THE DEVIL FINDS HIMSELF JOBLESS, THEN HOMELESS
Her flowing silver hair shone beautifully, like the Milky Way gracing the night sky.
The pair of eyes bobbing in this heavenly waterway emitted a quiet, powerful poise, presenting a sublime light brighter than even those twin rulers of the skies, the sun and the moon.
“She’s so pretty…”
His frail whisper, as if his soul had been torn from his body, dissipated into the air before it could reach anyone’s ear.
A turn of the eye, and then he was enraptured by the figure’s powerful, bounding arms and legs: life personified, at the peak of kinetic activity.
The innocent frame was gifted with seemingly limitless possibility, the rest of its life awaiting it with open arms, reaching the pinnacle of beauty in a way that surpassed any work of art that came before it.
She was as dexterous and nimble as a bounding gazelle, but her legs were as supple and delicate as the petals of a lily.
Her beauty had an airy, almost lyrical quality to it, like the wings of an angel, but her arms were as bewitching and beguiling as a jaguar on the prowl.
But above anything else, her face—more beautiful and fluid than a kaleidoscope, more colorful than a rose, more graceful than a peony in full bloom, more fleeting than a cherry blossom—was sheer bliss, far beyond what a thousand songs and poems could hope to capture in sound and word.
“Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha…”
The sight snatched his heart away. And although he was alone, nobody could have chided him for losing himself in the mesmerizing sight.
“Um…Maou?”
“Ah-hah-hah-hah…”
After all, from the moment he awoke to the moment his eyes closed, he was forever caught in her siren-like attraction.
“Maou, you should really keep your voice down…”
“Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!”
Heart and soul, he was her prisoner, his very life a mere plaything in her hands.
“Maou, come on!”
“Gahh! Wh-What, Chi?!”
Sadao Maou, feeling someone shake him by the shoulder, flashed a creepy smile to himself before returning to his senses.
Turning around, he saw his coworker, the only girl he fully trusted in Japan (and the only native Japanese woman to know his true identity), puffing up her cheeks as she put her hands to her hips.
Inside the staff break room at the MgRonald in front of Hatagaya rail station, the world-conquering Devil King was being scolded by a teenage girl.
“We can hear you laughing all the way over in the kitchen. And it’s kind of freaking me out, too!”
“Oh. Uh? Ohhh. Sorry. Guess I kinda lost control.”
Chiho Sasaki, face reddened as she looked up at the taller Maou, glanced down and frowned at the cheap cardboard photo album in his hand, the kind most camera shops give out for free with purchases.
“Ugh… You’re looking at those pictures of Alas Ramus again, aren’t you?”
“Sure was! Hey, take a look at this one a sec.”
Shaking off Chiho’s accusation, Maou thrust the album in her face, fully forgetting what she’d told him three seconds ago.
“…Another new one?”
The photo he showed off depicted a silver-haired toddler frolicking around somebody’s lawn, arms wide open in the air as she breathlessly ran forward.
“Y’know, this isn’t really a photo, though. It’s a…uh, what do you call it? A screen capture? One of those. From a video. I had them print it out for me!”
“……”
“That bastard Emi hardly brings her over at all, you know, so it’s like, jeez, having to wait for the big day practically drives me nuts! I shot this when I took Alas Ramus to the sports gym in Hatagaya the other day, but man, she pretty much ran around the whole day! She’s an animal!”
“…That’s great.”
Chiho couldn’t find any other response.
“Hey, did you need any of these, though? I got a lot of new pictures of her!”
“…I’m fine for now, thanks. I got a lot to look through already.”
Despite her attraction to Maou and her honest love for Alas Ramus, his output was proving difficult to keep up with. She gently returned the photo.
In the past two weeks, once Emi brought Alas Ramus back to Maou after the girl was feared lost forever, Maou’s behavior around the child had tiptoed past mere devotion and was now fully ensconced in the land of overprotectiveness.
The all-consuming love was enough to drive Maou, who’d never purchased anything beyond the bare necessities for himself during his entire time in Japan, to buy an outdated digital camera and photo printer. It was clear how much of a terminal case this was.
He had Hanzou Urushihara, the deadbeat fallen angel who now had nothing to boast of apart from his past glories and Web-surfing skills, process the photos and videos on their computer, allowing Maou to view what he had shot while Alas Ramus wasn’t around to soothe his soul. However, the purchase of these not-so-bare necessities was far from a welcome sight for Shirou Ashiya, the demon who served as guardian of the Devil’s Castle coffers.
The running costs associated with the ink alone was nothing at all to sniff at. Urushihara also had the habit of leaving the printer on after processing Maou’s photos, a colossal waste of electricity. To Ashiya, whose fervent dream was to make the demon realm’s official slogan “A penny saved is a penny earned,” it was yet another everyday stress to tangle with.
“I mean, you’re free to use your break time any way you want, but…Ms. Kisaki’s gonna come back pretty soon, so could you, uh, try to get it together a little more?”
“No problemo! I flip the switch in my brain, and bam, it’s back on the clock!”
The shift supervisor/Devil King’s avowal, delivered in the wake of being admonished by a teenage girl, turned up lacking in the way of convincing force considering the simpering, half-mad grin he accented it with.
Granted the right to dote on Alas Ramus from Emi Yusa—her other “parent” and his own sworn enemy—on the several occasions per month she brought her along on a visit, Maou acted exactly like a father who’d lost custody of his child after a long, bitter divorce.
To Chiho, fully aware of Maou’s goals and his former cloven-hoofed self, it wasn’t a cause of exasperation so much as honest concern. She left the staff room, having said her fill.
“I hope Maou’s all right, going on about Alas Ramus all day and night like that. I guess he could afford the camera and printer, so he must have some spare cash…but then again, I don’t think he works anywhere else…”
She took a glance at the calendar on a side wall as she whispered furtively to herself.
“We’re closing up shop tomorrow, too…”
Sadao Maou: Better known elsewhere as the Devil King Satan, an all-powerful scoundrel from the demon realms who all but had Ente Isla wrapped around one clawed finger. Emi Yusa: Better known elsewhere as Emilia the Hero, the savior who rescued Ente Isla from a fate worse than death.
Thanks to the child called Alas Ramus claiming both of them as her parents, the Hero and Devil King were now struggling with a life of child-rearing that neither were particularly used to. It was only with extreme reluctance that they worked together on the effort.
The confrontation against the archangel Gabriel over the fate of this child had ended in a narrow victory for these “parents,” if only thanks to a very unlikely chain of completely unpredictable events.
It was really more of a forfeit than a victory, but with Gabriel unable to fulfill his mission, Alas Ramus was now free to live where she wanted to be.
What made things tricky was that Alas Ramus had fused herself with the Better Half, the holy sword that Emi wielded in battle.
The sword, and Alas Ramus herself, was created from shards of Yesod, one of the world-creating Sephirah jewels that grew on the Tree of Sephirot.
Gabriel’s goal was to snatch away the child and Emi’s sword, connecting the Yesod fragments together to restore the Sephirah to its original state.
Despite leaving these fragments unattended for what would seem like eons to a regular person, Gabriel seemed to be in a terrible rush to glue, as it were, the Yesod back together. His sudden frantic haste was difficult to understand.
But thanks to Alas Ramus merging with the holy sword that proved doggedly nonremovable from Emi’s body, Gabriel had no way of returning home anything but empty-handed.
Thanks to that, Alas Ramus was forced to move from her previous domain—the Devil’s Castle located in room 201 of the sixty-year-old Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments in Sasazuka, Shibuya ward, Tokyo—to Emi’s place, a condominium in the Eifukucho area of Tokyo’s Suginami ward.
This created assorted issues.
One: Alas Ramus was hopelessly devoted to Maou, her “daddy.”
Emi, as a Hero, could never let herself ignore common sense and allow Alas Ramus to live near the Devil King, someone who’d not only stunt her educational growth but also quite possibly eradicate humanity from the face of the Earth.
But now that Alas Ramus was a literal holy sword with the power to take human form, she had a tendency to cry out in Emi’s mind whenever she felt lonely.
