“…Fine. Honestly, I’m starting to want to kill you now.”
“Um, s-sorry?” Chiho tried to apologize honestly. She had her doubts over whether that would be enough, though.
“Did you see His Demonic Highness’s visage…up close?”
“Uhh, from about the same distance we’re at now.”
“……”
His expression remained unchanged, but inside his heart, this greatly troubled Farfarello. He had heard secondhand that the Devil King Satan was capable of reattaining his cloven-hoofed form, but he found it impossible to believe that this…this mere human girl viewed his liege in all his glory. Most people would faint on the spot, overwhelmed by the sheer nature of his dark force.
“Wait…are you the one called Emeralda Etuva?”
“Huh?!”
Chiho’s eyes shot open at this wholly unexpected case of mistaken identity.
“I understand that Etuva, assistant of the Hero Emilia and the most powerful of human spellcasters, is a woman of small size. Have you been living in this land of Japan, then, under the name Chiho Sasaki?”
“What? No! I mean, I’ve met Emeralda a couple times, but I’m not her, no.”
She didn’t appreciate being mistaken for her, but given that Farfarello couldn’t have directly crossed swords with Emi and her crew, she couldn’t blame him too much.
“Regardless, you have forged friendships with both her and Emilia, and you are capable of resisting my liege’s demonic force. You are no rank-and-file soldier, no. I fear you must be one of the shackles that bind His Demonic Highness to this land, am I right?”
There was nothing she could do to convince him otherwise now. God forbid she mention that she was in the midst of holy-magic training. He’d probably think Chiho had been appointed Planetary Defender by the King of Earth.
“Well…I guess I might be, if you put it that way. Thanks to me, Satan and Yusa—I mean, Emilia—have had to go through a lot of bad stuff.”
“…?”
“Um, Foulfellow?”
“It’s Farfarello!!”
“I-I’m sorry, sir!” Chiho bowed in apology. “But Maou… Satan definitely hasn’t given up his dream of conquering the world. That much I can guarantee to you. He’s trying to learn a bunch of stuff in Japan that he can use to take everything over…”
“Ah, this ‘studying,’ yes?” Erone eagerly interjected.
“Um, yeah. That. He’s studying lots of different things, and he’s trying to do something with all of it. He doesn’t have any money, so a lot of his time gets eaten up by work, but even so, Satan’s always thinking about his people back home. I hope you’ll believe that, at least.”
This mere girl, completely unfazed, looked toward the demon with supreme dedication. Farfarello, growing up in a world where humans were supposed to fall into panicked insanity at the sight of a demon, never thought one would dare approach him with this sort of honest thoughtfulness. Her eyes were like nothing he had seen before.
“…I fervently wish that to be the case, yes. However—”
“So that’s why I want to know…” Chiho interjected, “why did the Devil King’s Army invade Ente Isla?”
“A ridiculous question,” Farfarello bit back. “Of what value is Ente Isla if it is not in our hands and—”
“That’s what I’m saying! Why did you have to invade it?!”
“……”
“I remember what you said earlier, Farfanilla. Something like, ‘the more lives at stake, the longer the demon realms may yet survive.’ Does that have something to do with it?”
“Far-fa-rel-lo!!” The demon lord wearily heaved his shoulders back. “What value would there be to you knowing?”
“Oh, that’s obvious.” Chiho resolutely stretched her back up high, her voice ringing out loudly. “I’d use that info to figure out what went wrong so I can help Satan make his dream come true!”
“Chi?!”
Maou’s phone rang just as he was climbing the stairs leading up to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. “Restricted,” the screen said. It must have been Chiho’s Idea Link.
“She’s all right, guys! C’mon, move it! Let’s show that Farfarello bastard what we’re really—”
“Wait, Devil King!”
“Halt!”
“—What…?”
Maou’s annoyance at being cut off dissipated quickly, as he noticed both women staring at their own phones. All three of them had “Restricted” on-screen. They took a look at each other and pressed their respective Answer buttons.
Chiho’s voice boomed out from all three of them at once.
{“…so I can help Satan make his dream come true!”}
“What?”
Farfarello eyed Chiho quizzically, unsure what the girl meant.
“Satan’s been telling me this all the time lately. That the way he did things before was all wrong. But I don’t think he’s really figured out what he should be doing instead yet. If I could, I’d do whatever it takes to help him out. I might be kind of a wimp; I might not be very useful in a fight, but there’s got to be something I can do for him!”
“…Are you not human?”
“Of course I am!”
“Then why are you going on about helping us, the demons…?”
To Chiho, who believed beyond any doubt that Maou and Emi were both vital to her life, none of that mattered.
“It’s all the same! Humans, demons…that doesn’t factor into it!”
{“Humans, demons…that doesn’t factor into it!”}
The thought broadcast itself not into their phones, but directly into their minds.
“Uh, is Chi dropping multiple Idea Links on each of us…?”
“Impossible.” A clearly confused Suzuno shook her head. “That is a far more complex spell than one-on-one communication. She only just managed to link with me for several seconds yesterday.”
“So do you think Chiho’s doing this unconsciously, somehow?”
