THE DEVIL AND THE HERO UNEXPECTEDLY BECOME PARENTS
Well-polished gears groaned to life in a room that smelled of machine oil and metal.
The power was enough to spring the connected drive-train system to full initial power, its state-of-the-art gear control allowing for flexible drive operation.
Its performance was aided by the buffed, sparkling framework that formed the body. It was lightweight, but remarkably sturdy.
It was also outfitted with a full line of safety features. The front safety flashers were automatically activated by optical sensors, and an audio warning device allowed the operator to immediately inform others of the vehicle’s position. The reflector plates facing all sides were also standard equipment, providing vital support for unexpected enemy ambushes.
Yet despite all of this hands-on functionality, the vehicle lost nothing in terms of transport capacity and driver comfort.
The seat was upholstered in leather. In addition to the large-capacity container on the front, several optional freight-storage units were bolted on to the sides, ready for use.
“Whaddaya think? That’s everything on your list, right there.”
A man in a greasy workman’s jumpsuit pointed at the vehicle, his voice full of confidence.
“…Lemme try it out before I say anything.”
Another man, younger, shook his head, his face stern. The machine oil mechanic fired back.
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that. It’s fully machined and ready to go—I did all the fine-tuning myself. It’ll put up with whatever you put it through for at least the next hundred years, yeah?”
He crossed his arms, as if challenging his partner to defy him.
“I’ll be holding you to that.” The young man grinned as he climbed onto the pilot’s seat. “Whoa… Dang.”
The workman flashed a grin of his own as the young man voiced his approval.
Toward the side, someone muttered to herself sullenly:
“…How longer must we perpetuate this charade?”
The young man paid the commentary no mind as he brought both hands to the steering wheel and stomped down on one of the two pedals.
As he did, he let out a whoop of pleasure.
“Whooaaahh! Wow! It’s so light! I can’t believe how light it is with this gearshift!”
The young man, pumping the gearshift to and fro as he navigated out of the maintenance garage, gleefully shouted to no one in particular.
“This is awesome!”
“Thank ya much, Maou! And I’ll cut you a deal, too. How does 29,800 yen sound?”
“Sweet, Mr. Hirose! She’s got the money for you. You got it ready, Suzuno?”
The young man called Maou tilted his head toward the woman sitting on a folding chair near the wall of the garage, her puffed-cheek insolence ill-befitting her traditional Japanese kimono.
The oil-stained man raised his eyebrows as he turned toward her.
The girl Maou called Suzuno took a crepe-fabric purse out from the goldfish print tote bag in her hand, a look of utter chagrin on her face.
“Mr. Shopkeeper, was there any manner of meaning behind your conversation just now?”
Hirose, owner of the Hirose Cycle Shop in a shopping arcade on Bosatsu Street—just five minutes’ walk from the Keio Sasazuka station in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward—removed the towel wrapped around his head and laughed heartily as he wiped the sweat off his brow.
“Hey, it’s just part of the package, ya know? Part of the package. You really gonna pay the tab this time, though? Ya seeing Maou right now or something?”
The girl’s facial muscles visibly tensed at the question.
“I would like you to refrain from such jests. Circumstances beyond my control are forcing me to pay this bill. Sadao, would you stop cavorting like a child? Return here at once so we can complete whatever antitheft paperwork we need.”
“All right, all right.”
Sadao Maou returned to the garage, grinning from ear to ear, riding his mint-condition, gleaming, high-end urban bicycle.
It was a Stonebridge citybike with six gears, perfectly attuned to Maou’s needs. Reflector panels had been installed in all directions over its aluminum frame, and the front light was programmed to flash automatically in the dark.
“Twenty-nine thousand, eight hundred yen for the bicycle, three hundred yen for the antitheft registration… Ah, you don’t have to worry about the last hundred. Thirty thousand works for me.”
“I appreciate the gesture.”
Suzuno unfurled three neatly folded ten-thousand-yen bills and presented them to Hirose.
“Thank you much! Say, while you’re here, are you in the market for a bike at all, ma’am?”
Suzuno shook her head at the suggestion.
“I will pass for now, thank you. I have yet to undergo the relevant drilling.”
“The rele-what?”
She continued in a wholly deadpan manner to the confused Hirose.
“I understand that although no licensing procedure is required, one must undergo a process of education that involves the use of a support device known as ‘training wheels.’”
Maou pictured the compact, kimono-wearing Suzuno pumping away at a child-sized bike with training wheels attached. Perhaps some pony decals and handlebar streamers would be involved. He had to resist busting out in laughter. “That could be pretty cute, actually, huh?”
Suzuno glared a bit at Maou. “Honestly… Mr. Shopkeeper, I would have the receipt, please.”
“Oh? Uh, sure. I’m gonna have to handwrite one, if that works for ya. Hang on while I find my receipt pad.”
“If you could make it out to ‘Sankt Ignoreido Co., Ltd.,’ I would appreciate it.”
Maou was the only one of them who expressed clear surprise.
“Whoa, is that…?”
But Hirose paid it no special mind as he filled out the receipt and ripped it off of the pad.
“And there you go. Thanks again! Take good care of that thing for me, Maou. It’s a gift, I guess, yeah?”
“Um, yeah…”
Waving at Hirose as they put the bicycle shop behind them, Maou and Suzuno walked side by side as they headed toward the apartment building they each called home.
Maou almost skipped as he giddily walked along, shiny new ride in hand. In Suzuno’s was a summer parasol, protecting her face against the pounding summer heat.
“Hey, like, what’re you even gonna do with that receipt, anyway?”
“If I retain a full account of my monetary resources here, I may be able to receive the equivalent amount back in the future, once I am finished with slaying you.”
“Oh, you’re gonna report to the Church that the Devil King you were sent to kill bummed a bike off you instead?”
Suzuno glared from underneath her parasol.
“I would be happy to spread the word far and wide across the Church that the Devil King is a vile, conniving demon, one not even beneath begging a Church official for a bicycle.”
“Hey, you know how politicians and stuff like to pretend they’re all ‘of the people’ and like that, right? I don’t see what’s so wrong about me doing that. Gotta prove that I got my finger on the pulse of the common man, you know? Plus, for me, it’s not even some fake act I’m putting on.”
As the Devil King of the People bragged about his environmentally conscious (if dirt-poor and, indeed, conniving) lifestyle, he turned around to peer into a shop he almost walked right by.
“Hang on, Suzuno. I wanna hit the stationery store.”
Hitching his new bike at the side of the road and locking it up tight, Maou went into the small shop. The retail space was devoted more to cheap candy and kids’ trinkets than pens and paper, but Maou’s purchase was purely stationery, although still enough to make Suzuno tilt her head in confusion.
“What do you need glue for?”
“Hee-hee! How nice of you to ask. Behold!”
With a greasy grin, he fished a small, red plastic plate from his pocket.
“This is a reflector plate from my beloved Dullahan. The one you crushed into a pulp, if you recall. I pried it off after the cops called me over to haul it away. Kind of a memento, you know?”
As he spoke, he used the glue to attach the piece to the shining metal bike basket.
“With this, the soul of Dullahan, the noble steed who gallantly abandoned his life to protect his master, shall survive into the next generation! From this moment forward, you shall be named Dullahan…II!”
“…How exciting.”
Having an affinity for one’s accoutrements was hardly unusual, but a grown man giving a name to his mode of transport—his bicycle, no less—in this day and age was a pitiable occasion for anyone unlucky enough to witness it.