The crying of a young infant, as anyone who’s been around one knows, has more destructive force than the roar of a savage beast.
Emi had sworn to herself after the fusion to keep Alas Ramus away from Maou’s apartment as much as possible. That resolve crumbled to dust in three days.
Alas Ramus’s mental outlook on life remained the same whether she was in baby or sword form, it seemed. She didn’t care whether Emi was at work, or sleeping, or doing anything else. When she wanted to see Daddy, she turned up the volume.
So, in order to avoid the morbid tragedy of being kept up all night by plaintive sobbing only she could hear, Emi’s visits to Devil’s Castle came even more often than before.
Two: Even if it weren’t for that, there was the matter of all the care the Devil’s Castle residents practically tore their hair out giving to the child. Food. Teeth brushing. Diaper changes. Now Emi was traveling down that same road, and in her weakened mental state, their support was like an inviting beacon, a surefire way out of life’s annoyances.
Alas Ramus generally listened to what Emi told her, rarely erupting into a temper tantrum if things didn’t go her way. But her life cycle continued unabated, sword or not. Emi returning home after work, only to find Alas Ramus materializing before her with a disturbingly full diaper, was a catastrophe that happened more than a few times.
This didn’t mean she could just toss the child over to Devil’s Castle, though. That would be too easy. Alas Ramus could run around in child form independent of Emi, but deep down, she was still deeply connected—fused, really—to Emi.
If the toddler ever ventured too far away from her, she would dematerialize and force her way back into Emi’s body. The Hero confirmed this for herself with some experimentation.
All in all, Alas Ramus could remain physically separate from Emi as long as she stayed within roughly the length of one stop on the Keio train line.
The only woman who could understand Emi’s current state of anguish was Crestia Bell, cleric for the Church’s Reconciliation Panel, currently living next door to Devil’s Castle under the name Suzuno Kamazuki.
Chiho, upon learning of this, had been less than sympathetic.
“Wow! So you don’t have to worry about her getting lost or anything?”
She had it dead-on, of course, but what it spelled for Emi was the humiliating thought of constant paternity visits to Devil’s Castle. At least, Emi rationalized to herself, Maou liked getting to see her more often. Hopefully that would thin out any evil urges in his blood. The thought was the only thing Emi had to keep herself together.
As crackerjack MgRonald store manager Mayumi Kisaki frequently reminded her thoroughly cowed employees at the franchise near Hatagaya station, she never told a joke unless she wanted people to laugh.
She was feared by the part-time crew, who called her the “demon of sales” under their breath in their hushed conversations behind the counter, but she was always sincere with her customers and evenhanded with her staff.
There was no guile behind that attitude, no two-faced treachery at all, but the matter-of-fact remark she had just tossed in Sadao Maou’s direction was something he couldn’t unravel at all.
Kisaki never told lies. Or unfunny jokes. That’s what made it so unbelievable.
“Okaaaay, shutdown’s tomorrow, people!”
She uttered those foreboding words at four in the afternoon, a relatively quiet time customer-wise, just as Maou, Chiho, and the rest of the afternoon shift were wrapping up.
At that moment, all sound disappeared from Maou’s ears.
To him, it was like Kisaki cast a magic spell—demonic, holy, it didn’t matter—that froze everything in the space around her. It was an instant locked in infinity, like the nanosecond before the Big Bang.
“M-Maou?”
“Npghh!”
If Chiho hadn’t called for him, hand brushing against his arm, Maou might have embarked on a boundless journey across space and time he could never return from.
Recovering from the science-fiction dreamscape, Maou’s brain was pounded by a torrent of conflicting information.
Within this region of the corporate map, the Hatagaya-station MgRonald was a poster boy for superb management, posting rising sales on a constant year-to-year basis.
It wasn’t a very large location by square footage, but its combination of flexible service, sincere customer relations, and painstaking standard of cleanliness earned it a commendation after every quarterly regional contest.
That Hatagaya store was being closed?!
It verged on the absurd.
But Maou appeared to be the only one the declaration took by surprise. Chiho and the rest of the crew betrayed no sign of anger or shock.
The only emotion being shown at all was the concern in Chiho’s eyes as she watched Maou all but melt into a puddle of goo.
“I suppose we’ll be going our separate ways for now, but I hope you all won’t forget what you learned here, wherever you wind up. Keep up the good work! That’s all.”
“Ah, uh, uh, uh, Ms. Kisaki?!”
“Hmm? Got a question, Marko?”
“Q-Question…? I mean, like…?”
The ignition system powering up Maou’s thought process was having trouble finding a spark to work with. Where could he begin? Wait—before that, what did she mean by “wherever you wind up”?
And why wasn’t anyone else going nuts over this? Maou didn’t know who to turn to any longer.
“The place is…shutting down?”
Kisaki’s eyebrows plunged downward at the few words he finally managed to squeak out.
“We talked about this two or so weeks ago, didn’t we?”
“Uhh…”
This reminded Maou of absolutely nothing. Two weeks ago would’ve marked the more-or-less endpoint of the cross-world struggle over Alas Ramus.
“Um…Maou…?”
From behind, Chiho whispered into his ear.
“I think it might’ve been the time you thought Alas Ramus was gone…”
“Uhhh…”
With another dimwitted drone, Maou pressed deeper into his memory, dragging out the events of half a month ago to the forefront.
Right after he asked Kisaki for more shifts in order to provide for Alas Ramus, Gabriel showed up and wreaked havoc on his life.
For the next two days, Maou thought that Gabriel took Alas Ramus away to heaven-or-wherever. It admittedly depressed him. In fact, it was one of the worst eras of his employment with MgRonald, one where he repeatedly made the kind of mistakes a newbie on his first shift would make. But Kisaki let it slide. She was a bit concerned about Maou’s health, but…
“Oh. Wait…back then…?”
“Don’t tell me…you weren’t listening?”
The disbelieving tone to Kisaki’s voice made the rest of the crew instinctively tense up.
She was always fair when evaluating work performance, but when it came to carelessness or laziness, she was a slave driver.
“…Well, nobody else has a problem with this, right?”
“No, ma’am!!”
Everyone except Maou shouted in practiced unison, like a well-trained military choir.
“You heard ’em, Marko. Why don’t we go to the office?”
The blood drained from Maou’s face as he sheepishly followed Kisaki.
Despite it being the middle of summer, the air around them stung blisteringly cold as Chiho and the crew watched them go in bloodcurdling silence.
Kisaki sat at her desk, leaving Maou standing, and silently began tapping at her computer.
Maou, bolt upright, couldn’t see anything apart from her turned back.
After a moment, a printer even older than the Alas Ramus one buzzed loudly while it spat out a form.
Picking up the first page, Kisaki finally turned around and brusquely presented it to Maou.
“If this can’t help you, I’m afraid there’s not much else I can do.”
“Uh…mm…? What’s this?”
“It’s a list of MgRonalds you can pick up shifts at right now.”
“A list of Mags…? So this location’s really closing down?”
Kisaki averted her face from the ashen-faced Maou, one finger on her temple.
“Wow. You really weren’t listening at all, were you? You just kind of stared into space and mumbled ‘okay’ to me back then, but I figured you must have noticed the calendar and the bulletin board by now. I mean, there’s even a notice to customers on the door out front. You’ve been kinda mailing it in lately, Marko. Didn’t the shift schedule look weird to you at all?”
Kisaki’s “mailing it in” observation was half wrong, half right.
Since Alas Ramus showed up, Maou devoted himself to working more shifts than ever before. In an attempt to gain a more stable paycheck, he tried to pick up one shift per day as supervisor. This meant he now started and ended work on the same times daily, which made him pay far less attention to the shift schedule than before.
Alas Ramus might be living at Emi’s apartment, but since Maou all but declared that he was responsible for the child’s upbringing, he was always on the lookout for an opportunity to give Emi some money for child-rearing expenses.
It hadn’t quite happened yet—Emi steadfastly refused all offers so far—but Maou kept on working, figuring that it’d help prop up his own budget if worse came to worst.
Reflecting on these past events, Maou turned his eyes toward the printout Kisaki had given him.
