THE DEVIL IS DEFEATED BY THE HERO
“Here you go…”
Preparing the best tea she had around the house, Riho gingerly offered a cup to her guest—a woman smaller than her, but nonetheless about the same age. Someone she knew well.
“Oh, thank youuu! I’m so sorry to drop in this late at niiight…”
“No, it’s…fine.”
“Not to pryyy, but is your husband here?”
Riho understood what her guest was driving at. “No, he won’t be around for a while.”
“…All riiight,” came the reply with a nod. “Again, sorry to bother you. I’ll leave as soon as my duty is done here. If I’m in the way, I could wait in your daughter’s bedroom instead…?”
The offer was sincere. Riho mulled for a moment, then sat across from her guest and shook her head. “…No, you can wait here. It’s pretty normal for a father not to know her daughter’s friends…and she might get angry if I let someone into her room without permission.”
“…All right. Thank you.”
The guest, understanding Riho’s logic, bowed her head a bit. It was a little past ten in the evening, much too late for an informal gathering like this.
A new voice came in through the entrance. “Hi! Boy, am I tired… Hey, Mom, I’m hungry—huh?”
“Hellooo.”
“Emeralda? What’s up?”
Chiho, fresh from her prep school, was ready to relax after a long day, only to be surprised by Emeralda’s presence. The sorcerer, dressed in her palace robes, gave Chiho a grand bow, the sort one delivered to a member of Saint Aile nobility—something far more formal than what she gave Riho.
“Madam Chairman,” she said, head still down, “please forgive me for calling so late at night, and without warning.”
“E-Emeralda?!”
“I know, as a member of a summit, such behavior deserves to be criticized…but I received the permission of Ms. Shiba to make the trip, and of your mother to wait for you here.”
“Um, okay…”
Chiho stood there confused for a moment, bag still on her shoulder.
“Ms. Shiba…? The landlord, you mean, or Amane?”
“Ms. Shiba put in a good word for me through Amane Ohguro.”
“Ch-Chiho…?” Riho wasn’t sure what to make of the atmosphere between Emeralda and Chiho. She froze, half-standing up from her seat.
“…”
But the intensity melted from Chiho’s face the moment she heard Emeralda’s reply.
“Oh, Amane… Why now, after everything…?”
She shrugged, now looking several times more exhausted than before. Then she turned her back to the still-bowed Emeralda.
“Would you like to talk in my room? Or…would you like to go look now?” Chiho asked.
Emeralda grinned. “Not to ask in front of your motherrr, but would you like to go enjoy the niiightlife a little?”
“Uhh…Mom?”
“Y-yes?”
“We’re gonna go out on a walk, so could you lock the window in my room after we go?”
“Huh? The window?”
One minute later, Riho watched out her own bedroom window as her daughter disappeared into the night sky on Emeralda’s back. Chiho was concerned, apparently, that going out at night with Emeralda dressed as she was would attract undue attention from the authorities.
“…This isn’t what I would call ‘enjoying the nightlife,’ exactly…”
As a mother, she couldn’t erase her concern.
“I hope she’ll at least come back through the front door.”
“I’m truuuly sorry! When I heard about it, I just couldn’t stay puuut!”
Emeralda’s voice didn’t make her sound very sorry as it floated across the night air. Chiho rolled her eyes and gave her a pinch on the cheek.
“Aren’t you the one who told all the members not to contact me more than strictly necessary? If everyone else finds out, don’t expect me to defend you.”
“That’s fiiine. I’m speciaaal! You may not remember, since you’ve known Emilia and the Devil King for a whiiile, but if push comes to shove, I’m at least as powerful as Emiliaaa! Like a tactical nuuuke!”
“…And the scary part is that it’s true, huh? I know what you mean, but right now…”
“Yes, yes, I knooow. I know, but…” Emeralda’s expression froze, making the night air seem all the more frigid. “Thiiiis time… I simply can-noooooot accept this… Really, I’m surprised you can keep your temmmper right now, Chiho.”
“Ugh… Amane’s way out of line…”
Emeralda Etuva was one of the keystones of the “Second Invasion” of Devil’s Castle planned out by Chiho, as well as a member of the summit. She may not have as powerful a political post as the other participants, but her history as a companion to the Hero more than made up for that. They may not stand out as much in their political roles, but Emeralda and Albert, while not as powerful as Emi, were very much a tactical-level force in Ente Isla. And if someone at that level was reaching out to the chairman of the summit meant to work out what postwar Ente Isla would look like, there had to be one reason for that.
“Do Suzuno and Ashiya know about this?”
“Hmmm? That I’m here in Japaaan? Orrr…”
Emeralda turned her head around, smiling like a crazed snake.
“…that Emilia, a woman I value more than my liiife, has been living with the Devil King for quite a long tiiime now?”
“Did Amane phrase it like that? Uggghhh…!”
Amane had to be the leak. Chiho knew that upon realizing Amane was playing customs agent between the two worlds…and if Suzuno knew, that probably meant that Amane had told everyone she could get in contact with. Emeralda had her doubts about it precisely because she knew how Chiho, Maou, and Emi’s relationship worked—but to Chiho, the idea of Maou and Emi living together was actually welcome, if it got them all that much closer to her own aims. That’s why Chiho hadn’t panicked when Suzuno contacted her about it from Ente Isla—in fact, it helped her settle on her strategy for the upcoming summit.
“…It’s still before eleven. I think Maou and Yusa are closing tonight, but where are you going to wait for them?”
“Where eeelse? I know the perfect spot over there, don’t I?”
“Agh!”
With that, Emeralda made a nosedive for the neighborhood of Hatagaya.
They landed in a deserted alley behind a mixed-use building, then walked right through the door of a certain nearby establishment.
“Good evening— Hmm?”
The man behind the counter welcomed them with a quizzical look.
“Chiho Sasaki? Why are you here so late? …Ah.”
Mitsuki Sarue, manager at Sentucky Fried Chicken, lifted his eyebrows at the sight of Chiho and her partner.
“…Are you Emeralda Etuva, then?” he asked, surprised all over again.
“Hellooo, Archangel Sarielll! I hope you’re doing well. I had a little bizzzness in the area, so we’ll just sit here until clooosing time, okay? Oh, Chiho, can you order me some maple cookies and hot tea with miiilk? You can get what you want with thiiis.”
Emeralda took out a ten-thousand-yen bill—where she got it from, nobody knew—and handed it to Chiho before walking toward a booth. Chiho watched her go, then turned toward Sariel…only to be startled by his reproachful look.
“Chiho Sasaki… I know a pretty strange crowd’s been shuffling through MgRonald lately. What did you do this time?”
“Oh, ah, uh… Nothing?”
“Do you think you’re convincing me at all? Or would you like me to have you read my full report on how it felt to have Ms. Kisaki call me by my real name over the phone?”
“I—I’m sorry…”
“Look, whatever you’re up to, I’m not gonna interfere. I’m not going to get involved at all, in fact! But! If you mess with the happy future Ms. Kisaki and I will have, you’ll pay dearly for it!”
“Ah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’ll be more careful, okay?!”
As much as she wanted to question how probable that “happy future” was, Chiho knew now wasn’t the time. This was her fault, after all.
“Careful or not, I can’t have this happen again, all right? So! One order of maple cookies, one hot tea with milk, and what do you want—mmph!”
“Hyah?!”
Suddenly, Sariel was slapped in the back of the head with something brown and plastic. It was an SFC tray, and a female employee was wielding it behind him.
“Why are you being so rude to a customer?”
“F…Furuya…”
The woman he called Furuya pushed his wide-eyed face to the side and stood in front of Chiho.
“Please excuse Mr. Sarue, my manager. May I take your order?”
“Oh, ah, um, I—I’ll just have an Original Chicken set…”
Her name tag read KANAKO FURUYA, a name Chiho was familiar with—she had heard that Furuya was the only SFC team member who knew how to keep Sariel under control. The moment she saw the name, she wound up going for a full value meal, the concept of occupying a booth all night with nothing but a small drink making her feel too guilty.
