A FEW DAYS AGO: THE HERO IS (ABOUT TO BE) A PART-TIMER!
A little past three in the afternoon, Alas Ramus began lightly snoozing on the bed. Normally she’d be alone with her mommy, Emi Yusa, in Room 501 of the Urban Heights apartment building, but today there were two visitors. Dealing with strangers for so long must have tired her out.
“Aww,” marveled one of the guests a distance away, “I wish I could put her to sleep like thaaat.”
“It’ll probably be a little while longer before she’s fully used to you, Eme.”
“Awwww…”
Emeralda Etuva, Emi’s best friend, gritted her teeth in frustration.
“Maybe this ain’t welcome news to you, but you’re an expert mom, huh?”
Rika Suzuki, Emi’s other best friend, grinned at her.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been with her a while now,” she replied, brushing it off.
“Ooh.” Rika looked a bit happy to hear that. “Totally unflappable, huh? Y’know, I know you haven’t received the offer yet, but you’re gonna be working at Maggie’s, huh? Not to make fun of you, but are you ever gonna take Alas Ramus with you while you work with Daddy?”
“No way. I can’t bring a baby with me to work. She’ll have to be fused within me during then—that, or hopefully Suzuno won’t mind taking care of her.”
Emi shrugged.
“If you’re going through thaaat much trouble, I think it might be better to consider moooving.”
“I bet she’s got an attachment to this place. I can kinda get that, especially considering the quality you’re getting for the price. Like, I still have no idea how you managed to find it.”
Room 501 of Urban Heights Eifukucho was meant for a single occupant, but it had a decent-sized living room, a kitchen with the full run of electrical appliances, and a toilet separate from the bathroom. Considering that her nemesis—Sadao Maou, aka the Devil King Satan—was living with two other men in a single room maybe a hundred square feet in size, she’d really gotten a lucky break with this space. You could get away with calling it “luxury.” There was even a penthouse on the top floor.
“Cerrrtainly, I’ve never heard her taaalk about that.”
Sensing their curiosity, Emi placed a blanket over Alas Ramus up to her shoulders and turned toward them. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it all good memories, but this was the first place in Japan where I ever found any comfort. Plus, thanks to this apartment, I was able to keep pursuing the Devil King in this city.”
“Not in terms of, like, being in a nice place energized you or whatever?”
“No, more of a direct thing. This was back when I first set foot in Japan, when everything was new and unfamiliar to me and I had no idea what was going on.”
So Emi began to tell the story, a tale that seemed to take place years ago but was really just a slight distance in the past—the tale of when she chased Satan, the Devil King, through that Gate and plunged into the vast, unfamiliar realm of Japan.
The skyscrapers loomed like giant gravestones, large monoliths of black towering over a city bathed in light. The tiny lamps dotted around town shone their lonely beams, as if positioned to make the structures look as black as possible, flickering on and off like the candles carried at funeral processions.
“Over there…no one will see me…”
She was already at her physical and emotional limits. In this light-soaked world, all she wanted was darkness, a cave where she would never be seen.
“The gate… It won’t open.”
The front gate, illuminated by yellow light, was fitted with a lock that refused to budge. But by now, she was sure that the building in front of her had nobody inside.
Over the past few days, she had witnessed enough gigantic dwelling structures that she was sick of them, far taller than any imperial castle from her homeland, light trickling out from every window, but all of them looking inorganic and uninviting from the outside. Inside many of them, people were engaged in activities like none she had seen before. But while this building here looked the same as all the others, it was clearly free of inhabitants. There were merely a string of pale lights along it, like the torches placed to ward off evening intruders at a citadel, but no one seemed to be standing patrol under them.
She probably stood at the site for a good five minutes.
“…I’m going to use this,” she declared to no one in particular, before her body began to lightly float in the air. Jumping over the gate, she landed in a courtyard area.
Nobody seemed to be around. The poorly maintained hedges around the building were just a bit higher than her line of sight, keeping away the prying eyes of outside passersby.
“It doesn’t seem abandoned…”
Approaching the building, she found this one was also made of unfamiliar material. It looked like stone or brick, but felt wholly different from those materials when she touched it. It was smooth, lustrous, hard, but also seemed lightweight.
“Maybe a little higher would be best.”
Looking at the higher floors that melted into the night sky, she floated up once again, following the outer wall as she ascended. She turned around as she did, taking in the light that defied the darkness as far as her vision could see. The colorful lights carpeted the land, as if all the stars in the sky had fallen to earth. The shock when she realized that every flicker indicated human activity was something she thought she’d never forget, no matter what happened to her.
“Devil King,” she whispered, “where did you disappear to?”
He had to be here, somewhere in this land of light she’d chased him into. Right at this moment, he might be gouging a pit of darkness into this land, his demonic wings beating down over the night sky. She had to find that evil presence as soon as possible and defeat him, before he could snuff out any of the light before her.
“But he’s nowhere to be found. I cannot even sense him…”
It was unthinkable. No matter how wounded he was, how much of his power was gone, there was no mistaking the demonic evil of his existence. But the demon she was chasing had blinked out of existence, as if drowned out by this gigantic whirlpool of light.
“…Will this work?”
She settled down on a corner of one of the terraces situated on every story of the building, partitions set up between each window. Standing there, she looked into the room through an astonishingly transparent pane of glass. It had a wooden floor, but no evidence of habitation. The floor of the terrace above her served as a ceiling, keeping the rain away.
“Hahhh…”
The moment she knew nobody could see her, the fatigue finally won out. She sat right there, on the floor, in this partitioned terrace on a brand-new, yet abandoned building, exhausted enough that even these cramped quarters offered the solace she long sought.
“If I could have finished off the Devil King there, then this…wouldn’t be…”
She clenched her fists tightly, cursing herself. Then, as if responding to her will, light began to gather in her hands, forming something that hadn’t been there before. It was a sword, exquisitely designed and emitting a divine light.
“…My holy sword,” she said, her voice strained. “Why isn’t its guiding light showing me where he is? Did it lose its powers in the battle?”
The sword didn’t answer. The purple jewel in its handle simply shone on, revealing the light of a faraway land, here in this moonless, starless night.
“…Eme,” she groaned, holding her knees. “Al… Olba…” She buried her face in those knees, giving breath to her scratchy voice.
“Help me…”
Emilia Justina, the Hero, had staked the fate of all Ente Isla on one final, climactic battle—but right at the last minute, she failed to slay Satan. Five days had passed since then, after she had chased the Devil King and the Great Demon General Alciel beyond the Gate they had fled through and into this world and its hyper-advanced civilization. One more blow, she thought, should do it—but the Devil King’s power was still nothing to scoff at.
