THE HERO HELPS THE DEVIL REMODEL HIS WORKPLACE
“Wow! Look at that train! It’s so cute!”
At Choshi rail station, the endpoint of the JR Sobu line, Chiho squealed in pure glee at the sight before her.
It came at the end of a long journey, one laden with unfamiliar transfers—Sasazuka to Shinjuku, to Kinshichou, and then to the Chiba central station, where they boarded the Sobu Main local line. Their journey, taking them due east of Tokyo, took just over three hours.
The train that arrived at the Choshi Electric Railway platform, modestly located on the edge of the much larger JR platform in Chiba station, was like nothing Maou, Ashiya, or Urushihara had seen before.
It had been not quite two years since the demons first set foot on Earth. As such, the idea of a “train” being a four-door car made of stainless steel with long, bench-style seating on the inside was firmly instilled in their minds.
But the “train” trundling up to them now blew away their urban-oriented assumptions in the blink of an eye.
Aerodynamics was not the top priority for its boxy, rectangular body, the lower half a drab shade of red and the top half a sooty sort of black. Lighting was limited to a single round lamp smack-dab in the top of the train’s front. Despite being a single car in length, it made an enormous clatter as it bumped its way across the line.
The polished-steel Sobu Main rail car they had lounged on for the past while was something from the far-flung future by comparison. To be as frank as possible, this was old.
When it finally reached the platform, the noise when the conductor applied the brakes was shrill, almost painful—the grind of metal against metal.
“Dude, is that really a train?”
The first words out of Urushihara’s mouth were characteristically unappreciative. Chiho rolled her eyes at him.
Maou’s brain shut off for a moment upon sight of this strange, alien rail line. Suddenly, though, he noticed that the scene around him was starting to fill with an odd air of excitement.
Even Maou could tell that the other passengers offered nothing but smiles to this preposterously old-fashioned train.
It was “cool.” It “really brings me back.” It “is totally retro.” The people around it were “soooo glad [they] came.” The sense of wonderment was palpable.
Then the crowd whipped out their phones—the somewhat more dedicated rail nerds had their digital cameras and tripods at the ready—and started snapping.
“Well! I suppose people like you wouldn’t sense the elegant nostalgia exuded by this car, hmm?”
“…You’ve been here for as long as we have, you prick.”
Maou sneered at the mocking words pelting him from behind.
There, he saw Emi, Alas Ramus in her hands, and Suzuno, her hands gripping a sun parasol.
“Hmm. This is the Choshi Electric Railway De-Ha 1001 series. A native to this rail line since 1950. Although, according to the literature I read first, these types of trains ran all over Japan back then.”
Suzuno studied the free pamphlet she picked up at the station.
The question of where she picked up her research materials, how she consumed them, and why that led her to the “ditzy postwar housewife” look she so expertly pulled off was still a mystery.
“But where do we purchase tickets?”
The Choshi Electric platform began where the JR one ended. There was no turnstile or anything between the two; all they saw was a small computerized card reader.
But all this gang of pleasure-seekers had on them were the tickets they purchased at the Shinjuku service counter.
“Hmm. I suppose we buy them on the train, or perhaps from someone on the platform. That gentleman, perhaps? He has a hole-punch in his hand.”
“Whoa. They do it all by hand?”
“What are you so agog about? Just a few decades ago, every turnstile from Shinjuku to Ikebukuro and Shinagawa was manned by ticket-takers.”
Something about discussing the Japan of the past—the early-to-mid-twentieth century in particular—always added a tinge of excitement to Suzuno’s tone.
In the era she had studied for her cultural orientation prior to traveling to Japan, the JR staff still punched every ticket in the nation by hand. But it may as well have been centuries ago; even Chiho, the only native Japanese in the group, was born well after the whole system was computerized.
All Suzuno knew about that era was what she learned from books and TV. And that applied equally as much to Maou and Emi.
“But why do they go through all that trouble? Like, there’s a commuter card reader right there.”
“Don’t you see? That’s the whole point. People like this whole process.”
“Seriously?”
Ignoring the dubious Maou, Emi took Alas Ramus to a nearby station agent.
“One adult and one child for Inuboh. Oh, but I think she wants a physical ticket, too…”
She had learned somewhere that children rode for free, Maou supposed. But Alas Ramus’s eyes twinkled with anticipation, transfixed on the well-used hole-punch holstered on the agent’s belt.
Once her ticket was stamped and handed back to her, Alas Ramus beamed in joy, carefully clutching it in her hands.
“Well, thank you very much, little lady!”
Her sheer bliss was enough to even make the agent smile a bit.
“You see how it works?”
Suzuno looked on in triumph.
“One would never expect that level of service with those cold, impersonal automatic turnstiles!”
“…No, I guess not.”
Maou accepted that much, not that he cared.
Ashiya copied Emi’s procedure to purchase his own ticket, although Chiho was too busy shooting pictures of the train to pay attention.
Urushihara, meanwhile, was slumped over a platform bench, the heat proving too much for him.
“You know, though… I really didn’t think you’d join us.”
Maou shrugged as he regarded Suzuno. Her face peered out below her parasol, revealing a breezy smile.
“How many times must I say it? We are hardly in pursuit of you. We merely happened to choose the same destination for our summer sabbatical.”
This was beyond bald-faced.
It all began several hours ago.
As Maou arrived at Sasazuka station at eight in the morning, he found Chiho there, attempting to catch her breath.
He thought she was just wishing him good-bye at first. But Chiho was carrying a pretty hefty sports bag, making him wonder if she was off on a trip of her own someplace.
From a common-sense viewpoint, no matter how much Chiho’s parents trusted her, there was no way they’d permit her to join a small gaggle of men in their stayover summer job on the beach. At the time, the idea that Chiho was joining him to Choshi hadn’t even registered in Maou’s mind.
“You going somewhere too, Chi? Guess we’re sharing a train to Shinjuku, huh?”
“Well,” Chiho cheerily replied as they went through the turnstile, “a little longer than that, actually.”
Not even thirty seconds later, Maou realized what was going on.
“Oh, good morning, Chiho. Hey, who’re those three guys behind you?”
“Goodness, Chiho, I thought we would be waiting until the end of time! You ran into the Devil King and his minions, I see. Quite the coincidence, hmm?”
“Daddy! Chi-Sis!”
There, on a bench at the Shinjuku side of the platform, he saw Emi, Suzuno, and Alas Ramus seated next to one another.
The unpleasant shock was difficult for Maou, Ashiya, or Urushihara to express in words at first.
Thanks to their early-morning departure, they hadn’t thought to say hello to Suzuno on their way out.
Emi and Suzuno must have arranged it so they’d ambush them at the station. Their faces—as they made it a point to greet just Chiho and express innocent surprise at the suspicious individuals behind her—betrayed how much they enjoyed the harassment.
Perched in front of them was a medium-sized carrying bag. No doubt about it: They were hell-bent on following him.
“So anyway, we won’t be on the same train just until Shinjuku. It’s actually gonna be Choshi. It’s okay, though. I’ve got my mom’s permission and everything.”
Chiho certainly picked a grandiose way to answer Maou’s previous question.
The three demons’ jaws dropped. What kind of world was this, where a pair of well-meaning parents would agree to that?
“You guys aren’t getting the wrong idea or anything, right?”
As Maou struggled for an answer, Emi sneered at them from her seat.