“Are you quite ready then, Devil King? We should go.”
That went double when the man in question was Satan, the Devil King, mortal foe of all mankind.
The girl who went by the name Suzuno Kamazuki in Japan sighed a deep sigh as she proceeded on, not bothering to wait for Maou’s response.
The clean, clear-glass hairpin stabbed into her hair shone a bright white in the afternoon summer sun as she dejectedly walked ahead.
Satan, the Devil King. That was the name awarded the demon who mounted an attempt to conquer the faraway world of Ente Isla.
Sadao Maou. That was the name of the young man living a shade away from downtown Tokyo, working an hourly fast-food job to keep himself fed.
No one, neither man nor god, could ever have conceived of the bloodthirsty, ambitious Devil King going from world domination to eking out a part-time living in the Sasazuka neighborhood of Shibuya ward, Tokyo.
It had been just over a year since he was defeated by the Hero Emilia Justina, and thrown into the alien world of “Japan.”
He lived in Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka, a wooden apartment complex built sixty years ago in this neighborhood. The hundred-square-foot, single-room rental served as his temporary Devil’s Castle as Satan attempted to achieve independence through low-wage labor, even though the past few months had proven rather frantic for him.
The first year was a constant battle with poverty and disaster, but he nonetheless devoted himself wholeheartedly to his work on a daily basis.
Then, nine months ago, he found a long-term gig at the MgRonald restaurant situated in front of Hatagaya station, a single stop from Sasazuka. After that—in no small part thanks to being blessed by a talented, fast-track manager—he finally began to find some semblance of stability in his life.
This humdrum routine began to rip at the seams the moment the Hero Emilia, still chasing after the escaped Devil King, appeared before him under the guise of “Emi Yusa.”
Whether Maou’s completely lawful, high-fructose-corn-syrup-heavy lifestyle could really be described as a “humdrum routine” for a bloodthirsty space alien demon was a matter for debate, but that can be discussed later.
Regardless, there was no doubt that “rip at the seams” is an apt way to describe what happened next, what with one of his ex-generals attempting to assassinate him and the Hero herself being double-crossed by the humans allegedly supporting her.
But once it all passed and normalcy returned to his life, it was back to his old Joe Shmoe job, back to three meals a day and a warm floor to sleep on. Maou devoted all the strength he had to keeping this status quo…well, the status quo.
Even when the Hero took the train three stops down in order to gripe at him on his doorstep, even when a chief cleric from the Church on Ente Isla moved in next door in an attempt to poison him with her allegedly demon-poisoning sacrosanct food, the Devil King stuck to his daily routine, doing what he believed necessary to jump-start his goals of world domination.
Living a sound personal life, and faithfully building up his reputation in hopes of climbing the MgRonald corporate ladder, was what Maou believed would propel him once again to the throne of overlord.
After Suzuno Kamazuki—known on another world as Crestia Bell, chief of the Church’s Reconciliation Panel and a girl currently attempting to poison the Devil King by being his private chef, to little effect—destroyed his bicycle, Maou made her pay restitution for it, exaggerating a great deal of its feature set in the process.
She still looked peeved as they walked along, not entirely convinced Maou was dealing fairly with her.
“…Did that, uh, cost more than you were expecting?”
Maou tried to get back on Suzuno’s good side, even though the woman had pulverized his bike and attempted to kill him not long ago. Suzuno opted against returning the gaze, sighing listlessly under the parasol.
“I think I am beginning to understand why Emilia allows you such leeway in this world.”
“Oh?”
“Are you on friendly terms with the owner of that bicycle shop?”
“Yeah. …Well, not really at first. We both met when we kept volunteering for neighborhood cleanup duty. But his wife liked taking their kid over to MgRonald a lot. We’ve kinda come to know each other a lot more since.”
The friendship, as Maou described it, couldn’t have been more run-of-the-mill. Turning a street corner to duck into the shade, Suzuno sighed—partly in relief that she escaped the sun, partly due to a sinking sense of disillusionment.
“I had resigned myself to my fate once you said we were traveling to the bicycle shop today.”
“What d’you mean by that?”
Suzuno removed a thick booklet from her tote bag and handed it to Maou.
“I am referring to the monetary figure that you, the Devil King, would attempt to extort from me. It sent shivers up my spine, to be frank, wondering what exorbitant sum you would ask for. I appreciated, after all, that I did owe you a substantial debt.”
Maou thumbed through the pamphlet with one hand. It was a bicycle catalog.
“‘Mountain bike,’ ‘road’—no, ‘load cycle’? Or even one of those wilderness galloping BM-whatevers! I was perfectly expecting one of those to come my way!”
“…You don’t have to pretend you know anything about bikes, Suzuno.”
“Diligent study is the key to life itself! My point is that, even with the antitheft registration, it was…disarming to be asked for only thirty thousand. I had withdrawn two hundred thousand yen from the bank earlier.”
“Look, did you seriously think someone living in abject poverty like I do would ask for a top-of-the-line bike model? The Dullahan you destroyed goes for 6,980 yen brand-new at the Donkey Hottie Discount Store over in Hounancho.”
Maou tossed the brochure back as he boasted of his cheap spending habits. It only served to make Suzuno further disconsolate.
“The barbarous Devil King is given the chance to make a purchase with a human being’s money. I would have expected anything and everything from you!”
“You could try trusting me a little, man. Or are you just that dead set on the Devil King being a total prick all the time? Besides, no offense to Mr. Hirose or anything, but he doesn’t really deal in, like, Tour de France stuff.”
Maou inserted an indifferent laugh midway. Suzuno looked up, a woeful expression on her face. She quickly turned back down, though, as Maou realized something and dared a look at her.
“But you withdrew two hundred thousand yen? You only just came here, you haven’t worked a single day, and you got that much in your account? ’Cause, like, I’ve been working this hard and I don’t think my balance has ever gotten past two hundred thousand.”
“Well, unlike yourself and Emilia, I had the time to make ample preparations.” Suzuno shrugged. She did not go into further detail.
Not long ago, she had ventured into Shinjuku for the first time with the Hero Emilia, known as Emi Yusa to most here. The precious gems and other relics she brought into Mugi-hyo, a well-known pawn shop in the neighborhood, fetched a price that would have made Maou’s eyeballs pop out of their sockets.
She had zero intention, naturally, of informing the personification of evil living next door of the exact number, but it offered Suzuno enough freedom that she could enjoy several months of modest living going forward without having to find work.
“Huh. Well, neat. Better keep my pinkies up around you, I guess.”
He pouted a bit as he spoke, but Maou’s attention was still more focused on his bike. He rang the bell on it, like a child with a new toy.
“Anyway, though, thanks. I appreciate this.”
“……”
Suzuno looked up at Maou and his unexpected words of gratitude. This time around, their eyes successfully met. She hurriedly used her parasol to shield her face.
The idea of evil incarnate so easily, guilelessly smiling and thanking people was nothing short of outrageous. In fact, when was the last time someone had offered her such meek and unadorned gratitude?
“I-it was restitution. And only that. It is now yours, and you may use it as you wish.”
“Sure thing.”
They walked silently for a few moments.
“D-Devil King?”
“Yeah?”
Suzuno, unable to remain silent for reasons she couldn’t verbalize, stopped and pointed to her side.
“Wh-what is that? It seems that a great number of establishments have suddenly begun dealing in flowers.”
She was pointing at the front door of a flower shop.
