“But on the othhher hand, someone as slooow and smelly as Pippin could never engage in the delllicate, high-level diplomatic negotiations Rumack can. A mixed blessing, if you will.”
Emeralda seemed to have similarly lofty words for Rumack. But the only conclusion Emi could make from all this was that once she was away from Emeralda, it was easiest to picture everyone around her as an enemy.
“All right. Well, I think I get the picture. I’ll use this ID if the times call for it. So…”
“…Yesss?”
“This ‘Amy Yousser’… Is that supposed to be my alias?”
“Ooh, I thought it’d be easy to get uuused to…”
Easier than a wholly unfamiliar false name, she had to admit. But something about it still didn’t sit right with her. It wasn’t like “Emi Yusa” was her real name, either, although people tended to forget that lately. Then again, she recalled, she decided to go from “Emilia” to “Emi”—did she really have any right to accuse Emeralda of a lack of originality?
“That… Ah, whatever. It’s fine. Thanks.”
She carefully inserted the pass, emblazoned with the seal of Holy Magic Administrative Institute leader and court sorcerer Emeralda Etuva, into her bag.
“I’m prepared to camp out for a week with this stuff anyway. I’ll find a clothing shop somewhere outside Cassius’s walls without coming too close to them…and then I’ll figure out the rest myself. I’ll keep this ID hidden until I really, really need it.”
“That would be smaaart, I think. Also, it won’t repay your ruined clooothing, but here’s a little money for traaavel expenses. This is mostly Airenia silver coin, so make sure to waaash it first.”
Emeralda nodded to herself before meekly offering Emi a thoroughly soaked leather pouch. She took it, marveling at its weight.
“…Thanks a lot. I’ll try to pay you back somehow.”
“Huh? Oh, don’t wooorry. I can scrape up thaaat much anytime I want.”
“Yeah, but it’s the thought that counts, okay?”
It couldn’t be helped, but life on Earth had changed Emi to the point that she couldn’t simply accept other people’s money for nothing. And considering the weight of this bag, if it really was all Airenia silver, it didn’t matter whether you converted it into Japanese yen or Ente Isla’s going rates—it was a hell of a lot more than Emi could procure by herself.
Emi considered the literal and figurative weight of this money in her life as she wiped the mud off the pouch. “Merchants can only operate outside the castle walls in the daytime, right?” she said. “I can’t help but think how nice it’d be if there was a Denim Mate 24 or a Donkey OK nearby. Guess that’s proof Japan’s slowly poisoning me, isn’t it?”
“What’re thooose?”
“Um, those are clothing stores and general stores in Japan. They’re both open twenty-four hours.”
“Whaaat?! That’s increeedible, isn’t it? Did you have much occaaasion to purchase clothing in the middle of the night in Japaaan?”
“Not me, no…but I guess someone does, if they’re open that late.”
“Those Japaneeese sure like working hard, don’t they? My goodness, a store open all day and niiight… I couldn’t imagine how they keep it going! I can hardly belieeeve anybody works in the late hours, eeeven.”
Emi had to chuckle. “Don’t bother trying to copy them. It just somehow all…works in Japan, you know?”
Conventional wisdom in Ente Isla dictated that the only people walking around at night were watchmen and pickpockets, both who often caught eye of the drunkards. No matter how safe a given region was seen as being, a woman traveling by herself was nothing short of suicide—unless the woman in question was the Hero, basically. The system in Japan worked precisely because 99.9 percent of people there were born hard-wired not to rock the boat—to live out their lives crime-free and without bringing shame upon themselves and their families.
“It’s really kind of a miracle,” Emi said to admonish herself. “I’m gonna have to be a lot more careful walking around by myself here.”
“The Hero’s party never has it eeeasy, no…”
“Yeah, you said it.” The statement sounded familiar to Emi’s ears. She sighed. “But enough wallowing in memories. Thanks for taking me here, Eme. Where should we meet up for the return trip?”
“Well, about thaaat… Wouldn’t it be better if you kept this, Emiiilia?”