“She might be going to Choshi, but not because she’s following you guys. She’s just coming along with us, is all.”
“…Oh, joy.”
That was too much of a whopper for any of them to believe.
“Like, what’re you freaks doing for work, anyway? You’re planning to stay in Choshi for two whole weeks?”
Emi smiled breezily.
“I took some time off. I needed some to help Suzuno move, anyway. But what do you mean ‘two weeks’? We’re just three free-roaming girls, checking out some of Japan’s quaintest and most historic rail lines. What makes you think we’re gonna stick around for that long? You aren’t keeping anything secret from us, are you?”
Maou stared daggers into Emi’s eyes. Her sheer malice was clear between the rhetorical questions. But:
“Hey, Daddy, guess what! Guess what!”
Then the excited Alas Ramus blocked his view, preventing him from firing back.
“We’re gonna go to the beach!”
And thus, everything fell into place. Maou hung his head, dejected.
Time passed.
Upon reaching Shinjuku, Maou and his unexpected traveling companions hopped on the Sobu line, marveling at the looming sight of Tokyo Skytree as the express train arrived at Kinshichou station. That took them all the way to Chiba, where they nibbled on ekiben box lunches sold right on the platform as they waited for the local train to Choshi. After another short while, they passed by the city of Asahi, near the line’s final stop in Choshi.
“Chi-Sis! Windmill! Windmill!”
Alas Ramus was perched on Chiho’s knee.
Emi and Suzuno were with them, occupying the entirety of a four-person booth inside the train car as they innocently shared snacks with one another. The three demons sat in the booth across the aisle, ignoring the overweight businessman already occupying one spot, and soon found themselves both physically and mentally cramped.
Gazing out the window, Alas Ramus was beside herself with excitement. Just before reaching Choshi, she spotted one of the gigantic wind turbines generating power outside of the city.
“Wow, Alas Ramus. You learned the word windmill and everything, huh?”
“Hee-hee! Uh-huh!”
By the time the turbines fell out of view, the intercom announced that the final stop of Choshi was near and advised passengers to prepare for arrival.
Now, on the Choshi Electric Railway platform, Maou attempted to plead his case as Suzuno stared upward at him.
“I mean, I guess Chiho really does have an interest in this rail line, so that’s fine and all, but why do you stalkers have to hound me every day of my life? You’re just here to tail us under the pretext of joining Chiho!”
Suzuno’s response was almost a little too well-rehearsed.
“Think of it what you may. There is no telling what dastardly deed you may try while away from us. I hope, for your sake, you will exercise sound judgment in your destination, just as in Sasazuka. Remember—our eyes hang from every wall, our ears from every ceiling!”
“Look, you’ve known me in Japan long enough, right? I’m like a walking, talking personification of kindness and sincerity here.”
“A Devil King is a Devil King.”
There was little he could do to deny that.
“You don’t feel stupid at all? Asking the Devil King to exercise ‘sound judgment’ out on the beach? What, do you think I’ll push you in or something?”
“Hmph. Well. As I believe I have mentioned before, we simply happen to share a destination today. So go ahead. Run off to your new workplace. Pay us no mind!”
“All right, seriously…”
They intended to follow him all the way to the beach house. That much was bleedingly obvious.
“Your Demonic Highness, I’ve purchased a ticket for you.”
Ashiya stepped in, paper slips in hand. Urushihara, for his part, lurched his way into the train and threw himself limply on a seat. The heat must have done a serious number on him.
He and Ashiya didn’t bother prodding them any further, already resigned to these distasteful riding partners. It was something they half-expected anyway. Besides, Emi, the woman they had the most to fear from, would no doubt be forced back to her own job before too long.
Although it brought to question whether there was any hope at all for the demonic races, given that their former supreme leaders were so willing to be watched and observed by the Hero on a daily basis, where and when she felt like it.
“…Doesn’t look much like a ticket to me.”
The paper Ashiya handed to him was a thin piece of paper, torn off on one edge, with every station along the Choshi Electric line listed on it.
“Hello there, young man. This your first time in Choshi?”
“Eep!”
Maou’s body twitched involuntarily at the sudden voice from behind.
Somewhere along the line, an elderly woman in a broad sun hat had sidled up next to them, shopping bag in hand.
“Quite the old little train, isn’t it? I bet that was a surprise to you. Certainly not the sort of thing you young folks probably wanna be seen in, hmmmmm?”
“Oh, no, I, um…”
Maou had trouble replying to a total stranger sizing up his personality in such frank terms.
“But, you know, this paint job is the most popular one around here. This line’s picked up all kinds of rail cars from this place and that, so you’d be amazed at how many different cars you’ll see. Ohhh, yes! But this black-and-red little bugger’s the most popular of all. Like going down memory lane, they all say!”
“Memory…lane?”
“Of course, we ride it every day so it’s nothing special to us, but you don’t see train cars this old being driven around much anymore, hmmmm? Why, this De-Ha 1001 car here’s been running to and fro ever since they built it in 1950!”
There was a sense of pride to the woman’s voice, like she was praising a member of her family.
“The entire line was in danger of closing, you know. Several times, in fact! But more and more young folk like you showed up, and the children that live here worked so hard on everything, that a lot of people really like our little train line nowadays. So thank you!”
It wasn’t like Maou had done anything in particular. The woman must have been several times his (human) age. But Maou smiled and nodded on cue, not seeing the need to rain on this old lady’s nostalgia-tinged parade.
“So are you here to see the sights? You going to Inuboh?”
“Um, yes, ma’am. Kind of sightseeing…ish.”
“Oooh! Well, good. Wait’ll you see the sun rise above the horizon for the first time. Why, I bet you’ll flip your lid, son! Been watching it every day for years, I have. But even now, it just cleanses my heart. Get as old as I am, and you’ll start waking up that early, too. Oh, yes!”
“Y…es?”
Amane Ohguro mentioned that, didn’t she? Kimigahama, their ultimate destination after reaching Inuboh, saw the sunrise before anywhere else in Kanto.
“Oh! And if you’re going to Inuboh, I assume you’ll want to try some of our nure-senbei. The nure-senbei, I said. Try those. They’re scrumptious!”
The conversation continued anon until the train was due to depart, allowing Maou to escape Suzuno’s ever-vigilant eye for at least a little while.
It was a tad uncomfortable for Maou at first, but soon, the woman was giving a rundown of every station along the Choshi Electric Railway, in detail that would make a tour guide feel wholly unqualified. Chiho and Emi joined the fray as she went on, and despite nobody knowing one another’s names, the chat took on an endearingly affectionate tone.
When the appointed time arrived, the demons and humans helped themselves onto the De-Ha 1001 train car before it languidly departed the station.
The car was fuller than the trip on the Sobu Main line, but from Maou’s spot, he enjoyed an excellent view of the conductor’s seat and the tracks ahead of them.
“Wowww! The tree tunnel!”
Chiho let out another now-familiar squeal as she took in the view.
“This is turning into…quite the adventure.”
“Whoa…”
Ashiya and Urushihara found themselves similarly stirred into words.
The train ran through a tunnel of sheer green, the sun trickling in through the tall trees that loomed over it on both sides.
Summer flowers bloomed just clear of the tracks, the old “iron horse” under the train roaring into action as it thundered its way uphill.
They passed by a crossing, a simple affair composed of a few lines on the ground and a wooden electric pole.
It felt like an era from the past, one that only ever existed on paper from Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara’s perspective.
