Alas Ramus, by comparison, had silver hair to match Yesod’s ore and a purple shock to match her Sephirah’s theme color.
“So given that Alas Ramus has taken the form we see here, it is not beyond comprehension to think that the other Sephirah have human forms as well. It would just mean that Erone is the first we have seen beyond the one in your hands, Emilia. The problem, however, is—”
“—that he’s a demon lackey, right?”
“Indeed, my lord.” Suzuno grimly nodded at Sariel, never forgetting to remain on her best manners around the archangel. Then, with a start, the blood drained from her face.
“W-wait a moment… Lord Sariel, did you know about…Alas Ramus…?”
“!”
He had become such a natural part of these proceedings that it had never occurred to anyone, but Sariel was still theoretically after Emi’s holy sword. The infant he saw Kisaki carrying once no doubt scarred him emotionally, but he still shouldn’t have known about this Yesod fragment. Maou and Emi stared at him, tense and ready to defend Alas Ramus with their lives, but the archangel puffed out his hollow cheeks and sighed lightly.
“Yeah, I did. Gabriel stopped by my workplace a while back and started whining about how I didn’t get the sword from Emilia. He said that baby I thought was my goddess’s child had fused itself with Emilia’s holy sword, you see?”
Neither Suzuno, who had accepted Sariel’s heartfelt confessional inside MgRonald at the time, nor anyone else had told Sariel about Alas Ramus before.
“To be honest with you guys, I really don’t care who that kid is, as long as my goddess isn’t the biological mother. All I need is my goddess at my side, and… Ow! Eesh, did you put this cup on a hot plate before you gave it to me? This isn’t winter, you know!”
It took at least a few seconds before Sariel noticed how hot the tea Ashiya presented to him was, as he brought it to his lips midconversation. It still remained difficult to believe this was the archangel who almost brought Emi to her knees.
“Wow,” Chiho said, almost moved by how pathetically pained Sariel looked. “Ms. Kisaki really is the only person on your mind, isn’t she?”
It was hard to say how honest Sariel was being, but given the subject matter at hand, it was impossible to keep Alas Ramus a secret any longer. Maou, Emi, and Suzuno relaxed in their seats a little.
“If we assume that Alas Ramus and Erone are cut from the same cloth,” Suzuno continued, “it seems fair to say that Erone was born either from the Sephirah Gevurah or a fragment thereof. But—”
“—but when I came down from heaven,” Sariel said, picking up Suzuno’s line of thought, “I didn’t hear about anything unusual going on with Gevurah, no.”
Alas Ramus, at least, was created from the irregular situation of Yesod being split into an untold number of fragments. It seemed hasty to make the same conclusion with Erone.
“Seems to me,” Maou stated matter-of-factly, “it’d be easiest to explain this by assuming heaven’s getting involved again.”
“You’re right,” Chiho said. “I mean, the angels…” She paused, taking a moment to size up Urushihara and Sariel.
“Yes?”
“Dude, what?”
Chiho hurriedly lowered her eyes. “Umm, uh, never mind. Sorry.”
“I know exactly what you mean to say, Ms. Sasaki,” Ashiya chimed in, unable to restrain himself. “One hundred percent of the angels we have interacted with, at least, have proven to be scoundrels to the last man.”
“Well, I guess there’s not much I can say to convince you otherwise, but—”
“Lucifer!”
“Oh stop it,” he continued. “I can’t say I’m completely confident about this, but if we’re talking about the angel Camael, I find it, like, super hard to picture him caring about this.”
“What do you mean?” Emi asked. Instead of answering, Urushihara turned his eyes toward Suzuno.
“Camael…the ‘Wrath of God’?”
“Yep.” Urushihara nodded. Sariel said nothing to deny it. “Camael’s the guardian angel of Gevurah, but he’s not like Gabriel or Raguel. He’s, like, hard-line, old-school brimstone and fire, and all that crap. Just like his name suggests, he only takes action when God wills it—so, like, if heaven itself is in danger. Otherwise, it’s a toss-up whether he’ll even get up off his ass if someone’s screwing with Gevurah. I mean, when he does take action, it makes the other angels look like the Little Rascals, but he’s just as aware of that as the rest of us are.”