Emi watched as Emeralda presented something to her. It was the angel-feather pen. A grand treasure, one that let anyone open a Gate whenever they wanted. Straight from the wings of her mother, Laila. It gave her mixed feelings.
“You can have it.”
Without much hesitation, Emi pushed it back toward Emeralda. Among all the dirt and muck that covered them both, it still shone a pure, untarnished white. “Even if I don’t want to, I might run into some kind of interference. There’s maybe a one-in-a-million chance, but it’s still there. So I want either you or Al to keep it. If it actually happens, it’s better to keep our cards spread out.”
“…All riiight!” After a moment’s pause, Emeralda seemed convinced enough. She put the pen back in her pocket. “In that caaase, there’s no need to tell you where to meet, Emiiilia. I’ll travel to Sloane for youuu.”
“Are you sure?” Emi replied, not expecting her to go that far for her.
“I want you to spend as much time as possible in your seeearch…and I’m meant to inspect the general aaarea regardless, so it’ll be more naaatural this way.”
“…All right. I promise I’ll find something useful for us!”
Emi was astonished, deep down. At every occasion, no matter what, Emeralda was prepared for anything.
Her friend, perhaps sensing that Emilia was starting to get a little too ramped up for her journey, placed a finger to her lips, smiled at the world-leaping young Hero before her, and spoke in Ente Isla’s language.
“
Emi gulped. The words were harmless enough, but she could sense the force Emeralda put behind them. There was no doubt Emi could destroy her in one-on-one battle, but Emeralda was the most powerful sorcerer in the human world, an equally shrewd and seasoned politician and courtier, and a clever fighter whose multilayered strategies could take down even the greatest of powers. Her words, coming from the lips of someone capable of surviving alongside Emi in battle, sunk deep.
“Yeah. You’re right.”
“Oh, I knooow! And it’s no longer just you in your body, eiiither.”
Emeralda smiled, the inscrutable edge now gone from her voice.
“I wish you wouldn’t put it like that.”
“Well, am I wrooong? Hmm, Alas Raaamus?”
“Ugh… Alas Ramus?”
With a sigh, Emi brought a hand forward and summoned the child.
“Yeh, Eme-sis?”
“Ooh, you’re soooo cuuuuuuuute!”
“Hoooh?!”
Emeralda’s near-scream made Alas Ramus’s body tense up in midair.
“Please don’t make her cry again, Eme.”
That was exactly what had happened when Emeralda had come to see Emi in Japan, screaming in delight at the child and freaking her out to the point of tears.
“Awww, I’m sorry. C’mon, Alas Ramus, can you look at me? I’m not scaaary.”
“Oooh…”
Emeralda tried her best to comfort Alas Ramus. The child wasn’t buying it.
“Alas Ramus, watch over Mommy for me, okaaay? Don’t let her do anything too craaazy.”
“Crayzee?”
“Oh, and be good, okaaay? Listen to what Mommy says.”
“Yeh! Alas Ramus good!”
She nodded, both stubby arms in the air. It was enough to make Emeralda lose all self-control.
“Aaaaiiieeeee! So cuuuuuuuute!!”
“Ahhh, waaaahh!”
“Eme!”
>
She had Alas Ramus’s rapt attention, and she just had to shout at her anyway. The tears were already forming.
“S-sorrrrry!” Emeralda said, clearly not sorry at all as she stuck out her tongue. Then she pointed a small fist at Emi. Emi smiled in response, face stern, and reached out her own arm, crossing fists with hers.
“
“
Then, together:
““
The motto had found its start among the human forces after the battle against Lucifer, the first victory for mankind in the Devil King’s Army war. Even with Lucifer gone, the continued threat of the demons ruling in the central, northern, eastern, and southern lands remained fresh in every human being’s mind. The Hero’s appearance, and her wresting the Western Island back, gave hope to all of them, but even then the frontline soldiers couldn’t find much in the future to be optimistic about.
