Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 20 - Chapter 4

THE TEENAGER MOVES THE WORLD

Three days after the teenager asked the King of All Demons about his preference in miso soup…

The roaring seemed to vibrate the air itself, exciting the hearts of everyone in the area. Faced with the beast’s majestic presence, which seemed to extend up to heaven, all who viewed it were rendered powerless. But one person was audacious enough to stand before this towering ancient demon.

“I have to say, getting to see it in motion like this… Whoa!”

“Chief! You are too close!!”

Chief Rajid Rahs Rian of Vashrahma smiled at his hapless attendant.

“Don’t be silly! I’ll never see this again in my life! I must get as close a view as I—whooaaaa?!”

“Do you think I like putting up with your stupid whims—gahh!”

The dragon’s tyranny gouged deep into the Central Continent, as the great lizard Kinanna awoke and focused its rage upon the Nothung. Rajid himself was at his feet, marveling like a child as he nimbly darted around to avoid being crushed—and unfortunately, both his assistant and Albert had their hands full keeping him safe.

“ !!”

“Ah, the language of the demon realms, isn’t it? What is he saying?!”

“Why would I know what some addled lizard is saying?! Why the hell aren’t the Malebranche ready yet?!”

This was the scene of the “final battle” for the Federated Order of the Five Continents force coming from Saza Quartus, about half a day’s journey south of Devil’s Castle.

“Well, isn’t he going to entertain us a little? I’ve played along with your big scheme long enough!”

“I’m not willin’ to risk my neck for the whims of some fancy leader!”

The rapscallion of a king, all too willing to go right up to Kinanna’s feet, made Albert wince.

“What are the Malebranche going to do? We discovered the hard way just how gifted they are in illusory magic. How will they use that to exorcise this lizard?”

“Somehow, I guess! That’s what they said they’d mainly use! Apparently different branches of their tribe are better at different types of spells! And the followers of Farlo, Ciriatto, and Libicocco all have slightly different appearances—aahhhh!!”

A beamlike wave of magic shot out of Kinanna’s mouth, aimed squarely at the screaming Albert and Rajid.

“Wow! There’s just no end to his power!”

“Stop admiring him! You sure you can keep this up for a whole week?!”

But just when Albert was about to fully vent his frustrations on the king:

“Al! Chief Rajid! Step back! Ciriatto’s forces are ready!”

At Emi’s signal, Rajid reluctantly ran a healthy distance away from Kinanna. The other Vashrahman fighters scattered away as well, distracting the lizard and halting his indiscriminate attacks for a moment.

“Whoa!” Standing there, Rajid groaned at the overwhelming demonic force filling the air around him. It weighed down on him more than Kinanna’s beams of magic, hitting the humans in the area hard as it swirled around the beast’s feet.

“Albert! Chief Rajid! Get back!”

With this demon-magic release, a team of sorcerers in Church garb, led by Emi, stepped between the Vashrahmans and the demonic force, building a barrier of holy force to resist it.

“Ciriatto! Go ahead!”

Once she was sure every human in the area was protected, Emi gave the signal. Kinanna was instantly swallowed by a column of light that seemed to support the sky itself, making him roar in anguish.

“Whoaahhh!”

“Ngh…!”

Even with their overwhelming resistance to demonic force, Emi and Albert were almost felled by the screaming. The column of light shimmered a little.

“Look out!”

But another column, this one a holy barrier, built itself up around the demonic light, supporting it as it extended upward.

“Pretty shoddy magic, huh? Letting way too much energy dissipate. At this rate, all the world’s forces here are gonna reconsider things and start comin’ our way.”

Gabriel was looking as breezy as ever as he used holy magic to “reinforce” the demonic column.

“If you think so, give it your full force! I need you to work harder than all the Malebranche together!”

“Man, what a slave driver…”

With a guileless smile, Gabriel directed his holy force against the demonic barrier built by Ciriatto and the twenty Malebranche serving him. The sheer quantity of his force was just as palpable as Kinanna’s own demonic beams.

“So is this really gonna quiet down that lizard?”

“Just see how it turns out! Even before now, the Malebranche had been working with Bell’s people undercover, doing exactly this!”

“Huh. …Oh, you’re right.”

The pillar of demonic force began to shrink within the holy barrier. Inside was Kinanna, miniaturized and only about twice the size of an adult human being.

“But that’s what it does to the land, huh?”

“There’s no way to avoid that.”

The Malebranche’s magic absorption spell returned the target’s demonic force into the ground. Before Kinanna began his rampage, Ciriatto’s team had worked under Ashiya and Urushihara’s direction to fine-tune the balance of the holy barrier, attempting to ensure that the other four major continental forces detected no power being thrown around besides Kinanna’s.