“Why would one of the best-performing locations in the west Shibuya region have to shut down, Marko? This is temporary. We’re remodeling the place to convert it to a new category. It’ll open back up in mid-August, after the Obon holiday wraps up. Most of the offices nearby are on summer break right now anyway.”
“New category?”
The explanation wiped away a decent percentage of the disquiet in Maou’s soul. Just learning that it wasn’t a permanent closing lightened his heart tremendously.
Not every MgRonald was the same, of course. There were suburban locations with large indoor playgrounds, smaller “Mini-Mag”-themed storefronts inside shopping centers, and drive-through MgRonalds by major highways.
Along those lines, the Hatagaya MgRonald was now being converted to a “MagCafé” that offered a premium breakfast-café menu in addition to the standard offerings.
MagCafés had to handle a larger variety of dishes and ingredients, so the new menu veered toward the more costly side compared to the regular fare.
To compensate for that, MagCafé dining spaces were designed for more comfort and a more refined atmosphere. This required a top-to-bottom remodel of the store space, though, and that required time.
The interior would be completely different, from the lighting and ceilings to the walls and floors, and the kitchen would also need a litany of refurbishments to handle the new menu selections.
“But…we’re building a MagCafé in this space?”
That was the other rub, the niggling concern that kept him uneasy.
Currently, there were no MagCafé-exclusive locations in Japan. MagCafé was a subset of a typical MgRonald setup, but due to the square footage required to execute the concept, all MagCafés were in fairly large spaces, whether in the city or out in a freestanding building.
The Hatagaya MgRonald set up shop in the ground floor of a commercial building facing a shopping area. But it was small. They couldn’t even fit fifty seats in there.
Maou could picture the new MgRonald/MagCafé combo essentially forcing the customers out of the place, what with all the remodeling and new equipment. Kisaki, however, pointed upward in response.
“We’re taking over the second floor.”
“Whaaa?!”
“No way could we pull this plan off otherwise. Not in this tiny space. The company upstairs is pulling out at the end of July, and we managed to snap it up from them. It happened pretty quick, so this conversion’s kind of on a breakneck schedule, but we’re planning to have the regular setup downstairs, MagCafé upstairs, and ninety seats total.”
Maou wondered aloud why they didn’t just remodel the second floor, then, and keep a smaller operation running downstairs.
“That wouldn’t work. There’s just too much construction to do. A location’s exterior and product lineup is kind of like a businessman’s suit. If your shirt isn’t tucked in and your jacket has moth holes in it, that’ll turn off your customers. You need to have the full package ready, or else you’ll be scraping for dimes in the gutter.”
The way Kisaki put it, despite the suddenness of this conversion, it was a pretty involved project. A common water system would need to be installed across both floors, and the POS register system required a complete upgrade. Trying to stay open in the midst of all that, the higher-ups decided, would scare customers away. Hence the decision to close for remodeling.
“So for the time being, we’re sending the staff out to nearby locations in a support role…but I guess you didn’t get the memo, huh? I probably could’ve found somewhere pretty close for you if you’d noticed sooner.”
Kisaki shrugged a “my hands are tied” shrug.
The available MgRonalds in the list Kisaki handed him were all either an impractically long commute from Sasazuka or didn’t have much to offer shiftwise. It being the middle of summer break, the employee rolls at most MgRonalds were fairly well saturated with students and other part-timers.
Maou, having risen to the point where he boasted a regular shift-supervisor gig, no longer had the chance to see Kisaki in person as much as before. Being the general manager, she didn’t need to be around when Maou was.
That was another indirect cause of this current disaster.
“All of the crew’s jobs are guaranteed. It’s the company closing this location on its own volition, after all. But, I’m sad to say, a lot of this is your fault. You weren’t checking up on our important notices. I like you, Maou, and I want you to work in the best possible environment I can find for you. But at this point, this is about all I got.”
Kisaki stood up and placed a hand on Maou’s shoulder.
“If you want to help support any of those locations, let me know by tomorrow evening.”
Maou could feel his vision blacking out.
Chiho, still looking worried, was there to greet Maou as he shambled out of the staff room like a horror-film extra.
“So you didn’t notice at all?”
“N-No… No. Uh, are you gonna work some other location, Chi?”
“Nah, I’m gonna take some time off until we reopen, but… I dunno. I’m sorry.”
Chiho, her head lowered in apology, baffled Maou.
“I haven’t had too many shifts lately ’cause I’ve been busy with school club trips and so on…and you’ve been so busy with Alas Ramus, too. You probably would’ve noticed sooner if we had a chance to talk a little more…”
Apparently Chiho felt some odd sense of responsibility for Maou’s error. She turned her head back upward, eyes welled up a little. Maou briskly shook his head, fully aware that she bore exactly zero of the blame for this.
“N-No! No no no no! It’s not your fault, Chi! And, I mean, Alas Ramus is over at Emi’s place now, so it’s my fault for spacing out so much, you know? Heh-heh! Guess I can’t switch my brain on and off like I thought I could, huh? But…uh, hey, you wanna come over to my place today, Chi?”
“Huh?”
Chiho’s eyebrows shot upward at the sudden invite.
“Suzuno told me this morning that Emi’s gonna come over to eat dinner with us. Alas Ramus would love to see you and all, and…well, like I give two craps about Emi, but the more, the merrier when it comes to dinner, right? So, you know…”
Maou gave Chiho a pat on the shoulder.
“I…I mean, I’m okay, so cheer up a little, huh?”
“A-all right…”
Chiho’s face turned a light shade of pink as she shallowly nodded.
“Yo! I’m back!”
“Um, hello, guys…”
Thanks to today’s morning start, Maou found himself back home by seven PM. It was still sunny out, but lights shone through the windows of nearby houses as the people inside prepared for dinner.
“Daddyyyy!”
Returning to Villa Rosa Sasazuka, an apartment building that was new back when Elvis was considered “up and coming,” Maou and Chiho were greeted by the warm, angelic smile of Alas Ramus, enough to instantly calm the frazzled Maou’s mind and body.
This would normally be Alas Ramus’s cue to jog around the low table in the center of the room to hug Maou. This time, though, the child executed some nimble cornering to collide straight-on with Chiho instead.
“Chi-Sis!”
“Wow, Alas Ramus! Somebody’s sure excited, huh?”
Chiho deftly scooped Alas Ramus up mid-bullrush, boosting her into the air and away from the disappointed Maou, his hands still aloft in anticipation of being imminently full of toddler.
Emi Yusa, her “mommy” and greatest threat to the continued existence of Devil’s Castle now that she dropped by after work, grinned wryly to herself.
“Glad to see someone’s making the right decision.”
“Shut up! Yeah, hit a man while he’s down, huh? Hey, Alas Ramus, I’m here, too, y’know!”
“Chi-Sis!”
She was oblivious.
“Welcome to your domain, Your Demonic Highness. Please, take this hot towel.”
The sensible Ashiya, stepping up to soothe his supreme leader’s bruised ego, whisked over an oshibori towel he had just warmed up in the microwave. The king of all demons wiped the sweat he worked up on the way home, scrunching his face in an attempt to shake away his fatigue.
“Ooooooo, that feels good…”
“And welcome to you, too, Ms. Sasaki. Please, take a seat right here.”
The ever-thoughtful gentleman of the house passed a cloth to Chiho, Alas Ramus still in her arms, before inviting her to a corner of the center table. She nodded a greeting at Ashiya and Emi.
“Sorry I kind of came uninvited.”
“Oh, I don’t care. Not like I really have a say in it, but it’s fine. You’re making her happy, too.”
A refined female voice emerged across from Ashiya.
“You may always consider yourself welcome, Chiho. But…”
She flashed a scornful look at the two demons, both far taller than herself, as she brought a bowl and set of chopsticks for Chiho.
“I had no objections to you tossing those silly hot towels around, but I beg of you, please stop rubbing it against your face and neck while grunting like some horrid beast. You are the Devil King, remember. You have a reputation to uphold.”
Suzuno Kamazuki, decked out in her trademark apron and triangular hair cover, was unreserved as ever in her complaining. She was, after all, just as much Maou’s enemy as Emi was, a full-fledged cleric aligned with the Ente Isla Church.