“Okay, we’ll have that out for you right away… Move it, Manager!”
“Nnngh…”
Sariel groaned as he began preparing the order. Chiho wondered who the manager really was around here, but as she did, Furuya spoke up again.
“……You’re Chiho Sasaki, right?”
“Huh?”
“I think this is the first time we’ve had a chance to speak. My name’s Furuya, and I’m a shift manager at the Hatagaya SFC.”
“Ah…”
“I heard that you and Mr. Maou took care of Sarue during his visits to MgRonald since back when Ms. Kisaki was running things. Let me apologize for all the trouble he’s caused.”
“N-no, um, he’s a customer like anyone else, and, uh, he’s really not a bad person or anything, so…”
“Maybe not, but he’s a mystery man, you know? He has a lot of secrets. And at the same time, he’s always letting his guard down.”
It sounded so natural, flowing out from Kanako, that Chiho almost missed it entirely—but the meaning behind the words said a lot to her.
“M…Ms. Furuya…? What do you mean by that…?”
“Well, Akiko Ohki and I actually go back a number of years. That, and I know Ms. Kisaki called Sarue a few days ago about some sort of…news that unnerved him. I wheedled the truth out of him, and he just said she was confirming something she didn’t have a chance to ask him before now. The way he acted, you’d think she caught him cheating on his wife or something. He was worthless the rest of the shift that day. It was just exasperating!”
“Oh…um…”
Chiho froze. This wasn’t what she’d expected. Kanako knew Akiko well; Sariel was freaking out a few days ago; he said something about it to Kanako; and now she was speaking in riddles to Chiho, a girl she wouldn’t have known much. Chiho wasn’t dumb enough to think all these coincidences in a row didn’t mean anything.
“Ms. Sasaki?”
“Y-yes?!”
“Your order’s ready right here.”
Realizing her chicken value meal was waiting for her, Chiho hurriedly picked it up.
“Enjoy…”
Somehow maintaining his composure as an SFC employee, Sariel retired back to the kitchen. Chiho saw him go, then—quickly snapping out of it—took her tray with a light bow and stepped away from the counter.
“Um, sorry to bother you during work…”
“Not at all. Oh, and Ms. Sasaki?”
“Yes?!”
But she was stopped once again.
“To tell the truth, you know, I’ve been doing this part-time since I was in high school.”
“Uh-huh…”
“I first took this job at a location in Hatsudai, close to Shinjuku, but then they opened this spot near my home and I joined the opening crew.”
Hatsudai was a station on the Keio New Line, a private rail link connecting to the Toei Shinjuku line. It was just one stop away from Hatagaya.
“Oh, you did?”
Chiho wasn’t sure where was this going. Then Kanako gave her a wink.
“So about a month after I took the job at Hatsudai, the MgRonald here in Hatagaya started taking applications. The SFC in Hatsudai was close to my high school, but I live in Hatagaya, so I remember feeling like ‘Oh man, I messed up.’”
“Oh?”
“Like, ‘If I had chosen MgRonald, where would I be right now?’ kind of thing. Hee-hee…”
Chiho smiled faintly, but kept her guard up. She was no longer the kind of irresolute, weak-hearted girl to let this throw her.
“Ms. Furuya?”
“Yes?”
“Can you tell Mr. Sarue to stop letting private issues outside of work faze him?”
Kanako looked kind of embarrassed for a moment, but quickly grinned and gave her a bow.
“Enjoy your meal!”
Chiho quickly headed back to the booth her companion sat at. Kanako watched her go, looking at the odd clothing on her partner.
“I still find it hard to believe, in a lot of ways…but it’d be neat if it’s true. But meanwhile…”
She turned back toward the kitchen, where the weary-looking Mitsuki Sarue toiled inside.
“…Ugh.”
Kanako sighed a bit, then smiled to herself.
“Meanwhile, I get stuck with this guy. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Did you discusssss something?”
“Oh, um, that employee’s name is Furuya. She knows a lot of the MgRonald staff thanks to all of Sariel’s nonsense, so I told her about me quitting and stuff.”
“Ohhh, I see.”
With her sharp ears and the mostly empty dining space at SPC, Emeralda should’ve been able to listen in on Chiho and Furuya’s conversation. But Kanako Furuya wasn’t going to have any huge impact on Chiho’s and Emeralda’s futures, and even if she did overhear them, Emeralda had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
“Sooo…”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been hearing a lot about what’s up with the Sephiraaah, and the Yesssod, and so forth. But even after asking Bell, and Amaaane, there’s still something I’m not very cleeear on.”
“Um, just to be sure, is it about Yusa and Maou living together?”
“Huh?”
The sudden question threw Emeralda for a loop. She’d already stated this was the topic for the evening, and now Chiho was confirming it again.
“Well, yesss, but…”
“All right. So, what about it?”
“Youuu’re okay with it…?!”
“Okay with Yusa and Maou living together?”
“Isn’t that what I just saaaid?”
Chiho seemed hell-bent on making this conversation go nowhere. It put Emeralda into a rare state of irritation.
“You know what I meeean, right, Chiho? You’re not a chiiild.”
“…I’m sorry, I’m not sure I do.”
“Well, you know, Chiho…” The air around them chilled. “I could understand the Devil King being near to Emilia. But would I tolerate it? No. Not for a single second.”
“…”
“And if you want to spend your days with the Devil King, then by all means, do whatever you like. If the Devil King is willing to live out his days here in Japan, then fine by me. But…”
Emeralda had now flung off her usual softened demeanor. She glared at Chiho.
“But if you’re not willing to serve as the chains that bind the Devil King to this world, then I’m afraid it’s over.”
After a long pause, Chiho said, “……Emeralda?”
“Yes?”
“…First, let me apologize to you. I had Lady Wurs give me profiles on all the summit attendees.”
“…Hee-hee.” That was all the information Emeralda needed for something to dawn in her mind. “Ahh, there’s no beating that old biddy, is there?”
It wasn’t at all like Emeralda. Her face was full of anger as she bit her lip. Chiho gracefully accepted it.
“Emeralda… I understand…you lost your family to the Devil King’s Army as well?”
Before then, Chiho knew nothing at all about Emeralda’s past. She knew it wasn’t the kind of thing Emeralda was eager to discuss. But until things came to this, knowing nothing about the scars borne by a good friend from another world always seemed like a mistake to Chiho.
Emeralda, for her part, wasn’t simple-minded enough to let this cloud her mind.
“It’s not that rare of a thing. I don’t know if you heard, but the same is true for Olba, and for Cervantes as well. Al, even.”
“…”
“But did you hear about this? When Lucifer’s forces rolled into the imperial capital, I…I decided to fully abandon my father’s territories.”
“…Yes, I did.”
“Good. That saves me some time.”
Emeralda took a deep breath, repositioning herself in her seat.
“I was the eldest child of the lord of a decently sized parcel of rural land in Saint Aile. It was out in the country, but our land made a lot of money, so our family always had this ‘nouveau riche’ approach to life. But given the background we had, we knew all too well how important a good education was. Where I come from, it’s a given that the male heirs inherit the family fortunes. But they still sent me to a university in the capital, and I’ll tell you, they had no reason to other than their love for me. That’s the kind of family I decided to abandon.”
“…”
“This was after the decision came that it was impossible to fully defend against the Lucifer force’s offensive. But the Church knights were still as revved-up as ever. During the fighting in the imperial capital, I deliberately shot a bolt of magic at our cathedral. I was frustrated—is this the best our so-called disciples of God can do? But we had word that Adramelech’s forces were approaching from the north. The dominant thought in my mind was, you know, if we send reinforcements to our frontier settlements, we could lose the capital…and in the end, I wound up taken prisoner by Lucifer’s forces.”
Emeralda took a big bite out of a maple cookie with her dainty lips.
“It took a while for me to understand what I had done. It didn’t fully hit me until after Lucifer was defeated and I began traveling with Emilia… The first time I visited Sloane.”
“Sloane… Where Yusa came from?”
