Considering the two years it took for Emi to travel across the length and breadth of Ente Isla, no one at the Church nerve center expected Suzuno to fulfill her mission in the space of just over three months. But just because she wasn’t the target of suspicion didn’t mean she wanted them to know she was currently plotting against their will. The Malebranche on the Eastern Island, for all she knew, firmly believed that Crestia Bell was now a Great Demon General. Olba was apparently disengaged from the Church, so demon intel wouldn’t fall into Church hands that easily, but either way, Suzuno’s current position was quite a bit more unsteady than Emi’s.
“There is every chance,” she continued, “that people similar to how I used to be might be sent to Japan. People who would not hesitate to cause harm to Japan in order to dispose of the sorry truth behind Church doings.”
“Yeah,” Urushihara added. “Even before we came here, Olba was talkin’ to me about how Emilia being alive was kinda a thorn in the Church’s side, y’know?”
“Bell,” intoned Ashiya, “listening to you speak, it sounds as though you decided to shelve that issue rather quickly after reaching Japan, did you not?”
“Perhaps,” the unaffected Suzuno replied. “I have no defense for what Lord Sariel did…but, if I may be honest, you all bear the brunt of the blame for what happened.”
“What?”
“…Or should I say, it was all your fault, truly.”
“Now, I’m gonna have to object to that, lady…”
Suzuno was starting to get a little too arrogant for Maou’s tastes. She simply shrugged at the jab.
“For me,” she said, “the ideal resolution to all this would have been for Emilia to slay the Devil King in the world he fled to, bringing true peace to Ente Isla and guiding the Church back to something worthy of the faith after it heaped scorn upon the Hero’s good name. But look at our Hero now.” She let out a derisive sniff as she stared Maou down. “She truly believes you incapable of doing anything evil. Not only does she let you live, but she’s even returned to her family home. At this rate, nothing will ever change with my current…situation.”
Maou averted his eyes and clicked his tongue. This was getting awkward for him. Ashiya, for his part, let out a grumbling moan. Neither of them could counter her assessment.
“Things would change, of course, if I were allowed to smash all of you down. Right here, and right now.” Suzuno squinted at Maou as he gritted his teeth. “…But, ah, now is no time for idle talk like that. Our problem right now is Emilia, and right now, there is nothing we can do from here. And if Emilia is incapable of returning home, it might be safer to assume that something’s happened to Emeralda, not Emilia.”
“Emeralda?”
“Indeed. Emilia is incapable of casting Gate magic, and neither can Emeralda, for that matter. Much of it comes down to the angel’s-feather pens they have.”
Maou’s face wrinkled at the mention of the term. Nobody else noticed.
“It is Emeralda who takes care of those pens, so perhaps something has happened to her and Emilia is trying to do something about it… That is what I think, anyway.”
Suzuno’s hesitance was thanks to the fact that even she knew this was just idle speculation. It didn’t take much of an effort from Maou to deflate it.
“Okay, so why isn’t Emi telling you or Chi anything about this? She was chatting with Emeralda via Idea Link this whole time, wasn’t she? It shouldn’t be this hard for her to contact us. What’s with the silence?”
“…If I knew the answer to that, I would not be in such a state right now.” There was more than a twinge of frustration to her voice. “But what kind of trouble could have possibly befallen her? Because I am being quite honest when I say I cannot imagine what could possibly paint Emilia, of all people, into a corner like this. She is the Hero! Someone who flicked the Devil King’s Army and an archangel away like so many flies! If we can no longer make contact with her, the only thing I could imagine is that the entire world was destroyed.”
She was right: By both Earth and Ente Isla standards, there was no one that could be described as her equal. Much of that had to do with her holy force and the angelic blood in her, but even without that, it’d take a lot more than, say, an auto wreck to faze her. Even if she were faced with a foe on the level of the Church’s order of knights, it wouldn’t be close. Even against several of them. Even if they snuck up on her, and then bound and gagged her, too. Her holy force alone meant she could crush them without batting an eye.
