The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 6

by Satoshi Wagahara

  It was hard for Emi to imagine that Maou, sniveling to himself as he took back the money, was the same person as the Devil King who had just spoken regally about the future of the demon realms.

  “Don’t worry about it. But would you mind not telling Chiho that we heard her Idea Link, for me?”

  “Huh? Why?” Maou asked as he wadded the bill back into his wallet.

  “Well, I doubt she would’ve wanted us to hear that, and besides…”

  “Besides?”

  Emi’s eyes narrowed against the light of the setting sun as they darted between Maou and Chiho.

  “I don’t know. It seems so…convincing. I hate it.”

  “What?”

  The words from Emi’s lips were so soft, they were all but drowned out by the sounds of western Shinjuku traffic.

  “…Nothing. Just don’t tell Chiho! All right?”

  “Um, sure. Dunno why not, but…”

  Maou nodded, confused. Emi was back to her usual grumpy self, but something about her didn’t make sense. Must be hung up on something still, he supposed.

  “Oh, right. Hey, Chi! Chi!”

  “Yeahhh… Oh!” Chiho snapped out of her legal high. “Ummm, yeah?”

  “Hey, so we can save the lecturing for later, but you mind coming along with me a little bit? There’s a little side trip I wanna make.”

  “A side trip?”

  “Where are you taking her?”

  There was no way Emi would dare expose Chiho to more danger tonight. Depending on the location, she was prepared to tail them the entire way.

  “Oh, yeah, you oughta know, too. I heard your birthday was coming up, Chi, but when is it?”

  Chiho and Emi froze for a few moments.

  “Birth…day?”

  “Oh, um… Yeah, it’s September tenth,” Chiho replied meekly.

  “Yeah? Well, I was just thinking…you know, I used to be Devil King and all, so I figure there’s no way I could come up with a birthday present you’d like by myself, so…like, I thought it’d be safer to just ask what kinda stuff you like when I had a chance.”

  It wasn’t exactly the smoothest move a man could make in a relationship. To Emi, the idea of a Devil King understanding the concept of celebrating birthdays seemed abhorrent in a way.

  “Like, I still don’t think I have much of an idea of what you’re into, but I don’t think you like all the cutesy girlie stuff Emi does, so…”

  “I am not into ‘girlie stuff’!”

  “Hey, you can call it what you want, but you’re still a grown woman carrying a Relax-a-Bear wallet around.”

  “That still beats your stupid hundred-yen-shop plastic thing! Plus, I’m only a year older than Chiho is!”

  “Yeah, well, anyway…as you can probably guess, I can’t spring for anything too fancy or expensive, but is there anything reasonably decent that you might like?”

  It was almost too point-blank a question, as if Maou was asking her whether she wanted any sauce to go with her chicken nuggets. Chiho looked up at Maou for just a moment.

  “I…I think I’ve already gotten it,” she said, smiling.

  “Oh? …Wait, what? Did I give something to you?”

  “You sure did. In fact, it might be the one thing I want the most right now.”

  “Um? Really?” Maou’s confused face betrayed no memory of this. “Well, huh. What was it, though?”

  Chiho was all but skipping down the sidewalk, a mysterious grin on her face.

  “Pfft. Not a care in the world, huh? You two probably deserve each other.”

  “Huh? Do you know, Emi?”

  “…I sure don’t want to.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “Hee-hee-hee! It’s a secret until you figure it out!” Chiho brought a finger to her lips to emphasize her point. “Oh! But your birthday’s in the fall too, isn’t it, Yusa?”

  “Me?” Emi blinked at the sudden subject change.

  “Oh, is it?”

  “I think Suzuno mentioned that to me one time or another…”

  “……”

  Emi glared dolefully at Maou as she nodded.

  “Well, yeah, my birthday’s in the early fall in the Western Island, but I don’t really have one on Japan’s calendar. It doesn’t really matter anyway, I don’t think.”

  “Aw, but you should!” Chiho excitedly grabbed Emi’s arm. “Maybe we could exchange presents!”

  “Oh, come onnnn, that’s just embarrassing!” Emi’s cheeks turned red at the extremely teenager-ish request.