“Emilia hadn’t really fully taken on her mission as the Hero yet. When she saw the burned-out remains of the village, she cried the whole night through. Calling for her father, and the names of all the people she knew… And that made me realize: The people I abandoned, they must have been crying out someone’s name as well, as they died there.”
“…”
“But as a central government figure, I made the decision to abandon my family and homeland. The decision itself, I don’t regret making. I am part of nobility. If I played favorites in saving my own kin, it’d be a brutal blow to our family’s honor. Maybe you wouldn’t understand the nature of how that works, growing up in Japan, but that was the norm over there. But…”
She nibbled on the cookie, tears beginning to form in her eyes.
“But I couldn’t abandon my grudge. I couldn’t make the hate go away. I don’t regret the coolheaded politician side of me, but if your entire family is killed, you’re never going to forgive who did it, no matter what the reason was. I had these two polarized sides of me, fighting against each other…and it took protecting Emilia, this sacrifice presented to the Devil King’s Army, to make me whole again. This powerless girl, made into a Hero because of her birth. We were all weak, so we placed everything on her instead. Would you believe that, when she defeated Lucifer, Emilia was even smaller than you are right now, Chiho?”
“…And that’s why you can’t allow Yusa to live with Maou?”
“…No.” Emeralda shook her head. “I don’t really know. Seeing Emilia collapse in tears that day was just crushing to me, but I still don’t know what to do. You say it’s for Alas Ramus’s sake. That’s basically for the world’s sake, and if you take the long view, maybe it would help the world. But…still…” She crushed the cookie in her hand. “Thinking about even the off chance that the hand of Satan, the Devil King, might touch Emilia makes me feel like my heart’s going to explode. The politician side of me says to just calm down and watch. That nothing’s going to happen.”
“Emeralda…”
“But the real me…the me that’s left in this place free of all obligation… Seeing this man who took my homeland and broke my heart in two, being audacious enough to live under the same roof as the woman I swore to protect with my life… The real me is screaming that she’s never going to accept that.”
Chiho sat there, taking the quiet, stern words of the most powerful sorcerer in Ente Isla.
“There’s no way that Alas Ramus is ever going to cozy up to me. Regardless of how true it really is, that’s…the child of Emilia and the Devil King. I just can’t find love for that child. I can’t shake off the notion that she’s the daughter of the Devil King—something that…that Emilia herself has accepted.”
Emeralda wasn’t openly hostile to Alas Ramus, but the child often reacted quite defensively at her displays of emotion. There were times when she even hid from Emeralda behind Emi. Nobody could know whether Emeralda was right about why, but she must have been very confident about it.
“So what am I supposed to do? You have feelings for the Devil King. Why are you willing to let him spend time with another woman? Why?”
It sounded like Emeralda was condemning her—but then again, maybe she was simply asking a question. Either way, it felt to Chiho like this was the first time Emeralda was speaking to her as a real, breathing human being. But the answer had established itself in Chiho’s mind long ago—maybe even before the battle against heaven began.
“You know, Emeralda, the reason I kept asking you whether this was about Maou and Yusa…”
“…Yes?”
“It’s because I thought maybe you had an insight into my true feelings.”
“You’re giving me too much credit. Honestly, I’m not sure I understand what you’re thinking at all lately.”
“Well, until fairly recently, I really wasn’t much more than a leech on Maou and the others.”
“…I wouldn’t go that far.”
Something about Chiho’s aura had definitely changed in recent weeks. At the very least, she seemed not at all like the fleeting, unreliable girl Emeralda thought she was at their first meeting. She was bolder now—Emeralda wondered if she had learned that from Wurs—and she had more of a determined, stubborn streak.
“But in a way, I couldn’t help that. Lately I’m not sure what Maou and everyone else are thinking, and… Well, everyone’s all disconnected about what’ll happen after we help Alas Ramus’s friends.”
“Disconnected?”
“…Yeah.” Chiho nodded, picked up the fry container from her meal, and dumped out the contents on her tray. “Like this.”
“…”
“I think Ashiya’s making a concerted effort to find permanent places around the world for demons to live in. Suzuno… I haven’t asked her, but I’m sure she can’t just quit being Archbishop that easily. Yusa might decide to go to college in Japan, but she might decide to start up her farm in Ente Isla again. Urushihara… Well, I don’t know what’s on his mind, but I’m sure he’ll be happy anywhere he can just laze around and not care about things.”
“…And the Devil King?”
“Maou’s the worst of all. He’s just aimlessly wandering around.”
Chiho picked up a fry—maybe seeing it as Maou in her mind—and tossed it into her mouth.
“He talks about getting a full-time job in Japan, but I think he really does want to help with Ms. Kisaki’s café. And I think he cares about the demons he rules over, too, although it’s really Ashiya running things in that department. He still hasn’t given me an answer, and now he’s running away from Suzuno’s feelings, too. And, you know, once we save Alas Ramus’s friends, what’s going to happen to Alas Ramus? We don’t know. Maybe she’ll live with her friends, maybe she’ll remain with Yusa…or maybe Maou and Yusa really will get married. You know?”
“…I know it’s too late, but don’t you think you should just give up on that man?”
“That would be like asking you to give up on making Yusa happy, Emeralda. We’re all human. We walk the line between rational and irrational behavior.”
Chiho gathered up the fries on the tray and ferried them back to the container.
“And this is what I want to have happen.”
“…Put everything back where it was?”
“No,” she said, tapping the box with a finger. “I want some kind of… I don’t know, place, or atmosphere, where we can all gather together like this.”
“…”
“I could try to hold them down, but apart from Urushihara, they all have different stuff they want to do. That’s true now, of course, but there’s no reason why I have to be the only one accepting them for who they are. I want them to accept my feelings, too. That’s why I’ve been striking back at them.”
Chiho looked straight at Emeralda.
“And I apologize, Emeralda, but Maou and Yusa living together helps Alas Ramus, it helps Acieth, and it helps me with my future goals. And so I’m not going to stop them.”
“…!”
“…And in place of that…I’m ready to accept your feelings, too.”
“What do you mean? Are you giving me special consideration at the summit?”
“Oh, no. But I want to do something like thank you, yes. I mean, if you and Albert hadn’t made the huge decision to leave Maou alone back then, I’m sure my life would be completely different.”
Right after Chiho had learned the truth about Maou, when Emeralda and Albert came to regroup with Emi, they’d agreed to respect her decision to leave Maou alone and not erase Chiho’s memories. If they hadn’t offered their support, Chiho would almost certainly be just another teenage girl in the crowd right now.
“…It feels like quite a long time ago, doesn’t it?”
“I guess time really does go by faster when you grow up, huh?”
“Oh, please, you’re not even twenty yet.” Emeralda sank into her seat, a little dumbfounded. “…So what are you doing to do for me, exactly?”
“It’s nothing big, really. I get regular updates from Amane, you know, so I know about what’s going on with Alas Ramus and Acieth and the people around them. So I can talk about that. And I also wanna give you advice along the lines of, like, why not try doing something neither me, nor Suzuno, nor Ashiya, not even Nord have done?”
“…Huh?”
Emeralda raised an eyebrow. In response, Chiho pointed at the MgRonald across the street.
“What I’m saying is, if you’re against them living together, you should go right up to them and tell them what you just told me. You’re much more deeply connected with Yusa than I am. There’s no way she wouldn’t seriously consider what you say.”
An hour later, close to midnight, the lights dimmed at MgRonald—Chiho and Emeralda’s cue to leave.
“…Why do I have to go around with you, huh?” Sariel grumbled.
“It’d be careless not to take you,” Chiho said.
In a corner of a small path overlooking both MgRonald and Sentucky Fried Chicken, Chiho and Sariel watched Emeralda make her move. After a bit, they saw Maou and Emi exit the restaurant. They looked clearly surprised to find Emeralda there.
“…Wow, they look like a cheating couple after the detective finds them,” Chiho said.
“…Pfft. Now Emilia’s making excuses for their arrangement.” Despite being a hundred yards or so away, Sariel could overhear their conversation. “Devil Kings and Heroes living together… The Apocalypse is upon us.”
