THE DEVIL LOSES HIS SOCIAL STANDING
The types of meticulously crafted multicourse meals Emi was being presented with suggested nothing of camping on a battlefield.
And yet they did nothing to stimulate her appetite. She knew she had to eat to keep up her physical strength, to say nothing of her mental outlook, but there was nothing in her that could make it happen.
It was silly to think about, but until she had been captured by Olba and made into the so-called Supreme Commander of the Phaigan Volunteer Force, Emi had no idea that food on Ente Isla could be so exquisite, so profoundly flavorful. And it wasn’t because she had never eaten it before—she just had been unaware it even existed.
Being raised in a Western Island farming village meant that she’d enjoyed a warm family life, but not a well-funded one. And she’d certainly never left the area before the Devil King’s Army had come onto the scene.
And yet, even during her hero’s journey, they had to keep a careful eye on their funds, no matter how high-born Emeralda and Olba were. Even the resistance army’s commanders couldn’t count on being treated by princes and nobles, and they had been unlikely to see even what a commoner would consider a feast more than once a month or so.
In terms of variety in her diet, at least, the two years and change Emi had spent on Earth had far outclassed the sixteen she’d spent on Ente Isla. Now, though, the three meals presented to her and Alas Ramus on a daily basis used nothing but first-class ingredients prepared by first-class chefs. Comparing it to her usual war rations, or even to what she enjoyed in Japan, was ridiculous.
But it still wasn’t right.
“Mommy, this isn’t Suzu-Sis’s corn soup!”
One mouthful was all it took for Alas Ramus to grimace.
“No? Well, how about this fried rice?”
It couldn’t have been much different from the kind of fried rice they had in Japan, but she still took up a spoonful of the vaguely rice-like grain whipped up with a few other mystery ingredients and presented it to the child. She took a mouthful, and that was the end of it.
“This isn’t like Al-cell’s!”
“Well, I’m sorry, but this is all we have. Could you just make do with that, please?”
Even the most extravagant of the cuisine on offer in Efzahan couldn’t compete with the comfort food made in the dingy, ill-stocked kitchen of a Tokyo apartment slum.
“What do you think of this fried chicken? You like fried chicken, right? I’ll cut it up for you, so—”
“I like Chi-Sis’s!”
As a mom, it would normally be Emi’s job to chide Alas Ramus for being such a picky eater. But Emi couldn’t drum up the willpower. She didn’t need Alas Ramus to spell it out for her—she felt the exact same way. No matter how masterful the dish, having it served on the coldest, most unwelcome of dining tables would dull anyone’s taste buds.
“You’re going to be hungry later tonight if you don’t eat anything. It doesn’t taste bad, does it? Come on, let’s have some.”
“Awwww…”
Alas Ramus stared at her plate, pouting. That part of her, at least, was toddler-like to the extreme. She’d have these moments when, if something didn’t pass muster with her, she’d fight it tooth and nail. That happened to be her meals right now, and Emi couldn’t let her simply choose not to eat for the rest of her childhood. So she cajoled the child with a tactic she immediately regretted.
“Look, Alas Ramus. Once we’re back home, we can have Bell and Alciel cook for us again, all right? So for just—”
“When can we go home?”
“…”
They couldn’t.
Not even in her dreams.
The steaming dishes on the table began to cloud up in her eyes.
“There’s nothing enticing about food you didn’t do anything to earn, is there…?”
She did everything she could to compose herself and rein the tears back, face turned away from Alas Ramus.
“But…we have to eat…all right?”
Emi soothed her child, and then the tasteless meal continued.
Emi’s old wheat fields—the only proof that her father had ever existed—were being held hostage, forcing her to engage in a military campaign in which she had no interest. It was the work of Olba and Raguel, both pursuing her “warpower” in naming her supreme commander of a volunteer force created to rid Efzahan of demons.
To an entire people, she was a flag of hope, a rallying cry as the armies marched for the imperial capital of Heavensky to free it from the Malebranche that lurked its streets. But as far as Emi knew, it was Olba himself who had dragged the Malebranche into Efzahan. His actions were still totally opaque to her.
Meanwhile Ashiya, taken to Ente Isla by Gabriel, was once again made to descend upon Heavensky as Alciel, the Great Demon General. He had to, because otherwise he would be in danger, and the Malebranche tricked by the heavenly world to invade Efzahan would be in danger—even Maou, over in Japan, wasn’t safe.
And as the table began to be set for a decisive confrontation between Emi’s volunteer force and Ashiya’s Malebranche hordes, Maou, Suzuno, and Acieth Alla—a being similar in origin to Alas Ramus—were traveling in Ente Isla to “rescue” the three of them. They had entered the world a distance away from the powder keg of the capital to avoid heavenly attention, but now they were proceeding as fast as their scooters could take them across the Eastern Island, gathering intel and approaching Heavensky.
Along the way, Suzuno had been disturbed to discover that the mood among island residents wasn’t all that terribly gloomy, despite being ruled over by demons. It beat the Devil King’s Army in their eyes, at least. The revelation had driven her to confront Maou, and the results had taught her something new about the demon realms.
Thanks to Albert, a former companion of Emi’s they had the good luck to bump into, they had a bead on Emi’s location, the volunteer force gathering around the capital, and what had to be done to settle all of this. They concluded that the sheer strength Maou could wield as Devil King, fused with Acieth and wielding a holy sword of his own, was essential—the key to the whole plan.
Or it should have been. But for some reason, Maou couldn’t summon Acieth’s sword. Not only did their fusion produce neither demonic nor holy force—the latter the type that Chiho had unleashed to save her school—it made him vomit up something that never should have been vomited up in the first place.
The force ensconced within these two holy pairings—Emi’s holy force with Alas Ramus’s sword; Maou’s dark force with Acieth Alla’s blade—was overwhelming. But now it was gone, and there was no other way to end this battle quickly. Maou was starting to worry that the week he had taken off from his job at MgRonald wouldn’t be enough, and the thought made him tremble with fear.
On the outer edge of the region referred to as the capital of Heavensky, there was a village, a sort of satellite city. There, in a dimly lit inn chamber, Sadao Maou was gritting his teeth and glaring at the two people looking down upon him.
“…I want an apology,” he grumbled.
“Where did that come from, out of the blue?”
“Enough. Just apologize to me.”
“Care to explain what on earth you are talking about first?”
“Do you two seriously think you can treat me like this and get away with it?”
“Hmph!” Suzuno Kamazuki, dressed in her Church garments instead of her usual Japanese kimono, rolled her eyes. “A fine thing to say. We are merely taking consideration for your safety.”
Albert Ende, the mountain sage whose bulging muscles made Suzuno look like his daughter when they stood next to each other, nodded. “Y’know she’s right, Devil King.”
“How is this for my safety? I’ve never been so humiliated in my life.”
“Well, whaddaya want from us?” Albert countered long-sufferingly, scratching his head. “All you’ve been doing the past two days is eat and sleep, Devil King.”
“You’ve got some nerve, Albert, treating me like Urushihara or something… You can’t just go around saying that…”
“U-ru-shi-ha-ra?” Albert turned to Suzuno for guidance. She just shrugged and shook her head.
“So be it,” she lamented. “In a mere day’s time, we will reach Heavensky Keep, the very heart of the capital. We are about to strike at our enemy’s stoutest of strongholds. And yet look at you.”
She turned her eyes away from Maou. There she saw Acieth Alla, sleeping atop a humble but clean-looking bed, a breadcrumb from the sweet-vinegar fried freshwater fish she had for lunch still stuck to the side of her content-looking lips.
“Devil King, you are completely useless to us in battle like this, all right? But if something happens to you, Chiho and Alas Ramus would be crushed. Our only choice is to sequester you at this inn for the time being.”
“…Damn it!”
Maou gritted his teeth, faced with the painful truth, and punched the wall as hard as he could.
“Arrghh!!”
The pain from his first made him gurgle in anguish.
“Look, Devil King, stayin’ here’s for your own good, okay? That punch would’ve razed a city block in your heyday, but you didn’t even dent the plaster. You go out in battle, and the Inlain Crimson Scarves would have you for lunch, to say nothin’ of Olba.”
“Rrrnnghh…”
Albert wasn’t nearly a match to Emi when it came to antagonizing Maou, but he was still his current archnemesis, technically speaking. And yet here the man was, lecturing Maou with these eyes full of compassionate pity. Nothing could humiliate a Devil King more.
“Yo! Acieth!”
“Mngh?”
No longer able to stand the truth—that he was a Devil King in name only—Maou woke up the blissful-looking Acieth, grabbing one of the shoulder straps on her overalls and shaking it violently.
“What the hell’s the problem, man?! Why isn’t my demonic force coming back?! And what happened to that power you had back at Chi’s school, huh?! Do you not understand what moderation is?!”
“……”
Acieth was too busy trying to refocus her eyes at first after Maou’s violent outburst to answer. But after he stopped shouting, the answer came softly.
“…Shrimp…”
“Shrimp?! What about shrimp?!”
“If I eat grilled shrimp, maybe I know?”
“…”
Maou silently raised a fist, eyes wild. Suzuno had to expend a surprising amount of strength to stop him.
“H-halt, Devil King! This is accomplishing nothing! I understand how you feel, but you must not!”
“Lay off, Suzuno. This is an era of equal rights. I can hit anybody I want!”