“That’s why those sorcerers were able to protect the Vashrahman warriors so quickly, huh?”

“You were here the whole time! Why didn’t you know that?”

“Well, I mean, all I got told was to keep him from movin’ around, and…y’know, I didn’t really care about the other li’l details, mm-kay?”

It was unclear whether he understood just how vital he was to the defense of Devil’s Castle, but with Gabriel unleashing his full powers, things were finally starting to go in a good direction—for Emi and her allies, and for the attendees at the summit.

Two days after Emi defended Rajid in battle while grumbling about Gabriel’s laziness, Crestia Bell was invited by Dhin Dhem Wurs to a certain favorite restaurant of hers in the Goat Pasture. She was heartily scarfing down a Mongolian barbecue–style meal with Farfarello when an attending cleric flew inside with a handwritten note for her. This attendant was clued in about the invasion of heaven—in fact, he was actually a Saint Aile scientist working under Emeralda, posing as a cleric here.

“It looks like we had nothing to worry about after all.”

Receiving the news, Crestia let out a sigh of relief and presented the note to Wurs, still intently focused on the meat cooking in front of her.

“This batch is just about done. Read it to me.”

“Right away. …Ah, I can picture Archbishop Cesar wailing to himself right now…”

The note was likely penned by a Church knight in Cesar’s service, one unfamiliar with the heaven plot. It was hastily written, like the trail of a spasmodic worm, and it read:

“‘The Azure Emperor himself will be at the negotiation table.’”

“Old man Hu himself, eh? Well, how dutiful of ’im.”

The “Crusade” Church force was attempting to invade the Central Continent from the north, but on the east side of the land, Efzahan’s Eight Scarves forces were now fully deployed, not even trying to hide their intent to keep these crusaders in check. To the Church forces, who initiated their Crusade with the promise that they’d not engage in any major wars, the idea of confronting the Scarves was a nonstarter. Instead Cesar, an Archbishop and one of the most powerful figures in the Church, figured he could overwhelm them with size and negotiate from there—but Efzahan’s response was to send a figure who made Cesar look like small potatoes.

Cesar was no doubt feeling quite cornered and flustered by the Azure Emperor and his knights. And the Emperor’s arrival, of course, was all part of Suzuno and Wurs’s plan. As the autocratic leader of Efzahan, anything the Emperor said came first—but Cesar was only one of the six Archbishops; he couldn’t function as the lone decision-maker for the Church knights and Crusade forces. And if the two sides of a negotiation had completely different powers, it’d be impossible to work out any kind of useful international agreement.

Suzuno, meanwhile, was the supreme commander of the Crusade forces—but she was in the Goat Pasture being “cross-examined” by the leaders of the Northern Island and wasn’t available. The remaining three Archbishops were far away in the west—and for some reason, Cervantes was facing a mountain of work back at headquarters, so he couldn’t answer Cesar’s summons. Thus, from the very start, Cesar had nothing to negotiate with. He’d likely return to Welland Isa with little to show for his efforts.

“To be honest with you, I did not expect the Azure Emperor to go this far. When I heard the Jade Scarves were to be deployed, that did concern me for a moment, but…”

But to Suzuno and her allies, the Azure Emperor made no secret of his dreams of world conquest, and with his advanced age, there was no telling what truly lay in his heart. He was a fearsome adversary, and for a long time, it was unclear just how serious he was about participating in the invasion of heaven. But he agreed to join forces with them in the summit, as planned. That seemed to put Crestia’s mind at rest, but behind Dhin Dhem Wurs’s impressed smile was a burning flame of caution.

“Listen, shrimp, does Alciel have any interest in usurping old man Hu’s throne?”

Crestia almost fell out of her chair. “Huh?! Where did that come from?!” She shook her head at Wurs. “I find it very unlikely Alciel has any intention of the sort. Not at this point. It would impugn on the whole purpose of the summit, and all it would do is relocate the Devil King’s Army to the East. It would do nothing to fulfill their goals.”

“…I’m sure it wouldn’t. Even I know that much. But if so…phewww…”

Wurs took the smoking pipe placed next to her, fished her stash of tobacco leaves from her pocket, and packed some into the bowl.

“I tell you, that crazy old man’s gonna cause us some serious trouble after all this. He will…”

Two days after Suzuno and Wurs’s barbecue fest:

“Ughhh… The Azure Emperor himselllf?”

“Yes. Apparently Archbishop Cesar’s been crying to himself the past two days, cycling between Welland Isa and Noza Quartus over and over.”