  “Well, I still have to repay you somehow, don’t I? And you, too, Maou. If I don’t do a favor for you guys, too, someone might really kill me next time!”

  “Uh, jeez, Chiho…” Emi couldn’t tell how serious she was being.

  “But…yeah,” Maou said. “Looking at it that way, I guess maybe I do owe you guys a little, huh?”

  “Don’t be so serious about it. And I really don’t want you thinking about me like that anyway, all right?”

  Emi couldn’t bear the thought of, say, Chiho convincing Maou to buy her some sort of Relax-a-Bear merchandise. It would probably cause her to despise Relax-a-Bear forever.

  “You wouldn’t accept anything from me in the first place, would you?”

  “Of course not. So don’t think about it—”

  “Okay, so how about this?”

  “Huh?”

  Suddenly, Maou clapped his hands in the middle of the sidewalk. It filled Emi with a sense of dark foreboding.

  “I just named you one of my Great Demon Generals, right?” he began.

  “If you’re willing to let me resign as my present, I’d be willing to consider that a gift,” Emi retorted.

  “Not with Farfarello to worry about, I’m not. But instead of that, Emi, I want you to follow me around so you can keep watch over what I’m doing all the time.”

  Time stopped for a moment.

  “What?” Emi and Chiho echoed, their voices cracking.

  “Look, you’re at an impasse, aren’t you? Like, over whether you should keep treating me like your foe or not. So why don’t you take the time to give me a second evaluation? You’re in my inner circle of generals, you know; you could stab me in the back anytime you want. I’m not plannin’ on going down that easy, but if you don’t like what you see me getting up to, then let’s settle it, right then. As Hero and Devil King. What do you think?”

  “What do I—?”

  “It’ll be like starting with a blank slate. I’ll show you with my actions that I’m not the kind of Devil King you think I am. I guess you’re curious about what’s driving me to conquer the world, too, huh, Chi? Well, I’ll tell you everything from A to Z. And if you don’t like that, let’s duke it out one more time. So…”

  Maou smiled, satisfied at the sheer genius of the proposal he thought up.

  “…if you want to clear your mind, Emilia the Hero, then follow me. I’ve got a whole new world to show you. Once I conquer it, that is.”

  Chiho and Emi froze on the spot.

  “Huh,” observed Sariel, unaffected by this blip in the passage of time. “Quite the orator when you want to be, aren’t you?”

  Then:

  “……——!!!!!!!”

  “Huh? Wha? Huh?”

  Emi’s face burned red, as though someone had splashed gasoline on it and lit a match.

  At the same moment, Suzuno, who had arrived at Hatsudai station ahead of them, marveled in shock as Alas Ramus disappeared from her arms. Simultaneously, the Better Half, and all the power it represented, settled into Emi’s hand.

  “Wh-whoa! Emi?! There’s, there’s kind of a lot of people around—”

  She pointed it directly at Maou.

  “Heavenly Storm Fang!!”

  An unrelenting gale thrust its way toward him, plastering his all-too-human body against a nearby tree before dropping him into the bushes below.

  “Do, do, do you have any idea what, what, what you’re saying to me?!”
<
br />   Emi had little idea what she herself was saying. Maou had even less.

  “You idiot! You complete idiot! Forget it! You are my enemy! My mortal enemy! My nemesis! I was so stupid for doubting myself! I-I-I dare you to say anything weird like that ever again! I don’t care what Alas Ramus and Chiho think—when that, that, that time comes, I’m gonna rip your neck off, you, you—”

  Tears welled in Emi’s eyes, her face flush with every emotion in the world.

  “—you thoughtless creep!!!”

  Then she stormed off, walking even faster than Suzuno before her.

  “Wh-what’s up with her…?” Maou mused as he crawled out from the bushes, still a little dazed as a shadow crossed his head.

  “H-hey, Chi, give me a hand… Huh?”

  In front of him, framed by the sunset behind her, Chiho grabbed Maou—not by the hand, but by his shirt collar.

  “Chi…?”

  “Maou, could you treat me to some cake, please?”

  “Huh?!”

