Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 2 - Chapter 1

THE DEVIL’S FINANCES ARE SHORED UP BY A HELPFUL NEIGHBOR 
The coals glowed white-hot as they seared the sizzling strips of meat. 
The oily drippings from the finely sliced pieces of flesh caused the fire to roar even stronger, further punishing the meat with its burning vengeance. 
The room was filled with the smell of flesh and bone charring from the edges inward, along with enough smoke to hide even the death-scream-like sizzle. 
He looked on at the sight, licking his lips as he did. The smile surfacing across his face was like that of a demonic beast possessed by sheer, overpowering greed. 
“Heh-heh-heh… How does it feel, then? Being seared by the flames of hell without even a moment’s chance of escape?” 
The dark voice, even restrained, could not conceal the innate, profound cruelty its owner was aiming at the meat as it wailed its last amid the flames. 
“Now I will consume you whole. Your meat, your entrails, your very bones! And you will provide the energy I need to fulfill my great mission! So just rest easy and let the life escape you…heh-heh-heh…” 
“Your Demonic Highness…” 
A quizzical voice sounded above the smoke and flame. He paid it no mind. 
“Ah, give me a moment. No need to hurry this. I’m not gonna be happy with this unless it’s charred to a crisp.” 
“No, Your Demonic Highness, I mean…” 
“Now! Let the great feast begin! Let’s start with the organ meat, shall we? …But look at you! What is the meaning of this? Cowering in the corner like a scared child?!” 
“……” 
“There is no longer any escape for you! You shall have the honor of being the first sacrifice offered to my lordly presence!” 
With a final shout of glee, he nimbly brought the chopsticks in his right hand to the ready. 
The edges of these two traditional weapons swiftly found their target, a well-cooked piece of beef laid bare on the grill. Ferrying it to a bowl of hot-and-spicy sauce as red as a blood-filled cesspit of hell, he drowned the tidbit inside before ruthlessly bringing it to his mouth. 
“Heh-heh-heh… A delectable treat indeed!” 
An evil look of self-satisfaction crossed his face as he finished off the mouthful. 
“…My liege?” 
“What, Ashiya?” 
In a flash, his facial expression returned to normal as he turned forward, toward the unwelcome attention-seeker. 
“If I may, could I convince my Devil King to enjoy his meal a little more quietly? You’re going to disturb the other diners around us.” 
Across the undersized table, the tall man known as Ashiya peered through the rising smoke, eyebrows furrowed in apparent distress. 
“Mm? Oh. Right. Guess I was getting too into this for my own good, huh? Sorry if I was too loud.” 
The so-called Devil King, a perfectly normal young man in appearance, glanced about his surroundings. 
“Also, there’s no need to become so passionate about some organ meat at a yakiniku restaurant. You’re acting like this is the first decent meal you’ve had all year.” 
“Well, I’m not trying to act like that, but if you’re like me and you live off junk food and scratch-’n’-dent groceries, it’s kinda natural to get excited about eating someplace fancy, you know?” 
The Devil King deftly transferred a selection of meat, organs, and vegetable bits from the grill to his plate as he spoke. 
“I gotta be honest with you, I never really understood why all the other demons loved feasting on the organs of their victims up to now. This stuff’s really good! Like, what’s this bit? Veal heart or whatever? It’s so rich and melt-in-your-mouth yum. And I love how the pork belly and chicken cartilage crunch against my teeth! And what’s this stuff? Beef tripe? It looks pretty weird, but it’s not bad!” 
“…I am glad, my liege.” 
Ashiya nodded, his face still muddled with concern as he gave up the idea of calming down the Devil King anytime soon. 
It was a weekend evening. Only a few chairs were empty in the restaurant, with the smoke of barbecued meat wafting up to the air vents. None of the nearby customers were demonstrating visible annoyance at the Devil King’s revved-up commentary, but internally, Ashiya regretted being so strictly frugal (okay, cheap) with the food he bought and prepared for his companion. 
The pair lived in the “Devil’s Castle”—aka Room 201 of the Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments, a rickety wooden structure built sixty years ago in a spot five minutes’ walking distance from Sasazuka rail station, which offered quick access to the rest of Tokyo’s Shibuya ward via the Keio line. A ten-minute hike from the Devil’s Castle brought them to the 100th Street shopping district, home to a horumon-style yakitori restaurant well-known to the local crowd. 
As part of a campaign to celebrate ten years in business, the restaurant was offering one free drink and 390-yen deals on most plates during weeknights in the early dinner hours. To Satan, the Devil King—more likely to answer to the name Sadao Maou these days—it was a deal worth dragging his companion to. 
He had just received his paycheck, which took the heat off his finances for the time being. And since certain earlier events made a “celebration” seem in order anyway, the Great Demon General Alciel—much better known around the neighborhood as Shirou Ashiya—had agreed to relax his iron grip on the Devil’s Castle’s finances for one night. 
Sipping on his free mug of oolong tea, Ashiya set his side salad in front of him. 
“Your Demonic Highness, you need to eat some vegetables in addition to all that meat. These days, if we wanted to eat this many vegetables at home, it would take far more than three hundred ninety yen.” 
Briskly, he attempted to transfer some of his salad into Maou’s bowl. 
“Oh, yeah, I heard that produce was startin’ to get expensive.” 
“It is madness, my liege. A head of cabbage has risen to three hundred fifty yen.” 
“Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? I’m pretty much a born carnivore anyway.” 
“It ‘doesn’t matter’ only if you think a sound nutritional balance doesn’t matter. It would be nice if we could at least cook some fish, but we don’t have a fish grill for the Devil’s Castle stove, and our puny ventilation fan would be no match for all the smoke and stink we’d generate.” 
The pair of arch-demons commiserated over their oolong teas about the more poverty-stricken aspects of their lifestyle. 
“Oh, speaking of which, we better buy some dinner for Urushihara, right? I think they have takeout bento boxes here.” 
A small box on the side of the menu Maou took into hand listed the yakiniku bento options available. The galbi marinated beef option was priced at an extremely reasonable six hundred yen. 
But Ashiya scrunched up his face and shook his head at the proposal. He sorted through the remains of his salad and had a waiter take the bowl away. 
“No need. We can just buy a regular-sized pork rice bowl at the Sugiya on the way home.” 
“Huh?” 
Surprised at the unexpectedly cold response, Maou watched as Ashiya indignantly finished up his salad. 
“Urushihara’s started to get into online shopping, if you haven’t noticed. He’s never worked a day of his life here, and yet he commandeers your credit card to fritter away our monthly budget. He never spends a great deal of money on each individual purchase, but if we let it pass unmentioned, we’ll all pay for it someday.” 
“Wha? He’s been buying stuff?” 
“I noticed on the past month’s credit card bill that there were quite a few more purchases made besides the computer and Internet installation we bought. Unless it was one of us wasting our money, which I doubt, it had to be him.” 
“…Oh. Yeah, you know, I kinda had the impression that laptop’s gotten a lot more decked out since I bought it…” 
The computer, a device that was undeniably the most state-of-the-art cultural artifact in the lives of all the Devil’s Castle denizens, was a gift funded by Maou in hopes of encouraging Urushihara’s computer skills. 
“I kinda wanted to go easy on him. He can’t really go outside, and I don’t want him getting so stressed that he starts thinking about double-crossing me again. But if he’s going too far, I better read him the riot act, huh?” 
“I earnestly hope you do, Your Demonic Highness. The iron hammer of justice needs to be struck, and quickly.” 
Ashiya’s face was still locked in a frown, but it seemed to loosen a bit at Maou’s encouraging words. It did not last. 
“Okay, well, if we got some free money, then how ’bout we splurge a little?” 
“Ha?” 
Ashiya’s chopsticks froze in the air as Maou suddenly shifted gears, menu already open. 
“I kept this on the cheap side ’cause I thought we’d need to save some money for Urushihara’s portion, but if not, how ’bout we get one order of prime galbi, huh? What do you think? One prime galbi!” 
Even with the early-bird special, the prime-grade galbi, tripe, and harami meat each cost 490 yen a plate. 
Ashiya hung his head in resignation. 
“…Well, if you insist. But just today, and just this once! There will be no more ordering tonight.” 
“Yesss!!” 
Maou pumped a fist in the air as he caught a nearby waiter, made his order, and requested the check. Watching his leader drool with excitement over a single serving of spiced beef, Ashiya couldn’t decide if the sight was heartwarming or soul-crushingly pathetic. 
He raised a glass to his lips to drown the pangs of barren emptiness. All that remained was ice. 
 
The world of Ente Isla, the Land of the Holy Cross, was fabled to be watched over personally by the gods themselves. It was composed of five vast continents, spread out in a cross formation over the Ocean of Ignora. And the king of demons, the supreme ruler of evil in this world, now lived here in the Sasazuka neighborhood of Shibuya ward, Tokyo, Japan. 
Satan, the Devil King, was the iron-fist tyrant of the world of demons, a stained land infested with the writhing minions of darkness. His very name was synonymous with depraved cruelty and terror. 
Together with his close-knit band of trustworthy Great Demon Generals, Satan had demolished Ente Isla’s human forces, to the point where he was just one step away from wholly conquering the land. 
But then there appeared a Hero, one powerful enough to crush the Devil King’s ambitions and protect her motherland. Her name was Emilia Justina. After a climactic battle, the Devil King was defeated and forced to jump through a Gate connecting to another world, in a frantic attempt to make good his escape. 
In his wounded, exhausted state, he could do little more than let the Gate’s flow take him to an unknown world, one that called itself “Earth.” It was much larger than Ente Isla, its civilization far more advanced—and, most distasteful of all, it was under the supreme rule of the human race. 
Finding themselves in “Japan,” one of Earth’s nations, Satan and Alciel quickly realized they could no longer retain their high-level demon forms. The magical force that so naturally bubbled out of every pore of Ente Isla’s fabric did not exist at all in this world. 
To regain their powers and return home, the pair of arch-demons decided to live with the humans in this strange nation, bereft of both holy and demonic force to live off of, and search for a way to safely regain their magical energy. 
And by the time one Earth year had passed, the two arch-demons had found themselves a worthy position in Japanese society—the few, the proud, the menial part-time workers! 
The Devil King Satan, who had taken on the name Sadao Maou, was now an A-level crew member at the MgRonald fast-food chain location in front of the Hatagaya rail station. 
Alciel, his Great Demon General who now went by Shirou Ashiya in Japan, served as his de facto househusband, giving his all to support Maou’s new lifestyle. 
The two established their temporary Devil’s Castle in Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka, a wooden apartment building in the Sasazuka neighborhood of Shibuya, Tokyo, that was a surefire nominee for the Rat-Infested Dump Hall of Fame. There they lived their days, just a pair of kind, energetic, law-abiding citizens trying to make their way in the world. 
It was not the sort of life one would expect from a demon with dreams of world domination, but Maou was content enough with it. That changed one rainy day, when he lent an umbrella to a young woman caught in the rain on his way to work. 
The woman was none other than Emilia Justina, the Hero herself, who had followed the Devil King to Earth in order to strike the final, decisive blow. 
The sudden appearance of his greatest foe flustered Maou at first. But Emilia, too, was just as powerless and isolated in Japan as he was, living under the name Emi Yusa and painstakingly building up a part-time work résumé of her own. 
Despite these natural enemies rediscovering each other, neither had the freedom to use their otherworldly powers with reckless abandon on Earth. Thus they glared helplessly at each other, forced to continue living as members of Japan’s underemployed young working class. 
One day, the two of them were attacked by someone calling himself an “assassin from Ente Isla,” a nemesis who swore that he would dispose of both the Hero and Devil King in Japan. 
The assassin was actually a pair. One was the fallen angel Lucifer, a Great Demon General who Maou had thought was defeated at the hands of Emilia the Hero. His partner: Olba Meiyer, Emilia’s close confidant and a powerful archbishop in the Church that ruled over the human race in Ente Isla. 
Sent on the run by Lucifer and Olba’s barrage of destruction, Maou and Emi were forced into battle, nearly losing their lives on multiple occasions. 
But following a last-ditch stab in the dark, the Devil King Satan was unleashed once more. Teaming up with the Hero, who released the remaining holy power she had saved within her body, he turned the tables and successfully defeated the assassins. 
With Satan reborn and the Hero’s own companions arriving from Ente Isla, the final confrontation between holy and demonic seemed about to unfold. 
But instead of waging battle, Satan used his newly recovered force to repair the destroyed city and erase the memories of the many eyewitnesses to the conflict. His powers quickly atrophied once more, and soon he was back to regular old Sadao Maou. 
Resolving to keep the Devil King on close watch after he blew his best chance of returning home, Emilia decided to remain in Japan herself. And so the stalemate between holy and demonic continued in the sleepy side alleys of Sasazuka, not exactly the most exalted of divine battlegrounds. 
 
Putting the yakiniku restaurant behind them, Maou and Ashiya’s lungs were instantly filled by intensely humid air. It was almost enough to make them choke—there was no fog, but it seemed like a cup of water had just been poured down their windpipes. 
The season was just about to shift from early summer to summer summer. The days had grown long, and the temperature difference between night and day was quickly growing negligible. It was the rainy season, too, and the needles on their respective Annoyed-o-Meters were both about to pop right off their gauges. 
“What the hell? It was cooler inside the restaurant! There were literally fires lit across the entire damn room!” 
“We owe much to air-conditioning, my liege.” 
Given how they had taken advantage of the early-bird special, the shopping street was still in the prime of activity. Herds of salarymen returning from work were walking en masse away from Koshu-Kaido Road, which served as Sasazuka station’s main exit point. 
After purchasing the cheapest pork rice bowl at Sugiya, the beef-and-rice fast-food joint in the middle of the shopping arcade, Maou and Ashiya fought the waves of incoming traffic as they made their way toward the station entrance. 
“These guys have to be crazy. It’s this friggin’ hot, and they still put on those full business suits like it’s nothing.” 
“Well, a lot of those suits are made of much more breathable material these days. Even the discount chains like Akayama and Akaki are starting to sell them.” 
“I know that, but how stupid do you have to be to want to wear long-sleeved shirts in the summer?” 
“Your Demonic Highness, have you forgotten about our attack on the Desert Kingdom on the Southern Island?” 
Ashiya’s face suddenly turned grim. 
It was not quite seven o’clock, but with the long summer days settled in, the sky still retained its twilight colors, the streetlights lining the shopping street casting the unique shades one only sees on languid summer evenings like these. 
At the end of the street, upon the intersection with Koshu-Kaido Road, the demons hit a red light. 
“The sun can cause terrible damage to one’s skin. Do you recall what the people of the desert wore? Their bodies were covered in thick fabric. Japan may not be the searing wasteland you saw in the Southern Island, but then, Earth is quite a different place from Ente Isla.” 
“Wh-what’re you talking about?” 
Ashiya grew more impassioned as he continued. 
“Overexposure to the sun can lead to sunburn, my liege, and excessive sunburn can cause skin cancer. Aren’t you aware that the thinning ozone layer is exposing the cities of Japan to more and more ultraviolet rays every year?!” 
“Uh, no? So what?” 
Ashiya pointed a finger toward the sky. 
“Even on cloudy days, or evenings like these where the sun isn’t out, those UV rays are still raining down upon us. They are the direct cause of skin cancer and cataracts, and in places like Australia that are closer to the Antarctic ozone hole, some states even require children to wear protective glasses as they travel to school.” 
Ashiya was careful to not let the rice bowl in his hand bump into anyone passing by as he continued his soapbox rant. 
“My point, Your Demonic Highness, is that even in the summertime, it is no longer strictly the wisest move to go around in short sleeves. If I could at least convince you to add a baseball tee and some sunglasses to your wardrobe, that would put me a great deal more at ease with regard to your long-term health.” 
“Dude, baseball tees are one thing, but I’m not going around wearing sunglasses.” 
It was hard to tell how serious Ashiya felt about the topic. Maou decided to nip it in the bud before it graduated to anything above idle chitchat. 
“Hey, it’s green. Let’s go before that pork bowl gets cold on us.” 
“Ah. Yes.” 
The wave of people in the middle of the crossing began to lurch into action. Ashiya quickly turned his attention elsewhere. 
The two arch-demons continued talking as they walked among the countless hundreds of Japanese citizens surrounding them in the large crossing in front of Sasazuka station. 
“By the way, Your Demonic Highness, did you know about that yakiniku restaurant in days past?” 
“Hmm?” 
Ashiya spoke up again just as they reached the other side. 
“I know it’s not along your normal route to work, so I simply wondered how you came to be aware of it.” 
“Oh… Well, I’ve kind of gone there before, actually.” 
Just as he said it, Maou scrambled to explain himself further. 
“And before you say anything, it was on someone else’s dime, okay? I didn’t use any of our money!” 
He dared a glimpse at Ashiya’s face, only to find it perfectly serene. 
“I would hardly be angry about that sort of thing.” 
This was a total lie. If he told him he paid his own way, Ashiya would yell at him all night, then force him into a drastic rationed diet to make up the financial deficit. He had to be hiding something behind that shady smile of his! 
“A-anyway, the first time I went—today’s the second time—Ms. Kisaki brought me over.” 