“Things must be in a paaanic around by now, no?”

“We couldn’t ask for a better way to buy us some time, but…”

“But we might paaay for it later.”

In Lamoise, the port city in Kierence on the east edge of the Western Island, people and supplies were sailing northward in an incessant flurry of activity to answer Crusade demand. Emeralda and Rumack were watching the port’s activity from the Saint Aile diplomatic mission in Lamoise.

“Well, I’d say that if we can work to pay back the favors we owe, then fine. There are many ways to repay them. Is Bell in Phiyenci now?”

Beyond the window Rumack looked through, a large sailing vessel cut across the port, a lone figure traveling eastward among the Crusade ships going north.

“Yes. She said she is being ‘reprimaaanded’ by Lady Wurs at the moment.”

“I’m glad she’s taking it easy.”

“Well, when you reach her posiiition, your mouth stops saying the things you waaant to say. I’m sure that’s familiar to you, isn’t it, Ruuumack?”

“Sometimes you can, and sometimes you can’t. Which… Well, I know Suzuno has no interest in doing anything beneficial for the Church, but as a Great Demon General, she’s certainly biding her time. I feel bad for Alciel.”

“Ohhh, she can’t help it! Besides, Alciel is running roughshod around the worrrld right now for us, in many waaays. Sometimes we just need to go with the flowww.”

“…The way Emilia describes it, it’s usually other people running roughshod over him.”

“Oh, maaaybe, yes…”

As they spoke, another ship ventured off to the east. It was headed for Wezu Quartus, a government hub in the western Central Continent and a city that, by and large, had ceased to function.

“Speaking of Emilia, is that whole issue still ongoing?”

Rumack gave Emeralda a mean-spirited look as she jabbed at her. Emeralda didn’t bother to hide her dismay as she brushed Rumack’s hand away.

“I can’t say I’ve come to accept it, nooo, but…well, after some more events, I feel a little bit more graaatified about it…so I’m letting it go for nowww.”

“You don’t have to force it.”

“Oh, quiiit it!”

“…But this, too, is something we might have to thank Bell for. The East, North, and South didn’t raise their hands, so all the other spoils they stood to gain from the heaven invasion will come to the West…or to us, really.”

“You want to push all the tiresome things on Bell and Cervaaantes?”

“Ah, they’re used to it. I’m sure they’ll agree to it.”

“Hopefully sooo, but as you know, neither of them will go down eeeasy, right? They both have their own power…”

“Yes, I know.”

Rumack’s face didn’t change at all. She knew what Emeralda wanted to say, and she had an answer prepared in advance.

“But all these leaders, nations, and lands stepping forward… If we’re missing one of them, then nobody’s going to survive unblemished. No humans anyway. And they’re human, too, right?”

“…Yesss, more or less.”

“That much, I can tell from those two I saw in Devil’s Castle. In fact, if they’re among the higher end, they might be far more tractable than the Azure Emperor or the Devil King’s Army.”

“Oh, don’t let your guaaard down. In Japaaan, I learned, they call that ‘triggering an event flag.’”

“I know. But supposing we’ve already triggered it…” Rumack watched the third ship set off, throwing a kiss at its stern. “That’s when the summit and the Devil King’s Army take center stage, isn’t it?”

“You’re a meeean woman, too, Rumack…”

“Am I? I’m normal. I’m the most normal person out of all of us dragged into this battle. Everyone else is such a monster, it makes me tremble.”

If she was playing dumb, Emeralda thought, she could at least try to act like it a little more. But there was no point picking on her for it.

“And now someone normal like me is about to reel in this ‘angel’ from across the sky. Could you even imagine anything scarier?”

“Yes, yes, all riiight…”

Emeralda just rolled her eyes and shrugged.

“And that’s exactly why we need Archbishop Cesar to do his best to drag on his talks with the Azure Emperor. Unless he can give us at least another week, that’ll just lead to more needless sacrifices.”

“You’re riiight.” Emeralda sighed. “I heard from Chiho about a conflict in a meadow in the northeast Central Continent that caused nearly a hundred caaasualties. The Church knights and Eight Scarves forces are farrr too bloodthirsty for their own good…”

“But even if a hundred people die, the Church and Efzahan can both keep saying they advocate for peace. That’d be unthinkable back before the Devil King’s Army appeared. The world’s gotten a lot more peaceful, hasn’t it?”

“It sure haaas,” agreed Emeralda, her eyes distant. “And meeeanwhile, we’re cheerfully chatting about it like it’s perfectly fiiine.”

