The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 7

by Satoshi Wagahara

  “I can’t,” Maou sighed. “That’s the whole problem.”

  Emi sighed a little at the sight of the Devil King so easily brought to the end of his rope. “Well, if ‘friends and family’ aren’t enough, why don’t you ask someone else?”

  “Oh?”

  “You know, the usual way. There’re posters like that all over Ente Isla. They usually post them in front of churches or the village mayor’s house.”

  A flash of recognition crossed Maou’s face.

  “Posters, huh?”

  “Indeed, my liege,” Ashiya added, showing rare agreement with Emi. “A poster in a conspicuous location may attract the attention of quite a crowd.”

  “Yeah, I tried making one, actually.”

  “Agh!”

  Emi yelped at the sight of a hand extending out from the closet. She knew it had to be Urushihara, but there was still something classically horror-film about a disembodied hand with a single piece of paper, craning itself out of a closet in an old, beat-up apartment building at dusk.

  “L-Lucifer?! Don’t scare me like that!”

  Urushihara tossed the paper into the air and slid the door shut. Chiho picked it up. It was a very simple affair—a few lines of word-processor text with a digital-camera photo pasted in.

  “Since when did you guys have a camera and a printer?” Emi asked, shooting a glare at Maou.

  “Oh, uh, they were both supercheap,” Urushihara’s voice said. “I figured we should keep Alas Ramus’s pics around in as many formats as possible.”

  “I hope you got this old crap supercheap,” Maou countered, “or else you got totally ripped off.”

  Emi, for her part, was more concerned about why, if Devil’s Castle had this much discretionary income floating around, they weren’t willing to purchase so much as a futon for Alas Ramus during her stays here. She didn’t get a chance to verbalize it.

  “Umm…”

  Chiho apologetically turned to Maou.

  “What’s this ‘Silverfish’ thing here?”

  Maou took a look at the poster Chiho handed to her. Next to the photo was the line “NAME: Silverfish” in large print.

  “Ah,” Ashiya boasted, “Urushihara and I thought that up earlier.”

  “…Uh, could you think a little harder? This is a cat, man.”

  “Well, there is no saying how much longer we may have this kitten,” the completely serious Ashiya continued. “We have to be careful handling it, lest the landlord or the management company find out. Call it more of a code name than an actual one.”

  “Hell of a name,” Emi interjected. Considering they were counting on the general public to help with this, the idea of referring to the cat in code words seemed a little noncontributive. But even Maou was starting to have qualms about throwing the word cat around the apartment all the time.

  “Well, Silverfish or not,” he said, “does this look all right to you? We could add another photo or two, put up my phone number, and write ‘kitten for adoption’ or something on the top…”

  The poster itself, while clearly banged up in a few minutes on a home PC, was more than ample for the purpose. Emi disliked the idea of Urushihara taking the initiative here, but there was no point asking for much more. But:

  “Where would you put it, though?”

  Everyone had a general idea of likely locations. Everyone except Chiho, whose eyes darted between Maou and the poster.

  “Where? How ’bout just, like, a telephone pole or something?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Emi added, failing to see what Chiho’s problem was. “That’s where you see lost-pet posters and stuff, don’t you?”

  “Ooh, that’s actually not too good of an idea,” Chiho diplomatically explained. “For one thing—and I know this is kind of overstating it—but stapling a poster or something on a pole like that is damaging public property. The city of Tokyo’s got all kinds of regulations about using telephone poles like that, and I heard the public safety board’s kind of serious about enforcement these days…”

  “Damaging public property? It’s just a pet adoption poster.”

  Everyone else in the room couldn’t hide their surprise.

  “Well, sure, if it’s just a poster like this, a policeman would probably just tear it down. Maybe give you a verbal warning, at worst. But the way my dad put it, that’s not the issue so much as the kinds of trouble you run into if you print your phone number on it.”

  “Oh…that sort of thing?”

  Harmless prank calls were one thing, as Chiho put it, but there had apparently been cases of stalker activity, people posing as the pet’s owner to extort the other party, even home invaders who called the number first to ensure no one was home.

