THE HIGH-SCHOOL TEEN CHANGES THE WORLD A TAD
“Emi-Yu, are you doing okay? You don’t look too good.”
“I don’t?”
“No. You getting enough sleep?”
Emi quelled the panic in her mind at having this casually lobbed at her by Akiko first thing in the morning shift.
“Oh, uh, I had too many drama series on my DVR, so I played them, and I couldn’t stop watching.”
“I’ve totally been there! Sometimes, I record a whole series and delete it before I ever watch it, but when I do start watching, I get the whole series queued up, and I wanna know what happens next, soooo…”
“R-right, yeah. So that kept me up late.”
“Yeah, I need to start paring down my list, too. My whole family uses my DVR, so we’re constantly running out of space!”
“Oh, yeah, that creeps up on you, huh? Ha-ha-ha…”
Emi was sleep-deprived, but she didn’t want Akiko to know the real reason why, so she dodged the subject long enough to point her attention elsewhere. What a relief.
“Ahh, but I’m gonna get busy with school and work before long. I don’t think I can just plop in front of the TV and start watching anytime soon.”
“Oh, like tests and reports and stuff?”
“Pretty much. College might look like it’s play, play, play all the time, but if you actually wanna study, it can keep you pretty busy!”
“Right,” Emi said, “but work’s gonna get busy, too, you know?”
“Well, I mean, there’s a lot of churn at the start of spring. People leave to go find full-time jobs for the April hiring rush. We got people to cover for that, you included, but you know, we’ll lose some high schoolers soon.”
“Oh. I guess Chiho may not be here for long, huh?”
Emi, still not terribly familiar with the Japanese high school curriculum, thought a bit about what kinds of assignments and tests someone Chiho’s age might have. But Akiko had other things on her mind.
“No! That’s right! Losing Chi’s gonna be huge!”
“Huh?!” Emi found herself almost shouting. “What do you mean?”
“Well, this is just my guess, so don’t tell anyone yet, but Chiho actually called me about four days ago.”
“Four days ago…?”
Emi looked at the calendar hanging on the other side of the counter. She didn’t have a shift that day.
“I thought Hey, that was weird , and when I picked up, it really was weird. She asked me if I could cover a few shifts for her.”
“What?”
This surprised Emi. At the Hatagaya location, if you couldn’t make a prescheduled shift for whatever reason, you were supposed to talk it over with Kisaki first. If she agreed to it, it was her job as manager to find someone to cover the shift for you. Crewmembers weren’t allowed to swap shifts among themselves.
“Yeah, pretty crazy, huh? I mean, just the idea of Chiho missing shifts blew my mind, so I asked her why, and her voice went all low, and she was like ‘it involves my future, and there’s this place I gotta go to help figure it out.’”
“Her future…?”
“Yeah. She’s gonna have college exams in the next school year, and that’s coming up soon, right? So I said yes, ’cause I figured it must’ve been something serious. I mean, Chi would never say something like that casually, right? And I got the okay for it from Kisaki later, but… I’m thinking, you know, maybe Chi won’t be around here much longer.”
The thought seemed to perturb Akiko.
“Like, it took me a year before I got into college, so I’m not one to talk, but right now’s about when teens really start prepping, you know? Some kids figure they’re okay waiting until their final year of high school begins, but if you consider the standardized public-school tests that took place back in January, there’s really less than one year until college exams for girls like Chiho.”
“So maybe she’ll start going to a test-prep center or something?”
“I didn’t get that nosy about it, but that sounds right to me. Kisaki looked like she knew something.”
She probably would, given how she had likely seen off dozens, if not hundreds, of teenage part-timers like that over the years. She could see the signs, the general trends, that dictated how much staff she had to work with, and she knew that February, just before the new fiscal year began in Japan, was a pretty frenetic time. It was common all across the country for high school workers to come back from spring break, then quit soon after to devote time to test prep.
“Wow… Chiho, though, huh?”
It was weird. Emi understood that Chiho was in the late stages of high school, but it was still hard to imagine her sitting in a classroom, getting test-prep advice from a tutor somewhere. The Hero didn’t know any other high school students, but based on what she had seen, she knew Chiho was way ahead of her contemporaries in talent. Maybe she figured she wouldn’t take such a…normal route in her life.
But that was the thing. Chiho was just a normal, Japan-born, Japan-raised girl. Since becoming involved with Ente Isla, she had navigated her way through innumerable crises, developing her mental and emotional fortitude. That was how Emi and Suzuno thought of her, and they would know, having both gone through far more than she had. And something in Emi told her that something as normal as college exams, at this point, wouldn’t be formidable enough to alter Chiho’s regular schedule. She had thought, selfishly enough, that Chiho would always be there for her.
“That was selfish, I know.”
Quitting MgRonald to prepare for college didn’t mean Chiho would be cut off from Emi and the rest of the staff. But it did mean a little more distance—and now the demons, Emi, and Suzuno had let the battle against Ente Isla’s heaven pull them further away from Sasazuka. Emi couldn’t guess what things would be like by July, Maou’s ordained deadline for the whole thing, but July meant summer break for Chiho’s last high school year. A time when she’d have to focus the most on her exams. Even if everyone was back in Room 201 by then, they wouldn’t be eating together as frequently as they used to.
“Thank you for calling MgRonald at Hatagaya Station. This is Yusa speaking. Did you want to make a delivery order?”
Nodding at Akiko, Emi turned toward the delivery computer as she answered the call on her headset.
“…All right, and barbecue sauce. Will that complete your order today? …Thank you. Let me repeat your order, just to be sure…”
Chiho was drifting away from Emi’s regular life. It seemed bizarre to consider. But thinking about Emi, sitting here in front of Hatagaya Station, wearing a MgRonald uniform and taking phone orders, it showed that “regular life” had a way of changing all too easily on a person. Emi, for one, changed jobs due to personal reasons (albeit rather unique ones), and since then, she hadn’t been able to see her old work friends, Rika Suzuki and Maki Shimizu, as much. Little changes in life could make people seem that little bit more distant.
“Okay, we should have your order there in approximately twenty minutes… All right, thank you very much! Bye-bye! …Phew. Delivery up. You’re heading for southern Sasazuka, Maou.”
Even with those gloomy thoughts in her mind, Emi kept up the pace, switching her headset to in-store mode and sending orders to Maou, who was on standby upstairs.
“Roger that. I’ll head out. Aki, you take the upstairs counter for a bit.”
Akiko went up the stairs to replace him. She wasn’t a certified barista, but MgRonald Barista was more an honorary title than anything. An experienced staffer like Akiko or Kawata could man the MgCafé space just fine, as long as they knew how.
Heading down the stairs, Maou looked at the address on the receipt and studied the delivery map hanging next to the scooter keys for a few moments.
“Oh, okay, over here. There’s a lot of twisty back alleys down there, so it’s kinda hard to figure out. The apartment buildings all look the same, and stuff.”