“It’s…quite nice. Quaint.”
The old woman nodded sagely at Ashiya’s blurted-out impressions.
“Ooh, it is, it is!”
The woman eventually excused herself at Nishi-Ashikajima, an unstaffed station—little more than a platform and a vending machine.
“We didn’t think to ask her name.”
The thought occurred to Ashiya after they departed from the station.
“Ah, well. Maybe it’s better that way. To her, we’re just another echo from the modern era. Someone she can touch, but never really embrace herself.”
“…What’re you talking about? Did you finally get heat stroke?”
The rude rejoinder came from Emi, eyes transfixed on the view out the conductor’s window as she held Alas Ramus. It didn’t faze Maou much.
“Yeah, well, I was just thinking a little about… You know. World conquest, and so on.”
“Oh, really? Ready to give it up and live out your life in Japan yet?”
Emi, like Maou, put little heat into replying. Maou fell silent after that, and she pursued it no further.
The train shuffled its way on from Nishi-Ashikajima, through the Ashikajima and Kimigahama stations before finally reaching Inuboh, the easternmost point in the Kanto region of Japan.
Ashiya, leading the crew as he wheeled their bag along, wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Certainly a fancy-looking station, isn’t it?”
The station was done up in white tile, evocative more of Mediterranean Europe than Japan. Several station agents manned it, ready to handle the regular trainloads of summer tourists.
Maou stepped off the train, dodging the onlookers photographing the car before it moved on to its final stop in Toyama, and followed the group to the station building. The scene was drenched in summer sunlight outside, but the brown tile–lined interior was refreshingly cool, calm, and refined.
As they followed the other passengers into the building, Maou noticed a woman in the shop on the right-hand side grilling up senbei rice crackers by hand.
“Oh, hey, are those the nure-senbei that lady told us about?”
Chiho descended into the shop.
“That’s it! The savior of the Choshi Electric Railway!”
“Mommy, what’s that?”
Emi, wiping Alas Ramus’s sweat away with a handkerchief after sitting her on a nearby bench, turned toward Chiho as she scurried inside the shop.
“They’re called senbei. Sen-bei. You like them, don’t you, Alas Ramus?”
“Oh! Senbeeeiii!!”
The mention of the word was enough to make Alas Ramus bat away Emi’s hand and toddle toward Maou and Chiho.
“Hey! Wait! You’re going to trip and fall!”
“Daddy! Chi-Sis! Senbei! I want senbei!”
“Hmm? Oh, you having Mommy buy some senbei for you, Alas Ramus? Kind of young for that, isn’t she, dumbass?”
Maou directed the final sentence at Emi.
“They have soft vegetable senbei for babies. She can chew on her own, so she’ll be fine with that.”
“Well, the nure-senbei are moist enough, she could probably handle those, too. Oh, but I wouldn’t want to ruin your lunch. Would you like to go halfsies with your big sis, maybe?”
Chiho crouched down as she asked. Alas Ramus raised both arms to the air.
“Halfsies!”
The instinctual drive to eat, writ large.
“Well, you heard her. …Oh, don’t worry, Chi. Emi’ll pay for it.”
“Aren’t you supposed to say ‘I’ll pay for it’?”
“Yeah. You.”
Emi made a face at Maou as he took the extraordinarily chintzy approach of currying Alas Ramus’s favor with other people’s money. Ashiya looked on, his face far more morose. His liege was in full-on, fanny pack–sporting tourist mode.
“…Your Demonic Highness! We need to contact our ride.”
“Oh, right. Sorry, sorry.”
Maou awkwardly nodded an apology as he took out his cell phone and walked outside, into the forecourt.
Out of the corner of her eye, Emi spotted Maou exiting while she stood in front of the shop’s cash register.
“All right. Can we talk a second, Chiho?” Emi’s voice was hushed as she called Chiho over, pulling her to one side of the building.
“I was really surprised yesterday, you know. You did get your mom’s permission, right? Because if so, wow.”
“…Sorry I called you out of the blue like that.”
Her mother had all-too-readily agreed to her blatant cover story of touring the Choshi rail line—as long as she was allowed to speak with her traveling companions Emi and Suzuno first, that is. Emi had been shocked, but agreed to the idea nonetheless.
“I was figuring I’d make sure you were totally safe first before I staked out the Devil King. So this is kind of a godsend for me. And also…”
Emi grinned as she turned back toward Suzuno.
“Chiho. I have a message for you from your mother.”
“Um?”
Suzuno removed a sheet of paper from the carrying bag.
“According to this, as long as we report to the inn your mother specified and one of us telephones her on regular occasions, you have been granted permission for a two-night stay.”
“Huh? Um? Huh?”
Chiho almost dropped the nure-senbei she went halfsies on with Alas Ramus.
“Now we all get a chance to see whether they’re actually doing any work or not. No repercussions!”
“Wh-Why…?”
Chiho was more than content with a simple day trip—so she convinced herself, anyway. That was her full intention, too. And why would Emi and Suzuno have a message from her mom in the first place?
“Well, if I’m traveling with you, your mom needed someone to contact in an emergency, you know? So I gave her my phone number, and then she called me up later on.”
“I may perhaps be a tad biased, but Chiho is such a bright young lady. She never lies to me, either. She’s worried about what will happen to Mr. Maou, of course, but I think she’s also concerned that if something goes wrong with his job, that’ll make all of you drift away from her, too.”
Riho, on the other end of the line, was serious, almost somber in tone.
“And if Chiho is willing to relate that much to me, I’m sure there must be something inspiring all that concern. To me, it seems like you and Ms. Kamazuki are very important people to her. Someone she relies upon on a daily basis. So I apologize in advance for such a selfish request, but I just thought, if there’s something you could to do to help wipe away Chiho’s fears…”
Emi gladly accepted Riho’s request—she was far more apologetic for involving Chiho in the affairs of Ente Isla than anything her mother could have guessed. The two then engaged in a drawn-out period of friendly bickering over who would pay the hotel costs.
Chiho never discussed anything about Ente Isla with her mother. But if she felt “something inspiring all that concern,” Riho was apparently willing to place her full trust behind it.
To Emi, who had met Riho personally, it didn’t seem like a case of excessively free-range parenting. Chiho’s mother’s words were backed, no doubt, by the harmonious mother-and-child relationship they’d built over the years.
She couldn’t deny that it made her jealous. She’d only learned who her mother was a little while ago. Then she went missing again. Plus, she wasn’t even human.
“So basically, to sum up, Chiho, I think your mother’s given you her full support. And in exchange for leaving your father all by himself, she wants you to pick up some of the simmered tsukudani fish they make out of Pacific saury around here. We’ll go find some of that together, all right?”
“…Boy, this… My mom is just…”
Chiho’s eyes clouded just a bit as she hung her head downward.
“But what’s this all for, anyway? I mean, why’d you make such a bold move in the first place? It’s not just because you’re worried Lucifer’s gonna get them all fired, is it? ’Cause if so, you would’ve volunteered to go the moment they played that video.”
Chiho sniffled, just once, then placed Alas Ramus on the ground.
“…Sariel told me something the other day. He said Gabriel hasn’t given up on Alas Ramus.”
The sudden mention of Gabriel’s name made Emi and Suzuno both betray a slight panic.