She was sure the real final battle would begin in this world past the Gate, but that presence which felt so ominous in her homeland was nonexistent here. She went through the same Gate they had, so they couldn’t have been sent to some other world. The Devil King and Alciel had to be here, somewhere—but the Satan Emilia knew all too well was nowhere to be found.
It plunged Emilia into a panic.
She had no way of imagining how large this world was, but it was entirely possible that the Gate deposited her in one end of it, and the demons in the other. That would mean a great time delay before they could engage each other again. Satan was powerful enough to turn the Central Continent into a living hell overnight—wounded though he was, that would be more than enough time to annihilate one or two kingdoms on this world. She couldn’t afford to have the Devil King’s Army snuff out any more lives.
Emilia herself was wounded and exhausted by battle, but her desire to fight raged as brightly as ever. She immediately began to search for traces of the Devil King, but right up to today, her efforts were fruitless. Time marched on, allowing her barely anything to eat or sleep upon. She’d been ready to give up yesterday, in fact. But in this land filled with light, there was no safe harbor for Emilia to take advantage of.
“Ugh… I’m so tired…”
The events of the past five days were a cavalcade of unexpected surprises, none of them anything she wanted to ever recall again. She leaned her armored back against the glass window as she reflected on it.
“Haaa…aaaaahhhhh?”
Then the window slid to the side, knocking her off-balance.
“Huh? What’s…? Ah?”
The sword disappeared the moment she hit the floor, but Emilia paid that no attention, instead standing up and taking in the unbelievable sight. The window was open, as if inviting her inside. Beyond was a soundless, unpopulated space, and before she realized it, Emilia had stepped through the opening, tempted by this empty cell.
She hadn’t intended to let her guard down, but not even she could say how much of her wits she had about her at the moment. Even if this was an abandoned building, that didn’t mean she was free to enter it; the lack of dust on the floor indicated that people were here on regular occasions. But Emi, her loneliness and fatigue pushing her emotions far beyond their limits, was unable to resist the offer of a shelter free from prying eyes.
Closing the window behind her, she was greeted by a perfectly silent space.
“Ahh…”
She all but threw herself on the hard floor, sprawling out over it. Her thoughts were still rational enough that she chose not to remove her armor, but for the first time in several days, Emilia tasted a sense of freedom in this enclosed space. At the same time, the fatigue attacked her in waves. As expected—she hadn’t found any place where she could close her eyes and sleep soundly for several days. Her body, her mind, and everything else were at their limits—and the moment she closed those eyes, her consciousness went black.
Soon, she had a dream that took her back to a certain day in her home village of Sloane—a day after she was taken away by the Church to become a Hero, even though she couldn’t have been there to witness it. The Emilia in the dream was lightly running across the village at full speed. Her father should still be there—but, try as she might, she couldn’t seem to locate him, or anyone else for that matter. She searched for one day, then another, in her dream, but couldn’t find any evidence that people dwelled here at all.
Then, in an instant, it all changed dramatically. Hearing an explosion behind her, she turned around to find a humongous demon towering above her, framed by flames shooting behind his back. In one hand was the lifeless body of someone she knew.
In a flash, Emilia tried to materialize her sword as she ran at the creature—but the weapon never appeared. The demon spun around on the spot, as if unaware of her presence entirely. She wanted to scream at him to wait, but her mouth wouldn’t work.
The fire soon spread across the village. What she thought was an empty village was now echoing with screams. Winged demons flitted across the skies, as their grotesque-looking companions came around to destroy the homes. She had to stop them—she had the power to stop them—but the sword was gone. No matter how much she struggled, her legs refused to move forward. She couldn’t even speak.
Then a familiar figure descended in front of Emilia. He was small for a demon, but his demonic force was easily that of a thousand of his kin.
“Lucifer!!”
Seeing the inhumane smile of the Great Demon General Lucifer immediately made Emilia attempt to engage him barehanded. But when she tried to punch him in the face, her fist went harmlessly through him, as if swiping at a mirage.
Or perhaps Emilia herself was the mirage the whole time. Why couldn’t she fight? She had to stop this tragedy, and yet…
“Aaahhhhhh!!”
Then the scream pierced through her eardrums. From the village, from behind Lucifer, from the skies, from the land—or was it…?
“Gah!!”
Emilia’s body jerked upward at the strangely raw but very vivid scream. Opening her eyes, she was greeted not by Sloane being ravaged by demons, but by an unfamiliar, bare-bones square room. It was lit by the sun, not by flames and demonic force, and in another second, Emilia remembered she had sneaked into a mysterious abandoned building last night.
“—!!”
Then she realized how much of an emergency she was in: Someone was there.
A woman. From this world, no doubt, judging by the common gray, well-tailored clothing she wore. Emilia’s back was to the sun, making it easy to see the face of the woman who stood by the door opposite the window Emilia had come in through. A face twisted in horror.
By the looks of things, Emilia was an intruder, and the woman was likely meant to be in this building. Instantly realizing this much, she promptly regretted the mistake she had made last night—of closing, and locking, the window. The lock was similar to the ones she was familiar with back home, making it easy, and now that was biting her back.
Breaking the window would leave evidence of her trespass. But if it’s come to this…!
“Light Mirror!!”
A holy spell that provided invisibility. She rarely had the opportunity to use it, but it proved useful whenever she wanted to infiltrate a demon-controlled stronghold without needless battle. Since it ran on holy energy, it was often ineffective against higher-level demons, and Emilia herself wasn’t that gifted in holy magic—but if someone like Emeralda Etuva cast it, she could even deceive her fellow human sorcerers.
Using it against an enemy you’d already engaged would normally be pointless, since your adversary would know you were there, but it was a good way to escape a confrontation while they were unguarded. The only way out was through the door behind the woman, not the window…but things developed in a way Emilia wasn’t expecting.
<“Eeek!”>
The surprise in the woman’s expression and voice turned into fear. Her knees began to shake.
<“She…she, disappeared… Aaaaaaahh!!”>
“Huh? Wait…!”
<“She was really here!!”>
The woman turned white, screaming what sounded like nonsense, and fled so quickly that she ran straight into the door behind her. Emilia was hoping to perhaps strike a vital point and knock her to the ground, but her fleeing in horror just because the intruder had turned invisible was highly unexpected. Emilia’s casting was far from perfect—steel your eyes a little, and it wouldn’t take a seasoned sorcerer to spot her. Or was she deliberately fleeing because she feared an ambush and hoped to bring the battle to a larger space?
Instinctively, Emilia made a break for the door, attempting to chase the woman.
<“Nfhh!”>
Then she heard a painful-sounding noise and voice from outside. Peering down the long hallway, she found the woman lying facedown on the floor. At the far end was something that resembled a wooden dowel on the floor—and, looking more closely, the shoes the woman wore now had differently-shaped heels on each foot. Emilia knew what high heels were, even if she’d only had the chance to try them a handful of times in her life, so she quickly realized that this stranger had broken a heel as she ran.