“I agree with Lucifer’s take. It takes a lot, after all, for guardian angels to venture away from heaven in the first place.”
“So why,” Ashiya asked, “is Erone mingling with Barbariccia’s demons?”
The question summed up the doubts of everyone in the room. The archangel and his fallen companion answered it with silence. It was beyond their knowledge.
“Um, Ashiya?” Chiho said.
“Yes?” Ashiya replied, far more meekly than what he saved for the angels in the room.
“So maybe this isn’t the greatest thing to ask right now…but don’t you ever think about going back home, Ashiya? I mean, to the demon realm or Ente Isla?”
This sudden query could prove to be a rather devastating landmine. It aroused Emi’s and Suzuno’s suspicions at once. But Chiho had a reasonable idea what the reply would be. Ashiya would never agree to side with the Malebranche.
“Well, certainly…if I were to be completely honest, I would gladly return. However…” He paused, face stern, his indignation clear in the way he crossed his arms. “Seeing this pack of ravenous hyenas, the Malebranche, turning their backs to His Demonic Highness, throwing the demon realms’ denizens into disarray, and cheerfully seizing the foundations I built as I conquered the Eastern Island distresses me. This may not be something you should hear, Ms. Sasaki, but even if it were not the work of a human provocateur, neither myself nor my liege would ever be at peace with it. Especially considering…”
He then rose to take the ball of demonic force Farfarello gave Maou out from the refrigerator, glaring at it ruefully. Given the summer heat, he had taken the time to wrap it in plastic for safekeeping.
“This baseborn dark power he threw in our faces. Even if asked to, I would never deign to harness it.”
“Really…?”
It wasn’t quite for the reasons she anticipated, but Maou’s distaste for the Malebranche was clearly one shared by Ashiya. At least now she knew neither of them would take up Farfarello’s invitation.
Emi and Suzuno took a look at each other, sighed, and peered at the teacups.
“…I almost had goose bumps for a moment.”
“Quite so.”
“…Pfft.”
Suzuno calmly drank her tea, now down to room temperature. Emi, meanwhile, brought a handkerchief to her sweat-caked forehead, reached over to Maou’s chilled glass, and emptied it down her throat.
“Wh-whoa! I was drinking that…”
“You want me to get heat stroke?” Emi half-slid, half-tossed the glass down the table at Maou. “That might hurt Alas Ramus, too, you know.”
“That-that’s not the issue here! I don’t—”
“Ashiya!”
“Y-yes?!”
Something about the frozen smile on Chiho’s face as she sat opposite from Emi made Ashiya stiffen up from his kitchen position.
“Would you mind making something cold for Yusa, too, please?”
“Erm, yes. Absolutely.”
Now Ashiya and Maou were the ones in danger of breaking into hives.
“Wh-what’s with you guys…?”
Emi tensed up, not realizing she was the cause of this sudden standoff between her three acquaintances.
“Dude,” an exasperated Urushihara said, “I think everyone but you knows what.” It didn’t help clue Emi in too much.
As this charade continued, Ashiya took the glass Emi finished and replaced it with two new ones for both her and Maou, chancing odd
glances at Chiho for some reason as he did.
“Wh-what’re you…?”
“It’s better if you don’t notice it,” Chiho said, smile still etched onto her face by a force whose depth Emi could only begin to guess at.
“Well, um, anyway,” Emi said, trying to get the subject back on track. “That’s really constructive, though. Now we know you aren’t going to take up Barbariccia’s invite, at least.”
“Yes. It certainly is.”
The lack of emotion to Chiho’s reply probably wasn’t just in Emi’s imagination.
Emi did have a point, at least. But Maou’s and Ashiya’s ambitions still had little relation to them turning down Farfarello’s offer. Maou took a swig of cold tea and picked up the thread for the Hero.