Mayumi Kisaki. The manager of the MgRonald in front of Hatagaya station. Maou’s boss and the keystone of the Devil’s Castle economy. 
“I see. A private employee party or some such, then? Come to think of it, I do recall you venturing by yourself eight months and seventeen days ago, stating that you didn’t need me to prepare dinner.” 
“You know, the way you instantly recall dates like that is pretty damn scary.” 
Maou knitted his brows. 
The crowds quickly grew sparse once they passed by the station’s main entrance. They were approaching the latticework of extended back alleys that comprised Sasazuka’s old residential area. 
“Ms. Kisaki called it, like, a welcome party for me. She said she knew some people who worked at the place. It was me, her, and a few other folks, but she wound up paying the whole tab.” 
“A grandly generous manager as always, I see. So this wasn’t your first time trying horumon-style yakiniku?” 
“Welllll, I kinda didn’t wanna pig out the first time, since it was her treat and everything. To be honest, I don’t really remember exactly what I ate.” 
It was, perhaps, the most pathetically sniveling thing a Devil King has ever uttered. 
“Still…it’s not like I didn’t want it, but I’m not totally cool with how Ms. Kisaki sprung it on me.” 
The thought gave Maou’s expression an odd air of depression. Ashiya, meanwhile, seemed honestly happy for his companion. 
“It merely shows how much trust she’s placed in you, Your Demonic Highness. It hasn’t even been a year since she hired you. Quite the exceptional promotion, is it not?” 
Maou listlessly shook his head in response. 
“Yeah, maybe, but I’m still just as hourly as always.” 
“Perhaps it is for restricted periods of time, my liege, and perhaps involving only a small number of people, but you are ruling over human beings! Surely it is something to be commemorated!” 
“You say that, but…do you really mean it?” 
“I would hardly have taken you out to eat if I didn’t. What kind of servant would I be, my liege, if I did not celebrate your grand promotion?” 
“Shift supervisor?” 
The words had fallen out of Kisaki’s lips right after Maou changed out of his uniform postclosing. 
Just as he was nearly out the door, his manager had stopped him with some sudden news—she wanted him to be shift supervisor for the afternoon hours. 
“So, you mean…” 
”Right. You’ll be assistant manager during your assigned hours, Marko. You’ll get a raise to cover the extra duties, too.” 
Assistant manager. It had such a fetching ring to it. Maou was unable to hide the shock. 
“To be honest with you, the franchise bosses are calling me out for managerial training. Which, frankly, is a huge pain in the ass for me, because it means I’m gonna have to be away from here during the late shift for about a week, starting next weekend.” 
Maou internally marveled at this. What kind of training could this whirlwind of region-beating sales figures possibly need? 
“I know you haven’t even been here a year yet, Marko, but I think you’ve got some serious talent. I thought about calling for another full-timer to fill in for me, but if I’m going to leave this location in someone else’s hands for half the day, I’d rather leave it to someone I know’s up to the task instead of rolling the dice with some guy I’ve never even met. So what do you think? Can I count on you?” 
This was faint praise indeed for someone who once had the entire demon netherworld wrapped around his finger, but to Maou, Kisaki’s sincere words were enough to send his heart soaring. 
As he himself stated in the past, Maou’s ambitions for world domination would begin to formally bear fruit once he became a salaried employee. If he could fulfill his duties well enough in the shift-supervisor role, it would be another solid step forward toward that lofty goal. 
“Yes! Absolutely! I’m not gonna let you down!” 
So he snapped up the offer. After all, if he failed to live up to Kisaki’s expectations, he’d be a failure both as a man and as a Devil King! 
Kisaki nodded in response, a warm smile across her face, before suddenly changing the topic. 
“By the way, Marko, you know that those pricks at Sentucky Fried Chicken are opening up a new location next to the bookstore across the street, right?” 
“Uh? Um, yeah.” 
Maou blinked at this unexpected gear shift. 
Sentucky Fried Chicken, a fierce competitor of MgRonald, was opening soon in the space next to the nearby bookstore, a whopping fifteen seconds’ walk away. They were already putting the hard sell on the neighborhood, placing a huge advertisement in front of the under-renovation storefront and even going so far as to put fliers and coupons inside MgRonald’s own mailbox. 
The serene smile on Kisaki’s face was now curled up a bit more, suggesting a wholly different emotion. Her eyes reminded Maou of a hunter marveling at the animal caught in his trap. 
“Well, the grand opening’s the day my training begins. Hence, why it’s a huge pain in the ass for me.” 
Kisaki ruefully spat the words out. The sharpness around the jagged edges forming every syllable suggested a deep-seated resentment of some sort. Come to think of it, Kisaki brought the SFC ads and coupons in the mail straight over to her portable shredder, didn’t she? 
Maou thought over this as he nodded his commiseration. The next volley from Kisaki took him a moment to fully comprehend. 
“So here it is, Marko. If SFC attracts more total customers during the evening hours than we do, I’m docking your pay ten yen for every guest we’re beaten by.” 
“Uh?” 
“If you lose by ten people, one hundred yen! Lose by a hundred…one thousand yen. Right off your hourly wage!” 
“Wha— Uh, I, uh, hang on a second!” 
As Maou struggled to articulate a response, Kisaki regrouped herself, flashing a razor-sharp smile that’d make even the Hero proud. 
“Silence! That’s the kind of resolve a shift supervisor needs to survive in retail sales!” 
“Yeah, but…I only make one thousand yen an hour! If you take one thousand yen off that, that’s basically working for nothing! There has to be something in the labor laws about that…” 
“The only constitution that applies here is me!” 
Not just the law, but the very constitution of the land. Maou began to feel dizzy. 
“And you’d be glad to work for free, trust me. One of the guys I joined up with lost big to a competitor once. He wound up getting reassigned to Trinidad and Tobago. Last I heard, he’s still there. ‘At least they speak English,’ I remember him saying.” 
“I don’t think that’s the problem…” 
“Regardless! I officially name you our newest shift supervisor! For one week, I want you to stake your life protecting this place and destroying that godforsaken new SFC location! Defeat means death!” 
“N-no way…!” 
Maou tried to defend himself, but Kisaki responded by crossing her arms and walking right up to him. Thanks to her already tall stature and the heels she wore, her vantage over Maou was even higher than usual. Her eyes were aglow with an eerie, foreboding light, just as disquieting as the dull flames that roared behind the Devil King’s visage. 
“What are you trying to say, Marko? Are you saying you want to take all the trust and hope I placed in you and toss it in the septic tank?” 
By now, Maou realized there was no escape. It was far too late to do anything, with Kisaki already unloading this great, burdensome commitment onto his shoulders. 
Still unable to respond coherently, Maou watched as Kisaki suddenly let the dramatic energy drain from her face, returning to her original serene smile. 
“As your boss, I have an obligation to give you the stick sometimes. But every stick needs to have a carrot, too. If you respond to my trust in you and emerge victorious, I’ll make sure you’re generously rewarded for it.” 
“…!” 
“Depending on how things go with the daily customer and sales figures, I may consider a further raise. And if you can build more experience as a regular shift supervisor and assistant manager, I could even recommend you for a full-time position, too.” 
It would be fair to say that Maou was completely under Kisaki’s spell by this point. 
“Yes, ma’am! I’ll do it! I promise I won’t let you down, Ms. Kisaki!!” 
A look of supreme satisfaction spread across her face. 
“But how would she even know how many customers visit your rival?” 
Ashiya’s question interrupted Maou as he retold the story. 
“She said the main office is sending observers over to keep tabs on foot traffic. We had a temp job like that once, too, remember? Like, not long after we first came here. They gave us that handheld counter thingy we had to click every time someone passed by us.” 
“Ah, yes. That was in the dead of summer as well, if I recall. Spending hours under the hot sun counting passersby was nothing short of deadening, both physically and mentally. We had to bring our own drinks and shade as well.” 
It was hard to imagine a demon that once waged an epic, near-apocalyptic war against the human race on Ente Isla ever reminiscing about crappy summer jobs. 
“So in the course of a week, she’s teaching me how to do the daily books, how to enter sales figures into the office computer, and how to run the attendance-management system. Then, next weekend, I’m betting my salary on this all-out war. It’s making me, like, crazy nervous.” 
“Your Demonic Highness, now is no time to grow weak at the knees. Being granted such a substantial post is nothing short of a high honor. I, too, recall the intense pride I felt upon being named supreme commander of the Eastern Island invasion force…!” 
Ashiya, hand on chest, was already striding across Ente Isla in his mind as he reminisced. Maou cut in, his voice unnaturally loud. 
“Yes! Right! Anyway! There’s no weaseling my way out of this now regardless. My work schedule’s gonna stay the same, though, so hopefully you’ll still be able to cook for me.” 
Whenever the topic of discussion turned to Ente Isla, Ashiya would inevitably spring into I want to invade our homeland, stop screwing around, Your Demonic Highness mode. It was his way of expressing homesickness. 
“Y-yes… Certainly, my liege.” 
Soon, the front light from the Devil’s Castle—or, as anyone else would put it, the Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments—grew visible in the distance. Maou breathed a sigh of relief now that the topic was buried before reaching full fruition. 
“Hmm?” 
“Hohh…” 
Maou and Ashiya both exclaimed out loud. 
There were two lights. 
One came from the corner apartment upstairs. This was Room 201, the Devil’s Castle that Maou and his generals called home. 
The other was from Room 202, the apartment next to theirs. Maou’s crew were supposed to be the only tenants in Villa Rosa. There couldn’t have been any construction or maintenance people onsite at this time of the evening. Oh, no. Had Miki, the landlord, returned? 
Miki Shiba, the owner of Villa Rosa Sasazuka, let out every intimation before the battle against Lucifer two months ago that she was fully aware of who Maou and his band of demons really were. Then she up and disappeared. 
If the note she left was to be believed, she was somewhere overseas. But what kind of landlord would simply abandon her property for two months? 
Not that she was taking great pains to keep a low profile. In fact, despite zero requests from Maou along those lines, Room 201 was receiving letters from her at the rate of two or so per week. 
When the first one arrived, in the sort of frilly envelope usually reserved for wedding invitations, he opened it with almost reckless abandon. 
What rewarded him was a neatly worded chronicle, written in an elegant, practiced hand, of the joyous vacation she was experiencing on a private beach in Hawaii. Less-than-humble bragging, in other words. 
And included in the envelope was a photograph of his landlord, lying on a deck chair underneath a beach umbrella, tropical cocktail in one hand, her rainbow-colored bikini and devil-may-care wrap leaving far more of her wine-barrel-shaped body bare than wholly necessary, tanning herself to a golden brown as she made the most of the Hawaiian climate, in a pose that reminded Maou of a slab of beef covered with bits of multihued barbecue sauce. 
The moment they set eyes on the photo, Maou’s vision turned sheer white, Ashiya stumbled for the bathroom with one hand covering his mouth, and Urushihara—who had never even met the landlord in person—fainted on the spot, ultimately requiring three days to fully recover. 
Ever since that incident, when Maou learned that nuclear terrorism was the last thing Japan had to worry about as long as Miki Shiba was cavorting around beachside unattended, the Devil’s Castle was gripped in fear whenever an unexpected piece of mail arrived. 
Just as the memory of the now-infamous landlord cheesecake pinup massacre raced across Maou’s mind, a truck carrying a container with a giraffe logo passed them by. 
Maou and Ashiya exchanged glances. Even though they didn’t own a TV to bombard them with the ads, they still knew the logo belonged to a well-known moving company. 
“It would appear we have a new neighbor.” 
“Yeah. Wish he coulda moved in some other time. I’m kinda gonna miss being the only tenants in that whole place.” 
“Quite true. Hopefully it won’t be someone of low morals. The sort of person to play loud music at night or bring their garbage out on the wrong day.” 
Maou shook his head. Something about a demonic overlord worrying about someone else’s morals struck even him as ironic. 
“Ah, I’m not really worried about that sort of thing.” 
“No? Well, considering this apartment is dirt cheap and requires no deposit or advance fees, what kind of people would you expect to move in…? Besides, when we came here, we were homeless, jobless, and dare I say quite suspicious.” 
Maou shook his head once more at Ashiya’s concerns. 
“Maybe we weren’t exactly model tenants, but think about it. Remember what kind of…lady is renting this place to us, Ashiya?” 
The word “lady” was enough to make the memory of that ghastly photograph grate across Ashiya’s brain. 
“I, er… I imagine anyone moving in under our landlord’s auspices would never seek to get on her bad side, no.” 
“That’s not what I mean, but… Ah, well. What happens, happens. Let’s get moving. I don’t want Urushihara whining at us.” 
They were already on apartment property as Maou spoke. The outdoor stairway, the same one that had struck such a lethal blow (in assorted ways) upon the Hero once, seemed even more tilted and decrepit than before. 
“…Huh?” 
As he placed a foot on the first step, Maou looked up, catching sight of a shadow lurking upstairs. 
The figure, standing in front of the fluorescent light over the second-floor corridor, was peering down below. 
The backlighting and awkward angle made it impossible to know for sure, but the small size and delicately curved body suggested it was a woman. 
“Uh…” 
Maou, not expecting this sudden encounter, froze in place, his gaze still pointed upward. The figure upstairs jerked awkwardly, apparently caught in the same reaction. Then: 
“Ah…” 
“Ah!” 
“Ahh!” 
All three raised a voice at once—the person upstairs first, Maou second, and Ashiya at the end. 
The shadowy figure, resolving to head downstairs, had slipped off the first step. 
Her body flew through space for a moment. 
“No way…!!” 
Instinctively, Maou extended a hand. 
Whatever odd angle the figure had flown off the stairs from caused her to fall wildly, limbs flailing, in a virtual bullrush straight toward Maou. 
“My liege!” 
Ashiya shouted out just before the moment of collision. 
“Whoa, that was close…” 
Maou muttered to himself after a moment’s confusion. 
The small, unfamiliar woman was safe within his arms. She was tensed up, eyes open, perhaps still in a state of shock after falling down the stairs without so much as a scream. 
That and, for whatever reason, the outfit she chose for the occasion was a Japanese kimono, a long cooking apron, and a triangular head scarf. Her footwear must have slipped off, but instead of socks, she wore traditional Japanese tabi with two separate toes. The only people who wore clothing like that these days were the matriarchs of cartoons set in the ’60s. 
“Uh…umm…” Gingerly, Maou said this to the woman—really a girl—in his arms, who was staring listlessly into space. 
Then: 
“Danger comes when one least expects it…!” 
With that, the girl suddenly closed her eyes, her body growing limp. 
“Well, uh, yeah, but that’s not the problem here…” 
Maou couldn’t help but give his take on the now-unconscious girl’s non sequitur response. 
“Are you…all right?” 
Ashiya ran up to them, carrying one of the women’s geta sandals, which must have flown off her foot. 
“You talking about me, or this girl?” 
It was difficult to judge which of the two demons was the more baffled. 
“So this girl fell from the stairs, and I caught her, and…now what?” 
“You’re late! I’m hungry!” 
The complaint was lodged from within the moment Maou, master of the Devil’s Castle, opened the front door. 
“We came as fast as we could. You could at least say ‘Welcome home, master’ or something.” 
Maou and Ashiya bumped against each other as they took off their shoes in the cramped front foyer. 
“Here, Lucifer. Got a souvenir for you.” 
Ashiya offered the bag with the bento dinner inside. It was snapped up by a young man, small in stature, a good head shorter than Maou. Purple eyes peered out from between tendrils of hair, which had gone beyond fashionably long and were threatening to enter the realm of lazy bum. 
“Hey, I thought you guys went to a yakiniku place. Why’d you get me a Sugiya pork bowl?” 
“Oh, uh, sorry, Urushihara. Ask him to give the financial rundown.” 
The young man, called Lucifer by Ashiya and Urushihara by Maou, followed Maou’s finger as it pointed toward Ashiya. 
“You could point the finger at yourself, I would say. Your extravagant spending habits as of late are too much for me to tolerate.” Ashiya’s glare was just as abrasive as his opening salvo. 
“Yeah, but…dude, this is kinda a huge difference, isn’t it? I mean, come on…” The young man mumbled under his breath, aware enough of what he was being lectured about that he quickly backed off. He removed the plastic bag and pork-bowl cover, tossing them off to the side. 
“Lucifer! Don’t spread your garbage around the room. Clean it up!” 
Ashiya, looking on, angrily picked up the paper wipe that fell out of the plastic bag. 
“Also, would you mind cleaning the area around your computer already? All these chip bags and empty juice cans… It’s going to be a bug magnet in the summertime!” 
Outside, the night had finally progressed from twilight to darkness. Underneath the fluorescent bulb lighting the room, a table holding an outdated notebook computer sat in the corner, an equally outdated fan whirring loudly behind it. 
Surrounding this workstation was a pile of empty snack-food boxes and bags, discarded juice cans, and an assortment of devices and cords whose uses were not immediately obvious to the casual observer. Whenever the fan hit the pile of garbage, little bits of food and plastic wafted their way across the tatami-mat floor, raking Ashiya’s face as they did. 
The young man, nonplussed at Ashiya’s tongue-wagging, looked expectantly at the microwave as he spoke, not bothering to turn around. 
“I’m hungry, okay? If you’re gonna yell at me, do it when I’m done.” 