“Yes. That and an archangel’s snooping on people.”
“Chiho…”
“Yes?”
“I heard you talking things over with Emeralda, but are you serious?”
“About what?”
“About assembling all the big names of Ente Isla under one big banner?”
“That’s my intention.”
“Do you think that’s even possible? You know what happens when mob rule sets in.”
“Yes, I do. I’m college-bound, so I’ve had to study world history and politics and stuff.”
“Hmm?”
“I think people in Ente Isla might have the wrong idea about this…but I feel like everybody’s assuming I’m gonna do everything by myself.”
“You’re not? Because from what I heard, aren’t you and Dhin Dhem Wurs planning something together?”
“Well, yes, she’s helped set the stage for me…but that just shows I’m not going it alone, right? It’s her exercising her own power. Like…”
Chiho shrugged a little.
“It’s not like a teenage girl can shout ‘Listen to me whine, please’ and all these VIPs are going to listen to her. In a war, if you win, you can make a lot of money off it. No leader’s going to bow out of it because a girl from some other country—or some other world—tells them to stop. That’s why Emeralda said what she did.”
“…”
Sariel gave Chiho a look of honest surprise as he continued watching the trio in front of them. “I wasn’t going to go that far…but you’re that much of a realist about this?”
“This happened more directly because of Suzuno, besides. Or Maou, too, really.”
“Hmm?”
“But anyway…I don’t want them to give up on living together just because Emeralda yelled at them. In fact, if they do, that’s trouble for me.”
“Not that I should say this…but with men and women, there’s a lot about how they interact that’s got nothing to do with logic at all.”
“You’re right. I never thought Ms. Kisaki would ask you for help, for example.”
“…Come on.”
“But I understand it.”
“Yeah?”
“In terms of emotions, there’s no telling. But the thing Emeralda’s worried about—something happening between Maou and Yusa—that’ll never happen.”
“How do you know that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Chiho flashed Sariel a smile deeper than any he had seen from her before.
“If that were true, he wouldn’t be running away from me and Suzuno now.”
“…?”
“Oh!”
Just then, a thoroughly dispirited-looking Emeralda came back.
“No good?”
“…Hmph,” she snorted. “It’s fiiine. The Devil King was squirming sooo much about it…so I decided to let him beee.”
Chiho wasn’t sure what Emeralda meant. She looked to Sariel—but either he didn’t hear or he didn’t want to say, because he offered nothing to her.
“I really resent you, Chihooo…”
“Huh?”
“Talk about getting worked up over nooothing. It sounds like Emiiilia is choosing a man over our friennndship.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Emeralda,” Chiho said with a chuckle as she gave her a hug. “It’ll be fine. I know that Yusa is closer to you than to anybody else.”
“Ahh… If you say thaaat to me, Chiho, you make it sound like I’m the only unreeeasonable one here…”
Emeralda sobbed a little in her arms.
“But she’s a great woman. She’s much more honest than I am.”
“Ohhh…”
“Hey, can I go?”
Sariel, not bothering to hide his awkwardness, took an Urushihara-style approach to escaping it. But Chiho looked at him as she stroked Emeralda’s back, and glumly shook her head no.
“I’m sorry… Can you stay a bit longer?”
“…Is there something else going on?”
“Yes.” She nodded, lifting Emeralda’s face up. “I want you to see what Yusa probably didn’t tell her. The other reason why they have to live together.”
Maou and Emi plodded along the Koshu-Kaido road to Sasazuka Station. Chiho, Emeralda, and Sariel followed behind them, neither Maou nor anyone passing them by taking notice, because Sariel had deployed a dimensional phase barrier, rendering the three of them invisible. It was near midnight, the last train to Eifukucho arriving soon, but neither Maou nor Emi was particularly hurried.
“Well,” reasoned Sariel, “if he’s got his apartment, I suppose they don’t have to go back to Emilia’s place.”
Chiho shook her head. “It’s not that. They try to avoid taking things like trains where they’ll be seen by other people. Most of the people at MgRonald know, so that’s fine, but if something happens to them on a train, there’s no talking their way out of that.”
“‘Talking their way out’? What do you meeean?”
Chiho simply pointed at the pair in front of them.
“It’s not necessarily a given, but… Ah.”
“Ahh?!”
The moment Chiho turned her attention toward her own hand, Emeralda let out a shout. Emi had suddenly pulled Maou into an alleyway between the buildings lining the street.
“Wh-wh-what are those two doing in there?!”
It was so sudden that Emeralda almost tore right out of the barrier. Chiho’s hand stopped her.
“Wait a minute! This is the other reason why they can’t call it off!”
On the hand Chiho had used to grab Emeralda’s robe was a ring with a stone. That stone was emitting a faint purple glow.
“…Whoa, what’s going on with that?”
The next moment, a flash of purple light burst out from the alley the pair ducked into, and then:
“Is…is that…? Chiho, tell me that’s not…?”
“…They can’t have that happening on a train, right? I guess she’s defied Yusa’s will now and then before, but lately it’s been happening a whole bunch. Amane and Yusa both told me about it.”
The first figure to emerge from the alley was neither Maou nor Emi. It was a girl about as tall as Emi’s shoulders, wearing a long, light-yellow dress. Her hair was as silvery as the Milky Way, with one shock of purple among the forelocks.
“No way… Is…is that Alas Ramus?!”
The mysterious face didn’t belong to the little child they’d come to know. Her features had matured up to around Acieth’s age—but it’d only been a month since Emeralda had last seen Alas Ramus. This wasn’t natural aging at all.
“Is this because of their ‘family’?”
“The day after Maou moved in, Alas Ramus slept in late and Maou left for work before she woke up. Then, as Yusa put it, she just grew. That was the first time I heard her talk about living together.”
“No way…”
“They’ll probably just catch a taxi home now, I think. What happens next is, after the three of them stay together for about half an hour, she suddenly goes back into a ‘fusion’ state with Yusa’s body, and then she’s her usual self again.”
“…Is that even possible?”
“I guess it is, isn’t it? And I’m not with them all the time, so I don’t know all the details. But apparently, even if Maou and Yusa go their separate ways in the grocery store, that’ll be enough for her to pop out.”
“…Emilia and Alas Ramus are supposed to be our key weapons against heaven. Doesn’t that mean she’s out of their control?”
“Hmm… I guess so, huh?”
Chiho sounded indecisive about it, but this was clearly out of line for Alas Ramus’s behavior. It shocked both Emeralda and Sariel.
“If Acieth grew up, there’s no reason Alas Ramus can’t, after all. But between this and the way the Shiba family is acting, something weird is going on. I mean, Alas Ramus aged several years in the course of a day, just like Acieth can now eat hundreds of rice balls a day. If this is the Sephirah going out of control…”
“…”
“The only reason we’re invading heaven is to bring the smile back to Alas Ramus’s face. But if something happens to her, it’ll make everything we’ve been doing go to waste. Maou and Yusa won’t even want to think about peace on Ente Isla after that. So…whatever they do, they can’t do anything to unbalance her. And if the summit fails and all the other Sephirah children are left unhappy…”
Emeralda nervously swallowed. Even Sariel was waiting for the next words out of Chiho’s mouth. But:
“…Ente Isla is going to face a serious food shortage.”
““Huh?””
“I mean, can anyone really tell you that Acieth’s appetite won’t get any worse than her last peak? There’s a nonzero chance that she’ll grow into this huge monster gobbling up wheat fields, isn’t there?”
Chiho was deadly serious. It made the smile come back to Emeralda’s face. “The scary part is that it doesn’t sound like a joke.”
“I’m being serious here,” Chiho pouted. “…Ah.”
As they spoke, another change occurred to Alas Ramus. Her whole body faintly glowed, Maou and Yusa working together to pull her back into the alley. Half a minute later, out came Emi—carrying the baby Alas Ramus in her arms like always—and an exhausted-looking Maou.
“The police would definitely misinterpret this if they saw it, wouldn’t they?”