“Hey, can I ask you something? Is it really that tough for human beings to conjure up Gates?”
Suzuno raised an eyebrow at Maou’s sudden query. “What?”
“I mean, I know me, Ashiya, and Urushihara all look like this right now, but we all had the innate power to use Gates whenever we wanted. I guess Olba can, too, so I don’t get why it’s so impossible for you and Emi.”
“Is that your way of bragging about your strength?” Suzuno closed her eyes, not appreciating the way Maou phrased it. “I can use Gates, technically speaking. And I suppose Emilia could as well, if she were trained for it. But it consumes such a vast amount of holy force, and it requires an extremely intricate spell to cast. Without that spell, and a suitable amplifier to harness it… Well, even if I could open a Gate, I’d be unable to venture through it, or be very sure of its destination.”
“Oh, so it’s a holy energy issue?”
“Quite. That is why Lord Olba is…extraordinary, in his own way. Summoning a Gate without so much as an amplifier is simply amazing. Even the six Bishops of the Church would hardly be a match for him—I suppose Lord Cervantes would have the best chance, thanks to his youth. Though whether even he has studied any Gate skills, I cannot say. It is not a spell that is called upon all that often.”
“Yeah, I guess not…”
“There are several of us in the Church’s diplomatic and missionary team capable of handling Gates, including myself, but Lord Olba is the only one I know of who can conjure them without an amplifier. And when I say ‘amplifier,’ I am speaking of enormous structures—Sankt Ignoreido, for example, the ‘Stairs of Heaven’ located at the assorted prelate sites on the Western Island. One would need to travel to one of those sites to access them, which is another reason why Gates are only rarely used by us.”
“Huh.”
“Of course, I have my doubts whether even someone like Lord Olba can form a complete Gate and perfectly define its destination through his own strength alone. If his real intention was to eliminate Emilia, after all, why would he send her to a human world with nations as rich as this one? He would not do that deliberately, no.”
It made sense enough to Maou, at least.
“I should also note that opening a Gate is quite a different matter from stabilizing it and going through it. I could probably manage the opening process with no external aids, but no further. I would not be able to guarantee the safety of whoever went through. And were I the one doing the traveling, I would need to keep it stable while I journeyed onward. I have no idea how long that would take, but I would need to continually pump power into the Gate, or else it would destabilize and send me to who knows where.”
“Oh…”
Maou and Ashiya turned and nodded to each other. They had to admit that it made sense. Losing control of their own Gate was the entire reason why they fell into Japan in the first place.
“Okay,” Urushihara suddenly blurted out, “so if Maou here becomes the Devil King again, he can hop right back to Ente Isla, right? Like, we’ve already proven that he can convert holy force into demonic if you overload him with enough of it. Then he can open all the Gates he wants to, yeah?”
“Hmm,” an astonished Ashiya said. “A surprisingly constructive observation coming from you, Lucifer.”
Suzuno looked less impressed.
“Probably not, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so, either,” Maou added. “Emi was with us all last time. Now,
it’d just be Suzuno. And she could probably drill all her holy force into me and it wouldn’t make the demon force come back. It’d just make me feel a little sick to my stomach.”
“I hate to admit it, but you are right. I have perhaps half of Emi’s holy strength at best—our capacities are on a completely different scale from each other. If I put that into you and poisoned your demonic side with holy force, you would no doubt fall ill, lose your job, and be homeless within a month, no?”
“Oof,” Ashiya said, newly concerned.
“Aw, I thought that was a pretty good idea, too,” Urushihara whined as he leaned back on his legless chair.
