Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 15 - Chapter 4

THE DEVIL KING IS OUT OF THE OFFICE (4) 
Just as Emeralda was heading off to MgRonald to eat dinner and snoop on Emi and Chiho, a thundering roar from inside Castle Ereniem sent the pigeons roosting in the building’s unique steeple flying into the air. 
“I swear to you, I hate every man, woman, and child in this country!!” The large man leaped out from his tiny desk, paperwork thrown into the air like sparks from a campfire. 
“Enough, Albert. People have been sent to tribunals for less reason than this tirade of yours.” 
Albert Ende, by far the largest of the Hero’s quest companions, was raging like a hungry predator, darting from here and there as he fumed to himself—but the woman with him didn’t bat an eye. 
“Oh, shut up, Hazel! I hate you, too! I can’t take this any longer!!” 
This wasn’t a battlefield, so she was in civilian clothing, but the dignity she exuded was impossible to hide. It was General Hazel Rumack, chief director of the Federated Order of the Five Continents and the de facto leader of Saint Aile’s military branch. 
“No wonder Eme never wants to come back! I’ve never seen a bunch of people as malicious and treacherous as you idiots from the West!” 
“And what will telling me that accomplish, Director Ende?” 
Rumack’s icy rejoinder was met with more hellfire from Albert. “‘Director’ now, is it? All right, yes! I am acting director of the Holy Magic Administrative Institute! But I can’t sub in for a real court sorcerer, all right? And yet I have all these pricks at the Institute going on like ooh, Emeralda would have handled it in the blink of an eye with one another, right in front of my face so I can hear it! If you don’t like me that much, I’ll happily resign right this minute! Just get that broccoli-haired li’l girl back for me! It’s not like I’m sitting on this ridiculously tiny chair because I think it’s comfortable!” 
“So idle chatter from the sorcerers is enough to set you off? You are rather more thin-skinned than I thought.” Rumack raised a surprised eyebrow. “I’ll admit to being biased, but the sorcerers and researchers here live in their own little world, you could say. You wouldn’t be so angry if you just accepted that dealing with them will occasionally rankle you.” 
“Oh, I am well past that point, thank you! Why do I have to scrutinize this research report analyzing the density of holy force in the atmosphere?! And that’d be one thing, but why do I need those snot-nosed brats sniffing their noses at me the whole time?! Oooh, look at this, you messed it up again—shut up already!” 
“You have quite a bit of pent-up rage, I see. By the way, I’ve come here because one of my students is crying at me about how he’s too scared to ask you about the status of his draft report.” 
“Yeah? You talkin’ about the kid from that noble family with the crazy, fancy-pants armor on? I saw him today! If he thinks that shiny armor would ever save his ass in the battlefield, he’s got another thing comin’, lemme tell you! The enemy would aim their holy magic at him first!” 
“Their mission is not to serve as frontline troops. They serve as decoration for the imperial castle. They polish up that armor until you can see your reflection in it. That armor won’t face a blade or an arrow once in its life. They are paid to look fancy, to make the emperor’s castle shine so brightly that royal guests can see them a mile away.” 
“Oh, well, isn’t that nice?! And I bet they get paid a hell of a lot more than the grunts duking it out in the Central Continent with the demons and the other islands! This entire world’s got its priorities screwed up!” 
“You will find no disagreement from me on that point, but would you want to spend your life in their armored boots? You would find it powerfully boring in short order.” 
“Yeah, and they’d probably never even notice how boring their lives are! And if they don’t, I sure as hell ain’t gonna tell them!” 
“Oh, brother…” 
Rumack gave the fuming Albert a look, then wadded up the research draft request in her hand and tossed it in the wastebasket next to the desk. 
The Holy Magic Administrative Institute, led by the sorcerer Emeralda Etuva, was a government office under direct control of the emperor. On paper, it was an independent entity from the knight corps, and thus requests from the knights had to be submitted in document form. So basically, what had just happened was Rumack formally asking Albert for her student’s draft back and Albert refusing. 
“Would you like to go for a drink, maybe? I imagine the walls of the city are too constricting for someone from the great expanses of the North like you. Perhaps a walk around the castle town would do you good.” 
“Sure, if you don’t mind me ditching this job for good!” 
“That would be rather more troublesome than I prefer. If you run from us, you will be a wanted man across the empire.” 
Rumack didn’t think he would actually go through with it. But for safety’s sake, the place she chose for this drink was her own office—an unadorned, almost barren little room, not at all befitting a woman of her stature. 
“Wow. Exciting place.” 
“Sometimes, you see, being a woman can be a weakness in itself. I am not that much of a patriot for my own people.” 