“Equal rights or not, you have a duty to uphold your pride, you monster!”
“See, this is exactly why people keep belittling the Men’s Rights movement—”
“You’re doing a fine job belittling yourself!!”
The pointless bickering continued for a few moments more, but in terms of physical strength, Maou was no longer a match for Suzuno. He dolefully took his hands off of Acieth.
“Tch. No shrimp, huh…?”
With perhaps the one rejoinder that would rankle Maou the most right now, Acieth went back to her dreams. This time, Albert had to help keep Maou away, too.
“Owwww! All right! I get it!”
Suzuno had more than enough strength in a pinch, but Albert’s body was on a whole other dimension. Pinned down by these two tanks, the Devil King and former international tyrant teared up as he worked through his desire to kill Acieth.
“Geez, cut me some slack, guys…owww…”
Now his whine came at a lower volume as he rubbed his almost-dislocated shoulders. He knew what kind of look Suzuno and Albert were giving him.
“I mean, come on! What the hell…?” he asked, whining as he balled up and unclenched his fists.
His demonic power wasn’t coming back. It was a shock to realize, and it was completely beyond Suzuno’s reckoning. If they wanted to bring Emi and Ashiya home to Japan together, it’d be impossible to avoid combat with archangels. They knew Gabriel and Camael were nearby and aching for a fight. And while Suzuno knew the powers of her war hammer, she also knew she was nothing compared to Emi fused with Alas Ramus. Even taking on Albert in a one-on-one match would probably end with her eating dirt—and Albert would never win against Emi at full strength.
Trying to challenge two archangels without Maou’s power to count on produced no hope of victory. Perhaps they could make contact with Emi and have her wield her angel-busting powers to punch them all an easy ticket off the planet. But that wouldn’t be enough. If that was all it took to wrap this up, Emi would’ve done so long ago.
This whole uproar was about more than taking Emi and Ashiya back to Japan. They had to push the reset button on whatever situation both of them were in right now, and they had to do so in a way that ensured nobody launched an attack on Japan. And it was more than just beating up the villains who took their friends—they had to “clean things up” after the battle, ensuring that nobody had any political or military motivations for Emi or Ashiya any longer.
The scenario Suzuno pictured at one point placed enormous importance on Maou using his holy sword to handle both the battle and the cleanup afterward. Now summoning so much as a dollar-store kitchen knife was apparently enough to make Maou’s intestines churn. She would have to go with Plan B, and that would have to involve Albert, their quest’s unexpected windfall.
“Cheer up, Devil King,” the burly man attempted. “It’s not your fault. And it’s not the kinda thing cursing at yourself’s gonna solve.”
“Yeahh, but if this is how it’s gonna be, why the hell did I take all those extra shifts to get time off for this thing?! I’m just sitting here! Eat, sleep, wander around like some tourist!”
To Maou, the fate of every inch of land that spread across the Eastern Island of Ente Isla was equal on the scales with the fate of his future shift schedule.
Suzuno, for different reasons, shook her head. “This was something we could never have foreseen,” she said. “Besides, if you had not made that transformation before, neither I, nor Chiho, nor Lucifer would have survived. This state of affairs, too, must mean something for us. So stop sulking. If you call yourself king, look at the whole picture, not only what lies in front of you.”
“Yeah, but…”
“I am not interested in seeing you leap into battle without access to your skills, only to pay dearly for it. Just wait for us to return. I promise you that before long, Emilia, her father, Alas Ramus, and Alciel will be back with us.”
“Suzuno…”
As if to stop him before he began, Suzuno knelt down in front of Maou, still seated on his bed, and locked eyes with him as she took his hand.
“I, and Emilia, have gone on and on about how you are our enemy, only to latch on to your powers every time at the end of it. This time, at least, I hope you will let us repay the favor. That, as your general in the New Devil King’s Army, is my advice to you.”
“I love how you never bring that up except when it helps you, man.”
“Indeed. I have come to learn that you have a weakness against it.” Suzuno let out a wry smile as she stood up and patted the dust off her vestments. “Besides, is it not the job of a commander to lie back in a safe haven and watch what his troops are doing?”
“That’s really not my style.”
“If something sinister comes your way, avoid it. Run away. That is how people live their lives.”
“Hey,” Albert interjected, unnerved by how oddly friendly Suzuno and Maou were, “I don’t know what you folks were up to on Earth, but I’ve got no intention of siding with the Devil King. Just so we’re clear on that?”
He had approved of Emi staying in Japan for the time being, but the idea of his working together with Satan, King of All Demons, was stretching his moral compass to unhealthy lengths.
“I know,” Suzuno replied. “But just this once, we need as many companions on our side as we can gather.”
“Companions, eh?” Albert shrugged, his eyes indicating he didn’t find the concept entirely revolting. “If that’s how you put it, then this is a hell of a lot more complex than I thought.”
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask, though,” Maou added.
“Yes?”
“Why are you and Emeralda so keen on letting Emi stay in Japan without killing me? Like, I know you want her to have her freedom, but that only goes so far with you guys, right? ’Cause after Olba and Lucifer attacked, I was more worried about you and Emeralda than Emi—like, maybe you’d kill me without telling her or something.”
“Ah, we did deliberate over that.”
“Oh, geez, you did?”
Albert seemed to relish how comically Maou winced at the idea of an active cabal conspiring against him.
“I can’t tell ya what Eme was thinking, but I had my own reasons not to try it. I wanted to respect Emilia’s wishes, of course, but beyond that…”
He walked up to Maou and gave him a series of powerful, bear-like pats on the shoulder.
“Ow! What’s that for?”
“I s’pose you’ve got that girl Sasaki and Adramelech to thank, huh?”
“Chi and…Adramelech?” Maou turned an eyebrow up at the unexpected mention of Chiho, as well as one of his now-deceased Great Demon Generals. Albert, however, merely shook his head.
“Right,” said, “if we’re going, we’d better get started soon. I s’pose I’ll be leading the team, but the Phaigan Volunteer Force is just a day or two away from central Heavensky, too. If Emilia’s really with them, then we’ll have to blend in with all the chaos they’ll drum up on the way to Heavensky Keep. In terms of distance, it’s gonna be a pretty close shave. That’s why you gotta stay here with that holy-sword lady, all right, Devil King?”
And with that, Albert paused just long enough to give the stunned Maou a side glance before walking out of the room.
Calling Heavensky a “city” was, in a way, not giving it enough credit. It was vast, expansive, and the nobles’ quarter in the middle of it was packed with military buildings. This included the headquarters for four of the upper armies composing the Eight Scarves of Efzahan—Inlain Azure, Regal Azure, Inlain Jade, and Regal Jade. They stood alongside the empire’s main governmental offices, imperial courts, and embassies run by the foreign tribes that swore allegiance to the Azure Emperor. It had a lot of people to house, and it was therefore massive. If an army marched from the keep at normal speed, it would take more than a day simply to leave the central district’s boundaries.
This district was surrounded by the so-called merchants’ quarter, home to businessmen, upper-class non-nobles, and the lower four of the Eight Scarves—Inlain Citral, Regal Citral, Inlain Crimson, and Regal Crimson. The rule of thumb was that an army on the march would require another day to make their way out of this district.
In order to enforce borders and prevent invasions, castle walls snaked their way across the entirety of the central and merchant districts, part of them forming long, straight boundaries that extended all the way out to the far regions of the agricultural/industrial quarter outside of town.
These walls—running generally along the northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest directions—were world-famous structures, huge edifices built long before the Azure Emperor’s reign. They had seen wide-scale erosion on the island’s west side, where things were generally peaceful through the years, but toward the east, where rebellious tribes still made the emperor fret over the potential for civil war, the government gathered people from across the land for “public works projects” to reinforce the walls once every few years, forming just as vital a defense as they did in ancient times.
The agricultural and industrial areas beyond the city spread out even farther and wider than either the central or merchant zones. It was the breadbasket of the capital and Efzahan in general, as well as the island’s main manufacturing hub. The village whose inn Suzuno and Albert wanted to dump Maou at was beyond even this district, part of the string of satellite cities and travel stops along the Imperial Road, the wide, well-kept highway that stretched from Heavensky to most of the Eastern Island’s populated areas.
“Thinking about it,” Maou said before his demotion, as he looked at a map of the region, “things like trains and cars are actually pretty amazing, aren’t they? I mean, from here to Heavensky’s central district, that’s pretty much the distance between the Keio Hachioji and Shinjuku stations, right? That’s, like, not even half a day. Under two hours, even. But nobody would even think of walking that distance.”
Albert was bewildered to hear this, but outside of the occasional culture shock, the journey between where they found him in Honpha and now had gone without a hitch. He had found a wagon caravan for them to travel on without being suspected, letting them travel from Honpha to just outside Heavensky without expending a drop of their scooters’ precious gas supply.
He had a few advantages in this. For one, unlike Maou and Suzuno, he enjoyed total freedom of movement. Suzuno knew he had been working for Emeralda, one of Saint Aile’s top leaders, to gather intelligence on the ground level. This agreement was strictly personal on Albert’s part; he made no oath of fealty to Saint Aile, and he was no citizen of theirs. He had no political or national restrictions placed upon him, he had enough strength to carry him past almost anyone who breathed on Ente Isla, and he was blessed with both extensive travel experience and ample funding to tap into when needed.
