The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 16

by Satoshi Wagahara

  Copyright

  THE DEVIL IS A PART-TIMER!, Volume 16

  SATOSHI WAGAHARA, ILLUSTRATION BY 029 (ONIKU)

  Translation by Kevin Gifford

  Cover art by 029 (oniku)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  HATARAKU MAOUSAMA!, Volume 16

  © Satoshi Wagahara 2016

  Edited by Dengeki Bunko

  First published in Japan in 2016 by KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo.

  English translation rights arranged with KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Tokyo, through TUTTLE-MORI AGENCY, INC., Tokyo.

  English translation © 2020 by Yen Press, LLC

  Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the publisher. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Wagahara, Satoshi. | 029 (Light novel illustrator) illustrator. | Gifford, Kevin, translator. | Steinbach, Kevin, translator.

  Title: The devil is a part-timer! / Satoshi Wagahara ; illustration by 029 (oniku) ; translation by Kevin Gifford; translation by Kevin Steinbach.

  Other titles: Hataraku Maousama!. English

  Description: First Yen On edition. | New York, NY : Yen On, 2015–

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015028390 | ISBN 9780316383127 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316385015 (v. 2 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316385022 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316385039 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316385046 (v. 5 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316385060 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316469364 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316473910 (v. 8 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316474184 (v. 9 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316474207 (v. 10 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316474238 (v. 11 : pbk.) | ISBN 9780316474252 (v. 12 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975302658 (v. 13 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975302672 (v. 14 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975302696 (v. 15 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975302719 (v. 16 : pbk.)

  Subjects: CYAC: Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.W34 Ha 2015 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015028390

  ISBNs: 978-1-9753-0271-9 (paperback)

  978-1-9753-0272-6 (ebook)

  E3-20200404-JV-NF-ORI

  THE DEVIL KING GETS SENTIMENTAL

  From somewhere in the distance, a dog’s howl ripped through the shadowy night.

  Only a few cars passed down that way, with almost no human figures to be found—not even a stray cat crossing the street.

  Step into a side alley from here, and the ambient light visibly dims, the nearby stoplights cycling through their lonely red-yellow-green routine to an empty audience.

  At one in the morning, the neighborhood of Sasazuka, in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, was slowly putting the previous day behind it, settling down to sleep and preparing for the new, upcoming day.

  But in the midst of this, a lone figure was crouched over his bicycle, pedaling with an unsteady pace, as if feebly pursuing the past.

  He was clearly exhausted, body and soul. Along with that howling dog, the horns from the cars traversing the Koshu-Kaido road, and the knifelike breeze of cold air that dominated the city, the only sounds occupying the night were this man’s breathing, the chain of his bike, and the occasional screeching of his rear disc brake.

  He took no notice of those sources of noise, even though they were clearly there; but each obstacle stood boldly before him, sapping his already-drained will to continue.

  Through it all, the man discovered his home looming ahead in the darkness, drumming up what little spirit he had left as he pushed down on the pedals. The building was like a shadow itself, completely bereft of human activity, but it was nonetheless his lone island of solace.

  He stopped his bike, his breath forming wild, wispy curls in the air, and forced his already-spent body to climb up the building’s outdoor staircase. The handrail felt like a cylinder of ice on this cold winter’s night, as did the doorknob that greeted him at the top. It felt like winter was designed from start to finish to rob this man of any strength he dared keep for himself.

  Now in the hallway, the only sound was the buzzing of a fluorescent light about to breathe its last. Nobody but him was there, and nobody else was beyond any of the doors that lined the walls in greeting.

  His numb hands fumbled the key to Room 201 several times before he finally succeeded on getting it into the lock.

  The room beyond, as illuminated by the hallway light, was barren. No furniture or fixtures of any sort were visible. The man pulled the cord dangling from the lone light upon the ceiling. It revealed a single pile of clothing in the corner, neatly folded up for him.

  “One AM, huh…”

  The man looked down at his watch as he removed it, then glanced further, toward the center of the floor. He quickly averted his eyes.

  “Let’s just sleep. Tomorrow’s gonna suck.”

  He placed the watch into his pocket, then removed his coat and hung it off a hanger set on the windowsill. He shivered a bit, the indoor temperature not much higher than outside, and began to disrobe, changing into a set of sweats he used as pajamas, as quickly as he possibly could.

  “Ugh, it’s freezing,” he muttered to himself as he plugged his phone into its charger. Taking a few steps over to the decrepit-looking kitchen area, he filled a well-worn kettle with water and turned on one of the gas burners. Then, from next to the sink, he picked up something that resembled a tortoise shell. Its lid twisted off. It was a Japanese hot-water bottle, and once the water was heated up enough, the man quickly filled up the container.

  “Oops…”

  Wiping away the steaming water that had spilled out from the lip, the man closed the bottle and tucked it inside a handmade-looking cloth pouch.