He was not quite demonstrating enormous regret for his actions. 
The man’s name was Hanzou Urushihara. His true identity was Lucifer, one of the four Great Demon Generals and the assassin who was sent to Ente Isla two months ago to rub out Maou and the Hero. 
Robbed of his magic force after a violent confrontation, Lucifer had once again returned to Maou’s camp—now as Urushihara, a nondescript, listless, sullen Japanese youth. 
Olba was detained by the police at the end of the previous battle. He was arrested for violating Japan’s weapons laws, thanks to the pistol he was packing beneath his robes, but it likely wouldn’t be too long before they realized he was the man behind the string of burglaries that gripped the city in fear a few months back. 
Exhausted by the fight and fully aware that the Hero was alive and well in Japan, Olba wasn’t likely to try anything else for a while, but there was every chance he would name Lucifer as his accomplice. 
In terms of external appearance, the difference between “Lucifer” and “Hanzou Urushihara” wasn’t much. Far less than that between the rest of the group’s human and demon forms. Until Olba met his fate, whatever it was, Urushihara essentially couldn’t take the risk of going outside. 
But he had a key asset to his name, one that made his new indoor-oriented lifestyle possible. Two months ago, he went to an Internet café and hacked into the Hero’s workplace network. Witnessing this great potential, Maou purchased a notebook PC and Internet connection for Urushihara, hoping he would provide support for them from within Devil’s Castle. 
The Devil King had ordered him to use his computer skills to gather information about any world culture that may have dabbled in magic powers, in hopes he would uncover a way to refill their demonic energy here on Earth. Yet, his work ethic was proving to be a problem. 
“So, did you find anything useful today?” 
Maou broke into Urushihara and Ashiya’s tête-à-tête, a concerned look on his face. 
“I’m not gonna hit pay dirt that easily. You know that.” 
Returning to his computer desk with the pork bowl in hand, Urushihara dug into his dinner, not giving Maou a second (or even first) glance. Even Maou was growing annoyed by the act. 
“That’s all you’ve said to me for the past two months, man!” 
The remonstration fell on deaf ears. 
“Well, what do you want from me? I’m not gonna go on some webpage and find the secrets to all the magic in this world, just like that.” 
Back before the Devil’s Castle joined the infobahn, Ashiya was obliged to do all the legwork himself in his quest to recover his master’s magic force. He went through an endless cycle of research, poring through promising-sounding books in libraries, going from museum to museum to evaluate any special showings, hitting the books again, discovering another museum. To Maou, having Internet access at home meant the search would surely be on easy street from now on. 
“I mean, look, Maou…” 
Urushihara was just as openly hostile to Maou back during the Lucifer era, but even then he used the proper Demonic Highness terminology. Now, in human form, his mentality had shifted to the point where it was just “Maou” by itself. This led to at least one pitched argument with Ashiya per week. 
“Do you think that computer and the Net are, like, some kind of magical potion that’ll solve all your problems?” 
“Nggh.” 
Maou groaned in frustration. He did think that. Correctly gauging this response, Urushihara exhaled a very deliberate sigh, mouth full of freshly microwaved pork bits. 
“Heh. Well, look, dude, the Net isn’t a miracle machine, okay? Also, maybe you didn’t notice, but the government’s starting to give out jail time these days if you start screwing around online too much. You want the cops putting their eyes on us any more than they probably are now?” 
Maou could no longer resist taking the bait. 
“And you call yourself a demon?” 
“And you call yourself Devil King, Maou?” 
Ashiya remained silent, no longer able to drum up the energy to intervene. Silently, Urushihara picked up the garbage strewn around his desk, his face that classic midteenage sort of petulant. 
“Like, let’s say everything works out and you really did find some museum exhibit that could link us to demonic force. Do you really think we’d just rappel down the wall and steal it like we’re in some Hollywood film?” 
“I don’t know what you’re getting at with that example…but, like, maybe you could reprogram the surveillance cameras, or hack out the code to the museum storehouse, or something. Can’t you?” 
“Pfft. You sound like some kid who’s watched too much TV. And we don’t even have TV in here.” 
Urushihara showed no mercy. 
“I mean, sure, hacking lets you read and mess around with data on whatever computer you gain access to. But you can’t just hack right into a museum’s entire administration system. And you definitely can’t do it with this ancient relic.” 
The PC Urushihara was slamming was the very first purchase Maou had made with his shiny new credit card. To him, it was like taking the plunge into a completely unknown realm, but the way Urushihara put it, he had been sucked into buying old, useless inventory. 
“Take a look at this.” 
“Huh?” 
Urushihara called Maou over to the computer. A black-and-white video of something or other was playing on one end of the LCD screen. Maou looked on, unsure what he was watching, when he noticed a car passing by the camera, stuttering forward at a painfully low frame rate. At the same time, he heard a car engine passing by outside the window. 
“…Whoa. What’s that?” 
“I got an old webcam and made it into a surveillance camera. See? Over there.” 
Urushihara pointed out the window, toward a ball-shaped object perched on top of old, paint-chipped iron grating. A cord snaked out from the plastic device to his computer. 
“I bought it ’cause I figured it’d tell us if anyone suspicious was nearby, but…I mean, it’s black-and-white and this thing still can’t keep up with the frame rate. You see what I mean? It’s useless.” 
“I don’t appreciate how you expect me to know that intuitively…but that’s actually something pretty useful for a change, isn’t it? If you have it set up outside, does that mean it can hold up against the weather?” 
“Nah. It’s old and not waterproof, so I’d have to bring it back in when it rains.” 
“…Wow. Never mind, then.” 
Crestfallen, Maou stepped away from the desk. Urushihara launched a parting shot behind him. 
“Like, look at it this way. Any target I’d be ‘hacking’ into would be running on multiple supercomputer-class servers, each loaded with the latest in firewalls and security patches. Meanwhile, I’ve got a PC with a hard drive under one hundred gigs, a Pentium III processor, and only one USB port. It can barely even run all the crapware that’s bundled with it. How am I supposed to compete?” 
Maou had only one curt phrase to answer Urushihara’s torrent of complaints. 
“Dude, speak Japanese.” 
Any attempt on Urushihara’s part to downplay his computer’s abilities was totally lost on Maou and his complete lack of any computer knowledge whatsoever. Any attempt to berate his PC-purchasing skills whooshed right over his head. 
For a moment, Urushihara was thrown by Maou’s completely ill-informed response, both as Devil King and as a member of modern Internet society. Soon, he pointed a finger back at his PC. 
“And more to the point, if I leave this old computer running all day in this heat, it’s gonna catch fire sooner or later. I ain’t gonna be doing much of anything for a while.” 
Maou remained quiet. Even he understood that electronics had trouble handling high temperatures. 
The environment within the Devil’s Castle knew little of such modern marvels as air-conditioning. A bare wisp of wind coursed through the room when all the windows were thrown open. Their only recourse was to hope the fan could amplify the fresh breeze just a little. 
Said fan was another purchase from the 100th Street shopping district, this one having run Maou one thousand yen at the thrift shop. That, alongside the bamboo blinds they bought from a home-improvement store to block direct sunlight, allowed them to just barely survive in the heat. 
“Hey, by the way, what was all that clattering outside?” 
Lucifer asked the question out of the blue, fanning his face with a paper fan festooned with advertisements for a neighborhood pachinko parlor. Maou and Ashiya exchanged glances. 
“You’ve been here the whole time and you didn’t notice?” 
Maou pointed at the wall they shared with the adjacent apartment. 
“Someone moved in next door.” 
Urushihara looked toward the wall as he nibbled on the pickled ginger included with his meal. 
“Huhh?! Are you kidding me? Who would actually move into this pile of crap?” 
There was no clearer demonstration of how useless the surveillance camera was, not to mention the person controlling it. 
“You had to have heard something from the other room. There was a moving truck here and everything. Plus, the corridor window is wide-open. Didn’t you notice the moving guys or anyone?” 
Urushihara shook his head. 
“Nope. Sure didn’t.” 
“You were browsing videos and listening to music or whatever, weren’t you?” 
Maou tried to frown as disapprovingly as possible. Urushihara shook his head as he continued tucking into the pork and rice. 
“No, really, I totally didn’t notice.” 
“Quit talking with your mouth full! You’re spraying bits of rice all over the place! And throw away that pointless surveillance camera at once!” 
Ashiya’s running commentary on Urushihara’s self-indulgent lifestyle was quickly becoming another hallmark of the summer season around Devil’s Castle. 
“No way, dude! It cost me five thousand yen with the software!” 
The shock waves that price quote sent across the room caused Ashiya’s hand to slip as he attempted to tie a garbage bag closed, ripping it open at the mouth instead. Maou brought a hand to his forehead, staring listlessly at the floor. 
“So did you run into whoever moved in yet?” 
Maou shrugged at the useless Urushihara’s question. 
“Well…we met, I guess.” 
Nothing, not even shaking her or slapping her cheek, could get the girl who fell off the stairs earlier to wake up. 
With no other option at hand, Maou brought her back upstairs, to the room she (hopefully) was moving into. The entryway to Room 202 was propped open with a door stopper. 
The lighted one-hundred-square-foot space, a dead ringer for Devil’s Castle next door, was packed to the gills with unmarked, new-looking cardboard boxes, as well as a polished, wooden, valuable-looking clothes chest and (oddly enough for the season) something resembling an open-air brazier. 
Her appreciation for the traditional Japanese lifestyle apparently went beyond her wardrobe. 
Maou and Ashiya looked at each other for a moment before venturing inside the residence of this strange woman. They brought her to the center of the room, laying her down gently. 
She showed no signs of awakening anytime soon, but she was breathing. After some debate, Maou and Ashiya decided to leave her alone, resolving to check up on her later and call an ambulance if she was still knocked out. 
They removed the doorstop for safety’s sake, though they naturally had no way to lock the door from the outside. 
“The girl must have a hell of a lot of stuff, too. The room was floor-to-ceiling boxes.” 
“I’m not gonna ask you to stay out of sight since she’s right next to us anyway, but try not to get involved with her as much as possible, all right?” 
Urushihara’s eyes teared up a little after Ashiya finally lost his patience and landed a sledgehammer blow on his head, but it wasn’t enough to put him off finishing dinner. 
“Huh. So she’s young? Must be pretty effed in the head to move someplace like this.” 
He sat up as he attempted to toss the paper container into the garbage bag. 
“How many times have I told you?! You need to wash out containers like that before throwing them away! I’ve said it a thousand times, if you don’t clean them out, they’ll stink up the place until the next garbage day!” 
Ashiya, like clockwork, went off once again. 
Urushihara was clearly peeved, but silently followed his orders and washed the empty bento box. Ashiya shouted at him again shortly for not separating his garbage the way the local authorities demanded, but Urushihara was less receptive to that advice. 
“Ah, screw that. C’mon, let’s go to the bathhouse! It’s dark now!” 
As always, he had his own priorities. 
The Villa Rosa apartments lacked bathing facilities. That was part of the reason the rent was so cheap, but failing to bathe in Japan’s hot, sticky summers was less a matter of being clean or not and more an issue of public health. 
Urushihara, usually forbidden from journeying outside, was allowed to accompany Maou and Ashiya to the local public bath as long as it was after dark and he used a cap and his hair to conceal himself. 
“Ughh… Give me a sec. I’ll be ready once I brush my teeth. Can you get the ticket book out for me?” 
The exasperated Ashiya barked the orders to Urushihara as he reached for his toothbrush. 
“Sirs!” 
The three demons stared at each other. 
It was a woman’s voice. The trio’s eyes turned toward the front door. Then the doorbell rang out a single time. 
They all knew a little about “speaking of the devil,” being, by and large, devils themselves. The relief that she was alive and well intermixed with a sense of nervousness at having to deal with neighbors for the first time in their lives. 
“Wh-what do we do?!” 
Maou was stricken with panic. His two minions were far more collected. 
“You’re the man of the house, Your Demonic Highness.” 
“It says Maou on the card, right? Get your ass out there.” 
It was just the sort of warm encouragement he needed. 
Glaring at his two humble servants, Maou gathered his breath and replied to the visitor outside. 
“I-I’ll be right there!” 
Still gripped by an inexplicable nervousness, Maou opened the door. 
“I apologize for intruding so late at night. My name is Suzuno Kamazuki, and I moved into the room next door earlier today.” 
A large cardboard box stood in front of the door, politely introducing itself to Maou. 
“……” 
UDON NOODLES —RESTAURANT USE ONLY, the box read. 
“Um.” 
“If I may, about earlier…” 
The box of noodles opened its mouth again. 
“I must humbly apologize for my abject rudeness upon our first encounter, and for placing such an onerous burden upon you.” 
The box of noodles that had introduced itself as Suzuno Kamazuki bowed toward Maou, maintaining perfect balance as it pitched forward gracefully. 
“Oner…wha? No, uh, it really wasn’t anything big… Anyway, my name’s Sadao Maou. It’s good to meet you.” 
Failing to find any other option, he bowed lightly toward the industrial-sized package. 
“I thank you for your kindness. I hope you will accept this gift, a token of my appreciation for my esteemed neighbor.” 
The box lurched forward…or, to be exact, was offered to him. 
“Um…this is…?” 
“I understand that an offering of noodles is the most appropriate and customary method of greeting one’s new neighbors.” 
It was hard to see what was at all appropriate or customary about the gift, or its size, or its qualities, but if the box was really full of udon noodles, the Devil’s Castle could very well eat for free the rest of the year. 
“Oh…uh, well, thanks for the kind gesture.” 
His voice wavering as he thanked her, Maou picked up the box. 
“Erff!” 
It was so startlingly heavy, he almost dropped it on the spot. 
Which would make sense. This box, easily big enough to occupy the entire front foyer of his apartment, might just be packed to the brim with udon noodles. One could only guess how many dozens of pounds it weighed. 
Grimacing to support the unexpected weight, Maou gingerly placed the box at his feet as he sized up his visitor. 
“I do hope it proves to suit your palate. Please; there is no need for modesty.” 
The young girl who had launched herself in dynamic fashion right into Maou’s arms a few hours ago was standing there, now dressed in a somber-colored but nonetheless high-quality kimono and a pair of zori sandals. 
“I come from an old farming family established long ago in the mountainous countryside. I’m afraid there is much I have yet to learn about city life, but I hope you will be kind enough to put the unfortunate events of before behind you, and provide whatever neighborly support you deign to offer.” 
Suzuno Kamazuki, no longer a box but now a small, young woman, lowered her head in a deliberate, well-practiced bow. 
“Uhmm. Ah, yeah, certainly. You, too.” 
Maou bowed his own head down in a halfhearted attempt to return the favor. 
Incongruous would be the only way to describe the impression she gave. 
Judging by her swan dive down the stairs and bizarre parting words subsequently, he imagined she was just a bit touched in the head. Now that he had another good look at her, though, he realized that “just a bit” could be easily removed from that appraisal. 
Her eyes were large, the bridge of her nose sharply defined. Her white skin and long, shiny hair were a perfect match for her navy-blue kimono and bright yellow sash. She cut an impressive figure, standing out there in the corridor, exhibiting her effortlessly perfect posture. 
The expression on her face, dignified and betraying the strong will that lurked inside of her, added an even more powerful presence to her appearance. 
In terms of pure looks, she could easily pass for her early teens, but the sheer practiced perfection of her Japanese wardrobe and mannerisms, coupled with her rather eccentric approach to language, made Maou wonder if she was transported from her home to Sasazuka via time machine. 
As she bowed, even Maou’s untrained eyes could tell that a great deal of attention had been paid to her hair. A bright red Japanese hairpin, decorated with a four-petaled flower, shone elegantly in the light. 
With summer now in full swing, he had seen more and more women dressed in gaudy, fashion-oriented summer kimonos outside. But this went beyond that. Plainly this was a woman who wore Japanese garments as her de facto first choice. 

Looking up, Maou realized that Suzuno’s blade-like eyes, brimming with energy, were fixated on his face. For just a few seconds, he flinched at her. 
“So you are…Sadao Maou?” 
“Huh? Uh, yeah, but…” 
Suzuno averted her eyes in thought for a moment, apparently satisfied that it was indeed Maou in front of her. She nodded once, then looked back up at him. 
“Is it true that you share your quarters with one Shirou Ashiya?” 
“Buh?” 
Without thinking, Maou turned his head back behind him. Ashiya looked just as surprised as he approached the front door. 
“Um, yes, I am Ashiya. Maou is, ah, an old friend of mine. We are sharing a room together.” 
“Enchanted to meet you. I am Kamazuki. I have heard much about the both of you.” 
She’s heard what, from whom? Noticing Ashiya and Maou exchanging glances with each other, Suzuno exhibited a subtle change in expression for the first time so far. Ever so slightly, the area between her eyebrows wrinkled up, as if she were baffled. 
“I have yet to meet the landlord here in person. However, a person I believe to be the landlord posted me a letter through her real-estate agent. It read that her only tenant was Sadao Maou, living here with his friend.” 
So saying, Suzuno produced an envelope from her bosom, the envelope’s frilliness more than familiar to the demons at this point. Maou had no idea until now that women stuffed things under their kimonos like that. 