Plus, as he put it: “Outta the people who defeated the Devil King, I’m the least known of ’em all. Saves me a lot of unnecessary effort trying to gather intel, y’know?” Which made sense. Emilia’s name preceded her everywhere she went. Emeralda Etuva was the court sorceress of the holy empire of Saint Aile, the most powerful country on the Western Island. Olba Meiyer was one of the six archbishops at the very peak of Church bureaucracy. Albert, meanwhile, was a woodcutter from the north, a mountain sage—titles that didn’t divulge a lot of details about his true nature.
That was by design, however. Even after the Devil King’s Army was defeated, he still revealed little about his past. And between that and his apparent disinterest in returning home to the Northern Island, there just wasn’t much conventional wisdom about him among the populace, compared to his three more famous companions. This meant people treated him little differently from anyone else, and that ensured the information he gathered was, by and large, reliable.
“Sir Albert,” Suzuno asked as she adjusted the harness on a pair of horses tied to the nearby stable to suit her better, “what did you mean when you spoke earlier?”
These were stout war horses, again procured for them by Albert, and while more wide than tall, the breed they belonged to was built for long distances, well-suited for caravans and cavalry corps. With Maou out of the picture, Suzuno and Albert would be proceeding by themselves, but Albert (as to be expected) didn’t know anything about driving a scooter around. Suzuno, on the other hand, was more than capable on the saddle. There was no reason not to switch to that, especially if they wanted to stay inconspicuous, although it was adding insult to injury for Maou given his complete lack of horsemanship skills.
“Hmm?” Albert said, lifting his head. “What about?”
“You said I would have Chiho and Adramelech to thank later.”
“Oh, that?” he replied as he checked the stirrups of his own mount. “Well, I dunno if a Westerner like you would like to hear it much, but I pretty well knew from early on that the Devil King’s Army wasn’t here to destroy all mankind or anything. I knew some of the demons were pretty reasonable to work with, in fact.”
“You did?”
“I usedta be the commander of the Fifteenth Mountain Corps, remember.”
“Commander of them?” Suzuno couldn’t hide her surprise. “That’s a corps of elite soldiers from the clans that dot the Northern Island, is it not?”
The Northern Island was mainly populated by countless pockets of tightly knit clans and villages, spread out across the mountains that lined most of the continent. There were no broad, encompassing kingdoms like with Saint Aile or Efzahan—instead, from the cold expanses of the north to the mountains and coastlines below, a gaggle of warlords jostled against each other for what plains and territories existed. Representatives from each one were sent to a larger parliament that presided over island-wide matters, forming a federation that, while loose in structure, had stood the test of time so far.
The Mountain Corps was the most powerful military organization on the island, formed from clan warriors specially selected for their magic or martial-arts skills. They were bound by parliament regulations to stand up together and resist anything that threatened the Northern Island as a whole, and whenever they were summoned as such, a commander would be chosen among the participating clans in round-robin fashion. Albert was thus the commander of the Corps during the event of its fifteenth summoning.
One major difference between the Corps and the militaries of more established nations elsewhere was that, in the case of conflict between clans, individual Corps members were free to fight against each other for the sake of their own affiliation.
The balance of power differed wildly from other islands, for a number of reasons. For example, each clan held sway over a fairly small population. The land was rugged, mountainous, and arable only in small pockets. And with the distances often put in place between clan territories, it was nearly impossible for one clan to simply invade and conquer another. Thus, instead of wasting time spilling blood at the drop of a hat, the culture up north developed a system of official “contests” to resolve its wars. If a squabble was beyond the abilities of the parliament to settle, a few members of the Mountain Corps would battle it out in a predefined space.
This arrangement meant that few, if any, warriors ever died in battle. There were massacres here and there across history, of course, but without exception, the perpetrators of such tragedies would be branded “dangerous” by neighboring clans, face attack from all direction, and get annihilated. That, luckily, had not happened recently. Even the more serious disputes between clans as of late were resolved either through parliamentary conferences or contests held in the Northern Island Federation capital of Phiyenci, in an arena colloquially known as the Goat Pasture.
The Northern Island’s geopolitical situation had evolved in a completely different direction from the rest of Ente Isla. A dizzying array of clans were involved with it, each with very different cultures and customs, and leading a Mountain Corps composed of such a motley crew of ethnicities and values indicated to Suzuno that Albert’s leadership talents had to equal or exceed the generals from any other land.
“Well,” Albert replied, “considerin’ how we were pretty well wiped out by Adramelech’s forces, nobody calls ’em ‘elite’ too often any longer.”
“Oh, nothing of it…”
“It’s the truth, though. I led the Fifteenth Mountain Corps straight into the slaughter against ’em. The longest casualty list of any Corps that came before it. We heard what was going on in Isla Centurum, so we were prepared for the worst when it came to our clans. Then Adramelech took the surviving Corps warriors and clan leaders and gathered them up in the Goat Pasture. And you know what he said?”
Adramelech, the bull-headed, spear-toting Great Demon General who was easily two to three times Albert’s size, said this: “Our mission is not to massacre you. I will guarantee the lives of all clan members, but only if you expel from the continent any warriors who may resist the Devil King’s Army and accept our rule over your land.”
His words came with a warning for any Mountain Corps members willing to fight it out to the end: “Warriors, the time may come when you once more raise sword and shield against us, as long as you live and breathe. But if you believe it is a warrior’s lot to waste his life on an unwinnable conflict and expose the clan he swore to protect to mortal danger, then you are nothing more than slavering beasts, baring your fangs and salivating for blood. If you still wish to fight, I will not stop you. But my spear will. And it will take all you hold precious with it.”
Many in the Corps responded by falling upon their own blades, awash in the humiliation of being a survivor from a losing army. With those who did not, Adramelech kept his promise. The Mountain Corps was dissolved, and once the last of its still battle-worthy members were escorted off the continent by the demons, the Northern Island never saw needless conflict again.
The exiled Corps soldiers, Albert included, made their way to the other islands, hoping to regroup and challenge Adramelech again. What greeted them, however, were conquered lands ruled by the Devil King’s Army. There was no safe haven for them in which to plot their rebellion. Efzahan to the east, Saint Aile to the west, and the kingdom of Haruun to the south were all under demon rule—and they were the last forces with any chance at defying them. But the Mountain Corps were just an informal clutch of fighters; they had no diplomatic skills, they were scattered to the four winds, they weren’t allowed to join so much as the mercenary forces of any neighboring nation, and most of them never returned to the Northern Island. It wasn’t until the Hero Emilia freed the four islands that they saw each other again—and by then, they numbered less than half of what they used to.
“I’m not gonna say life was wonderful with the Devil King’s Army, but at the end of it, Adramelech stuck to his word. My clan’s elder said it himself—Adramelech wouldn’t hesitate to brutally murder anyone who rose up against him, but he never killed anyone on a simple whim.”
“I had no idea…”
“And when me, Emilia, Eme, and Olba faced him later on, I told ’im I wanted to take him on solo. I wanted a rematch, y’know? And what do you think happened? That bastard Adramelech refused me. He said if I was willing to throw away the battle for the sake of some cheap pride, mankind would never deserve to be freed from the demons. Even at the very end, I couldn’t defeat him by myself.”
There was no regret or anger written on Albert’s face. All that remained was his memories of the battle.
“That was no demon. Nor a fighter, either. He knew what it took to abandon your own emotions, to stand tall against others and do what needed to be done. I guess ‘politician’ is the best way I could describe him. I let my pride blind me in battle, but he never allowed that for himself. He was a better man than I’ll ever be. Pretty funny way to describe a demon, huh?”
“I am not sure I find it funny at all these days.” Suzuno pulled at the reins, leading her horse out of the stable. Her eyes were pointed back at their inn.
“I guess not,” Albert added with a chuckle. The inn, of course, currently housed a Devil King who kept pouting at the way people viewed him as a human. “And if that’s how Adramelech was, there’s no way the Devil King he served was any kind of crazed monster, either. ’Course, if I was from the west or south where there were a lot more massacres, I’d probably view it a bit differently. But either way, when Emilia started suggestin’ she was in no hurry to kill the Devil King in Japan despite how much she hated him, I thought, hey, let’s give her a little time to sort things out ’n’ see what he’s doing. Figure out who those ‘demons’ really were.”
Suzuno recalled that moment, back on Earth, when she learned that angels were essentially the same as human beings. That, and the back-to-back conversations she had outside of Honpha the day before they found Albert. Maou’s confession—the confession of a leader, a man whose outlook on life was no different from any human king’s.
She turned her face aside, wincing. “…!”
“Something up?” a quizzical Albert asked.
“N-no, nothing.”
She shook her head, trying to fight off her sudden agitation.
Why did I do something like that?
No matter what her views on demons were, there was no way Ente Isla would ever forgive Satan or his Devil King’s Army. Understanding what lurked inside Maou’s heart would provide nothing in the way of benefit to her. But there she was anyway, close enough to Maou that she could feel his body heat, listening to his most heartfelt words and neatly placing them into hers. There was nothing at all unpleasant about the experience. If anything, it was heartwarming. She knew she wanted to help him overcome his self-doubt over what had happened to himself and his army.
But why did she have to be so kind to him? Suzuno shook her head, the spine that had touched Maou’s suddenly feeling hot to the touch.