“Y’know, maybe I was a little too quick on the draw, though. I stepped up to keep Chi safe back there. Didn’t even think before doing it, either. Assuming Farfarello isn’t an idiot, he has to know that Chi’s involved somehow. In a way Emi and Suzuno ain’t.”
“Do you think he knows I don’t have the power to fight against him?”
“If I were him,” Sariel reflected, “I’d take you hostage in a New York minute.”
The observation made everyone in the room except Urushihara shudder a little. Sariel magnanimously accepted their accusatory stares. “What do you want? It worked, right? And if it occurred to me back then, why not him?”
Sariel had kidnapped the powerless Chiho alongside Emi in order to seize the latter’s holy sword. It pained everyone to admit it, but it was certainly a persuasive move.
“But how did Chiho even get into Farfarello’s barrier?” Emi asked. “She didn’t do anything.”
Chiho shook her head. “I don’t know. I looked up, and the next thing I knew, Maou and everyone else were right there.”
“This is just a supposition…but it might have something to do with how Erone so easily slipped through Lord Sariel’s barrier. Both Erone himself and Chiho’s ring are, at the core, forged from a Sephirah.”
“Oh, God, not again,” Maou and Emi groaned in unison.
“…What’s with you?”
“…Huh?”
The pair found themselves glaring at each other yet again. Then they awkwardly turned away and tried to drink their tea, independently deciding not to let this spark yet another fruitless argument.
“……”
They tried to drink their tea, but their glasses were both empty. The synchronized failure to distract themselves only made things more cringeworthy.
“Your glass, my liege.”
Ashiya, unable to bear any more, obediently filled Maou’s glass from his bottle of chilled tea, then plunked the bottle on the table to let Emi fill her own damn glass, thank you very much.
“But if that is the case…what next, then?”
“What next?”
“You know what I mean. About Chiho.”
Suzuno had both Maou and Emilia in her line of sight, but her somewhat peeved expression was pointed straight toward Chiho.
“This is exactly what we feared. If Farfarello sees Chiho as ‘one of us,’ what are we supposed to do with her now?”
“Why don’t you and I just take turns guarding her?” Emi swiftly replied, staring the annoyed Ashiya down as she tilted the bottle to fill up her glass.
Suzuno shook her head. “I am asking the question because you cannot do that.”
“Huh? Why not?”
That was Chiho, who wasn’t naïve enough to turn down a little extra security at this point. Maou and his demon cohorts had none of their original powers. It only seemed natural that Emi and Suzuno would step up to protect her. But:
“Emilia, how long can you truly escape the responsibilities of work? If we are going to guard Chiho around the clock, it must be at least two people at all times, or else we are doomed to defeat.”
“At the hands of Erone, you mean.”
Suzuno nodded at Sariel. “Precisely. Erone seems at least as powerful as Farfarello, if not moreso, and yet he plays servant to the demon. Their dimensional-phase barrier was holy in origin, not demonic. If Erone were to play a primary role in battle, Emilia or I alone would be unable to stop him. Especially with Alas Ramus demonstrating the reaction she had…”
The pure muscle behind Erone’s attacks surpassed any commonsense appraisal. And looking back, even Alas Ramus had the power to flick Gabriel away like a gnat, once she put her mind to it.
Even without her holy sword, Emi could rely on Albert’s martial-arts training and her own holy-magic skill well enough. But against a personification of a Sephirah and a Malebranche chieftain? While protecting a noncombatant? It was hard to see how that wouldn’t pose a problem.
“I fear that should Erone take center stage in the battle, Alas Ramus may choose to interfere with you.”
She already had, really, dispelling Emi’s Better Half. And even if “interfere” was overstating it, it was clear Emi couldn’t necessarily rely on her holy sword. Given how Alas Ramus was fused with it, the Better Half was really no longer Emi’s. It was a sentient being of its own.
“Well, if you put it that way…” Maou sighed. “…We’re pretty much screwed, aren’t we?”
“Is this barrier of theirs that simple to enter from the outside?”