“She wrote that the people residing here were kind and sensibly minded, and that I could trust in their aid if I ever came across any difficulty.” 
It was not the sort of praise that delighted a malicious minion from the underworld. 
That, and Maou had little to no interest in taking over any of his landlord’s Villa Rosa management duties. Besides, why wasn’t Shiba taking responsibility for this new girl, instead of pawning her off on them? 
“Ah! There was a photograph included as well. I wanted to ask you, is this really our—” 
Suzuno, suddenly reminded, made an attempt to take something else out of the envelope. 
“No! No, don’t! You don’t have to take it out! I don’t need to see it! That’s her, all right! If you were going to ask whether the lady in that photo is actually human or not, then yep, that’s definitely our landlord!” 
Maou intuitively stopped her with all the force he could muster. Suzuno’s eyes opened a notch wider at the sheer panic Maou exuded. 
“Why are you so flustered, if I may ask? It is merely a woman in a colorful pair of glasses, relaxing in a half-submerged inner tube while—” 
“Don’t describe it! Please!” 
Ashiya, for his part, was spooked enough to scurry back into the apartment. 
Watching Suzuno reluctantly place the envelope back into her pocket, Maou breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps the shock was absorbed a bit when someone of the same gender looked upon her. Of course, the question of whether you could even call the landlord a woman was still substantially in doubt, but finding a conclusive answer would achieve nothing for anyone. Thus, Maou resolved to file the whole landlord cheesecake pinup massacre into a padlocked X-file deep in a dark, cobwebbed corner of his mind. 
“Uh. Right. But anyway, I’m glad you aren’t hurt or anything. Oh, and thanks for the udon noodles. I’m not at home in the daytime usually ’cause I’m working at the MgRonald nearby, but if anything comes up, you can usually find him in here, so…” 
Still recovering from his temporary bout of panic, Maou’s voice broke slightly as he spoke to Suzuno. 
“I know it is not exactly inviting, all of us men in the same room, but please let me know if anything’s bothering you.” 
Ashiya’s gentlemanly invitation boomed out from inside. 
“Ah…yes. Thank you in advance, then.” 
Then, while it was hard to glean from her usual stony expression, it seemed to Maou that a flash of surprise crossed Suzuno’s face before she turned her head downward. 
“Oh, but keep in mind, that guy gets kind of carried away sometimes, so don’t be afraid to shoo him away if he gets too annoying.” 
Maou attempted to put up a defensive wall, out of concern they were tromping too far into their female neighbor’s life upon their first encounter. 
In times like these, if a man gets too friendly too quickly, bad things happen. They always did to Maou, anyway. 
“Oh, certainly not. I was not expecting such a warm reception, perhaps, but it gladdens me to have neighbors I can freely call upon. I look forward to learning all the many ins and outs of communal life from you.” 
He couldn’t tell what was so unexpected about it, but the term communal life caught Maou’s attention. He’d have to start by teaching her how to speak like someone from this century, for starters. 
Despite this response, Suzuno bowed once more, turned her eyes toward the floor Maou was standing on, and let out a slight, startled exhale. 
“Is there another among you?” 
“Huh?” 
“Oh…I simply noticed, there was another, different-sized set of footwear. I apologize if you were entertaining another visitor.” 
“No, um…” 
Maou and Ashiya sized each other up. Trying to hide a roommate from their next-door neighbor would only serve to arouse more suspicion. Urushihara had yet to demonstrate an interest to listening to anyone’s advice, besides. It’d be better, Maou thought, to make the first move instead of inviting further unwanted attention. 
“We actually took on another roommate recently. But he’s, like, a total shut-in, so he shouldn’t bother you too much.” 
“I’m not a shut-in ’cause I wanna be, dude! Hey, I’m Urushihara! Nice to see you, finally!” 
Said shut-in shouted his greeting from across the apartment. Maou wondered whether he really cared if the police found him or not. 
“I see… And you as well.” 
This was enough to make Suzuno’s eyes dart around, as if agitated. 
Not even the flying leap she took off the stairs changed her rigid expression. What did an unkempt freeloader do to her that that couldn’t? Was it that strange to her, three grown men living in the same room? 
But even that facial tic lasted for a mere instant, as she gave a shallow bow to Urushihara. 
“Well, I had best haunt your doorstep no longer. I bid a good evening to you. Farewell for now!” 
Then she turned her heels, her sandals squishing against the wooden floor as she returned to her room. 
Once he was sure the door was closed, Ashiya crossed his arms, head tilted. 
“A rather strange one, wasn’t she?” 
“I don’t think we’re in any position to toss that word around. But, hey, it’s nice to have some generous neighbors, huh? Just like that, we’ve got some extra food.” 
He hoisted the box of udon up to his waist as he cheerfully commented on their unexpected visitor. 
“Man, this is heavy.” 
The follow-up came out in a low whisper as he struggled with the weight. 
 
The cardboard boxes, large enough to occupy an entire corner of the room by themselves, loomed large over her living space. 
She had decided to place the three enormous boxes here in the hall for the time being. Between the apartment’s layout and her furniture, there was no place else convenient for them, but even this left only one closet door fully openable. 
It was the start of a new week, a hot, humid, and overall oppressive Monday. Emi Yusa, still in her office-casual work outfit, groaned as she pondered over the problem facing her, fingers rested on her forehead. She had wanted to take a shower immediately upon returning home, but Sasuke Express paid her a visit at that exact moment, as if deliberately aiming to bother her. 
Flipping on the AC to defend herself against the sickening heat, Emi brushed away the hair sticking to her sweat-soaked forehead as she read the packing slip. 
In the From box, the word EMERALDA was written in characters that looked like a pile of small worms in a petri dish. Food products was written in the contents section. 
At a loss to explain this package delivery, Emi paused for a moment before making her move. Taking out her phone, she called a number stored on it. 
“…Hellooooo! This is Emeralda Etuuuuva.” 
She picked up on the seventh ring, her speech still a little uneasy from nervousness. 
“I know. This is Emi… I mean, Emilia speaking.” 
“Indeed! Even after all this time, it seems I still get nervous with the tellllephone.” 
“You’ve had enough time to get used to it by now, haven’t you?” 
Emi chuckled to herself. She wasn’t being serious, of course. There was no way she could expect the woman on the other end of the line to “get used to” such black magic. After all, the girl who introduced herself as Emeralda Etuva wasn’t even in Japan. Or, to be exact, on Earth. 
“I haven’t spent that much time in Japan, soooo…” 
Emi eyed the tower of boxes in front of her. 
“I just got some packages with your name on them… What are they?” 
Each of the three boxes was unnaturally heavy, enough so that the Sasuke Express deliveryman brought each one into the apartment to save Emi and her spindly arms from having to struggle with them. 
“It said on the packing slip that it’s food, but…” 
“Oh, did they make it oooover? Wowwww, that was faaast! I only sent them off yesterday!” 
It probably would be a surprise to someone becoming familiar with the astonishing speed of Japan’s delivery infrastructure for the first time. 
“They contain holy energy for youuu! I modified its appearance so it wouldn’t look conspicuous storing it within Japan.” 
“Holy… What?” 
Emi pushed the table away from her as she rose. 
“B-but why’s it say food, then? They’re all, like, super heavy. Is it bags of rice or something?” 
“Rice…? Oh, right, the main food staple in Japan? No, not thaaaat. I set it up so it’s divided into small portions that’re easy to work with! They’re famous on Earth, right? Liiiiike, one swig fills you up with power, yeah?” 
“One swig?” 
She raised an eyebrow as she took the packing tape off the topmost package. Tossing it to the side, she opened the box and peered inside. 
“Whoa…” 
It was packed with a vast array of smaller boxes, wadded-up paper wedged between them. Each one had the logo of a well-known Japanese pharmaceutical company stamped on it. Opening one of them up, Emi’s suspicions were confirmed—eleven small brown bottles greeted her, each filled with a clear liquid and with a gold cap affixed to the top. 
“‘5-Holy Energy B’…?” 
“Oh, not a B. That’s a ?. Beta, y’knoooow? Like, kind of a beta test.” 
“That’s not the point. Emeralda. So if I drink one of these, it’ll refill my holy power?” 
“You’ve got it! By the way, Emiliaaaaa…” 
The voice on the other end suddenly grew inquisitive. 
“What’s the Devil King been up to laaaately?” 
“Well…” 
Emi thought for a moment before answering. 
“The same as always, pretty much. We usually wind up arguing whenever we run into each other, but we’re both busy with work, so I haven’t really had a chance to gauge his private life.” 
“……” 
The indecisiveness was palpable. 
“Emiliaaa…do you understand what you’re telling meeee?” 
“Huh?” 
Emi was at a loss. Emeralda chose her words carefully as she continued. 
“You sound like someone whining that you’re so busy, you’re having trouble making time for your lovvvver.” 
All right. Maybe carefully was a stretch. Straight down the middle, in fact. And it still managed to strike Emi right on the noggin. 
Emi compared Emeralda’s observation with what she just said a moment ago. 
“Dah…wha…nragh…” 
The phone mike picked up every phase of her raging emotions. 
“What’re you talking about, Emer?! You should know it’s nothing like that between us! I—I mean, as long as we’re both living in Japan, we have to follow Japanese laws, go to Japanese work, make Japanese money, the whole bit! When I say that I can’t watch over every waking moment he spends, it doesn’t mean anything more than… Unnghghh!!” 
“I know, I knowww…” 
Emeralda cracked up as she picked on her companion. Emi’s fury continued unabated, her breath quickening in pace. 
“Stop making fun of me! I am the Hero of Ente Isla! And he’s the Devil King! He’s my sworn enemy, and that never changes! The mere thought that we’re lo…lo…lovers makes me nauseous!” 
Indeed, the woman calling herself Emi Yusa was none other than Emilia Justina, the Hero who dispatched the demonic forces serving the Devil King Satan and brought lasting peace back to her world. 
Just as Satan was now mild-mannered MgRonald burger flipper Sadao Maou, so, too, was Emilia posing as Emi Yusa, working for Shinjuku-based telephone company Dokodemo as a contracted call-center operator. 
Emeralda Etuva, on the other end of the line, was Emilia’s traveling companion. The court alchemist for the empire of Saint Aile, the nation that boasted the largest swath of territory on Ente Isla’s Western Island, she followed Emilia to Japan as she pursued the Devil King two months ago, just in time to take in the Hero’s battle against Lucifer. 
After that came to a close, Emi gained a key advantage Maou lacked—the ability to accept support from Emeralda and her companions. 
Further, to prevent their regular “idea link”–based conversations from being intercepted by a third party, she had sent her friends Emeralda and Albert a handy device for long-distance verbal communication—a cell phone, in other words—making it easier to exchange information on a more intimate level. 
“Ugh… Look, I’ll admit I’ve been a bit lazy with monitoring him. I’ll go check him out tomorrow, all right? It’ll be a good chance to test out these bottles, besides. Too bad I can’t invoice you for the transport costs to his place!” 
The old wound to Emi’s heart, caused by a hapless police officer who mistook her and Maou for a couple having a spat when they were taken to the station one night, continued to fester within her. 
“I don’t know what you meeean by that, but anyway, greaaat!” 
Emeralda’s voice suddenly changed tone as she spoke. 
“Emer?” 
“So…pleeeease, Emiliaaaa?” 
Emeralda’s normally easygoing verbal pace seemed to slow down even further as she took pains to emphasize each word. 
“Pleeeease, don’t do anything that would turn me and you into ennnnemies, all riiight?” 
“…!” 
Emi swallowed nervously. This came as a complete surprise. 
“I know about ‘Emiiii’, and Japaaaan, and Maoooou, too. So pleeeease…” 
Her voice was soft and approachable. It made the meaning lurking behind her words all the more powerful. 
“I’ll take that to heart. Don’t worry. I am the Hero. On the name of my mother and father, I swear I will not follow the path of the mistaken.” 
“Ah, how reassuring to hear thaaaat!” 
Nord, her father, disappeared into the raging flames of the battle between human and demon. And: 
“Your moooother, you know… She was suuuuch a nice woman, Emilia!” 
“It’d be a bit strange if an angel wasn’t nice, wouldn’t it?” 
Her mother was the archangel Laila. Such was the power granted to Emilia Justina, the Hero who bore the power created by her half-angel blood. 
“But how have things been over there? I know it’s weird how peaceful things are even though the Devil King’s running free, but has anything changed with the Church and all the other nations at all?” 
“Wellll…” 
Emi could hear Emeralda shuffling a large sheaf of papers in her hands. 
“The plan to kill you off alongside the Devilllll King was led by only a tiny cabal of high Church officers. And in public, anyway, you and all of us are the heroes that saved the world! So no nation’s shown any outward signs, anyway, of sending assassins your waaay.” 
Emi immediately noticed what Emeralda was trying to tiptoe around. 
“Outwardly, you say.” 
“Indeed, veeery much so!” 
She could practically hear Emeralda grin bitterly across the line. 
“But even if the main powers don’t make a mooove, there’s been quite a lot of suspicious actiiiivity from powerful nobles with deep Church connections, not to mention smaller nations and entities hoping to ingraaatiate themselves with the Chuuurch.” 
“I wonder what I could’ve done to make those big shots hate me so much.” 
“Oh, not like logic works against them. All they care about is protecting themselllves, and their iiinfluence.” 
The bitterness was now clear in Emeralda’s voice. 
“I’ve heard talk about someone enlisting the Assassin’s Guillld, and underground bounty hunterrrs, and even the Reconciliation Panel taking aaaction…but that’s still firmly in the realm of ruuuumors.” 
“Panel of…what?” 
Emi was offput by the unfamiliar term. Emeralda, apparently realizing this, corrected herself. 
“Oh, I’m sorry, I mean the Council of Inquiiisitors. They changed their naaame recently.” 
“What? The Inquisitors…? Then why would they be targeting me? It’s not like they’d bother going after the Devil King at this point, either. Why’s that rumor going around?” 
“Probably because Olba hasn’t returned, I’d saaaay.” 
Olba Meiyer was one of the six archbishops, the ordained group of ministers that wielded the brunt of power within the Church. 
The archbishops were tasked with making all final decisions related to the direction of the Church. Each of its members retained direct and exclusive control of their own section of the Church hierarchy. 
Olba was able to gain a position of such confidence with Emilia, accompanying her for most of her conquest against the Devil King, in part because he was in control of the Church’s diplomatic and missionary operations. 
As archbishop, Olba had extensive experience spreading the tenets of the Church far and wide across foreign lands. 
Emilia’s travels began in the Western Island, where the Church’s grip on power was strongest. Since the Hero still had little exposure to the outside world at that time, Olba—with his talents as a Church administrator and vast knowledge of lands where the gods he served were less known and accepted—was the ideal choice to accompany her as she challenged the Devil King. 
The Council of Inquisitors was a somewhat unique subgroup within the Church’s missionary department. Their work was the sort that never came into the limelight, but was nonetheless essential to the entire organization, from surveying foreign lands as a sort of vanguard force for the missionaries, to purging the younger clergymen of their corrupt morals should they lose themselves to debauchery during training, to aiding the Church theologists as they nurtured and developed holy doctrine. 
On the other hand, they also served as a sort of public police force within the Church bureaucracy, declaring a nontrivial number of people to be heretics in their regular inquisitions. This more public face of the Council saddled them with the sort of dark reputation no political organization enjoyed. 
“It sounds like the missionary department is trying to find out what haaaappened to Olba, so it might be that some among them are aware of you, too, Emiliaaaa. Try not to let your guard down, all riiight? Some of them might try pushing things too quickly and start meddling with Japaaaan before long.” 
“I’ll keep that in mind. So are you and Al all right?” 
“Oh, they’ve got their eyyyes on us, what with all the stuff we pulled on ’em. But nothing beyond that’s happened to us, noooo.” 
“Guess there’s no rest for the Hero and her companions, huh?” 
“Guess notttt.” 
Neither Emeralda nor Albert was the sort of guileless goody-goody that could be rubbed out of existence by some half-cocked assassin. If she said they were okay, Emi was perfectly fine with believing her. 
“Aaanyway, I know talking for too long’s gonna rack up your phone bill, so I better hang up, huhhh?” 
“I’m not sure if it costs anything past the base fee or not, actually. It’s the idea link that’s actually connecting our two voices, after all. The phones are just an easier way to access it.” 
“Welll, just in case, I wouldn’t want you going broke on myyy account, sooo…” 
“I appreciate the thought. Thanks for the holy magic, anyway. Say hi to Albert for me.” 
Just as she was about to shut off the call, Emeralda quickly interjected. 
“Ooh, wait, I forgot somethiiing! Watch you don’t drink too many 5-Holy Energy ?s at once, okaaay?” 
“Too much? Is there a limit or something?” 
Turning the small bottle of liquid in her hand, she noticed that, where the label would usually list up the ingredients, it simply read Holy power instead. 
“There is! I mean, we can refill our own holy powers here as eaaasily as we breathe. But deliberately ingesting it like that? Well, it’s never been done beforrre.” 
“Oh…” 
“So that’s why it’s in beta, you seeee? We tested it on people heeeere, but let’s just say two bottles per day should be your max, all riiight? Drink one in the morning and one in the afternoon… Oh, but if you forget your morrrning dose, don’t try making up for it by drinking two in one go.” 