“…What about you, Albert?”
“Huh?”
“What do you think of Adramelech, as a single conscious creature?”
“A single conscious what?”
“No, I mean…”
Such a question was about the most inappropriate thing one could ask an Ente Islan. But it was the only way Suzuno could faithfully put what she wanted to ask into words.
“What kind of…‘person’ do you think Adramelech was?”
Albert flashed a carefree smile—one that indicated he knew all about the conflict in Suzuno’s mind. He, after all, had seen with his own eyes the gap between what the world thought of the Devil King’s Army and what he remembered about Adramelech.
“You’re a funny girl, you know that? I never even talked about stuff like this with Eme.” Another grin. “Can you promise not to tell anyone about this? It’d put me in a bad spot if you did. As a fighter, and as a leader of soldiers and citizens, Adramelech’s pretty much my ideal. If he was human and appeared on the Northern Island scene three hundred or so years earlier, I bet we’d have a kingdom as rich ’n’ powerful as Efzahan or Saint Aile by now.”
“…You do?” Suzuno nodded, letting off a light smile of her own to match Albert’s.
“So what’re we gonna do now, though? ’Cause the way you acted around the Devil King, it sounds like you got a plan in mind.”
Dwelling on the past was over. Now they had to turn their eyes toward the battle looming ahead. Suzuno gave a light nod and turned back toward the inn.
“With Acieth’s sword unavailable to us, a massive head-on strike to save Emilia and Alciel stands little chance of succeeding. Instead, we will go undercover to capture another person, ensuring that Emilia’s force has no motivation to continue any further. If we can keep them from clashing with the capital’s armies, Emilia has no reason to fight Alciel, and it will earn us time to concoct another plan to secure them.”
Extra time, she thought, also gave Maou a chance to find some way to recover his own powers. Such a leisurely approach would take much longer than Maou’s scheduled week, but that was nothing compared to the safety of both their friends and the Eastern Island itself.
“Oh? So what comes first?”
“We show them,” Suzuno replied, “that they did not call me the ‘fanatical dark side of the Church’ for nothing.”
She lifted the mask covering the bottom half of her head, fully hiding her face underneath her robes.
“We will reach Heavensky’s central district before the volunteers do. Our mission is twofold. First, within the next twelve hours, we find out where Nord Justina and the Azure Emperor are. The fate of Nord is no doubt the heaviest of the shackles placed upon Emilia right now, and the presence of the emperor is what pushes her force forward. Second, if we can, we take them away from the influence of the angels and Malebranche. That alone should prevent any major battle.”
“Are you…?!” Not even Albert could hide his surprise at the idea. “Are you saying we kidnap the Azure Emperor?! From Heavensky while it’s crawling with Malebranche demons? And in half a day? It might be possible, yes, but we’ll have no time to rest, I’ll tell you that much!”
“It is possible. For us.”
Suzuno nodded, as if nothing at all was crazy about her proposal.
Lifting the hem of her robe, she nimbly hefted herself up on her ride’s saddle. Two horses stepped out from the dim stable into the bright afternoon sunlight, led by the resolute-looking Suzuno.
“I have had quite enough of humans and demons fighting without any idea what they fight for. Before all-out war erupts between Emilia and Alciel, we must hand the emperor over to the volunteer force and prevent the armies from ever seeing each other.”
Watching through the window as Suzuno and Albert spurred their horses and galloped away, Maou gritted his teeth, as if ready to start gnawing at the window frame.
They were right—in his current state, he would be nothing but a drag on the two of them. Kicking him off the front lines was absolutely the correct thing to do.
Maou and Acieth wielded awesome amounts of non-holy, non-demonic power on Earth, but neither that nor Maou’s original demonic force had returned to him on Ente Isla. Trying to summon it only made him sick to his stomach.
“Maybe I’m out of it this time,” he murmured to himself, “but I can’t just sit here staring into space forever.”
He knew he couldn’t afford to be a passive spectator. He had to figure out why all this was happening to him, for it raised serious questions about both this rescue effort and his own future. Who could say if those powers would spring back to life if something happened to him back in Japan later?
There wasn’t much to work with, but Maou had a few theories on why both his dark force and the mystery power he used to defeat Camael and Libicocco were gone. One was his merging with Acieth—the one major difference between then and now. The other: his current location, nowhere near Japan or Earth. Maou could do nothing about either factor, but they still gave him food for thought.
“What in the world was that power, anyway?”
He pondered over the enigmatic force that had saved the day at Sasahata North High School, only to disappear without a trace. The anxiety and frustration were enough to make him slap a hand against the window frame again. The noise was enough to make Acieth, still sleeping like an angel in bed, mutter a few words.
“My…my sister… Look at that… Wagyu beef…”
“You know you’re neeeever gonna get that on our budget, right?”
At this unwelcome interruption of his melancholy, Maou gathered a sigh, and then:
“Hey! Acieth! Get up!”
“Waahah?!”
He smacked Acieth’s pillow a few times, forcing her up.
“I was…was…b-b-b-b-b-big surprised… What’s…? What was that, Maou? I was just about to eat Iberian pastrami sandwich…”
“Have you ever even eaten that? I kinda doubt Nord had that kind of luxury to give you!”
Maou helped her up, ignoring the fact that Acieth’s menu ever-so-subtly shifted just before awaking.
“C’mon! We gotta start training!”
“Whuh? Training… You gonna puke again?”
“That’s not something a proper girl should be saying, you know! That’s exactly what I want to avoid, so we gotta train to figure out what’s causing it!”
Maou’s convinction seemed firm, but in the two days before they arrived at the inn, he had dry-heaved so often that Acieth’s exasperation was understandable.
“Well,” she said, “okay, if you want. I am pretty tired, like you, Maou.”
“Oh?”
Acieth got out of bed and stretched her arms high, a look of discontent on her face. “I feel not very good, too. I am so hungry, all the time. Your power is not holy, Maou, so maybe not so good a match? I wish you were more kinder to me!”
Considering Acieth had eaten, slept, and lazed out the most out of anyone on this journey, this was less than convincing to Maou. But considering all the changes in his own body, it wouldn’t be odd to think something similar was happening to his companion.
“…All right,” he said, regretting the rude awakening he’d given her. “I’m sorry. But I can’t just follow their orders and sit here all day. How ’bout we eat, and I can ask you a few questions along the way?”
“Hmm? Where did Suzuno and Albert go?”
She hadn’t noticed their absence until now.
“They left us here,” Maou replied, “but if we don’t do something, this battle’s gonna go on forever. You wanna see Alas Ramus ASAP, don’t you? So gimme a little strength and knowledge to work with. Because otherwise I can’t guarantee our safety when we join in later. Plus, I’ll be out of a job.”
Maou had been granted exactly one week for his Ente Isla road trip—the amount of time he eked out through some consummate shift-juggling work. Going past that would constitute going AWOL from work and the almost-certain end of his job in Japan. To Maou, this was impossible to accept.
“What?! They left us here, hanging with the bear?! How mean!”
“…Midair. Hanging in midair. At any rate, let’s go eat.”
He grabbed her hand before she could complain any further and headed for a nearby tavern.
“So to start, I want you to explain everything from the beginning. Why did you and Alas Ramus merge with us in the first place? What was it for?”
“I dunno. Ooh, take that stew for me, Maou!”
“Ugh, look…”
All Maou wanted to do was get at the core of his troubles. To Acieth, that wasn’t as important as her next meal ticket. He winced as she tucked into the bowl, bits of pumpkin-like vegetables sticking to the sides of her mouth. She frowned at him.
“… Maou,” she whined, “if you think answer is easy to give, you are wrong.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know, too! Why I can merge with Pop or Maou, why I have to merge, why I can do this and that when we merge… I don’t know.”
It was a rare bout of logical thinking that erupted from Acieth as she polished off the root-vegetable stew. Maou took the initiative and decided to ask her about a certain term she used by Sasahata North High’s front gate.
“You said something about a ‘latent force’ before, though, didn’t you?”
“Maou, when did you learn that, um, the word ‘eating’ is when you eat food?”
“Um?”
“When the baby thinks ‘Let’s eat,’ it eats, yes?”
“Umm?” Maou turned to his side, unable to grasp her point, but still keenly noting the salad bowl and plate of dumplings she was about to help herself to.
“It is process. You do something; you decide inside of you to do again; you learn that this thing you do, it is called ‘eating’; then you learn what ‘eating’ does for you. Takes very long time. I know I can merge with Pop and you. I know I probably have to, for to keep living. I know it is called ‘latent force.’ But what does do for me? I don’t know. None of us do, I don’t think.”
“Who’s us?” Maou asked, leaning forward. He could see the conversation soon veering in another important direction.
“My sister, she talk to you? About Malchut or Gevurah or something?”
“Oh… So the other Sephirah take the form of human beings, too, like you guys and Erone?”
“You know Erone? Surprising!”
It was not surprising enough to make Acieth stop stuffing dumplings into her mouth, so she continued:
“Malchut is smartest of us. Good friends with my sister, and taught me lot of things, too. That is how I learn about ‘latent force.’”
“…So where is he now?”
That was another concern for Maou. Malchut was a name Alas Ramus had mentioned several times. If he and all the other Sephirah out there took human form like the three he had personally seen, they could be well near anywhere. Or was it only the scattered Yesod fragments that were scattered worldwide, with the intact Sephirah all somewhere else?
