“Thanks for the…compliment?” groaned the unqualified “security guard.”
“You’re welcome. I actually meant it as one, for a change.” Emi looked at the computer screen, one eyebrow arched.
“We spotted this, too,” Chiho said as she clicked on an icon Maou didn’t recognize. “Luckily, Urushihara doesn’t keep his files very tidy on this computer. He’s got his webcam set to auto-log mode, so there’s still the video from yesterday showing the front of the apartment.”
“Yeah, yeah, thanks for the compliment.”
“I doubt she meant that as one,” Suzuno said as both she and the equally computer-illiterate Maou sat in front of the screen.
“Wait, the one you bought earlier?” Maou said. He was referring to the webcam Urushihara bought and installed on his own volition, providing him with a feed of the outside world for reasons only he knew. It was monochrome and low-resolution, but it clearly showed the street that crossed by the Devil’s Castle window. A commercial van appeared to have parked, and a man in a suit jumped out from the passenger side.
“Whoa, that’s Kuryu!”
The so-called returns specialist was busily removing a futon and a fire extinguisher from the back of the van.
“So basically,” Emi explained, “this guy set out to rip you off from the very beginning. He claimed he was buying things from you, but that was just a cover story for what he was really doing, and that’s all subject to government regulations.”
“Is it…?”
“They’re required by law to tell you from the start what the purpose of their visit is—solicitation, sales, purchasing, whatever. This video’s pretty ample evidence that they were here from the start in order to sell you stuff—not buy it from you, like they claimed. Too bad we can’t see the license plate from this angle…but if we can see his face this clearly, that oughta be more than enough.”
“Yeah, but how come you know all of that?” Maou pleaded.
“Well, there’s a ton of regulations we have to follow doing business over the phone,” Emi explained, obviously detailed on the subject. “I’m more involved with fielding questions than actively soliciting sales, but they cover all that in our job training anyway.”
“Ah, Japan certainly does make things convenient,” an astonished Suzuno remarked. “Imagine, someone leaving such a clear trail of evidence to follow! A shame it never went so easy with the corrupt regional bishops and businessmen of the Western Island!”
“Right,” Urushihara interjected, “but Yusa, isn’t it, like, against the law to take hidden-camera footage and stuff without permission? Like, you’re not allowed to use it as evidence or something like that?”
“No,” Chiho replied as she watched the screen, “but that’s just talking about whether it’s admissible in court or not. That, and this video is surveillance, not a hidden camera—it’s not meant for illegal activity or invading people’s privacy or anything. And if it’s this bad of a company, even if it can’t be evidence, it’s still enough for the police to start an investigation with.”
“You really are a policeman’s daughter, aren’t you?” said Emi, impressed at the mature knowledge Chiho was spouting.
“Oh, it’s really nothing that complicated. But I was wondering about something else, though.” She turned toward Urushihara, a little bashful. “How old are you, Urushihara?”
“Huh?” he asked back.
“Um, like, not in demon or fallen-angel years… Here in Japan, I mean.”
“Oh, right, what did I put him down as…?”
Urushihara looked up at the (on paper, anyway) head of the Devil’s Castle household. The name “Hanzou Urushihara” was one thought up by Maou once it became clear they would have to live together in Sasazuka.
“I think I put him down as eighteen. He’s such a child, so…”
Maou and Urushihara, and Ashiya for that matter, all had to craft a full set of government-approved documents backing up their identities in order to pass as Japanese citizens. They forged them with a mixture of social engineering and demonic power-driven hypnosis. Without a presence in the government family register, after all, they’d be unable to do much of anything in this country.
“He is a child,” Emi echoed.
“Indeed,” Suzuno added. “Far, far less mature than Chiho, even.”
This news significantly brightened Chiho, however. “Oh! So you’re still a minor, Urushihara,” she chirped with a smile.
“Oh, right,” Emi said, nodding. “The cooling-off period and all that, huh?”
“Right!”
“What? I don’t have AC here.”
“No, cooling off,” Emi explained to the clueless Demon King beside her. “Basically, it’s a system where you can unconditionally cancel a sales contract or request within a certain period of time. With door-to-door sales in particular, people sign on the dotted line before they know what they’re doing a lot of the time, so it’s kind of a safety valve for consumers. The cooling-off system’s even stronger for minors, though. If their guardian says, ‘I didn’t agree to that’ within that period of time, they can cancel pretty much any kind of contract, just like that. This happens a ton of the time when minors sign stuff like cell phone contracts.”
As Emi put it, high school–age teens would occasionally forge their parents’ permission on Dokodemo contracts, leading to consternation down the line.
“Have you ever looked at the bottom part of a résumé form, Maou?” Chiho asked. “There’s usually a little bit there saying that minors need permission from a parent or guardian in order to seek work.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right…”
It had been a fair amount of time since he last filled out a Japanese-style résumé form, but he recalled that was one of the sections he left empty on it.
“I had to get that filled out, since taking a part-time job involves a full work contract and everything. This one isn’t exactly like that, but regardless, a minor always needs the permission of a guardian in order to sign a contract that involves more money than they’re permitted to have.”