The only real décor to speak of was a suit of ceremonial armor, each part of it polished and sharpened to a fine edge. 
“I’ve obtained something uncommon for us to drink. In terms of looks, I cannot recommend it to those with more refined tastes, but as someone who has traveled the world as much as you have, I would not hesitate to let you try it.” 
“Oh?” 
Rumack fished a hand into the nether regions of a bookshelf, producing a bottle from it. Albert’s eyes burst open. 
“Southern Island liquor?” 
“I thought you would recognize it.” 
The large, nondescript bottle of liquor was infused with the full body of a gigantic, grotesque-looking lizard. It was a familiar sight to Albert. 
“They say only the aristocracy in the desert lands know how to make this. Have you had it before?” 
“I didn’t know they made liquor out of those guys. Y’know, once you finish this bottle, you can chop up the lizard inside, sprinkle some spices on it, roast it on skewers over a charcoal fire, and damn, you got yourself a good dinner.” 
The thin, light-copper liquid poured into Rumack’s silver tumblers practically reeked of alcohol. But take a swig, and it had a surprisingly soft touch upon the tongue, as if gently caressing you from the throat to the stomach. It was habit-forming. 
“Not bad.” 
“There, see?” Rumack poured another serving into Albert’s tumbler glass. “So, what else did Emeralda tell you?” 
“Huh?” 
“She couldn’t have extended her stay in that other world on a whim.” 
“Heh. You’d be surprised. I’m sure all she really wants is a couple more nice meals in her belly before she leaves. I guess there’s some kinda religious holiday coming up, and it features lots of dishes that’re only served around that time.” 
Albert took a lighter sip this time, sloshing the liquid around a bit on his tongue. 
“If that’s what she really wants, then what was her excuse for it?” 
“Ah…” Albert slumped into the room’s sofa, despite not being invited to. “It sounds like Emilia wants to study at a university. One over there, I mean. And Eme wants to help her out.” 
“Oh!” Rumack’s eyes opened wide. The concept sounded fun to her. “So this…Japan, allows common women like her access to higher education?” 
Such institutions were open only to nobility—male nobility—in Saint Aile. The Church’s religious school, despite claims of being open to the general populace regardless of upbringing, had largely devolved into someplace for the less powerful of young aristocrats to go to. Its student body had a bunch of fancy family names and little else, so if a commoner were to blunder their way into class, they would quickly be ostracized and bullied right back out. 
“Your upbringing doesn’t matter, apparently. They charge a lot of money, though.” 
“They do? I suppose we can’t fund her from here, then.” 
Albert looked at the surface of the liquid in his glass. “Ahh, even if there was a money changer, something tells me Emilia wouldn’t accept our charity anyway.” 
“True enough,” Rumack replied, smiling a little as the almost-choking scent of alcohol wafted up from her tumbler. “If we can make the Hero Emilia owe us a favor, that could give us an advantage in any possible situation we run into in Ente Isla. Perhaps she intends never to return at all, just for that reason.” 
“You look happy about that.” 
“Of course. I don’t want her to come back.” 
Albert knew all too well that Rumack really meant it. 
“The events in Heavensky have been reported far more widely than I expected.” 
These events, of course, meant the news that both Emilia the Hero and Alciel the Great Demon General were still alive. 
“Emilia and Alciel,” she continued, “are no longer in Ente Isla, but they were both seen by throngs of people. Word of this will grow diluted the farther away it spreads, but regardless, there will always be a sommelier or two who can sniff out what it really is.” 
“But do you think any of them will realize there’s another world involved?” 
“The possibility of that is well beyond zero, I would say. Both demons and angels actually exist, after all.” 
Rumack herself was a devout member of the Church but not enough of a zealot to believe that the force of her god had a hand in everything that occurred in the world. 
“If Emilia came back here, you know she’d never be happy. We could perhaps rebuild Sloane and have the knights ensure it remains a secret, but it would be all too easy to have word leak out about it. The mere existence of the name Emilia Justina will forever have to come at the cost of something else.” 
Emilia the Hero was born in the Saint Aile village of Sloane. Ever since she’d defeated Lucifer’s forces and became a savior to humanity, Saint Aile had used her name for their own political, financial, and military advantage. This was fine back when mankind, united by a common foe in the Devil King’s Army, had Saint Aile perform most of the heavy lifting in the war. Now, without that common foe, things were different. While the other nations and continents were aware that Emilia was from Saint Aile, it was now Saint Aile struggling to figure out Emilia’s treatment and affiliation. 