  “You’re the only one with a phone number you can post up, right, Maou? I probably wouldn’t do that if I were you. Those creepy door-to-door salesmen might still have their eye on you, for all we know.”

  “Pardon?” Ashiya asked. “There were some salesmen?”

  “…Uh, right! Gotcha! Loud and clear, Chiho! No posters on telephone poles! I sure ain’t falling for that trick!”

  It hadn’t been that long ago—not long after Suzuno arrived—that Urushihara fell victim to just such a pushy salesman at their home. The resulting chaos almost ruined the Devil’s Castle finances. They had solved the issue without Ashiya becoming aware of it, and Maou wanted to make damn sure it stayed that way.

  “Sorry for raining on your parade after you made this and all, though… You too, Urushihara.”

  “Ah, it’s fine,” Maou replied as he folded up the poster and tossed it in the trash bin. “Besides, Chi, you’re right. It’s my associate here’s fault for wanting to post my number all over the place.”

  “Aw, dude, I got all these pet forums open and stuff, too… Agh!”

  Maou kicked the closet door before Urushihara could continue.

  “Yeah,” Emi said, “I guess this isn’t like the kind of countryside I grew up in. It’s been nothing but good people around me ever since I showed up here, so I kinda forgot about that. There’s no telling who you’ll run into, really.”

  “Emilia?”

  Suzuno gave her a surprised look.

  “Hmm? What?”

  “…No. It is nothing.”

  The Hero’s reply came so naturally that Suzuno was unable to pursue it further.

  “So,” Emi continued as she lifted up the feline-enthralled Alas Ramus, “I guess we’ll have to keep pounding the pavement, huh?”

  “Ah! More Meow Meow!”

  “You’re going home?”

  “I got work tomorrow. I’ll keep asking around the office, but don’t expect any miracles.”

  “Sure. Um, thanks.”

  “Well, see you later, Chiho.”

  “Bye-bye, Meow Meow! Bye-bye!”

  “Have a good one, Emi!”

  “…Also, Devil King?”

  “What?”

  Emi glanced at the cat, then Maou. “You know,” she said softly, “it’s gonna be awful hard to give him up once you feed him for a couple days. You’ve already given him a name and everything. Don’t come crying to me if it winds up becoming a big tearful good-bye tomorrow.”

  “…Huh?”

  “Anyway, see you.”

  Emi took Alas Ramus and went out the door.

  “What was that about?” Maou asked, scratching his neck. Chiho gave him a worried look. Maybe something about it had hit home with her, too.

  What it was, although Maou had no way of knowing it, was this: Without any kitten to take care of, and without Maou aware of the fact that Alas Ramus had fused with Emi, what would there be left to keep him here on Earth?

  “Try not to get too depressed if someone shows up to adopt him, okay, Maou?”

  “Geez, you too, Chi?”

  “Mew.”

  The kitten chose the perfect time to get a word in edgewise.

  “Wish someone would clue me in on what you’re talking ab
out. Huh, Silverfish?”

  Silverfish didn’t answer.

  Three days passed. They tried everything. Emi and Chiho called upon everyone they could think of, but both of them reported no particular leads.

  “I asked around the neighborhood, too,” Maou lamented. “Now what?” He had gone so far as to call upon Hirose, proprietor at the bike shop where he purchased his beloved Dullahan II fixie, as well as Mr. Watanabe, the elderly local who stopped by MgRonald more days than not for a little something or other. The results were always the same.

  If this kept up, they might really have to keep Silverfish hidden from the landlord for God knew how long.

  “Mewww…”

  Something about Silverfish’s meowing sounded despondent to them. Maou took a look inside the box. Maybe, he found himself thinking, I should’ve just taken him back where I found him. Like Ashiya told me to.

  One of his roommates was allergic, after all—though he had no way of knowing that beforehand—and he wasn’t allowed to keep pets in here anyway.

  Given Silverfish’s unusual coloring, Maou had figured anyone actually capable of keeping cats would’ve taken him home in a heartbeat.