“Why should I care about my reputation around you freaks at this point?”
Maou’s reply was defiant as he tossed the hot towel back to Ashiya, enough so to make Suzuno heave a mighty sigh as she crept back to the kitchen to mix a bubbling pot of miso soup.
“You do realize that Alas Ramus is learning her table manners from you, yes?”
Suzuno’s snide observation came just before Chiho’s harried voice re-entered the picture.
“Agh! Wait a minute, Alas Ramus! You’re supposed to use your hands!”
The group turned to see Alas Ramus snatch away Chiho’s towel and vigorously rub her own face with it, in a perfect imitation of Maou’s classic “dad” move.
“Ooooo! Goooooood!”
“Alas Ramus! You will not act like some middle-aged lout around this house! That’s Chiho’s!”
Emi snatched the towel away from the pudgy fingers of the triumphant-looking Alas Ramus.
“All right, Alas Ramus. Let’s get your hands nice and neat, okay?”
The towel back in her hands, Chiho softly took up Alas Ramus’s little hands as she sat in Chiho’s lap, and calmly wiped them clean.
“Pfft.”
Suzuno, her concern now a reality, let an ironic smile cross her lips. Maou’s own face darkened as he awkwardly turned his back to the table, enlisting Ashiya’s help in changing the topic.
“Uhh, so where’s Urushihara?”
Ashiya’s face darkened for its own reasons.
“Playing around on that silly computer again, no doubt, over in Devil’s Castle. Bell refuses to let him bring it in here.”
Suzuno, tray tucked under her arm, chimed in.
“And why would I? I tell you, if we left that fool alone, he would be glued in front of that screen from dawn ’til dusk—and far beyond, too! I fear for your electric bill, but more than that, the mere sight of him…irks me.”
Bucking his usual habit, Maou had fully avoided visiting his Devil’s Castle, room 201 in the Villa Rosa Sasazuka building, after work.
This was room 202, currently occupied by Suzuno Kamazuki.
After the battle against Gabriel, the Devil’s Castle decor was largely dominated by a gigantic hole in the wall. It honestly surprised Maou that nobody thought to call the police about it. Maybe his neighbors thought it was an improvement.
As an emergency measure, the demons linked together a set of cheap waterproof bicycle covers purchased on clearance at the local home-improvement store to craft an extremely makeshift cover. But they couldn’t live with that forever. As remodels went, it wasn’t really up to code.
So they trudged back to their real estate agent, the one who stuck them in there in the first place and refused to let them install an AC unit. He placated them with a promise that he’d try to contact Miki Shiba, the landlord.
By today, the hole had become a familiar, semipermanent fixture. It didn’t present any critical obstacle, thankfully—they still had gas, electricity, and water, at least. Over the past sixty years, the building had survived typhoons, assassinations, even the ’80s. It could survive a bit of a puncture wound.
Or so the demons hoped. But there was no telling what the force of the blast could have done to their apartment’s structural integrity behind the walls. Another misstep inside Devil’s Castle could compromise God-knew-what underneath the floorboards.
So, on the basis that any further accidents could literally wipe their demonic domain off the map, Maou and his demon generals grew accustomed to the habit of inviting themselves to their Church-cleric neighbor for meals. Open flames and heavy electrical use was something they wanted to avoid for the time being at their place.
Which explained why, to Suzuno and Devil’s Castle itself, the greatest threat to life and limb was very much Urushihara, sitting there browsing God-knew-what on his computer all day.
If there was any silver lining to the cloud looming over the wholly-holey Devil’s Castle, it was that the past few days had been blessedly rain-free.
But that couldn’t continue for long. Maou took his place at the table next to Chiho, contemplating another futile trip to the real estate agent first thing in the morning.
“Daddyyy!”
Alas Ramus, still on Chiho’s knee, reached out toward Maou with stubby arms.
That act, and that smile, was enough to make the day’s exhaustion and apprehension fly away.
“Ooh, you wanna move over to Daddy, huh? …Is that okay?”
Noticing the rapt anticipation on Maou’s face, Chiho positioned the child over his leg, turning her head to check Emi’s response. She replied with a reluctant nod.
Emi, as a rule, went pretty easy on Alas Ramus.
Settled into position on Maou’s lap, the girl lunged for the chopsticks in front of her with both hands and began jabbing a drumbeat into the table.
“Whoa there, Alas Ramus. That’s not what you use ’em for. You have to be polite around here, okay?”
“Oooo.”
Alas Ramus, for her part, tended to listen to and follow Maou’s and Emi’s admonishments, although rarely with heaping spoonfuls of enthusiasm.
Frowning as she returned the chopsticks to where they were (albeit with each of them facing opposite directions), Alas Ramus was rewarded with a rub on the head.
“Therrrre you go. Good girl! Can you sit tight for a little bit until your big sis Suzuno’s done serving your food?”
“Okie!”
Suzuno winced for a moment as she ladled rice into each bowl on the table.
“…I wonder why. Every time I hear ‘big sis Suzuno’ from you, it makes the hairs stand up on my neck.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m really sorry about that.”
“Ehh, ehh, ehh!”
Alas Ramus joyfully recited Maou’s mantra, rewarding the demon with more dirty looks from Emi and Suzuno. He fell silent, returning the chopsticks to their correct position. When it came to his girl, at least, he didn’t want to screw things up.
But it was time, he admitted to himself, that he thought a little more seriously about her future. He would need to discuss financials with Ashiya. Then he’d either brave the commute to one of the locations Kisaki showed him, or he’d do…something else.
But there was no need to blurt it out yet. It’d just put him in a weaker position in Emi’s eyes. He could imagine her grinning ear to ear: “Guess what, Alas Ramus? Your daddy is unemployed! Can you say ‘unemployed’? Good! I knew you could!” It was hard to imagine life around the child after that.
“You. Alciel!”
Suzuno, almost done with dinner, barked at Ashiya as she removed her apron.
“Can you please fetch Lucifer for me? You know what a hue and cry he will raise otherwise. Tell him he will miss dinner if he dawdles any further.”
“…Very well.”
Suzuno, being human, and Ashiya, being demonic, were generally polar opposites of each other. But lately, with both of them manning the kitchen most evenings, they had started to reach a certain sort of détente, at least when it came to Urushihara and home chores.
Ashiya was expressionless as he heeded Suzuno’s command, removing and neatly folding his apron before leaving the room.
“That’s gotta suck, huh? Having to make an extra portion for him, too.”
Suzuno blithely untied her head cloth.
“The Devil King is paying his food bill. That, and there are certain monetary savings involved with cooking for many, over cooking for one. It makes menu planning easier.”
“You better be careful, though. Keep saying that, and they’re gonna leech off of you forever.”
“Hmm?”
Suzuno flashed a confused look at Emi’s rejoinder, but decided to abandon the topic, folding her legs primly underneath her as she sat across from Maou.
“Daddy, can we eat? Can we eat yet?”
“Just a little bit longer, okay? You’re a good girl. We’re all gonna eat together, all right?”
“Looshifer, hurry up!”
Alas Ramus fully understood the cause of the delay.
Emi fixed her eyes on Alas Ramus, making sure Maou never entered her sight.
“By the way, what’re you gonna do with all the stuff in here? I mean, you still got a lot.”
“Yes…well, given our current circumstances, I had my real estate agent refer me to a storage site. I intend to send it all there tomorrow.”
“What about the stuff in the fridge?”
“I used everything left inside today.”
“Ooh.”
Maou, idly listening in on the two women’s conversation, turned his eyes to the table once again.
“Y’know, I was just thinking this looked a lot fancier than usual. Didja need to clean the fridge or something? You only just bought it.”
A brimming plate of sautéed vegetables sat next to a bowl of miso soup infused with onions, eggplant, tofu, and wakame seaweed. Another bowl of deep-fried, marinated chicken steamed nearby a stack of minced-beef cutlets. A gaggle of pork dumplings was accompanied by a selection of nerimono fish cakes. There was even enough chopped salad for everyone.