Sloane was considered to be a satellite settlement under the jurisdiction of the walled city of Cassius. The previous prince who ruled over Cassius’s domain was part of Pippin Magnus’s faction, and after the events in Heavensky caused Pippin’s downfall, this prince was also forced to take the heat. But the prince’s family hadn’t disappeared. Pippin’s faction no longer had a public presence, but there were countless numbers of strategic marriages and other alliances designed to keep the prince’s line going. Several of the people involved wielded great power in other regions or nations; attempting to force them all out would just invite rancor from other nobles in and around Cassius. 
Currently, a prince loyal to Rumack from the family had been appointed to run the region, ensuring that the Cassius name continued and the previous prince’s crimes were atoned for. If Emilia decided to return to Sloane and live a quiet life outside the public eye, she’d still be the strongest human being in the world. Her mere presence would give the ruler of Cassius overwhelming amounts of power. And while people using her good name were one thing, some of the rank-and-file nobles would no doubt attempt to use her dignity as a woman to gain clout with the ruling prince, as well as Rumack and the Saint Aile emperor. 
In short, there were no doubt at least a few greedy nobles in Cassius who wanted to marry Emilia to boost their own name. And there was no way Emilia’s disposition would allow that. 
“I suppose she’ll have to remain single her whole life, hmm? Like me.” 
“Oh? I heard a rumor that the crown prince himself is after the Hazel Rumack name.” 
“Hmm. Well. I am not going to sit here and say ‘I don’t want a man who doesn’t want me for myself’ like a little girl, but I doubt I could ever love some would-be big shot whose greatest talent is polishing his armor.” 
“Ha! That’d earn you more than just a tribunal. Insulting the imperial court could merit the death penalty.” 
Albert loved how Rumack never minced words. 

“If Emilia ever fell in love with a commoner, I’m sure he would be dead under mysterious circumstances before long. Marrying into the aristocracy would plunge her straight into political strife. Someone with a nice suit of armor wouldn’t be near enough for her.” 
“Heroes only truly exist in legend after all, I s’pose.” 
“You said it,” Rumack replied as she corked the bottle of lizard wine and hid it in a corner of the shelf. “The only other way is if she was born into a world that didn’t know what Heroes were at all. If there’s anything I can do for her right now, I suppose it’d just be to ensure she doesn’t regret saving Ente Isla.” 
“You think she’s that narrow-minded?” 
“When you grow up, you know, you start noticing things you didn’t as a child.” 
Rumack may have looked young, but she was actually old enough that her current government position wasn’t unusual at all for her age. She was closer to Albert in years than Emeralda. That was why, even more than Emeralda, she felt incredibly obliged to this woman over a decade younger than her, forced to carry the entire world on her shoulders. Her work responsibility, and the distance kept between her and Emilia, prevented her from expressing it very often. 
“If I could find a way to create a world Emilia could be happy in,” she continued, “I gladly would. But I doubt that’s what she wants from me. I imagine she thinks of me as just another uniformed officer, ready to take advantage of her good name whenever the opportunity presents itself.” 
Albert gave an ill-intentioned grin as Rumack glumly averted her eyes. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. Emilia has people over there who don’t care about her obligations here. They’re willing to listen to Emilia gripe on end about them.” 
“Hmph… And who are you referring to?” 
“Mm?” 
Albert looked down at Rumack’s curious eyes. He sighed, realizing what she wanted him to say. 
“Well, the girl Chiho Sasaki and the young woman Rika Suzuki to name two. They are both coworkers of Emilia’s. Crestia Bell, too, has proven a reliable friend. She belongs to the Church, but she’s never pushy about it, which she likes.” 
“Haaah…” Rumack visibly winced at Albert’s reply, no longer hiding her dissatisfaction. “This is so silly! What’s with all that stuff?” 
“What do you mean?” 
“This is exactly why people are bad-mouthing you up and down the Institute! If I’m here feeding you liquor, the least you could do is entertain me!” 
How unfair could you get? 
“Pfft. You guys are just gonna pick on me either way. Me, I just gotta work things out so it’s as little extra stress on me as possible.” 
“Ha! Emeralda’s taught you too well, I see. You pick up on things so quickly, it’s honestly boring.” 
“Whether I do or not, I’d figure that makes me more approachable than some whiny lady.” 
“I suppose we’ll both have to be happy staying single our whole lives.” 
“The nomads of the North ain’t into settling down. Thanks for the fancy booze. I’ll put that draft you mentioned on the top of my to-do pile.” 
Leaving Rumack to stew in her own juices, Albert marched right back to the Holy Magic Administrative Institute. As he did, he looked through the windows that dotted the hallways, staring at the people in the holy city below. It made him reflect on how people could lead such simple lives, and yet the world they lived in was so incredibly complicated. 