“That’s why this is so much trouble… Oh, they got a taxi.”
Seeing how disconcerted Maou was, Emi hailed a cab, letting him climb in first before following behind. The trailing trio watched the car go, giving one another convinced nods.
“Look…I don’t care what you do, but quit messing around with my life and my SFC, all right?”
“All I can promise is that we’ll try our best.”
“But…now I’m really glad I came to see you, Chiho… I’m glad I forced myself in, in a way.”
Eyeing his surroundings before removing the dimensional barrier, Sariel waved and began to head home, as Emeralda placed Chiho on her back and flew upward.
“Sariel! Thank you for joining us!”
“Farewell for nowww!”
Sariel looked up at them and shrugged.
“If they shout at me like that, what’re they gonna do if somebody notices?”
But for a change, his face was meek, unironic, without his trademark sneer.
“So, Emeralda…”
“Yesss?”
“You brought me around the whole city after I got home from exam prep, so can I ask a favor of you, too?”
“…I have a feeling it’s gonna be a biiig one,” she chuckled, as Chiho whispered something into her ear. Chiho’s house was straight ahead, but Emeralda looked back at her, astonished, like she had heard something unbelievable.
“Look in front of you, please.”
“Are, are you serious, Chihooo?”
“I am. Like, so serious, even I’m surprised. It’s weird to say, but Suzuno is the one who led me to be this way.”
“Oh… You mean her approaching the Devil Kiiing?”
“Right. So that’s one more reason why I’d like Maou and Yusa to remain where they are for now.”
“…What a meeean woman you are.”
“I’m putting ‘Chi’ behind me.”
After they landed at her doorstep, Chiho turned toward Emeralda, hands on her hips. The two were little different in stature, but to Emeralda, this otherworldly girl now seemed like a giant. That’s how much sheer ambition there was to her body and expression.
“I’m going to do it, Emeralda. A regular teenage girl, with no fighting power or experience in life, is going to create an Ente Isla where nobody, human or demon, has to lose their life. So…”
Could I reach that place full of smiles?
Emeralda asked herself the question for a moment, then quickly found the answer. There was no way she could. Even if she was born into the exact same position Chiho was, she doubted she could do it. But after hearing the plan she had going, Emeralda thought that maybe, just maybe, Chiho had a shot at it.
“So Emeralda, whatever you know is fine. Tell me everything, from your angle. It’s bound to be different from what Lidem told me. Otherwise, I’m not giving you any rest tonight.”
“…Sleepless nights are bad for your heaaalth, you know.”
“I’m fine. I’m not even twenty yet.”
“…You really haaave become an uppity woman, haven’t you?”
From Emeralda, it sounded like a compliment. Chiho gave it an ironic grin.
“That’s thanks to everyone around me.”
Placing the fast-asleep Alas Ramus in bed, Emi kneeled down on the floor, exhausted.
“Hey, you all right?” Maou called out to her.
Emi just shook her head, face buried in the surface of the bed. “…Nmm.”
He didn’t say anything else.
Having Emeralda ambush them after work was enough of a surprise, but then she’d prodded their most sensitive areas and voiced her clear disapproval of their living arrangement. Looking back, Maou knew nothing about the pasts of Emi’s friends. He was aware of Emeralda’s and Albert’s birthplaces, but that was about it—he didn’t need anything else.
Still, after everything she said, Maou really had nothing to fire back with, and Emi must’ve been just as bewildered. Emeralda wasn’t really the type to place her own needs first in a scenario like this—that must be how much weight Emi’s presence had in her heart. Emi and Nord hadn’t talked about it lately, and of course Suzuno was acting strangely, so he had forgotten all about the past—but it was a long-overdue reminder of just how much the people of Ente Isla hated his guts.
“…Well, this ain’t good. It ain’t good at all.”
Lately, he had thought he was surrounded by people who understood him. Wurs, Rumack, and other people in those positions weren’t forgiving him, but they were willing to accept his actions as belonging to the past—or so he thought.
“But… Yeah.”
Maou looked at Emi in the dark bedroom, now fully downed, Alas Ramus sleeping without a care in the world in front of her. It made him frown. He recalled the time when Alas Ramus disappeared for a few days during their struggle against Gabriel, and how much it made him feel like a shell of his former self. It made him wonder why he was arrogant enough to think Emeralda and the rest had accepted his presence among them.
“…I’m hungry.”
Maou was in the now-familiar kitchen, turning on the light by the sink and opening the refrigerator.
“Oh, did I eat that?”
He looked around, noticing something missing.
“Hmm?”
“…You looking for the corn?”
“Huh?”
“The leftover corn from the Happiness Set you brought home yesterday.”
Over the door he spotted Emi, dark rings around her eyes and hair that looked like she had been in bed all night. She was wrangling with it as she exited the bedroom. It was too dark to see what she was wearing.
“I’m sorry. I used it in Alas Ramus’s breakfast this morning.”
Come to think of it, there were some rolled-up eggs with corn in them on the table earlier.
“Oh, that’s what that was?”
“I had less left than I thought I did. You’re hungry, right? There’s some fried rice in the freezer you can heat up in the microwave.”
“Ah. Thanks.”
“I’ll use the bath first, so…”
Emi walked across the dark living room, face turned away.
“…”
Feeling an inscrutable discomfort, Maou took a flat dish from the cabinet and fished out a bag labeled SHRIMP FRIED RICE – BARGAIN PACK from the freezer, pouring some out on a dish. After two and a half minutes in the microwave, he took it out. This microwave was supposed to be better than Suzuno’s, but the electronic beeping when it was done seemed to last an inordinately long time. He had inadvertently awoken Alas Ramus with it once, inviting Emi’s ire upon him.
“Ugghh…”
Hesitant to turn on the living-room lights, he hunched over the kitchen counter and silently began to eat.
“Huh. This is pretty good.”
Emi relied on frozen food quite a bit—not that it mattered, but he never saw Ashiya or Suzuno use it much, so seeing it occupy more of his diet was a novel experience. Just over a week had passed since he’d moved in, and generally Emi handled all food prep work. She was good at it, and she told him not to mess with the pantry or cooking utensils unless he had to, so he had left all of that to her.
“…Phew.”
There wound up being a lot less fried rice than he’d anticipated from the frozen bag, but it satisfied him well enough.
“…”
So he washed the plate and spoon, placed them in the drying rack, and—having nothing better to do—sat on the living-room sofa. Occasionally he heard shower sounds from the bathroom; on his other side, Alas Ramus would occasionally roll over or mumble something in her sleep.
“Sure is quiet… Hmm?”
Then it happened. There was a dull thud in the bedroom. Maou got up, only to find Alas Ramus now standing on Emi’s futon, blearily looking around the dark room. She quickly found Maou, and then began crying like a spilled glass of water.
“Daddyyyyy…! Aaaahhhhhh…!”
“Oh, no, did you fall off the bed?”
Maou stepped into the bedroom, reaching out with both hands to pick up the sobbing child.
“Weeehhhhhh… Owwwwww…”
“There, there… That surprised you, didn’t it?”
“Waaaahhh…!”
Listening to the heavy, piercing crying, Maou returned Alas Ramus to bed, then lay down next to her. Still startled, she put her arms around his neck as she sobbed…but after about five minutes, she finally fell silent. Maou attempted to move, but Alas Ramus reflexively tightened her grip on him, so she must not have been asleep yet. It looked like he’d be stuck for a while, but Maou was tired, too, almost ready to conk out with the little girl’s hands around him.
“…Everything okay?”
Emi’s voice came from the doorway, jarring Maou awake.
“…I think she fell off. She’s fine now.”
“Oh… Thank you.”
“You can relax in the bath a while longer. You’re still exhausted, aren’t you?”
Alas Ramus’s death grip prevented him from turning toward her, but based on the timing, he imagined the crying must’ve made her hurry to the bedroom.
“It’s fine. I’m used to it. Let me dry my hair a little.”
“Sure.”