Bundles of unadorned white tree branches were lined up in the middle of the shop space by the dozen, pushing away the colorfully blooming flowers to the side.
“Oh, those? Those are ogara sticks.”
“Ah, I see. So is that a dried version of the remnants you’re left with after preparing tofu?”
“…What?”
Maou had difficulty understanding what Suzuno was talking about before realizing that they had just passed by a tofu and natto shop.
“Oh, uh… No, that’s called okara. I’m talking about ogara. O-Ga-Ra. Ogara sticks, all right?”
Suzuno, a veteran officer serving the church’s Department of Diplomatic and Missionary Operations, was pretty well acquainted with Japanese culture and customs for an Ente Islan.
In some ways, however, it often backfired. She had a habit of patching up holes in her knowledge with things she already knew about, which occasionally led to stumbles like her obsession over training wheels a few moments ago.
“Ah, right! Perhaps we could have some okara croquettes for dinner tonight.”
“Jeez, Suzuno, what are you, some kind of housewife?”
“I have to hand it to the chefs and cooking experts of Japan. Croquettes are a wonderful cuisine indeed, but using the okara usually disposed of during the tofu-making process to create a lovely low-cost, low-calorie foodstuff was a stroke of genius!”
As Suzuno reflected on the origins of her upcoming dinner menu, a housewife stopped by the flower shop to pick up a bundle of ogara sticks.
“Look, the Obon holiday is coming up, yeah? Those ogara are used to light the mukaebi and okuribi, the fires that’re meant to welcome in and see off the spirits of the dead that visit during the holiday.”
Maou pointed at another bundle as he spoke.
“Obon… Ah, yes, the festival when families offer their respects to their ancestors, yes? But that begins in the month of August, does it not?”
When it came to religious customs, at least, Suzuno had done her homework.
“Yep. It used to be celebrated in the seventh month of the old Japanese calendar, which is August nowadays. But in the Tokyo area, people light those mukaebi fires to bring in the spirits in July. That’s what those sticks are for.”
“Hohh! I had thought this nation was rather secular by nature. Perhaps these traditions are more a part of the culture’s fabric than I anticipated.”
“But, why does the Tokyo holiday come sooner, then?”
“Well, there’s a few different theories, but back when Japan switched to the Western calendar and the shogunate moved their ceremonies to the same dates in the new calendar, it was really just the Tokyo area that followed suit. The rest of the country didn’t so much. Kinda weird to do things the same time for hundreds of years and then get told you have to start doing it some other time from now on, after all.”
“I see. Interesting.”
“Wowww…”
“Most people in Japan get time off of work around the middle of August for Obon, you know? But the government at the time had the strongest grip on power in Tokyo and part of the Kanagawa area, so only those parts switched over to the seventh month of the new calendar. Everyone else celebrated Obon the same time as before—the seventh month of the old calendar, or August.”
“…You’ve done your research, I see.”
“You sure know a lot for being Devil King and all, Maou!”
“Yeah, I kinda read up on that stuff last year. Not that it’s much more than trivia these days, but…um?”
“Hmm?”
“Yes?”
Suzuno and Maou slowly turned around, both realizing their conversation had gained a stowaway passenger at some point.
“Aghh!! J-jeez, Chi, when did you show up?!”
“Chiho! Since when were you there?!”
Chiho Sasaki, Maou’s coworker and the only Japanese person to know the truth about Maou, Suzuno, and the world of Ente Isla, was there in her prim school uniform. There was no way of telling how long she had been standing there.
She was carrying a silver-colored portable cooler instead of her school-issue bookbag.
“Did I surprise you?”
She smiled in triumph.
“I got you back for what you did to me before, Suzuno! …Of course, all I got to hear was about how you were going to make okara croquettes for dinner, but…”
“Ohhh… Ha-ha! Neat. But you’re out of school already? That’s kind of early.”
Chiho answered cheerfully: “It’s all half-days ’til summer break. All our final exams are over, so…”
Come to think of it, it wasn’t that long ago when Chiho was going on about this or that examination, although she never whined about her test scores or took special time off her scheduled shifts. The fact that her involvement in the vast conspiracy that seemed to be unfolding between Ente Isla and Earth didn’t seem to affect her test performance at all made Maou wonder if she had nerves of galvanized steel.
As Maou pondered over this, Chiho’s eyes turned downward.
“Ooh, new bike?”
“Yep. Suzuno kind of trash-compacted my old one.”
He lovingly patted Dullahan II’s saddle.
“The Devil King said he had found a worthy bicycle. I have merely paid for it.” Suzuno spat out each word, trying to cover up her surprise at Chiho’s sudden appearance. “But enough of me. What brings you here, Miss Sasaki?”
“Oh, I was about to buy just what you were talking about.”
Chiho pointed between the two, toward the same flower shop as before.
“Ogara?”
“Yep! My mom asked me to. And I was planning to visit your apartment after that, so…”
She raised a shoulder upward to point out the portable cooler hanging from it.
“One of my dad’s relatives gave us some ice cream, but neither of my parents have much of a sweet tooth. But we have a ton of it, so I thought maybe I’d give some of it to you guys.”
“Ice cream?! Seriously?! Are you sure?!”
Maou’s eyes gleamed. Something cold and sweet, tumbling down like manna from heaven!
“Man, that’s awesome! We’ll take it, we’ll take it! Thank you so much!”
Chiho smiled, watching Maou all but leap into the air in joy.
“Oh, good! So give me just one second, all right? I need to buy that ogara.”
From the side, Suzuno watched the Devil King see the high schooler off.
“…Should I just leave him as he is? Would that hurt anyone?”
The doubts she had begun to feel recently slipped from her lips.
Shouts of glee soon echoed across the steaming Devil’s Castle, a groaning fan stirring the acrid, spirit-draining midsummer air inside.
“Ice cream?”
“Ice cream?!”
Alciel and Lucifer, fellow Devil’s Castle denizens and two of the Devil King Satan’s former Great Demon Generals, gasped in excited surprise as Maou stepped in with Chiho.
“And…and, and it’s a premium gift pack from Haggen-Boss?! Are—are you truly sure about this?!”
Chiho removed her shoulder-bag cooler and pointed it in Ashiya’s direction. “Don’t worry about it, Ashiya. We still have more than enough back at home.”
Alciel, the resident accountant and housekeeper at Devil’s Castle and a man who went by Shirou Ashiya more often than not these days, fell to his knees, the sight of the cooler seemingly framed by rays of brilliant sunshine.
“I…I could hardly begin to thank you and your parents enough, Ms. Sasaki…”
Ashiya bowed his head deeply, his tall frame almost kowtowing before Chiho. The sight was enough to fluster her.
“Ooh, wow, look at all the flavors in there! C’mon, Ashiya, let’s do this! Get the spoons out!”
“Urushihara… You know there’s something you need to say to Chi first.”
To the scandalous youth whose eyes were already filled with nothing but the sight of frozen treats, Maou spoke with scorn.
Hanzou Urushihara was the name adopted by Lucifer, the former general who now lived a leechlike lifestyle in Devil’s Castle. As such, he paid his former master no mind.
“Oh, it’s fine, Maou. I know how Urushihara acts by now.”
Chiho’s unhesitant castigation was delivered with a smile.
Thanks to her awareness of the truth behind Maou and his cohorts, she had few good words for Urushihara, who had still been Maou’s enemy when she first met him.
Even now, with him more or less back in Maou’s demonic army, he rarely moved an inch from his computer, day after day, not even bothering to help with housework. The classic unemployed freeloader lifestyle, in other words, and Chiho was less than warm to it.