Emi absentmindedly watched Maou as he squinted at the map, working out the route to take. She wondered if he knew Akiko was swapping shifts with Chiho, but she resisted asking him—not when he was about to leave. Instead, she silently prepared the pieces of the delivery order she could handle behind the counter.
What would he think if he grew more distant from Chiho? In Emi’s mind, they were closer than ever now that Chiho was going to Ente Isla. If she quit her job to study for exams, it wasn’t like there’d suddenly be this chasm between them.
Emi herself had no plans for her life after the Ignora battle. If she wanted to, she could continue with life in Japan, following in Chiho’s footsteps and preparing for a higher education of her own. But Maou couldn’t. As Devil King, once he was done in heaven, he’d be responsible for commanding his demons. And if he got accepted for a full-time position at MgRonald and decided to try juggling a job in Japan with a job in the demon realm, there’s no way he’d continue the lazy, poor, yet generally contented life he’d led in Villa Rosa Sasazuka up to now.
If it came to that, the question became how he’d want things to be with Chiho…
“…Well.”
Emi shook her head, brushing away the bizarre thoughts taking over her mind. Maybe things were temporarily calmer between humans and demons, but there was still no real détente between the entire human race and the entire demon realm. Maou still hadn’t taken any responsibility for invading Ente Isla in the first place. But whatever happened with him and Chiho in the future, why was it so easy for her to imagine a future where Maou remained Devil King?
“…I wish he’d get hired on full-time, or do something that’d compel him to stay here for good.”
“Hmm? Did you say something?”
Maou must have heard part of her muttering, because he lifted his eyes from the map and turned her way.
“No, nothing. The order’s all set to go.”
Making sure the burgers and fries were done, Emi placed the cold drinks into the delivery bag and handed it to Maou.
“Thanks.”
He took out his outdoor windbreaker and helmet.
“Oh, and Emi?”
“Yes?”
“You look kinda pale today. Are you sleeping all right?”
“It’s nothing! Get going!”
“Uh, sure. The place is yours.”
The tone of her voice all but pushed Maou out of the store.
Listening to the sound of the engine fade away, Emi let out a little sigh. Maou was just as right as Akiko about the lack of sleep. But she could never reveal to anyone that Maou himself was the cause.
Ever since that night when Suzuno gave her that strange news, Emi had been pressured by Alas Ramus into thinking about what kind of chocolate to give to Maou almost every evening. But perhaps that was shifting the blame. It was Emi, after all, who had planted the thought in Alas Ramus’s mind in the first place.
“…My brain’s coughing up errors again, maybe.”
Why did he have to ask Alas Ramus that ?
As explained by Chiho’s friend, if Chiho could give her chocolate alongside Alas Ramus’s own homemade creation, that would take any awkward burden off Maou’s mind. As Emi immediately saw it, this meant she’d have to get involved with the child’s baking. That, in itself, was fine. It was her job to help this tiny child with this messy job, so anything Alas Ramus gave Maou would inherently be a collaboration with Emi. It was a perfectly natural thing for a mother and child to do, and even if Maou accepted it knowing full well Emi was involved, she doubted he would think anything special about it.
But if she did that, she would have to think : What kind of chocolate would make Maou happy? And also: Why did she consider the question at all? Was it simply because she thought Alas Ramus should make something Maou would enjoy? Or was it because she wanted the results to be on par with Chiho’s no-doubt masterpiece, to make the camouflage complete?
Or…
“Ugh… This is so stupid. Stupid.”
Or is because she wanted to do something for Maou’s sake?
“This isn’t funny.”
Her brain was just one big error message. What would thinking any of this accomplish for her?
“What does it matter? If I say Alas Ramus made it, he’ll love it. That’s good enough.”
Saying it out loud—as if that made it more convincing, somehow—Emi switched mental gears and went back to work. A little box on the side of the cash register’s touch panel showed the date as February 13, but she paid it no mind. She didn’t care at all that the following day was Valentine’s Day. Or so she thought.
“Hello! …Oh?”
She thought this new customer would be the perfect way to distract herself. It turned out to be someone she knew well.
“Hey! How’s it hangin’?”
“Hello, Rika. You eating here today?”
“Well, I guess so, in the end.”
Rika Suzuki—Emi’s best friend, and one of the few people on Earth who knew everything about Ente Isla—looked a tad ill at ease. Her caramel-colored long coat and white pants were normal enough, but she also brought in a small, wheeled suitcase, as if embarking on a weekend trip. Emi gave her a look.
“Hey, I don’t see Maou, but he’s here today, right?”
Emi gave her another look. “Huh? Um, he’s out on a delivery right now…but did you need him?”
“Yeah. Well, him and you both. You and Maou work ’til six, right?”
Rika checked her watch. It was four in the afternoon—a bit early for dinner—but why was she aware of Maou’s and Emi’s work schedules in the first place?
“Once you’re both off, there’s some place I want to take you guys to.”
“Me and Maou?”
“Yeah. Oh, um, and I’ll just chill out and have dinner in the meantime, so no need to hurry on my account. Uh, I’ll have a fried-pork burger combo with fries and hot tea, please. I got a coupon for it.”
“Uh, uhhh, oh, thank you. One moment…”
Leaving Emi in the dust, Rika barked out her order, then gave way for the customer behind her. By the time Emi was done handling the line, Rika was already seated at a faraway table.
Maou came back to the restaurant about fifteen minutes after Rika showed up, delivery bag and helmet under his arms. He spotted her right off.
“Rika’s here?”
“Yeah, she came just now. It sounds like she wanted to see us both.”
“Me, too? Really?”
“I guess so, yeah.”
Maou seemed exactly as clueless as her about what it could be.
“Ah, well. We got a bit over an hour until we’re off. Anything else happen?”
“Not in here, no. Nobody went up to the café while you were gone.”
“Ah.”
Maou nodded as he put the keys, helmet, and windbreaker back in place, washing his hands thoroughly before running back upstairs.
“Rika?”
Then, Emi noticed Rika following Maou the whole way with her eyes. When he was gone, she hung her head low, as if exhausted. She had come to visit many times before, but this Rika was like none she had ever known.
Akiko breathed a sigh of relief as she came back down. “Whew! I was worried there’d be some complicated coffee order before Maou came back.” Then, she ran into the restaurant space, looking for work to do.
“…Something’s going on.”
Before Emi’s eyes, Rika was engaged in some truly bizarre behavior. Chiho, meanwhile, hadn’t been acting like herself, either. She pondered this, growing increasingly uncomfortable.
“Ah… nnh .”
She stifled a yawn shortly before it escaped her mouth. Right then, another customer had come in, headed her way, and there was no way could she greet a customer with a full, cheek-stretching yawn. Of course, the cause of that nervous yawn, when you got down to it, was the fact that she had to deliver chocolate to Maou sooner or later. Was she really acting any less strange than Rika or Chiho? Maybe she was the weirdest of all.
“Hello! Feel free to order at the counter when you’re ready.”
It took a mental reset to drum up the energy to deliver that peppy greeting.
“Sorry to bother you guys out of nowhere.”
“No, it’s fine, but where are we going?”