“And I know we beat him away once, but…Maou and you and Alas Ramus keep running into all of these dire situations, but you managed to work your way out of them…because you weren’t alone. Right? I’m not asking you to forgive Maou for everything he did in Ente Isla. Nothing like that. But if things get really dangerous again, I just thought having both of you nearby would be a lot safer. But…I dunno, it just kind of seemed like you were really happy to see Maou run off, Yusa, so…”
“Ohh…”
Emi unconsciously nodded.
Their previous handful of team-ups were all the result of desperation. It just kind of turned out that way. Never by design.
Emi had indeed avoided the worst, thanks to Maou or Ashiya or Urushihara being around. But she never actively pleaded for their help, either.
She demonstrated no special interest in pursuing Maou to Choshi, given that he’d be under the watchful eye of the niece of that enigmatic landlord, Miki Shiba. But it must have aroused the suspicion of Chiho, not knowing what kind of woman this landlord really was.
“I mean, the fact that Maou, and you, and Suzuno, and Ashiya, and Urushihara… The fact that you’re all in Sasazuka, right nearby me… It’s all just a bunch of little coincidences. It’s a delicate balance. And if we ever tipped it, you’d all go away, and that really scared me once I realized it. I know that’s really selfish, but that’s how I feel. So I thought I could try to keep things balanced on my side…”
Chiho kept an eye on Ashiya and Urushihara, seated on a faraway bench and sharing what looked like a half pint of ice cream with each other.
“I know you might all have to return to Ente Isla and settle things for good someday. But if you want to do that, then… I don’t know. I want you to work together for it. Just, when you need to. That’d be just fine.”
Chiho, to her credit, wasn’t driven this far simply out of pure affection for Maou.
“I don’t know if Maou himself’s realized all of this. But Sariel said something else, too. He said that he knew all along where your holy sword was, Yusa. All your attackers must have known exactly where you were before they came over here. So I thought that…that if Gabriel struck again while Maou was off in Choshi…”
Emi beat Gabriel once in a one-on-one battle. But the archangel might not risk another brazen solo attack next time.
Everything Chiho said, everything Chiho saw, was the honest truth.
Even as Emi and Maou went around calling themselves the Hero and Devil King, neither of them solved any of the threats that followed them into Japan by themselves, strictly speaking.
If anything, they were being too proud of their powers, far more often involving Chiho, Emi’s coworker Rika Suzuki, and all manner of other Japanese people in their battles—even if nobody besides Chiho ever realized it.
“…You are a wise young woman, Chiho.”
Suzuno’s whisper betrayed her admiration.
“The road may have proven twisty and convoluted indeed, but Emilia’s ultimate goal is to settle things, as you say, with the Devil King. And in this world, if either Emilia or the Devil King is missing, nothing will ever be settled. We must never allow ourselves to mischoose the foe we must truly face up to, if we want to achieve our supreme objectives. …Is that what you are telling us, Chiho?”
Chiho lightly nodded.
Thanks to her “mischoosing” the foe she needed to face up to, Suzuno had once been in a position where she ruthlessly eliminated those that blocked the path to peace. She hated that “elimination” was the only method allowed to her. It pained her. Internally she screamed to herself, begging to know who her true enemy was.
Now, the foe that Suzuno and Emi needed to slay was both the Devil King and not the Devil King.
It was this…someone. Someone wearing the mask of righteousness, while attempting to empty the world of all that remained good within it.
This someone, or someones, could prove far more powerful than either the Hero or Devil King. And, until now, they had never acted to throw this delicately balanced world of humankind into crisis.
“We’ve all gotten along so far because I was so selfish. Because I didn’t know anything about Ente Isla. …But now we have Alas Ramus. Alas Ramus, who loves all of us so, so much. I don’t want anything to happen that would make her sad.”
“This senbei’s yummy!”
Chiho nodded slightly again at Alas Ramus’s meek reply.
“Chiho?”
“Yes… Agh!”
Emi cut off Chiho with a gentle hug.
“No wonder your mother trusts you so much. You were born into such a peaceful country, too. Where’d all that resolve in you ever come from?”
Emi patted her on the back to calm her.
“All right. I’ll sign on to your idea. This child’s just as important to me, too.”
She released Chiho, then placed a hand on Alas Ramus at her feet.
“But one thing I want to make clear: I have zero intention of making friends with the Devil King, or being together with him, or getting—pah!—close with him.”
She spat visibly to drive the point home as she watched a sweaty Maou talk on the phone outdoors.
“If things get really bad—like, if there’s just noooooooooooooooooooothing I can do alone and I’m absolutely positive I need some help—I promise I’ll ask for it. No, I swear I’ll take up all the help I can. Consume it, right down to the core. And once I’m done with it, I’ll toss it into the compost pile.”
The somewhat overaffected declaration was greeted by a beaming Chiho, bowing her head in appreciation.
“I apologize for the trouble. Thanks a lot.”
“Anyway, let’s just keep an eye on ’em while we kick back in Choshi, all right?”
“Indeed. We have just completed a long journey. Traveling this far only to surveil the demons as they live their impoverished, pointless lives would be a wasted opportunity.”
Suzuno’s wry whisper was just the wedge the girls needed to clear the lingering urgency from the air.
Just then, Maou came back inside, sighing contentedly at the temperature difference, blissfully unaware of the portent of the girls’ previous conversation.
“Oh! Hey, what’s that you’re eating there?”
Maou protested at the cup of ice cream Ashiya and Urushihara were tucking into.
“Nure-senbei ice cream. It’s pretty good.”
“I apologize, my liege. I was so taken by curiosity over what it could possibly taste like, I couldn’t help myself… Would you care for some?”
That explained why Maou seemed so oblivious of Emi and Chiho. He was too distracted by his demon cohorts resorting to frozen treats to keep themselves from dying of thirst before even reaching their new job.
“Well yeah, of course I’d care for some!”
Maou fished some coins out of his pocket as he sauntered toward the shop. Emi twisted her face in disgust as she watched him.
“So I can’t protect myself unless I accept the help of a demon who can’t resist that tacky souvenir ice cream? That’s…kind of hard to swallow.”
“Oh, but that nure-senbei ice cream is supposed to be really good! It’s a new local treat for the summer, I read.”
“Chiho, Chiho, Chiho. The taste is not the issue.”
Maou, meanwhile, licked his lips as he savored the indescribably unique flavor texture inside his ice cream cup.
“So…what’s that chick like, anyway? Ohguro, right?”
Maou and Ashiya stiffened at Urushihara’s casual tossing around of the name.
“Could you try not to bring that up? I’m trying to keep that out of my mind for as long as possible.”
“What, dude? I’m scared! She’s the niece of the lady from That Photo!”
“B-But she sounded kind of young over the phone!”
“There is no need to fret over it. We are committed for the long term. We must do everything possible to face our fates…no matter what they may be.”
“Yeah, but how? We haven’t even seen her place yet! …Oh, hey.”
Maou’s phone began to ring.
The three demons stared at each other for a moment. A beat, and then Maou answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hey, Maou. I’m in front of the station now. The white van!”
The moment of truth was here.
The three demon nobles took a deep breath, composing themselves in anticipation for whatever might come next, then warily strode into the sun-drenched forecourt in front of Inuboh station.
Chiho and the ladies followed behind, walking up to the tiled front area.
There they saw a long-bodied commercial van idling, its color less white and more a well-worn shade of cream.
Maou swallowed nervously just as the person in the driver’s seat noticed them. She removed her seat belt and exited the vehicle.