A menu like this, borrowing something from almost every aisle in the supermarket, was a change of pace from Suzuno’s colorful, more seasonally oriented spreads.
Even with Chiho stopping in unannounced, it was a toss-up whether they’d be stuck with leftovers or not.
Emi’s and Suzuno’s eyebrows arched upward in unison at Maou’s question.
“Uh, what’re you talking about?”
“I’m not sure this is any time to be fretting over me. What about you? Have you demons trundled away all your furniture yet?”
“Huh? Whaddaya mean?”
Returning that kind of a question with another question was never a good sign.
It was just as Emi and Suzuno gave a quizzical look to each other that Maou felt something cold rush down his spine.
“Dah! That’s freezing!”
No streak of sudden dread, this: Only Alas Ramus, who had climbed off his lap somewhere along the line and was now sticking a bottle of chilled mineral water against his back, the condensation seeping through his shirt.
“That’s all wet, Alas Ramus. Can I have it?”
“Ahnn! Nooo!”
The toddler tried her very, very best to keep the bottle in hand as Chiho waged a calm, composed battle to the death for it.
“You realize, myself and all of you will have to vacate this apartment for a while beginning tomorrow.”
“Hey! Alas Ramus! You gotta listen to Chi for a bit, all right? Hang on, vacating the…………………………………………………………………………………what’d you say just now?”
Maou snapped to attention. The moment he did, he felt his body temperature plummet, his face attaining the pallor of a Noh mask as he turned to Suzuno.
“Vacate…the apartment?”
“Oh, for…heaven’s sake, Devil King…”
The envelope Suzuno produced from her pocket looked familiar.
That opulent lacework on the borders. The smooth, silken paper.
“This arrived right after you ran off to the real estate agent! A notification from our landlord!”
“Huhhh?!”
Maou’s chin fell halfway to the floor. The display made Alas Ramus drop the bottle she was cradling with both hands.
“Daddy, don’t shout like that! You scaaaary!”
But even Alas Ramus’s voice couldn’t reach Maou’s ears.
He practically ripped the envelope away from Suzuno’s hand, ever-so-slowly removing its contents in fear of another grotesque photograph.
It contained a rarity by Shiba standards—a copy of a notification typed up on a computer, and some kind of contract, filled with small, densely-spaced writing.
“To the Residents of Villa Rosa Sasazuka,” it began. Maou noticed the date on top. Just about two weeks ago. Then he began reading.
“This…has to be a joke…”
This time, the earth really did flip out from under him. He fell unconscious.
“M-Maou?!”
“Would you look out?! You’re gonna hit your head on that thing!”
“Daddy?!”
“Did someone just trip, or… M-My liege?!”
“Daaamn, I’m hungry! …Ooh, hey, Chiho Sasaki! Man, check out this spread today!”
Ashiya’s eyes boggled as he was greeted by the sight of a lifeless master past the doorway. Urushihara wasn’t quite so moved.
“Al-cell. Daddy went nappies!”
Alas Ramus picked up the paper and handed it to Ashiya.
“Ah, thank you. Hmm? A letter from our landlord to Bell…?”
Emi and Suzuno couldn’t stop him in time. He ran his eyes across the notice.
“…………Hoooohhh…”
Then he crumpled to the ground, as if breathing his last.
“Hmm? Hey, what’s up with you and Maou?”
Without bothering to help his roommates, and without bothering to ask for permission, Urushihara found Emi, Chiho, and Suzuno ruefully glaring at him as he popped a piece of fried chicken into his mouth.
Suzuno plucked the letter from Ashiya’s hand, then all but jammed it up Urushihara’s nose.
“Read this, you walking personification of greed.”
“Mngh! Wh-What, dude…? Huh? ‘To the Residents’…?”
Urushihara continued to chew with his mouth open as he took in the letter.
“Huh. ‘Due to refurbishment work to be done on the main apartment building, all residents will be compensated during the period of temporary eviction from…’ What, what? We’re getting booted out?! The hell?!”
It was enough to make even him panic. He threw his chopsticks aside as he read on.
To sum up, the structural damage Maou had informed the real estate agent of two weeks ago had, indeed, made its way to the owner.
The size of the hole in room 201 was no laughing matter. A simple patch-up job could destabilize the entire building.
All the age their apartment wore so modestly also led to landlord concerns about the water, gas, and electric systems. In her eyes, the only move to make was a full building renovation.
“…Uh, so, like, I never heard anything about this…”
“I suppose so. If it was enough to make Alciel and the Devil King keel over like a timid goat, I somehow doubt you were any less in the dark.”
“Bell’s gonna be staying at my place until they’re done with the repairs, but… Seriously? You guys haven’t done anything at all?”
Urushihara listlessly shook his head, then stared blankly at Emi for a moment.
“If you’re expecting me to invite you guys in ’cause I’m somehow nostalgic about living in a multifamily household, forget it.”
“…Yeah. Guess not.”
Not even Urushihara would dare it.
Glancing at the sighing demon, Alas Ramus, unable to comprehend her guardians’ harried conversation, toddled up to her fallen housemates.
“Daddy? Al-cell? What’s wrong?”
“Uhhhh… I think they’re just tired, you know? Here, could you try waking them up for us, Alas Ramus?”
Chiho, the only one in the room aware of Maou’s painful experience at work earlier, found herself in a panic. The job was one thing—now he might lose his place, even?
“Mm. Daddyyyy! Allll-celllll! Wakey wakey! Dinnewww!”
Tugged and pulled by Alas Ramus’s tiny hands, the pair finally sat up, looking like they just woke up from some incomprehensible dream.
“…I feel like I just saw some kind of mirage.”
“…As do I, my liege. …Wait. No. More of a nightmare, perhaps.”
Not even during their life-or-death final battle with the Hero did the Devil King and Great Demon General act so detached from reality.
“Oh…yeah. Ashiya…”
“Y-Yes, Your Demonic Highness?”
Maou’s head wobbled as he whispered something to him. Ashiya’s wobbled back in response.
“……………………………………”
“Un…’ployed?”
The throat-clenching silence was broken by Alas Ramus repeating the unfamiliar word she just overheard.
“Uuuufff…!”
Then, making a sound like someone poking a hole in an already half-deflated balloon, Ashiya fainted.
“Aggghhh! Ashiya! He’s turning white as a sheet!!”
“Whoa, is he even breathing? Bell! Get some water over here!”
“Mommy! Minnial warter!”
“Ooh, good, Alas Ramus! Lemme borrow that!”
“Will that make him come to? Should we be performing CPR, or—?!”
“…Dude, what’s up with Ashiya?”
Only Maou failed to comprehend the blast radius of the dynamite he’d just lit in the room.
“……”
“……”
“……”
Only a light breeze between the cracks in their hole cover cooled the three mighty demons as they sat in a ring around a small package, each face glumly sizing the other up.
The package, about the size of a large padded envelope, was inexplicably wrapped in layers of both clear and duct tape, DO NOT OPEN written in large, shaky lettering on the front.
“What’re you waiting for? Open it,” Emi sighed in frustration at the frozen trio.
“Well…not much point now, so…”
“Yeah…”
“True…”
Emi, never a patient woman even in the best of times, pushed the indecisive denizens of the dark away, grabbing the package and tearing it apart with her bare hands.
“Whoaaaaa! What the hell’re you doing?!”
“Shut up! Don’t just sit there and wish it away! Just open it!”
“D-Damn you! You’ll pay for this!!”
“No! Nooooo!!”
Ignoring the wailing demons, Emi ripped the rest of the package to shreds.
“…What’s this? A video?” she asked.
They were greeted with a single, labelless VHS tape.
“Aw, crap! That video’s cursed! It’s so totally got to be cursed!!”
Maou desperately raked his hands through his hair.
“It’s p-p-probably got some kind of…horrible, hideous video on it!”
Ashiya pinned his body against the wall, his face the color of eggshells.
“Her photos were destructive enough as it is! I can’t even think about her in a video!!”
“Can you guys just stop already? …I mean, your landlord sent this to you, right? Why’d you put that tape all over it?”