Emi and Maou were following Rika as the three of them took his usual commuter route.
“Um, it’s right nearby. You mind walking a little bit?”
“Sure, but…”
“Uh, wherever we’re going, I’d like to stop by my apartment first…”
Rika turned her head toward Maou, who was already busy griping as he walked his bike along, and nodded. “Sure thing. It’s right by your place anyway.”
“It is? What is?”
“You’ll see, you’ll see. Hey, Emi, is Alas Ramus with you?”
“Huh? Yes…”
Neither Suzuno nor Urushihara were available today, and since she only worked until six anyway, she decided to just give Alas Ramus a bit more time in “fusion” mode than usual.
“Good. Because I’m sorry, um, the person we’re meeting with said not to tell you anything until we all arrived, so…”
““Huh?””
This was making less and less sense to Maou and Emi. If they were headed near Villa Rosa Sasazuka, neither of them could think of any place Rika would know about. Maybe Shiba’s home next to the apartment building? If so, then why all this secrecy? And what was in that suitcase of hers, making a huge racket as she rolled it down the asphalt? She looked like she was about to board a train for a quick overnighter—there was no reason at all for her to stay at Maou’s deserted apartment building.
So the procession continued, Rika leading the way for the thoroughly perplexed pair, until they reached Villa Rosa Sasazuka.
“Okay,” Maou said as he parked his bike, “so seriously, where are we going?”
“It’s no place bad, I promise. Oh, and we’ll get dinner over there, too, so don’t worry about that.”
“Dinner?” Emi reflexively asked. “Is it a restaurant or something?” Rika was sounding extremely weird to her. If they were going someplace that offered dinner, she would have mentioned that first thing, not right now.
“Not…exactly, no. But I guess they got a lot of stuff you wouldn’t normally get to eat, so…”
Rika put her hands together.
“But save the questions for later and just get ready for me, okay? If you don’t like it, you can leave anytime. I can make up for it.”
“…All right. Whatever!”
Maou looked as confused as ever; however, he was getting a bit sick of all the local restaurants he knew. If he could try some uncommon cuisine tonight, that was as good an excuse to go out as any. Plus, it was Rika inviting them, and he knew Rika wouldn’t hang out anywhere too weird. It wasn’t exactly normal, no, but so be it.
So Maou asked the other two to wait a moment as he climbed the stairs—but the moment Maou disappeared down the upstairs hall, Rika lifted her suitcase and ran up herself.
“Whoa, Rika?”
Emi, in a panic, followed her. But Rika was so far ahead, she even had the time to see if she was being pursued. And before Emi could make it up, Rika was in the hallway and plunging right into Room 201.
“Whoa! Wh-what’re you doing? I told you to wait!”
Maou, about to take a puffy winter jacket off a hanger in his room (a little extra layer for the cold night), gave Rika a shocked look. Emi, following close behind, was astounded to find Rika standing on his tatami-mat floor, not even bothering to take her shoes off.
“Okay, sorry, just one sec…”
Rika walked around the side of the futon freshly laid out on the floor.
“What’re you doing?!”
“Hang on, this’ll take just one moment.”
“What are you…?”
“Aghh?!”
Maou froze, hearing the hysterical scream from Emi out in the hallway. But before he could ask what happened, Acieth was upon her, picking her up in her arms.
“Oooh, good timing, Acieth!”
“Whoo-hoo!”
Rika gave her a thumbs-up. Acieth replied with a wink.
“Acieth, what are you doing ?! You too, Rika! What’s going on?!”
“Hey! What the hell, guys? What are you up to?!”
“Okay, I don’t wanna bother flipping this over, so sorry, guys…”
Ignoring Emi’s and Maou’s shouts, Rika took something unbelievable out from her jacket.
“Here we are!”
With a little grunt of effort, she plunged it into a space between the tatami mats.
“Rika?!”
Emi’s surprise was understandable. Rika had an angel’s feather pen, allowing anyone to create a Gate to another world.
A well of light bubbled up from where the pen stood as they watched. The mat in the very center of the cramped room burst into radiant light, as bright as the sun, enveloping a bit of the comforter on one side of the futon.
“Whoa, I did that?! Wow! I’m some kind of sorceress. This is so exciting! Oh, right, your shoes, Maou…”
As if forgetting about them until now, she picked Maou’s shoes up from the front door…and, with them and her suitcase, plunged into the Gate.
“Ah! Hey?!”
Maou and Emi stood motionless for a moment, dumbfounded at Rika’s brazen behavior.
“Wh…what’re we gonna do?!”
“What are…? I dunno! Acieth, put me down a sec! We gotta go after Rika…!”
“Don’t worry, Emi! We will certainly chase her, no questions!”
“Huh? What? W-Wait, Acieth, are… Ahhhh?!”
Incapable of putting up any resistance, Emi found herself dragged into the Gate by Acieth. Maou froze again, this time for a few seconds, as he took this in.
“Wh-what—what the hell? Uh, uh, the door, I gotta lock the door… Hey, hang on!”
Snapping out of it, he latched the front door, then darted around the room for a little bit, making sure he had his wallet and phone even though he knew the Gate was connected to Ente Isla. Then, with a nervous nod, he jumped in.
“Guys, wait up!”
He swam across the dimensional trail, trying to catch the three small figures far ahead of him.
“Goddammit! Why can’t I use one of those?!”
The Gate that Rika opened up with her feather pen tried to allow Maou in, but as a demon, he was forced to overlap the path with his own magic in order to navigate. It was vastly different from the Gate he personally used to travel between planets. There was no way Rika, who boasted zero holy force, could build a Gate this stable by herself.
“…Hmm?”
But then, an odd thought crossed his mind. A question that struck at the core, one that seemed even stranger than Rika’s odd activity. A feather pen like that was made from an archangel’s wing, making it impossible for demons to use. Laila taught a young Maou that herself, and when other demons tried sticking the pen into the ground, nothing ever happened.
Rika had now proven that any Earthling could use the thing, as long as they weren’t demonic. If the sorcerers on Ente Isla—messing around with the Stairs to Heaven and other fiddly Gate spells, as they had to have been doing—heard about this, they’d probably be livid.
But they would need to wait, because another question just entered Maou’s mind. If it was this easy to open a Gate connecting planets to planets…
“…Why didn’t the people back on those guys’ home world open any Gates?”
“Oof…nnnnngh.”
“And down!”
“Ahh!”
“Ow!”
After an interdimensional journey of some forty minutes, Rika, Acieth, Emi, and Maou landed in order…
“…Where are we?”
…in a spot that definitely wasn’t Devil’s Castle on the Central Continent.
“What the hell?”
Neither Emi nor Maou recognized the spot at all. But they could tell what kind of place it was.
“A church… Wait, a full Church cathedral?!”
“What?!”
Maou opened his eyes wide at Emi’s exclamation. Then, he stared at Rika, the woman who brought them here. The decor did resemble the Church cathedrals he had seen in the cities of the Central Continent, back when he was sacking them.
“A-Acieth! Rika Suzuki! What the hell are you…?”