She expected the woman to pick herself up quickly, but instead she stayed on the ground, her body lightly trembling.
<“Eee, ah, no…”>
Judging by the way she was dragging herself down the hall to get away from the room, she was still trying to flee. Now, for the first time, Emilia’s heart was filled with the dreadful feeling that she had done something terribly wrong.
The woman didn’t look like a fighter or sorcerer; Emilia had seen several women dressed like her as she wandered around the world these past five days. She must be just a regular person, managing the building or living in a room Emilia hadn’t noticed. In that case, the only villain here—sneaking into a building without permission just because the window was open, then threatening a woman for no reason—was the girl in the armor.
Slowly, Emilia opened the door. Despite being made of something heavy-looking like metal or stone, it was much lighter than she’d expected. The hinges creaked a little.
<“Ah… Ah, ah, no, ah…”>
The woman, still on the floor, turned around. She was shedding tears now. Emilia had to apologize for scaring her, and for going into that room in the first place. So she slowly approached her, still wearing her heavy armored boots, which clanged loudly across what felt like the single sheet of rock that covered the floor.
<“N-no! What…What is that?! Who’s there?! S-stay away, stay away from me!”>
The woman shook her head violently as the tears dampened her face, apparently looking for something but never looking at Emilia herself. Emilia didn’t know nearly enough of the language to know what the woman was saying, but she could tell these weren’t exactly tears of joy she was shedding. So she knelt down and, with some difficulty, repeated the apparent greeting she had heard many times in this country.
<“H…Haah…”>
<“Eek!”>
<“How, ya…doing…?”>
This time, a sound that hardly sounded human at all erupted from the woman’s throat.
<“Noooooooooooo! That voice is coming from nowhere!!”>
“Huh?! Ah, wait, wait!”
It was too late to call for reason. The woman threw off her shoes and frantically half-crawled away down the corridor.
“W-wait a minute! Y-you’re going to…”
<“Nooooooo…!!”>
She must have run into a stairway beyond Emilia’s sight. The Hero at first thought she might’ve fallen again, but once her shoes were off, the woman quickly sped away from the scene, her screams gradually fading from Emilia’s ears.
“Y-you don’t have to be that scared…”
Yes, she was a trespasser, but she’d also been demonstrating a desire to communicate, hadn’t she? Emilia frowned, her feelings hurt a bit. Then she noticed a large, black object at her feet. It appeared to be a bag made of high-quality leather, with a brand-new gold clasp.
“…Huh?”
Looking at the well-polished metal surface made Emilia realize something. She brought a hand up to her eyes…then sighed.
“That…would be scary I suppose, yes. She can’t see me, but she saw the door open, and those footsteps and my voice…”
She had wholly forgotten to undo the invisibility spell before approaching her. If that unfortunate woman looked closely enough, she could’ve been able to see at least the shimmering outline of Emilia, but she must’ve been too terrified to notice.
Either way, she now knew for sure that this building was neither abandoned nor a safe haven for her. She felt bad about terrorizing that woman, but it wouldn’t be smart to stick around now. She might call for a constable or soldier, and then Emilia would have to engage in violent measures against a fellow human being—something she absolutely didn’t want.
“I wonder if she’ll come back to get this…? But…”
Emilia’s eyebrows slanted downward as she looked up. She hadn’t noticed it when she awoke, but the sunlight that made it through her room’s window had apparently come during sunset. The sky visible from this corridor was now a shade of purple; night was returning. It made her realize just how tired she was. Now, with a clearer mind, all the errors in judgment she’d made were painfully obvious.
“I don’t know who that woman was,” she said as she picked up the bag and headed down the hall, “but if someone lives here, this might get stolen sooner or later…”
Then the sight of all the pieces of paper in the bag made her stop.
“…”
It felt like there was an assortment of objects inside it.
“……”
She pondered this for a moment.
“…!”
She gave her surroundings a careful look around, then slunk back to the dwelling she’d been in. Somehow managing to lock the door, she sat in the middle of its empty main chamber, facing the bag and looking at herself in its metal clasp. It made her take a deep breath.
“I swear by the Church, the Better Half, and the name of my father that I will not steal your belongings. I will not reveal or abuse the knowledge I gain. So…allow me to learn a little more about this world, if you could.”
She rummaged around the bag—something that should have shamed her as a person, much less a Hero. But right now, before her eyes was the knowledge Emilia needed to live in this land and find the Devil King. If someone were to bring her to task for this crime, she would gladly accept the blame and atone for it. Steeling her resolve, she undid the clasp.
Perhaps a good half-day passed with her sitting there. It was now deep into the following night, darkness draping the room. Emilia had summoned a holy magic–driven ball of light to dispel it, giving her the illumination needed to explore every inch of the bag.
It was her first chance to examine the belongings of an average person on this world. The woman was bound to be back for it sooner or later—and when she did, Emilia would have to give it all back and leave this room. The clock was ticking.
“This must be money. A coin with a hole in the middle’s pretty uncommon.”
Emilia lined up every coin and piece of paper she fished out from the smooth, leathery bag on the floor and nodded. The coins had designs of temple-like buildings, flowers, trees, rice plants, and so on. They didn’t seem to contain very much gold, silver, or copper, but it wasn’t hard to imagine all of this as currency. The scraps of paper, meanwhile, featured dazzling patterns, portraits of people, and other intricately detailed pieces of art, as well as the same written text she had seen on the coins.
The text in question came in ten different characters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0. If these were numbers, it implied these were paper bills. She understood the concept of that, at least, but this was only the second country she’d been to where she’d seen it. The first had been a seaside port city on the Central Continent, but as one of her companions had put it, the impact of the Devil King’s Army on the land made the currency so worthless that it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
Any bill or coin had to have the absolute trust of its issuing nation behind it in order to function—and with paper as light as this, it had to be worth a comparatively tremendous amount of money. The bag’s owner hadn’t looked much older than Emilia, but was this nation safe and prosperous enough that even someone like her would walk around with vast sums of money?
“Either way, I doubt I’ll get much use out of the gold and silver coins I have…”
Emilia had none of these paper bills, and while the coins had a silvery color, they didn’t appear to be minted from straight silver. While she knew they depicted numbers, she had no idea what their order was. It’d be a waste of time to consider this currency any longer for now.
The next thing she devoted her attention to was a large map. Opening it up, she found it made once again of high-quality paper. It appeared to be a simple one-color outline map, but looking closely, she found it covered with a vast array of (what she concluded was) numbers. Even before she came here, she’d had some impression of this nation’s advanced printing skill, but seeing all these tiny numbers covering the map every which way made her jaw drop.