“We’re probably not going to heaven, no. I doubt you’d find heaven anywhere…”

Rumack grinned.

While Emeralda and Rumack shared a chuckle…

“And…oof!”

Gabriel swung his broken Durandal sword, neatly slicing off the end of Kinanna’s tail. It flew in the air, still a good ten yards wide at its base.

“Whoa! Another lively tail this time!”

“Again, why are you here?! You’re leaving yourself wide open!”

Albert once again had to save Rajid from being flattened, this time by a massive tail flying straight for him.

“That’s the third time this week! How many tails d’you wanna take home, anyway?!”

“The more, the merrier!”

“Are you insane?!”

It had been a week since the summit, and Rajid’s men had gone through a cycle of draining Kinanna’s magic force, shrinking him down, waiting for him to rest and almost get back up to size, then shrinking him once he got violent again. Somewhere along the line, Kinanna began emitting light beams from his sharpened tail. Gabriel chopped it off to stop him, and they quickly found that this made him much more susceptible to Ciriatto’s magic.

Now he had just done it again for the sixth time, and at this point, the best Kinanna could do was grow not quite as large as a tyrannosaurus.

“I’d like to bring this to an end pretty soon, guys!” Gabriel whined as he looked toward Devil’s Castle. “If we go too far and he can’t revive himself again, that’s kinda trouble for us!”

With the summit behind them, the date of the Devil’s Castle launch was rapidly approaching. Repair work, inside and out, was proceeding at a feverish pace. At the heart of this effort was the core inside the castle, the device that the relics of the Devil Overlord Satan would be inserted into; Urushihara was currently fixing that up himself.

“He better not be procrastinating in there, man!”

“Well, supposedly we can launch it now, but the timing’s important, and even if he’s got his memory back, it’s not like that fixed his personality or anything, so be patient, mm-kay?”

“I can only be patient for so long!”

Except for Rajid (who was tense as ever about this great dragon-slaying expedition), the third Kinanna-neutralizing run in a week was starting to tire out most of the people involved in it, even Gabriel.

“The weight the Azure Emperor’s placing on Noza Quartus is about to get lighter. We need to keep it in a launchable state at all times, or else Bell and the Scarves won’t hold out afterward.”

With this battle, nothing would truly start until the invasion of heaven began. Right now, though, Devil’s Castle was poised to fly back to the demon realms, and whether they launched it or not, they couldn’t wait very long for the kind of “angelic descent” the Western Island would be convinced by. The people from the West could blow up if their Crusade posted no results, and if they did, the flames would spread to the East and North as well. If they wanted to keep the death and sacrifices to a minimum after launching off the Central Continent, they had at most a month to invade heaven and defeat its leader.

“But, y’know…”

Gabriel looked at the skies above Devil’s Castle to the north.

“If he’s got his memories back, let’s trust in that guy’s secret plan, mm-kay? Lucifer says that if we got whatever Kinanna was guarding underground in the demon realms, invading heaven will be easy. He’s the last person you’d expect to reveal something like that. Doesn’t it make you wanna bet on that dark horse?”

“Well, unlike you people, I’ve lived a steady life— Whoa!”

Kinanna, restrained by dark magic a sixth time, began to wither before them.

“Great, our quota’s done for the day… Hmm?”

But something was different this time. As the tyrannosaurus shrank down, out from the pillar of light came a sort of lizardman, walking on two feet. It was Kinanna’s “person” form, last seen over in the demon realms.

<“…It seems the sharpening is over.”>

“Hmm?”

“What did he just say?!”

Albert and Rajid stood on guard, confused at this. But with his sharp eyes, not at all like the deranged, violent lizard from before, Kinanna looked deep into the northern sky.

<“Oh, my, and so the great moment is arriving soon?”>

“I don’t think he’s just talking nonsense now. Or is that…?”

Gabriel, the only person on hand who could understand Kinanna without an Idea Link, followed his gaze to the north.

“Ohh?”

He could see Emilia storming ahead at top speed.

“If she’s in that much of a hurry…maybe this is it, huh?”

Gabriel eased up, relieved in his fatigue, and attempted to heft Durandal on his shoulder—

“Owww!”

“…You do that every time, don’t you?”

—and managed to cut his shoulder, T-shirt and all.

Five days ago, Emi had joined Rajid and Gabriel on their wild lizard-tail chase. Today, she was hiding out in a forest north of Devil’s Castle with Laila. She was fully outfitted in her Better Half and Cloth of the Dispeller armor.

“I have to say, Archbishop Cesar is much more worldly minded than I thought.”