  “You were going to celebrate my birthday, right? So treat me to some cake, right now!”

  “What? Hey, c’mon, why are you kind of angry, too…?”

  “I don’t know!!”

  “Um, um, Chi? I-I can walk just fine, so, uh, you can let go of my collar anytime you want, so…”

  Maou found himself being dragged back the way he came by the teenager. Sariel, left to himself, chuckled as he pictured what kind of high-end Shinjuku sweet shop they would wind up in.

  “Ah, friendship is a beautiful thing. I’d best think about dinner myself. My first trip to MagCafé!”

  “What is with all you people…?”

  Maou stared up at the setting sun as Chiho dragged him along. No matter how much he thought about it, he just couldn’t figure out what had made Emi’s face explode and cause Chiho to have such an outburst. “Too bad she couldn’t always look like that,” he said, smiling to himself. “That was kinda cute.”

  “What did you say?!”

  “Nothing, nothing.”

  Then he stopped thinking. He knew what would happen if he riled Chiho any further, although he didn’t know why it was riling her up. Turning around a little, he realized Chiho’s ears were just a little reddened.

  “Not exactly what I imagined,” Maou whispered to himself as he watched the red Tokyo sky, “but I guess dreams never turn out exactly the way you want them to, huh?”

  Kisaki had almost let her fantasies dupe her into committing to a bad property. Sariel had even more substantial obstacles in his way before he could have the kind of relationship with Kisaki that he wanted. Alas Ramus had finally reunited with one of her companions, but only for a few seconds. Ashiya was probably going to scream at him for tossing away his demonic power, and nothing about anything Urushihara did ever contributed in a positive fashion. And Suzuno, Chiho, and Emi—none of their realities were exactly what they wanted, but they were still trying to batter through those walls, trying to change it into the world of their respective dreams.

  And Maou, too…

  “Yeah, I kinda doubt a three-hour training session is gonna get me up to Ms. Kisaki’s level…”

  The MgRonald Barista workshop was a valuable experience for him, yes, but if he wanted the skills he needed to even approach Kisaki and her barman ethos, he would need to keep at it for a while to come.

  Still, Maou and everyone around him had definitely taken another step toward their dreams compared to yesterday—no matter how small it was.

  The heat still lingered after dark in late-summer Tokyo, but the evening sky was clearly beginning to show the telltale signs of autumn.

  Well, huh, Maou thought to himself as his jeans dragged along the sidewalk. Maybe a red sky ain’t so bad after all. It just depends on how you look at it.

  “I’d like to have a shortcake, all right? One with looooooots of strawberries on it!”

  “Um, strawberries are gonna be pretty expensive this time of year, aren’t they? I, uh, I don’t have that much to work with…”

  The Devil King, the Hero, the demons, the angels, and the people around them. Their hearts, their goals, even their pathways home—they were all so dizzyingly different from one another.

  EPILOGUE

  On the wall by the order counter, there were now two more certificates next to Kisaki’s indicating that the location was home to MgRonald Baristas, experts in the entire MagCafé menu. Most of the certificates were written in English text for some reason, but between the fancy white-and-gold lettering over the MgRonald red background describing the coursework completed and the frame it was inserted into, it looked quite a bit fancier than it had any right being. The names engraved on them—SADAO MAOU and CHIHO SASAKI—were visible across the entire restaurant space.

  “Well, since we’re all here, why don’t we have Ms. Yusa try a taste test to see how much you guys have improved?”

  Kisaki, as promised, was treating Emi and Suzuno to a free round of café au lait. They arrived just as Chiho began her shift.

  “Oh, you’re on!” Maou’s eyes shined with confidence.

  “I…I don’t know,” Chiho said, demonstrating just a tad of nervousness.

  “Are you sure?” Emi politely asked.

  “Well, I did promise you a free drink, and I’m sure Maou wants some revenge for his loss this morning.”

  “His loss?”

  Chiho tittered a little. “I guess Ashiya and Urushihara came in earlier. They had a competition between Maou’s and Ms. Kisaki’s coffee, but…”

  “Even Urushihara spotted the difference. Like, instantly. I was so pissed.”