  “This is the only thing saving me right now…”

  With that, he unfolded and laid out his futon. A full futon. Not the simple sheets he had been using all summer. An actual mattress, a blanket, even a full-on duvet!

  “Nnnhh…… Ahhh…mmph…”

  Clutching the hot-water bottle close, the man moaned in pleasure as he burrowed deep inside the brand-new bedding. The fabric of the futon was just as frigid as the air temperature, but between the bottle and his own heat, it ever-so-gradually began to grow warm. However, as much as that combined heat loosened up his body, it could do nothing to open up his tightly wound heart.

  Not long ago—not very long at all—this apartment room had been bustling with bright activity. The man had had roommates to live with, a litany of guests to entertain, and between them all, he always had a crowd to deal with around the dinner table. They didn’t need a gas heater; the place always felt perfectly warm and cozy to him.

  Now, though, he was alone. The tab
le they all gathered around was gone, as were any utensils he could cook with. The refrigerator contained some cucumbers, a cube of konnyaku gel, a container of milk, and little else; it was actually colder outside the fridge than inside it, so the man kept it running mainly to keep the milk from freezing.

  Nearly everything that had kept this room a warm place in the past was now far, far away. In exchange, the man got this futon.

  He had prepared himself for this state of affairs, or so he thought, but now, he could physically feel precisely how unprepared he really was. Nobody was coming to visit. Nobody was waiting up for him. Nobody was cooking. Nobody was calling his name. Everything that was here, only a moment ago—gone.

  “Ashiya,” the man whispered. “Urushihara. Emi, Alas Ramus, Suzuno.”

  Only the man himself, curled up in his bedding, could hear his voice.

  “Chi…”

  The sigh, formed just as his body was warm enough to be comfortable, puffed out into a small, white cloud before dissipating.

  “…I might be a little lonely.”

  The man would have a battle to fight soon. A battle to earn the birthday present he felt he owed his daughter. There would be a god to slay for that, and to prepare accordingly, most of his friends and acquaintances, along with nearly everything he owned, had been transported to Ente Isla, the Land of the Holy Cross. And now that it was all said and done, Sadao Maou was beginning to feel seriously lonesome.

  The future of mankind, the fate of the world—none of that mattered more than a lone request from their daughter. Such was the judgment of Sadao Maou and Emi Yusa.

  Back when they were strictly the Devil King and the Hero, two presences that could never coexist in harmony, they were greeted with Alas Ramus, a “daughter” who nestled in right between them. The three of them weren’t related by blood, and “Mommy” and “Daddy” didn’t exactly have the healthiest of relationships, but the bond between parent and child was real nonetheless.

  The potential fall of Ente Isla, a destiny that the archangel Laila had spent the past few centuries (a millennium, even) laying the groundwork to prevent, was something that made neither Maou nor Emi bat an eye. Maou, being a demon, had no motivation for rescuing mankind, and apart from being called a Hero in her past, Emi had no duty to play the savior once again. The people around them—those who treasured Emi and Maou in their lives anyway—fully understood that. But no matter what Laila said in a vain attempt to convince them, no matter how much Gabriel (connected to Laila behind the scenes in complicated ways) pushed them in her direction, neither Maou nor Emi felt the need to step up and defend Ente Isla’s people. Not the two of them, not Shirou Ashiya, not Hanzou Urushihara, not Suzuno Kamazuki, not even Chiho Sasaki.

  But in the end, even after finding this safe, pleasant home in Japan after days of blood, pain, and fighting, all of them (Chiho included) had resolved to throw themselves into the fray, to defeat a figure that was the closest Ente Isla had to a god and also, oh yes, save the planet as a result. There was no lofty ideal behind this, no noble drive to step up and save the world. They had decided to fight strictly because of a single, forlorn little girl, and the simple, modest hope she had for her life:

  “I want to see Malkuth. I want to see everyone.”

  As Alas Ramus was revving up for her first Christmas in Japan, Maou talked with his acquaintances about what to give her as a present. But all she wanted was to see the people from her past again—her old comrades, the friends she held dear, the family she loved. And as a Sephirah, born from the Tree of Sephirot that protected all humanity on Ente Isla, the “everyone” Alas Ramus wanted to see was connected to the battle Laila and Gabriel wanted to wage.

  Now all of them—the Devil King, the Hero, and all their friends—were united under a single goal. They had to make the girl’s wish come true. They were all ready to risk their lives once again, on a stage with world-changing consequences, all for the sake of Alas Ramus.

  “I do intend to risk my life for this. Even now.”

  The shallow light of a winter’s morning hit Maou’s face through the window, waking him up. His watch told him it was half past six. The sunrises were starting to come earlier again, but the chill he faced outside his futon was still bracing. Because he’d purchased a full futon set, something he swore he would never invest in, the pain of getting out of that warm sanctuary every day was beyond description. He had forbidden himself from buying a futon because he feared doing so would root him in Japan too much to return to Ente Isla; now, ironically enough, he was forced into buying one just as he was forced to go back. Abandoning this warm abode and exposing himself to the freezing air surrounding him took an astonishing amount of resolve and courage.