“…I wouldn’t mind asking a few questions about that, Emer, but anyway, I hear you.” 
“Wonderfulll! Always stick to the proper dosage, okaaay? Bye for nowww!” 
Emeralda ended the call. Emi placed the phone on her low kotatsu table, still confused. 
The packing slip, with Emeralda’s unsteady, childlike Japanese writing on it. The hefty boxes Sasuke Express just delivered to her. The weird way she seemed to soak up Japanese culture and customs, even though her stint in Japan lasted just a few hours. 
“Where…is she, anyway?” 
Still confused, her eyes scrutinized the bottle in her hand. 
“Guess I’ll give it a shot.” 
She twisted off the metal cap and was immediately greeted with the unnatural smell of syrupy cold medicine. 
Slowly, hesitantly, she tasted a few drops. 
“Huh. Yeah, it’s just an energy shot, all right. Does this really work?” 
It certainly tasted familiar enough—the heavy sweetness that seemed to linger on the tongue for far too long, almost past the cloying medicinal aftertaste. 
Emi didn’t distrust Emeralda, exactly, but between the packaging, the smell, and the taste, it was no different from the sort of off-brand energy drinks flogged in plastic racks next to the register at seedy twenty-four-hour convenience stores. 
It was as if those companies were trying to invent new laws of physics in order to cram just a few more milligrams of taurine into each bottle. 
Emi took her time emptying the bottle into her mouth. The liquid burned as it went down her throat, leaving a lingering, metallic, vitamin-y essence that made her twitch her nose. It energized her, yes, but regular usage couldn’t be good for her long-term health. 
Holy energy or not, it didn’t seem like the drink offered any immediate dramatic effects. She was about to toss the bottle into the kitchen trash when she noticed a disheveled mess at the edge of her vision. 
“Whoops…” 
The packing tape she had pried off the box and tossed haphazardly away was now stuck to the cover of the TV-listings magazine she kept next to her set. 
“Aahhhhhhh!” 
She squealed in dismay as she ran to the magazine. 
“They put Vice-Shogun Mito on the cover, too…” 
Carefully, she tried to peel the tape off of the photo of her favorite samurai-drama star. The adhesive mercilessly stuck to the cover, ripping the smiling face apart. 
Emil looked at the magazine in her right hand, then the ball of tape in her left hand, then sighed. The breath seemed to ferry all the emotion in her body out with it. 
“No, no, I can’t let this bring me down…!” 
She had just promised Emeralda that she’d go behind enemy lines and stake out Devil’s Castle. A soldier’s mental outlook always had a disproportionate effect on her performance. Venturing past no-man’s-land in her current state of gloom might cost her everything she held dear. 
Rallying her spirits, she tossed both tape wad and magazine into the trash. 
“…I don’t have any energy to cook. Curry works, I guess.” 
Despite her rebellious sneer of resolve as she rose, her steps were slow and clunky as she plodded toward the kitchen and took out her favorite New Hampshire curry mix and Auntie Nan’s instant rice packet. 
Tossing the curry block on a plate, Emi put it in her microwave and set it on high for two minutes. 
With a low, exhausted groan, she watched listlessly as the plate happily spun around, and around, and around inside. 
Something about the upcoming visit to the Devil King’s precariously flimsy apartment tomorrow made her feel inescapably despondent. 
“I…am the Hero, right? Zapping a plate of expired curry for dinner doesn’t not make me the Hero, does it?” 
Beep, replied the microwave. She responded with a sharp glare. 
Next came the instant rice. Opening the packet just a bit, Emi shoved it back in and tapped out another two-minute order. 
“That journey across Ente Isla would’ve been a lot easier with a microwave and some instant rice, though. Maybe I could take some kitchen appliances home with me, at least. I bet we could harness some lightning alchemy or something to power it with… Oh, wait, would a Divine Thunder spell generate AC or DC power?” 
The gap between ideal and reality that began to trouble her long ago had ballooned since she defeated the Devil King—something that Emi herself was less than aware of. 
Her expression loosened softly at the smell of the curry plate, a hot meal brought to her in four minutes by the mighty triumphs of her adopted civilization. 
“Ooh, I’m almost out of shampoo. Better grab some soon…” 
After dinner, she thought over her shower plans while glancing at her wall calendar. 
“Is there anything good on TV yet? Oh, wait, Vice-Shogun Mito airs tonight!” 
The recent rise in moments spent talking to herself was another change that escaped Emi’s notice. 
 
Emi sighed as she stared at the passcard the ticket machine spat at her, beeping its annoying tune the whole time. 
“At least Sasazuka and Hatagaya are within range of my commuter pass. Got that going for me, anyway.” 
Emi, whose work commute ferried her between Eifukucho and Shinjuku stations, had a commuter pass that her company paid for. That allowed her to get off at places like Sasazuka and Hatagaya along the line, but looking at it that way, it made it seem like her life-and-death struggle against the Devil King was being funded by the HR department at her job with Dokodemo. 
She had taken advantage of the stop at Sasazuka to update her pass. Placing the receipt in her wallet, she wearily lumbered away from the shade of the station roof. 
“Every single day, why’s it got to be so hot…?” 
Stepping out of the station’s entrance, positioned underneath the elevated rail line, Emi was blinded by the sun’s rays, already pounding down in the early morning hours. 
Any fervor that remained for the Devil’s Castle surveillance mission she promised Emeralda was in grave danger of being burned to a crisp by something even hotter. 
Every day was getting to be like this. 
In order to defeat Malacoda, supreme commander of the Devil King’s Southern Island expeditionary force, Emi had to slog from one end of the island’s tropical desert clime to the other on foot. Here, meanwhile, 120 yen was all it took to score a cold drink, and a quick stop at any nearby café would provide instant air-conditioned comfort. But, still, summer is summer, one of the universe’s few truly universal tenets. 
Emi took out a flower-print umbrella from her shoulder bag, suited both for the rain and for keeping the sunlight off the back of her neck. Dabbing her forehead with a handkerchief, she set off down the perilous road to Devil’s Castle. 
This was day four of her drive to keep daily tabs on the Devil King, something she resolved to do upon receipt of her 5-Holy Energy ? shipment. Continuing with this thankless, unrewarding job underneath the punishing summer heat required a remarkable amount of endurance. 
On the first day, she staked out a position in the bookstore across from Maou’s workplace near Hatagaya station, reading through all the nearby magazines on the rack as she kept constant vigil over her target. On the second, she made it to Devil’s Castle, but apart from the quiet sounds of normal life, the only unusual thing she saw was a fatigued-looking Ashiya purchasing scallions, dashi soup stock, instant barley-tea packets, and a new drain filter for his kitchen sink. On the third, work obligations kept her away. 
“I’m…a total stalker right now, aren’t I?” 
Emi chided herself as she quenched her thirst with a small plastic bottle of mineral water. 
Standing guard over someone’s personal life and workplace on a daily basis without any actual purpose would be the textbook definition of a stalker, yes. 
Outside of the one day she was too busy to sustain her stalker duties, this was the most concerted effort she made to keep tabs on Sasazuka ever since she first discovered the Devil King two months ago. 
And today, on day four, she was butting against the weekend with absolutely nothing to show for it. 
Fridays were always busy at work. Instead of staggering over after a long day dealing with calls, she opted for an early-morning spy run, even though the rate at which the sunlight was sapping her will to live was a crucial miscalculation. 
“Nngh! I need to be reasonable here! If the Devil King and his gang are just working, eating, and sleeping every day, then great! Hooray for peace!” 
Emi tried her best to inspire herself as she walked down a road alongside an irrigation canal that crossed north-south through Sasazuka’s residential area. 
“…And here I am, hanging around these guys, who are just trying to mind their own business. I’m totally a stalker.” 
It didn’t take long for her brain to work against her again. 
Once the apartment building that housed the Devil’s Castle was in sight, Emi stopped to check on the bottle of 5-Holy Energy ? in her shoulder bag. 
She hadn’t felt any need for it up to now. She had her doubts she ever would. 
And if she did, she was even more doubtful that the liquid inside would have any effect on her at all. 
“Let’s just check up on things and get to work… The Devil King’s probably sleeping anyway, this early in the morning.” 
Emi, demonstrating a clear lack of enthusiasm for her chosen duty even before arriving, folded up her umbrella and placed it in her bag to avoid being too conspicuous. Sneaking past the simple concrete-block wall that delineated the Villa Rosa Sasazuka property from its neighbors, she looked up at Room 201, the one closest to her on the other side. 
The Devil’s Castle lacked air-conditioning, so the windows were constantly left open, letting her hear the castle’s denizens conversing with each other. It’s not like they were screaming at each other every day, though, so Emi wasn’t privy to exactly what they were saying. 
Only once had she picked up on Ashiya, the human version of the Great Demon General Alciel, lecturing Urushihara, the human version of Lucifer, about wasting money on something or other. It demonstrated all too well the pointlessness of keeping such close tabs on them. 
“They must’ve done the laundry today. Nice job hanging all of it. Did they just throw it wherever it’d stay up, or what?” 
The clothing and washcloths hanging off the window frames were hanging haphazardly in the wind, hopelessly wrinkled. Time passed by slowly as she contemplated this, until she had finally emptied her water bottle. 
“…Well, nothing, I guess. I’m still a little early, but maybe I should head for work.” 
Just as she muttered it to herself: 
“My goodness, can’t you handle the laundry with at least a modicum of gentleness? I had no idea you knew so little of housekeeping, Hanzou.” 
“?!” 
Quickly, Emi flattened herself against the apartment’s outer wall to stay unnoticed, praising her fast reflexes as she did. 
She froze at the sudden voice, her body instinctively carrying her to safety as she assessed the situation. 
“If you hang this in such a wrinkled state, it will lose its shape! And you’ll see the most ghastly of crinkles once it dries. You should at least be aware of that much.” 
Taking out a hand mirror, Emi extended it past the corner of the wall to examine the upstairs corridor. 
It was a girl. 
A girl, one she had never seen before, was evening out the wrinkles in the Devil’s Castle’s laundry, piece by piece. 
“Right. Now, do it again. These summer blankets, as well. Spread them out wide, then use these clothespins to keep them in place. And if they fall down, back into the wash they go!” 
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” 
The sheepish voice that responded to her was undoubtedly Urushihara’s. 
This was no mirage, no case of mistaken identity. The hand mirror didn’t give her a clear view, but there was definitely a girl there, wearing a triangular head scarf, inside Devil’s Castle. 
“…I doubt anyone’s living on the first floor.” 
Slowly, Emi edged along the wall, checking that no one was looking down before hiding under a tree directly beneath Room 201. She was now totally concealed from the second floor above. 
“Jeez. It’s like Ashiya cloned himself or something.” 
“You have nothing to blame but your own laziness, Hanzou. If you intend to stay indoors like a hibernating mouse all day, the least you could do is assist with the daily chores.” 
“I swear to…want…say it, too…” 
Emi could hear someone that sounded like Ashiya as the girl and Urushihara spoke to each other, but—perhaps because he was on the opposite end of the window—he was difficult to make out. 
She focused, trying to decipher the muffled voice, but soon the other two grew too quiet to understand. And even worse: 
“Ugh…not now! Jeez, pipe down, you bastards!” 
The countless thousands of cicadas that called Emi’s tree home were crying out the plaintive summer call, simultaneously, at full volume. 
Jii jii rhee rhee jkk jkk jkk cht cht cht rheeeeeooouuuuuhhh… The cacophony of calls from this single tree seemed to morph into a single wall of noise, symbolizing the ardent, all-encompassing urges that drove these chatty beasts as they staked their lives upon the only summer they’d ever experience. 
Something light bounced off Emi’s head. She brought a hand up, only to find it was a discarded cicada skin. 
“…They have to be trying to mess with me. There’s more than one species in there, too.” 
Emi discarded the skin as she grumbled at no one in particular. But even the Hero of Ente Isla, gifted in all the languages of the world, had trouble getting her point across to the cicada race. 
Resigning herself to the futility of trying to shut them all up, Emi shifted her thoughts to her next move. 
This was the first major change in four days. She couldn’t leave until she got to the bottom of this. The girl from before might be some new visitor from the demon realm, someone Emi didn’t know about. 
Judging by their laundry-themed discussion, she could tell this interloper was no immediate threat to the area. Regardless, Emi wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip through her fingers. 
“This might be risky, but so be it…” 
Steeling her resolve, she tiptoed away from the window and toward the front stairway. 
Then, slowly, as to avoid making any sound, she climbed the stairs. She had her work heels on, so she kept a careful hand on the guardrail, ensuring she wouldn’t take an embarrassing tumble like before. 
By the time she reached the end, breathing shallowly the whole way, she was covered in sweat. 
The kitchen window overlooking the outdoor corridor was open as expected, providing what little ventilation the apartment had to offer. 
“Honestly, Hanzou, what will we ever do with you? Surely this is not beyond your comprehension.” 
It was the girl from before. Emi crouched down beneath the iron bars covering the window as she listened. 
“Now, then. First, you dice these shallots and grate some ginger, then you use some cold water to dilute the soup stock. Then all you have to do is bring the udon noodles to a boil, and it’ll be ready to eat at a moment’s notice. You can even serve them chilled, if you like, by immersing them in cold water right after they’re done boiling. Add a raw egg, and it will be simply perfect.” 
“Oh, man, you want me to boil noodles in this heat?” 
“That is exactly what Ashiya does for you, every day and every meal. It would be only proper to offer him some gratitude in return.” 
It sounded like the girl’s diatribe against Urushihara was still underway. At least the topic had shifted from laundry, thankfully. 
“Don’t let up on him, Ms. Kamazuki. I yell, and yell, and yell at him, and he never listens…” 
Finally, Ashiya came in loud and clear. “Ms. Kamazuki” must be the girl’s name. The listlessness in Ashiya’s voice gave Emi more than a bit of pause. 
“I will take care of preparations today, so watch me carefully, lest Shirou chides your performance on the morrow. Here, grate the ginger for me. You know how to use a grater, I trust.” 
“All right… Hmm? Hey, Ashiya, we didn’t use up all the ginger, did we?” 
Emi heard the refrigerator open, followed by Urushihara’s voice as he peered inside. Then, Ashiya’s weak, wavering voice continued. 
“Ah… Last night’s was the last of it. Sorry, Ms. Kamazuki. We’ll have to make do with shallots alone today… Urushihara, shut the damned fridge door behind you!” 
The strength popped right back into his voice at the end. 
“Hmm, no ginger? It’ll be quite lacking in nutrition otherwise. I think I have some ginger amongst the vegetables I brought along. Perhaps I could fetch some?” 
Emi could tell this Kamazuki girl was cooking inside Devil’s Castle. It raised the question of how she and the demons of that stronghold came to know each other in the first place. 
She was never granted the time to calmly think it over. 
“Let me look inside my room. I’m quite sure I had a healthy supply left.” 
The woman’s voice began to shift from the kitchen to the front door. Was she going outside? Emi’s head swiveled around in a panic. There was no place to hide safely. 
“Hanzou, while I’m gone, I want you to unravel the noodles for me with those kitchen chopsticks. Slowly, now. Make sure none of the strands stick to each other.” 
“Right, right, right.” 
“One right is quite enough! I will return shortly.” 
The front door rattled. She was coming out! There was no time to guess which “room” she was headed for. Emi had to get away. 
Her panic had caused her to lose track of her feet. 
“Ah…” 
The next thing she knew, Emi was midair, her feet slipping right off the top step of the staircase. The bright blue morning sky sparkled before her, the cicadas providing the ideal background music for her upcoming journey downward. 
Off the corner of her eye, she saw her phone, her wallet, her commuter-pass holder, her folded umbrella, her half-read paperback novel, her makeup case, her hand mirror, her handkerchief, her memo pad, her bottle of 5-Holy Energy ?, her toothpick case, a tissue packet with an advertisement for some loan-sharking firm printed on it, her pen case, her lip balm (which, for some reason, was unscrewed all the way out), and everything else in her shoulder bag disperse in all directions into the air. 
“Yaaaaaagghhhhh!!” 
After a moment to take all of that in, Emi herself began to fall in majestic fashion. She didn’t know exactly how much force she applied to the foot that slipped, but depending on how she landed, there was the potential for some serious injury. She braced for impact, unable to find a way to soften the blow in midair, when: 
“Oof…?!” 
With a dull, soft thud, the falling stopped without warning. 
Emi closed her eyes out of instinct, but the pain was nothing like what she pictured. Instead, all she heard was the pitter-pat of assorted small objects falling around her, and: 
“Owwwwwwwww…” 
A familiar groaning voice right next to her. 
Timidly, she dared to open her eyes. 
“…Can’t you go up and down the stairs quietly at least once in your life?” 
The dejected-looking face of the Devil King—well, Sadao Maou, really—was right in front of hers. 
“Man, I sure picked the wrong girl to rescue. Not like you’re gonna reward me or anything.” 
“D-Devil King!!” 
Emi shouted it out, then quickly shook her head, still unable to grasp the situation. 
The assorted possessions in her bag were now littered around her on the ground, the packet of tissues perfectly perched on top of Maou’s head. Emi herself, however, was in a more precarious position. 