Maou smiled bitterly to himself and gave Chiho a light pat on the shoulder, diverting her attention.
“Yeah… Well, anyway, thanks. Really.”
“…! Um…uh, yeah. Yeah. You’re welcome.”
The redness to Chiho’s cheeks at that moment had nothing to do with the heat.
She had already publicly acknowledged her feelings for Maou. But since she didn’t frame them in a way that demanded a response, the true nature of their relationship remained unclear, dangling in the air like flypaper.
This was something Chiho had made peace with. She understood, after all, that Maou wasn’t the sort of man to give a response without applying serious thought to it first.
Little moves like these on Maou’s part, however, were still enough to throw her off guard, sending her pulse skyrocketing at unpredictable times.
“Um… Oh! Oh! Suzuno, we should let Suzuno have some… Huh?”
Chiho attempted to call the presumably present Suzuno in order to cover up her blushing. But, even after sticking her head out the door and scoping out the hallway, she was nowhere to be found.
“You looking for her? She went right back out once we got here.”
“Oh… Really?”
“Wow, strawberry, green tea, mint… Daaaaang, dude, is this pumpkin? Whoa!”
“Whoa whoa whoa! Save some for Suzuno, Urushihara!”
Chiho had to hurriedly rush back inside to keep Urushihara from claiming the goods for himself.
“Aww! Who cares about Bell, dude? Finders keepers, losers weepers!”
Urushihara was clearly peeved. Chiho puffed up her cheeks in anger as she plucked one of the several half-pint tubs of ice cream nestled in his arms.
“Either she gets some, or you don’t get any! How many of these were you planning to eat, anyway? You’re gonna get brain freeze!”
“Dude, I’m not a child, okay?! I’m, like, several million years older than you!”
“Years don’t matter with you, Urushihara! You’re still a child! Even a grade-schooler would be a lot nicer than you!”
“Guys, can you keep it down? It’s too hot to be yapping at each other.” Maou gently stepped in, picking up the cooler and handing it to Ashiya. “Let’s just take one each and leave the rest for later, okay? Nobody’s gonna mind if we give the vanilla to Suzuno, right?”
“Absolutely, Your Demonic Highness.” Ashiya deferentially accepted the cooler, giving Chiho another respectful bow as he methodically stacked the cups in the freezer compartment.
“Oh, come onnnn. Just one?”
Urushihara pitifully mewled in protest, strawberry half pint still in hand.
“Why do we hafta leave any for Suzuno? She’s our mortal enemy and stuff.”
“U. Ru. Shi. Haaaa. Ra?!”
“Wh-what, Chiho Sasaki?! She’s kinda your rival, too, dude! In a lot of different ways!”
The mostly dissipated warmth resurrected itself within Chiho’s cheeks.
“Well…yes! She, she is! She’s my rival, and my friend!”
She put as much firmness as she could into it.
“Huhh? What’s that s’posed to mean?”
“I mean the rival thing’s one thing, but the ice cream’s another! That’s why you’re a child, Urushihara! You don’t even understand that!”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m the child and that’s why it’s all my fault, huh? No way I’d ever understand some crazy girl acting all jealous of—oww!”
Urushihara groaned at the sudden impact thudding upon his temple as he attempted to give Chiho his most finely honed, well-polished sass.
“That’s enough, Urushihara! If you dare to pelt our kind and generous guest with any more verbal abuse, I’m confiscating that strawberry cup and canceling our Internet!”
Urushihara, teary-eyed, looked up at the goblin face of Ashiya from below.
“A demon like you, eating all our food, wasting all our money, not lifting a finger to help out around the Castle…I would put Crestia and the Church-anointed food she’s poisoning us with over you any day of the week! And now you berate Ms. Sasaki, a walking saint who’s provided nothing but support to His Demonic Highness and sincerely cares about the state of our Castle! The gods above may forgive you, but never shall I!”
The chief househusband of Devil’s Castle kept Chiho behind her as he rained lightning downward.
Ashiya had been less than welcoming of Chiho’s advances toward his demonic superior at first, but his suspicions had been thoroughly quelled by the cooking Chiho and her mother provided. Now he saw the Sasaki family as nothing less than the savior of their monthly budget.
Urushihara’s face twitched beneath Ashiya’s withering rage. He took a step backward.
“A-all right, all right… Man, that teenage girl’s got you whipped. Maou, too.”
One hand was to his head, the other still gently cradling the strawberry ice cream cup as he retreated back to his default position in front of the computer.
“Now then, Ms. Sasaki… Please, come over here. There’s a bit more of a breeze closer in. I have some barley tea to drink.”
Sitting Chiho down on the low table at the center of the room, Ashiya presented a Haggen-Boss cup and a glass of tea, adjusting the fan behind him to provide more relief.
The Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments the Devil’s Castle was currently situated within did not offer air-conditioning as a standard option.
It was possible for tenants to obtain permission from Miki Shiba, the building’s landlord, to install a unit. Theoretically possible, at least. But Shiba was still out in the tropics somewhere, declining to offer any kind of return date.
Maou was motivated enough to investigate, given how (unlike last summer) he had a regular income to fund some AC with. He contacted the property management firm Shiba had left contact information for, but apparently she had never contracted this outfit for matters related to individual building maintenance.
In other words, the so-called property management guys could change the fluorescent lights that lined the hallway, but anything involving private tenant spaces had to go through the landlord first.
She had done so in the past. Take two months ago, when Shiba herself stopped by to discuss the earthquake-proofing work she had scheduled.
However, installing AC in Devil’s Castle involved cutting a hole in the wall to connect the outdoor condenser with the indoor fan. That counted as making “major adjustments” to the building, apparently.
It was especially galling because, while Shiba was overseas somewhere, she was hardly in hiding. On regular occasions, she sent Maou letters describing where she was and what she was up to.
Said letters, though, were usually dated several weeks prior to when they finally reached Maou’s mailbox. By the time a dispatch from one tropical paradise or the other arrived, she would already have moved on to her next idyllic retreat. Making contact was all but impossible.
And more to the point, neither Maou, nor Ashiya, nor Urushihara were willing to open her mail in the first place. They gathered dust deep inside the Devil’s Castle’s prefab shelving. The scars from the “landlord cheesecake pin-up massacre” that befell the trio not long after Urushihara arrived still remained embedded in their hearts.
Thus, the ex-demons had diligently ignored every piece of mail from Shiba until Suzuno moved in next door. Their new neighbor had given them a mouthful about this habit, bringing up the specter of Shiba sending them some sort of important notice and them remaining blissfully unaware. So, not too long ago, the gang decided to open up the most recent letter.
It was the same envelope as always, the gold-lined border giving it the air of contrived luxury. The address was written in an elegant hand using some sort of fountain or quill pen—a sight they were used to by now.
This time around, Maou’s landlord was over in Indonesia. The cheesecake pin-up massacre had taken place in Hawaii, but she wasn’t soaking up the rays on Bali or anything—instead, for motives and purposes that only Shiba could ever truly understand, she had traveled to the island of Borneo to join some spiritual ceremony held by the local indigenous people.
Swallowing nervously, Maou dared a peek at the photograph included. There was his landlord, wearing a highly conspicuous gold-and-silver-spangled dress and a broad-rimmed hat with several dozen colorful feathers jabbed into it like a mutant peacock’s rear end. The inch-thick makeup, meanwhile, was a much more familiar sight.
