your dearly departed comrades from the north and south…”
“What do you mean?”
“My liege… The demon realms…and Ente Isla. They both face chaotic times once more. I was powerless to quell the waves… I…I am…”
“Whoa! Camio! Camio! Speak to me! Hey!”
The flame of life rapidly flickered from Camio’s pupils.
As it did, a dim light enveloped his entire form, his body growing smaller and smaller.
“My liege! What is this…?!”
Perhaps it was the start of his transformation into human form, following the loss of its demonic power. Or perhaps, with his energy gone, this was the end for him.
The three swallowed nervously as they looked on. However, the transformation was complete in but a few seconds.
“The hell…?”
Urushihara’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
Even Maou himself was rendered speechless.
As the light faded, all that remained on the futon was a shattered black battle helm, a stained and torn black cape, a glittering sword still in its scabbard, and:
“Huh. Kind of cute.”
A limp, but seemingly uninjured blackbird.
THE DEVIL MARVELS AT THE WIDE WORLD (AND CHOSHI)
The morning after the night of the postponed fireworks party, the demons were forced awake by a presunrise phone call from Amane.
Apparently she was aghast that they came all the way to Inuboh and didn’t bother watching the sun rise from the horizon. From Maou’s perspective, he honestly couldn’t have cared less.
It was beautiful, no doubt, but from his personal chamber in the Devil’s Castle on Isla Centurum, he was greeted daily by an unobstructed panorama of that world’s sun making its debut.
Urushihara, in a zombielike state, stood around long enough for the sun to clear the horizon. Then he burrowed back into his futon.
The previous evening’s events made for a difficult night’s sleep. Maou and Ashiya, both still drowsy themselves, couldn’t blame Urushihara for his refusal to remain conscious.
But the fog now seemed like a faraway vision. The weather in Choshi, and along Kimigahama, was gorgeous. Even this early, the temperature was high enough to make Maou break into a sweat just standing outside.
The night before, Chiho texted them that the girls were at the inn and Alas Ramus finally chilled out. The only real concern left was how many customers they’d have to deal with today.
This was the first day Maou and Ashiya were running the place. Now that they were awake, they set out to prepare for the grand opening.
It was still painfully early as the sun rose upward. But if they fell asleep again, they might wake up to find an angry delivery truck driver waiting for them.
Amane arrived at six AM, giving Maou an excuse to beat Urushihara awake as the four of them ran one final check before the big moment.
Would anyone really show up? Just as Chiho and Ashiya noted concernedly yesterday, the beach was barren of people.
It was August 1, and Maou was ready to rumble.
By the time the clock struck eight, however, the beach—wholly uninhabited until the previous day—began to fill with vacationers, wiping away the bit of anxiety still bouncing around Maou’s mind.
They were coming in droves. So much so, in fact, that despite having four people on the Ohguro-ya staff, Amane, Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara had no time at all to rest.
Right from the start, a small crowd of people began to form around the beach house, attracted by Suzuno’s exquisitely detailed Sarou-Sotengai sand castle.
Then, the crowd grew.
By ten AM, they were beginning to form a line, lured in by the smell of Ashiya’s yakisoba.
Ashiya had to focus on cooking the noodles, but his mind was almost fully occupied already with handling to-go orders from customers.
Maou and Amane, meanwhile, were busy handling customers sitting by the tables for a rest and some grub.
The chairs Urushihara and Chiho sanded and polished could hold twelve people. But once they began offering service to beachgoers seated on the nearby ground or rocks, things grew profoundly busy in the blink of an eye.
And, of course, the beach house offered more than just fried noodles on the menu.
They had cut down on the offerings so they could more quickly prepare for the onslaught ahead. The focus instead was on dishes they could make in the same cooking area without a lot of fuss.
To be exact, they got rid of the ramen—no time to bring noodles to a boil, nor to delicately place all the extra bits and bobs in the bowl—and offered both regular and seafood yakisoba instead.
Having every square inch of griddle space occupied by yakisoba meant that okonomiyaki pancakes were out of the question, too. Instead, Ashiya took the space meant for ramen prep and used it for curry, pairing it with some presautéed chicken and pork to customer taste.
Writing out the menu items across the dining space, one per sheet of construction paper (including drinks), successfully diverted customers’ attention away from how few offerings were really on hand.
As a result:
“Thank you very much! Two pork, one chicken, one seafood to-go on number four, please!”
“Two sauce, one seafood, on number three, two on the ground with two sauce to go!”
“Five chicken on rock two! We good right now?! …I apologize, sir, we’ve got some chicken cooking right now. I’ll bring it out to you when it’s ready, all right?”
Maou was forced to constantly shout at the general direction of the kitchen.
“Sauce to go” and “seafood to go” mostly referred to customers who were eating indoors, but wanted to take some orders back to their beach towels for the family.
The numbers referred to chairs…or the rocks lining the outside of the store, depending.