“…Well, hang on a second.” Maou waved his hand in the air. “Why are we treating it as a given that Emi’s in trouble and I have to swing in to rescue her? ’Cause maybe you forgot, but I’m the Devil King, y’know? Her mortal enemy. I don’t give a crap if Ente Isla starts a war with itself or whatever. Hell, that’s great for me, actually. Plus, Emi knew the risk she was taking going back there, right? It’s her problem now. Yours, too, I guess? I don’t care. I feel kinda bad for Chi, but…”
Maou shot a glance at the schedule on the refrigerator, recalling Chiho as she wrote her message on it a couple weeks back.
“Not even the entire Devil King’s Army could stop Emi,” he continued, picking up his usual conversational speed. “And now that she’s back in Ente Isla, her body’s naturally recharging its holy force. She’s gotta be several times stronger now than she was here, even. Isn’t it kinda pointless worrying about her safety? And if you can’t do anything, we really can’t, either. The only difference is that we have no reason to care about how Emi’s doing. She went there on her own volition.”
“But…Devil King…”
“This conversation’s over, okay? I’m assuming we’re gonna cancel the party if she doesn’t show today, so I’m gonna study for my license test tomorrow. Get outta the way, Urushihara.”
Urushihara, unexpectedly for him, got the picture quick. He sidled away from the computer desk, giving Maou the space he needed to access a website with a selection of sample tests, giving every indication that he was done talking for now. Ashiya, Urushihara, and Suzuno gave him confused-looking stares.
“Devil King.”
“…What? Are we not done here?”
“Would you say the same if Chiho asked you for help?”
“I…” Maou fell silent for a moment. But it didn’t change his mind. “I’d phrase it a little softer than that,” he said, back still turned, “but it’s gonna be the same thing in the end. It’s not like I’m some omnipotent god who can do anything. And we’re talking about Emi, okay? Like I said, I don’t see the point of worrying about her.”
Ashiya and Urushihara found it impossible to reply. But someone else didn’t.
“Maou…”
It was a small voice, ringing out across Maou’s slumped back and his heart. It made him hold his breath as he turned around.
“M-Ms. Sasaki…”
“Oh, that’s nasty.”
Ashiya’s groaned reaction, and Urushihara’s pointed criticism of Suzuno, were both aimed at a small and clearly crestfallen Chiho. She was next to Suzuno, her eyes quivering with concern—and now she was turning them to Maou. That explained why Suzuno never actually entered the apartment—she wanted to be sure Chiho heard the whole thing.
“Chi…”
“Maou, I know you’re not the kind of person to go back on your word.”
“…Huh?”
It wasn’t what he expected to hear. What he did expect had already made a chill run down his spine.
“I know you’re the Devil King and she’s the Hero. I know you’re enemies and everything. And when you say that you don’t care what happens to Emilia the Hero, I’m sure that’s what you really think inside.”
Her voice was shaking, hands clasped in front of her chest. So much as a poke would have made her start crying.
“I’m sure there’s nothing we can do about the fact that the Devil King Satan and the Hero Emilia knew each other as enemies. I guess there wasn’t any way of avoiding that in the first place. But…Maou… I mean, didn’t you say it to me yourself? Didn’t you…give me a really great present?”
Emotions Chiho could no longer contain were now spreading across her face.
“I…I think Emi might not like it much…but you, you told me, didn’t you? You said that me…and Suzuno, and Yusa, were all your Demon Generals, didn’t you? You said we could be with you, and you’d show us this amazing new world…”
“…Ms. Sasaki.”
“Whoa, nobody told me about—ow!”
Ashiya, attempting to give Chiho’s pained plea the serious response it deserved, instead found himself slapping Urushihara, for once again failing to get the hint.
“And you, Urushihara,” Chiho continued as she watched him grasp his nose in pain. “You betrayed him once, but you’re still a Demon General…snif… And you said her name, Maou… You named her…and nobody made you do it…”
“…”
“If it’s pointless to…to worry about her, that’s fine. It’d be better that way, even…but Yusa’s so strong, and yet she’s still gone…and I’m so worried…”
“Chiho…” Suzuno gave her a shoulder for support. Chiho’s knees looked ready to collapse on her.