But before Rika could answer, another voice came up from below.
“Oh, you’re here?”
“…Um, who’s that with you?”
It was Albert, along with a large, muscular man whom Maou and Emi didn’t recognize and who was a measure larger than Albert himself. His eyes looked weirdly sinister, but his hair was waxed up and combed into a straight split down the middle.
“We did it!”
“Sorry we’re late!”
With Maou and Emi too flummoxed by this cavalcade of events to respond, Acieth and Rika gave the pair a hearty hello.
“Hey,” Albert replied. “I’m glad it worked. Bell ’n’ I spent hours debating over whether you’d pull it off.”
“Oh, I was so nervous! I didn’t know whether this feather pen would work for me or not, so my heart was racing the whole time!”
“No, you did a real good job, lady. You even nailed the landing out of the Gate.”
“Ohh, man, I need a rest…”
“Ahh, Rika! I love you! Big drive to do this! Me, I cannot believe it is first time for you!”
“Wha, who, why, what, wait…”
“What?! Who?! Why?! What?! Wait!!”
Both Maou and Emi had generally the same reaction.
The unknown man stepped up to them, solemnly taking a knee.
“I must apologize, Your Demonic Highness.”
““Huh?””
The man, who resembled a football or rugby player, was now bowing his head toward Maou. He was a demon.
“Y-you…”
“This is the form I have taken, but you are speaking to Libicocco.”
“L-Libicocco?!”
Maou was floored at being greeted by a Malebranche chieftain in a cathedral. But looking back, Farfarello had taken a human form on Earth as well. Libicocco was enormous by Malebranche standards; maybe this was the shape he’d naturally take as a regular guy.
“My liege, the Great Demon General of the East and Lady Bell have granted me the honorable role of accompanying you.”
“Ashiya and Suzuno?!”
“Alciel and Bell?!”
Albert, Libicocco, Rika, and Acieth certainly made for a ragtag bunch, but if it was Ashiya and Suzuno planning all this, it made even less sense than before. Albert, perhaps realizing this, grinned at them.
“You two are lookin’ great, guys! First off, I guess I oughta tell you, you’re in the Northern Island. This is the Church cathedral in the Goat Pasture, better known as Phiyenci.”
“The—the Northern Island?!”
“Phiyenci… That’s the united capital, isn’t it?! Why would Rika Suzuki take us someplace like this?!”
“Ah, well, we figured you’d be livid if me or Eme or Bell took ya. I wanted someone who’d never spill the beans to you if asked, and Bell said this lady Rika ought to fill the bill. So she introduced her to me.”
“Well, I’m just glad I had Acieth to help me out! Man, I thought I was gonna have a heart attack those whole forty minutes. Not as bad as when I first heard about all this stuff, but still. Man, it’s cold!”
Rika opened up her wheeled suitcase. It contained a toiletry bag and a few outfits geared for cold weather, the perfect overnight-stay package.
“Stop lying there in the heap forever, Maou and Emi! We have the free time for now, but the food stalls, they not open forever! And Laila, she save the good seats for us, so let’s be quick!”
“W-Wait! Wait a second! Laila did what?! Please, guys, stop having fun confusing me like this! What’s going on? What is all this? What are you bastards scheming?!”
With nobody coming forward with a coherent explanation, things grew more confusing by the minute for Maou and Emi. But what Rika had for them next made everything else seem trivial.
“So they’re having this archery exhibition today, right? It’s, like, the biggest event in the whole zirga, and Chiho’s entered into it, so we’re all gonna go cheer her on!”
“Uh…………”
“Wha…………”
This was exactly what being at a loss for words meant.
Chiho was entered in the archery exhibition? One of the events in the zirga, a large conference convened to pick the next chief herder? Maou had no clue why any of this was happening.
“But hey,” Albert told the stunned pair, “seeing is believing, right? She’s been shootin’ up a storm.”
“Oh! Hey, over here, you two!”
Lost in a vast crowd, Maou and Emi heard a voice calling them.
They were in the central square of Phiyenci, and right in the middle of it, the Spear of Adramelechinus loomed higher than any watchtower, basking in the afternoon sun and casting a vast shadow over the peaceful world it lorded over. Truly, a weapon worthy of Adramelech himself, head of the Bluehorn clan. A sort of ad hoc arena had been built nearby, allowing you to look straight up at the Spear, and inside it was a gaudily decorated wooden stage, where the archery exhibition took place.
The grandstand, built parallel along the paths the arrows took from the stage to their targets, were packed almost to the brim—but one section was built like box seats, allowing you to sit any way you wanted inside them. Laila was waving at them from one such box, so Emi pressed on through the crowd, Maou following behind.
The archery exhibition had already started. Many young people filled the stage, showing off their shooting skills with the hunting bows unique to the Northern Island. Bets were apparently being taken in one corner of the stands, judging by the large board full of names and inscrutable numbers that changed with every arrow unfurled, and how the crowd was filled with calls of joy or despair in turns. Considering this event would help decide the next head of state, it felt more like a raucous town festival.
Emi and Maou picked their way through the stands, rubbing their shoulders against the crowd. “I’m glad you made it in time,” Laila said with a smile as they approached the box. “Chiho’s group should be up in about half an hour, so ngh …?!”
Emi marched straight into the box, shoes and all, and immediately grabbed Laila by the collar.
“Could you tell me what’s going on?”
“Um, ah, the mmph ?”
Maou, arriving a beat later, then grabbed Laila by the head.
“You’ve gone over the line one time too many.”
“Ah, w-wait, guys! You’re scaring me! People are watching! They’re gonna see us!”
“I don’t care.”
“So what?”
“W-Wait! Wait, I know this sounds like an excuse, but I was against it at first, too, I said it was just too crazy to work, I did, I stopped them, I said we can’t get Chiho involved in this, but Bell suggested it, and when she brought it up with Chiho, she was all for it, raring to go, and she said we needed to keep it secret from you both until today, so I couldn’t say anything, and honestly, I didn’t think Chiho would remain such a zirga contender all the way to today, so if we got this far, you know, she said if she made it to the end of the exhibition, she wanted you to see it, so I really didn’t do anything this time, in fact, I tried to put a stop to it, believe me, please, ow , ow , ow , you’re hurting me, everyone else agreed to it, but I was against it until the end, I heard you were angry when she did the same thing at Tokyo Tower before, so I was the only one to say no until the very end, and it was Chiho herself who convinced Alciel to do it, so please, let me go, I can’t breathe, I can’t breeeeathe !”
Being lifted into the air by Emi, Laila thought it prudent to use what could potentially be her last breath to fully outline her defense. Her head grew visibly paler with every syllable, so the two of them finally felt it prudent to let her down. They were still less than convinced.
“What do you mean, Bell suggested it?”
Not even Maou had heard Emi’s voice go this murderously low very often. It made Laila go even paler before she could catch her breath.