“It’s a freakin’ video message from our landlord, dude! You’ve met her before!”
“So? You’re not making any sense to me. Just play it and see what’s inside, all right?”
Right after Maou’s now-fateful inquiry with the real estate agent, a delivery winged its way to the Devil’s Castle as well.
This was no frilly letter smelling vaguely of perfume, though. It was a package, one the demons immediately grew wary of. On the one hand, it probably wasn’t anything very important. On the other, it might contain something just as mind-meltingly terrifying as…That Photo.
At one point, a tongue-lashing from Suzuno did finally convince the demons to open up the package.
But there was no label or letter inside. Just a plain, black videotape. And after paying a dear price at the Great Landlord Cheesecake Pin-Up Photo Disaster of Earlier This Year, who could possibly blame the demons for their trepidation at bringing the tape anywhere near a VCR?
Assuming there was even a VCR bumping around the Devil’s Castle in the first place. That, of course, was not the case.
Ultimately, it was decided that entombing the tape and pretending it never existed was the best course of action. It was buried deep within one of the prefab shelving units in the corner, but now, that tape was the only chance the denizens of Devil’s Castle had of somehow avoiding their impending homelessness.
And yet, even now, the trauma of That Photo weighed all too heavily in their hearts.
“So be it! If you don’t believe us, I’ll be more than happy to unleash the fury of That Photo upon you, Hero!!”
“N-No, my liege! That Photo is a taboo that must never be summoned in our lifetimes! Even the gods themselves may never lay hands upon it!”
“Silence! If we don’t wield it now, then when?!”
“Dahhh! I can feel my memory being subverted by that…That Photo! The end of the world is nigh!”
“Our Devil’s Castle is crumbling, Your Demonic Highness! Please! No more of this!!”
Completely ignoring the demons’ ranting over some photograph—it meant nothing to her anyway—Emi’s eyes stopped on Urushihara’s computer.
“If we got a cheap video deck somewhere, do you think we could use that thing to watch it?”
With DVD and Blu-ray the current standard worldwide, devices that converted old analog formats to digital media were a common sight at the big-box stores.
All three demons knew that. But why would they flush their valuable money down the toilet for the sake of undoing the seal placed on this false, fetid idol of disgust?
“L-Look, Emi, there’s nothing in the world that can play this thing. Let’s just, uh, forget about it, okay? Like, we can figure out something by ourselves! Totally!”
Just as Emi landed a kick on the simpering Maou, Suzuno came in carrying Alas Ramus.
“I heard quite a clamor, Emilia. Have you solved this issue yet?”
Emi shook her head, pointed a thumb at the panic-stricken demonic rulers, and shrugged as she explained the videotape.
“Um…in that case…”
Chiho hesitantly spoke up from Suzuno’s side.
“I think we still have a working VCR at home… We could go watch it there, if you like?”
“Hey, Mom, I’m—wagh!”
“Oh, myyyyy, hello, hello! You must be that Maou person, arrrren’t you?”
The moment Chiho opened the front door, she was almost sent flying by the sonic force of a shrill, high-pitched voice.
Maou had a phone conversation with that voice, not too long ago. It belonged to Riho Sasaki, Chiho’s fortysomething mother, resplendent in her perfectly applied makeup and wardrobe as she greeted Maou and his companions.
“Um, thanks. I’m sorry for stopping by so late.”
Maou felt the beads of nervous sweat run down his back as he tactfully bowed.
“Emi Yusa. Good to meet you.”
Behind him, Emi kept it deliberately short.
“Um…this isn’t anything fancy, but…you know, Chiho’s been a huge help to me this whole time, so…”
Stammering out the words in an awkward attempt at politeness, Maou presented the small cake that Ashiya forced him to bring along.
“Oh, my goodness! Such a thoughtful young man! Thank you so much. Please, come right in! So sorry for bothering you over the phone earlier. Right over to the living room with you! I’ll be happy to make some tea. Chiho, can you lead them over?”
“Um, okay…” Chiho started. “It’s right this way, uh…Mr. Maou. Oh, and Ms. Yusa.”
“T-Thanks.”
“Thank you.”
The Sasaki residence was a fairly typical house, nestled in a neighborhood across the Koshu-Kaido road from Sasazuka station, right on the other side of the highway from Devil’s Castle.
This was the gang’s sole choice if they wanted to check the contents of that video as soon as possible. But it also meant Maou and the rest of the visitors were completely dependent on the whims of the Sasaki family matriarch.
Ashiya rushed right out on Dullahan II in order to buy a suitable gift, but a single faux pas inside this house could ruin all the trust Chiho placed on them. To Maou, this was an all-or-nothing crusade.
Even worse, they were being chaperoned by Emi.
Ashiya should have been with them. But if they both left alone, Emi feared, they would likely toss the tape in a lonely Dumpster somewhere.
To keep the head count low, everyone except for Maou and Emi opted to stay at Villa Rosa Sasazuka, keeping Alas Ramus entertained as they hoped against hope for good news.
But what about Emi? Considering her breezy habit of verbally wishing for the Devil King and his crew’s grisly deaths at her bloodied hands, she seemed strangely passionate about finding a solution for Maou’s crisis.
“…Mom, you always try too hard…”
Chiho’s head drooped down the moment she entered the living room.
Not a single speck of dust was present. A vase filled with colorful flowers was perched atop a brand-new tablecloth in the middle of the room.
The light floral scent that prefaced the area suggested either an aroma candle or more than a few pinches of potpourri.
The cushions on the chairs were thick, fluffy, and clearly not meant for daily use. It was evident, much to Chiho’s apparent chagrin, that Maou and Emi were being given an extremely warm welcome.
“Ummm…um, sorry, I guess you can sit down? Oh! Maou, your video…”
Chiho seemed to pick her words carefully as she accepted the tape, kneeling in front of the LCD screen in a corner of the room.
Maou and Emi looked at each other, then gingerly sat down. The crinkle of a brand-new set of cushions could clearly be heard.
“Here we go! I’ve got some refreshing iced tea, right here for you!”
Then Riho, as high-intensity as before, came barreling in. Maou and Emi flinched slightly in surprise, but Riho paid it no mind as she set a pair of glasses in front of her guests, the tea smelling faintly of citrus fruit. Emi took a sip.
“Thank you… It smells nice. Are these rose hips I’m smelling? It must be some kind of herbal tea.”
Riho’s eyes sparkled.
“Oooh, very observant! I should have known someone as sophisticated and savvy as you both would tell it right off! And thank you so much for taking such good care of Chiho for me! She tells me all kinds of things about you. And let me tell you, Chiho and my husband just have the worst time telling different types of tea apart!”
“I…see.”
“Mommm! You don’t have to tell them everything!”
The tape safely in the VCR, the red-faced Chiho focused her efforts on shooing her mother out of the room. Riho didn’t budge.
“Oh, just play that video before you kick me out! The future of Mr. Maou’s housing situation rides on this, doesn’t it?”
With that, she helped herself to a seat across from Maou and Emi. Chiho had provided the bare minimum of an explanation in order to gain access to the VCR, but now two concerns raced across Maou’s head: What if my landlord does something weird? And: What if the sight of my landlord causes Chiho and Riho to lose all semblance of their sanity?
“Ughh…! All right, all right. Are you ready, Mr. Maou?”
“Uh, sure. Go ahead.”
They couldn’t toss Riho out of her own house. His mind filled with assorted anxieties, Maou looked on as Chiho pressed the PLAY button, then took an uncomfortable seat next to her mother.
A black screen flashed on for just a moment. Then an image flickered to life.
Underneath a blue sky, amid a gold-colored landscape, a row of pyramid-shaped buildings loomed in the air. One hundred people out of a hundred would have instinctively identified the sight as Egypt.
“Uh, is this on…? Ah-hem!”
The landlord’s voice boomed out of the speaker. Maou clenched his fists in terror.
“Well! It’s been quite a while, Mr. Maou and Mr. Ashiya. Today I’m broadcasting to you from in front of the three great pyramids of Giza!”
She was in the middle of a bright, spotlessly clear desert.