“…I don’t know. The last time I talk to him, it was long time ago.”
“Look, if you start choking after you stuff your cheeks up like a chipmunk, I’m not gonna feel sorry for you, all right?”
Acieth gave him a crestfallen look, even as she held two different sweet dumplings in her hands, taking bites in rotation. If she didn’t know, there was no point in Maou pursuing the question further.
“You know, though…”
“Yuh?”
Maou reached across the table and started patting Acieth’s head, like he frequently did to Alas Ramus.
“We’re just one step away from Alas Ramus, more or less. Let’s see this to the end, okay?”
“Oh, is that all?” a peeved-looking Acieth countered before cramming in the remains of both dumplings at once. “Well, I will help with ‘training,’ but I really am hungry, you see? I will eat ten more of dumplings! Or I won’t be strong!”
“Oh… Wait, ten?!”
Maou took a slack-jawed look at his own plate. These dumplings were packed with meat, vegetables, and something resembling noodles made from potato, all cut up, simmered, and wrapped up in dough with some flavorful broth. They were pretty hefty—and delicious, Maou admitted—but one of them alone was like eating two bowls of rice. Acieth plowing through two at once was enough of a shock; along with the soup and salad, about one and a half was all he could handle. The sticker price certainly reflected their size, too.
“Well,” he said dejectedly, thinking about the coins he had in the leather pouch in his jacket, “I suppose we have the funds, but…”
The tab he’d have to pay was one thing, but this was technically Suzuno’s money. They would presumably have Emi and Nord safe at the end of this, so maybe they could ask them to cover their expenses. But Maou was already useless to the party at the moment. He couldn’t bear the thought of acting like an employee partying downtown all night and invoicing his boss for it the day after.
If you want to eat, you have to work. He had a firm, unbending allegiance to that philosophy. As a Devil King, and as a man, he couldn’t allow himself to breezily eat and drink whatever he wanted with someone else’s cash.
“…It’s gonna be tough going,” Maou muttered from the pit of his stomach.
Acieth nodded in response, then turned to the tavernkeeper, who happened to be passing by.
“Hey! Sir! Ten more dumplings!!”
“He doesn’t speak Japanese, dude.” Without any Idea Link skills, Maou had to rely on his budding Yahwan abilities. “<Master, please give us ten more dumplings.>”
“<Did you say…ten?>” came the stunned reply.
“<You may not believe it, but this child will eat them. I think she likes them. We are not in a hurry, so if you could…>”
The tavernkeeper gave Acieth an astonished glance. She responded by meekly nodding, her smile running from ear to ear.
“<Well, sir, my son’s a pretty big eater, too, but not even he could accomplish that feat. But you got it.>”
He wandered into the kitchen and came back five minutes later. Peeking past the door, Maou spotted a series of large stacked baskets, each one brimming with steam. They must have made a fair number of them in advance.
“<I’ll wrap up whatever you don’t eat.>”
And there they were: ten dumplings, each on their own little plate atop a larger tray, like little pillows for gnomes.
“What did he say, Maou?”
“Like, if you can’t eat them all, they’ll wrap them up for us.”
“…Oh?”
Acieth gave a sly grin, as if the tavernkeeper had just challenged her to a duel.
“He will regret the saying of that!”
The next moment, she was a whirlwind of gluttony, tearing at the tray of “pillows” like a starved wolf.
“Erf. No more.”
“You are such a disappointment!”
Acieth threw in the towel immediately after consuming dumpling number seven. She always tended to eat a lot, so he was expecting her to scarf them down like a participant in a hot-dog-eating contest. By the end of the fourth, however, she was clearly slowing down. It was still an astounding feat given her slight frame, but considering all her grandstanding beforehand, the results were a bit of a letdown.
The glasses of water Acieth kept ordering in between were another punch in the gut for Maou. Efzahan had ample water supplies nationwide, but unlike in Japan, they didn’t just hand out glasses for free at restaurants. Counting the refills as they came was even more depressing than counting the dumplings. All with Suzuno’s money, he constantly reminded himself.
“<…Excuse me,>” he droned as if in a daze, “<we will eat the rest at the inn, so could you wrap these up?>”
“<Oh, of course. She eats about as much as my son does, you know. Not too bad a showing!>”
Maou didn’t appreciate the compliment. All that food she ate, and they were supposed to be engaging in physical activity after this. He had a feeling that, no matter what mysteries they tackled today—holy energy, dark energy, swords, Ente Isla, latent forces—it would probably end in puking.
The sense of foreboding that formed a dark cloud over Maou’s head at first caused him not to notice the series of loud explosions from outside. He looked up, and so did Acieth, who made a yelp like a yeti from some snowy mountain.
“<Oh, that?>” the tavernkeeper said, noting their reactions. “<Just some firecrackers. They light them to fend off evil spirits. You know how it’s been lately—the Azure Emperor declaring war on everybody, demons filing back into Heavensky, Phaigan sending a volunteer force or whatever after them. Just when we thought things were stable again, all this stuff is putting the whole village on edge. Usually they light ’em at the start of the year as a peace offering, though.>”
“<…Oh.>”
Between what Gabriel and others had told him, Maou and his friends knew that the Phaigan Volunteer Force was on their way to Heavensky from the port city of Phaigan. They had already heard rumors that Emilia the Hero was among their ranks. But as that woman at the tavern in Honpha had said, to the average person in Efzahan it didn’t really matter whether the Azure Emperor or the Malebranche demons were in control of the empire. A fatalistic view, but one that was endemic nationwide.
“<…Well,>” Maou asked, “<how would you like this country to turn out?>”
“<Oh, who knows? As long as I can put food on the table tomorrow, I’m not gonna be picky.>”
“<That’s good enough for you?>”
“<What else can I ask for? That’s the kind of country this is. The Eight Scarves are going on about how the tribes to the east could use this chaos to stage a coup, but who knows how true that is, either.>” He shrugged. “<I’ll wrap that up for you,>” he said as he went back into the kitchen.
Maou watched him go and let out a light sigh.
“Ain’t easy running a nation, huh…?”
Ever since he’d bought a TV for the apartment, Maou had been following the international news far more closely than before. Whenever another country became the topic of discussion, he couldn’t help but think about what the world would look like after he was done conquering it. If he ever built the kind of nation he had told Suzuno about by the fire, would the humans living underneath his demon hordes have “food on the table tomorrow”?
“Hmmmmm… But you still give her present on the birthday? Very strange.”
Acieth rocked back and forth as she pondered over this. She didn’t do so for long, however; she didn’t know Emi anyway. So before long, Maou’s eyes were back on the merchandise shelves, fixed on another object.
“Hey, what about this?”
He scrutinized it, nestled in among the knives and forks, and realized there were multiple types available.
“This is something you give to people for good luck, I think…”
They were all made of wood, each one carved by hand, often with bird and wing motifs, which was a recurring theme in this shop. But there were also patterns with wineglasses, horseshoes, flowers, stars, and more.
“What do you think of this, Acieth? It’s pretty cute, it’s useful around the house, and it doesn’t take up much space, at least.”
“I dunno, but it is good, maybe? …Urp.”
With Acieth’s perfunctory approval backing him up, Maou decided to go with it. “Chi would like this flowery one,” he said. “Emi… These aren’t that expensive; I could get one for Alas Ramus, too…and she likes birds, I know. That should work.”
So he picked up three of them, his mind more on Alas Ramus than her supposed mother, and brought them to the front counter, confident that he was at least doing something for Chiho over here.
“<Can you wrap up one of these and two of these for me?> All right, Acieth, how’s your stomach feeling right… Huh?”
When he turned back around, he realized that Acieth’s face had turned white as a sheet. She seemed to have trouble focusing her eyes, her breathing shallow and ragged. Maou, gauging this, began to fear the worst as he picked up the package and stuffed it into a jacket pocket. He wound up having to help Acieth out of the store.
“Hey! Hey, hold it in a little more! You can’t do that in the middle of the street!”
But Maou’s earnest wish was never to be granted.
“Ooo-gehhhhhhh…”
“Gaaahhhh!!”
Two things happened at once to make Maou scream in horror. If there was any silver lining to the sordid scene, it’s that it didn’t take place inside store property.
First, Acieth spewed on top of Maou’s shoulders. Her body must have rejected the massive amount she had consumed a bit ago, pushing out everything that had so sorely tested its limits. That made sense. But the bigger problem was that, at almost the exact same time, a beam of purplish light projected out from Acieth’s head straight down to the ground.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”
The beam was gouging a hole into the surface beneath them, bare earth instead of the concrete of Japan’s roads, and it was large enough that Acieth was liable to fall in.
Maou grabbed a strap on her overalls to keep that from happening, but the purple light—whatever physical properties it had—began to hurl both Acieth and Maou, hanging on for dear life, into the air.
“Wha… Huh?!”
He struggled for a better grip, but it was too late. He could see the tavernkeeper from before among the crowd that had quickly gathered around, eyes wide open as he watched the girl rocket into the deep blue yonder. The fact that this spaceship was leaving an arcing path of vomit behind it made the sight no less majestic to the people of Efzahan.
“Hey!” Maou shouted, still hanging from a single strap. “Acieth!! What’s going on?! What happened?!”
She just kept groaning, a blank look on her face.