“Haaah, haaah, that—that, you know… Huff… If we just asked them to hand over the Spear, haaah, the Northern Island wouldn’t go for that, mmph…”
It was Emi and her band, after all, who left the Spear here. They didn’t leave any instructions on what to do with it, and given that this was the only relic of the Devil Overlord everyone knew the exact location of, Emi knew the wrong approach could lead to headaches later on. That was why, once Emi and Maou had learned about the relics, they had informed everyone that they’d be ready to do anything asked of them in order to retrieve it. Emi, in particular, intended to make a personal plea to the chief herder to borrow the Spear, if all other options were exhausted. She had decided as much long before they had any concrete plan for the relic, because she knew their group likely wouldn’t stumble upon any other bright ideas.
Thus, she had been thinking this whole time about how to proceed on this topic with Chief Herder Dhin Dhem Wurs and the other clan chieftains, without letting word about the true nature of their expedition to heaven get out, and without causing any political strife afterward. So how did this wind up with Chiho down there on the zirga stage?
“The Devil King and I didn’t want to expose Chiho to any more danger. What do all you people think you’re even doing…?”
“Of all the mean things to say about Chiho! You can see how aware she is of what’s going on. Why not let her do what she wants a little?”
“Huh?”
“Wh-who’re you?”
Just when Emi was gritting her teeth hard enough to require dental work, a voice interrupted her. It belonged to an old woman who had appeared in a nearby box seat at some point, intently watching the exhibition.
“Hmm, what a surprise…”
The woman, monocle covering one eye, looked up at Maou.
“So you’re Satan, the Devil King?”
““!””
Maou and Emi gasped.
“This’ll be our first direct encounter, won’t it? I was surprised enough about Stumpy Scythe, but you’re pretty young, too, eh? You don’t cut too impressive a figure for someone goin’ around callin’ himself a king. You getting three square meals a day?”
The compact old woman’s weirdly overwhelming presence was too much for Maou to bear at first. But Emi, having met her once, couldn’t hide the shock of seeing someone she never expected here.
“…Are you Chief Dhin Dhem Wurs?”
“Been a while, hasn’t it? And hopefully, you won’t mind if I don’t call you by name. Never know who might be listening in on us!”
Dhin Dhem Wurs, chief herder and leader of the Northern Island, kept her back turned to the Hero Emilia. She didn’t hesitate to bandy the “Satan” name around, oddly enough, but their seats were a fair distance away, and her voice was all but drowned in the clamor and excitement as the next archery contestant approached. Any attention generated by Emi assaulting Laila was now squarely focused on the festival.
Taking another look around, Emi found Albert, Libicocco, Acieth, and Rika seated in the box to the left. The one on their right was empty.
“Dhin Dhem Wurs? Hey, isn’t that the chief herder’s name?!”
Maou, taking a moment to come to that conclusion, was sent reeling by it. The woman herself gave him a peeved sneer.
“Well, look at that high-pitched voice you got! Why don’t you quit your whining and sit down? This is the archery exhibition, the biggest event of the zirga! We have wannabe stars from every clan in the land, and people islandwide betting on them. I pulled a few strings to get the best seats in the house for you; the least you could do is watch!”
Emi confronted the woman just a tad more politely than how she usually treated Laila: “Chief Wurs, what is going on here?!”
“What’s going on? It’s you all who want the Spear, is it not? And the North can’t exactly give it away for free, can we? But now we’re on the cusp of a war that could determine the fate of the human race, right? So I’ve arranged things so you can get your hands on it about as quick as you’re ever gonna.”
“A-Arranged things…?”
“I have a vague idea of what you’ve been up to over the past two years. You and the Devil King were goofing around on another planet, and now you’re going to try fighting a god so you can reunite that daughter you two made and her friends?”
That was a little less than “vague,” and “making” a daughter sounded kind of suspect, but it was clear Wurs was aware of Maou’s and Emi’s lives in Japan.
“So you know, normally, I’d take anyone asking for the Spear and throw them out on their ear, but this was my childhood friend asking, so I said ‘all right, I guess I’ll pitch in a little.’ I’m sure you guys don’t appreciate being left out of the loop, but not even the Hero can play the, um, hero all the time. So deal with it!”
Wurs took a moment to survey the entire arena, from one end to the other.
“Zirgas like this attract a scary number of candidates, and the funniest thing is, they’re all volunteering to actually do something as annoying as be chief herder. We even get rubberneckers from other continents. That’s why we’ve kept security tighter than usual, and my youngest granddaughter’s one of the entrants in the archery exhibition, so this whole joint is on lockdown. So if you don’t wanna be ashamed of your fancy title, lady, then sit down and cheer on my granddaughter, won’t you?”
“Whoa, ma’am, please don’t act like our talk is over,” Maou interjected. “You haven’t told us anything we asked about. Who the hell proceeded with this whole thing without telling either of us?”
“Yes! I refuse to accept this if you don’t tell me anything!”
“Mmm?”
Wurs gave another annoyed look to the bitterly protesting pair.
“Laila, why are your daughter and son-in-law a couple of sticks in the mud, huh? Or did they get more of a conservative upbringing because you’re such a piece of work?”
“I’m not her son-in-law!”
“He’s not her son-in-law! And Laila, what’s going on here? You know Chief Dhin Dhem Wurs?!”
“Um, she’s a friend from the past.”
“Some friend you are, you ditz. Y’see, I’m like this with her. Just like you two are.”
As she spoke, one of the stones on her monocle began to glow.
“Oh?”
As it did, the mark on Acieth’s forehead emitted the same glow, several seats away, and then:
“Pheww! Mommy, where are we?”
“A-Alas Ramus?!”
The other Yesod fragment separated herself from Emi.
Discovering another fragment bearer gave her and Maou the umpteen-millionth surprise of the day. Laila mentioned she had passed out several fragments around the world, but how did one of them wind up in Dhin Dhem Wurs’s hands? It was left to Emi and Maou to fantasize over what could have happened between them sixty years ago.
“Ooh, and here’s the fabled daughter of the Hero and the Devil King, eh? Laila, you better not get involved with raising her, y’hear? Anyone influenced by you is bound to be rotten to the core when they grow up!”
“Lidem! You’re seriously starting to make me angry!”
Despite the unfamiliar surroundings, Alas Ramus didn’t seem too disturbed. Instead, she looked up at Wurs from her perch on Emi’s knee.
“Who’s dat lady?”
“Mmm? Well, little girl, I used to be friends with your granny.”
“Um, Lidem? I’m not really her grandmother…”
“Huhh?! Wait, are you the type of gal who resents being called ‘granny’ in public? See here, you can look and act as young as you want, but to your grandkids, you’re always gonna be good ol’ Granny! So if you don’t want her to get bullied in school, then just let her call you that! What was your name? Alas Ramus? Come here, girl. You should watch this with old Dhin Dhem. It’s fun!”
“H-hey!”
Alas Ramus obediently crawled over to Wurs’s lap, leaving Maou and Emi to blankly stare at her. Ignoring the pair, the chief pointed at one of the figures on the stage.
“See? Here she comes! Give her a big cheer! That’s my precious granddaughter down there!”
“Oh, come on.”