“These numbers may not be referring to money. Perhaps they are distances, or perhaps they are assigned to certain roads… There’s some sort of system to them, anyway. The roads have arrows, along with four characters on them. Two circled characters for larger regions. And this is…four characters, but they’re circled in a different way from the others… Either it’s a large road or a river. Hmm… The red text must have been written in later.”
In the midst of this businesslike map, nothing but roads and regions and numbers, something was written in red ink.
“Is the red mark in the middle this building?”
Despite her semi-delirious, sleep-deprived state yesterday, she had a general idea of what her surroundings looked like. It made her realize that this outline map covered a fairly limited area centered around this building.
“So the numbers between the arrows are distances. And the distance from one edge of this arrow to the other one is the unit distance represented by these four-digit numbers! These ten characters definitely have to be numbers, then!”
If “1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/0” were the ten numbers, it meant this nation ran on the decimal counting system. Even that was a great leap forward. If she could figure out the order they went by, she should be able to figure out things like money and distances to some extent.
“But this distance and that distance look the same to me. Why’re the numbers on them different…?”
The printed numerals were so small that Emi had to strengthen the magic-driven light to view them.
“There are a lot of similar combinations around the areas marked in red. And these buildings are marked differently, too. I’ll have to go over there myself before I… Huh? What’s this…?”
Then Emilia realized that another map was in the bag.
“Hmm? Is this a map of the same place?”
This map was printed in bright red and blue tones, with a far larger number of written-in notes on it. Regions that were more loosely circled in the outline map were delineated in detail here, each festooned with a large variety of text characters. This map also featured a picture and some larger text in every direction, designed in a way that reminded Emilia of a storefront sign.
“Hmm… This looks more like the maps I’m used to.”
The larger cities in Emilia’s world featured advertisements put up by the merchant guilds that provided maps to the stores and other important facilities around town. By Emilia’s estimation, this was something similar.
The discovery also opened another problem in her mind.
“This…is gonna be kind of tough.”
Staring at the blue-printed map, she found the text on it featured an endless array of different characters, each hopelessly complex in design. This nation used a lot of different types of characters, something it hadn’t taken her long to spot upon arriving. Just looking at this map alone, there seemed to be three or four or five different writing systems at work. If these were all phonetic symbols, she knew she was in trouble—and if they were ideographs, representing concepts instead of pronunciation, this wasn’t something she could decipher in a day or two.
“Unless I exercise my Idea Link muscles, this is going to be such a pain…”
Idea Link was a mightily useful thing when venturing into a land where you didn’t know the local language, but it didn’t provide a perfect translation. Unless both sides of the conversation had the same concept in mind, the meaning you attempted to convey could often come across as something totally different and unintelligible. In the case of traveling around Ente Isla, at least one member of her group would have a grasp of whatever language was needed, or they could hire an interpreter if necessary, but that wasn’t an option here.
“If I just had a chance to talk for a good while with someone…”
Emilia hadn’t had the opportunity to exchange too many words with people here yet. One look at her and most people demonstrated a clear disinterest in dealing with her, and being chased by the constables wasn’t what you could really call conversation. The only words she knew so far were what her ears picked up on the street—the “how ya doing” she heard when people spoke face-to-face with each other; the “welcome, welcome” shopkeepers used to make people venture inside; the “come here” and “be nice” parents used to calm their children; the “freeze” and “don’t move” and “get over here” shouted by the constabulary when they wanted to catch you.
“Hang on…”
Then Emilia noticed the same text, in the same handwriting, on both maps.
“Here it is!”
It was inside the leather wallet that held the paper bills. Apart from money, it contained a selection of colorful, multi-textured cards, all structured and printed in the same fashion; each featured the same small string of characters.
“Here, too.”
Inside an even smaller leather card case she found another stack of cards, each with the exact same string of characters as before. This stack was more varied, detailed, and colorful than the bills, even featuring a portrait of a person drawn to an exhaustively close likeness. Seeing it, Emilia could now be sure.
“That woman… She owns this bag. So…this has to be her name.”
She must’ve written her name on the map to make it clear who owned it. Emilia couldn’t say what all the variations in her card collection were for, but one of them featured a red cross inside an almond-shaped shield, like one used by knights. A sign that she was affiliated with a military corps, perhaps?
“I wish I knew how to pronounce her name, at least… Is there anything else?”
Inside the dark room, Emilia continued to rifle through the bag, seeking hints about this woman and the nation she called home.
“Hmm… This sheaf of papers is probably for business purposes. Is this a handkerchief? That’s a very pretty color… And this card has numbers and a name, too. And this is a glass bottle with water inside…or not? What kind of light, soft, see-through material is this made of? It has some text and a picture of a mountain on it, but I can’t read it… Otherwise, a lot of this looks the same… What’s this?”
Emilia discovered something truly odd in one of the outer pockets. It was a flat board of sorts, the size of her palm, rigid, square, and painted in assorted gaudy colors. It was heavy for its size, a leather strap attached to it from the edge. There were lots of small projections around it, along with a hole that looked large enough to insert something into.
“That’s weird… Is this a button? …Ah?!”
The moment she clumsily touched one of the buttons, the board’s surface lit up, causing a shocked Emilia to drop it on the floor. Would it explode? Or let out a blinding flash of light? Or was it a trap to ward off would-be bag thieves? Whatever it was, it made her leap back in self-defense.
But the board simply emitted its light, doing nothing else. Slowly, ever so gingerly, she looked back at it.
“Ah… That’s cute…”
Within the light was a picture of what looked like a bear, although the drawing was heavily simplified from the real thing. It was clinging to a pillow as it lay on its back, sleeping. Above it floated four numbers.
“The…the numbers are moving?”
The moment she gazed at them, the number on the far right changed from a “1” to a “2.” It was another mystery for Emilia to unravel as she picked up the board.
<“Ahhhh?!”>
“Huh?”
The door to the corridor had been opened at some point. She thought she had locked it, but when Emilia looked up, she saw someone there. There was no way she could forget that face, tensed in terror in the light of her magic. It was that woman again, the one who’d left her bag behind.
This time, Emilia didn’t think about running. She had to apologize for trespassing, and for inspecting her bag. The moment she extended a hand to attempt it:
<“Hyaaagghh!!”>
The woman let out a shrill scream and bounded out into the corridor again.
“W-wait a minute! No, wait, hang on, um…!”
Emilia tried her best to remember what those constables yelled at her as she ran.
<“Halt! Freeze!”>
But despite Emilia being completely visible this time, the woman didn’t halt at all.
<“Yaaaaaahaahhhh! A will-o’-the-wisp and a samurai ghost!!”>
“…Will o the wisp samoorai gosst?”