  He looked the part. Kisaki laughed.

  “Your coffee’s consistent. You really understand what MgRonald is doing with their beans. You should be proud of that!”

  “But both of them liked your coffee better…”

  “Well, Mr. Ashiya looked a little tired, so I amped up the bitterness and body for him so he could kick back and relax a bit. And Mr. Urushihara didn’t seem like a regular coffee drinker to me, so I kept it light and approachable, almost Americano level.”

  “……”

  Maou fell silent as Kisaki perfectly described the preferences of his roommates, two people who had barely even ventured into a MgRonald.

  “I guess I was cheating a little, though. After all, I wanted to reassure your friends that you’re working under a talented manager.”

  “Indeed,” Suzuno teased, “it sounds like this battle may be over before it begins.”

  “Not if I got a say in it!” Maou sniped back.

  “Well, let’s stop talking about it and get started, huh, Maou?”

  Kisaki, Maou, and Chiho filled their small espresso cups with regular coffee and presented them to Emi and Suzuno. Both of them took a sip from all three cups.

  “So from right to left… Chiho’s, Ms. Kisaki’s, and Sadao’s, perhaps?”

  “Yeah, I think Ms. Kisaki’s is the middle one, too. But the other two…they didn’t taste all that different to me.”

  “Geh…”

  Chiho snickered. “There’s just no beating her, is there?”

  Just as they’d thought, the middle coffee was Kisaki’s.

  “Still,” Kisaki said, “did you hear that? Your customers said there wasn’t any big difference qualitywise. That shows how much better you’ve both gotten at this. Thanks to both of you for cooperating in this little game. I’d best return to work now, but feel free to stay for as long as you like. I’ll bring both of you a full cup in a moment.”

  Maou and Chiho bowed to them, the former with extreme reluctance, as they went back to their posts. Watching them go, Emi took another look at the three cups in front of her.

  “If anything, his is actually pretty delicious. It’s so annoying.”

  Suzuno grinned. “He is nothing if not nimble with his hands. So is Ashiya, for that matter.”

  “So…what’re we doing here, anyway? I wasn’t expecting you to drag me into M
agCafé like this.”

  Suzuno called Emi earlier to suggest they go out and see Maou and Chiho on the job. That was how Emi was here, but Suzuno had yet to reveal her motivations for this visit.

  “I told you already. I simply wanted to see the Devil King and Chiho as they go about their duties.”

  “That’s it? Really?”

  “Well and truly, yes. In particular…” Suzuno picked up the middle cup. “I wanted to see how he acted under the watchful eye of Ms. Kisaki.”

  “…What do you mean?” Emi asked as she watched the trio handle a new customer.

  “Well, everything still remains clear as mud, does it not? What drove, and what drives, the Devil King to conquer the world in the first place.”

  Emi fell silent.

  “What is it? Your face is glowing red. Should we move out of the direct sunlight, perhaps?”

  “N-no!” Emi brought a hand to her cheeks, embarrassed that Suzuno spotted her thinking about their trip back from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building a few days ago. “I’m fine, all right?”

  Whenever she thought about that evening, she found herself exploding into a torrent of emotions, all beyond her comprehension. She was powerless to control it.

  “We likely could have surmised this already, but the Devil King truly seems to have the utmost respect for his manager. Perhaps his statement about there always being someone you must bow your head to was from the heart after all.”

  “So…what?” Emi asked. “What’re you trying to say?”

  Suzuno silently took something out from her sleeve and put it on the table.

  “That’s…a piece of the Heavenly Regiment’s weapons, isn’t it?”

  It was a small, jagged metal piece of obviously poor manufacture.

  “The Regiment were all human beings…and the angels are not so far removed from us after all.”

  “Hmm…?”

  “Everybody has someone they must bow their heads to. I can think of no other creature who can say that.”

  Emi gasped as she slowly began to grasp the point Suzuno was making.

  “Bell, you…you aren’t…”

  “Now, I say that while being fully cognizant of the fact that the Devil King and Alciel and Lucifer remain our enemies. But…we have seen how they act here in Japan, and I thought it was time to reflect on these observations. To see what they mean to us.”