The mere sight of Miki Shiba—their landlord, her high-cut dress and short-sleeved top with the sleeves tattered and almost falling apart, the fancy hat on her head providing only token protection from the sun, her outfit revealing a robust amount of sagging real estate around her arms and legs—was enough to make Maou’s pulse surge and face whiten.
Still, compared to her swimsuit pin-up shot, this was still more of a warning salvo than a head-on blast. He didn’t have to avert his eyes, at least. Maou couldn’t let himself cower in her presence forever.
What was even more surprising to Maou, already in a cold sweat, was that the other three people in the room didn’t react at all, eyes sharply focused upon the murderous landlord onscreen.
“During my travels, I received word that you came across some manner of disaster in your apartment. As your landlord, I really do feel I need to apologize for this.”
It was hardly the landlord’s fault Maou had a hole blown in his wall by some alien toddler punching a renegade archangel through it. But to Maou, being stricken by the accursed sight of the voluminous valley between her two ample breasts as she bowed deeply to apologize was something he felt deserved an apology in and of itself.
“I’m just happy that neither of you were injured. And it goes without saying that I will gladly cover all of the repair costs for your apartment, so there’s no need to worry about that. I promise you that this won’t affect your rent, either. However, since these will likely be some rather large-scale repairs we’re talking about, I’m afraid that chances are you’ll both need to vacate the apartment for a period of time.”
Now she was all business, her speech largely echoing the content of Suzuno’s letter.
Finally growing used to the awesome presence staring into the camera, Maou now had the time to silently lash out at Shiba. Seriously, why did she go through the trouble of filming this just for the Devil’s Castle? This all could have been handled a lot quicker if she’d just written them a letter, too.
The video continued on after Shiba wrapped up her explanation.
“Oh! And by the way, Mr. Maou, Mr. Ashiya, I do have one little request for you both. I’m not sure if I told you this, but I actually have a niece, you see.”
Maou and Emi exchanged glances.
The landlord’s niece?! They had never imagined this woman had parents, or siblings, or nieces or nephews, or anything else a normal family would have. Were there more of her?
“Now, this niece of mine runs a little restaurant and sundry shop on the beachside over in Chiba.”
The keywords landlord and beach brought back vivid memories of the Great Swimsuit Pin-Up Massacre. This video would be baring its fangs soon. Maou found himself fending off the urge to smash the STOP button.
“If you like, I was wondering if you’d like to help my niece run the place for a little bit.”
Maou stopped.
“It’s on a beach in the northeastern corner of Chiba prefecture. A bit far away from you, I know, but considering the state of your apartment, I think you’d likely be staying there for the time being instead of attempting to commute. My niece’s house should be free for at least some of that time, so how would you like to stay there from…say, the first half of August or so?”
A free place to live? And work from the start of August until past the end of the Obon holiday?
The sheer perfectness of the timing had to be a put-on. She’s just buttering me up—or herself up, perhaps literally—before she strikes the final blow, isn’t she?
“Northeastern Chiba… The town of Choshi, maybe?”
Chiho nodded to herself as she tried to recall her local geography.
“And you know, having a man there to help out during the busy season would do so much to put my mind at ease. I’m sure you have your own work to worry about, of course, so I won’t force you or anything, but I’d love if you gave it some thought, anyway. So if you think you’re interested, just call this phone number…”
Shiba pointed a finger downward as a cell-phone number scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Maou stared blankly at the display for a moment.
“Wow, Dev… Maou, that’s great! Hurry up and give her a call!”
Maou choked on his own spit after Emi suddenly slapped him on the back.
“Kheff kheff…!! Wh-What’re you doing, Emi?!”
“She had to have sent this a long time ago. You better call her right now. If she hires someone else, it’ll be too late!”
“B-But, Ms. Yusa, it’s kind of far from here to some beachfront shop in Chiba…”
Chiho, wary of Emi’s unexpected reaction, found herself cut off by her mother.
“No, she’s right, Mr. Maou! What a marvelous offer this is! A home, a steady job… All of your problems, solved in one fell swoop! Go ahead! You can call her right in here!”
Riho’s reaction was to be expected from a nosy middle-aged mother, but Emi’s was all but inexplicable. She sounded almost happy for Maou’s reversal of fortune.
Despite all the misgivings he felt at this dual-pronged mystery, Maou nonetheless typed the number into his phone as he gestured the room to be quiet for a moment.
With one final nod to Riho, he took a deep breath and pressed the “call” button.
His assessment of the situation was nowhere near as rosy as Emi’s or Riho’s. Everything was falling into place a little too neatly for his tastes.
Plus, remember, this was a beachfront place run by that woman’s relative. There was no telling what kind of snake pit or lair of spittle-spewing monsters it could be. Commuting to some faraway MgRonald could be far less of an emotional burden on him when all was said and done.
Chiho looked on with similar trepidation, occasionally shooting a glance at Emi. The Hero’s erratic behavior must have confused her, too.
They waited, faces tensed up. Several rings passed, and then, a simple greeting:
“Yello?”
A woman’s voice.
Which was expected, given it was her niece, but Maou was prepared for anything up to, and including, a flesh-eating ghoul of the night. Being greeted by a seemingly normal human being seemed almost disappointing.
“Oh, uh, hello. Sorry if I’m calling you late.”
“No, no.”
“Umm, so, Ms. Shiba told me about some possible work available at your beachside restaurant, so I thought I would call you about it, sooo…”
“Shiba… Ahhhh!”
Maou’s voice tapered off just in time for his eardrum to be blasted by the girl’s bellow.
“Are you the guy living in that apartment building my aunt Mikitty runs in Tokyo?!”
“Mikitty… Oh! Y-Yes, I am. My name is Maou.”
He recalled the landlord all but demanding that Emi call her “Mikitty” in the past.
“Oh, yes yes yes yes! She told me all about you! I almost gave up, you know! We’re almost at the end of July, but you hadn’t called yet, so…”
The woman on the other end of the line couldn’t have sounded brighter and bubblier.
Her manner of speech indicated she was likely to be slightly older than Emi or Suzuno, but he couldn’t pick up any of the eerie, inscrutable, enigmatic presence Shiba always infused into her speech.
“Yeah, sorry about that. She and I kind of got our wires crossed.”
There was no way Maou could confess to being so frightened by the video that he encased it in an entire roll of duct tape.
“Oh, yeah, I know how my aunt likes to go hopping around the world all the time. I usually get a New Year’s greeting card from her around February or so, if you know what I mean.”
“Hohh. Really?”
If that’s how she treated her own kin, it was almost a miracle that she sent word to Maou and Suzuno so promptly.
As he mulled over this, the woman suddenly shifted gears.
“So…Maou, right? You comin’, or…?”
Obviously the type of woman who didn’t waste time with formalities. Maou had to stop himself from reflexively agreeing.
To Maou, a beachside snack bar and supply shop run by a lone woman was uncharted territory.
They had yet to discuss the nature of his job, for one. For that matter, the presumptive niece of Maou’s landlord had yet to give her name.
There was a phrase Maou learned early on in life: Know thy enemy, know thyself, and thou shalt not fear a hundred battles. It was his credo ever since he began his struggle to unite the demon realms, so long ago. He chose his words carefully, seeking to extract the information he needed.
“Um, well, I haven’t really heard anything about the job, except that it’s at your restaurant in Chiba…”
His conversational partner chimed in on cue.
“Oh, no? Yeah, Aunt Mikitty’s never too fussy about details like that, I guess.”
Her voice indicated she had nothing to hide.
“But anyway, we’re pretty much on the edge of Chiba, in the town of Choshi. Do you know where Kimigahama is, maybe?”
“No…”
From the side, Riho handed Maou a pen and paper. Maou nodded at her as he accepted them.
Hurriedly, he wrote “Choshi” on the paper, hearing a slight, surprised gasp from Chiho behind him.
“Yeah, you probably wouldn’t. I guess Inuboh or Toyama would be more recognizable place names up here, huh? Unless you’re on an island or a mountain or something, you can see the morning sunrise on the Kimigahama shoreline before anyone else in the Kanto region can.”
“Um…”
None of what the woman said sounded familiar. She must have picked up on it.