  “I’m never gonna get breakfast if I stay in here… Dahhh! Oof!”

  Maou was still balled up in the futon, whining to himself, but it was almost time for work. Struggling to find any willpower at all to muster up, he leaped out of the futon.

  “Ahhhhh, it’s freezing, it’s freezing, ugghhh, I’m gonna diiieeee…”

  The fatigue, like an aura of haze around him, quickly vanished, but in its place was a sudden rise in blood pressure that made him wonder if heat shock was on the horizon for him. Fumbling around at six in the morning wasn’t going to make a heater show up in this apartment, though, so he filled his kettle once more, cupping his hands in front of it as he patiently waited for a fresh hot-water supply.

  “I’m sorry, Alas Ramus,” he admitted to a daughter who wasn’t there. “I think I’m losing my enthusiasm…”

  Rubbing his hands and legs against each other, he looked around the empty, almost cavernous-looking apartment, reflecting on how this all happened.

  It all began with Ignora, the leader of the angels and the “god” who ruled over heaven, or at least, heaven as pictured on Ente Isla. Reaching her would involve traveling up there, of course, but—due to reasons that still remained murky—heaven was not currently accessible by a direct Gate jump. It wasn’t clear whether this was a two-way restriction or only applied when going from a mortal plane to heaven, but it meant the only way to reach the blue orb the angels called their home base was to physically travel there from Ente Isla.

  They would need a spaceship, in other words—and this existed in the form of Devil’s Castle, the vast edifice built by Maou in the middle of the Central Continent and where he engineered the invasion of Ente Isla. However, as they recently found, restoring Devil’s Castle to spaceworthy shape would require replacing a few parts.

  These parts were the so-called relics left by the Devil Overlord Satan. The relics were, in no particular order: the Nothung, a fabled magical sword; the Spear of Adramelechinus, wielded by the late Great Demon General Adramelech; the Sorcery of the False Gold, a tome of forbidden magic; and the Astral Gem, a crystal of concentrated energy whose manufacturing method was lost to time.

  Together, they were called the Noah Gears, and Maou’s group needed to track down all of them—but apart from knowing that everything except the Spear was in the demon realm, they had zero leads. Camio, Maou’s regent who was currently ruling there, was combing every inch of demon land in search of the sword, the tome, and the energy gem, but it would clearly take time to see results.

  Meanwhile, over on Ente Isla, a combined team of humans and demons was working to prepare Devil’s Castle for launch, as well as search for demon survivors from the war before any hostile humans unwittingly killed them. The human side was led by General Hazel Rumack, hailed as the most influential Western Island leader outside the imperial court of Saint Aile; and Albert Ende, former companion of the Hero. The demons, meanwhile, answered to the young Malebranche tribal leader Farfarello—connected to the Sephirah children, aware of Maou’s presence in Japan, and on astonishingly friendly terms with the human Chiho.

  Under this trio, the army was working to prepare for this human-demon tandem effort to slay their own “god,” under the guise of dismantling Devil’s Castle and wiping ou
t the remaining demonic forces. The two species joining hands like this, even if it was just partially and provisionally, would have been impossible to imagine a scant few years ago; seeing it unfold like this indicated what kind of crosstribal peace Ente Isla enjoyed at the moment.

  But this peace was both heavily limited and built off extremely personality-driven reasons; just a tiny sliver of nations and people knew the reasons behind it, and spreading the word far and wide would never convince everyone else of its validity. Unless they defeated the god who lived up on her moon world, the holy force that enveloped this world would disappear before long, wiping out humanity. It was far too outlandish a story to swallow in one gulp. Attempting to explain that an angel who appeared in holy scripture had learned of this world’s potential end, and that the Hero and the Devil King were working together to help everyone after they had been blown into another world, would make most people wonder about your sanity.

  Ente Isla was in the “post-Devil King” era. The rebuilding process was well underway, and every nation was engaged in a power struggle over who’d gain the most advantageous positions in the new world order. If this operation was revealed to anyone not currently a part of it, more than one national power would take it as humans colluding with demons—and the fallout would spread worldwide like a flash flood. There were already people who saw the Hero’s existence as too much to bear; they already tried to betray her once.

  For now, they had enough commanders to work with, considering Ashiya, Urushihara, Suzuno, and Emeralda were all ensuring things went smoothly between humans and demons. The chain of command was working flawlessly as a result, and even if the heavens staged an attack, they had Gabriel and Laila on tap—as well as Ashiya and Urushihara, who had full access to their demonic powers in Ente Isla.

  The result of all this was that Sadao Maou and Emi Yusa weren’t needed on-site, and therefore unwelcome. Gathering so many powerful figures in a single place tended to attract attention, after all.