“He’s had a much longer career than Cervantes, but he had his position as head taken from him, and now Lady Wurs is treating Bell as much more important than him. I’m sure he doesn’t like that. That’s why he’s impertinent enough to do something like this.”

Farfarello, tasked with staying undercover and guarding Wurs in Noza Quartus, yesterday had reported that Cesar was heading for Devil’s Castle with a small team of handpicked fighters. Exasperated at the complete lack of progress in his negotiations with the Azure Emperor, he’d taken advantage of Crestia’s attention being diverted northward and decided he had to put up some kind of result—that’s how Farfarello had analyzed it. This, of course, was one potential development they’d fully anticipated—the powers of Cervantes, seeking to block Cesar without leaving his headquarters, had a lot of impact.

“Really, Bell has it the easiest out of us all. She’s just sitting there in the North—getting ‘yelled at’ officially, but I’m sure Wurs is taking her out to lots of meals. I doubt it’s a very grueling experience.”

“Maybe it looks that way from the outside, but with that kind of thing, the more luxurious the surroundings, the harder it is. It’s a much nicer meal if you’re having handmade pot stickers at home with someone you love instead of three-star French cuisine with someone that gets on your nerves. I’m sure her nerves are frazzled by now.”

“Right, but that three-star French dinner isn’t gonna taste bad, is it? I’ve never tried it, but… Anyway, aren’t they gonna be here soon?”

“Yes, they certainly know their stuff.”

“They’re faster than I thought. That must be how much of a panic Cesar’s in.”

“They don’t want to be found by the Eight Scarves, either. They have their scouts out, supposedly. Just because they know their stuff doesn’t mean they want to start killing. Let’s get going.”

“Can you really do this?”

“I’m pretty decent, actually. I always was good at studying.”

Emi and Laila’s role was to block the advance of the force Cesar sent out. Stopping them by force would only lead to a second and third attempt from Cesar, so they were taking a stealthier approach. The broad stretch of road they were on, once a vital artery between Noza Quartus and Isla Centurum, still bore the scars of the Devil King’s Army and was already about to be consumed by the surrounding forest. There, on one side of it, an astonished Emi looked at Laila’s hands.

“Oh… Yeah, you always were involved in medicine, Mother…”

“Yes, and I know my way around the demon realms, so I’ve learned a fair amount about demonic magic…”

The holy magic swirling in Laila’s hand produced a second Emi next to the real one.

“…and so, I can replicate quite a bit of the Malebranches’ demonic magic with holy force.”

“This is so weird.”

The illusion conjured by Laila was akin to a live TV camera pointed at Emi. Any move she made was projected onto a screen of holy magic, making it look like two of her were in perfect sync.

“So I need to stand in front of you and act like an idiot?”

“Well, put some effort into it, please. You need to be Emilia Justina—divine. Enough so to make them abandon the orders of a greedy Archbishop.”

“All right, but… Alas Ramus?”

With a sigh, she spoke to the child inside of her.

“Hi, Mommy!”

“Promise me you won’t come out until I say you can this time, okay? If you can be a good girl, Daddy will play a whole lot with you later.”

“Okeh!”

Maou wouldn’t appreciate being used as bait like this, but she didn’t care right now.

Laila’s job here was to simulate a Malebranche illusory spell to project an image of the Hero Emilia to Cesar’s advancing force, stopping them in their tracks. They’d have Laila do this instead of a Malebranche sorcerer since building a holy magic–driven screen would make the holiness of Emilia projected onto it less questionable.

“What a farce this is.”

“So is everything in this world, nine times out of ten. That’s what makes the other ten percent so exciting.”

“Yeah, yeah. I pity the poor guys who’ll be fooled by a mother-daughter team like this.”

So Emi “transformed” out of sight.

“…Emilia?”

“What?”

The face of the archangel Laila, as she looked upon her silvery-blue-haired, crimson-eyed daughter, was filled with joy like almost never before.

“I know what you’re thinking, all right? Don’t say it.”

“I’m so happy right now.”

And so Emilia’s holy magic, along with her image on the holy screen, proved so effective on the spy force sent by Cesar into Isla Centurum that they wasted the remainder of the day chasing that image around the forest.

“Looks like everything’s going well.”

Deep inside Devil’s Castle, Hanzou Urushihara just stared blankly at the machinery he had finished repairing.

“I can’t believe everything survived as well as it did. It’s sure lucky, or unlucky, or something. But I’m still wondering…”

His speech to himself sounded foreboding, but Urushihara was languidly lying around as usual, his mind on a point far, far up in the sky, far higher than the tip of Devil’s Castle.