“L-l-let me down! What…what are you doing…?!” 
Emi felt her blood boil from head to toe. Her body was was currently scooped up into Maou’s arms. 
Maou must have grabbed her midfall, but the way he was cradling her body like a baby was adding insult to injury for the Hero, one she could barely stand. 
The summer heat and the sense of shame at involving Maou in this sordid scene were about to make her burst into flames. 
“Put…put me down right now! Wh-what’re you trying to do to me?!” 
Emi began to flail her arms and legs, her face glowing red despite herself. 
“Well, you’re the one falling off my stairs! Stop…stop squirming like that! We’re really gonna… Erngh!” 
Before he could finish the thought, one of Emi’s toes landed a clean hit on Maou’s temple. 
With a groan, Maou’s arms loosened their grip, sending Emi tumbling downward. 
“Agh!” 
It was a textbook landing—on her butt, right on the paving stones at the bottom of the stairs. She winced as she rubbed her tailbone. 
“Oooogh…” 
“Don’t ‘oooogh’ me! Eesh! No good deed ever goes unpunished with you, huh?!” 
Maou glared down at the wincing Emi, eyes tearing up a bit as he held a hand to his temple. 
“Good deed, my ass! You, you, you didn’t do anything weird to me while my eyes were closed, did you?!” 
Emi held her arms close to her in a defensive posture as Maou continued to rant and rave above her, eyes still lolling around. 
“Nothing happened while your eyes were closed! Nothing besides all of your crap bouncing off my head! Did you aim at me, or what?!” 

“Well, that’s what you get for all the evil deeds you’ve perpetrated on a daily basis!” 
“I’m a law-abiding citizen! A lot more than you are right now, I’m guessing!” 
“What right do you have to say that?! Apologize to all the law-abiding citizens of this nation at once!” 
“Look, don’t even get me started, okay? Or how about I toss you down the stairs one more time? Maybe then you’ll show me some gratitude!” 
“I’d sooner go bungee jumping without a rope than thank you! What’re you even doing down here, anyway? I thought you slept past noon every day!” 
Taking another look at Maou, Emi realized he was wearing cotton work gloves. An old broom was lying on the ground alongside the dust balls and the contents of her shoulder bag. 
How dare the Devil King even think of doing something like sweeping around his apartment building! 
“I’m allowed to be wherever I want, all right? What’s so bad about getting up early?! I’m trying to stick to a healthy schedule so I don’t get sick this summer!” 
“You? Healthy? You’re practically the poster child for MgRonald!” 
“What’re you two doing…?” 
Urushihara, picking up on the pointless argument unfolding below, picked that exact moment to venture outside. 
“I simply must apologize. This would not have happened if I hadn’t thrown open the door so quickly.” 
The girl in the kimono bowed deeply toward Emi. She must have thought this was simply a wrong-place-at-the-right-time accident. 
“No, no, not at all!” 
Emi violently shook her head in response. 
“I just kind of lost track of my footing when I wasn’t paying attention.” 
Maou watched on, a sullen look on his face as he slurped up his cold udon in soup stock. 
A wholly unexpected sight unfolded before Emi’s eyes in the Devil’s Castle. 
First, there was Ashiya, lying down with a blanket over him, looking strangely gaunt. 
Then there was the gigantic box in the kitchen. Next to it, a girl in a kimono, apron, and head scarf busily slaved away at the counter. 
Beyond the udon she had heard about, Emi noticed a surprisingly healthy selection of dishes laid out in the kitchen—cold blocks of tofu sprinkled with myoga ginger and sesame leaves, accompanied by a salad of mustard spinach steeped in a dashi-based sauce. 
“I picked up most of the stuff you dropped outside, Yusa.” 
“Oh, thanks. Could you put it over there for me, please?” 
Emi wasn’t thrilled at Urushihara pawing her personal possessions, but something stopped her from erupting in front of Suzuno. She turned to pick them up. 
“Ugh. I hate the way you talk. All high and mighty like that.” 
In Urushihara’s mind, she was unsuccessful at hiding her disdain toward the denizens of this tiny square dot of a castle. But she shrugged, uninterested in providing an excuse. 
“And what’s with this thing? It’s like an oven outside, and you’re still doing energy shots?” 
Emi should have expected no less from Urushihara. He had the small bottle of 5-Holy Energy ? in hand, dangling it in front of her like a grade school bully as she tried to retrieve her bag. 
Her internal reaction was less furious rage and more a light sense of panic. Small flasks of holy energy were not the kind of thing she wanted bandied around Devil’s Castle. 
“Hey! Give that back!” 
With a swipe, she snatched the bottle out of Urushihara’s hand, stuffing it deep into her bag. A bead of cold sweat ran down her back as she glared at him. 
“If you drink that stuff, you’re gonna wind up crashing like Ashiya.” 
“Crashing? What, don’t tell me the heat’s made you sick…” 
Emi flashed an honestly surprised look at Ashiya, lying on the floor. 
He clicked his tongue like an insolent child before turning over to his side, away from her. 
“So what if it did? I don’t feel too well sometimes, either, you know.” 
They may have lost all of their demonic energy, but to Emi and Ente Isla, the discovery that extreme heat was detrimental to demons’ health was nothing short of groundbreaking. 
“Not feeling too well? Like, what happens to you, exactly?” 
“I dunno, I kind of lose my appetite. It’s like my stomach starts bothering me and stuff.” 
Urushihara was overjoyed to explain, “I wouldn’t find that enjoyable.” 
Emi shrugged, not finding the topic enjoyable enough to pursue. 
“I am not doing this to make you ‘enjoy’ anything, you…” Ashiya, his drained voice leaping upon Emi, seemed to be having the least enjoyment of all. 
Given how Ashiya was always the one demon to constantly treat Emi as a hostile invader, this was a sight she wished she could record and use to blackmail him in the future. 
“It would seem my attempt at charity was the unfortunate cause.” 
Emi turned toward the girl. 
Her kimono truly brought the best out of her well-defined, beautiful face. It was such a perfect package, Emi could have easily confused her for a samurai-drama actress. That was how dignified the aura around Suzuno was, like she wasn’t even of this world. 
Emi found her eyes subconsciously attracted to her chest area. 
About the same as me, maybe…? 
She sighed. There was an odd sense of relief. 
Suzuno may have been the perfect Japanese beauty, but at least one aspect of her differed little from Emi. 
The girl, for her part, had a frozen look of anguish or regret on her face, blissfully unaware of Emi’s pointless self-comparison. 
“I feel terribly remorseful about it. Perhaps I should have chosen something more nutritious to repay these fine men with.” 
“No, no, Ms. Kamazuki, it isn’t your fault. I am enjoying every bit of these udon noodles.” 
From within his blanket cocoon, Ashiya placated Suzuno, his voice a far cry from the one he addressed Emi with. 
“Yeah. The problem’s the menu, really. I mean, yeah, it’s easy to cook and it tastes okay, but eating chilled udon day in, day out in this heat would make anyone keel over after a while.” 
The observation from Urushihara, who had yet to lift a finger to contribute to the Castle food supply, drew cold stares from the rest of the room. 
Just then, Suzuno stretched her body and turned toward Emi, as if remembering something. 
“But I see I’ve forgotten the most important matter! My name is Suzuno Kamazuki. I have only just settled my belongings down next door in Room 202 last week. I come from a well-known family in a very remote place, one not exposed to the modern trappings of the world, so I remain rather unaccustomed to day-to-day life here. I do hope you’ll help a simple country girl make her way in this grand city.” 
“Uh…yeahh… I’m Emi Yusa. Good to meet you.” 
The unexpectedly stiff and polite greeting from the woman meekly kneeling before her made Emi feel obliged to arch her back straight upward as well. 
“But…and I don’t mean any offense…I’m amazed you chose a place like this.” 
Emi pointed a finger at the dusty, dry tatami mats that lined the Devil’s Castle floor, more than a trace of doubt in her speech. 
Before she found the condo she currently lived in, Emi’s rental agent went into great detail about the things a single woman needed to be aware of living by herself. 
Her apartment was on the fifth floor, but even now, she did things like purchase a couple of men’s boxers and such just so she could hang them up alongside the rest of her laundry. The buzzer intercom on the ground floor was another plus in her mind. 
Villa Rosa Sasazuka, meanwhile, was cheap and close to the rail station, but from the eyes of an impartial observer, it was not at all suited for a young girl living alone. 
It was constructed in the Stone Age; there was no bath or air conditioner or balcony; the doors had nothing but simple cylinder locks on them; most of the rooms were completely empty; and the only other tenants were a pack of sadistic monsters from another world. 
Judging by the careful exactitude with which she dressed herself—kimonos can be such a pain to keep in good condition—and the apparent food charity she was giving to her destitute neighbors, the cut-rate rent couldn’t have been the attraction for her. 
And judging by how familiar she’d already become with the group of grown men living next to her in the space of just over a week, she had absolutely no sense of the modern precautions any urban resident would take. 
“As long as I have a roof to block the rain, four walls to block the wind, and a sturdy floor under my feet, I ask for nothing else.” 
Suzuno seemed to read Emi’s mind as she silently worried. 
“I have no interest in worldly luxury. I simply thought that being near the city would make finding suitable work a simpler task.” 
Then she fell silent, her eyes fixed upon Emi. 
“I wish to find a vocation here that will make my homeland proud.” 
“A wonderful ambition! You could stand to learn from her, Urushihara.” 
Ashiya heaped praise upon Suzuno from his sickbed. 
Urushihara ignored it as he returned to his computer desk. 
“Regardless, I am sure it is fate that brought the two of us together, in the same city within this vast country. I hope we will provide each other with warm support and goodwill toward our fellow human beings.” 
Suzuno turned toward Emi and bowed deeply once more. 
“Um, yeah. You, too.” 
At a loss, Emi leaned forward to match her conversational partner. 
“Whew! Thanks for the noodles. That was great!” 
Maou, passing by as he polished off the remainder of his breakfast, let out a cheek-stretching yawn as he brought his utensils to the sink. 
“Man, though…I’ve got so much to do, and remember, and stuff. It’s wrecking my mind.” 
“What do you mean? You’re just manning the grill like always, right?” 
Emi’s brows furrowed as she asked. Maou responded with an out-of-place grin. 
“Oho! Well, that’s where you’re wrong. While you were off wasting away your life, I’ve made some serious advances as a member of human society.” 
Human? Emi resisted the urge to lunge at the obvious bait. 
“Yeah, that’s right, Emi! Get a load of this! Starting on Saturday—tomorrow—I’m going to be the afternoon associate manager at the Hatagaya station MgRonald!” 
Maou cocked his head back, hand on hip, the morning sun pouring in through the window behind him. Emi could feel her strength draining. 
“Yeah, woo, congrats.” 
She rewarded the show with a sarcastic nod and the world’s least enthusiastic round of applause. 
“Hah! You don’t even believe me, do you? Well, it’s true! My first bona fide managerial role! And an hourly wage hike to match, too!” 
“What I’m not believing is that you’re seriously trying to brag about it. But, hey, that’s great, I guess? Why don’t you just keep focusing on your career if you like it so much?” 
Emi flapped a hand aimlessly at Maou as he fervently tried to fish for compliments. 
“Pfft. So, what, you’ve got no aspirations whatsoever? Well, fine. Someday, I’m going to be way up high, and you’ll be gritting your teeth in anger while you’re still stuck here, falling down my stairs all the damn time!” 
Maou stuck his tongue out at her, putting a final exclamation point on his manifesto. Emi countered by silently tossing a nearby tissue box at him. Maou easily dodged it, causing the box to land upon Ashiya beside him. 
She was expecting some kind of verbal rebuke, but instead Ashiya grumpily flicked it aside and wriggled back into his blanket. 
He didn’t look well at all, but Emi held little sympathy. She turned her eyes away, no longer desiring the triumphant-looking Maou in her sight. 
“……” 
“Wh-what…?” 
Instead her eyes locked with Suzuno, still kneeling politely, dourly looking up at her. 
“Emi…” 
She stopped, stole a glance at Maou—still cheerfully grinning as he washed the dishes, comfortable in his conviction that he finally lorded it over Emi for a change—then brought her lips to Emi’s ear. 
“Are you in a close relationship, perhaps, with Sadao?” 
“Haaahhhh?!” 
The cry of shock was genuine, enough to make even the resting Ashiya and the earphoned Urushihara turn around. 
“Wh-what did you just say?!” 
“Well, I merely noticed that your conversation was quite, shall we say, confrontational? Or perhaps frank is a more suitable word. There is certainly no sense of reserve between the two of you.” 
“Yeah…I suppose it’s easy to get that impression, but…” 
As Emi began, she noticed Urushihara staring at her, chuckling to himself. 
“You stay out of this!” 
A single glare was all it took to silence him. 
They certainly didn’t hold anything back against each other, and Emi never had any intention to. Having that interpreted as the two of them being close companions was never something that occurred to her. 
“Maybe there’s no reserve, but more than that, there’s no trust, no faith, no friendship, and no other kind of positive human emotion between us, either. Nothing! In fact, if he died in an accident on the way home from work today, I honestly wouldn’t mind much at all. So let’s just make sure we have that straight, all right?” 
She made sure she was heard across the room, so she could already feel Ashiya’s grimaced gaze and Maou’s easygoing grin pointed toward her. 
“I—I see…” 
Suzuno, meanwhile, had dropped the inscrutable, statuelike expression she seemed to prefer the most. In some ways, it seemed like a sense of relief crossed her eyes. 
What would put her at ease about Emi and Maou not being together? 
Thinking it over, Emi’s eyebrows arched downward. This had already happened before. There was another woman—the only one who still remembered Maou and Emi’s battle two months ago. 
“I don’t want to pry…” 
Now it was Emi’s turn to whisper into Suzuno’s ear. 
“But are you aiming for that stupid Devil King, too?” 
The reaction Suzuno showed at that moment was nothing short of seismic. 
Her face, normally willful and resolute, turned white as a sheet. Without a word, she grabbed Emi’s arm, pulling her outside of the room. 
“Uh? Ah! Wait a…!” 
Slamming the door behind her and sneaking a quick look inside, she turned toward Emi and spoke in a hushed, slightly frazzled voice. 
“What…what will we do if he hears you?” 
Emi was quizzical at first, wondering what about her observation had made Suzuno turn ghostlike so rapidly. But it made sense. If she had hit it on the nose, then perhaps it wasn’t the most delicate thing to say, in a whisper or not. 
Observing her strong will, dignified presence, and oddly hardened face, she assumed that Suzuno wasn’t the sort of girl to wear her emotions on her kimono sleeve. But women are women, she concluded. 
“I’m sorry! I didn’t think you really…” 
Emi meekly apologized, her voice similarly hushed. A sheen of cold sweat appeared on Suzuno’s usually marblelike face. 
“I…I must say, I am quite impressed.” 
She put a hand to her heart, taking a deep breath to calm her nerves. 
“How did you ever know?” 
“How did I know? Well…I dunno, I just kind of thought so…” 
That was the best explanation Emi had to offer. The namby-pamby response seemed to convince Suzuno well enough. 
“I…see. Very well done…” 
She couldn’t guess what was “well done” about that, but regardless, Suzuno seemed honestly impressed at Emi’s clairvoyant skills. 
Watching her, Emi couldn’t help but regret hurting her feelings just a tad. Still, she had to say it, sooner or later. 
This was a girl, after all, who appeared out of nowhere to become a core presence in the Devil’s Castle. Not asking would have made Emi wonder if she was an assassin from another world, or—even worse—an apprentice demon in Maou’s bloodstained service. 
But think it over logically, Emi told herself. An assassin wouldn’t move in, then sit there doing nothing for a whole week. And Suzuno was far too prim and proper to be from the demon realm. 
“Listen, Suzuno. I’m sorry if I’m being too intrusive, but there’s something I want to tell you.” 
“…What is that?” 
If this was just a regular woman, Emi would prefer to keep her out of their angel-and-demon struggle as much as possible. 
“I think you better keep your distance from him. Otherwise, it’s just gonna make you unhappy.” 
“Unhappy…? In what way?” 
Suzuno looked up at Emi, her face confused. 
Lambasting Maou too much to her face would have the opposite effect. Emi knew that much from previous experience. 
“That’s…not the kind of guy any regular person can handle. I’m just saying, it’s best if you don’t get too close to him.” 
“…! B-but, but, I may not seem that way, but I’ve been through a great deal of trials and tribulations in my life!” 
Suzuno seemed to be awfully hard on herself as she shot back. 
Emi had little interest in this girl baring her entire life’s story to her, but Suzuno gave her no time to speak. 
“But…all right. If that is what you say, I will keep a respectful distance away. I am sure there is something between you and he that I am not aware of.” 
She had an odd sort of sixth sense about what Emi was thinking at any given moment. Emi had no idea why she was so in tune with her mind, but in the very short time they’d known each other, the amount of trust this girl had thrown upon her feet was wholly novel to her. 
“But no matter what you may say, I am in no position to leave at this point. I know this is terribly audacious of me, but I hope you will provide me with whatever assistance you deem appropriate.” 
The beauty had returned to her face as she gave a respectful standing bow. 