He could feel Emi go away. Then he heard the buzz of the hair dryer. As Emi dried her long hair, Alas Ramus—finally fast asleep—loosened her grip on Maou, allowing him to slowly get up. He ventured to the bathroom, knocking lightly on the door.
“Oh, are you good?” Emi asked, sticking her head out the door.
Maou nodded. “Yeah, she’s sleeping now. Does she fall off a lot?”
“What?”
Emi must not have heard him over the dryer’s drone. She opened the door fully.
“No, I mean, it’s the first time since I came here, so… You don’t have her sleep on the floor with you?”
“I did at first, but…”
As Emi explained, she had Alas Ramus sleep on a futon originally, fearing her falling out of a bed, but she kept rolling around endlessly on the floor.
“That’s fine in summer, but she’ll get a cold doing that in the winter, you know? But if you put a comforter over her in bed, she usually stops at the edge.”
“Can you sleep with her inside you…?”
“You should know, having Acieth and all. I’d get woken up all the time. And if you suddenly have someone crying in your brain waking you, it’s terrible for your heart. You wanna use the bath?”
“Yeah…I do. I mean, I don’t really wanna right now, but it beats bathing in the morning.”
Once Emi was done drying her hair, she and Maou traded places, bringing in his sleepwear to shower in the once-strange environment. No longer was he confusing the shampoo with the body soap, and he was now a pro at working the gas valve to get hot water.
Drying his hair and brushing his teeth, he went back outside, finding Emi already retired to the bedroom.
“Did you brush your teeth?”
“Yeah, before I went in the bath.”
“Oh.”
They settled into their futons, backs turned to each other.
“Men have it so nice, huh?” Emi said out of nowhere. “They can dry their hair so fast.”
To Maou, it was pretty obvious why.
“Well, why don’t you cut your hair short?”
“…”
A pause.
“Don’t make it sound that easy. Do you know how many years it took to grow it this long?”
“That’s one thing about women I’ll never get.”
This aimless conversation continued in the darkened bedroom for a little while longer.
“…Are you asleep?” Emi asked softly after a bout of silence.
“…I was about to be.”
“Oh, I’m sorry…”
“It’s fine. What is it?”
“…”
“You woke me up to say nothing?”
“It’s hard to talk about.”
“Is it about Emeralda?”
“Yeah… Kind of. I never thought Eme would say all that…”
“It’s nothing you have to get out of sorts about. None of it was unfair, really. And she doesn’t really think you’ve forgiven me.”
“…”
“But all she did was come over to gripe about how she can’t put up with us,” he continued. “If I made them all hate me, there’s not much I can do now, so whatever, but…yeah.”
“Devil King?”
They had never expressly spoken about it, but ever since Maou moved in, they’d slept with their backs to each other. Now, though, Maou rolled over on his other side, facing Emi, who turned her head to look at him but didn’t otherwise move.
“You know, if you want to consider your friends’ needs first… I mean, I’m actually pretty prepared for that.”
“…”
Even with her eyes used to the dark, Emi had trouble reading Maou’s face, but she could tell from his voice that he was serious. For some reason, that made her swallow back tears ready to well up in her eyes.
“H-hey,” Maou said, surprised.
Emi turned away to stare in the direction of the bed. “You and Eme are both being unfair.”
“Hmm?”
“…It’s not like I can choose at this point.”
It was hard to say just how long Emi let herself feel conflicted before she was able to say that to Maou. Maou couldn’t imagine how long, and he had a feeling he shouldn’t even try.
“Emeralda really flew off on you, didn’t she? Asking you to choose between friendship or a man. Crazy.”
“Don’t be silly. You’d be surprised how much Eme doesn’t know about me.”
“Well, that’s how it works. You may think you know someone, but for the most part, you really don’t.”
“Generally speaking, yes. But she really doesn’t know at all. I mean…” Emi tensed up, taking a thin, shallow breath. “No matter what happened, there’d never be any way I’d fall in love with you.”
Maou’s reply was as simple as it was routine. “Yeah, it ain’t even worth joking about.”
“Watch what you say. We’re in front of Alas Ramus.”
“You should talk.” Maou chuckled a bit, then went back to his usual position. “I’ve actually got an off day tomorrow. I’ll watch Alas Ramus, so you take care of the idiots who come visit us at MgRonald.”
“…Sure.”
“Anyway, good night.”
“…Good night.”
Maou wriggled around for a little while after, but Emi suddenly sensed him dozing off into a well-regulated snore. She had trouble sleeping, though, her body still clenched up tight. Emeralda, Maou, this family experiment, Alas Ramus, Ente Isla—the future of everything seemed so opaque, nothing she could break through herself. It made her want to scream out of desperation.
“Ahh, I can’t sleep!”
She sat up, looking at the serene faces of the two people surrounding her. They were making the exact same face, somehow.
“…What’s with that? It’s so unfair.”
She knew Maou was helping raise Alas Ramus. She regretted inadvertently hurting Emeralda, but she had to commit to this for Alas Ramus. Still, being presented with this formless, silent bond-like thing she and Maou had, it left a bad aftertaste. Was it the way he fundamentally avoided any questions about her and Maou? Or was it some more instinctive discomfort at the fact she was kinder to him than before?
“Hmm…”
She knew her feelings were all over the place. She’d admit that. She definitely accepted the presence of the man Sadao Maou, more so than Satan, the Devil King. She may have been obliged to, but in some ways she even felt an affinity for him—enough so that living together no longer seemed unnatural. But despite that, something was still bothering her about this. She was trying so hard to establish a “family” that she was turning her back on a close friend she had staked her destiny with—but something was still missing in this bond.
Then it happened.
“…Mommy?”
“…Are you up again?”
“Yeh… I gotta go potty…”
The child was sitting up in bed. Not a baby—but Alas Ramus, transformed and looking about the same age as Erone. Normally, she still wore a diaper to bed; there’d be bedwetting issues otherwise. But now she was big enough to be several grades into elementary school, instantly “grown” to the point that she could wake up for bathroom trips.
“Mommy…come with me.”
“…All right. Let’s go.”
It wasn’t rare for Alas Ramus to wake up in the middle of the night. For a while, when they began living together, she’d cry through the night in the worst way—but even when she was peaceful, she’d sometimes shout out loud and wake Emi, up to once every three hours or so. But since Maou had moved in, Alas Ramus would wake up almost every day like clockwork at two AM or so—and every time, her physical body would take on another new, and seemingly random, age.
The largest they had seen her was earlier today, on the way home, when she seemed to take on a middle-school age. One time, she’d actually seemed to get even younger than she usually was. She usually reached Erone’s age. Emi was used to it now, but she could feel some inscrutable time limit weighing down on them all, impossible to avoid or extend.
“Let’s go to sleep now, okay?”
“…Okay.”
Emi placed her hand on Alas Ramus’s back, much longer than it usually was, and walked back to the bedroom.
“…Alas Ramus?”
“Yeah?”
She got into bed herself—normally, she’d have to be placed there. Emi watched her, smiling a little.
“Good night.”
“…Good night, Mommy.”
Her slightly matured face settled into a comfortable sleep—and then, little by little, she reverted back to her normal appearance.
“Seeing this all the time…you know…”
She wanted to see Alas Ramus’s future. She wanted to see her mature for real. The same kinds of emotions any parent would normally have.
Chuckling softly, she gave Alas Ramus’s hair a caress, then turned around. Maou was sleeping there, all dopey-faced.
“I think I understand now.”
She knew what she was missing, the niggle that had bothered her; the thing that seemed off about this whole “family” thing.
“Come to think of it, I joked about it once, didn’t I?”
Emi stood up and took a notebook out from her living room shelf. It was a large, thick book with a plastic cover.
“If we’re gonna be a family, there’s one thing we’ve got to have. Don’t we, ‘Daddy’?”
He couldn’t have heard her voice, but for some reason, Maou chose that moment to make a pained groan in his sleep.
Maou spent the next afternoon at Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka, the first time he had done so in a while. Alas Ramus was napping on the futon set Maou and Emi had purchased for her sleepovers there, the breeze from the window gently stirring around her.