Emilia was puzzled by these unfamiliar terms. But she had to give back the bag, and if the woman got away now, she had no idea when she’d see her again. So Emilia chased after her, attempting to stop her.
<“Stay where you are! Stop resisting!”>
<“Noooooooooo!”>
<“Welcome, welcome!”>
<“Stay awaaaaaaaay!!”>
<“Come here! Come here!!”>
<“I don’t wanna diiiieeeee!! This building’s cursed!!”>
Emilia’s calls echoed across the building, bouncing off its walls repeatedly, but were almost fully drowned out by the woman’s high-pitched screaming. She tried to reach her, but she had disappeared in one direction or other along the corridor, lost to her again. Emilia could hear the sound of someone descending a staircase whose location was still a mystery to her.
She was gone—and this time, Emilia had really spooked her. This “samoorai gosst” must have been someone really strange and mythical in this world, at least that much she could tell, but even then it seemed like the woman was overreacting quite a bit. Something about the term “will o the wisp samoorai gosst” sounded incredibly sinister. Perhaps she was being marked as a violent criminal or something.
“Hmm… Maybe this armor isn’t the best idea.”
Giving it some thought, she considered a few elements that might arouse suspicion. She had arrived here fresh from her final battle with the Devil King, so her armor was all scratched up and damaged in places. And it was true that she had seen not a single knight in armor or even a helm during her time here.
“So it is the armor…”
Really, as long as she bore the Cloth of the Dispeller—the symbol of her power as a Hero—no full-body armor was necessary at all. But, perhaps due to the limits of her holy-energy coffers, she could never deploy both her holy sword and the Cloth at its maximum force simultaneously. Even if she was protected against the Devil King’s attack, it meant little if she couldn’t strike back. Thus, before the final battle, Emilia had thought it best not to use the Cloth and poured all her energy into her sword instead.
“…I don’t smell strange or something, do I?”
The thought consumed her once it popped up in her mind. She sniffed her long hair. The fact she had engaged in a fierce battle followed by five days without a bath was a reality she preferred not to face as a woman, but Emilia actually had a little trick to deal with that.
“I transformed once yesterday…so that shouldn’t be it.”
It was the angel’s blood within Emilia. Whenever she awoke its presence—an ability she’d never had in her memory, something discovered only when told about it on that fateful day—it fully refreshed her. If she were gravely wounded in battle, this angelic transformation would immediately heal it all. If she were hurt in “angel” mode, she would still heal, but gradually over time, and if she left that mode before she was fully healed, her injuries would remain how they were, without getting worse. A transformation was like a deep cleansing for her.
When traveling in lands like the eastmost parts of the Eastern Island, where temperatures and humidity were high and clean streams to bathe in were few and far between, Emilia was the only one among her traveling party who managed to keep herself clean and tidy despite all the fighting they’d waded through. That was the only real difference between Emilia and her three companions—a difference she’d freely taken advantage of in battle during their quest, and one that fellow female traveler Emeralda Etuva hadn’t hidden her envy of. However, transforming also required a substantial amount of holy energy—and, of course, it didn’t “cleanse” anything she was wearing.
“Maybe it’s that…?”
Emilia blushed, even though nobody was watching her. If her appearance stuck out like this in a rich, peaceful country, it wasn’t just a little embarrassing—it would lead to all sorts of inconveniences, a fact she had already learned through hard experience.
“Someplace I can wash my clothing… I could hardly use the water fountains in the public squares. With all the people out at night, Light Mirror might still make me conspicuous…and besides, just because they can’t see me, it’s not like I can go…naked, like that…”
Her thought process quickly took her there, but either way, she had few leads when it came to doing laundry. Something about that might be written on that woman’s maps, but she couldn’t do much as long as she was illiterate.
Just when she was thinking it was time to turn to her final resort:
“…What’s that sound?”
There was a repetitive, heavy sound, beating out a rhythm from somewhere, almost like a large insect in flight. It seemed to be coming from the dwelling she had left. Emilia peeked back into the room from the hallway.
“That board again…”
The board, which emitted all that light a moment ago, was now flashing and lightly vibrating across the floor.
“Wh-what…?”
She reluctantly approached it, preparing herself for anything and wondering if it would leap up at her as she peered into the screen. Now, where she had seen the bear drawing earlier, there was a red-and-green rectangular shape. She stared at it, unable to figure out its meaning, and after a few moments the vibration stopped and the picture went back to the bear.
“Wha, wha, what was all that about…? Agh!”
It promptly began to shake again. This time, though, it didn’t seem interested in stopping. After a minute of this, Emilia finally drummed up the courage to pick it up.
The board was dully vibrating in her hand, but it didn’t seem about to do anything harmful. That red-and-green rectangle was on the surface of it again, and inside was another figure that was new to her.
“What kind of thing is this…? Eek!”
When she was brave enough to try poking it, the vibration stopped, and the picture on the board’s surface changed again. Emilia dropped it on the floor with a heavy thud, and silence returned once again.
“Wha…wha…wha…?”
Then, another shocking change.
<“H-hello… Hello?”>
“?!”
It was a voice. A person’s voice, coming from that board! It was patchy, with some noise that Emilia had never heard before, but was it that woman’s voice? She looked around the room, but detected nobody nearby. Perhaps it was a magical talisman of sorts, taking the role of the Idea Link in long-distance communication.
<“Did, did someone pick up? Hello? Helloooooo?”>
“The voice makes it through…which means…”
Emilia had conversed via Idea Link often on her journey. If someone was there, on the other side of this board, then perhaps…!
“Maybe I can use…Idea Link?”
It was her first chance to have a calm conversation with a human being in this country. This time, for sure, she couldn’t afford to scare her…and this was the only way.
Slowly, silently, Emilia focused on the board lying on the floor. Her mind connected to it, much more easily than she’d predicted.
And it was that woman. She sat down next to the lit-up board, working the Idea Link to read the words and consciousness of the woman, and then she began to speak.
<“Um… Hello?”>
This must be how people greeted each other in long-distance discussions.
<“Hello? Oh, did this work?! M-maybe I dropped my phone somewhere away from my purse! Hello?!”>
Phone?
There was no common concept of a “phone” shared between the two minds. Emilia was unable to discern its meaning.
<“Phone…”>
<“Y-yeah. Um… I’m the owner of that phone. I’m at the police station right by the station in Eifukucho.”>
A “police station” was likely one of the constabulary’s guardrooms. Quickly, Emilia opened up the blue map and checked it against the concepts beamed into her mind. A “station” would be a stopping point for transportation, so Emilia soon had a general idea of where it was. It didn’t look that far away from her.