At that moment, Maou instinctively knew there was no point trying to make contact with her. What happens, happens.
They survived the summer heat last year AC free, after all. Besides, they now had Urushihara, a walking, talking package of bad debt, pushing upon their budget.
Maou decided this was God’s way of telling him that just because they had some monetary wiggle room didn’t mean they could bust out the caviar. He did not ask himself why the revelations of an Earth-based deity should take precedence over the Devil King of a wholly unrelated planet.
“You know, I thought it would be hotter in here, but this apartment gets a pretty good breeze, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess that kind of saves all our hides, huh? We got the corner room, so there’s a few more windows than normal.”
To keep the sun from directly beating down on their room, he had placed bamboo blinds (purchased at the Donkey Hottie shop in Hounancho, the birthplace of Dullahan I). All the windows were wide open, the fan deftly positioned to encourage proper airflow. This rewarded them with a draft, albeit a dank and muggy one. The fact that Villa Rosa Sasazuka wasn’t adjacent to any nearby buildings, but was separated from them by a tiny, bare-earth front yard, no doubt helped.
“Maouuuu, are we really not gonna buy an AC unit this year?”
Urushihara, in contrast to Chiho as she enjoyed the summer breeze, had fallen into the depths of hell.
“I told you, man. We can’t contact the landlord, and we can’t afford to install it anyway. Besides, if we bought some cheapo AC, the electric bill next month would kill me.”
“Barrrrfffff…”
“I’m not really a fan of air-conditioning myself.”
Chiho chimed in as she methodically pecked at her rum-raisin.
“They have AC in the classrooms at school, but whenever we’re done with gym class or whatever, someone always turns it, like, all the way down. It’s freezing!”
“Indeed, the greatest achievements of civilization wield the power to destroy all of us. The mere thought of the electricity bill is enough in and of itself to send shivers up my spine!”
Ashiya voiced his agreement in a way only he could as he enjoyed his green tea ice cream.
“Yeah, I can totally picture the guy, too. Probably never shuts up, I bet, huh? Then, if you turn up the thermostat at all, he’s probably like ‘Ohhh, it’s so hot, it’s so hot!’ and turns it back down the moment no one’s paying attention.”
Maou grimaced as he stabbed away at his Cookie Crunch.
“Yes! Exactly!”
Chiho nodded eagerly.
“I’m pretty familiar with guys like that. It’s like their mind’s always short-circuiting on them. They just want to satisfy their urges right now without thinking of the consequences. And they’re always the biggest loudmouths, too.”
“Right, right! Wait…”
“Hmm?”
Chiho suddenly realized something as she smiled in agreement.
“How do you know all that, Maou? You didn’t actually go to school in Japan or anything, right?”
“Nope.”
“It always seems like we’ve had a lot of the same experiences, but…you know, that’s kinda strange when you think about it, right?”
“Yeah… I guess, so, maybe.”
Maou scarfed down the last mouthful of Cookie Crunch. Standing up, he tossed the plastic lid and clear vinyl cover into the bin for burnable garbage, washed out the paper cup, flung it into the bag for recyclable papers, leaned against the sink, and sighed.
“I guess you could say demons have more…forceful ways of solving their problems. But stuff like that… I guess it’s not much different between humans and us.”
“……”
Ashiya listened on silently as Maou spoke.
“…Ugghh, one of those little cups isn’t enough…”
Urushihara, oblivious to the conversation, placed his strawberry cup on the computer desk, his eyes greedily swiveling toward the refrigerator.
Just then, Maou’s eyes pricked up.
“Oh? Hey, Suzuno, where’d you go? Chi wanted you to have some ice cream, too.”
Maou spied Suzuno passing by the open kitchen window, carrying a set of large objects in front of her.
“Ah, my thanks to you. I will gladly partake of it once I am finished with this task.”
They spoke between the iron bars that covered the window. Suzuno appeared to have something resembling a set of small, square logs in hand.
“…Hey, what’s that?”
“Hmm? Logs. Why do you ask?”
“I can see that. I was asking what you’re gonna do with it.”
The reason why Maou was so insistently asking about his neighbor’s possessions was that, in her opposite hand, she held far more ogara sticks than she had any business needing.
“As a member of the Church’s Missionary Office, I have an interest in this Obon holiday. I decided it would be best to experience it for myself.”
“…And?”
“And to begin with, I have to light the mukaebi, yes? And then the smoke from this fire will attract the spirits of one’s ancestors back down to earth?”
Maou hung his head, his suspicions proven correct, before beckoning Suzuno inside through the bars.
Suzuno, brows knitted, nonetheless opened the door to the Devil’s Castle.
“What? They say it is best to do the task while the sun is in the air, so I wanted to handle it as soon as—ow!”
Maou cut off Suzuno with a karate chop to her head.
“Wh-what are you doing?!”
“Are you trying to burn this apartment down?! ’Cause you’ve got way too much fuel for the job!”
Suzuno’s eyes welled up as she fought back verbally, attempting to invent new and colorful words to criticize him with.
“I was hardly going to burn all of this! The logs are so that I can build a fire pit in the back garden! I am only going to burn this set of ogara, and… Ow! H-how dare you strike me while my hands are full!”
Maou unleashed his second karate chop.
“That’s even worse! You saw Chi buy just one little bundle of them! And now you’re building a fire pit in our yard?! How many ancestors’re you trying to get over here?! You’re not making a campfire!”
The parcel of land occupied by Villa Rosa Sasazuka was surrounded by a concrete-block wall. The yard, if it was large enough to call it that, was little more than a bare strip of earth.
Only a single hardwood tree dared to set root inside. Every year, an entire metropolis of cicadas set up shop amid its leaves, seeking refuge from the city’s asphalt jungle and reciting their incomprehensible, screeching cacophony summer after summer.
“Hey, let’s just calm down a sec, okay? I’ve got some vanilla ice cream for you, Suzuno.”
“It shall be mine!”
If the Devil’s Castle lacked AC, it was a given that Suzuno’s room was no less scorching. That might at least partially explain why Suzuno leaped at the ice cream offered to her, topping it with some kuromitsu syrup and roasted soy flower from her room. She spent a moment to savor it before attempting to defend herself again.
“Well, how are you supposed to light a mukaebi, then?! As far as I saw in my research, there are monks that build these enormous fires! Vast pyres of flame, set ablaze in pits lined with straw from the makomo rice plant!”
There was no way to tell what kind of research Suzuno could have done in the short time after she returned from purchasing the bike. But, as always, it was off-kilter. She was describing far more elaborate Obon ceremonies, the type carried out at Buddhist temples and large-scale festivals.
“Ashiya.”
“Yes! Right here.”
With the snap of Maou’s fingers, Ashiya went into motion, bringing out a clay dish, a lighter, and some twisted bits of newspaper.
“You can buy all this stuff at the hundred-yen store, by the way. They throw in the newspaper for free to pack the dish in. This is a horoku, by the way, a clay pan you roast tea in.”
Maou took a single bundle out of the pile Suzuno brought in and stepped outside the room.
“And the ogara here is ninety yen a bundle at the place Chi bought it from. So we’re talking no more than two hundred yen for the whole thing.”
Chiho and the crestfallen Suzuno followed Maou outside as he climbed down the outdoor stairway and placed the clay dish on the ground, near the front gate that faced the road.
Then, removing the bit of plastic that kept the bundle of ogara sticks together, he broke the longer sticks into smaller, more manageable sizes.