“Well, just picture the easternmost edge of Chiba, and that’s close enough. Just a liiiittle bit removed from downtown Tokyo, you know?”
And with that offhand remark, Shiba’s niece wrapped up her description of the place.
There was no point whining about it, though. Maou wrote down the unfamiliar names on the paper and pressed onward.
“Oh, and sorry to cut to the chase, but I can’t really pay you a fortune or anything, either. I’m thinking a thousand yen an hour per person, but how ’bout it?”
“A th-thousand yen?!”
The figure took Maou aback. It was far from what he anticipated. But what did “per person” mean? Did she want him to bring a busload of friends along?
If Ashiya joined Maou up there, simple math indicated the Devil’s Castle would be raking in 2,000 yen an hour.
“Yeah, well, my dad ran this place, like, half as a hobby. Pretty much clueless about how to make money off it, you know? But we still wind up busy during the season, so we’re hurting for some help right now. Oh, you can stay here for free, too. And I’ll feed you. And at no extra charge, you’ll get to swim in the ocean after work all you want ’til it gets dark!”
Free food, free board, a thousand yen an hour. The swimming thing was unimportant—Maou couldn’t have asked for a more ideal work situation.
“So…are you looking for multiple people?”
This question was a gamble in some ways. Three people called Devil’s Castle home, after all, not two, and the third was the utterly work ethic–less Urushihara.
Judging by Shiba’s invite and the way her niece sounded, it seemed to Maou that Ashiya’s ticket was already punched. The three of them, though? If her father was that “clueless,” the labor costs involved could make it out of the question.
That, and even if Maou asked nicely, there was no guarantee that Person No. 3 would so much as pour a soda for anybody.
But the woman’s response surpassed all expectations.
“Oh, what, you got a gang you wanna bring along?”
“Um. Well, with me and my roommates, it’d be three people.”
“Huh? Three?”
“Huh? Three?”
It came from Chiba and Emi simultaneously. Maou paid them no mind.
“Well, sure! Bring ’em on over! We’re never gonna have too much help here, trust me on that one. It’s pretty hard work, apparently, so even if it isn’t full-time, you guys could probably take shifts or something if you like.”
It was almost like she knew Maou personally.
He still didn’t know what kind of work it was, but they could always leave the easy stuff to Urushihara for whatever fifteen minutes of the day he felt like working. Then Maou and Ashiya could pull full-time shifts—and if Urushihara picked up even a gnat’s crotch hair worth of inspiration along the way, it’d be an unexpected bounty for all three of them.
“…Would it be okay if the three of us came over, then?”
The woman laughed out loud. Chiho winced across the table.
“Well, sure! When can you show up?”
“Well, we need to get some things sorted out tomorrow, so if it’s all right with you, we could make it the next day, August 1.”
“Whoa! Better get you guys’ room ready quick, huh? Thanks a lot, though. The faster the better! The way my dad puts it, we’ll pretty much be slammed starting in August, so it’ll be suuuuper appreciated.”
Something that bothered Maou was how this woman was learning all this information from someone else. The work’s “apparently” pretty hard. “Her dad said” it’d be crowded. Maou dared to ask about it.
“We ran into each other at MgRonald. Are you taking that to Choshi? That’s a pretty nice-looking bag.”
“Yes. We’ll need to bring along what we need over there, so I had some trouble deciding on which to choose…”
Ashiya still looked hesitant as he placed a hand on the oversized, caster-equipped travel suitcase, offering more than enough space for the clothes, underwear, towels, and any other essentials three demons would need on the beach.
“We aren’t allowed to leave anything in the apartment, so we need space to bring our bank records and other valuable documents. And there is no telling what the security situation might be like, so I thought something sturdy and lockable would work best for us.”
“Oh. Yeah, that might be a good idea.”
“Did you take the train someplace to buy it?”
“Yes, Your Demonic Highness. There was more of a selection downtown, and considering our long journey tomorrow, I decided to take the train instead of walk to conserve my energy. That, and I wanted to use the public phone in the station.”
Ashiya was so cheap that he’d cheerfully walk the half hour or so to Shinjuku, Tokyo’s central hub, on a regular basis instead of paying the 120-yen train fare. But under this muggy summer sun, wheeling a heavy suitcase halfway across Tokyo would wipe the smile off anyone’s face.
Plus, with all the sandals and extra clothing Ashiya had to buy for the trip, Maou wasn’t about to criticize him for hopping on a train for a quick round-trip jaunt.
Maou was still curious about who Ashiya wanted to reach out to along the way, but not even the Devil King felt he had the right to invade his subordinate’s privacy.
Ashiya was generally not the sort of demon to hide things from people. He must have had a good reason to do so this time, but the phone call couldn’t have been anything with major repercussions for anyone else.
After neatly wrapping up that question in his mind, Maou examined his suitcase. It was brand-new, tag still attached, explaining how the bag allowed airport security to unlock and inspect it without damaging anything.
“That really is a fancy bag you got, huh?”
“The time may come, my liege, when we must travel overseas in order to restore your demonic powers. I considered it a smart investment for that day.”
“Ooooh! So you can conquer the world, right?”
There were few people on Earth who could so freely toss around terms like “conquer the world” in front of an arch-demon who really did conquer the world. That is, another world. Nearly.
“Precisely, Ms. Sasaki. Oh, and by the way, we will be sure to buy a souvenir or two for you over there. The least we can do, after all, to repay you. Choshi, I hear, is one of the most well-known fishing harbors in Japan.”
Judging by Ashiya’s unfazed response to the high schooler’s observation, the concept of “conquering the world” held about as much weight with them as a helium balloon.
“Oh…well, thank you.”
But Chiho’s heart grew heavy for other reasons. It was to be expected, but within Ashiya’s mind, Chiho wasn’t part of the Choshi caravan. But something else then occurred to her: If Maou was going to Choshi, what kind of people were absolutely certain to be on the train behind them?
“…Speaking of conquering the world, though, have Yusa or Suzuno discussed anything about traveling to Choshi with you?”
Maou and Ashiya flashed each other a glance, as if to confirm that yes, they really were going to conquer the world someday. Not now, but, you know, whenever.
“Come to think of it, they haven’t, really. I figured she thought you were trying to run away from her, too. I was expecting this epic rant about how she’ll chase you to the ends of the Earth and so on, but nothing.”
“Yeah, she probably thinks we’ll mind our Ps and Qs as long as we’re with someone who knows our landlord. She’s met her before, so. But Urushihara told me the two girls pushed him to the corner and made him cry about what a lazy bum he is last night, too. It’s weird, how cooperative they’ve been with us finding work. It’s like they want it.”
“You’re…right, huh? I was just thinking that Yusa’s been really kind to you lately, too…”
It was impossible to think that Emi would let the demons simply waltz out of Tokyo without batting an eye. But if she had a plan in mind, she was sure taking her time executing it.
And Sariel’s unsettling piece of news made Chiho worry as well. If Maou didn’t know what Emi was doing, or vice versa, that could put Alas Ramus in danger.
Not that it meant, of course, that Emi would work together with Maou if she knew about this new development. That was simply impossible to imagine.
“Just make sure you get your parents’ permission first, all right? It’s a pretty long field trip.”
“Take the road you have to. As long as you don’t do anything to embarrass yourself or your family, I’m not going to say anything.”
The voices of two top authority figures in Chiho’s life rang in her head.
Filled with a new sense of determination, Chiho took out her cell phone.
This was probably the first time in her life that she did something so completely self-serving. It would involve taking the bad-faith move of deceiving her parents without actually lying to them.
But it was worth it.
Having the people she held dear that far away was dangerous. She wanted to curtail that danger, as much as she could.
Nodding at Maou and Ashiya, Chiho took a few steps away and called home.
“Hi, Chiho. What’s up?”
The landline in their house had a caller ID display. Her mother immediately knew who was on the line.
Chiho took a deep breath, soothing her quickening heartbeat.
“Mom…?”
“Hmm?”
“I wanna go see the Choshi Electric Railway. Is it okay if I take a day trip out there with Yusa and Suzuno?”
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login