“That’s mostly down to what the caster wants.” Sariel crossed his arms. “The one I put on the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building covered such a large space because it was meant to keep what happened inside away from the general public instead of blocking external attack, so I didn’t make its boundaries all that strong. That’s why you wriggled your way in, after all.”
“Oh…yeah. True.”
Maou had gone inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building knowing full well his enemy was up on the roof. The difference between that and this more recent barrier was clear. Whether one could break through or not depended quite a bit on whether the infiltrator knew it existed in the first place—whether the concept registered at all in one’s mind. It was a unique spell, but just like the Idea Link, it took more time to wrap your brain around it than actually cast it.
“But it took a while after I disappeared for you to work your way in, didn’t it? If Chiho wound up getting transported in by herself…that would’ve been it for her, huh?” Maou asked.
“……”
A heavy silence ruled over Devil’s Castle.
“Ooh, way to take a hammer right to the core of it, dude…………………sorry.”
Urushihara’s remark failed to lighten the mood. In fact, it darkened it. Ashiya tried again, pointing a finger at Chiho.
“In that case,” Ashiya offered the silence, “our only option is to teach Chiho how to protect herself on a rather, I suppose, accelerated schedule.”
“What do you mean?”
It surprised Chiho to hear Ashiya, of all people, suggest it.
“This Erone boy… Even when Emilia had her blade on Farfarello’s neck, he never took action unless Farfarello ordered him to, no?”
Emi nodded.
“He showed no outward sign of hostility against us otherwise. It might be simpler to think of Erone as just a weapon in Farfarello’s arsenal.”
“A weapon?”
“Wait,” Emi said. “Doesn’t that kinda make Alas Ramus the same thing, though?”
“No, just listen to him, man,” Maou replied.
Emi fell silent as Ashiya continued.
“Erone never makes any move by himself. Even if they are physically far from each other, you could theorize that Farfarello always needs to be within eyeshot of Erone.”
“Why is that?” Suzuno asked. “Erone must have his own will, too. As long as his orders are clear enough, he should be able to fulfill them. I hardly see the need to be together like this…”
Ashiya snorted at her. “Perhaps you would not. But being stuck in these human bodies is as shameful and embarrassing for us as it would be for you humans to walk down the street in
the nude. I must apologize for phrasing it that way to Ms. Sasaki, but…”
“…Your point being?”
Suzuno didn’t appreciate Ashiya attempting to walk back his insult of the human race for Chiho’s sake alone. Ashiya ignored her.
“My point is that Farfarello was ordered not to hurt any Japanese bystanders—to the point that he willingly devolved himself into a human. That is how faithful he is to his mission. A demon as driven as that would never leave a weapon as powerful as a Sephirah out of his surveillance.”
Emi nodded. “I’m not a fan of your treatment of the human race, but okay.”
“On the other hand, having a servant who refuses to act without orders, even in life-and-death crises, indicates a severe lack of readiness, or perhaps worse. If Erone were left to his own devices and something unusual happened, he might react in ways Farfarello cannot predict. This suggests to me that Erone will never venture farther than a certain radius from Farfarello.”
“All…all right.”
This was a demon general—one who held on to his conquered Ente Islan territory longer than anyone else—at work.
“I will also note that this Farfarello became a chieftain after our forces invaded Ente Isla. In other words, he has less battle experience than the other Malebranche chieftains. In a full-on clash of forces, I doubt Emilia would falter against him. And not even a high-grade robot can make its own decisions without a well-trained handler guiding it.”
“So we should just ignore Erone and try to beat Farfarello as quickly as possible?”
Ashiya shook his head. “No. Otherwise, there is no point in teaching that spell to Ms. Sasaki.”
“Oh, right.” Chiho had almost forgotten the original arguing point in the midst of Ashiya’s well-organized exposition. “You thought I should learn that, didn’t you, Ashiya?”
“If all we did was kill Farfarello, I fully guarantee you that a second force will be knocking on our door sooner rather than later. It would be a never-ending cycle. We need to find a more fundamental solution.”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 6 Page 15