“…Ugh. Look at me. That fancy stuff didn’t get me that drunk.” 
Saint Aile shouldn’t have been particularly tough for Emilia to live in. There were many places outside of Sloane where she could live in relatively secure hiding, and if she went and made a name for herself in Japan, then she’d be shackled to that place in her own way. 
“Compared to that, I suppose the Devil King’s got it pretty easy, huh?” 
Albert had faced off against many demons in his life, not least of which was Adramelech, leader of the enemy forces in the Northern Island. He knew demons weren’t a pack of brainless animals. They had their own society, and their king no doubt had his own issues to deal with—but when it came to life in Japan, the Hero Emilia and Satan the Devil King took off from two different starting lines. 
Satan had appeared in Ente Isla as king, and he fled to Japan as a king. Emilia became the Hero through no desire of her own, and when she attempted to live up to the responsibility that brought, she was cast adrift before washing up in Japan. Satan never fulfilled his dream of conquering the world, but he was still walking down a path he chose for himself. Emilia saw world peace in her own time, but it was nothing she had ever volunteered for. 
Albert didn’t know if Emeralda picked up on that difference, but given how fervently she wanted to support Emilia’s dreams, she must have understood that incontrovertible fact. One often heard tales of people who went down roads they never expected to take, only to find a different sort of ideal for themselves at the end—and that was likely the only way Emilia would ever find happiness now. Just as Rumack estimated, there was no place left for Emilia in Ente Isla. The mere existence of her name was forever going to hurt someone. 
“So she should just play at being the Hero and bicker with the Devil King in Japan forever?” 
Something about that didn’t sit well with him. The world owed Emilia a tremendous debt. The least it could do was repay the favor a little bit. Where did this world get off, so hell-bent on trying to milk her for everything she had? 
“Not that I want the world to fall apart or nothin’, but…” 
The world just had to learn not to rely on Emilia too much. With both her and the Devil King now in Japan, it had proven more than capable of that. 
“A bit like a kid left at home alone who wants his parents to spoil him when they get back, eh…?” 
While the Hero and Devil King were away, Ente Isla had somehow managed to keep itself going. But if the guardian they relied on were to return, it’d be just like that child, succumbing to its own greedy desires. If the Devil King were to join her, the world truly would be beyond help—and unfortunately for everyone on it, the god they’d turn to for help was starting to look pretty doubtful herself. 
Just as the news of Emilia and Alciel’s return had spread worldwide, word was starting to leak out about the betrayal of Olba Meiyer, one of the six archbishops who led the Church. Church leaders, ex-Pippin loyalists, the Eastern Island politicians who allowed Olba to guide the demons in their directions—potential sources for these leaks lay everywhere. 
“Peace is harder than it sounds, huh? It’s a lot simpler to keep fightin’.” 
Albert griped to himself all the way back to the bleak, depressing Holy Magic Administrative Institute. He fished out the wadded-up draft request from the waste bin. 
“Hmm… A draft request to send researchers out to investigate holy force densities around holy areas… Oh, right, I heard about this. Umm, I think it talks about the Church around here…” 
Albert leafed through his pile of papers—all business he had been forced to delay over the past few days—until he found the draft he was looking for. 
“Here we go. I had put this off ’til later because they were asking for thirty researchers or some such nonsense. What’re they, crazy? We’re already short on people. Why’d they throw a proposal with the Church’s fingerprints all over it to us, of all people?” 
It appeared to be a proposal to investigate the source of the holy water taken from Sankt Ignoreido, the holy land and headquarters of the Church. This water was used for ceremonies, the holy power infused within making it useful for treatment in Church hospitals, but the quality of this liquid had fallen as of late. Relations between the Church and Emeralda’s Institute had deteriorated since the show trial she was subjected to, but Saint Aile was still in close contact with them, so the relationship hadn’t been cut off entirely. A lot of Institute researchers still bore a grudge against the Church, however, so Albert taking up a Church job while Emeralda was gone would no doubt hurt his reputation among them even further. 
“Ugggghhhh… Get your ass back here, Eme…” 
A decline in holy water quality directly affected people’s lives. It could even affect the dignity of the Church itself. The Institute (and by extension, Saint Aile) solving a problem that the Church’s own scholars couldn’t handle would earn them some useful brownie points, which is why this issue was now on Albert’s desk. 
“A striking decline in the water’s holy force content, though…? Maybe there was a cave-in somewhere and the underground streams changed direction or something?” 
Albert raised an eyebrow as he affixed the Institute’s formal seal of approval on the request and began listing the people he’d ask to join the project. 