When the figure stepped out into the bright sunlight, Maou’s, Ashiya’s, Urushihara’s, and Emi’s eyes shot open.
“You Maou?”
“Um, yes. Yes, I am. You’re Ms. Ohguro?”
“Sure am! Thanks for making it all the way out here. Welcome to Inuboh!”
In a word, she was beautiful.
Her long black hair was tied up carelessly in the back, framing her black T-shirt, a well-worn green apron, some heavily-chafed jeans, and a pair of sandals. A rough exterior, to be sure, but Maou could still tell that her proportions could easily give Kisaki a run for her money.
She had no makeup on, but her eyes, and the brows that arched over them, told the story of a woman with boundless willpower. They were a perfect match for her healthily bronzed skin, almost evoking the chiseled looks of some long-ago warrior princess.
This girl was really Amane Ohguro? The niece of that landlord?
Apart from the fact they were both vertebrates and females from their respective species, she had absolutely nothing in common with Miki Shiba.
“Bet you’re thinkin’ we don’t look too much alike, huh?”
Maou must’ve stared in silence at her a little too long to be tasteful. Amane Ohguro looked at him, a tactful smile on her face. Maou snapped out of it and…
“Um…”
…had trouble figuring out whether to nod or shake his head.
A woman of her sensitive age, would it be prudent to say she resembled that landlord? The question required serious debate.
“Ha-ha-hah! Sorry, sorry. I guess you’d never really know anyway!”
“Um…yeah…”
“Aunt Mikitty and I look pretty alike once she takes off her makeup. If you saw some of her photos when she was more my age, she’s practically a dead ringer.”
If that was true, time was such a cruel mistress.
As rude as Maou knew it was, imagining his landlord without any makeup on reminded him of the skin of a 65-million-year-old dinosaur.
“But anyhow, I’m Amane Ohguro, more or less the girl who runs Ohguro-ya. Nice to meet you.”
“Oh, sure, um, my name’s Sadao Maou.”
Ashiya stood straight up, following close after Maou. Urushihara, despite the signs of excitement he betrayed a moment earlier, played it far cooler.
“And I am Shirou Ashiya. Thank you again for your generous offer.”
“…Hanzou Urushihara.”
“Ashiya and Urushihara…and…”
Amane Ohguro’s eyes focused on the women behind Maou and his cohorts.
“Sure are a lot more of you than what I heard!”
“No, that, um, it’s just us three guys…”
Maou hurriedly tried to come up with an excuse. After a day of being pushed around and bothered on the train by this posse of unwell-wishers, Maou wasn’t about to let them screw up his job offer.
“The rest of them…uh, they’re just kind of following along by themselves. Yo! How long you girls planning to shadow us, anyway?!”
“My name’s Chiho Sasaki! I work together with Maou back home, so I thought we’d tour around and check out the place he’s staying at over here.”
Chiho bowed politely, saving Maou from having to explain things himself.
“Uh, Chiho? Did you hear my question or anything?”
The other two girls approached, paying Maou no mind.
“I am called Suzuno Kamazuki. He is my…neighbor, one could say.”
“Emi Yusa. And this little girl is Alas Ramus.”
He was hoping they would step up to dispel Chiho’s claims, but they did nothing of the sort.
The six of them had collectively decided a while ago not to make up a more authentically Japanese-sounding name for Alas Ramus when introducing her to others. The girl was far too young to understand what the ruse was for, and besides, she didn’t look particularly Asian anyway. So far, at least, nobody called them out on it. Amane didn’t, either, nor did she seem offended at the women butting in on Maou.
“Wow! You sure brought a variety pack along with you, huh? Who’re the lucky parents?”
Urushihara pointed straight at Maou. Chiho and Suzuno drew a finger toward Emi. Ashiya stared into space, pretending he was somewhere else.
“Hey!!”
The lucky parents’ response came in perfect harmony.
“Well, I can’t blame you for having all these hangers-on. It’s what you get for working in paradise, huh? Tell you what, how would you all like to check out my place before we open it up? You can go swim out on the beach if you like, long as you stay within eyeshot of me. I could tell you what to check out around Choshi, too.”
Amane’s eyes turned toward Emi.
“…And, I’m sure you’d like to see where your husband’s working, right? Boy, Maou, you could’ve told me over the phone that you had a pretty little thing like that! I thought you were coming alone!”
“N-No! No, it’s not…like that…!”
It was their mission, and Chiho’s curiosity, that made them want to examine Maou’s workplace. But neither of the “parents” were at all interested in being treated like family.
Emi protested from the bottom of her heart, but Amane paid it little notice.
Everyone except Urushihara found their eyes attracted to Emi and Chiho. Emi had an annoyed scowl on her face, but Chiho, oddly enough, had her normal smile out for the world to see.
“All right, well, how ’bout you guys hop in the van? No point baking out here. And you too, ladies. Oh, lemme go set up the child seat first, okay?”
Amane took the child seat out of the rear storage space, as if she’d known all along to expect an infant, and strapped it into the front passenger seat.
The six of them exchanged distinct glances with one another as they piled into the van.
With Alas Ramus up front, the women took up the entire second row, the three demons crammed in behind them.
After tossing all their baggage into the back, Amane made one final announcement before climbing in.
“Great! I’ll try to be careful with the kid ridin’ shotgun, okay?”
Then she cranked the starter motor, which belied its age as it creakily powered up the engine. Soon, they were away from Inuboh station, the suspension already rattling everyone’s rear ends.
The first sight along the road was a gaggle of signs advertising the nearby hotels and resorts. None of them had seen any sign of water since departing Chiba, but—just as Amane promised—the view opened up significantly after just five minutes’ driving.
The moment they turned onto a road running along the coastline, the Pacific Ocean suddenly loomed to their right.
“Wowww!”
Chiho all but cheered.
“I’ve never seen the sea over here… It’s so blue.”
Emi sighed, her voice soft. Even after her end-to-end journey across Ente Isla, she’d never witnessed a shade of blue as beautiful as the one the Pacific sported.
“Such a graceful blue, is it not? We never saw anything of the sort in our homeland.”
Suzuno was just as profoundly moved. Both of them took care not to have Amane overhear them.
“Mommy! Blue! All blue! All Kehsed!”
Alas Ramus, meanwhile, shouted out in glee, blurting out the name of the Sephira who ruled over the color blue in the process.
“This is Kimigahama Coast. If you look back to the right a little, you’ll see a cape, right? That’s the Inuboh-saki Lighthouse.”
Craning their necks back as instructed, they saw an impressive chalk-colored lighthouse standing atop a craggy bluff, surveying the ocean like some giant creature as it was framed by the deep blue of the sky behind it.
“What’s that in front of the cape…?”
“Oh, you spotted it? That’s Ohguro-ya, right there.”
There was a building smack-dab in the middle of the wide beach that formed Kimigahama Coast.
At first glance, it looked like just another old one-story house.
The moment they realized what they were looking at, Amane turned off the road and entered an open clearing that apparently served as the beach parking lot.
Ashiya peered ahead from his seat.
“Hmm. There aren’t as many people as I pictured.”
Amane had promised them a busy two weeks, but only a few cars dotted the lot she just pulled into.
Given that their only experience with the beach was opening up travel guides and marveling at how every square inch of sand was filled with people, beach towels, or both, this was something of a disappointment.
Amane shut off the engine, removing her seat belt as she did.