“That is all I can surmise…”
Suzuno swallowed nervously as the Idea Link continued.
{“We’re making it work now…and if we can do that, I’m sure we can keep doing it!”}
“We’re making it work now…and if we can do that, I’m sure we can keep doing it! We can conquer the world and have the Hero and Devil King at peace with each other!”
“…Perhaps I am not as well versed in the Japanese language as I should be. I am struggling to understand anything you say.”
“Listen, Satan’s definitely going to conquer the world, all right? He’s working hard to make that happen every day. But it’s not exactly the kind of conquering the ‘Devil King Satan’ was thinking of when he first came here…to Japan.”
Chiho smiled cheerfully under the summer sun.
“He’s working to create a world where the Devil King and the Hero…where demons and humans can work together to keep food on the table.”
“…Absurd.”
This girl’s incomprehensible rantings were sorely testing Farfarello’s patience. He began to wonder why he was bothering to humor her at all. But whether she knew that or not, Chiho kept going.
“Is it? ’Cause that’s pretty much how it is right now. There’s no reason why it can’t stay that way!”
“You utter fool. The very idea of demons and humans living in harmony is absolutely prepost—”
“It’s happening right now!”
Thus, for the first time in history, a teenage girl managed to shout down a Malebranche chieftain. The chastised Farfarello stared blankly downward.
“The Devil King and the Hero, two people who should be at each other’s throats right now, are making it happen every day. They can even go out on playdates with the child they’re taking care of. So why can they do it, but normal humans and normal demons can’t?”
Because it came down to the individual people involved. Chiho knew that. But:
“And if they say they can’t, I’ll
make them! I guess Maou and Yusa feel kind of bad for getting me wrapped up in all this Ente Isla drama, but there’s no reason for them to think that way. Besides…”
Chiho smiled the boldest smile she could as she stared Farfarello in the eye.
“…I’ve got every intention of getting Maou and the others wrapped up in my own drama! I want all of them—Satan, Emilia, Alas Ramus, Crestia, Alciel, Lucifer—I want all of them to keep eating dinner with us, keep arguing with us, and keep saying ‘see you tomorrow’ after all is said and done. That’s the kind of conquering I want to do, and that’s what I’m going to help make happen!”
{“…And that’s what I’m going to help make happen!”}
“……”
The three of them removed their ears from their phones, unable to withstand any more and too red in the face to look at each other.
“Jeez, Chiho,” Emi muttered, trying to break the silence. “She’s, like…even crazier than we thought.”
“I can feel my faith being rebuilt into something far more twisted than before…”
“Ugh…for real? For real, Chi…?” Maou moaned.
“…Okay, so, what are we up to?” ventured Sariel, observing them from one side. “Are we doing this, or not? Judging by your reactions, am I to assume Chiho Sasaki is all right?”
“You were there?!” spat the blushing Maou as he stared up at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. “…Get that barrier up for me. Emi, Suzuno…if you want to make this happen, you’re both gonna have to be pretty damn persuasive up there.”
“I-I’m not sure I’ll be able to look Chiho in the face.”
“I might start worshiping her, myself.”
“…All right, all right,” Maou grumbled, “let’s just do this! Get moving!” Then, out of nowhere, he went down on all fours.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more pathetic way to give an order,” laughed Sariel, as the daylight moon erected a barrier over the heart of downtown Tokyo for him.
“So that’s why I want to know. Why did Satan have to sacrifice all those demons and humans in order to hurry along his world conquest…? If I knew that, I think we could maybe try a different direction next time.”
Farfarello, chieftain for the Malebranche force, found himself averting his eyes, unable to withstand the forceful Chiho’s gaze upon him. The concept was completely beyond him. He couldn’t imagine even a sliver of the world Chiho pictured. There was no way a single, powerless girl could achieve that—but here he was, letting her overpower him.
Mentally beaten down, he slowly opened his mouth.
“…That…”
“Farfarello!” Erone shouted, looking upward. “The barrier!” Chiho, following his eyes, spotted a hazy, purple-tinted moon in the air.
“They’re here…rather quicker than expected. How did they know…?”
Farfarello looked up as well, savoring the respite from Chiho’s unrelenting stare. He was greeted with a sight unlike anything he expected.
“What on…?”
“Maou!” Chiho shouted, spotting the same thing in the air. “Yusa! Suzuno!”
She couldn’t help but be reminded of the last time her prince came to her rescue here, with nothing but a mop and a pair of underpants. This time around, her prince—or king, perhaps—was flying in, his collar and belt being grabbed by a pair of women. Maybe not flying so much as hanging in the air, actually. Somehow, he still had the mental fortitude to glare at Farfarello. In one hand, he had his black sphere, the ball of concentrated dark force the demon had given him.
In Chiho’s mind, she had accepted Erone’s invitation in order to clear up the questions she had about him. To Maou, she now realized, it must have looked like Farfarello had impulsively snatched her away from him. Oh, great. They aren’t gonna fight up here now, are they? Alarmed by the very real possibility, Chiho shouted at Maou.
“Wait! No! This is my fault, too! Fargobubble didn’t do anything to me!”
The demon she attempted to name-check rolled his eyes. “…Ah, what does it matter?”