Emi felt at fault here as well. Here was this poor girl, unwittingly caught up in the intrigues of Ente Isla, and Emi’s inability to vanquish the Devil King once and for all had left the door wide open for her. 
“Certainly. If I can.” 
She smiled and nodded. 
On the condition, of course, that it didn’t involve playing matchmaker for Maou. 
“Very well… Thank you. My mind is at ease now, a little.” 
The stone wall that was her usual facial expression seemed to relax itself slightly. 
Not even Emi suspected that Maou and his cohorts had forced anything upon Suzuno. But the experience of being the sole woman in their “household” must have put her on pins and needles. 
Speaking with Emi, the first female companion she’d ever had in Tokyo, must have been just the release valve she needed. 
“Oh! Hang on a moment.” 
Emi gently pushed Suzuno aside and ventured back into the room. 
“You guys didn’t do anything weird while I was gone, did you?” Emi glared at Urushihara as she groped around inside her shoulder bag. 
“I ain’t in that much of a hurry to die.” 
Keeping one eye on Urushihara as he sullenly replied, Emi took out her memo pad and pen, ripping off a piece of paper. Jotting something down, she handed the sheet to Suzuno. 
“This is my address, my phone number, and my e-mail. If these guys do anything to you, you can call me for help anytime.” 
“Very well. I owe you a great debt.” 
Suzuno nodded as she delicately placed the paper into her kimono. 
Emi had no idea until now that women stuffed things under their kimonos like that. 
“Look, who do you think we are, anyway?” Maou, wiping off the morning’s dishes, finally had to speak up. 
“I think you’re a bunch of hideous monsters that I’d put even a cockroach above, that’s what. I doubt you’d do it now, but if you do anything weird to Suzuno, I’m gonna rip your head off and hang it out that window, all right?” 
“What are you, Dracula?” 
Emi paid the comeback no mind. “…Well. I better push off. But don’t worry. They may not look it, but they’ve got every reason not to break any laws right now.” 
Emi aimed the last part at Suzuno as she draped the shoulder bag over her body. Then she turned toward Maou. 
“Be good to her, all right? I’m serious here. Men and women run on real different wavelengths!” 
“Yeah, I don’t need to be reminded. But at least I’m not gonna ignore the help she gives me, unlike certain people I know. Get out already!” 
Emi accepted that response, although she knew a Hero placing too much trust on that was undebatably shirking her duty. 
“Right. See you.” 
She was kind enough to shut the door behind her. 
Suzuno stared at the door for a moment. 
“Y-y-yaaaagghhhhh!!” 
Then, at the sound of Emi’s scream, she lunged for it. On the outside corridor, still in her two-toed socks, she was greeted with the sight of Emi halfway downstairs, sweating profusely, her hands balled tightly around both handrails. 
“I-I-I’m fine. I’m fine this time, okay? Really.” 
She let out a hoarse chuckle, then ever-so-slowly sidled down the second half before briskly walking off in very apparent shame. 
“She bite it again?” she heard Maou call out from inside. 
“No, she regained control of herself halfway.” 
“…Yeah, looked that way. She’s sure going fast, though. Like she’s trying to run away from us.” 
Urushihara mumbled his agreement, eyes fixated on the PC screen. 
 
“Okay, Marko! The fate of tomorrow’s afternoon shift rests upon your shoulders. Stay diligent! Don’t let that new Sentucky Fried Chicken get the jump on us!” 
Kisaki laid the pressure down hard on Maou that Friday evening, several hours after Emi blundered her way into his apartment. 
Starting tomorrow, for the next week, Maou would be the shift supervisor for the afternoon hours. In other words, his career as assistant manager was just about to kick off. When he reported in for the lunch rush, Kisaki rewarded him with a custom name tag reading SADAO MAOU in shiny lettering, indicating that he was the man in charge for that shift. 
His old SADAO (A) sticker tag seemed like a relic from his ancient minimum-wage days now. Starting today, his tag gave his full name. It made him proud, somehow. 
Thanks to the careful tutelage Kisaki instilled in him up to this day, he was ready in mind and body, a fairly comprehensive understanding of store management practices drummed into this brain. 
“I’ll make sure to have my phone on me in case any emergencies come up, but unless it’s something really catastrophic, you can go ahead and make any decisions that need to be made yourself. This is meant to help you grow, after all.” 
“Absolutely.” 
“Good. I like to hear that. Do your best out there, okay? Don’t make me have to send you to Trinidad and Tobago.” 
“I thought you were joking.” 
Maou pulled at his face nervously. 
“The only time I tell jokes is when I want people to laugh.” 
He got the message. 
“We don’t have much staff on hand this shift, so you better brace yourself. Think of it as getting a head start on your shift-supervisor job.” 
“Huh?” 
Maou took a glance at the shift schedule posted on the wall. The only lines extending all the way to closing time at midnight belonged to Maou and Kisaki. 
Between five and ten PM, another line joined them down the grid. 
“Ooh. Chi, huh…?” 
Maou whispered it to himself. Kisaki keenly picked up on it as she peered at the schedule. 
“You aren’t still having a tiff with her or anything, are you?” 
“Not a tiff, no…” 
His voice trailed off before he could finish the sentence. 
Chiho Sasaki, “Chi” to her workmates, was a crew member Maou had more or less personally raised from her first day forward. She was one of those rare teenage girls with a real talent for customer service. A career in the hospitality industry may well be waiting for her someday. 
What she also was, was the only girl in Japan who knew that Maou was the demonic overlord of another planet, and that Emi was the Hero who looked forward to violently murdering him. 
Not that Chiho’s knowledge of these events particularly bothered either party. They made no special effort to ensure the girl kept it a secret, and they didn’t expend any magic attempting to erase her memory. 
Chiho, for her part, wasn’t the kind of modern Japanese citizen who’d go around shouting, That guy’s the demonic overlord of another planet! No one would believe her, and she knew any efforts along those lines were futile. 
A more relevant concern was that, two months after the battle against Lucifer—where Chiho stumbled upon all these unbelievable truths—she was still being oddly standoffish around Maou. 
She wasn’t terrorized by working at MgRonald alongside a bloodthirsty alien monster. Even Maou was starting to twig to the fact that the cause lay elsewhere. 
Kisaki, gauging Maou’s response, squinted coldly at him. 
“Well, if whatever it is starts affecting our daily sales, you’ll wish you were in Trinidad and Tobago.” 
The aura she projected instantly flipped itself into Northern Arctic Blizzard mode. 
“You’d probably wind up somewhere like Greenland instead.” 
“What, above the Arctic Circle?! Does anyone even live there?” 
“Well, that’s pretty rude to the Greenlanders, don’t you think? Greenland’s part of the kingdom of Denmark; it’s got its own parliament and everything. Over one hundred thousand people live there! There’s even a movement to make it independent from…” 
“I didn’t ask for geographical trivia, and besides, I’m not going anywhere near there! What do you mean by ‘whatever it is’…?” 
“I mean, if some young new manager can do the work but has trouble dealing with a teenage girl taking a fancy to him, then fine. That, I can laugh off. But if that trouble starts affecting my bottom line…don’t expect any mercy.” 
The very definition of straight talk. A palpable dizziness swayed Maou’s mind, forcing him to lean against the front counter for balance. 
Indeed, Maou may not have realized it, but Chiho had fostered some real feelings for him as they worked together on the front lines of fast food. And even now, when she knew he was the Devil King, it was still the case. 
“I mean, you know, am I going to have to bar female employees from working with you, or what?” 
Kisaki continued her rant, unaware or simply uninterested in Maou’s emotions. 
The clock inexorably wore on, and before he realized it, it was almost five PM. He had trouble staying calm, but nevertheless bellowed a hearty “Welcome to MgRonald!” when the automatic door opened in front of him. 
“Oh, um, h-hello.” 
Chiho Sasaki was reporting to work, still dressed in a summer outfit. She clumsily greeted Maou at the counter. 
“Uh…mm…hey.” 
They spoke to each other the bare minimum amount necessary to perform their work duties, but otherwise, the amount of daily chitchat had plummeted. Even today, Maou had no idea where to even begin mending the fences. 
“Oh, hey there, Chi.” 
A voice sounded out to his side. 
“Uh… Oh! Um, good afternoon, Ms. Kisaki!” 
The look Kisaki gave Chiho was one of delighted interest, a complete 180 from what she had for Maou. 
“Go get changed, okay? Maou’s gonna have a lot of work to do starting tomorrow, so he’ll probably have a lot to discuss with you, too.” 
“Ah…uh, yeah. Sorry.” 
Chiho nodded, then walked past Maou’s side and into the staff room behind the counter. She was mere inches from him, and they didn’t even make eye contact. 
“Heh. Looks like a terminal case.” 
Kisaki grinned to herself as she saw Chiho off. 
“I have to admit, this is leaving me ever-so-slightly worried as I leave the store in your capable hands.” 
“Ever so slightly…? I know Chi and I are a little awkward with each other right now, but it’s not like we’re fighting or anything. It’s not going to affect our work at all,” Maou half whined, half defended himself as he stared at the staff-room door. 
“Well, even if you’re fine with it, Chi might not be so much.” 
The words breezed out of Kisaki’s mouth. Maou looked at her, surprised. 
“We may all just be cogs in the huge machine that we call the MgRonald Corporation, but before that, we’re human beings. You can’t get a bead on how people interact with each other from a single viewpoint. Even if you try to, it’s not going to improve things around the workplace.” 
“You…think? I suppose so.” 
Maou cast his eyes downward. The observation made him realize exactly how shallow he was being. Then, with consummate timing, Kisaki lightened the mood. 
“Ahh, you’ll be fine. Chi’s still young. Inexperienced. She just needs a little while longer to get herself together. Once the right spark comes along, she’ll be back to normal in no time.” 
In terms of life experience, Maou had an advantage of several centuries over both Chiho and Kisaki. On paper, at least. Unfortunately, the sort of experience he’d gained over those many years was nothing he could apply to this thorny affair. 
But, as he soon realized, Kisaki’s advice, while not solving the problem, did help relieve the load on his mind a little. He took a long, hard look at his boss, like he suddenly knew everything about her. 
“I have to hand it to you, Ms. Kisaki. You’re really something.” 
“Hey, it’s just work drama. Get as old as I am, and it starts to come naturally.” 
Still a bit lost in the fog, Maou tried his hardest to focus on the predinner rush checklist. Kisaki stopped him. 
“Let’s have Chi handle that, shall we? I want to take a close look at how she works while we’re not busy.” 
“Um, sure…” 
Kisaki plucked the check sheet from Maou’s hands. 
“Better take your break while you still can, Marko. You can go out and have dinner as long as you’re back by six…unless you wanted to eat here?” 
Maou shook his head at the invite. 
“Thanks, but I’ll take my break in the staff room. I brought a bento box along today.” 
“A bento, huh? Starting to cook for yourself a little? Well, just make sure whatever you cook doesn’t start rotting in this heat before you can eat it. That goes double in a food-service job like this. Keep your bento in a cool, dark place, and don’t forget to stick a dried umeboshi plum in there to absorb the moisture.” 
Maou nodded. This was all common sense. 
“I’m all squared away there. I’d be in trouble if I couldn’t work, after all. Anyway, see you after my break.” 
Maou set his time-clock code to BREAK, then ventured into the staff room. 
Immediately he ran into Chiho, who had just stepped out of the women’s changing area. 
“Oh…” 
Chiho, realizing Maou was there, swallowed nervously, averting her eyes. 
“Uh…so, I’m going on break for a second. Ms. Kisaki said she wanted to check out your, like, work ethic or whatever before we got busy.” 
“A-all right…” 
She nodded, hands held forward as if holding a hot potato in front of her chest, then started to pass by Maou’s side when: 
“…?” 
Noticing Maou take a package out of his messenger bag, wrapped in a bandanna he purchased at the local one-hundred-yen shop, Chiho stopped for a moment. 
“Maou, is that…?” 
It was one of the rare occasions in the past two months when Chiho actually initiated conversation with him. 
Maou unwrapped the bandanna, revealing a dual-tier bento box, both on the large side and featuring a design that was just a little too gaudy for a man to comfortably sport around. 
Then he brought it up to face level. 
“This? Just a bento meal.” 
“A bento…? That’s kind of a cute pattern on it. Did Ashiya buy it on sale or something?” 
Being aware of Maou’s true colors, Chiho had naturally met Ashiya before. She was also aware of his demonic origins, as well as his role tending to the household chores and Maou’s self-centered demands. 
It was a harmless enough question, but Maou, blessed with the first chance at a decent conversation in two months, put little thought into it before giving his honest answer. 
“Nah, I borrowed it from my neighbor. Did I mention that? Someone moved in next door a little while ago.” 
“Someone moved in? …Into that apartment?” 
Chiho’s eyes opened wide in innocent surprise. She knew the state of squalor he lived in, of course. But his next few words were enough to make her entire body freeze. 
“Yeah. It’s this girl, actually…” 
“This girl?!” 
“Whoa! You don’t have to yell like that.” 
Chiho’s bloodcurdling scream was enough to make Maou jump. Chiho ignored the rebuke. 
“Y-you, you borrowed a bento box from, from this young girl? What on earth is—” 
“Hey, Chi, stop shaking me!” 
Before he knew it, Chiho had grabbed the collar of Maou’s work uniform, pulling it to and fro. 
“S-so, so, so, this girl…this girl lent it to you, Maou…” 
“Y-y-y-yeah. Yeah, so please stop shaking me, Chi…” 
The Devil King was physically helpless against a teenage girl. 
“I…I really don’t want to imagine this…like, really, really don’t want to! But…but did she make it?” 
The whites of her eyes shone as she glared at Maou, hands still firmly gripping his shirt. The look of desperation on her face was nothing like the standoffishness he’d had to deal with these past two months. 
The girl he was talking about was Suzuno Kamazuki, and with Ashiya still bedridden—okay, floor-ridden—and incapable of much physically, it was none other than Suzuno who’d obediently volunteered to whip up a bento for Maou instead. 
Between the udon she lugged over on moving day and the ginger and whatnot she had today, Suzuno had no qualms with bringing her own ingredients into Devil’s Castle and whipping up meals for them on the spot. 
The demons, of course, had no room to complain. The ice was firmly broken with their new neighbor, and the savings in their food budget were proving to be substantial. But Maou had never even dreamed that this arrangement would prove to be such a minefield later on. 
“I…I…I guess she did, probably. I think.” 
Chiho was no longer in any mood to accept Maou’s feeble attempts at muddling the bare truth. 
“C-c-can, can, can, can…” 
“Can?” 
“Can, can I take a look at, at what’s inside?” 
“Yes! Yes, so stop shaking me! Please!” 
Finally removing her hands from Maou’s collar, Chiho warily peered into Maou’s open bento box, almost scared to see what was inside. 
The topmost tier of the box was packed to the gills with little side dishes in a dazzling array of colors. Chiho’s face stiffened at first sight of the deluxe spread before her, but the next thing she noticed made her blink in confusion. 
It was the braised burdock root that caught her attention first. Followed by the chikuzenni—braised chicken and vegetables. Then the kikka-kabu, the baby turnips steeped in salt water and cut into flowery shapes. Then the vinegar-marinated sliced carrots and daikon radish. Then the kuri kinton sweets made of chestnut paste. 
“Osechi…?” 
“Osechi? Which?” 

Maou asked reluctantly, not having had any past experience with the traditional Japanese New Year’s cuisine, which is often the most money a family spends on a single meal all year. Chiho shook her head. 
“Let me see the bottom tier!” 
She whisked away the topmost box. 
What unfolded before her was all too expected, which made it all the more horrifying for her to see. 
Atop a bed of white rice was an enormous heart-shaped design made of seaweed, bordered by an enclosed row of fresh dried plums. 
 
Even after night fell, the heat wave dominating Tokyo showed no signs of dissipating. 
“’Lo…” 
As Emi stepped into Friend Market, the convenience store on Nanohana Street nearest to her home in Eifukucho, she was greeted by a clerk whose passion for customer service was a far cry from Maou’s. 
Emi, the only customer in the store, breathed a blissful sigh upon feeling the AC on her forehead, then made a beeline for the bento corner. 
“…I always wind up buying the same thing, don’t I?” 
Emi muttered it to herself as she reached for a plastic-wrapped curry meal with the improbably long title HEALTHY FILL-UPS—SUMMER VEGETABLE CURRY! ALL THIS AND ONLY 1500 CALORIES! Figuring this wouldn’t be quite enough, she also picked up a small package of coleslaw, a cup of instant soup, and an éclair for dessert, stacking all of it above the curry package. 
With any of her curry dinner’s alleged health benefits now thoroughly neutralized, Emi strode to the cash register. 
Working at a call center guaranteed that she never had to worry about unscheduled overtime, but thanks to her earlier stop at Hatagaya for the purposes of her Hero duties, she was coming home quite late tonight. 
Out of the four days she had kept her vigil going, this was undoubtedly the most tumultuous. Thus Emi decided that a stop by Maou’s workplace would be in order. Boarding the Keio New Line, she disembarked at Hatagaya station and took up her favored position at the magazine rack in the bookstore opposite MgRonald, the ideal location for her stakeout. 