<“So, um…yeah…?”>
<“Oh, ohhh, how, ya doing?”>
<“Huh? Um, I’m all right…”>
<“What, is, your name?”>
She still wasn’t fully picking up on the concepts. The Idea Link only worked if there were common ideas to link up with. And in order to pull out as much of this woman’s words and ideas as possible, Emilia felt it best to use the language she was most familiar with.
<“Um? My name is, uh, Keiko Yusa.”>
<“Yusa?”>
<“Y-yes. First name K-E-I-K-O, last name Y-U-S-A.”>
<“Keiko…Yusa…”>
She finally had her name. The name “Yusa,” along with the characters used to write it, undoubtedly belonged to her. She wasn’t quite sure how kay-ee-ai-kay-oh led to “Keiko” yet, but at least she knew how to read it now. Now she was getting excited.
<“Your, belongings…are, here.”>
<“What?”>
The voice on the other side of the Idea Link stiffened at Emilia’s response. Learning Yusa’s name had taken so much effort that she must have done something wrong. In a panic, Emilia strung some more words together.
<“Welcome…in the room…come here.”>
<“…Nnnnn, nnnnnh!”>
“Huh? What?!”
Without warning, the conversation and Idea Link were cut off. She knew what that meant. Disconnections like this were common if your partner fell asleep, or was knocked unconscious. As if picking up on this, the light-up board’s surface returned to the picture of that bear.
Had she done something to scare her again? Picking up your partner’s language while conducting a long-distance Idea Link required pretty intense mental concentration. If she could meet her in person and return her items, that wouldn’t just allow her to apologize in person—it’d make it far easier to keep that link going. Plus, she was sure she hadn’t said anything wrong, per se, in this country’s language.
“…Hopefully this will work…”
As long as she didn’t know Yusa’s location, she would just need to have her come here. And as long as Emilia didn’t know how this board worked, exactly, she couldn’t send out an Idea Link from her end.
“Guess I’ll just have to wait.”
Yusa had already been here twice. Someone not involved with this building, one with so many rooms, wouldn’t show up at this one twice without any business. Next time, Emilia wanted to greet her properly and apologize for everything that happened. It might lead to more constables chasing after her, but she’d deal with that then. Despite the short length of her conversation with this Keiko Yusa, it had borne a lot of fruit. If she could build on that, the next time a constable confronted her, she’d at least be able to talk back.
“Thinking about it that way…this armor really is a bad idea.”
Now she knew what “samoorai gosst” meant. It certainly described her to a T. Determining that much from a single glance indicated Yusa was a perceptive woman, yes, but if Emilia wanted to stop looking like a hostile threat to her, she’d better have that armor off at their next encounter.
But if she did…
“Oof.”
Just as she began removing a shoulder guard, she was greeted by what could be called a sour odor.
“I gotta wash this… No way she’ll ever listen to me like this… Oh! That’s right!”
In the midst of their talk, Emilia learned that those white and blue maps took up a vital position in Keiko Yusa’s life. That, and the “Yu” part of her name, which could also be read as “hot water,” was used to represent things like baths and hot springs.
Staring at the map full of unfamiliar characters, it only took a few seconds before she sounded her first whoop of joy in this nation.
“Yes! Here we go!”
“…I feel like a new girl…”
For the first time in five days, Emilia felt healthy, mind and body, in this new world. The clothing and underwear that had absorbed so much sweat under her armor during that intense fighting now had the fetching smell of soap to them.
There was a public bath not far from that building. She wasn’t aware of what the “public” part meant until she arrived at the door, but as she eavesdropped on the conversations of people around her, she realized it meant a bath open for anyone to use.
Public baths like these, even on alternate worlds, didn’t vary much design-wise—but since she didn’t want to break any taboos, Emilia immediately went up to what seemed to be the attendant, a middle-aged woman. It was true—being able to calmly use the Idea Link in person with someone made it possible to grasp concepts in such incredible depth. The attendant certainly knew that she was a foreigner without much language skill, but she was still polite with her, choosing her words carefully to guide her through the process. A lot of it was still way over Emilia’s head, but it still helped build her vocabulary greatly.
The problem was with the currency Emilia brought along. She had already sworn not to touch Keiko Yusa’s money. On her way to the final battle, she’d tucked a sort of charm under her armor—a cloth bag with one gold, one silver, and one copper coin, a symbol of her intention to return to a peaceful, bountiful world—and she finally opened it here, presenting the most valuable gold coin to the attendant. This seemed to do little but thoroughly confuse the woman, but Emilia received a lifeline from an unexpected source.
<“Hohh… That’s a rare coin, there.”>
Behind her was an old woman wearing a pair of glasses.
<“Rare, you say?”>
<“Here, let me see it a moment.”>
<“Okay. Go ahead.”>
Taking a small eyepiece like something a watch repairman would use out of her pocket, she ran her eye up and down the gold piece.
<“Hmm… It’s certainly nothing used in modern Japan. Or anywhere in the world, really. I haven’t seen markings like these before…but from what I can tell, it’s definitely real gold.”>
The attendant shrugged at the old woman. <“But, Ms. Kimura, I can’t really do anything with real gold here!”>
<“If you’d like,”> Ms. Kimura said without addressing this complaint, <“I could buy this from you. In fact, I could cover you for the bath here. Once you’re done, come on over to my store. I’ll give it a full evaluation and pay you in yen for it.”>
Emilia didn’t quite catch all of that, but she got the idea that this old woman she’d run into would exchange this coin for the local currency. Thanks to old lady Kimura, Emilia finally managed to enter the bath. She was even nice enough to explain how to use all the in-house equipment.
Shedding the armor really made it this easy for people to approach her? That was the biggest shock for Emilia. She was highly reluctant to disarm and disrobe, given that she had no idea when Satan, the Devil King, would strike—but in a way, all that equipment was serving as two strikes against her around here.
As she experimented with all these things she’d never experienced before—washing her hair with liquid soap that bubbled an unbelievable amount; faucets that provided cold or hot water whenever you wanted it; tubes in the wall that blew hot air at you; a large, well-polished full-length mirror—she took the first real bath she’d had in she couldn’t say how many days.
Ms. Kimura also told her about the washing device adjacent to the bath. <“I like your courage, living in Japan by yourself with a single set of clothes, but I can’t say it’s a good idea. How ’bout I buy some things for you and take it off the price for the gold?”>
Looking a little concerned for Emilia, Ms. Kimura went to a vending machine in the changing room and purchased a set of undergarments like none Emilia had ever seen. Putting them on, she waited (otherwise unclothed) in front of the washing device for twenty minutes. Her long-sleeved hemp shirt and pants came out soon after, smelling of soap and dried to a crisp.
<“Don’t tell me you come from a country where they don’t have washing machines?”>
Ms. Kimura laughed as the dumbfounded Emilia stared at the results.