At that moment, the once chaotic crowd fell into a glassy silence. C HIHO S ASAKI W URS , read the name on the board. On stage, with all the competitors dressed in their best archery gear, she had chosen a bright-white martial-arts uniform, a black chest guard, and a black pair of hakama pants, her hair tied back to avoid getting in her face. It was the classic uniform for kyudo , archery as practiced in Japan, and now she was in the toriyumi pose, standing boldly and quietly as she sized up her target.
From her left side, she held her namiyumi , a medium-sized bow by kyudo standards but still over seven feet tall. The uchihazu , the upper tip of the bow, dipped down to a spot just a few inches above the floor in front of her, and in her right hand were a haya and an otoya , the two types of arrows used in the sport. It was the classical toriyumi stance, and once it was taken, Chiho took a deep breath and gave the audience a steep, polite forward bow, the top uchihazu edge not moving an inch in height.
Upon rising again, she took a large step forward with her left foot, then a smaller one with her right, both pairs of toes lining up.
“What a lovely stance!”
The chief herder’s words summed up the feelings of everyone in the arena. Even to someone like Maou, who knew nothing about kyudo , the sight turned the churning waters in his mind into a perfectly still pond. That was the power of Chiho’s presence.
Four days beforehand, Suzuno’s suggestion to have Chiho participate in the zirga received a chilly reception from nearly everyone involved—Laila, of course, but also Albert and Rumack, as well as Ashiya and Urushihara. The last two, in particular, emphasized that not only was the plan crazy, there was no way in hell Maou and Emi would sign off on it. Suzuno, for her part, agreed—but no one could think of anyone else who could join the zirga festivities, or any other way to bring the Spear off the island without a big ruckus.
“Of course,” reasoned Suzuno, “I do not suggest we force Chiho into this. We need to explain to her why she is being nominated, how it has come to this, and what we expect to happen, and if she says she cannot do it, we will think of another way. But I believe that Chiho best matches the type of person Chief Wurs has described to us.”
“But you seriously think we should say nothing to my liege and Emilia?” Ashiya asked. “The mere thought of their anger after all is revealed frightens me beyond imagination.”
Anyone who knew the pair’s relationship with Chiho could picture the same thing.
“I imagine so, yes. The Devil King and Emilia will be dead set against it. The former, in particular, was less than enthusiastic about Chiho visiting Ente Isla in the first place.”
“Precisely. Thus…”
“So let us keep it a secret from them.”
“How did we reach that conclusion?!”
Suzuno gauged the protesting Ashiya with a pair of cold eyes. “Telling them will not improve matters for us.”
“Perhaps not, but…”
“Alciel, you have not forgotten why the Devil King and Emilia are spending an outsized amount of their time in Sasazuka right now, have you?”
She eyed the people around her.
“Let us be honest. In these preparatory stages, neither of them are capable of contributing very much. We will need their strength for the battle looming before us, but for the moment, there is nothing we can assign to them, even if we wished to keep them busy. So what will telling them accomplish, when we already know they will be against it? I am not asking Chiho to join us on the battlefield, amid intense combat. I would merely ask her to join in an Ente Islan festival. What need is there to be nervous? What basis does anyone have to be against Chiho taking this vital role?”
“Th-that…”
“After all the danger we have already exposed her to; after all the aid she has provided to our daily lives—after basking in all that, you wish to expel her from the group?”
“No way, dude,” Urushihara said. “Look, whether it’s Chiho Sasaki out there or not, assuming we can put on a good show or whatever at the zirga, how’s that gonna convince everyone to let us take the Spear? The chief doesn’t have the power to order anyone to fork it over. Whether one of our allies becomes chief or not, it doesn’t change things too much.”
He had a point. Wurs’s indirect support was what made this plan possible, but exactly what this support involved was unclear. Zero details were nailed down.
“That,” countered Suzuno, “we can tackle in the future, with the way we move things forward. Regardless of our approach, however, I guarantee to you all that Chiho is our best choice.”
“Huhh?”
“…We cannot deliberate any further unless we know whether Chiho will accept. If she does, I would like to discuss the details at that point.”
“Wh-whoa…”
“There is nothing to worry about. If she refuses, you may feel free to report my behavior to the Devil King or Emilia. That, and regardless of her response, feel free to debate over any other possible solutions we may think of. Now… Laila?”
“Huh? Um, yes?”
Laila, the first person to pick up on (and vehemently oppose) Suzuno’s intentions, sat up in her seat.
“Come with me. If Chiho agrees, then whether we can actually take the Spear or not will be up to you.”
Laila blinked at her, confused.
“…What?”
“Suzuno? Laila? Why are you here all of a sudden?”
It was a rare combination to see at the front door of her house. Chiho let them in and offered some tea and crackers in her room—Laila acting oddly antsy, Suzuno looking like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Yes, well, there have been some movements on the other side. We wanted to tell you about them, and we also had a favor to ask. Thus, the two of us came here, since our schedules were relatively free.”
“Oh, I see! Ashiya texted me that you guys found a few of the Devil Overlord relics. That’s good news, huh?”
It would be easy to imagine that the Devil Overlord Satan, were he alive today, might be flummoxed to hear that news of his relics was being texted to a human teenager’s phone, as if those relics were a dropped wallet recovered at the local lost-and-found.
“Ah, yes, the Nothung and the Sorcery of the False Gold. They are in the custody of Camio in the demon realm at the moment, but Alciel will come fetch them before long. Out of the remaining two, we are still searching for the Astral Gem, but as for the Spear of Adramelechinus, well, we already know its location.”
“Right, up in the Northern Island… Are you all right, Laila?”
Beads of sweat had formed on Laila’s forehead as Suzuno spoke. Her eyes darted between Suzuno and Chiho, unable to stay in one place for long.
“Ah, um, yes. It, uhh, it’s just a little warm.”
“Oh, is it? Let me turn down the heat a bit.”
Chiho meekly nodded and pushed the Down button on the wall unit a couple of times. It didn’t change Laila’s behavior much.
“So this spear was left behind by Mister Adramelech, the Great Demon General, right?”
The mister appellation had never before in history been applied to Adramelech’s name by a human, as far as Suzuno knew. But come to think of it, Chiho had quite a few friends among the Great Demon General ranks by now. Suzuno herself had never seen Adramelech, but he was a member of the Bluehorn clan, gigantically large—more so than the rest of his species—and proud of it. She wondered what he would’ve looked like as a human, had he ever come to Earth. But that wasn’t the issue right now.
“Right. That Spear.”
Suzuno was leaning forward in her seat. Even her palms were a little sweaty.
Despite what she had told Ashiya, she now realized that this was the first time she had ever encouraged Chiho to become actively involved in Ente Isla events. She pondered whether this was a line she shouldn’t cross. Could she really ask this of Chiho? Would discussing it with Emi or Maou first be better? Hesitation and regret welled in her mind…but just for a moment, a side of her she hadn’t realized was there violently pushed away all the indecision.
“To retrieve the Spear, I am in need of your assistance.”
“Pardon?”