 
“Caiel and Sikeena’s objective was to eradicate the immortality tech. They went around the place, destroying any data and equipment we had related to that project. No way any regular security force coulda handled them, right? It wound up being me, Satanael, and Camael as the last line of defense against ’em. It was an insane battle! If we didn’t have Satanael around, with his understanding of their DNA structure, that probably woulda been the end for me.” 
Gabriel visibly shivered. For the first time, Chiho sensed that this angel, who breezily fought off the Hero and Devil King at the same time, could feel genuine fear after all. 
“But didn’t Caiel and Sikeena help Ignora with that research? Why would they do that?” 
It was an obvious question, one that Gabriel had anticipated in advance. 
“They didn’t think Ignora was as talented as she turned out to be. They didn’t expect lending her a hand would lead to this crazy discovery. Maybe they figured she’d stumble upon a more direct solution to the pandemic, a vaccine or something, long before then. But to the Sephirah children, making immortality into a real-life thing kinda put the whole human race in danger.” 
The Sephirah interfered with the course of human history only when mankind faced a danger it couldn’t handle by itself. The lack of progress fending off the pandemic definitely counted as that. But the Sephirah’s involvement inadvertently led to humanity discovering immortality—in a way, an even graver threat. 
“Like, think about it, ’kay? If we all woke up tomorrow and people just stopped dying, what’d happen to the world?” 
A population explosion. Worldwide famines. Territorial wars. All that and more flashed across the minds of everyone at the table. That wasn’t what Caiel and Sikeena lent a hand to Ignora for—and that was why they raided the lab: to eliminate this mortal danger from the universe. 
“But you know what happened? Satanael and Camael did it. After this long protracted battle, they actually beat them. Maybe it was because they both had a grip on Caiel’s and Sikeena’s DNA. I dunno. But that’s how it turned out, and that’s when Ente Isla’s troubles began.” 
The lunar laboratory had fended off the threat from the Sephirah children. But now it was facing a completely different threat from its home planet. All the nations down there had independently reached the same conclusion—this attack on the lab was being carried out by one country or another, in hopes of locking up the research results for themselves. 
Soon, it resulted in war—one that ultimately never ended. Every nation deployed troops to the lab, under the pretext of keeping their own researchers secure. On the ground, in the air, in space, and on the lunar surface, they all set about killing one another. The researchers and colonists, faced with a sight they never expected to see when they finally reached their research goals, decided that drastic measures had to be taken. Those measures: full-scale evacuation. 
If the lab was going to be broken into little pieces by these nations, the immortality tech would be lost forever. The home planet had gone well and truly insane; the lab could try pleading with the nations all it wanted, but at this rate, its research was as good as lost already. 
Thus, Ignora and her team waved good-bye. Gabriel joined them as head of security, along with a portion of the colonists. All the colony cities were set up to be operable as mobile space bases in case of emergency—a measure set up by treaties in the early stages of space development, so that no single country could seize them all. In the end, this measure allowed the colonies to flee from their home planet forever. 
All the world’s armies could do was look on resentfully as the colonies took off from the moon. Attacking them might cause them to lose the immortality tech forever; anyone who tried it would face the wrath of the entire rest of the world. 
“But even at that point,” Laila said with a sad shake of the head, “the nations of our world couldn’t stop fighting. They told us not to run, to side with this or that nation. They never truly understood what we were running from.” 
Filled with despair for her native planet, Ignora set a course for the colonies beyond the event horizon. 
“And just as the planet and its moon had disappeared from view, our holy force scanner picked up an unexpected reaction. Our ultra-long-range optical telescope picked up that old, withered tree—slowly separating itself from the moon.” 
“Mankind has ended.” 
“I am sorry, Da’at.” 
Nobody was around to hear those words exchanged by Caiel and Sikeena, captured after their bloody battle, before they disappeared into thin air. 
It was only later when Ignora and the rest of the lunar colonists and researchers found out via their long-range scanners that all the other colonies, as well as the main cities of their home planet, had vanished. This they found out a mere ten years later, as they were floating around the outskirts of their star system. Just like that, they had lost any connection to the universe—and all that remained was a long, so unimaginably long era of wandering across space. 
“So,” said Laila, “as I think you can see now, our wandering ended when we came across the moon of Ente Isla. Our holy force scanners picked up the same waveforms from it that we saw with the tree on the dark side of our own moon.” 
“And that…!!” 
Emi gasped. Laila gravely nodded at her. 
“And right next to that moon, we saw a world exactly like our own. So we chose it as our second homeland. But at the time…Ente Isla still had only one moon.”