“Yeah, that’s because the beach doesn’t open ’til tomorrow. Right now, there ain’t gonna be much besides a few surfers.”
Maou accepted this, otherwise unaware of how beach access rules worked around here. Chiho, however, put a hand against her forehead as she surveyed the empty beach from out the car window.
“Tomorrow…?”
She sounded dubious before spotting something bobbing in and out of sight between the waves.
“Oh, I see them. Offshore a little ways…”
“Ms. Sasaki? What’s up?”
The way Chiho kept trailing off caught Ashiya’s attention. There was something awkward about it.
“…Oh, nothing.”
She declined to explain. He dispelled the question to the nether regions of his mind.
“This beach is pretty popular with joggers and people coming over to see the lighthouse or the sunrise. We still get a pretty decent stream of folks even before the beach opens up.”
They began to notice a few more people on the beach. Some dogwalkers, along with a handful of men and women tanning themselves on top of wide beach blankets.
“Anyway, we better get your bags inside. Lemme show you the guest quarters first.”
The group headed downhill, toward the beach and the house they had spotted earlier.
Amane led them as they left the car, each one exhibiting different levels of excitement, and arrived at a semi-eroded wooden door at the rear of the shop.
“There’s pretty much nothin’ in here except some futons, but hopefully that’ll be enough for you after you’re done workin’.”
Amane opened the door as she spoke, revealing a sight that made Maou’s, Ashiya’s, Urushihara’s, and Suzuno’s eyes bug out.
“…This is nicer’n our place, isn’t it?”
Urushihara’s hushed whisper summed up everyone’s impression.
The room was maybe around 150 square feet, counting the closet and a kitchen space similar to the one in Devil’s Castle. The sun pouring in through the large window lit things up brightly, but the space was still invigoratingly cool.
“Dude, I wanna hole up in here forever.”
Urushihara’s eyes were fixated on a point near the ceiling.
An air conditioner.
It had an air conditioner.
It was an old one, yes, but the small box whirring above their heads was unmistakably a running AC unit.
“The humidity on the beach tends to make the tatami mats on the floor go all warped and uneven, but hopefully you won’t mind that too much.”
Compared to the glory of the AC, this was the minutest of details to the three arch-demons.
She might have said there was nothing in here except futons, but that was still more than the Devil’s Castle was equipped with.
For a moment, the lure of this new living space made Maou forget all about MgRonald.
“It’s probably freezing in here come wintertime, though.”
Ashiya’s pointed rebuff of Urushihara’s reverie was enough to make Maou snap out of it, too.
Beachfront restaurants like these were, after all, seasonal affairs. Once summer was over, so was their employment here.
“Well, I’m glad you all like it! I usually head back to my own place once we close, so don’t forget to lock up at night, okay?”
Leaving the entire building in the hands of these raw hirees indicated the level of trust their boss had in them. That must be how much Amane valued a recommendation from Shiba, Maou figured.
“Right. Well, I wish I could let you relax, but once you get your stuff all set up, you all mind coming out front for me? I got a job for you.”
Urushihara was the only one to wince in protest at the mention of the word job. One of his companions was keen to pick up on this.
“I’d be more than happy to put your stuff away, guys. You can go ahead and start work!”
Chiho, beaming like the sun above her as she all but wrested the traveling bag from Ashiya’s hand, turned around just long enough to make eye contact with Maou.
He nodded his thanks and, without any further discussion, he and Ashiya each grabbed one of Urushihara’s arms.
“Wh-Whoa! Dude! I didn’t even say anything yet!”
The Devil King and his right-hand man showed off their practiced teamwork as they dragged Urushihara up, ignoring his objections.
Amane, to her credit, declined to comment on the display as she walked out the door and toward the coastline just outside.
Emi, Alas Ramus, and Suzuno meekly followed behind.
The so-called guest quarters was connected to the restaurant by a simple connecting corridor, allowing Maou and crew to enter the shop from the back if they wanted.
There was something about a brand-new workplace that summoned a whirlpool of emotion, just by setting foot inside it for the first time.
Maou and Ashiya were feeling it now, that mixture of nerves and anticipation, as they stood in front of their new job site.
All that raw emotion went limp once they set eyes on the exterior.
“…Huh?”
It literally took the words out of their mouths.
Ohguro-ya, a one-story wooden house on the beach, had a fairly decent-sized restaurant and store space. If you took Mr. Hirose’s bike shop, wheeled all the bikes out, and roughly doubled the indoor space, it would be about this large.
But the place was…less than spotless. Dust ruled this kingdom, from corner to corner.
A patio-like space jutted out toward the beach, containing a weather-beaten table and set of benches whose splinters made them a less-than-exciting beachfront hangout.
A set of narrow doors lined one wall—shower stalls, probably, judging by the spigots they could see inside. A sign, half-rusted by the salt breeze so it was impossible to tell when it was made, read 10 MINUTES 100 YEN.
The bathroom featured a full-on flush toilet, at least—about the most modern appliance in the whole place—but it was a toss-up whether the creaking coin-operated lockers worked at all any longer.
The sign out front—the beach house’s public face—was thoroughly rusted out by years of wind and rain. The cushioning on the backless stools was torn and eroded, revealing the top panel of the chair below. The brass pipes that Maou surmised were a set of beer taps were all equally green with rust.
A vertical ice chest for holding drinks sat next to the cash register, almost empty except for a few achingly lonely cans of Kola-Cola. The fact that the iron griddle used for frying up yakisoba and such wasn’t just as rusty was one of the place’s few saving graces.
The several-generations-old anime characters printed on the inner tubes and beach balls hanging down from the walls only added to the forlorn scene.
There was old, and then there was old. No matter how inexperienced Amane was with running a beach house, why did she abandon it this thoroughly?
The place has to be shutting down next year. That was Maou’s first impression.
And it was Amane’s father’s place, even. The sight made Maou wonder if the family had any real passion for business at all.
An indescribable storm of apprehension raged across the hearts of everyone on hand.
“Grooooossss!”
Alas Ramus, always eager to say exactly what was on her mind, innocently lobbed a fastball right down the middle, eloquently expressing what everyone was thinking in one word.
“Um… Ms. Ohguro?”
Amane flashed a thumbs-up sign at Ashiya’s probing question.
“Jeez, Ashiya, I’m not running a funeral home! Call me Amanecchi! That’s what everyone else does!”
They would gladly call her any dumb nickname she demanded. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that now, at least, they were sure she was linked by blood to Shiba.
Ashiya soldiered on, wearily:
“…Amane. When did you say the beach opens to the public?”
That was all he ventured to ask. His tone indicated to Maou that he had a similar impression of the space.
“Tomorrow!!”
The breezy response thundered in loud and clear.
“So, uh, you know, I’m kinda in panic mode here!!”
“Yeah, uh, I don’t think we can make this into a sunny family fun zone that quick…”
For once, Urushihara was exasperated. The layer of grime covering every inch of the building offended even his tastes.
“Well, I told you guys that I’m ‘more or less’ running the joint, right? I kinda didn’t really know what I was getting into, and besides, I had my day job too, soooo…”
She didn’t say what her day job was, but it was clear to Maou that it absolutely did not involve customer service.
“Okay, Maou, I put all of your and Ashiya’s stuff away—whoa.”
Chiho, dashing in from behind, lost her voice midsentence. It only made the situation starker, and more urgent, to everyone.
“‘P…pan’… Mommy, what’s ‘panty-mode’?”