Keeping their eyes squarely upon the errant demon, Emi and Suzuno dropped the hanging Maou onto the roof as they descended. Maou made a nimble landing, then noticed his shirt. “Dahh,” he said, “the collar got all stretched out! Ashiya’s gonna kill me.”
Then, he turned to Chiho.
“…You okay?”
“Y-yeah, but…um…?”
Maou left his eyes on Farfarello in order to keep Chiho away from his line of vision. Setting eyes on the massive, hulking body kept his mind free of other distractions. “I guess Chi wants to defend you,” he said coldly, “but you’re definitely here to kidnap her, aren’t you? Why?”
“Forgive me, Your Demonic Highness. I simply wanted to hear about the time you spent in this world from a third party…”
Farfarello wound up hearing a lot more about Chiho’s plans for world domination than anyone else’s, although neither he nor Chiho knew that Maou had been listening in the whole time.
“So what about you, Chi? How is this ‘your’ fault?”
“Uh, um, I-I just wanted to know why you had to invade Ente Isla in the first place, Maou. I kind of doubted you or Ashiya would tell me, so—”
“Ughh…that’s it?”
That topic wasn’t part of the Idea Link the trio picked up. Perhaps they covered it after he shut off the link out of pure embarrassment. Maou scratched his head distractedly as he surveyed Chiho and Farfarello.
“Listen, guys,” he said as he thrust a thumb against his chest. “If you wanna ask about that stuff, ask me! I’m right here! I got nothing to hide from either of you!”
“Okay…I’m sorry.” Chiho bowed despondently.
“Chi, there’s…a few things I’d like to say to you. But for now…”
Maou recalled the Idea Link one more time as he approached Chiho and gave her a light, playful bap on the head.
“Ow!”
“I’ll make time for the lecture later.”
“Ooh, all right…”
Chiho ran over to Emi and Suzuno, hand covering the spot Maou had tapped. Maou, watching them each give Chiho chastizing baps of their own from the corner of his eye, turned back toward Farfarello.
“Okay, now for you. Now that you’ve debriefed Chiho, what’s your final take?”
“…To be honest with you, I find the evidence difficult to judge. A lot of what she said was quite a surprise to me. However, I cannot think this country has anything to offer my liege in terms of fulfilling his conquest.”
“Yes, it does,” Erone’s childish voice warbled. “Satan is studying. About industry.”
“You make it sound like I was taking some pretty damn shoddy notes,” Maou chuckled. Then he reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. “But let me show you two. This country…this world, really, is full of things we can harness to save the demon realms from the mess it’s currently in. Something you don’t have to sacrifice blood or kill yourself for. And this is it.”
He took out a single piece of paper from the plastic wallet he bought at the hundred-yen shop.
“…Could you at least buy a wallet where you don’t have to wad up your bills to cram them in there?” Emi groaned, recalling when Maou used some of those pieces of paper to save her own hide once. “You could try to act like a grown-up sooner or later, you know.”
“Do you know what this is? Here’s a hint: They have this all over Ente Isla, too.”
To Farfarello’s eyes, all it looked like was a thin slip of paper with a portrait of some human being and a bunch of frilly characters written on it.
“What is it…?”
“All you need is some of this,” Maou replied, “and you don’t have to deal with crap like this any longer.” Then he took his ball of demonic force, which he had tucked under an armpit in order to fetch his wallet, and halfheartedly tossed it at him.
“What? A single piece of paper that has more strength than dark magic itself
?”
“It doesn’t have it. People give it that strength.”
Maou held the thousand-yen note up high, its portrait of turn-of-the-century bacteriologist Hideyo Noguchi shining proudly in the sun.
“If we have the will, we have the power to change the way the world works. And this is how we’ll do it. With money. A valuable asset we can circulate around the demon realms in place of the dark force that’ll dwindle away in the ensuing peace. If you change the way you look at things, the world and everything in it will change for you. That’s what I’ve learned in this world.”
“Money…I am aware of it, my liege. The paper and metal pieces humans use for commerce. But what meaning does it have in the face of power?”
“None right now. But we’ll start to build meaning for it. And once we do, we could build anything. We can even have a world where the Hero helps me out instead of tries to kill me! We can create a dark, sinister force we can freely harness without having to kill anybody!”
Emi approached Maou from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. “Um, could you stop framing it like I’m helping you out because I need the money?”
“I know how human civilization runs on the core tenet that people need to be rewarded in order to take action,” Suzuno said as she clutched his other shoulder, “but this is not the way I want it explained.”
“Chi?”
Chiho remained behind him, unsure what was about to happen.
“Better start singing. Emi and Suzuno aren’t gonna be able to cover for you, so you’re gonna have to activate your own protection this time.”
That was all the cuing she needed. Rubbing her eyes—still a bit teary at being scolded—she took a deep breath to calm herself down.
“It’s time to earn your thousand yen, ladies.”
“I really don’t think we’re getting market value for this…but I guess we have no choice.”
“Indeed. This may not be quite what we imagined ourselves doing, once upon a time…but so be it. I want both of us to emerge from this alive, do you understand?”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 6 Page 20