Before long, the scene was chaotic—more evil-banishing firecrackers going off under them, the local Inlain Crimson Scarves force running to the rescue, and several people on their knees, hands clasped in prayer.
“Wha-wha-wha-what is this, all of a sudden?!”
Nausea was a natural enough symptom for a human being to have. Purple light, on the other hand, was purely a Yesod-fragment thing. Acieth’s fragment, just like Alas Ramus’s, must have been on her forehead, something Maou had only just discovered with this unexplainable turn of affairs.
But if the fragment was acting up in such sudden, violent fashion, that likely meant just one thing:
“Goddammit… Suzuno and Albert screwed up, didn’t they?!”
Alas Ramus was affecting her, from somewhere around the capital. And if the fragment’s response indicated whatever was happening to the child, it necessitated exactly that amount of Yesod strength from her sister. And if that’s what it was, the only thing Maou could imagine was a powerful, angel-class foe threatening her.
“Acieth! Get yourself together! At least get us back on land and…”
“Urrp.”
“H-hey!!”
Acieth, floating in the air, had both hands covering her mouth.
“N-no! Stop! Not this high up…!!”
Despite his concerns for Acieth’s dignity—and for the bio-weapon attack about to be unleashed on the crowd below—she somehow managed to hold it in.
Instead, something else came out.
“Aaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhh…”
The light from her forehead grew even stronger, making Maou unable to let go of her. Like an out-of-control rocket in a tailspin, they hurtled across the city skyline before finally splashing down in a man-made water basin on the outskirts of town.
A few moments before the rocket launch:
“…Not as impressive as I thought it’d be,” Emi whispered to herself as she surveyed Heavensky Keep, visible on the eastern horizon from her hilltop camp in the merchants’ quarter.
“What is?”
She turned toward Olba, standing next to her, and shrugged.
“Heavensky. It’s always passed itself off as this beautiful castle town that enveloped the very sky itself. And I thought so, too, when I first came here, but looking at it again, it’s really not that nice-looking.”
“You don’t think? Not that I am one to talk, but if Sankt Ignoreido represents the triumph of human civilization on the Western Island, Heavensky plays the same role in the East.”
He had a point. Heavensky Keep was a massive castle, one visible from miles around, and the central district that surrounded it was just as vast and majestic. It was like a portrait of a looming mountain spread out before them, but it did nothing to move Emi’s heart.
“No, you aren’t one to talk, are you?”
The idea of someone who had betrayed the Church and tricked an entire continent into war against a demon race for his own personal gain discussing the beauties of the local scenery disgusted Emi.
“I haven’t seen them in real life yet,” she continued, “but I’ve seen pictures and stuff of Kyoto and Himeji Castle when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom in the spring, and… You know, compared to that, this is nothing.”
“Hmm. Well, Emilia, if you aren’t satisfied with it, you can discuss Heavensky’s future direction with the Azure Emperor once you ‘rescue’ him.”
Emi gave Olba the evil eye for a moment, then turned away and headed for her tent in camp. She was due to attend a military conference on the topic of freeing Heavensky, an operation that involved the Hero Emilia’s Eastern Island Liberation Army (aka the Phaigan Volunteer Force) plunging into Heavensky’s central district and ridding it of the demons that controlled the area.
Olba, of course, was the one who had dragged those Malebranche demons into the Eastern Island in the first place. He had directly worked with them as part of his efforts to bring Emi to Ente Isla and keep her there. And now he wanted to use Emi’s power to destroy them.
The volunteers had reached the border between Heavensky’s agricultural and merchant districts. Along the way, they had already taken the lives of two Malebranche chieftains. As much as she had craved the heads of the demons—any demon—before she went to Japan, the guilt she felt when she heard that Malebranche leaders Draghignazzo and Scarmiglione were dead was beyond description. It made her look at her hands, recalling how she had once fought just as rabidly against the demons as the Phaigan Volunteers. It made her feel repulsive, ashamed for feeling that way, as she balled her hands into fists.
“Mommy,” Alas Ramus said inside her mind, “what’s Kyoto? You mean Tokyo?”
“…No, it’s a big city in Japan. Kind of like Tokyo, but different.”
“Kyoto… Tokyo… Kotyo?”
She repeated the names a few more times before she got them right. It was enough to rekindle a little warmth in Emi’s heart. She fixed the position of the sword she clumsily held on her side and began to walk forward.
At no point in her stay here had she ever deployed her Better Half. Or, for that matter, set off for the front lines and cross swords with any “enemy” at all. It was more convenient for Olba if she was enshrined as the official symbol of the freedom movement, and so long as Emi didn’t act too far out of line, he didn’t much care what she got up to within the force.
This, at least, meant she never had to unsheathe the holy sword that Alas Ramus materialized for her to kill or maim another creature. By now, however, Olba’s motives were a total mystery to her.
As she approached the tent, a harried-looking Eight Scarves knight ran up from his nearby sentry post.
“M-my lady Emilia!”
“What is it?”
“We have word from a vanguard team we deployed to Heavensky in advance. You—you may want to sit down for this!”
“What? Spit it out.”
Emi knew it wasn’t the Eight Scarves’ fault for being dragged into this war, but she couldn’t help but be blunt with them anyway. A lot of them were too awed at her noble presence to even say a word to her, but whatever this bit of news was, it must have been worth breaking the ice for.
“This…this is hard for me to believe,” the panting messenger reported, “but they said the Great Demon General Alciel was spotted in the main keep of Heavensky!”
The news was just as shocking to Emi. Shocking enough that she totally forgot to use his real name.
“What? Ashiya?!”
“Ashi…?”
“A-Alciel! Was it really Alciel?”
The messenger nodded his head, still unable to believe it himself. “Yes, my lady. The Great Demon General reportedly appeared several days ago. He is commanding the Malebranche, and he’s summoned all of the Eight Scarves knights under Heavensky Keep command to prepare for our attack…”
Why was Ashiya in Heavensky? And what for? Emi couldn’t even venture a guess. But if Ashiya was here, Emi had just one question to ask.
“What of the Devil King? Is Satan among us?”
It had been her and Suzuno’s concern from long before that Maou and Ashiya would be dragged into the Malebranche forces to create a new Devil King’s Army. Based on her previous experience, Emi had concluded in the bottom of her heart that such a thing was impossible, but she was nonetheless prepared for the worst.
“Wh-what?” the messenger replied. “N-no, erm, the Devil King? Nothing about that…but did you not defeat him yourself, Lady Emilia?”
That was something Emi picked up on after leaving Phaigan. The exact story behind her current whereabouts differed here and there, but the fact she had defeated Satan, the Devil King, once and for all was taken as settled fact everywhere she went. That must have been what threw off the messenger so badly.
Emi frowned. “I… Yes,” she whispered. “Alciel is here, then…” She had no idea why Ashiya would travel to Heavensky by himself, but judging by how harshly he judged the Malebranche’s movements, she could presume he didn’t volunteer to make the trip. So who had brought him here, and what for?
“Either way…” a voice boomed from behind her, giving her no time to ponder it.
“Ugh…”
“L-Lord Olba…”
“Emilia could make quick work of Alciel by himself. There is nothing to fear. We have no reason to change our strategy.”
“I…I imagine not, my lord,” the pale-faced messenger said. “Even in the previous battle, Alciel fled to the Central Continent because he was too afraid to face her…”
“…That,” a darker-looking Emi said from aside, “is my role, I suppose.”
Among all the fighters in the volunteer force, only Emi and Olba had the force required to fight the Demon General on his own terms and have any chance of victory. And while she had no idea what his motives were, if she didn’t play the role Olba wanted for her, her dreams would be crushed for good. That much she knew.
“Let us begin, then,” Olba said, motioning toward the tent. “We need to work out how we will retake the central district and rescue the Azure Emperor. I think everyone’s all here.”
The tent was dimly lit, as dark as Emi’s own heart, but as she followed behind Olba, a small voice found its way to her mind.
“Is Al-cell here?”
If anything, Alas Ramus’s voice was the opposite of how Emi felt.
“If he is, then…”
It was practically shining with hope.
“…is Daddy, too?”
“……Daddy…the Devil King…is…”
Emi’s body stiffened, paralyzed in place.
“Mm? What is it, Emilia?” the ever-observant Olba asked. It wasn’t enough to rouse Emi from her thoughts.
“…Ah.”
What did I think just now? What did Alas Ramus make me think of?
“I…”
There’s no way I could be thinking this. There’s nothing good that could possibly come of it.
“…I’m sorry, but I need to duck out of this conference. I’m not feeling very good. You just want me to fight whoever’s the strongest out of ’em, right? That’s fine by me.”
With that, Emi turned around, not bothering to wait for a response, and flew out of the tent. “L-Lady Emilia?!” came the voice from the hapless messenger behind her as she quickly dove into her tent and sunk into her simple cot. It was hard to breathe. The palpitations seemed to make noise in her mind.
“What…what is wrong with me…?!”
She battered her fists against the bed, almost tearing it apart entirely.
“No matter what… No matter what! I know what he did to me…to my father…!!”
“I’ve got a whole new world to show you.”
The smile on his face, as he related his ridiculous fever dreams to her over that Shinjuku sunset. It all flashed back to her now.
