Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 19 - Chapter 1

High School Girl, Seeing the Boundaries of the World 

“Chiho, could you fetch the newspaper?” 
“Alright.” 
Morning. 
Chiho followed her mother’s instructions and took the morning newspaper from the letterbox. The newspaper today was heavier than normal, causing her to feel surprised. 
“Ah, because today is a holiday.” 
The morning newspaper on a holiday would include more fliers. 
After Chiho held on the fliers which almost fell out and returned to the living room, she noticed one of the fliers which was poking out. She pulled out that flyer and spread it open. 
“What are you looking at? Recruitment advertisement?” 
After Riho noticed that her daughter was looking at the flyer pulled out from within the newspapers, she initiated a conversation. 
“Yeah. Thinking about it, I have never read such flyers properly. Because when I went to apply for the part time work at MgRonalds, I did not consider any other stores……” 
Convenience stores, family restaurants, gas stations, fast food stores and normal shops were all hiring part time workers, and many companies which were mass hiring ‘management trainees’ and ‘full time employees’ even indicated ‘Experience not necessary’. 
“With just one look, there are actually many places recruiting full time employees.” 
“Eh?” 
“Maou-san worked so hard earlier, yet he did not pass the training. The news reported that the job opening to job seekers ratio had finally increased, but the economy is still bad. It really makes me think that everyone is having a hard time.” 
“There shouldn’t be any job in the world which does not have its own difficulties.” 
“However, when some companies recruit people, it feels like they are hiring part time workers, you know? They don’t care about experience and the lack of certain educational requirements……” 
“Those kind of jobs have their own difficulties. This means that the turnover rate in that industry is so high that they have to recruit people from everywhere or that the job itself is strenuous. And to the job seekers, the low requirements would mean fiercer competition. No matter what, if you perceive the matter too simply, you will definitely experience difficult times. This is the same in any job.” 
“I see…… that makes sense.” 
Reading carefully, job openings with high salary would normally have the words such as ‘Example’ and ‘Model’ next to them, and there would be other hard to understand terms such as ‘piecework payment’ and ‘commission system’. 
(T/N: For those people who have not started working, piecework payment means that you're being paid for each submission made in your job e.g being paid for every newspaper article submitted to the newspaper. Commission system means that how much you are paid depends on how much sales/profit you bring to the company, this normally means that your basic salary is really low.) 
On the contrary, as the company was running a business, many people probably saw this job as their calling and the atmosphere within the company could not be determined from the recruitment notices. 
“However…… all of this definitely isn’t it, right?” 

Within these recruitment notices, there should not be any ‘full time employee’ which Maou was aiming for. 
No, before he met Chiho, he might have had one. 
But currently, Maou was working with a clear goal in his mind and did not notice this type of job openings. 
Therefore Chiho shifted her gaze away from the advertisements recruiting full time employees, flipping the page to look at other job openings, 
“Ah, amazing.” 
Chiho discovered that the hourly pay of a certain job opening was significantly higher than the other jobs. 
A cram school was hiring lecturers, and the surprising thing was, the hourly pay there was higher than 1,800 yen. 
At a certain time, Chiho had heard Emi mention her hourly pay when she was working at docodemo, and this number was significantly higher. 
They required an educational qualification of university level and higher but considering that this job concerned the future of middle and high schoolers, it was not strange to offer this hourly pay. 
“Such a huge difference.” 
A lecturer at a cram school was an exception, but the hourly pay of the various job openings requiring the minimum of a university student or being older than 18 years old exceeded the standards offered by a high school student. 
It was not limited to these factors, but it could be seen that there was huge difference between how high school students and university students were perceived by the people around them. 
“Haah, think about such things only after you attend university. Honestly, I feel that it’s easier to continue working in a place you’re familiar with.” 
“I wasn’t looking at it that seriously. And there are no jobs which are that easy, right?” 
“All jobs might be difficult, but it would be better if there is less burden on one’s mental state.” 
The way the adults would choose their words carefully was really troublesome. 
“Oh yes, Chiho. I helped you pick this up.” 
“Ah! Thank you. I planned to return it today.” 
“You could have just asked for a temporary leave, then asked them to let you return later. A familiar place is easier after all, you know?” 
“I know that already.” 
Chiho brushed off her mother’s joke and accepted the laundry shop’s paper bag from her mother. Inside the bag was the ‘uniform’ of the place which had become a very important to Chiho in the past year. 
“I need to end things properly.” 
Chiho made her decision and tightened her fist which was holding the paper bag.