But—and she had a feeling this would be the case—all this earned her was the right to stare at Maou, his manager, and Chiho Sasaki, the only Japanese person who knew the truth about him, as they dutifully carried out their shifts. The full stalker experience, in other words. 
“’Eat it up ’ere?” 
She nodded at the clerk, who had the enigmatic habit of omitting syllables here and there, as her purchases were totaled up. 
Something seemed unfair about all this. Thanks to a generous neighbor, Maou was eating like a king, and meanwhile Emi was wasting time and energy and being rewarded for it with artery-clogging convenience-store food. 
“’nk youuu. Come back soooon.” 
Emi picked up the plastic bag housing the warm curry, turning toward the exit, when: 
“!!” 
She flinched and looked upward, feeling a clear and present murderous rage fixated upon her. 
Summer or not, going home from work or not, no longer able to live without air-conditioning or not, Emi had a trained sixth sense for this that had never left her. 
Especially when her own life was involved. 
So by the time the black shadow which suddenly appeared lunged at her like an enraged murderer, at a speed no Japanese person could ever manage to top, Emi was already positioned for battle. 
And when, thanks to this excessive speed on the shadow’s part, her assailant failed to notice the automatic door slowly lumbering open between it and Emi, crashing straight into the clear glass door and falling down with a thud, Emi didn’t move an inch from her fighting stance. 
“Nn? Whuzzat?” 
The clerk, apparently a native speaker of mole-people language, shot a glance toward Emi. 
Beyond the glass door, still lumbering open but now cracked, Emi’s diminutive assailant lay on the ground, dressed in a shiny plastic rain poncho, camouflage pants, and a black ski mask, looking the part of a bank robber who’d just darted out of the barber after a quick haircut to hide his identity. 
The weight of his body kept the sensor activated, allowing the door to remain open and the cold air inside to swarm out of the entrance. 
Emi tossed her bag on the floor and slinked toward the register to put her purchases down, wanting to be rid of her luggage as soon as possible. 
“Sssir, y’all right?” 
The clerk leaped out from behind the counter, mistaking this new guest for someone who just had an unfortunate accident. It wasn’t until he approached the door when the assailant’s out-of-place clothing gave him pause. 
“Get away!” 
From the side, Emi pushed the frozen clerk out of the way. He barreled into the rack of free help-wanted magazines, surprised at this sudden attack, but the effort ultimately saved his life. 
A blade of light ripped through the space where the clerk once stood. Emi felt a large, weighted mass fly by, scraping her shoulder, reducing the sleeve of her shirt to ribbons, and worst of all, cleaving the bag with her just-purchased bento cleanly in half. 
Emi, checking to ensure the clerk was still on the ground, was quick to react. 
“Heavenly Wind Blade!!” 
Without a moment’s hesitation, Emi launched her holy sword, the Better Half, at the bizarrely dressed burglar who’d just destroyed her sleeve and dinner. 
The guided shock wave released by the sword in her right hand slammed against the assailant, sending him flying outside of the store with a loud crash. 
“Stay in here and call the police!” 
She didn’t know if the clerk was listening, but Emi shot out of the store before he could have an opportunity to see her sword, pursuing the plainly suspicious-looking suspect. 
But another flash of cleaving light was waiting for her from the side as she exited. 
Emi deflected the bolt with a deft turn of her holy sword. The clang of metal against metal echoed. She leaped, attempting to get above the head of this ambusher. 
“Heavenly Fleet Feet!!” 
Focusing the powers of the Cloth of the Dispeller that lurked within her squarely upon her legs, Emi jumped forward and landed cleanly on the roof of the house across the street. 
It was no physical feat any regular person could have managed, but the ski-masked burglar’s eyes never turned away from her. 
Emi went through the effort of summoning her holy sword and Cloth without hesitation because she realized that, apart from his crazy garb, this was no ordinary thug she was dealing with. 
No mere burglar, for one, would have an enormous scythe in hand. 
It was the kind of scythe most people only see on the Death tarot card, one just as tall as the masked assailant wielding it, easily capable of cutting in half three or so human beings in a single swipe. 
The stylistically mismatched burglar had nothing like that in hand during that first headlong lunge into the convenience-store door. 
Unlike the sort of weapons most would-be felons tend to prefer, this was nothing one could easily hide in a pocket or violin case. 
Considering the clang of metal when that scythe met Emi’s holy sword, and considering the scythe was solid enough to withstand Emi’s blade in the first place, and considering how this maniac seemingly produced it from thin air, there was no way this fashion disaster was from Earth. 
“I don’t know if you’re human or a demon or whatever, but why are you attacking me in public like this?!” 
Emi began by giving her attacker her honest opinion. 
“I don’t care about myself, but if you’re going to hurt the people of Japan, don’t expect any mercy from me!” 
Bringing Better Half level with her body, she kept it high as she leaped off the roof. 
“Rrnnnngh!” 
The fall was driven by more than just momentum. It was an all-out bullrush toward her foe, powered by the maximum amount of force the Cloth covering her legs allowed. 
But her assailant remained still, scythe at the ready, before swiping it downward in a grand arc. 
Emi had predicted the move; her sword was deflected, but she used the momentum to twist her body around and unleash a rear kick with her left foot. 
The Cloth-powered kick, stabbing with Emi’s full strength, rammed into her opponent’s left shoulder. 
Even though she had this foe off guard, simply flailing away wouldn’t end the battle. Aiming for a KO, Emi prepared to rush at the dazed burglar, targeting the solar plexus. 
Then, at just that moment, the scythe-wielder released a flash of light from beneath the ski mask. 
The purple, beamlike flash would have seemed like a terrible ’80s direct-to-video special effect to the casual observer, but Emi, feeling a cold rush down her spine, cut through the blast with her sword. 
Something within Emi said that under absolutely no circumstances should she let that beam touch her. 
But what happened next was far beyond anything Emi could imagine. 
“Huh…?!” 
The holy sword was robbed of its light. 
Better Half, the sword that resonated with the holy force inside of Emi, began to flicker like an almost-spent lightbulb, shrinking down to the size of a long dagger. 
Emi brought the sword back, trying to return it to its original “phase one” size, but the scythe-wielder continued with the barrage of purple light, all too ready to overwhelm her. 
“Wh-what the hell is this?!” 
The blasts were not that rapid in succession, but Emi had never heard of a force powerful enough to literally shrink her holy sword. She was at a loss to imagine what a direct hit would do to her body, but she was no longer able to brush the attacks off with her sword. In a moment, the tables had turned. 
Emi found herself in a panic at this unexpected attacker, someone who she surmised must have been an assassin from Ente Isla. But the battle against this light-emitting, scythe-slashing maniac ended in equally unexpected fashion. 
“Ngh!” 
Suddenly, the scythe-wielder groaned as the barrage of purple light ceased. 
Surprised, Emi looked over to find that the assailant’s drab-colored ski mask had transformed into a fluorescent orange, right down to the eyes themselves. 
“No!” 
Now it was a round, orange blast of…something that crossed Emi’s line of view, accompanied by a male voice. 
The ball struck the scythe-wielder on the shoulder, spreading bright orange across most of the assailant’s Windbreaker. 
Emi flashed a quizzical look back at the convenience store. 
There stood the clerk in his full glory, now outside of his shop and throwing antitheft paintballs at the assailant. 
Emi’s assailant was unflinchingly on the offensive during this entire battle, but now was lying on the ground in agony, face covered by a hand. Some of the paint must have seeped through the ski mask. 
“Hey…” 
This show of brute courage threw Emi. Having pride in one’s work duties is fine and all, but those paintballs were meant to help pursue fleeing criminals. Apart from the special scent agents they were laced with, they couldn’t have packed that powerful a punch. 
If the scythe-wielder decided to lash out against this new attacker, Emi had little means to stop the attack. Emi turned toward her assailant— 
“Huh…?” 
—only to find her powerful opponent fleeing, back turned, stumbling wildly back and forth across the street. 
“…Uhhhh.” Emi groaned to herself. 
“N-no! Get back ’ere!!” The clerk, meanwhile, was unfazed, continuing the paintball assault as his downed foe lurched off. 
All they could hear was a ball or two splattering against something a bit away in the darkness. It was hard to tell if any of them hit home. 
Emi dissipated her sword back within her body as quickly as she could. The only thought in her mind was: Come on, really? 
Here was this obvious assassin from Ente Isla, first bashing straight into an automatic door, then summoning this gigantic scythe before tasting shameful defeat by a cashier with some paintballs? How did that happen? 
Avoiding pointless conflict was something to be celebrated, of course, but this climax was enough to make any Hero lose their enthusiasm for the whole Hero gig. 
“Oh! Yer aright, ma’am?!” 
The clerk finally noticed Emi, still caught up in the heat of the moment. Emi had silently sheathed her sword and Cloth of the Dispeller within her while the scythe-wielding maniac fled, but it could easily have been noticed if the clerk had kept a cooler head. 
“Are you okay? I’m sorry I pushed you away like that.” 
“Ah, no biggie. Jus’ kinda hit my ’ead a little.” 
There was a red mark on his forehead from where he no doubt plunged headfirst into the help-wanted-magazine rack. That beat being freed of his intestines if he had run straight for that freaky burglar, of course. 
“Should we call the police or something?” 
“Oh, yeah, the silent ’larm shoulda already called the security dudes ’n the cops for us!” 
Then the clerk picked up Emi’s hand, suddenly remembering something. 
“Oh, ’n, uh, so the ’mployee manual sezzat I needa keep alla customers ’nside. You mind waitin’ a sec ’til the cops show up?” 
“Uh.” 
Emi groaned. The police had a crime scene to inspect, after all, and at least a couple of witnesses to speak with. This wasn’t what she’d expected. 
How long would the cops need to complete their investigation? 
“…Umm, sure, no problem.” 
It occurred to her that she could leave her cell phone and ID and ask to take a quick trip back to her apartment. She vetoed the idea at once. It wasn’t in her best interest to further interrupt her private time with yet another visit to her neighborhood convenience store later on. 
It wasn’t a matter of whether she trusted the clerk or not; it was just the sort of self-defense mechanism any single woman in Tokyo was equipped with. 
Dejectedly, she went back inside to her shredded shopping bag. Inside, the curry, coleslaw, and éclair were mixed together in a pulp, like a particularly whimsical pizza. 
Emi plucked out the lone survivor in the bag before turning toward the clerk. 
“Can I get some hot water? I’m hungry, so I’m hoping I could at least have the soup while I’m waiting.” 
Turning to a water kettle in the corner, the clerk filled up the crushed soup container with steaming liquid before inviting Emi into a seat in the back office. 
Looking around the one place in the convenience store she’d never seen before, Emi found herself muttering. 
“Well, that fight sure cost me.” 
The Better Half sword she manifested this time was restricted to its phase one form, but contained a level of force that was incomparable to what she had handy against Lucifer two months ago. At this rate, she had no doubt that phase two would be accessible to her, even with her Cloth of the Dispeller fully deployed. 
That made it all the more urgent that she found out what that purple light was, exactly. She had never run into a foe capable of essentially annulling her holy powers. 
Sipping at the soup after letting it seep in water for a minute, Emi gritted her teeth in frustration. It was already shaping up to be a lonely night, and the events carried out by that weirdo scythe-wielding burglar maniac only served to make her feel smaller. 
The next time they met, she swore she would slash this mystery assailant in half before any more strange, otherworldly abilities became involved. 
“Uh, ma’am, this’s yers?” 
The clerk stepped back in, carrying the shoulder bag Emi tossed away the moment all this began. 
“Oh, sorry. Thanks.” 
It had completely escaped her mind. The clerk pointed at it as she took it from him. 
“Uhh, I think th’ phone’s goin’ off ’r something…” 
“Huh? Oh. Ah!” 
Blushing instinctively, Emi plucked the vibrating phone out from the bag. 
She must have forgotten to put it on mute. It was playing a sonorous rendition of the theme from Maniac Shogun, one of her favorite samurai dramas, at max volume. 
“Uh…ha-ha-ha-ha! You’d, uh, you’d be surprised how addictive that show is.” 
Making excuses she had no reason to make, Emi brought the phone up against her face. 
“Yusa! Yusa, something’s up with Maou!” 
The frenzied scream from the phone made Emi move her head away. 
Chiho Sasaki’s name and phone number were displayed on-screen. Almost spilling her soup in surprise, Emi flashed a confused look at the girl’s chosen way to start the conversation before reluctantly bringing the phone back to her ear. 
“Ch-Chiho? What’s going on?” 
“Maou! Maou, Maou…” 
“What about him? Is he dead?” 
Emi, far too depressed at the moment to want to think about anything even resembling Maou, let the rather extreme question form on her lips. 
She knew full well that Chiho had feelings for Maou. 
After the battle two months ago, she’d given her contact information to Chiho, partly to ensure her safety and partly to keep tabs on what Maou got up to during work hours. They’d enjoyed the occasional rambling text- or voice-based conversation about nothing in particular since. 
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary between them at MgRonald earlier today, making Emi wonder what could possibly make her so hysterical, when: 
“No, he brought a bento in! A homemade bento!” 
The voice was tear-laced as it reported the awful truth. 
Swallowing a mouthful of soup, Emi tried to figure out why this would make anyone want to cry. 
“A bento? So what? The food at MgRonald isn’t free. Ashiya’s probably needling him to cook at home more often. What’s so unusual about…” 
“It’s not Ashiya! It’s a big heart mark with a bento—girl, homemade, two tiers!!” 
“All right, could you calm down a little and get your nouns and verbs and stuff in the right order?” 
Emi smirked to herself. Now she knew why Chiho was so worked up. 
That thoughtless Maou must’ve done something to hurt a woman’s feelings again. 
“So who’s it from? That girl who moved in next to them?” 
“You knew about that, Yusa?! And you’re willing to put up with that?!” 
“Huh? Put up with what?” 
Where did that question come from? It’s not like Emi cared whose cooking Maou decided to shovel into his mouth. Besides, she’d kind of just had her own dinner scythed. 
“I…don’t see why I wouldn’t. I mean, sure, if the Devil King gets in better shape, that might put the entire world in danger someday in the long term, but I can’t watch over every single decision in his life.” 
Suzuno Kamazuki was certainly a girl with a boundless reserve of naïveté, but Japan’s a big country. It may be hard for a dyed-in-the-wool Tokyoite to imagine, but the daughter of an old, traditional family from out in the boonies may just live that sort of lifestyle, even today. 
And if Maou was going to do anything that’d put her in danger, he would have done it long ago, during the several-days-long period when Emi wasn’t aware of Suzuno’s existence. 
Emi mulled over this while sipping another mouthful. 
“And you still call yourself a Hero, Yusa?!” 
The indignant rebuke made Emi hold the phone away for a moment again. 
“What if that next-door neighbor is some bad guy or assassin who’s thinking up ways to kill Maou and his pals? What then?” 
“……” 
Not even Emi was expecting that from Chiho’s mouth. It stunned her into silence. 
“And besides, don’t you think it’s all just a little too weird? These three guys, all living in a cramped, decrepit apartment—they’ve plainly got no money, and they’re not particularly cool or whatever anyway, and this girl just moves right in and gets that close to them? That just doesn’t happen! Maou told me it was just a neighborly gift, but what kind of girl would do that for a neighbor, a complete stranger she just met a few days ago?!” 
“…I know I’m not in any position to ask, but you do like him, right, Chiho?” 
The amount of abuse Chiho was laying upon Maou’s feet was harsh enough that Emi somehow felt obliged to check. 
“Well, I’m just saying, I’m about the only girl who would even think about doing something like that!” 
She thought she was the only exception in the world. Young love can be blind like that sometimes. 
Even so, Emi had seen for herself how deeply Suzuno had ingratiated herself with the denizens of Devil’s Castle. She’d heard the woman herself express a keen interest in the Devil King. 
Along those lines, Chiho plainly had larger threats to her life than some box lunch. 
But, recalling the events at the Devil’s Castle this morning, Emi suddenly realized something else. 
She had given Suzuno her contact information. In great detail, no less. 
Emi reasoned the girl could use some other female friends in Tokyo, but on the very day the Devil’s Castle changed before her eyes and she gave her contact info to a girl upon their first meeting, she was attacked by a scythe-wielding maniac. 
Was that related somehow? 
But it was hard to imagine such a prim, proper woman, so stately in her traditional kimono, going around in that hilariously unstylish outfit. The only thing the two shared in common were their relatively small frames. 
Still… thought Emi as she collected herself. 
Was it ever truly a coincidence if huge events befell the Hero and the Devil King…at the same time? 
The battle against Lucifer and Olba two months ago flashed across her mind. 
“Yusa? Hey, Yusa?” 
Emi’s self-immersion was ruined by Chiho calling her name. 
“Oh! Sorry. I was just thinking about something.” 
“Well, look, Yusa. You’re the Hero, right? So you’re gonna have to defeat Maou sometime, right?!” 
Emi swallowed. It was like Chiho had her physically cornered in the back office. 
“I… Well, yeah, pretty much, but…” 
“So, you know, if you wanted to help me out…” 
Emi, who had no idea how her plan to mercilessly slay Maou would help out his would-be girlfriend, waited for Chiho to continue.