“That was bad of me, wasn’t it?”
Maou looked back through a small album. His attention was on a photo of Emi after Alas Ramus had come along; it was taken sometime after summer of the previous year. And the child in that picture shared something in common with the Alas Ramus in front of him, arms above her head as she slept.
“Why didn’t I think that was weird at all? It shouldn’t even be possible.”
In fact, the girl in the photo and the girl in his apartment were exactly the same.
A year was a long time for a baby. It’d bring major changes to her body structure, her face, her height; lots of things. But the Alas Ramus pictured by those familiar with her was always, eternally, the “same as usual.”
“I bet you wanna grow up, huh? You want to progress.”
People were often a reflection of the astral trends of the world. Maou had interpreted Alas Ramus’s and Acieth Alla’s out-of-control “incidents” as a kind of rebellion against the stagnation looming over the people of this planet.
As he thought this over, there was the sound of someone unlocking and opening the door.
“I apologize for my lateness, Your Demonic Highness.” Ashiya stepped inside, carrying a bag from the grocery store.
“No problem. Sorry to bother you when you’re busy. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you like that.”
“I heard Libicocco had been feeding you an unbalanced diet, so I came back to prepare some meals in advance…and hopefully provide him some guidance.”
Ashiya, who presumably was running around Ente Isla building relationships between demons and humans, had an important reason for returning to Japan. Maou had called him over directly, stating that he had vital business for him.
“I am afraid I have little time. Could we perhaps discuss this business while I cook?”
“Sure, that’s fine. It’ll be over real quick, actually, but it’s something I need to be physically with you to talk about, so that’s why I had you take time out for me.”
“I remain your servant, my liege.” Ashiya took out his usual apron and set himself up in the kitchen.
“Ahh… That’s a reassuring sight, kinda.”
“Is it?”
“It really feels like I’m back home, you know?”
“I would prefer if you said that in the Ente Isla Devil’s Castle.”
Even the listless jibes of Ashiya’s replies put Maou’s mind at ease. “Is Chi’s summit or whatever going well?”
“Most of the members have already traveled to Noza Quartus, under strict secrecy. Bell, Cervantes, and Emeralda are certainly earning their keep. They are having to deceive quite a large number of people at this point.”
“Yeah… Once someone gets high up enough, they get bothered about every single little thing, don’t they? You start to wonder if they’re actually kicking back on their days off or not. It’s tough.”
“It seems so, yes. But what about you, my liege? I imagine your stay with Emilia is taxing you a great deal.”
“…Just to be sure, Amane isn’t blabbering all day about us, is she?”
“I have only heard the basics, once Acieth’s food consumption became an issue. If it is for Alas Ramus’s sake, I can hardly put up a strong resistance to it. And the state of the two Yesods connects directly to all of our problems, in the battle against heaven…”
“I had thought more people would be against it.”
“I suppose we are past that point, are we not?”
“What kind of ‘point’ are we in if it’s okay for the Hero and the Devil King to live together?”
“I cannot say.” Ashiya kept up his food prep as they spoke.
“Right,” Maou continued, “so there’s two things I need to talk to you about. First, about Chi.”
“Yes?”
“I want to discuss this with Emi and Suzuno, too, as soon as I’m able, but before we head into heaven, why don’t we all meet with Chi’s mom and apologize to her?”
“…Ah, yes.” Ashiya gravely nodded. “Indeed. I believe that is necessary. When we were guiding her around Devil’s Castle the other day, I am afraid I lacked sufficient time to accompany Ms. Sasaki’s mother. I had to enlist an assistant instead.”
“Yeah, we need all six of us together to say sorry to her. You never know if something might happen to one of us in this war.”
“Very true. But what if she asks for her husband to be in attendance?”
“I’ll worry about that if it comes. We’ll agree to whatever conditions she puts up, of course. Besides, I owe Chi’s dad a favor.”
“Since when was that the case?”
“I’ve owed him one for a while, actually; I just wasn’t aware of it. He’s a cop, you know. My landlord and her gang might object to it, but the reputation of the Devil King’s Army is at stake, so I want an official occasion where I can bow my head to her.”
“What about Urushihara? He has no formal wear.”
“…We’ll find something for him. We gotta be sincere with this.”
“Very well, then. I will put a schedule together. Now, what was the other topic you wanted to discuss?”
“Well…there’s something I want to show you, so take a look once you can step away.”
Ashiya looked at the small bundle of photocopied paper in Maou’s hands. It gave him pause. The lack of vitality in Maou’s eyes had alarmed him a bit, but once he wrapped up his prep and set the burners to low, Ashiya washed his hands and sat in front of Maou.
“Now,” Maou said, mentally changing gears, “before I show you this, a word of caution.”
“Hmm?”
“…Don’t make any loud noise, all right? I just put Alas Ramus to sleep.”
“…Very well, then.”
This made Ashiya even more doubtful, but he picked up the dozen or so sheets of paper and ran his eyes across the first one. And then, instantly:
“……!!!”
His breathing instantly stopped, his whole body convulsing as the color drained from his face.
“Gnh…!”
With every new sheet he turned over, Ashiya’s face seemed to turn a new color, like a stoplight or a disco ball. By the time he reached the final page, his eyes were bloodshot and he looked ready to explode.
“Your, your, your, Your Demonic Highness, what… What… What is…!!”
“Yeah, pretty crazy, huh?” Maou replied dryly, in contrast to his conversation partner.
“This is not something you can merely sweep away as ‘crazy,’ my liege!!”
“Keep it down, man.”
“How, how could we ever tolerate this outrage…!”
“Well, I dunno if it’s an outrage… In fact, I get it, pretty much. Is it really ‘wrong’?”
“N-no, no, but this… Why now, of all times? We are both trying to defeat the same enemy, and this, this, this is nothing less than stabbing us in the back…!”
“Yeah, but if you think about it…I think I’ve been told this a lot of times, going back. But the way we’re related, I just kind of ignored it, and the other side wasn’t that serious about it. But, you know, having it all laid out for us like this…”
“Is—is there any evidence?! This could all be fabricated…”
“No, I really don’t think we have any wiggle room here! She took out everything we weren’t involved with.”
“This… This is insanity…!! How could this… How could this…!”
“Now you see why I called you over here? So as my chief advisor and head of the household here in Room 201, I wanted to ask your opinion about it.”
“…………It is impossible.”
“Huh?”
“It is impossible.”
The agony behind that simple statement could only be described as gut-wrenching.
“It is…simply impossible to delay this.”
The anguished reply drained the life force from Maou, who slumped to the tatami-mat floor. Looking to his side, he saw Alas Ramus’s peaceful face as she slept.
“Dahh, I knew it. No luck, huh? Not that we could ever do that at a time like this anyway.”
“If… If we defaulted on this…we’d make foes out of not just Ente Isla, but everyone in Japan as well… Ugh…damn it all…”
The photocopies were crushed in Ashiya’s clenched fist.
“Whoa, whoa…”
“Damn you, Emilia… Pulling this nonsense…while I was gone…!!”
“I said, keep it down,” Maou said, seizing the crumpled sheets from Ashiya’s hand.
On the first page, writing large in Emi’s handwriting, were the words “CHILD SUPPORT INVOICE.” The rest of the stack contained a bullet-point list of expenditures related to caring for Alas Ramus since Emilia had taken her in last year. Food and clothing were on there, of course. There was even a section devoted to the rent at Urban Heights Eifukucho, although it was a comparatively small amount.
The grand total: 283,538 yen.
“Hey, Daddy? If we’re gonna be a family with Alas Ramus, I think there’s something we’re missing in our lives for that.”
Those foreboding words came from Emi over breakfast, their timbre enough to inspire a nameless dread in Maou. Being presented with these documents knocked him half unconscious. Once he was awake again, he made a valiant effort to fight back—but then Emi revealed the ledger she had used to calculate her Alas Ramus–related expenses, as well as receipts for everything, explaining that she didn’t invoice for anything that wasn’t spent on the child.