“…You’re………my enemy…”
Whenever Emi’s back was against the wall, he’d just waltz in with this huge grin on his face, despite how weak he was. Going on with all that dumb nonsense. And he’d make it all work out in the end.
“Why… Why…?”
“Mommy, Daddy’s coming for us! Be good to him, okay?”
She could stand no more.
“…Yeah… Yeah, he will…”
She had no intention of making excuses for her weakened heart, but there was no hiding it any longer. Somewhere, in some cranny of her mind, despite all the sarcasm and whining she spewed over it, she was hoping that Sadao Maou would just waltz on in and rescue both her and everything she held dear.
It wasn’t something she wanted to admit. Even now, she thought that entertaining the concept was ridiculous. Emeralda and Albert, her staunchest allies on Ente Isla, had made no moves so far. They must have known something was up, but if even they couldn’t do anything about it, how could Maou engineer some miracle from another world? The Idea Link she’d lobbed toward Rika had earned her nothing, and even if she could make contact with her Earth allies, there was no way they’d know what she was dealing with.
But if Ashiya was now on Ente Isla, then Maou must have been on a mad dash to track him down. The moment she thought that, the deepest pit of her heart, the little unshielded bit down there, let out a scream. If Maou followed Ashiya into this world, he would have known what had happened to her. Then he’d come rescue her, too, wouldn’t he?
The realization only served to bring an even more miserable thought to the forefront: such an effort would be entirely futile. Solving Emi’s problems would involve a lot more than simply grabbing her and Alas Ramus and bringing them back to Japan. The wheat fields her father tended to were far away in the Western Island, and she was unable to give them up. That was why she was plunging herself into this battle she couldn’t care less about.
Even if Maou snapped his fingers and reverted to his cloven-hoofed demon form, him versus an Olba-Raguel tag team would be pretty long odds. The moment he did anything to indicate he was protecting Emi, Olba could simply mutter a few words to his men on the Western Island, and then saving her family fields would be physically impossible.
Simply put, unless everyone who knew Emi’s backstory disappeared off the face of the planet or people stopped caring about Emilia the Hero entirely, returning to Japan would never grant her the solace she sought. Rumors that Emilia was alive were already starting to filter across the Eastern Island. It wouldn’t be long before Olba used the Eight Scarves to spread the official announcement. And after that, no matter where she fled to, she’d be chased by malicious forces trying to harness her name and her presence.
So what if she simply said “to hell with it,” abandoned her father’s lands, and settled down in Japan? It would mean nothing. Just as everyone from Lucifer and Suzuno and Sariel to Ciriatto, Farfarello, and Olba did, someone would go over there, lay waste to it without a second thought, and try to capture her anyway. Then she would have to swing her sword against them—to drive back the very Ente Islans she’d sworn to protect.
Every path Emi saw led to despair. No matter what she did, there would be no salvation. But still…
“I hate this…… Why……? How did he get into my heart like this?! Stop screwing with me!”
Now her voice was breaking down into sobs.
She never entertained for a moment the prospect that Ashiya was back here to retake Efzahan or Ente Isla. She knew Maou wouldn’t allow that kind of recklessness, and she knew Ashiya would never act without a go-ahead from His Demonic Highness. She knew that because she had spent so much time with them that her heart instinctively told her so.
“Devil…King…!”
She recalled the face of the peppy part-timer from Sasazuka, the guy who seemed to be instantly liked by everybody around him.
“Help…me…”
The tears wouldn’t stop coming. She didn’t know where her heart lay. It scared her, frustrated her, pained her…and yet the strange sense of relief that it seemed to bring to her kept the tears coming. She fully knew, at that instant, that her identity—her senses of indignation and justice, the things that supported her up to today and drove her to save the world and everyone in it—had just been shattered.
She didn’t think it was simply the heartless way Olba and the rest of Ente Isla treated her that made her lose heart. She just never had it in her from the start—that kind of noble will required to bear it all.
“…Eme, Albert…I’m sorry, I’m sorry… Father…I’m sorry, but I can’t fight alone anymore…”
Regardless of her birthplace and her blood, Emilia Justina had been just another farm girl enjoying young womanhood until a few years ago. When she wasn’t even eighteen, she had gained the will of a Hero through her hatred, and now it was gone.
“I don’t know… What should I do…? Father, Eme, Devil King… Please, somebody…”
“Mommy?”
Now Alas Ramus was holding her tearstained face with her warm, silken hands, smiling. She had appeared on top of the bed, through no effort on Emi’s part—and for some reason, that crescent shape was on her forehead, as if Emi had summoned her sword or she was picking up on another Yesod fragment. The light, and her smile, were so bright that it seemed to illuminate the muddied darkness in Emi’s heart. She clung to her hands.
“Oh… I’m sorry, Alas Ramus, but…I don’t think I’ve got anything else…”
What a pathetic state of affairs. The fact that Alas Ramus’s “real” mother was Laila hurt her deeply, and yet all she could do in front of her “daughter” was cry like a baby. But Alas Ramus paid it no heed, her soft skin just as pure as her heart as she spoke.
“I was alone, too.”
“…Oh?”
“But now I’m with you, Mommy.”
“Alas Ramus…?”
“Mommy, Daddy is always together. Chi-Sis, Al-cell, Suzu-Sis, Luci-fell, Eme-Sis, all together.”
Then, for just a moment, Alas Ramus turned away from Emi’s eyes. “And A-ceth together, too,” she whispered.
“Alas Ramus…?”
“So it’s okay. Okay? All back together soon.”
“All of us…?” Emi wiped her reddened eyes and let out a quivering sigh. “…Yeah. You’re right. I guess we were all together, huh?”
It took that moment for her to realize it. They were enemies, no doubt about that. But over in Japan, it had gone beyond enemies, or demons, or humans. They had spent that whole time together. No matter how “wrong” it was.
“But it can’t be that way anymore, Alas Ramus. I didn’t notice it until it was too late. The way it is now, even if I gave up on my father’s wheat, we can’t be together with the Devil King and everyone again.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” Emi looked down at her right hand. “Because I didn’t want to lose my own dream. So I did what Olba told me…and I killed the Devil King’s people.”
It wasn’t the battle she wanted. The other side wasn’t exactly comprised of innocent bystanders, but what Emi was doing now seemed, to her, exactly what the Devil King’s Army did to her homeland not long ago. All while she knew that demons were more than just this beastly horde hell-bent on nothing but utter massacre. The Phaigan Volunteer Force was killing Malebranche chiefs who had done nothing wrong, and they were doing so under Emi’s name.
It might’ve been different if she could stand strong and wield her sword in the name of her dreams. But now Emi was immobile, unable to do anything for herself, just sitting there and gauging the situation. The demon-slaying Hero, the supreme commander of all that was good, letting others do the dirty work.
“If there’s one thing the Devil King doesn’t like,” Emi argued, “it’s doing anything that violates his code. No matter what kind of excuses I make, he’ll never forgive me for acting so selfish like this. I’m sure Alciel wouldn’t, either, so…”
She stopped. Suddenly, there was noise coming from outside the tent—soldiers darting to and fro, apparently shouting at each other.
“Ah, Lady Emilia, excuse me,” the messenger from before worriedly said to her from beyond the entrance. “A-are you all right? You don’t sound well…”
“…I’m sorry. I’m fine.”
It was only natural someone would notice all that crying and carrying on. She didn’t care much about how she looked to him now, so she simply wiped the sides of her eyes dry and stood up. The light from Alas Ramus’s forehead was gone now, and the child was playfully rolling around the bed when the messenger interrupted them.
“I-I apologize,” the unnerved knight said, concerned over the streaks still clear upon Emi’s face, “but you have been summoned to the military conference. The Great Demon General Alciel has apparently sent us a letter.”
“A letter?”
“Yes, my lady. It is addressed to you, I understand, and Archbishop Olba has requested your presence at once.”
Emi sniffled a bit, took a deep breath, nodded to herself, and left her tent. It felt too weird to her. How did Ashiya, or Alciel, know she was in this force? The question must have bothered Olba and his generals, for they all looked just as peeved when she entered their tent.
“There you are, Emilia,” he greeted her, a sheet of parchment spread out before him.
“That arrived for me? Might I take a look?”
“I suppose we have little choice,” Olba grunted. Emi couldn’t blame him. Olba knew by now that, over in Japan, “Shirou Ashiya” had been interacting with Emi in a way that went far beyond being friends or foes. His lack of apparent shock at the news of Alciel’s return to Ente Isla indicated that he expected as much to happen. Now, though, Olba looked dour, concerned at this new and unanticipated element. He couldn’t hide its existence from the Eight Scarves officers, it seemed, but Alciel simply making the move to contact him on Ente Isla was plainly enough to unnerve him.
Olba gave no indication to Emi that he had ever gone to Japan between now and when they had first met again at that mountain in the Western Island. So someone working with Olba (or perhaps Olba himself) must have helped Alciel get back here. And if Olba thought he could control the behavior of Alciel (to say nothing of “Shirou Ashiya”), someone very strong indeed must have been backing him up. It had to be someone among the angels—Raguel was already working with him, after all—but that made it all the more surprising that something allegedly penned by Alciel himself had made it into Emi’s hands.
“What is the meaning of this?” Emi said out loud—for much different reasons than Olba and the generals in front of her.
“L-Lady Emilia, please be careful. It is written using a hand we cannot begin to decipher. The very text could be infected with a demonic curse!”