“But I’m not exactly Urushihara’s dad, you know? We’ve got separate family registers and everything.”
“Yeah, dude, I like you and all, but…”
“Having you as my son would be hell on earth,” Maou fired back.
“Right,” Emi cut in, “but you work to support that shut-in freak, don’t you? In that case, it’d probably be easy for you to declare yourself his legal guardian.”
“Uh, what did you call me, Emilia?”
Emi ignored him.
“And he spent forty-five thousand yen of yours, didn’t he? I really doubt you’re giving Lucifer that much of an allowance. That’s got to be more than what he can work with by himself, so I think the cooling-off period can apply to this contract.”
Maou’s expression, dark and troubled before Emi began speaking, was starting to brighten. If all of this legal mumbo jumbo meant Ashiya wouldn’t be raging at him in a couple days, he was all but ready to worship Emi and Chiho as goddesses.
“Wow, so do you think I could use that cooler thing to return that transmitter he bought, too?”
“Cooling off, all right? And no, probably not, if he bought it online. That was on your card, I imagine, so you’re on the hook for that. You looked at the thing before you bought it, right? Unless it’s unopened or defective or something, I doubt you can return that unconditionally.”
“Oh…”
This was a slight disappointment for Maou.
“That device saved both me and Yusa, though,” Chiho said, standing up from her station and walking in front of Urushihara. “I’m sorry about earlier, all right? You saved the day for both of us, but I said some really mean things to you.”
“…It wasn’t me, dude,” Urushihara said, dipping his head awkwardly to the side. “Maou’s the guy who saved you.”
“Maybe, but if it wasn’t for you, Maou might not have reached us in time. Emi
and I were actually thinking that we should contribute some of the money for that tracker, but…”
“Whoa, really?!”
The unexpected confession made both Maou and Urushihara look at Emi. She turned away, clearly peeved. “That cheap bum Alciel never breathed a word of it to us,” she muttered. “I’m sure he’d never accept the money. Besides,” she continued, eyes firmly upon Urushihara, “I know it saved our hides in the end, but I know you didn’t put the tracker in my bag for any decent reason, Lucifer. I figure you owed me one for that, and I made up for it by kicking your ass yesterday. But on the other hand, I’m partly at fault for getting Chiho involved, so I wanted to help make up for your loss a little, too…and Chiho agreed to join me on that. Does that make sense now?”
It was fairly convoluted logic, but what it meant was that both Emi and Chiho had come to Maou and Urushihara’s aid today. For now, that was good enough.
“Well!” said Maou, indicating his tacit approval by changing the subject. “At least I know we’ve got a chance. But what should we do with that info? Call the cops?”
Emi and Chiho shook their heads. “There’s nothing illegal about the paperwork itself,” Emi explained. “Even if we went through the cops, they’d never get it settled before Alciel comes back. Not unless this was a seriously huge rip-off scheme.”
“Great. So now what?”
“How about this?”
Chiho returned to the computer and brought up another website. It had the name of another outfit unfamiliar to Maou.
“The Tokyo Department of Consumer Affairs?”
Said department, located in the Iidabashi section of Shinjuku ward, served as the main Tokyo corporate body in charge of consumer complaints. It was open on Saturdays. Maou immediately headed off to complain about Deluxe Life International Holdings and was soon greeted by a so-called consumer counselor who listened to the entirety of his story.
The counselor, a gentle-voiced man named Mr. Tamura, explained to him that his department had received several complaints about Deluxe Life in the past, but Maou was the first victim to bring such crystal-clear evidence of their activity to their attention.
“We’ll get in contact with this company at once,” he said. “I don’t think you have anything left to worry about, Mr. Maou.”
It was exactly the kind of reassurance Maou wanted to hear, as Mr. Tamura picked up the phone and made calls to several people. Then:
“Well, that was a close call. They almost got away from us.”
“Huh?”
“With the contract your friend signed, Mr. Maou, that would have been easy for us to cancel using the normal cooling-off regulations. But, just in case, I sent our weekend agent over in Shibuya and our affiliated judicial partner to the site. It turns out they arrived just as those frauds were trying to ditch the office and leave. There was a moving truck by the front door and everything.”
“Ditch the office…?”
“It’s a common trick,” Mr. Tamura said, unfazed. “They take out the computer equipment and other records first, send the desks and lockers and things to recycling agents, and then they run away. If they were well prepared for it, they could clean out your typical one-floor office and set up shop somewhere else within half a day’s time. I’m sure you’re far from their only victim, Mr. Maou.”
Maou found it all a little too hard to imagine. As far as he could tell, Deluxe Life had a perfectly legitimate-looking office setup. Without the aid of demonic force, he figured it must have taken a lot of people to construct and take down an entire office in such a short time, but it was hard to believe so many people could be involved in what amounted to a ring of criminals.
“It doesn’t take a lot of skill to run a group like this, actually. I sincerely doubt anything like organized crime was involved with them. If it was, I’d imagine they’ve long since cut ties with a small-time operation like that. Also, I’m happy to report that they found the contract signed by Mr. Urushihara as well. He had made the purchase via bank card, but they didn’t even have their own card processor, so the contract was still in their to-do pile. They never reported it to the bank, so I don’t think your card was ever debited at all. Lucky break there, huh?”