It took around two-thirds of the bundle to fill up the dish. Maou passed the rest to Suzuno, then lit a twisted bit of newspaper with the lighter.
Pointing it down toward the bottom, with several other paper bits nestled in to serve as kindling, he instantly set the ogara ablaze. Smoke lazily wafted above.
“…Ta-dah! That’s the easiest way to light a mukaebi.”
“…What?”
“By the way, if you live in a housing complex like this, make sure you do it outside, all right? Otherwise it might set off the smoke detector. Any questions?”
Suzuno’s stare flip-flopped between Maou and the small fire on the dish, her eyes dubious.
“…Simply ridiculous. The mukaebi is a cherished family ceremony, meant to attract the souls of one’s revered ancestors. You dare to call this simple, plain affair a ceremony?”
“Well, like, what do you want? I mean, this is kind of it, you know? Right?”
Maou looked to Suzuno and Chiho for support. Suzuno turned toward Chiho, hoping for a voice of reason to come to her side.
“It was kind of plain, yes, but there’s nothing wrong with what he did. It’s best if you can use a flame from one of the lanterns they put out for Obon, or from a temple dedicated to revering the dead, but that’s easier said than done here in the city. Oh, also…”
Chiho hunched over the dish.
“You put your hands together like this, and then you pray for your ancestors to return home without getting lost.”
“And…is that all?”
“That, and if you have a butsudan, those little shrines people have in their homes sometimes, you can make a little horse out of a cucumber and put it there.”
“Oh, yeah, we make that every year at my place.”
“Out…out of a cucumber? Wh-what in Heaven’s name is that?”
Suzuno’s eyes darted to and fro in confusion. Maou gave Chiho a glance, then chuckled a little.
“So when Obon is over, you have to build an okuribi, a fire to lead your ancestors’ souls back to the afterlife. But one thing you do for the mukaebi is take a cucumber, stick some toothpick legs on it so it looks like a horse, and stick it in your shrine. That encourages your ancestors to ride it, so they’ll come to the fire more quickly. Then when it’s over, you make a cow for them out of an eggplant, and that way they’ll ride that and go back a lot more slowly.”
Maou explained this all as matter-of-factly as he could, Chiho nodding her agreement on every major point. Suzuno looked at one, then the other, then brought a hand to her temple and groaned.
“…I have encountered a vast range of religions in my time, but a ceremony like this one is rare. Never has something so simple seemed so complex to me…or vice versa.”
“Well, if you wanted to get real with it, you’d do stuff like line up a bunch of candles down the road, or build a really big fire like you were trying to do. But here in the middle of the city, this is about all you’re gonna get. Some Buddhist sects don’t even do any of this, and besides, there aren’t too many places around here we can go lighting fires. If you wanna see the whole shebang, you could always hit up one of the countryside festivals somewhere in August.”
“Wow. You sure know your stuff, Maou.”
Chiho’s eyes were wide with surprise.
“Yeah, well, you should’ve seen some of the other crap I tried last year while I was trying to regain my demonic force. I was hoping maybe some demon would catch my mukaebi and come on down, for example.”
Aha! This was the sacrilegious, ritual-defiling Maou Suzuno was more familiar with!
“But it’s not like any of my ancestors are here on Earth anyway. Kind of a waste of a fire, you know?”
“You speak as if your ancestors would be awaiting you in your realm.”
Maou winced at Suzuno’s remark.
“Pft. D’you think the stork delivers demon babies to the underworld or something? I’ve got parents and family lines just like everyone else.”
“Parents…? You?”
Chiho might have been aware of Maou’s past, but it was tough for her to picture the concept of a Devil King having a Queen Mother.
“’Course, they’re both gone now. So…like, if you’re asking whether I wanna light a mukaebi and get ’em over here, honestly, I don’t really care.”
But there was something about the way he blurted out the words that made pangs of sadness blaze across Chiho’s mind.
“Oh… Kind of a sad thing to say, though, just like that.”
“Well, what, you think we’re the kind of goody-goody demons who leave flowers on their family grave or something? Even if they had one, I’d have no idea where it is. I hardly even remember anything about my parents.”
“R-really…? Um, I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Nah, nah. I’m the one going on about it. Anyway.”
Maou leaned down toward Chiho and the dish, fanning the flickering flame.
“Don’t forget to take care of the fire once it’s out. In the real ceremony, you’re supposed to put it out with water droplets collected from lotus leaves, but you should still have a bucket of tap water handy just in case. You can toss the ashes into a potted plant or in the burnable garbage.”
“…Hardly one iota of emotion to it, I see. I feel I’ve gained an insight into the spiritual contradictions that drive modern Japan.”
“Hey, when in Rome. Think of it as me keeping an open mind, huh? Hey, you mind filling a bucket with water for me?”
Just as Maou gave the order:
“Hey! Maou!”
Urushihara stuck his face out the Devil’s Castle door.
“We got trouble comin’ on your six!”
“Trouble?”
Maou looked upstairs quizzically, only to hear:
“What kind of trouble, exactly?”
At the voice directly behind him, the lord of Devil’s Castle convulsed in a full-body shudder.
It rang out loud and clear as Maou slowly, reluctantly turned around.
And there—
“Oh, good day, Yusa!”
“Ah, Emilia! Oh, is it that time already?”
There he saw the owlish face of Emi Yusa, better known in certain otherworldly circles as Emilia Justina, the Hero and savior of Ente Isla.
An unopened solar umbrella was in her right hand, her left holding up a paper bag with something heavy inside.
She leveled the tip of her umbrella at Maou, brushing him away as he looked up at Urushihara from downstairs.
“Lucifer! How did you know I was coming?! You didn’t stick another one of your GPS transmitters somewhere, did you?!”
“N-no! Nothing like that! I just saw you in the camera I installed outside! Dude, chill out a bit, okay? We got ice cream!”
“I am as ‘chill’ as the coolest, freeze-dried, most ice-covered cucumber in the universe! And I’ll be even ‘chiller’ once I’ve finally slain you all!”
“N-no, really! I’m not lying! Look!”
Urushihara darted back into the apartment, brought out a cup of ice cream and the hacked webcam he installed between the window bars, and waved both of them in the air.
“……”
Emi’s eyes were attracted to the Haggen-Boss mint ice cream cup before the camera, but snapped out of it and turned sharply toward Chiho and Suzuno.
“Hey there, Chiho. Is that your ice cream?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. We got this huge gift set, but my mom and dad aren’t into sweets at all.”
“…Makes sense. Not like these vagrants would ever be ahead of the game enough to buy Haggen-Boss.”
“Do you even realize how small that makes you look? Rating how successful a guy is by whether he buys dessert or not?”
Maou, to the side, complained loudly at this brutal treatment. Emi paid him no heed, taking out a handkerchief and dabbing her face with it.
“The mint-flavor Haggen-Boss is only sold as part of those gift boxes. You’re never gonna see them individually. Boy, I can just imagine the tears of joy you all must’ve shed the moment Chiho gave that to you. I’m sure the demon realms would be shocked and horrified to see that, hmm? Whether you’re Devil King or not, I wouldn’t really call that ‘ahead of the game.’”
“…I’m sorry, Maou. I can’t really defend against that.”
Chiho bowed her apology to him.
“…So are you just here to gawk at our abject poverty, or what? Sitting in your stupid air-conditioned office all day, your stupid air-conditioned apartment all night… You’ve got the biggest carbon footprint for a Hero ever!”