“They care enough to kill off an Archbishop. They have to be watching all this. Why aren’t they reaching out?”

Ever since they resolved to invade heaven, the only real resistance heaven had put up was the assassination of Archbishop Robertio—and by now, Urushihara wasn’t even sure that was an assassination at all. There was no evidence either way, but heaven wasn’t incompetent—they had to recognize a threat coming their way.

Up to now, they had sent down a constant stream of attackers, from Sariel to Gabriel, Raguel, and Camael. So why, now that the sword was pointed their way, were they not trying to sabotage Devil’s Castle?

“Maybe a true freeloader doesn’t care what other people think…but I still don’t like this.”

It was a week before the day of the “resolution”—the day where, for the first time since the Devil King’s Army was defeated, the eyes and ears of the world were glued to the Central Continent.

The solemnly-named “summit” was actually a rather cozy affair. The conference room inside the Noza Quartus government building had maybe the same square footage as the first floor of the MgRonald by Hatagaya Station.

There was the Azure Emperor, absolute ruler of the Eastern Island, and his close counsel, the supreme commander of the Inlain Azure Scarves. There was Chief Rajid Rahs Rian, leader of the warrior nation of Vashrahma—the main kingmaker in the Southern Island. There were Cervantes Reberiz and Crestia Bell, two of the six Archbishops who led the largest religion in the world. There were General Hazel Rumack and court sorcerer Emeralda Etuva of the Empire of Saint Aile, the final stronghold of mankind that held firm against the old Devil King’s Army long ago. There was Chief Herder Dhin Dhem Wurs, representing all the clans of the Northern Island.

Eight people, each with enough power to annihilate a nation with the twist of a finger, who were now essentially kneeling before a seventeen-year-old girl.

She had given this meeting the honor of being called a summit, but boil it down and it was basically a power struggle among nations, played on a level normal people could never comprehend. Such were the thoughts of everyone here before they took their seats. They were all invited by a chairman from another world, and why would they have such a literal outsider tell them what to do? And a seventeen-year-old girl, at that? They could barely keep from bursting out in laughter. She was no warrior, no sorcerer, no demon… What kind of power did she have? It was said she was the granddaughter of Chief Herder Dhin Dhem Wurs, but that didn’t gibe with her otherworldly origins—there must’ve been some subterfuge involved.

Nobody could ignore the tumultuous events happening in the Central Continent. But this wasn’t a threat on the same level as the advancing Devil King’s Army of the past—in fact, this whole thing was nothing more than priming the pump, fulfilling leaders’ desires for more land and power. That, of course, was why so much expectation and anticipation were being pointed toward the Central Continent…but the holders of all that anticipation, these people at the pinnacles of human society, were all nervously looking toward the chairman’s seat. All, that is, except for Wurs, a light smile on her wrinkled face as she seemed to look forward to how things would turn out.

Their eyes were all looking at the chairman, a girl named Chiho Sasaki. A face quite familiar to some participants, unknown to others. A petite young woman, wearing something called a “school blazer,” which was apparently a traditional garment from her own world. Her soft expression and fair skin suggested no kind of intimidation or fighting power at all…but nobody could be careless. That was because Chairman Chiho Sasaki, more than anyone else in the world, was working with the authority of someone far more powerful than herself.

“I believe that everybody here understands the purpose of the Devil King’s Army as it wages war against heaven, and that all of you are willing to stake your body and soul on protecting peace and order across the Land of the Holy Cross in the post-heaven world.”

This was how Chairman Sasaki began.

“In my homeland of Japan, we have an expression: ‘Friends who eat from the same pot.’ It can literally mean friends who eat together, but it also refers to people connected so deeply that they will eat and sleep together in pursuit of a common goal.”

Was it Cervantes who cleared his throat at that statement? Or was it Rajid?

“I’d like to tell you in advance that I have prepared lunch for all of you today. You will enjoy a meal composed of things people across Japan eat on a regular basis.”

The chairman ran her eyes across the attendees.

“And…it is also the same cuisine I eat, ‘from the same pot,’ with my most cherished of friends. Isn’t that right…”

She gave quick glances to the people on both sides of her.

“…Satan, the Devil King, and Emilia, the Hero?”

“…Yeah.”

“Yes.”

To the right of Chiho Sasaki was the glorious figure of Satan, King of All Demons, in his original form and large enough that even Rajid—quite a husky man himself—had to look up to see his face. To her left was the Hero Emilia, in her Cloth of the Dispeller and, for some reason, holding a smiling baby.