The world had almost fallen to its knees in the face of the burning rage of the Devil King’s Army. The rebound engineered by the Hero was nothing short of a miracle. They needed to save the world while this miracle was still fresh. If they had the time to retain hope in their hearts, they had time to fight, to push forward, to change the world. That was what the fighters of the Western Island learned, and that was what they constantly told themselves.
Remembering it reminded Emi and Emeralda once again that, heart and soul, they were embroiled in battle once more.
“Well, good-bye, Emilia. Take care over the next week.”
“You too, Eme.”
“Eme-sis is gone?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll have to travel by myself… Well, with you, too, Alas Ramus.”
“Okeh. I’ll be a good girl!”
“Yeah, try to go easy on me. Come on back for a bit, okay?”
Emi wiped some of the mud off her hand before lightly tapping Alas Ramus’s head, fusing the child back within her.
“…Might as well head for Cassius first. Gotta do something about these clothes.”
The mud was one thing, but she had a bigger concern in mind. Her outfit was still from Japan. The only clothes she brought with her from Ente Isla to Japan were what she had on under her armor at the time. She thought about having Emeralda provide something, but Emeralda had balked. She needed to keep acting as natural as possible, or else there was no telling how General Pippin and her other rivals would react.
“Why do all these people find hurting others so much fun?”
She sighed again—for the nth time today, for reasons she couldn’t articulate—and there, inside the dark forest, made her first muddy step back home.
“Please… Just one convenience store…”
Day 2 of her return to Ente Isla. As weak-kneed as she knew it sounded, Emi was already starting to crack.
She was at an inn about a day’s walk east of the Cassius city wall. It was a gathering point for the stagecoaches and merchant caravans that plied the lands of eastern Saint Aile, and despite its relatively small size, it was a remarkably lively place.
“Ngh…hnh…”
Alas Ramus was sleeping in bed, a pained expression on her face. She didn’t have a cold or anything, but it appeared that her dinner hadn’t settled well with her. Emi was taking her meals in her room to hide the presence of the child, but most of the food she could take up there wasn’t anything someone her (external) age could eat.
It simply amazed her. Was the culinary scene in Saint Aile and the Western Island really so crude and unrefined? To her, it seemed like nothing but meat, meat, alcohol, meat, and the occasional vegetable for variety. Trying to obtain prepared food rewarded her with incredibly salty meat that turned her stomach at first sight—and here were all these people chowing down on it in broad daylight, using it to sop up the booze. The village market she attended wasn’t totally bereft of fruits or vegetables—but while they looked like what was available in Japan, they were completely different from the well-cultivated produce of her former home.
On the first day, she stopped at a small, inexpensive inn near Cassius, using its kitchen to prepare whatever she could find that looked close enough to Japanese stuff and feeding Alas Ramus with it. But it was strange—the child was never a picky eater over there, but just a single bite of carrot was enough to make her twist her face and spit it out.
Seeing that made Emi realize exactly how much she had gotten used to the food and water in Japan. Was the cuisine really that bad where she grew up? Whenever she picked up one of the ingredients in her pack, Emi felt more and more depressed.
The vegetables in Japan were so flavor-packed, so sweet, so soft—Emi had no idea why Japanese children were so finicky with them. That was thanks to the farmers and produce companies who constantly improved their crops to make them more palatable, perhaps, but sadly, the vegetables in the Saint Aile region of the Western Island simply weren’t up to snuff. The carrots were bitter, earthy, and left stringy fibers that stuck in your teeth. The tomatoes were acidic, enough to almost stab at your tongue; the cucumbers more bitter than Emi thought natural plants could ever be; the corn drier than a TV dinner left in the freezer too long; and so on. Emi had grown up on this stuff, eating it on a daily basis until she came to Japan, and now she could barely stand to chew it.
She could have just stuck to fruit, of course. The problem with that, though, was the price. In a word, it was ridiculous. Emeralda had provided her with a more-than-ample travel budget, but if she wanted something at least as good as what got sold in cans at the supermarkets in Tokyo, she’d be giving up at least one silver piece a go.