Chiho didn’t seem to understand what she meant.
“The other day, Laila, Albert, General Rumack, and I went to the Northern Island on an observation mission. There, we met a woman named Dhin Dhem Wurs, the leader of the island, and as a result of our talks, we’ve determined that you are our best choice for retrieving the Spear.”
“Uhhmm…”
Chiho, not quite able to parse this, reflexively looked at Laila.
“That is apparently the case, yes,” Laila replied in a barely audible voice, face turned to the side as she waved her hand at Suzuno to keep going.
“What would I be doing?” Chiho vaguely asked.
“We will debate over the exact nature of it from here forward. I can tell you, though, that your skills with the bow and arrow will come into play.”
“Bow and arrow?” Chiho paused for a moment. Her bow and arrows were still in storage at her high school’s kyudo club.
“And not to pry too much, but do you happen to have any equestrian experience?”
“E- quest -rian?”
The word didn’t pop up in Chiho’s vocabulary very often. It took a few seconds to figure out what Suzuno wanted.
“Um, I’ve never been on a horse in my life. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but…”
Of course not , Laila thought. Here they were, asking for her help out of nowhere, quizzing her on her archery and horse skills. She assumed Suzuno was about to go into detail on the Spear of Adramelechinus and their discussions with Wurs, but based on that reaction alone, she assumed Chiho wasn’t aching to join in. It just didn’t seem that way to her.
Until the next moment, that is.
“But are you… I mean, are you sure I’m who you want?”
“Chiho?!”
“You are. In fact, you are who we need. There is no other.”
Chiho’s cheeks reddened, her lips stretching out into a smile. This was what people did when they were brimming with happiness.
“But Ente Isla is so huge, and there’s lots of superstrong people on it, and I’m sure there are tons of people better at archery than I am. So why me?”
“What we want from you,” Suzuno pressed, “is not your skill in battle, of course. In fact, it is nothing that involves fighting and defeating an opponent. I am asking for your archery skills, but it involves more than that, and as you surmised, you will be accompanied by people far more talented than you. But despite all that, I feel your strengths are an absolute must if we want the Spear.”
“Suzuno…”
“And let me add that while there is no threat upon your life and we will provide all the support we can, this is a task that involves a heavy physical and mental burden. If you hear me out until the end and feel it is impossible for you to accept, then please, say so to us. You turning us down does not immediately result in a crisis, and we have other measures we can take. It should also be said that this is an offer that everyone except for me has dismissed as too reckless.”
“But,” Chiho said, interrupting the impassioned plea, “but you nominated me, huh, Suzuno?”
“I did.”
“Can you tell me why?”
“I will, after I explain to you everything that has happened and everything that could happen in the future.”
“…A-all right.”
Chiho felt a little steamrolled at the moment, but she still sat up in her seat and listened on as Suzuno described their visit to Dhin Dhem Wurs and her favorite restaurant.
Carefully omitting the dishonorable nickname Wurs gave her, Suzuno went over their entire visit to Phiyenci, emphasizing how Chiho was the only candidate to fulfill the chief’s conditions.
“All right. I understand.”
Chiho made a heavy sigh, letting the tension flow out of her body. Taking a sip from a cup of tea that had long since gone cold, she let out another sigh.
“It sounds like this might take a little while. Do you mind if I make a phone call?”
“Of course not.”
“Ah, wait, um… Chiho?”
Before Laila could stop her, Chiho already had her phone out.
“Hello? Hi! Sorry I’m calling out of nowhere, but do you have a moment to chat? Yeah, I needed to ask you a favor; do you think you can cover a few shifts at work? …Sure, I’ll run it by Kisaki later, so… Yeah, it’s really crucial that I get this time off. It involves my future, kind of, and there’s this place I’ve got to go to. To figure it out, you know… Oh, good! Thank you so much! I’ll pay back the favor later, okay? Again, sorry this is so sudden. Thanks again! Bye! …Whew.”
The call was over virtually before it began. Chiho turned back toward Suzuno and Laila.
“All right. I’m free for the next week after school now. What would you like me to do?”
Even before Suzuno explained what was to be done, Chiho had changed her work shifts for them. And what’s more:
“Oh, right. I didn’t call Maou or Yusa just now, so don’t worry about that. That was this college student named Ohki who works there.”
“Chiho?”
“Maou and Yusa aren’t aware of this, right?”
“!”
Laila was taken aback.
“I mean,” Chiho continued before Laila could ask how she knew, “if they knew, at least one of them would be in this room right now. They’re still spending most of their time in Japan, after all. And Maou, you know, I’m sure he’d slam his foot down the moment I said yes.”
“I wholly agree with you. I was about to tell you earlier, but I want to keep the Devil King and Emilia out of the loop until there is no turning back on it.”
“I hear you loud and clear!”
“Whoa, Ch-Chiho, why are you so…revved up by this? Are you sure?!”
“Sure I’m sure!” Chiho said sharply, smiling the whole way. “Thank you so much, Suzuno. You aren’t still hung up about earlier, are you?”
“Oh, it wasn’t the first time, if I may say so. That was something I felt needed addressing sooner or later. To be honest, regardless of what happened in Nerima, I can’t help but feel like it hardly affected him very much.”
“Kao always yells at me about how I’m too lenient, too loose with him… But thanks. And apart from that, I’ll do my best on whatever you want from me.”
“Wonderful. Thank you. And we will provide our full support.”
“Great!”
“N-no! Oh, once they find out about this…”
“You think Maou will be mad? I’m not doing anything to get angry about here, I don’t think. Ashiya and Urushihara are repairing Devil’s Castle and working with people on Ente Isla without consulting Maou very much. I’m the same way. I want to help out ‘my liege,’ so I’m doing what I feel we need to do.”
This wasn’t what Laila was concerned about, something Chiho knew full well, but she continued on anyway.
“The title of Great Demon General is given only to those who stand at the very peak of demondom in strength and skill. It’s up to me to carry out my duty as a General, and as a MgRonald Barista, to answer the expectations of His Demonic Highness.”
Laila, unaware that Chiho had been named to the post, lost all ability to speak.
“But after being protected by everyone else for so long, now that Ente Isla needs me for the first time ever… That means I can help out Maou, too. So please, Laila, let me go to the Northern Island.”
Chiho bowed her head toward her.
“…All right. All right.”
With things having culminated to this point, Laila could no longer fight back.
“Thinking about it, I have no right to go against your will, do I? Not after I sent you out to battle myself. But all right. I’ll have to be our contact with Chief Wurs either way. Now, we’ll need to convince Alciel and the others, get you into the zirga, lecture you about the correct way to handle fragments… Talk about a rush project.”
“Okay. I’ll go to school real quick and retrieve my bow and stuff. I’d like to practice and fine-tune my moves for whatever’s coming tomorrow.”
“Good,” Suzuno said. “Once that is done, I would like you to travel to Ente Isla at once. We need to introduce you to Dhin Dhem Wurs.”
“Whoa! I’m gonna get to meet the most powerful person in the Northern Island? Wow, I’m getting nervous! I’m sorry, can you wait here one moment? I’ll be right back!”