“Maou, I’ve got four regular at number one! Can you get that out for me? I gotta go cook up some more pork!”
“I’ll be right there! Urushihara!”
“No! I can’t! I can’t!”
Maou reached out to Urushihara for help. But the fallen angel was about to suffer an engine blowout himself.
The system he’d devised for Urushihara, one that seemed so foolproof and revolutionary yesterday, was about to fall apart, thanks to one unanticipated reason.
Maou was picturing customers operating the manual shaved-ice machine themselves while Urushihara simply collected money—the kind of easygoing business management that only a mom-and-pop joint like this could get away with.
The machine was pretty difficult to work, but since Ohguro-ya didn’t have any of the equipment needed to sell ice cream, shaved ice was the only frozen treat they could easily offer.
They put an ample supply of ice out on the counter, with Urushihara instructed to go fetch some more if they ran out. Thanks to the entertainment value of customers grinding up the ice themselves, nobody was going to complain if the results came out less than uniform.
Simply making the shaved ice would bore some customers, though. So Maou decided to sacrifice profits a bit and offer full self-service on the syrup toppings, too
—your choice of strawberry, lemon, melon, or Blue Hawaii.
Thus, the customers would put in all the effort, finely crushing the ice to their own liking, then spatter their choice of syrups on as a sort of greedy reward.
All Urushihara had to do—on paper, at least—was give them change and put ice in the machine. The tourists would handle everything else.
They ordered a ton of shaved-ice cups and spoons, so they weren’t going to run out of those, either. Then they could just toss a bunch of drink cans in the ice-filled kiddie pool Maou had Emi purchase for him, have Urushihara sit down in front, and just make him be a money-taking robot for the day. Easy. But…
“I got about a fifteen-minute wait! And I’m out of strawberry syrup, too, so don’t ask me for that! Please!”
Urushihara’s eyes darted to and fro between the ice machine and the line at the drinks counter.
“Whaaa?”
“Aw, maaan.”
Murmured complaints across the length of the line.
The drinks were moving at a much more leisurely clip compared to Ashiya’s griddle, but the shaved-ice gimmick was too successful for its own good, forcing customers to stand in the hot sun for a chance to turn a crank for a few seconds.
Maou could see several of them squirm uncomfortably, stamping their feet to keep from burning their heels on the sunbaked sand.
They had only one shaved-ice machine, after all.
To keep things fair for people who messed up the shaving job, Maou had set the price on the low side. That was another reason why the line grew to levels beyond Urushihara’s control. Running out of syrup was also something he never considered.
“Maou! I’m out of salt! It’ll be ten minutes until the next batch!”
Now Ashiya was screaming out from the kitchen.
Maou could feel the complaints seeping out from the line behind him. He ran up to the griddle and whispered in Ashiya’s ear.
“Can you handle the seafood orders I just took?"
“I have three left. We’re one short on the table order I have now.”
This plunged him into outright depression.
He had completely misjudged the quantities for his delivery orders. Based on how slapdash Ohguro-ya’s business operations were up to now, he had ordered the equivalent of 150 percent of the previous summer’s sales, just in case. Now they were running short on seemingly everything.
They had plenty of food, but there there was no time to restock everything else they needed.
“Maou! Two seafoods and sodas for rock one! Ugh, I’m starting to forget who placed an order and who didn’t!”
Amane’s eyes ran up and down the order slips in her hand.
Most beach houses like this, unless they had a pretty hefty number of tables, usually had customers pay for orders at the cash register before picking them up. But Maou, figuring the crowds would make this impossible, instead started generating order slips for each table.
This ensured that Amane, still not used to this, wouldn’t make any accounting errors or misplace someone’s change while typing in orders.
But adopting this system without practicing it first led to orders frequently being delivered to customers twice.
“Ah, jeez, we’re running short on order slips…”
That, and they ran through an entire pad of slips in seemingly record time. That was out of left field.
“Do we have any more, Amane…?”
“Guh! I don’t know! If I have any, they’d be in the closet in the room you’re staying in, but I haven’t been in there in ages, so…”
Maou resisted the urge to ask her—more scream at her, really—why she stuck them in there.
But if he left the store space right now, Amane would have to handle transactions, odd jobs, and drink server management by herself.
He was already noticing customers scowling and whining to their companions here and there. Unless you were a six-armed Hindu god—or the Devil King in his own world, perhaps—there was no way to solve this crisis.
All the employees’ faces were red and caked with sweat. They had no reserve power on hand to deal with all these irregularities.
Maou’s brain was just about to spring a flat when:
“Go look for those order slips, Maou. I’ll fend everyone off while you do.”
The voice flowed into the employees’ ears just before they exploded.
“Shirou, you complete the orders for the regular yakisoba. I will prepare the seafood orders in the meantime. I just cut up the vegetables and calamari and skin the shrimp, yes?”