“…You don’t need to know yet, Alas Ramus.”
The uniquely toddler-esque attempt at Amane’s “panic mode” almost made Emi burst into laughter. She stifled it, moving on to her main point.
“I…probably wouldn’t wanna go shopping in here, I don’t think.”
The final blow. Amane looked up at the ceiling, not bothering to defend the obvious.
Suzuno’s impressions were similar to Emi’s, but now something else caught her eye.
“Dev—Sadao, what is it?”
Maou, who had yet to say a word, was muttering something to himself that she could just barely make out.
“The place is a heap, but it’s still gonna be a busy summer… We’re gonna have customers… We got a monopoly. A thousand yen times three ain’t cheap… Which means… Say, Amane?”
“Yah?”
Amane took her eyes off the ceiling long enough to acknowledge her name.
“I was just wondering… If we can fill this joint up with people, do you think we could get some bonus pay?”
“Uhh?”
The entire room gasped at the completely unexpected words.
“Fill it up…? Well, if you could, then absolutely, but…I mean…”
I mean, what about this sordid scene indicated to him that the thought was at all possible? As Emi said, it was not at all clear whether anyone would even dare to step inside.
“Ashiya. Urushihara.”
“Uhm?”
“Uh, what?”
The two of them looked up.
“We’re gonna pack this place full.”
Maou had a flair for the dramatic when he felt like it.
“Is that okay by you, Amane?”
“Well, sure, I mean… Go ahead. But that’s kinda crazy talk, isn’t it?”
Amane did not have a flair for managerial charisma.
“’Cause I gotta admit it, you know… Just like your wife said, I probably wouldn’t shop in here, either.”
“I told you, I’m not his wife!!”
Emi’s objection was lost to the crashing waves.
“Well, it’s good to have a lofty goal to strive for, I’m just saying. If you put your goal up high first, then even when you start faltering, you’ll still accomplish a lot more than if you kept the bar low. That…”
Now there was a twinge of tingling excitement to his voice.
“And a store’s appearance and selection is like a businessman’s suit. You aren’t going to earn much more than pocket change if you approach your customers wearing a wrinkled shirt and a stain-covered suit. It won’t be enough money to connect you to the next thing. You need to provide service that lives up to that level.”
There was something a tad halting to his speech, but his point was clear enough. If you wanted customers to come in, you had to be as prepared as possible for them.
“…And you call yourself Devil King.”
Emi sighed, as if resigning herself to what undoubtedly came next.
“…So, what are you saying you’re gonna do?”
Maou furrowed his brows at Emi’s question.
“Why are you asking me?”
It was a fair question. Ashiya or Urushihara were one thing, but why would the biggest threat to his continued non-dismembered state care at all?
Emi scrunched her face up, a little crestfallen, and looked to her side toward Chiho.
“Don’t give me that. I’m helping you out here, all right? You could at least notice that!”
Something about the smile that erupted on Chiho’s face, off to her side, annoyed Emi to the extreme.
The totally unexpected offer was enough to leave all three demons dumbfounded.
“Wh-what’s with you, Yusa? You drink some sour milk, or what?”
It was hard to criticize Urushihara for making sure.
“I’m just doing you enough of a favor now that it’ll be worth collecting on later.”
Only Suzuno and Chiho understood what she meant.
“In that case, I’d like to help out, too. Are you okay with that, Amane?”
Chiho lined up next to Emi to volunteer her own efforts.
“Y-You too, Ms. Sasaki…? Are you sure about that?”
“Oh, of course. I was hoping I’d be able to pitch in a little anyway. And if Yusa’s joining in, I don’t wanna lose out to her.”
Chiho raised a defiant fist in front of her as she answered Ashiya.
“I apologize, but I did not bring with me the necessary garments to join in this work. Instead, I would be glad to care for Alas Ramus in your stead. I hardly expect she will be asked to scrub the floors as well.”
“Suzu-Sis go home?”
Suzuno shook her head as she accepted Alas Ramus from Emi’s arms.
“Your father and mother are going to be working. We need to leave them alone. Let’s go play in the sand instead.”
“In the sand?”
The concept didn’t seem to ring any bells in the girl’s mind.
“Perhaps we could start with a sand castle.”
“Okeh!!”
“Very well. I will take responsibility for Alas Ramus for the time being. In the meantime, I wish you the best of luck. Try to keep the demons from losing their jobs.”
With those final words aimed at Emi and Chiho, Suzuno took Alas Ramus’s hand and walked off toward the shore.
Emi frowned as she watched her go, then lightly slapped her cheeks with both hands, mentally prepping herself for the job ahead.
“So! What now?”
She glared at Maou, like a swordsman about to unsheathe her weapon.
“…Are you serious? You seriously want to help me out?”
“That’s what I said, didn’t I? Stop asking me again and again. You’re gonna make me say no.”
“Behold, Urushihara…! Today is the glorious day when the Hero has finally fallen to her knees at the might of His Demonic Highness!”
“…That’s really not how I want you to describe this, Ashiya.”
Chiho simply looked on, a content smile on her face.
“Chi and Ashiya know this already, but I can be a real slave driver sometimes, you know.”
“Would you mind not treating me like a wimp for a change? You need to build one damn thick shell if you want to survive in a call center!”
“Ooooooh. Yeah, we’ll see about that. Right. From here on in, I want all of you to follow my instructions. And no whining or running off on me, got it? Good. I’m assuming you guys didn’t bring any extra clothes, so I won’t give you any of the heavy lifting.”
Despite the high-and-mighty tone, Maou demonstrated at least a tad of sensitivity for the crew he’d just press-ganged into action. Next he turned his eyes toward Amane.
“You still good with this, Amane?”
Despite it all, Amane was still the (more-or-less) boss here. Maou wanted her final say before going forward. As ready as Emi and Chiho apparently were to begin, he didn’t have the authority to start hiring whomever he wanted.
“Well…I can’t say I know what’s gotten into you, but sure. I don’t mind. If you can actually get this sty into presentable shape in time for tomorrow, you guys all get a bonus from me for today! This is my screwup, anyway.”
The reply couldn’t have been more carefree and easygoing.
Confirming his boss’s assent, Maou sized up Ashiya, Urushihara, Emi, and Chiho in order.
“Awesome. Let me just get this straight before anything else: We ain’t gonna pack the place from the very first day or anything. We’ve got more people now, but this space is pretty big, so we’re only gonna get to so much today. Given that…”
Given Amane’s lack of enthusiasm, it was totally up to Maou to build a positive work environment for his staff and build the shop up to the point where customers would gladly give them money for their goods.
Sadao Maou, de facto assistant manager, set foot on the golden sands of Kimigahama, the fate of his future salary resting squarely on his shoulders.
“It all comes down to this. From here on in, we’re gonna have to fake it as much as we can!”
Maou kicked things off by running a full check of the beach house’s equipment.
The electricity and kitchen equipment worked fine, at least. The high-humidity refrigerator in the back was a brand-new Tsukizaki model, much better than the old, chugging fridge at the MgRonald in Hatagaya.
The drink cooler was showing a lot of age, between the yellowed top panel and the rusted-out feet, but they could hide it well enough if they positioned it in the right spot.
The brass drink server, featuring two taps fed by a single pipe, probably saw a lot of beer run through it in its time.
Deeper inside the building, the group found a dust-caked, hand-operated, shaved-ice machine.
It cranked, albeit haltingly. It wasn’t critically broken, anyway.