  Then again, though, it was really cold that night. He had found him in the wee hours, with few people around, meowing weakly. To Maou’s eyes, he sounded ready to die at any moment. Even he knew it was downright weird of him to be concerned about the fate of a single abandoned kitten, given his post as Lord of All Demons and everything. If it were Ashiya or Urushihara there by that grease bin, they wouldn’t have given him a second glance. And Maou wouldn’t have blamed them.

  Still:

  “Guess I’m getting soft… Thinking I oughta come up to you just because of that.”

  He couldn’t help but see a bit of himself in Silverfish. His younger self, clad in rags, thrown to the ground, simply waiting for death to come along.

  “Your Demonic Highness? Did you say something?”

  Ashiya, fresh from making some warm milk for Silverfish over in Suzuno’s room, chose that moment to come back. Maou shook his head.

  The Great Demon General was used to the milk process by this point. He picked up Silverfish by the scruff. He responded by naturally opening his mouth.

  “It is your meal time, Silverfish,” Ashiya said as he brought the feeding syringe to his mouth. But…

  “…Silverfish?”

  “What? What is it?”

  Ashiya sounded annoyed about something. “It doesn’t seem to want to drink, my liege… Come on, Silverfish, do you want it to get—”

  “Whoa! Ashiya!” Maou, noticing their pet was not his normal self, grabbed Ashiya by the shoulder. “Ain’t he shivering?”

  “You…you are right. Best to return it to the box, then.”

  He did. Silverfish responded by taking two or three unsteady steps, then cowering to the ground, bereft of strength.

  “Meww…”

  “Silverfish!”

  “Geh,” Maou groaned.

  Still in his crouched position, Silverfish then relieved himself. It was watery, nothing like the solid performance from yesterday.

  “That…that’s not good, is it, Ashiya?!”

  “Diarrhea, perhaps? I am fairly sure I gave the milk to him at a suitably warm temperature…”

  “…Raoww.”

  “Gahh!!”

  Now both of them were in a panic. Silverfish had just spat a glob of something or other out of his mouth.

  “Wh-wh-what the hell? He threw up?!”

  “I, I swear to you that I did not give it anything inappropriate, my liege!”

  The diarrhea was one thing. Now he was throwing up…something.

  “Wha-what should we do?! Was I too late or something?! Did he, like, get the flu on the night I found him?!”

  Neither Maou nor Ashiya, seeing Silverfish in this sorry state, had any idea what to do.

  “Ahhhh-choo!!”

  “Aghh!!”

  The sudden sneeze from the closet sent both of them flying into the air. The closet door was a crack open.

  “U-Urushihara?!”

  “Stop scaring us like that!”

  “Ngh, duuude,” came the stuffed-up reply as he ran another printout through the slit of the door. “Don’t juzt go into a banig or nuffin’. Call a bro.”

  “A bro?”

  “A p-p-pro,” Urushihara clarified as he flung the paper out and slammed the door shut. Maou picked it up.

  “…The Aurora Animal Clinic?”

  It was a map to the nearest veterinarian.

  “Okay, we’ll give your kitty a quick examination, so sit tight, okay?”

  Maou gave Silverfish’s box to the nurse at the front desk and sat on the waiting room bench, fatigue written deeply around his eyes. He had never been anywhere near a vet’s office before, but looking at Urushihara’s map, there were actually quite a few of them right near Devil’s Castle. He called one of them, explained the symptoms, and they agreed to see him immediately. With extreme care, Maou fastened Silverfish’s box to Dullahan II and pedaled off to the Aurora Animal Clinic.

  From what he could see in the waiting room, the clinic dealt in all kinds of animals. Cats, of course, but also dogs, birds, even a chameleon, of all things. The room was done up in warm pastel colors, which made it feel different from a hospital, and pet magazines lined the shelves for visitors.

  Maou picked one about cats at random, but he couldn’t get himself to focus on any of the articles. He took a look toward the examination room door, but nothing was visible from the waiting room. Instead, he spotted a bulletin board with reminders about rabies shots, notices about new medications, and advertisements for the latest and greatest in pet products. It was a world unlike any Maou had interacted with before.