“And…and Alas Ramus is still with her, you know? How could you not be worried about her, at least…? I know you’re lying about that right now… Hooph.”
Chiho sighed, relieved that she managed to scale the mountain of her emotions before they fully got the best of her. She gave the room a polite bow.
“Uh…”
“…I’ll see you later.”
She gave another bow and was just about to step behind Suzuno and walk back home when Maou let out a single, lifeless syllable.
“Chi…”
Chiho stopped. She didn’t turn around. “…Yes?”
For a moment, Maou failed to understand why he had called for her. After a measured silence, he finally managed to get this out:
“…Don’t do anything dumb like try to contact Emi with an Idea Link, okay? ’Cause if she’s actually in trouble, that might put you in danger, too, Chi.”
He knew it was insipid, but that was all he could say. And of course he couldn’t see the human girl’s expression with her back turned.
“All right,” Chiho replied. Then she walked down the stairs and left Villa Rosa Sasazuka alone. Once the stair clanging ended and Maou saw Chiho round the corner with tottering, unsteady steps, he gave Suzuno a resentful glare.
“…Damn it, Suzuno…”
He had fallen straight into her trap. And Maou wanted to curse Suzuno for that, but he—and she—both knew how weak his facial expression was right now.
Suzuno all but chuckled in response. “It is what I had to do,” she said, “to make sure you truly cared not at all. I, after all, was very reluctantly named a Great Demon General in your revitalized army. Why shouldn’t I have my reporting general think about how to protect one of his top officers?”
“…Uh, does someone mind cluing me in on all this later?” the very peeved-sounding Urushihara said, as Suzuno watched him climb into the closet.
“No Great Demon General can rely completely on her commanding officer, of course. So, for now, all I want is a commitment.”
“If you’re gonna use your position only when it helps you, I’ll happily strip you of your post, y’know. I don’t see how I can make a commitment on any of this, besides.”
“You sat there, slack-jawed, and said nothing to counter Chiho’s words. That proved to us all that you are, indeed, concerned about Emilia and Alas Ramus’s safety. What more commitment could I possibly ask for?”
Maou glared at her. “…”
“I am off. I need time to think about what I can do. After all, Chiho put it best—it’d be best for all of us if all this concern is for nothing.”
Without anothe
r word, Suzuno departed from Devil’s Castle.
“…Shit…”
Maou slapped a fist against the computer desk.
“Your Demonic Highness,” said a voice from behind, “if I may…”
“What? Are you gonna bitch at me to think about her, too?”
“No, my liege. To be honest, my main concern regarded why you are still considering Emilia and Bell to be your Great Demon Generals…but I believe there is another, graver issue to consider.”
“Yeah?”
Maou could tell from his voice that Ashiya had kneeled down behind him.
“I know you dodged discussing the possibility just now, but I believe the thought fully occupies the minds of both Bell and Ms. Sasaki. It is too easy for them to believe Emilia is in trouble.”
“…”
A sample scooter-license test was still being displayed on the screen in front of Maou. It was on a picture of a road intersection from the viewpoint of a passing vehicle, next to some sort of question about predicting potential hazards. The test taker had to correctly answer a true-false question about what danger might ensue from the scene in the picture.
“It is true, my liege, that staging a full-frontal attack on Emilia ultimately led to the demise of the Devil King’s Army. But now, the flames of war crossing Ente Isla are being fanned by human hands. There is no guarantee that the ‘danger’ dulling Emilia’s blade and strength would be a sword stabbing at her from the front.”
“…” No, there wasn’t.
“Even after human society betrayed her, Emilia has still retained her pride as the Hero and savior of humanity. She has always attempted to pursue the path to true justice. If a fellow human wanted to restrain her powers, what would be the best approach to take?”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 8 Page 5