Saint Aile’s history as an avid producer of fermented beverages meant that most of the decent fruit grown across the empire was hoarded by distillers or the local nobility. The common folk would have to be satisfied with what apples or oranges they could find, and it was all low quality (by Japan standards, at least) and cost several times as much as the veggies.
Emi figured she could conceal the taste of all this stuff in a sandwich or something, at the very least. But the kind of white bread she could buy in Japan for 100 yen a loaf didn’t even exist at the local bakery. Instead, it was nothing but wheat, wild oat, and rye bread, the kind of thing that went for a premium on Earth. There was no milk or sugar used in its production, no cultivated yeast to aid in the process, and it was all brick-like and sour-tasting without exception—nothing like what Alas Ramus had eaten before.
All this meant that, in order to keep her charge’s stomach full, Emi found herself resorting to the ready-made food she had brought from Japan—strictly meant as emergency rations—on Day 1. She quickly had to revise her entire approach to keeping themselves fed for the next week. The clothing issue had worked itself out quickly, even for Alas Ramus’s swaddling. But she had never expected something as basic as food to be such a major issue.
Still, she made it. And here they were. On Day 2.
It turned out there was another problem facing both of them—one that she was too tensed up on the first day to notice.
“I can’t believe how…dirty that toilet was…”
Emi reflexively wrinkled her nose as she watched Alas Ramus struggle in bed.
The bathrooms here were simply a mess. She knew not to expect anything as advanced as a flush toilet or reliable indoor plumbing, but every latrine she had the misfortune to run into seemed to present a new case study in sheer nastiness.
And it wasn’t just a matter of being disgusting. It was a matter of being disgusting and being charged for the privilege. Travelers had to pay up every single time they used a toilet. There was some old guy poised next to each one, taking tolls. Five copper coins were the going rate, and even that only got you a plain stall—if you were lucky—with a door.
There was, of course, no toilet paper. The lack of cleaning, regular or otherwise, made the stink overpowering. Emi could hold her nose well enough, but she couldn’t stomach the idea of making Alas R
amus do her business in them. So she resolved, as annoying as it made her life, to stick to the diapers she brought along for the trip instead.
Thus Emi found herself suffering at the start of her grand adventure thanks to the food and the sanitation—two musts for any civilization that seemed to be so incredibly lacking in this one.
Tonight, at least, she had managed to cook the food well enough that Alas Ramus ate her entire dinner. She mashed up a few potatoes, seasoned them with salt and pepper, then further mixed them into hot water. Adding mushrooms, onions, and minced chicken breast, she boiled the whole mixture into a ready-to-eat soup. That, at long last, was enough to earn an “Mmmm” from her audience.
If she was traveling by herself, she wouldn’t bother making these things that took up so much expensive water, fuel—all right, more like kindling—and kitchen usage fees. But that wouldn’t pass muster with Alas Ramus.
“Ugh… A convenience store…a microwave…some heat-and-eat food…some vending machines…a curry joint…”
Emi could almost feel herself tearing up as she swore in her heart that, whenever she realized her life’s goal and returned to her homeland in Ente Isla, she’d bring at least a microwave and fridge along with her. She knew she must have looked haggard and weak at the moment. At least she didn’t have to feel discouraged over it every time she looked in the mirror. There’d never be a luxury item like that in a cheap inn like this.
Suddenly:
“Amy? Amy?”
A knock on the door. Emi stood up straight. It was the innkeeper.
“Y-yes?”
She stood to her feet, tied her hair back up, ran to the door, and warily opened it a sliver to keep the visitor from seeing inside.
“Ooh?”
It really was the innkeeper, that old man standing in the hallway. His face looked honestly surprised.
“What is it?”
“Oh, er, I wasn’t expecting you to open up.”
“Oh…”
Emi cursed her tactical error. This wasn’t Japan. There was no guarantee the innkeeper was an honest person. If he weren’t—if this was some highway bandit disguised as the innkeeper—he would’ve elbowed his way inside the moment the door was unlatched. It was standard manners in Saint Aile to keep the door locked after a knock until you were sure everything was safe on the other side. Even here, her experiences in Japan were hatching potentially troubling results for her.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 9 Page 6