“Well, sorr-ee. The AC came preinstalled, so it’d be a waste not to use it, right? It’s a pretty new energy-saving model, too, and I got it set to eighty-two degrees, no matter how hot it gets outside. I don’t think you’ve got any right to complain.”
“Ugh! Dammit! You’re so obviously trying to lord it over me with your middle-class-ness!”
Maou stamped his feet, frustrated. Emi refused to engage him, turning toward Suzuno instead.
“Are you all set? Sorry I’m a little early.”
“Ah, my apologies. Give me just one moment. I will make my preparations shortly.”
Suzuno scurried off toward the stairway.
“Oh, wait. Before that…”
Stopped by Emi, Suzuno watched as she handed over her paper bag.
From the lip, she could see a box of energy drinks, a familiar logo stamped on top. Maou and Chiho had no way of being aware, but the boxes naturally contained the 5-Holy Energy ? sent previously by a friend of Emi’s from Ente Isla.
“Ah, yes… Is this the supply we discussed?”
“Yep. Two bottles per day, okay? These are valuable, so don’t lose ’em.”
“…What kind of secret smuggling operation is this?”
Maou dove into their hushed conversation over the paper bag. The two women both glared at him.
“Be especially careful with him.”
“There is no need to remind me.”
“Hey!”
Maou gritted his teeth at them.
“Clerics such as myself must learn how to handle the young for their baptismal ceremony! You! Alciel! I wish to bring her up to Devil’s Castle! Bring some bedding out!”
“D-don’t you order me around, Crestia! Ow ow ow ow…”
Ashiya grumbled to himself as he painfully lurched up the stairs.
Following behind, Suzuno deftly removed her zori sandals at the base of the stairway, climbing up each dust-ridden step in her white tabi socks.
“Hey, you go up there, too, Emi! Why’d Suzuno take her sandals off? Bring them up to her!”
“Probably to keep from slipping, I’d guess! …Whoa! Bell! The bag!”
Grabbing the things she and Suzuno dropped when the Gate opened, Emi awkwardly climbed the stairs.
“That, and… Hey, Chi! Chi, what’s up? I haven’t seen… Huh?”
Maou, at this point, finally realized that neither Chiho nor her trademark panicky voice had played any role in this affair.
Looking around, he spotted her right where he had shaded her from the Gate’s light, staring into space in front of the tree.
“Uh…hello? Chi?”
Wild supernatural events like these shouldn’t have been enough to put Chiho in a stupor by this point.
Did the torrent of light from the Gate have some damaging effect on Chiho, totally unprotected against demonic or holy energy? The dreadful thought crossed Maou’s mind.
But, looking more closely, a twinge of red crossed her cheeks as a content smile spread across her lips. She was lost in reverie.
“Hey, Chi? Chi?”
“…We did it.”
“Huh?”
He brought his ear closer to pick up her whispering.
“Maou…held me. He went up and held me tight. Hee-hee! So tight…”
A hand went to her relieved, joyful lips as she whispered.
“Ahhhhhhh…” Maou groaned plaintively to himself. “Hey!”
“Agh!”
He had clapped his hands in front of her face, eliciting a shout.
“Please, Chi, back to reality!”
“Ahh! M-Maou! I, uh, I, that—!”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry, but we don’t have time to chat about it over coffee, okay? Let’s go back to Devil’s Castle!”
“Um? Ah, ah, ah! M-Maou! Hand, hand!”
Unwilling to wait out Chiho as she navigated the road back to reality within her brain, Maou grabbed her hand and ran up the stairs.
Everyone, including the apple girl, was now ensconced inside the Castle, each exhausted to the hilt for their own individual reasons.
With the apple girl to one side—sleeping peacefully on her back atop a limp blanket—the demons, non-Earth humans, and high school teen silently consumed their ice cream.
To be exact, Chiho more picked at her ice cream, her mind on other affairs. The other five were wolfing theirs down in a futile attempt to flee reality.
Emi was the first to finish her cup.
“Okay, well, I need to go, so—”
“Wait a sec!”
Maou grabbed her leg before she made it any closer to the door.
“Hey! Let go of me!”
She tried to shake him off. Suzuno pointed a finger in the air.
“Sshhh! You’re going to wake her, Emilia!”
Emi meekly sat back down, her face resigned.
“…Bell and I don’t have anything to do with this! You guys figure something out yourselves!”
“…Like hell it doesn’t! That baby girl made a total beeline for you!”
They kept their argument to a well-advised whisper.
The apple, back in pre-infant mode, had indeed all but called for Emi by name. Whether it was attracted by her holy energy or just happened to be rolling in her direction was unclear, but considering she was drawn to Emi almost from the moment she drew her holy sword, the former reason was more likely.
“You have to take her with you! Or at least, like, stay here until we figure out what’s going on!”
“Forget it! You know what happens whenever you try to ensnare me in your crap? Nothing good, that’s what! I want out of here, as soon as I possibly can!”
“His hands… So tight…”
Chiho continued staring into space next to the raging feud.
“You think I like this, either? You, constantly butting into my daily life and making me solve all of your problems? I’m sick of it!”
“Well, you’re sure gonna have to do it now, aren’t you?”
“Like hell I am! You made that mess yourself, lady! And now I’m gonna make you sleep in it!”
“Stop being gross! I always live up to my promises! It’s not my fault if you keep pretending I promised you the world and a half!”
“Will you quit acting like—”
“Both of you, be quiet! You’re going to wake her up!”
Ashiya softly took them both to task. Their voices had gradually ratcheted up in volume as they quarreled.
“So tight… Maou’s hands… So big…”
“…What happened to Chiho, exactly?”
“She’s been that way ever since we all came in here.”
“Silence, Lucifer. Nobody asked you.”
Suzuno groaned as she placed a hand upon her temple. Outside of Ashiya and his attempts at defusing the situation, there was nobody she could rely on.
“This is all your fault for lighting that freaky fire anyway! You called her over here like all those customers when you put that dumb tree out at MgRonald!”
“How is that my fault?! And what’s the tree got to do with it?! You didn’t even know what a mukaebi was! What right do you have to whine at me? That stuff’s common knowledge in Japan! It’s got nothing to do with me!”
“Hah! I knew it! You really did summon her! Whatever fumes of demonic power you’ve got left must’ve reacted to another traditional Japanese ceremony! You brought her here; you take responsibility!”
“What the hell d’you mean by ‘fumes’?! I’ve got a strategic reserve, dammit! You could at least try to help out a little whenever trouble shows up!”
“Help out? As if I’ve never done anything for you before now?!”
“Well? Have you? ’Cause lately, it’s mostly been you stickin’ your neck in my business and gettin’ nailed to crosses and stuff!”
“What?!”
“You wanna go, or?!”
“Will the two of you shut up already?!”
Suzuno, no longer able to bear the vitriolic (if still markedly hushed) war of words between the Hero and Devil King, mercilessly aimed a Light of Iron attack upon both of their heads.
Ashiya and Urushihara had no way of stopping her.
“Agh! Wait! Sorry!”
“Hey, if you’re trying to be funny, then rngh!!”
The hammer hit more squarely upon the taller Maou’s forehead.
There wasn’t much strength behind it, but even a regular, nonmystic hammer could be a murder weapon in the right circumstances. Maou grimly stared at Suzuno, eyes welling up with tears.
“Nnnh… Aphh!”
Time stopped at the quiet yawn and the rustling of movement.
The apple girl sat up, yawning as she rubbed her eyes for a few moments. She looked around the room before her eyes settled upon Maou’s.