  But what struck his interest the most was a photo of a certain dog.

  “‘Forever Homes Found’…?”

  It was a little celebratory piece about all the homes a recent litter of puppies was adopted by. The photo showed a large-breed dog nursing several puppies, a little stick-it note with “ADOPTED!” on it by the head of each one. Maou studied it intently.

  “Mr. Maou? We’re all ready!” said a short, well-fed man in glasses as he leaned out from the exam room. Maou looked up and tore through the door.

  “Silverfish! …Huh?”

  There he saw his cat on an examination table, the perfect picture of health, munching on some pet food.

  “Huhhh?”

  “Yep. I’d say he’s perfectly fine.”

  It hadn’t been twenty minutes since he was taken into the room, but Silverfish was now fully walking and eating by himself.

  The man, wearing a name plate that read YOSHIMURA: VETERINARIAN on it, waved at Maou. “You can have a seat if you like. I’d still say you made the right move bringing him here, though.”

  “Oh…?”

  “Not to get too nosy,” Dr. Yoshimura said as he looked at the cat’s medical chart in his hand, “but this cat, umm…”

  “Silverfish.”

  “Silll-verfish. Um, were you raising this cat in your own home, Mr. Maou?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Did you get him from someone, or did you find him out on the street, maybe?”

  Maou’s eyebrows arched upward at Dr. Yoshimura’s clairvoyance.

  “H-how did you know?”

  Instead of answering the question, the vet scrutinized Silverfish’s chart. “I think you said on the phone that you were giving him kitten formula…but was there anything else? Like, some of the flakey kitten food he’s eating right now?”

  “No… He still looked pretty small, so.”

  “Ah, that’s probably why he wasn’t feeling too well. It looks to me like Silverfish is old enough that he’ll need to start eating solid food. That happens at around the two-month mark, usually. Most adopters would know that, but since you didn’t, I thought maybe this was a street rescue of some sort…”

  Huh, Maou thought. It’s that o
bvious to pet owners?

  “He probably got sick because the milk wasn’t giving him all the nutrients he needed,” Dr. Yoshimura continued. “To put it another way, his diet was so watery that it upset his stomach and gave him that diarrhea.”

  “Oh…I see,” Maou said as he stared blankly at Silverfish’s ongoing feast.

  “That silver coat of his is pretty uncommon, but judging by those green eyes, it’s likely Silverfish is a Russian Blue. Cats in this breed are usually pretty wary of people until they get used to them. He was probably with his mother up to now, but if he got abandoned after that, I’d imagine he’s still finding his new environment a little stressful as well.”

  “Cats can get stressed out…?” Maou had trouble imagining it, but Dr. Yoshimura didn’t look like he was joking.

  “Oh, it’s more likely than you think! Stress can cause stomach ulcers in people, too. Besides, for an immature animal that’s gone through a lot of environment changes and maybe without food for a while, it can happen pretty quickly.”

  Silverfish edged away from the dish, apparently satiated, and began grooming himself.

  “By the way, the mass he threw up was a hairball. It’s made up of the hair he swallowed while grooming himself like that.”

  “A hairball?!”

  “Yes. Adults usually spit up two or three hairballs a week, on the average. It’s totally normal for a cat to do.”

  “…”

  Maou was starting to keenly realize exactly how little he knew about the cats of planet Earth. Silverfish, for his part, was starting to wonder what lay beyond the examination table, so Yoshimura used his practiced hands to place him back in the box Maou provided, keeping them on the lid to keep the suddenly healthy cat from bounding out the top.

  “…I never realized he was so healthy,” the dejected Maou said. “I think he got a little better once I brought him home, but he never jumped around like that.”

  “Oh? Was he that weak?”

  Prodded by Dr. Yoshimura, Maou went ahead and summarized the events of the past few days to him, as they related to Silverfish.

  “I guess this was kind of irresponsible of me, wasn’t it?”