If Emi and Chiho were goddesses, then Mr. Tamura was the only Supreme Being Maou was willing to accept right now.
“By the way, though, it was apparently a rather odd scene at their office. The staff was trying to run away, but for some reason they couldn’t open the door or windows in their own office. When our agent arrived, one of the movers was attempting to break a window open for them.”
“They couldn’t open them…?”
Come to think of it, Suzuno spent a moment or two inside there after he left. It kind of seemed as if Emi had given her the signal to do…something. Perhaps she put some manner of sealing magic over the building to keep them from escaping. Maou could only guess at the exact nature of it.
“Either way, I’m sure their business license will be revoked before too long…although I’m sure they’ll find a way to file for bankruptcy and try the scheme over again somewhere else.”
Mr. Tamura’s eyes grew stern.
“Mr. Maou, we managed to get you out of trouble this time. There’s no doubt that this company actively attempted to victimize you and your friend. But like we’ve seen with all the identity theft going on, these thieves are always going to find another way to trick people. Most of the complaints we received for this outfit were from elderly people, but you’re still a young man. There’s no saying you’ll be this lucky next time. So try to be a little more careful, all right?”
For once in his over three-hundred-year-old life, Maou had no complaints about being called young. To someone like him, experienced with holy power–wielding Ente Islans like Emi and Suzuno as well as with honest-minded Earthlings like Chiho and his boss Kisaki at work, it was a surprise for him to realize that people in Japan could even be so ill-minded and deceptive. Even for a Devil King like him, there was still so much to learn.
“I’ll do my best,” he said, bowing. “Thanks a ton for all your help. Speaking of which…”
Ever since he set foot in this facility, something had been nagging on his mind.
“Do we, uh, owe you anything for interceding on our behalf?”
Mr. Tamura smiled and shook his head. “Visitors have to incur fees sometimes if we need to get attorneys or judicial agents involved, but this was an open-and-shut case for us, so you’re fine for today. It’s your taxes that keep the lights on in here, after all. If you run into any other trouble, don’t be afraid to contact us again, all right?”
The municipal tax deducted from Maou’s already paltry paycheck was usually a source of stress to him. For the first time in his human life, he actually felt glad he was required to pay it.
“I definitely wanna invite Tamura the counselor guy into my army someday.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
The gang was back inside the now much emptier Devil’s Castle. Emi was once again resuming callously shooting down the Devil King’s latest grand scheme.
Not long after Maou returned home, Kuryu paid them another visit—this time accompanied by the consumer affairs agent covering Shibuya ward. He had come to take back the futons, fire extinguisher, and water filter.
“Nothing to worry about,” Mr. Tamura said when Maou decided to call him before letting Kuryu inside. “That’s exactly the kind of caution I was talking about. That’s good. Keep up the good work.”
For all the bluff and bluster Kuryu gave Maou earlier in the afternoon, he was almost eerily friendly with him now that the agent was watching his every move. The documents were formally annulled in Maou’s presence, the head of the local newspaper office came to apologize after Maou called to complain, and the threat to Devil’s Castle (and the threat of Maou’s and Urushihara’s grisly murders at Ashiya’s hands) was finally quashed for good.
“Thank you all so much! Emi, Chi, Suzuno… I owe all of y
ou one! Hey, Urushihara!”
“Yeah…uh, thanks, I guess—Yeow!”
“Bow your head, dumbass!”
He pushed his head down, dissatisfied with the token gratitude Urushihara had to offer.
“Y-you don’t have to go that far,” a harried Chiho said with a smile. “I’m just glad we could help out.”
“The fruit’s still gonna be your problem, though,” Emi said. “Gotta pay for your mistake somehow, you know?”
“Yeah, you said it.”
The pears cost a total of a thousand yen or so. Maou decided to keep them around, as a sort of cautionary tale for all of them.
“You girls want any?” he asked.
“No thanks. They look kind of old anyway.”
“Um, I’m okay, too, thanks.”
“See?” Suzuno sneered. “I told you they were asking too steep a price for that quality. You had best eat them all before Alciel returns, lest you incite his rage for quite different reasons.”
Following her advice, Maou peeled one of the pears, probably not the stuff of organic boutique farmers, and took a bite.
“I can’t believe people actually do that, though,” he whispered as he savored the less than succulent flavor.
“You think it’s that rare? You are the King of All Demons, right?”
“Yeah, but demons don’t pull underhanded BS like that,” Maou said, Kuryu’s face crossing his mind. “We don’t really have the concept of ‘wheeling and dealing,’ y’know? We like to keep our evil on the simple side. Something like that… A guy smiling at you as he tightens the noose around your neck… I didn’t know that existed.”
“You see?” Suzuno scoffed. “Not all humans are good people, indeed. As a Church cleric, I know that all too well…but I am also duty bound to treat all lives as equal. If that Kuryu gentleman was killed by the demons that marauded Ente Isla…then he would be the victim, one who needed to be saved. A thorny dilemma, and one I still have trouble coming to grips with.”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 7 Page 4