“Uh… Hey.”
Maou dared a greeting as his bleary eyes took in the scene.
“Oooo?”
It was hard to tell if his message came across, but she should have understood the nuance of it, at least.
“…Hell-oooo.”
He shouldn’t have worried. The girl’s voice was halting, but it was clearly the simple Japanese of a child—not the Japanese that Maou and Emi relied upon their idea-link skills to cultivate when they first arrived here.
Maou, unable to understand how this girl from the Gate became so erudite in minutes, approached slowly, to keep from scaring her.
“Y-you can speak Japanese?”
“Mm, a li’l.”
“A little, huh? Hmm. I see.”
Maou nodded distractedly, then turned around, looking for someone, anyone, to step in. He was greeted with silent eyes from Emi, Suzuno, Ashiya, and Urushihara, all urging him to continue.
A bit frustrated by this, Maou drummed up some more courage and turned back toward the apple girl.
“So, uh, what are you?”
“Ooo?”
The apple girl looked back at Maou, bewildered, perhaps not understanding the question. Maou winced internally.
“No, uh…I mean, your name. What is, uh, your name?”
Maou recalled his work training, pretending the girl was just another precocious child at the counter next to Mom.
Now the girl’s eyes flickered thoughtfully. She yawned another little yawn before answering.
“Alas Ramus.”
“Alas Ramus?”
“Mm, Alas Ramus… Bipf!”
Another slight sneeze. Perhaps it served to wake her up; her half-opened eyes were now wide and clear as her head swiveled this way and that.
“Ah!”
Urushihara and the gang reared back at this sudden burst of activity, but Maou, a bit more used to unexpected behavior from customers’ children, successfully retained his composure.
It gave him his first chance to take a closer look at this girl calling herself Alas Ramus.
In human terms, she was no more than a year or two old. Her hair was silver, the rare sort that was light enough to reflect the sun’s rays, but a single tuft of it was purple at the end, as if dyed. Her eyes shone violet as well.
Maou’s eyes turned toward the girl’s forehead for a moment, but nothing was on it any longer. Saving that concern for later, he tested out another question.
“So, Alas Ramus, where did you come from?”
“Mm, h…home?”
After a moment, she had responded with a question of her own, one patched together with a couple of indistinct words.
“Um… Oh, home? Well, yeah, I guess you did come from home…but… Like, where is your house?”
“Hou… House? Don’t know ‘house.’”
Maou scrutinized the questions in his head carefully.
“…Do you have a mother or father?”
“Mo…fa?”
Alas Ramus shook her head, confused. Either she didn’t know, or the words were too long for her.
“Well, I mean…uh, can you tell me about your mommy and daddy, Alas Ramus?”
This was a lost child, one who at least seemed human enough. It wasn’t much of a leap to ask about her parents.
“Daddy is…Satan.”
Assuming the answer was anything but that.
Maou immediately felt the eyes of everyone in the room fixed upon his back.
“I see, your daddy is Satan. …Wait.”
“Did she…”
“She just said…”
“‘Daddy is Satan’…”
“…Right?”
“M-Maou?!”
Chiho, lost in her own little world up to this point, quickly snapped back to reality, all but lunging toward Maou.
“You, you, you had a child, Maou?!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a sec, Chi!”
“Is…is it one of those things?! Did you have a wife and kids back when you were Devil King?!”
“No! Nothing! So just calm down for a bit! I’ve never had anything like that!”
“Is…is that true, Your Demonic Highness?!”
“Oh, come on, Ashiya! Don’t start on me, too!”
“My liege fathering a child out of wedlock would be earth-shattering news across the demon realms! She must be provided with the most gifted of tutors at once in order to prepare her for the throne! And yet you’ve kept this child from my knowledge for…well, obviously months, at least! What is the meaning of this?!”
“Wait! Why is everyone so freakin’ convinced that this is my girl?!”
“But, oh, what sort of devilish strumpet did you have liaisons with, Your Demonic Highness?! Our forces were mostly comprised of men, but did this saucy encounter occur before we invaded Ente Isla?!”
“No! I’m telling you, it’s not like that!! …Hang on.”
Near Maou’s hand, as he was interrogated in stereo by Chiho and Ashiya, the girl who called herself Alas Ramus climbed out from under her blanket.
“…Nff!”
Both hands clinging to the tatami mat floor, she scrunched her doe-eyed face courageously as she slowly, tentatively tottered up to her feet.
It became clear, if not particularly useful to know, that she was old enough to stand up by herself.
Swinging her arms and legs back and forth with all her might, Alas Ramus made an unbalanced dash across the several feet between her and Maou.
Everyone’s countenances softened a bit at her fervent efforts, but as their eyes followed her, Alas Ramus proceeded to grab Maou’s hand and bring it to her nose, as if smelling it.
“…Daddy.”
Then she beamed widely and hugged him.
It is difficult to portray in words the tension in the room at that moment.
Chiho’s and Ashiya’s faces clenched, mouths agape like a goldfish plucked out of its bowl. Urushihara fled to a corner of the room, hoping to avoid getting dragged into the mess any further. Emi and Suzuno stood blankly, unable to even process the event.
And it went without saying that Maou, the officially certified father of the child, was plunged into the deepest depths of internal chaos.
“W-wait! How come you’re so sure I’m your dad?!”
“Daddyyyy.”
“Please, man, stop throwing any more dynamite into the volcano for me!!”
Maou’s mind ran like a well-oiled machine, searching for some way, any way, to mollify the aghast Chiho and Ashiya. After a moment, he came up with the perfect question to break through this morass.
He had no idea that it was merely the prelude to an even deeper, darker abyss.
“W-wait, wait! Who’s your mom, then? Your mom!”
Alas Ramus’s wide eyes squinted a little as she returned Maou’s gaze.
It was the last straw for Maou within grasping distance. The identity of whoever this mystery mother was could give him ample breathing room to prove his innocence.
The girl was no older than two, judging by her appearance. That was right around the time Emilia and the Devil King waged their final battle in Ente Isla. Ashiya and Emi knew that Maou was cornered, on the retreat, and in no way free to enjoy torrid affairs with sly devil temptresses.
“Mommy.”
This time, Alas Ramus responded without repeating the question.
As she spoke, a pudgy arm raised itself into the air, finger confidently pointed ahead of her.
The rest of the group followed her arm. She apparently had full control of her hands and fingers, not that that mattered, either.
“…Eh?”
Emi was standing right where she pointed.
“Uh… M-m-me?”
In a single instant, Emi’s face was whiter and more drained of blood than any other.
It was the dead of summer, but the air in Devil’s Castle had completely frozen over.
“Daddy. Mommy.”
Then, as if striking the final blow, Alas Ramus clearly pointed to Maou and Emi in order.
The pair stood dumbfounded, unable to parse her behavior.
“…………ooh.”
Ashiya fainted on the spot. Urushihara rose to help him.
“Aghh! Ashiya! Ashiya, don’t conk out on me! You okay?!”
“Yu… Yu, yu, yu, Yusa?”
The cup of ice cream in Chiho’s hand, still largely full, was crushed in her iron grip.
“The Devil King is the father, and the Hero is the mother? This is nothing short of a cataclysm…”
Suzuno’s observation perfectly summarized the mad fury that commenced soon after.
And on the ground, oblivious to the chaos, Alas Ramus stood between “Mommy” and “Daddy,” waving her arms back and forth gleefully.
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