Everyone in the audience reacted with fear at Satan, then confusion at Emilia’s presence. Cervantes, who hadn’t participated in the battle against heaven, seemed particularly disturbed. He was the one who stood up, ready to defend himself, the moment the demon and his massive evil force stepped into the chamber. The Azure Scarves commander couldn’t hide his own alarm, either—but what struck them as oddest of all was how the chairman, this girl, almost seemed to have the Devil King do her bidding. Normally, unless you had a lot of holy magic, being exposed to the force of a powerful demon would immediately affect your health, even causing death in the worst cases. Meanwhile, here was Chiho Sasaki—no warrior, no sorcerer—and she acted like Satan’s demonic aura was nothing to her. It made no sense.

“Now, I’ve described what we’re about to begin as a conference, but in so many words, it’s more of my ‘request’ to all of you. I have listened to a great number of people, and I have used the advice of experts to come up with a ‘plan’ that ensures none of you will lose anything. Here, I want all of you to be frank with your opinions as we discuss this plan, so we can optimize and execute it more effectively.”

“Rather a haughty request, isn’t it?”

Rajid was the first to speak. One look from the fighter chief’s bearded face would be enough to cow most people, but Chairman Sasaki simply smiled back.

“Yes, it is. After all, if all of you went it alone, you could try till you’re blue in the face and never accomplish what’s in this plan.”

“…!”

“Hee-hee-hee!”

Rajid looked daunted, while Wurs suppressed a chuckle.

“If our Devil King’s Army didn’t hold this summit,” Chiho continued, “the Church’s Crusade force would essentially conquer the Central Continent, wouldn’t it? And if the Crusaders from Noza Quartus and Wezu Quartus accomplish their mission… I want to ask Archbishops Cervantes and Crestia this—would you then have these Church forces retreat back to their original parishes?”

“…”

Neither Archbishop was brash enough to reply. The answer was obvious to everyone, but some things are simply better off unsaid.

“Now, Your Majesty the Azure Emperor, if the Crusaders said they ‘would meekly go home after completing their mission, so please let them go about their business,’ would you believe them?”

“…My forces…in the Eight Scarves…would immediately…resist…with all its might…to protect an independent Centurum from the savages of the West…”

The Azure Emperor, meanwhile, wasn’t the sort of leader to hold back his feelings in a place like this. The conference hall immediately grew tense, Cervantes’s face stiffening and Rajid snorting derisively.

“Lady Dhin Dhem Wurs,” Chiho said. “You have heard the opinions of the West and East, but in this scenario, who would the North side with?”

“Well, we’re lending a landing pier to the Church right now, but we ain’t got no interest in a war, no. At my age, I hardly wanna get in a shoving match with old man Hu here.”

“Chief Rajid, General Rumack… As we speak, we already have a conflict involving at least two islands bubbling under the surface. But do the Empire of Saint Aile and Vashrahma intend to make any moves? Because at this rate, we’re likely to see one side or the other wield exclusive control of the continent.”

“…” Rajid’s face turned sour.

“…Hah! Well put.” Rumack, on the other hand, smiled like she was enjoying this.

Chiho paid it no mind. “Now, I have an important issue to bring up. Archbishop Cervantes: The battle against heaven the Devil King’s Army seeks is, at its heart, an indispensable measure for the continued survival of the human race on Ente Isla. I believe I’ve already had Archbishop Crestia and Emeralda of Saint Aile inform you as much. With that in mind, I want to ask you: Is it possible to convince Archbishop Cesar, Archbishop Mauro, and all other followers of the Church faith that this is the truth?”

“…That…”

“I’ll say in advance that everything I have had you learn about is completely true. If you’d like to see evidence, I can present it to you afterward. That, and Chief Rajid…”

“Mm?”

“Apart from Archbishop Cervantes, everybody in this room is aware of the mission behind the battle against heaven, as well as the fallout—but that knowledge has not been enough to stop their drive to fight it out in the Central Continent. I doubt we will see any suggestions from them about how to stop the conflict…and I can’t blame them for that. They all have nations to lead, and once a plan creaks into action, it takes money simply to keep it going. I understand that none of you can pull back at this point, with nothing to show for it. But even with that in mind, the plan I will present you allows all of you to stay involved.”

“…Um, what happens if we aren’t conviiinced by it? If we refuse to play alooong?” Emeralda asked.

Chiho nodded. “You’re free to do that, of course. But…” Then the chairwoman’s voice took a darker tone. “…I would suggest that you amply consider who the two people behind me are before speaking.”

“What…?!”

“Mmm…”

“Kah-hah-hah!”

Rajid and Cervantes turned pale, while Wurs could no longer contain her laughter.