“Hello, Nanchou Ice Manufacturing? Do you think we could rent two shaved-ice machines immediately? Sure, you can charge us for today. They don’t have to be brand-new or anything, so if you could get them to Ohguro-ya in Kimigahama ASAP… Oh, really? Great, how about strawberry and Blue Hawaii, then? Thanks. …Whew. Sorry I took the initiative there, but if you’re this busy, I figure you can shell out for that, huh? They said rentals start at three thousand yen per machine, and they’ll give us syrup samples, too.”
Three beams of light shone upon them.
“Chi… Suzuno, Emi… Why are you…?”
Just as Ohguro-ya’s juggling act was about to end in tears, three goddesses descended from the heavens.
“What’s table two…? Right there. Yeah. Two beers, one orange, and one bottle of soda? Okay!”
Not even waiting for Maou’s reply, Chiho asked Amane for a table number and expertly began serving out drink orders.
“Right. Here is enough shrimp to process your current orders. What about the cabbage? Should I be shredding it, or should it be coarser than that?”
Suzuno, slicing up veggies and skinning shrimp at a clip reminiscent of a Western-film gunslinger, stood next to Ashiya. After a quick glance at the recipe, she began to make a heaping batch of salt-flavored yakisoba.
Emi approached Maou, the irritation clear on her face.
“The people in the shaved-ice line are crying bloody murder, y’know. Do we have anything free we can give ’em?”
The customers, frustrated by the heat and the lengthy lines, were fixated on the swimsuit-wearing female crew that just walked in.
Compared to Amane, bedecked in a sweat-stained T-shirt and spending most of her time in the back anyway, this attracted a great deal more positive attention.
“Ah, youth…”
Amane whispered the observation to herself, even though she couldn’t blame anyone.
Chiho had a frilly orange bikini on, framed by a light white jacket and a sun visor that already made her look like a beachside waitress.
Deftly handling a serving tray laden with drinks, she used the footwork she’d learned at the MgRonald in Tokyo to dance her way through the crowds, delivering orders perfectly and with a smile.
For her post in the kitchen, Suzuno wrapped an apron around her waist and the simple black halter-top bikini she had on. The white ribbons on the straps well-matched the apron’s basic navy blue, adding a healthy, refreshing aura to her work outfit.
And once she took a knife to a head of cabbage, slicing it to ribbons like a practiced samurai swordmaster, the formerly peeved customers in line applauded.
Emi, meanwhile, had a South Seas resort–style bikini on, fitted with a large ribbon and a wrap around her waist.
All three of them sported swimsuits that accentuated their natural beauty, but Maou’s attention was focused on something different entirely.
“Uh, where’s Alas Ramus?”
“…That’s all you got to say?”
The question put Emi off. She discreetly motioned toward Amane.
“We went out on the beach early in the morning, so she’s napping now. I put her to sleep in your room. I’m outta here once she wakes up, so…”
She tapped on the back of her head twice as she spoke.
Maou got the message. The girl was fused within her right now.
He had nothing to worry about.
But right
now, there was no scaling this mountain without their help.
“Thanks! We’ll probably need you for just a little bit, okay?”
“You got it!”
“Leave it to us.”
“Remember, you owe me for this one!”
The three of them eagerly replied in their own ways.
Maou flung himself into the crowd before reappearing with four damp-looking cardboard boxes that he immediately foisted on Emi.
“You can use all the inventory we got on these. Pass ’em around to the crowd and tell ’em it’s a freebie for lunch!”
It was their spare supply of 5-Honest Energy.
Giving away four cases’ worth meant a loss of nearly five thousand yen, but they had no time to quibble over the numbers.
Right now, at this moment, if they could give the customers the service they wanted, they would make up for that loss easily.
On the other hand, if they cheaped out, they might be facing even larger, unseen losses from tomorrow forward.
Emi, more accepting than he expected, walked up and down the lines of dissatisfied yakisoba and shaved-ice customers.
“Our apologies for making all of you wait! We’ve got a free lunch bonus for all of you!”
With a well-practiced smile and what natural charm she had, she began passing out 5-Honest Energy bottles.
It was a well-calculated move. The men in the crowd certainly didn’t mind Emi’s swimsuit, and nobody else would turn down a cold drink in this heat.
If she could smile like that more often in normal life, one could almost describe her as cute.
Though, to Maou, their bikinis weren’t as much of a surprise as the way they briskly strode in and saved the demons from a fate worse than death.
“I’ll be right back!”
Checking to make sure he had a moment’s reprieve, Maou ducked away and into the back in search of extra order pads.
He opened the door and immediately basked in the joyous air-conditioned atmosphere for a moment. He already knew the closet inside their quarters contained several boxes, clearly abandoned for a lengthy period of time prior.
He knew because he had dragged out one of the empty ones last night.
In one corner of the room, a large box stood safely away from both the sun and the AC vent. Maou peered in and spoke.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 4 Page 16