Stopping herself before she aroused suspicion, Emilia put the clothing on and walked with the old woman to her shop. It had a sign with the words for WATCHES / ANTIQUES / PRECIOUS METALS on it, she could tell now. Inside, Ms. Kimura placed the coin in a strange box and looked through a pair of tubes to examine it.
<“Hmmm… It resembles some of the old currency of Spain, but this is much purer gold than anything they minted. How about fifty…no, seventy thousand yen?”>
Seventy thousand. Emilia wasn’t sure how large a number that was, but she could still tell that Ms. Kimura had “raised” the offer from fifty. When she nodded, the old woman gave her a fishy sort of smile and handed her seven familiar-looking bills.
<“Thank ya much! Lemme know if you ever need any more help.”>
Having run her Idea Link the whole time, Emilia suddenly realized at that moment that Ms. Kimura was one hell of a shrewd businesswoman.
<“Thank ya much.”>
She assumed that was meant to celebrate a successful transaction. To that woman, though, seventy thousand was probably a pittance. She intended to sell it for much higher to someone else, no doubt. Plus—although Emilia didn’t know this at the time—selling precious metals like this usually involved a lot of detailed paperwork and record-keeping, but she was never presented with any of that. But that was fine. She wasn’t planning to stay in this nation for long, and the conversation had helped add to her vocabulary.
More than anything, though, seventy thousand yen would be enough to live in this country for the time being. And with this amount of language skill built up, she ought to be able to apologize to Keiko Yusa by now. Food, bathing, washing—none of it would be a problem from now on.
Of course, none of this truly solved anything. She had a bag to return and an apology to make, yet she had made no progress at all in her quest to find Satan and slay him. The complete lack of any demonic force everywhere she went was, in a way, unnerving. What were the Devil King and his cohort Alciel doing, hiding themselves in such complete fashion?
“Could there be humans sheltering them…? No. There couldn’t be.”
Satan may have been wounded, but there weren’t many human beings who could be exposed to the Devil King’s full force and escape alive. Perhaps they were in the same world, but in some faraway, remote locale.
“Maybe I better find a way to gain a broader knowledge of this world.”
And maybe she would be staying here for longer than she’d expected. It was a somber thought she was turning over in her mind when something else hit her.
“Wh-wha…? That smell!!”
Just as she took her first step from Ms. Kimura’s shop in the direction of that dwelling she’d shamelessly broken into, she encountered an aroma that drove her appetite into a frenzy. It smelled a bit spicy, but the moment her nostrils picked up on it, her stomach—which had consumed nothing but water these past few days—growled furiously.
“What…? That aroma… Where is it…?”
Her legs were driven forward by it until they came to a halt in front of a building. A restaurant, it would seem. It had an exhaust fan in the wall that blasted out air that seemed specially designed to tempt your taste buds. The large window out front had a display of food dishes, although further inspection revealed they weren’t real but rather expertly made models, some even featuring chopsticks floating in the air as they picked up noodles and spoons ladling some manner of cooked or boiled grain. The numbers below them must be the prices. She looked at her money again.
“W-well, looks like I have enough!”
She couldn’t hold back any longer. Her body craved real food. Not the kind of slop designed just to weigh down your stomach, but actual cuisine, prepared by a well-trained, diligent chef, guaranteed to make your whole digestive system happy.
<“‘Chinese food…’ Mm. Chinese food.> …Off we go!”
In grand spirits, she slid the glass door open.
<“Hello and welcome!”>
A now-quite familiar phrase was shouted out across the space. Emilia wouldn’t leave for almost another two hours.
After the whirlwind of new sensations she experienced in that Chinese restaurant, she returned “home” to that building. Yes, in the midst of that outing, she had learned it was called an “apartment.” With the money she had, she should’ve been searching for some kind of lodging, but she marched straight over there anyway.
She had illegally snuck into Room 501 of the Urban Heights Eifukucho building. The window was unlocked as it had been before her first arrival, Keiko Yusa’s bag and property right where Emilia left them. Despite the twinge of guilt she felt about it—being a repeat offender now, treating this like it was her own domicile—she had decided to sleep here again today.
“Funny, though,” she said as she looked around the apartment. Compared to the bathhouse, Kimura’s precious-metal shop, and the Chinese restaurant, this building was clearly a recent construct. Why was such a new and large-scale housing complex so barren of people? She browsed around the building a bit before reaching her room, but none of the structure was incomplete, or had been torn apart, or whatever. This allowed Emilia two free nights of lodging and the freedom to use her newfound money elsewhere, so she had nothing to complain about, but it still made her wonder.
Plus, she still had no idea who Keiko Yusa really was. Along those lines, maybe she should have talked over matters with Ms. Kimura some more. There would be no letting her guard down around her, though. Emilia appreciated her help with the bath and the gold coin, but that old lady had easily seen that she was a suspicious, likely homeless woman from a very strange land. Emilia was here to slay the Devil King; she had no intention or need to interact with this country’s people very deeply, and if it really was as peaceful as it felt, then she didn’t need to get involved anyway.
This implied that she couldn’t get too chummy with Keiko Yusa, either, but she still had a valid reason to contact her—to apologize for threatening her, and to give back what she’d unintentionally borrowed from her.
“It’d be nice if I knew a little more about this place, but…hmm…”
Ample shelter; clean bathing facilities; delicious food. Fully satisfied, body and soul, for the first time in a while, Emilia sprawled on the floor, stretched out, and closed her eyes. She had been surprised this morning, but no matter how deeply she slept tonight, there was no way she’d fail to notice someone approaching.
The darkness behind her eyelids conjured up assorted memories of her time here. The shock upon falling into this world bathed in light, its gigantic stone towers pressed against one another. The first time a constable barked at her, nearly capturing her before she could flee. The time she spent jumping from stone tower to stone tower—they were apparently called “skyscrapers”—in an attempt to get out of a driving rain, yet unable to enter any of them. The three days she spent in a city park, drinking the free water—and the constable who discovered her on day three, ensuring she could never go back. That time she was so hungry she’d entered a shop attempting to buy something with her gold and silver coin, only for the language barrier to turn things into a dispute that sent the constables after her again.
Over the past few days, the only food she’d had was some bread crusts handed out in front of a bakery (still delicious enough to be a rarity over in Ente Isla) and a bland paste of some sort made of what seemed like boiled, strained beans, passed out at a shop selling these white, soft-looking square lumps of something (it was filling, at least). And in the end, she was right back here, squatting in this empty room.
“I haven’t been too lucky here so far, have I…?”
The memories were more wretched than she’d thought. Emilia found herself lying facedown, holding back the tears. The apartment would’ve been a godsend even if she had been forced to sleep on the balcony, but she’d made it in here solely because someone accidentally forgot to lock a window. That allowed her to learn more about this nation, but it was strictly a series of lucky breaks strung together.