“What kind of story did you feed her, Emeralda? This is nothing like the Chiho from before. If it weren’t for everyone else in here, I’d think the Devil King was mind-controlling her or something.”

“…No, she wasn’t the type of girl to say thaaat, or even be able to say thaaat. And I don’t think the Devil Kiiing can, either.”

“…”

The representatives from Saint Aile shared a smile with each other. Satan, within earshot of it, visibly winced.

“Alas Ramus, can you come here a moment?”

“What, Chi-Sis?”

The chairman turned toward Emilia, then took the baby girl from her arms.

“Now, Alas Ramus, who is your daddy?”

“Daddy is Satan!”

A murmur arose in the hall. Satan looked down, hiding his grimace.

“And who’s your mommy?”

“Mommy…”

The baby beamed from ear to ear, then pointed straight at her.

“My mommy is Emi-ya!”

The ensuing furor was somewhere between panic and astonishment. Emi, so publicly pinpointed, averted her reddened face, as if holding something back. The emotion behind that blushing was unclear, but depending on how you looked at it, maybe she was being bashful. It certainly lent credence to the declaration of the child in the chairman’s hands.

“Satan, Emilia, and I are ‘friends who eat from the same pot.’ Our battle against heaven began with a drive to make Alas Ramus happy again. So…if you refuse to join this plan, please consider it would be making the Devil King, the Hero, and the entire nation of Japan in my world your enemies.”

It caused a major stir, but nobody was able to counter it. It was a wholly irrational line of argument—a threat, really. She was operating on borrowed authority, and she must’ve known it. But even so, all these leaders, in all their exalted glory, didn’t fire back—not even Cervantes, the Devil King Army’s greatest enemy.

The chairwoman nodded her approval of the atmosphere around the chamber. Then she turned to the child.

“Thank you, Alas Ramus. Satan?”

“Yeh! Daddy!”

She deliberately gave Alas Ramus back to Satan. This innocent child, trying to climb up the King of Demons as he held her, was the tie binding him and the Hero together—that much was proven now.

“But if you agree to the plan I offer, none of you stand to lose anything. You won’t be able to have the entire pie for yourself, but I promise you that you will reap great rewards ahead of the nations that don’t participate. Now…Satan?”

“Yeah, yeah… Hey, E…Emilia.”

At the chairman’s signal, Satan hefted himself up, taking a quick glance at the agitated audience before returning the baby to Emilia. The whole thing was so natural that it only reinforced the strength of their bond—but with that, the cramped-looking Satan left the conference hall. Several minutes later, he was back—this time carrying a large pot, accompanied by a rather bizarre crew.

“A-Alciel…”

One of them was the Great Demon General Alciel, a face many in the audience knew. But behind him, carrying a tray full of small, white globs on little plates, was clearly a human being—and the young girl who followed was even sneaking some bites from her tray as she brought it in.

“Hey, Acieth!” Satan yelled.

“Sorry, sorry! I wait so long, I get hungry!”

The girl Satan called Acieth, upon further examination, seemed to resemble the baby Alas Ramus quite a bit.

“Here, Father, let me help you.”

“Father?!”

Those who didn’t know Nord Justina had an even bigger surprise after they heard Emilia refer to the human behind Alciel as her father. Soon, though, the hall was filled with an exquisite aroma. Clearly, this was food they had brought in.

“You see, all of you here today are friends eating from the same pot, fighting for Ente Isla’s future.”

The trays and pots were all lined up on the chairman’s desk—then the chairman herself began to lay out place settings for everyone, before their eyes.

“This is an onigiri, or rice ball. And this is tori no kara-age, a way of frying chicken. This is myoga no hiyayakko, a cold cube of tofu with ginger on top, and this is daikon no misoshiru, or miso soup with radishes. These are all selections we couldn’t do without in the Devil King Army’s day-to-day operations. I cooked all of this.”

This was the first thing Chairwoman Sasaki—Chiho—suggested to Wurs. She had every intention of harnessing Satan and Emilia’s authority for her needs, yes—but she also wanted them to understand the differences between this world and Japan. So, just this once, she wanted them to sample the type of cuisine Chiho and the rest ate at Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka…and this was the result.

Now, just as Archbishop Crestia, Emeralda Etuva, and Dhin Dhem Wurs were about to dive into lunch:

“No!”

The baby in Emilia’s arms stopped them, eliciting shivers from the audience. Facing them, the daughter of the Devil King and Hero sternly lectured them.

“You hafta say ‘thank you’ first!”

Normally such a sincere order from a toddler would elicit laughs. But the group in here had no idea how to react, simply nodding vaguely at each other.

And then…