“For example, I didn’t include anything that I wanted to treat her with, like the Relax-a-Bear stuff, or if we went out to eat somewhere nice. But between the clothes, the consumables, the grocery store bill, the electricity, and so on and so on, that’s what it came to.”
Maou was charged a quarter of running costs like rent and electricity, but for indispensables like heating in winter and air-conditioning in the summer, that went up to half.
“When you add it all together, it comes to 567,076 yen. But I’m her mother and we were forced to live together through events out of our control, so I’ll cover half of that. But…”
The words of the Hero, spoken over the breakfast table through the soft smile of a proud mother and a faithful partner, stabbed into his heart deeper than her Better Half sword ever could.
“After all, isn’t money part of the reality of having a family?”
Explaining this whole scene from earlier in the day to Ashiya, Maou could see him emotionally collapse, his face ashen.
“But… But 280,000 yen? That is simply too much…!”
“Well, Emi’s not expecting a lump-sum payment. And I did some research before you arrived, but apparently after a divorce, fifty thousand yen is about the going rate for child support payments. Considering she isn’t charging interest or anything, I think she’s giving us a pretty good deal, actually.”
“But you have hardly married her, much less divorced!”
“It’s too late for that. Didn’t you say we couldn’t ignore this any longer?”
“I—I did, but…”
It would be easy for Maou to flatly reject Emi’s demands. But like he just said, Emi hadn’t padded the bill unfairly at all. In fact, Maou was impressed how she’d kept Alas Ramus satisfied with such a frugal budget. If he brushed this off, people would think he didn’t have enough affection for the child. His very honesty would be called into question.
The “people” referred to here didn’t only mean those closest to Maou and Emi—Chiho, Suzuno, Amane, Shiba, Emeralda, Albert, and the like. It could also spark the disapproval of Kisaki, Iwaki, Kawata, Akiko, and the rest of Shiba’s family. And if he did anything to disappoint Chiho and the others right now, the already-fragile position of the Devil King’s Army—and, in fact, the demon races in general—could receive a staggering blow. Should someone like Wurs or Emeralda catch word of this, there was no telling what kind of hell he’d have to pay at the summit.
At worst, word could go around that Satan, the Devil King, betrayed the Hero Emilia, and everyone would conclude that demons couldn’t be trusted after all. Chief Rajid and the Azure Emperor could drop out, and if they no longer accepted demon immigrants, then Cervantes, who wanted the heavens on his side as a counterweight, would likely step away, too. If he did, then even with Dhin Dhem Wurs on her side, Chiho would become nothing but a powerless teenage girl. Nobody would listen to her; the demons would lose the new homes offered to them; mankind would plunge into a world war on the Central Continent, and everything following the battle against heaven would leave a bad taste in the mouths of everyone involved.
“Well, I had the same thought. So I called you over because I wanted your affirmation.”
“This… How could this…? Ugghhh… Oh, dear, one minute.”
Behind the weepy Ashiya, one of the pots on the oven began to boil over. He hastily got up and turned off the burner.
“But on the other hand, if we accept her terms…maybe that’ll help give us an edge in the summit. You have to understand for me, Ashiya…I think I’m going to say yes to this.”
“…I…I understand, my liege.”
Ashiya’s grief seemed to be flowing in waves out from his broad back.
“Your Demonic Highness?”
“Yeah…?”
“…Only now… Only now did this thought occur to me.”
“Yeah?”
Ashiya turned his emaciated face toward Maou.
“Our Devil King’s Army…was defeated long ago by the Hero, was it not?”
“You’re a little late to that party.”
Two hundred and eighty thousand Japanese yen wasn’t exactly cheap, but it was nothing they couldn’t work out some kind of payment plan for. A twentysomething worker could earn that in a month after taxes, depending on his position. The issue was that the Devil’s Castle inhabitants needed to assemble this 280,000 yen within Japan, using nothing but legal means. They could never use anything they’d seized during their Ente Isla invasion work. Two of the Devil King’s generals had dueled against the Hero Emilia and lost…but now, once and for all, Maou was cornered without an escape route.
“I’ve got nowhere to run.”
“No…”
“If I do, we really will lose everything this time.”
“Yes…”
“Sometimes, you have to put it all on the line. We need to lay low for now.”
“I feel we have been laying low for quite a while now…”
“Didn’t you say it, long ago? Where there’s life, there’s hope. We have things we need to do, and to do them, we have to overcome this.”
“…Yes. You are right… So money is stronger than a holy sword itself…”
At that very moment, the Devil King Satan and Great Demon General Alciel felt, deep down, for the first time, that the Hero Emilia had well and truly defeated them.
“First, I’m gonna grovel to Emi and ask her to wait a bit on repayment. If I can just give her a hundred or a thousand yen from my salary a month, that ought to tide her over for the time being. In the meantime, do whatever you need to survive the summit and make the Azure Emperor agree to take in demons first.”
“D-do you think that is possible? Ms. Sasaki has declared that she will chair the summit fairly and without favor… Your Demonic Highness, do you actually think living with Emilia has hurt your standing with Ms. Sasaki?”
“Ahh…maybe.”
“Why now, of all times?!”
“It’s not my fault!”
“My liege, your face tells me you know the reason for it!”
“No, um, I know she wants to keep it fair, but we’re all busy people, right? I don’t think Chi is actively out to get me or anything. And we’re at the point where if we delay this any further, the human factions are gonna start gunning for each other.”
“That is so calculating of you! Failing to hide that would be the most foolish of approaches!”
“Look, you don’t even get why Emi and I kicked off this summit in the first place—even though you and Chi are the guys who planned it out! Can’t you help steer this at all?! You talked about invading Devil’s Castle one more time, but what’s that stuff even about, anyway?! I thought we were invading heaven to keep from seeing any more human and demon casualties!”
“That is the direction we are aiming for, yes! If Cervantes can be brought to our side, that would improve our chances of success, but we also need to address everyone’s postwar interests—including those of our Devil King’s Army! That, if anything, is the main topic of discussion!”
“C-can Chi even do that?! That hobbling old hag’s just gonna make her do whatever she wants!”
“I—I intend to work against that happening, but it is difficult to contact Ms. Sasaki over there…!”
“Well, you’re not controlling Chi at all either, then!”
And in the midst of squabbling, the doorbell to Room 201 rang. A voice shot across the silenced apartment.
“Hello? Maou? Are you here?”
“Chi…”
It was Chiho’s voice. She didn’t need to ask. Their voices were easily heard from the walkway outside.
“The… The door is open,” Ashiya managed to blurt out.
“All right,” she said in her usual voice as she came in, like everything was normal.
“H-hey, Chi.”
“Good afternoon, Maou…and you, too, Ashiya.”
“H-hello…”
“Wh-what’s up, Chi? This is kinda sudden…”
Maou and Ashiya could feel an enigmatic force exude from Chiho’s body. Really, though, she was the same as always. The only difference was that Maou and Ashiya were beginning to feel pangs of fear in her presence. That was how much Chiho had accomplished in such a short time.
“Well, I wanted to ask you a favor…”
“A-a favor?”
“Yes. Something important for the invasion of heaven. It looks like the things we’re keeping at bay in Ente Isla won’t hold for much longer, so I thought maybe it was time to get things moving.”
What was this teenage girl talking about? She had only just turned seventeen, and now she was making a Devil King and Great Demon General bend to her will.
“I received word from Lidem Wurs that Rumack and Cervantes worked out their schedule. I know it’s a bit hurried, but the summit’s set to begin two days from now.”
She looked straight at Maou, as carefree as a manager hastily putting together a professional sports team.
“Maou?”
“Y-yeah?”
“I need you to choose.”
“Choose…?”
Was she going to pick this moment to make him choose between herself and Suzuno? The thought raced across Maou’s mind. He didn’t expect what came next.
“What do you like in miso soup—radish, or tofu?”
“…………What?”
A total mystery. Maou had no idea what Chiho was getting at. But she just smiled back at him.
“Your choice could change the summit, and with that, the future of Ente Isla. So…choose carefully for me, okay, Maou?”
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