Back on Ente Isla, even if separated from her friends in an unfamiliar land, she would never be totally unable to communicate with them, not with the powers she enjoyed. They were generally welcome wherever they went as the noble band who’d struck down the Great Demon General Lucifer—and if not, the experience (or rank) of at least one of her friends would usually save Emilia from much pain.
She could see that now. On the Western Island, where the Church’s influence was its most powerful, you couldn’t find anyone who didn’t know Olba Meiyer, one of the six archbishops who held the most decision-making power in the whole Church infrastructure. And in lands without such cozy relationships with the Church, the name of Emeralda Etuva, the great sorcerer of the courts of Saint Aile, held massive sway. Beyond the Western Island, meanwhile, the extensive connections Albert Ende seemed to have worldwide had saved everyone’s hide at least a few times.
“Olba… Eme… Al…”
Emilia softly called the names of her companions—strong, gentle, worth relying on and leaving one’s life to. They were precious to her—but now, there was nobody.
“I miss you…”
With a light sigh and a single tear running down her cheek, she found herself asleep before she realized it.
“…Huh?”
When Emilia woke up, it was to sense something strange drawing near—a large number of people.
She sprang to her feet, opened the door, and looked down at the floors below from the corridor. She saw nearly ten men dressed in blue-and-gray outfits, hanging out in front of the building’s entrance. A vehicle was stopped on the road in front, carrying a large, metallic box of some sort.
“What’s that?”
And that woman was among them. Keiko Yusa.
Disturbed, Emilia returned to her room. Things were different from before. The men with her didn’t look like constables, but Keiko Yusa might’ve enlisted these reinforcements to defeat her.
“…I may not be able to stay here any longer.”
She had hoped to meet her and apologize directly, but that was no longer on the table. So she placed Keiko Yusa’s bag on the doorstep—having placed everything back inside the previous night—put her armor back on, gave one final, longing look at the apartment, and then opened the window and flew off.
“I’m not lying! I saw a ghost! I’m telling you, we need to hire a priest to purify every room in the place to make sure it doesn’t come back!”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I told you, stop spouting off about stuff like that in front of the furniture people!”
“But I saw it…”
“Enough! You know what kind of situation Urban Heights Eifukucho is in! It’s already do-or-die occupancy-wise, and now you’ve got the police involved over some spooky ghost or whatever? What if people start spreading weird rumors again?”
“B-but…we’ve gotten reports from other companies around here about strange sightings even before I showed up…”
“Ughh! Look, just open all the zero-one rooms up to the fifth floor!”
“All of them?! But it was in Room 501! I saw it there!”
“For real…?”
A man and a woman were bickering with each other in the front lobby of Urban Heights Eifukucho. One was Keiko Yusa, the woman Emilia ran into, and the other was her boss, Kazumura. In front of them, a team of workmen from the furniture company looked over assorted papers, checking on their upcoming work assignments.
“All right! Is it okay to get started?”
“See? They’re calling for us! Unlock those doors already! …Yeah, we’ll open them up now, guys! …All right? Come on!”
Her boss flashed a beaming smile to the workmen, then grimaced menacingly at Keiko.
“I have to get back to the office by three PM, and I better see some work done when I’m back, or else you’re gonna have to do all of it.”
“A-all right. I—I’ll do it…”
The half-tearful Keiko headed for the stairs, a unique-looking key in her hand. The workmen needed the elevator, so—in her new, heelless pumps—she climbed up the stairs as she griped to herself.
“Nnngh… Why did I ever have to be involved with this building…?”
Keiko worked for Ohmura Urban Community Real Estate, Ltd., and in the history of that company, they had never had to deal with a more cursed apartment building.
Even as the luxury-condo scene around greater Tokyo had fallen off in the past five years, Urban Community had been enjoying steady growth. The dizzying number of high-rise apartments built along the coast of Tokyo Bay was an indicator of just how intense the competition had become among real estate firms, but that competition had grown just as fierce in some of the budding new hubs of the city. In particular, the prices for properties and rentals along streets in metro Tokyo that allowed easy access to the big rail stations—Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Meguro, Osaki, Shinagawa, Ueno, and Tokyo Station itself—were consistently on the rise. The key to success wasn’t being right next to these sites, but within maybe a few stations of them along the Japan Rail, private railway, or subway lines.
From the seventies to the turn of the millennium, developers had avoided the expensive downtown area and focused on satellite cities in the neighboring prefectures of Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa, creating what was called a “donut effect” in population growth, Now, however, with more people craving life in the city proper, a similar effect was being seen around the terminal stations of Tokyo’s busiest rail lines.
In the midst of all this, Urban Heights—built in Eifukucho, the perfect neighborhood to aim for this kind of customer demand—was a make-or-break project for the company, one that should’ve been a guaranteed success. The Eifukucho station on the Keio Inokashira line was an express stop, providing easy access to the big population centers around Shibuya, Kichijoji, and Shinjuku. Several bus lines also had their routes start and end at the Keio office in Eifukucho, making travel to other areas around Tokyo a snap. Eifukucho Station had a midsized shopping complex and a large street lined with stores nearby, but much of it was still quiet and filled with quaint old buildings. The region offered relaxation, convenience, and great views of the Tokyo skyline.
Urban Heights, however, was a zombie of a building. Three years old, and its occupancy rate was still zero percent. Not only was it not a success; it hadn’t even crossed the starting line yet—and the most aggravating thing was that there was absolutely no reason for it to be a failure.
“And that wasn’t even our fault, either. Ughh…”
Keiko gave a depressed look toward the ceiling as she opened up Room 401.
The brochures used the slogan “A Futuristic Lifestyle Space for Eifukucho Begins Now!” The project received a major push from Ohmura Group, Urban Community’s parent trading firm, and in the space of half a month, over 80 percent of the condos in the upper floors—including the top-floor penthouses—were under contract, with the rental lots in the low-to-mid floors also receiving constant foot traffic.
But just when everyone foresaw the project’s success, someone pulled the red carpet out from under them.
It all started with a tiny mistake. Part of the land used to build it on had been declared “Land Containing Buried Cultural Property” by the government. Before any tall structure could be constructed, the spot had to be fully excavated for historical artifacts and the like. This was fairly normal around much of Tokyo, as old as the city was, but the company had filed the papers for this excavation fifty-nine days before the start of construction, rather than the required sixty days. This earned them a warning from the ward government that didn’t come until months later, by which time construction was almost complete. Urban Community couldn’t really do much about this at that point in the project, but an infraction was an infraction.
Thus, before the building was done, there was a movement within the company to conduct a full, firm-wide compliance check, out of anxiety for their future. That’s when the real hell began, because that compliance check started an avalanche of findings that went far beyond simple filing errors.
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