The Eight Scarves leaders were honestly scared, whether they read Emi as feeling the same or not, but either way, they would get nowhere without her reading this. Emi picked up the parchment, cleared her throat, and looked at the text. It began with the Great Demon General Alciel’s and Emilia’s names in Centurient, and then:
“……Unngh?”
She groaned at what she read. “What does it say?” an irritated Olba asked. For once, she didn’t let it bother her.
“Umm… Okay, so there’s no demon curse or whatever in here, but you’re telling me you couldn’t read this, Olba?”
“I know it is the characters of that other world,” Olba snorted. “An Idea Link can be used well enough for verbal speech, but I did not stay there long enough to understand their entire writing system as well.” He pointed at the edge of the parchment. “I can read the phonetic parts of it, the so-called hiragana. I know this reads ‘bean,’ and this reads ‘favor.’ And between the lines, I can tell he is suggesting that he seeks revenge.”
“Well…you aren’t wrong, but…”
Emi nodded at Olba’s roundabout guessing and looked back down at the message. Alciel was trying to tell her something with this. And she could tell, somehow, that Alciel had no intention of actively engaging her in combat. But what was the crux, the core message he was giving her? That made no sense.
“What does it say, my lady?! I hardly expect that Alciel wishes to send a package to you next?”
“N-no, I don’t think it’s that, but…”
Emi’s mind raced. Ashiya had to have chosen these words for a good reason. What was he trying to say?
“Well then, what?!”
“Uhmm… Well, hang on, I really don’t know, either. What reason could he have for this…?”
All this consternation was chiefly thanks to the main body of the text, which read, in its entirety and with Ashiya’s neat handwriting, as follows:
I promise you the cold tofu and ginger favor will be returned.
“Just tell me what is written on the paper, then,” Olba continued.
“Ermm,” Emi meekly began, “this says ‘cold tofu’ here. Tofu’s this food that they make from soy milk.”
A single look informed Emi that this was not the explanation the tense array of officers in front of her was hoping for.
“To-fu? What is this to-fu?”
Well, it’s good in miso soup. Emi almost caught herself saying it, stopping herself just in time.
“Um, I don’t know how I could put it in a way you’d understand, but it’s this soft, white kind of food that comes in these blocks the size of a small brick, and it’s kind of jiggly because of all the water in it, and it…doesn’t really taste like anything, but…”
“T-taste?!” one of the Eight Scarves generals shouted. “Are you telling me the people of this other world actually eat such a bizarre thing?!”
“B-bizarre? Well, maybe it is, but…”
Then something caught in Emi’s mind. She had heard that combination somewhere before. Something that only she would ever understand. In fact, she had eaten it at one point. It was the classic problem of being unable to remember what you had for lunch two days ago, and it frustrated her as she continued speaking.
“But this word, ‘ginger,’ it’s this herb that grows in these purplish-red bulbs, and when you bite down on it, it’s really bitter and, like, goes right up into your nose…”
“Hmph. A fearsome, devilish weed, this sounds like.”
“Such mystic and inscrutable things these alien creatures consume…”
A fairly negative response, one partially instigated by Emi’s lack of cooking-show-host skills. She just didn’t know which Ente Islan foods to compare this stuff to, and it was costing her. She soldiered on, pantomiming a knife-chopping motion.
“So you cut this ginger up into tiny pieces, and you put it on top of the chilled tofu, and…oh.”
Then her mind went back in time to that cramped dining table in an old, beat-up apartment building, one that seemed so oddly attractive to her now, to the point that she thought of little else. There, before her eyes, was Maou, acting so finicky about his dinner that he shoved the ginger on his plate on top of Emi’s own tofu.
“Emilia, what is it?”
“…!”
Emi snapped out of it. The generals were looking on, worried, but Emi paid them no heed. Her heart was trembling, for different reasons than from those back in her tent. Her cheeks reddened, and she felt a burning sensation behind her eyes and in the pit of her stomach. Now she knew what Alciel was trying to say—and the moment she realized it, an indescribable sense of relief and happiness spread over her, one strong enough to catch her off guard.
Just a few minutes ago, she had thought her hopes were futile. She had resigned herself to the fact that a certain chapter of her life was over, and a new one had irrevocably begun. But now, before her eyes, that was being transformed into hope once again.
“O-Olba…”
But she still kept her mind sharp, preventing the rolling stone of her emotions from gathering any more momentum down the hill.
“Wh-what?” The dismay was now clear upon Olba’s face.
“There’s no time left to lose. We must head for Heavensky at once.”
“I…I beg your…?”
“We have to move fast, or whether you or I want it or not, Ente Isla is going to be enshrouded in darkness once more. Alciel has a secret plan in motion—one he believes gives him a chance against me, even at his full powers. He’s using coded Japanese words to tell us to pull back our forces if we want to live.”
“You…you are sure of this?” Olba offered, unable to too strongly question the Hero in front of the Eight Scarves brass.
“It is true,” Emi resolutely countered, unsure where this line of conversation was taking her. “If he puts this ‘cold tofu’ and ‘ginger’ together, he can obtain the kind of power that outclasses the likes of the Great Demon General Lucifer—or even the Devil King himself!”
“Wh-what?”
And the thing was, Emi wasn’t lying.
“And this combination,” she whispered into Olba’s ear as the rest of the conference descended into chaos, “was what Alciel used before my very eyes to turn the tables on Satan. He very nearly felled me in the process, and you know how serious that could be.”
“It… It cannot be…”
“That was one big reason why I came back here from Japan all of a sudden. If I hadn’t dodged the ‘ginger’ that wound up hitting home with Satan, who knows where I’d be right now? <And,>” she continued, switching to Japanese so the Eight Scarves wouldn’t understand her, “<you and Lucifer obtained demonic powers in Japan, right? Well, there’s another type of energy that exists in that world; one that we didn’t know about, but Alciel found it! A power stronger than demonic force itself, one capable of overwhelming the once-invincible Devil King. Tofu—and ginger!>”
Now Olba, at least, knew what Emi was really getting at. And, again, there was not a single embellishment to it. It was the truth, albeit a fairly one-sided take on it.
“You…you must be mistaken…!”
“<I don’t know what you’re scheming to do, but whatever it is, you better hurry up with it before it’s too late. Make light of Alciel’s powers right now, and not even I might make it out alive.>”
“Khh… So be it!” Olba turned around and began giving orders to his generals.
It was clear to Emi that Olba intended to send her up to bat against Alciel and his forces in Heavensky. But Emi was the only one who understood this letter, something that doubtlessly filled Olba with anxiety. A master strategist like Olba knew all too well how a single uncertainty could make even the most solid of expectations burn to ashes. She fixated upon his back, wiping off a tear that made it through her mental barrier.
“I guess,” she said to herself, “he was good for something more than standing in line multiple times to stock up on ‘limit one per customer’ eggs.”
She still had no idea how he got the letter through to her, but she had to hand it to his acuity and originality: A single sentence was all it took to completely turn her situation around. Right now, in this world, there was only one person who could “return” the tofu-and-ginger favor.
“The Devil King… He’s coming.”
Who else could repay the favor? It was Maou. The one who had spooned that ginger on top of Emi’s tofu in the first place. Emi crossed her arms to keep a budding smile from erupting on her face.
It wasn’t like anything was solved. Even if Maou regained his demon form and fought alongside her, her father’s wheat field was still under Olba and Raguel’s control, liable to be torched at any minute. But now her vision, previously shut away by dark despair, seemed to shine more brightly than ever before. Was she just kidding herself?
She was sure that, if Maou really was coming, he wouldn’t simply rescue Ashiya and leave her here. She had to believe that; every single time before, he’d never done anything like abandon her, no matter how much he might have bitched and moaned about it. And no matter how much he hated Emi, he really did love Alas Ramus. But more than that, if Maou was really willing to leave Emi on the side of the road, Ashiya would have no reason to send her a missive suggesting otherwise.
There was no telling what would come next. She might not have realized it, but at that moment, Emi, in her own away, had abandoned her father’s field, her peaceful life in Japan, and everything else in her life. In other words, she abandoned thinking about anything that would come after Maou appeared. Her dreams, the fate of the old wheat field, everything about the “Emi Yusa” she had left behind in Japan—she stopped dwelling on any of it.
She had no idea when Maou would be there, or when he would take action. She had no clue about anything. And if she didn’t, she knew she had to keep dancing on the palms of Olba and his cronies behind the scenes for now. Even if their hands got tired and they put them down, she had to keep going. And she had to keep pushing at it, in order to make sure the unexpected appearance of the real “hero” produced the most explosive climax possible.
“Guess I’m too stupid to come up with any better ideas,” she laughed to herself. Strangely, it didn’t sound as self-deprecating as she thought it would. It was exactly what she felt, straight from the bottom of her heart—and that’s what must have made it feel so bright and refreshing. Alas Ramus, inside her, apparently picked up on that.
“Mommy? Feel better?”
“…Yeah. I think I do, kind of.”
The whole line of thinking, she knew, was pretty selfish of her. That’s why, if everything actually worked out and they were all around that warm dinner table again:
“They’re never gonna let me hear the end of it. In fact, maybe it’ll make us enemies for good this time. But still…”
She’d have to leave the past behind and honestly apologize for the past week. She was ready to commit on that.
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