With that, she all but skipped out of her room.
“Do you think this is all right?” Laila asked.
“Nothing to fear. Apart from the constant griping the Devil King will give us later, it is smooth sailing ahead.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of the most. Plus, really, no matter how composed Chiho seems, she’s just a normal teenage girl. The zirga isn’t war, but it is a major political event.”
“I think you need to learn a little more about Chiho, Laila.” Suzuno stood up, looking out the window at the street running by the Sasaki residence. “She connected the Devil King and the Hero together, she is beloved by a Sephirah child, she is protected by the Hero’s companions, she was promoted to the rank of Great Demon General, she had hordes of demons bowing down to her, and she uses holy magic to travel across worlds. How many teenage girls do you know who can do that?”
Suzuno smiled as she spotted Chiho jogging off to school.
“She is our friend. And she is the strongest person this world knows.”
That evening, after enjoying an audience with Dhin Dhem Wurs, Suzuno, Albert, and Laila, Chiho was formally admitted into the zirga.
With a whistling tear that seemed to echo across the arena, Chiho’s first arrow landed in the center of the target.
“She got it!” Maou shouted, despite himself. But he was drowned out by the rest of the crowd, far more enthusiastic about this round of archers than the previous ones.
“I don’t know much about kyudo ,” Rika said to Albert, who was using holy magic to pick up the girl’s Japanese, due to her lack of Idea Link skills. “Did Chiho just do something really great?”
“That girl’s archery skills are beyond anything I’ve seen before,” he exclaimed from the adjacent box, smiling and unable to contain his excitement. “As you can see, that girl’s bow is twice the length of what’s normally found ’round the Northern Island. The emphasis around here is less on the accuracy of a single bolt and more on mobility and the stopping power against an enemy force. The Southern Island is the same way, although you’ll see a few differences between the Southern plains and the Northern mountains. I guess you can say it’s not so elegant as all that, y’know? And here you have that huge bow, that unique stance…”
Chiho was still in her postfiring stance, her first shot landing right in the middle of the target, one a little bit larger than the standard used in kyudo . This was an exhibition, but zirga participants were still scored based on their bow skills, with points awarded based on how close to the center your arrow landed. Each round featured five volleys of arrows, and a shot on the star in the target’s center was worth ten points, going down to eight, five, three, then one point as you ventured farther away. These zones were marked in concentric circles on the target, much like in typical archery.
In her first two rounds, Chiho had performed perfectly, an almost unheard-of feat, letting her finish over twenty points ahead of the runner-up. But due to her unique (“strange” by local standards) stance, she had been pegged as a dark-horse candidate by the bookmakers, meaning she was handicapped at pretty high odds.
“For someone like us, landin’ it in the center of the target is a rush of excitement. But not her.”
As Albert spoke, Chiho lowered her bow, then went back into her monomi stance, quietly sitting down and mentally preparing for her next shot.
“She’s so… refined , you know? Mature.”
The crowd was enrapt, watching on as she sat in silence for her next turn. The man firing after her was a muscle-bound giant, twice her size. He gave the seated Chiho a leer, then flexed his muscles to what seemed like three or four times their original size as he fired. The arrow certainly had the range to hit the target, but unlike Chiho’s straight, calculated shot, it whizzed over in an arc and landed a fair bit below the center.
“Normally, that would elicit cheers, y’see? It sure won’t today.”
“Oh… Wow, Chiho’s really good!”
“Maybe so. But I mean, her whole approach to archery couldn’t be any more different from ours.”
In a world like Ente Isla, where great advancements in holy magic had been made over the years, bow-and-arrow combat had undergone much less development. Unlike antiquity up to the Middle Ages on Earth, magic had always been the driver of long-range attacks on Ente Isla, along with things like one-shot surprise ambushes. The traditional approach in ancient Ente Isla was to start by lobbing long-range magic at each other, then charge forward with infantry or cavalry. Archers were, thus, only effective for a limited amount of time, and no nation dedicated themselves particularly to developing them. They were seen as mid-range threats, and tactics like firing rains of arrows from long distances were only seen in tomes and legends from the distant past, before magic made itself known. The accuracy of these descriptions, however, was an ongoing question. Apart from crossbows and other bows meant for siege or defensive warfare, almost all archery used in Ente Islan combat was seen as an emergency mid-to-long-range backup when casting magic wasn’t possible.
It might be expected to see it used in areas like sniping, assassination, and other long-range purposes, if it weren’t for the simple fact that magic advanced more quickly. It was a given that any figure famous or notorious enough to be targeted for murder would always wear clothing or equipment enchanted to dull long-range attacks. And compared with the uncontrollable ranges of magic spells in ancient to medieval times, recent years had seen the rise of limited-range, self-repeating magic, focused more on pinning an enemy down than killing them—in essence, an upgraded version of the humble bow and arrow. Besides, a skilled sorcerer and a skilled archer took about the same amount of time and training to master their craft—but unlike archers, who needed high-quality tools and a ready supply of arrows to fight, a sorcerer could do their job as long as the holy force in the atmosphere was dense enough.
On the Northern Island, with its many jagged peaks and valleys forcing battle to remain small-scale most of the time, archery had been developed for hunting in mountains and forests, for guerrilla warfare, and for covert operations. The third use had proven somewhat effective in coping with the Devil King’s Army in recent years, but a bow was still conventionally seen as a weapon that worked best in ranges of about 5 to 11 yards, so little development was done to expand on that.
The targets in this exhibition were normally positioned around 22 yards from the stage.
“Twenty-two yards?” Rika looked down as Albert explained all this. “It looks like more than that.”
“Well, that’s why this girl is so amazing to us. In our test runs, she landed every single shot dead center, so they moved ’em back another eleven yards to make it a fairer match.”
A pity, then, that nobody knew this was close to the exact range Chiho worked with the most in her kyudo club. To be exact, most high school kyudo teams fired in the kinteki range, which was about 31 yards. The different measuring systems between the two planets meant they didn’t add up exactly, of course, but to Chiho, the challenge involved was totally familiar.
In archery, being able to hit a 32-yard target didn’t necessarily mean that closer targets were proportionally easier. But all fields of shooting sports featured separate techniques for short- and long-range targets, and kyudo was no exception. To a fan of the sport, it wouldn’t be unnatural at all to expect Chiho to have no problem with the 22-yard distance.
But one other difference had quickly made itself clear. In the Northern Island, archery had evolved as a hunting tool, one whose practitioners did away with fancy logic and took an “if I hit it, I’m good” approach. In kyudo , with its origins in Bushido, a samurai code, and its emphasis on stances and mannerisms, that was not the case.
“And that,” Wurs remarked as she tapped at her monocle, “is another reason why Chiho’s out there. That fragment she has.”
Then, as if waiting for that cue, Chiho looked straight at them.
“…That’s right,” Wurs said, as if Chiho was right next to her. “Calm down. You’re more steely-eyed than anybody else on stage. Keep up the good work.”
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