After checking the rest of the outlets and lighting, Maou nodded sagely to himself and called out to Amane, lurking somewhere behind the counter.
“Amane! How much petty cash do we have on hand?!”
“Petty cash” was the term for cash kept by a business or department apart from their regular bank account, meant to pay for small daily expenses or unexpected situations.
It wasn’t an accounting item Maou saw much of at MgRonald, given how location finances were mostly handled by the regional HQ. But they would sometimes dip into petty funds to cover transport costs for supplementary crew, or the paper and pens they used throughout the shifts.
In the case of Ohguro-ya, a family operation without much in the way of fiscal regulations or real company procedure, they’d use petty cash for things like running off to the supermarket to buy some yakisoba sauce if they ran out.
“Uhmm, I think about twenty thousand yen or so! I could probably spot you a little more if you need it, though.”
The response came from the back room. Since Chiho was a minor, Amane was preparing a contract that she wanted parental permission to enact. Maou had to hand it to her: When it came to legal paperwork, at least, Amane had a decent head on her shoulders.
“Twenty thousand oughta be more than enough. Yo, Emi!”
Maou grabbed a pen and notebook from next to the register, jotting down a note and passing it over to Emi.
“I want you to find out from Amane where the nearest big store is and purchase all this stuff for under five thousand. That, and take some of the ten-thousand-yen bills out of the register—not the petty cash, the regular bills—and break it all down into hundred-yen coins at the bank.”
“Um…I know what the coins are for, but…one new inner tube, an air pump, construction paper, and some sandpaper? What’s all of that for?”
Emi was clearly dubious. Maou didn’t skip a beat.
“Just get it all for me, okay? And make sure you bring back a receipt.”
“A receipt?”
“Yeah. As long as all the items are printed out on it, the receipt from the store’s register oughta be fine. If it doesn’t itemize everything, though, have ’em write it out by hand so we can account for the petty cash.”
“Okay. I’ve done some expense-account stuff at work; I know that much, at least. Should I write it out to ‘Ohguro-ya’ and expense it as ‘goods and services’…?”
Emi meekly walked over to Amane for the details she needed.
“Ashiya, I want you to get the floors spic and span before Emi comes back. Don’t leave a single grain of sand on it.”
“Y…Yes, my liege…!”
Ashiya stumbled over his reply as he sprang into action, asking Amane to direct him to the cleaning equipment. Chiho jumped out onto the store floor just as he began sweeping.
“Ms. Sasaki, could I ask you something…?”
“Sure, Ashi—Ashiya?! Why are you crying?!”
Tears welled in Ashiya’s eyes, his nose turning red and sniffly, as he began to sweep, broom firmly in hand. It, to say the least, unnerved Chiho.
“Emilia… Emilia, the Hero of Ente Isla! The sworn enemy of every demon that lives and breathes! She has been touched by the glorious aura that seeps out of my liege’s every pore! She has prostrated herself to him, putting herself at his every beck and call! Watching this dazzling sight unfold before me…I…I don’t know how to express my emotions…! This is one small step for a demon, but one giant leap for the demon realms…!!”
Tears began to stream down Ashiya’s cheeks, nothing left in his heart to restrain them any longer. Chiho smiled uncomfortably as she watched.
“I…guess I can see why that makes you happy, but you’re probably getting the wrong idea here. And I think you kind of owe Neil Armstrong an apology, too.”
“Ohhh…how glad I am to be alive, to overcome those days and nights of hopeless desperation…”
Faking a smile to placate Ashiya—although she still wasn’t quite sure what caused this emotional breakdown—Chiho edged back toward Maou.
“Oh, hey, Chi. How’d it go with your mom?”
Chiho had readily agreed to help out, but Maou knew he was placing a fairly major burden on her during her supposed vacation. Judging by her face, though, things turned out well with the family.
“Dammiiiiit! Well, who cares, is what I say! She looks so cuuuute in that kimono, with the sparkler and everything! Right, Maou?”
Amane nudged Maou’s shoulder as she appraised Suzuno’s slightly coquettish look.
“No, I wouldn’t really…”
“You must not lose! Victory shall be ours next time!”
On his other side, Ashiya, playing referee, took out three fresh sparklers from the box.
“Mommy, Mommy?”
“Hmm? What’s up?”
“Izzat tweety, too?”
Alas Ramus, birdcage still delicately held under her arm, was pointing at something besides Maou and his fireworks game.
It was a series of lights from a group of fishing boats, plying their trade offshore during the night. It seemed like a fairly large group, and when you looked at it, the lights were almost the same color as that birdcage job they had lit earlier.
“I don’t know. But, you know, Alas Ramus, I bet you wouldn’t be scared of those little sparklers. Why don’t you go to Suzuno and join the fun?”
“Suzu-Sis!”
Gently shifting her attention back to the fireworks, Emi dropped Alas Ramus down on the sand and pushed her forward.
Alas Ramus ran toward Suzuno as fast as she could, although the sand almost tripped her up once or twice.
Seeing her off, Emi’s eyes turned toward the sea.
Faraway lights, floating atop a distant horizon out at sea, were never a good omen.
On Ente Isla’s Southern Island, the spirit fires that flitted atop the sea were considered the very personification of evil.
Anyone who laid eyes on these balls of light—supposedly released by the spirits of the dead—would be cursed by some kind of disaster from the gates of the underworld. That old tradition still held strong on the Southern Island.
The armies of Malacoda, one of the Great Demon Generals, were gifted in the ways of necromancy, the magic of death. It was the perfect weapon to wage war with in the Southern Island, a land where superstition still rang true to most people.
This, of course, was Japan, and Emi knew they were just lights on fishing boats. She knew the natural phenomenon they called St. Elmo’s fire on Earth was perfectly explainable by modern science.
But, on Ente Isla, they were nothing short of grotesque harbingers of doom.
“What’s up? You believe in that St. Elmo’s fire stuff or something?”
Emi raised her head at the sudden question. It came from Amane, standing as she watched the horizon Alas Ramus pointed toward.
She dodged the question with one of her own.
“Are you done with the sparklers?”
“Oh, man, no way could I beat those guys! Kamazuki ain’t wearing that kimono just for show, y’know. I had Chiho tag in for me.”
Emi never heard of any relationship between sporting a kimono and being blessed with godlike sparkler skills. Amane continued, undeterred.
“You know, I’m not trying to spook you or anything when I say this, but here in Choshi, there’s an old story about these guys called the moren-yassa.”
“Moren-yassa?”
“Yeah. The moren-yassa, you know, they’re these seafaring ghosts that appear on really foggy or stormy days out on the sea. They go up to fishermen and try to make them drown to join their ranks. They say ‘Lend me your inaga’—inaga is an old word for a water ladle—and anyone that lends ’em one, their ship sinks, right on the spot. They say that when you see lights out on the ocean like that, a moren-yassa’s got to be near. There’s a story like that down in Kyushu, too, I think. Common theme, I guess, spirits that can’t find their way to heaven playin’ tricks on the living instead.”
Amane’s eyes remained transfixed on the fishing boats.
“You see that a lot, I guess. Ghosts going back to our world and messing around with the living. But it really makes no sense to me.”
“No?”
“Well, I mean, that’s the whole point of the Obon ceremonies in Japan, right? To help the dead make a quick return trip to Earth to hang with their families or whatnot. It’s a lot more benign than all that ‘ooh, I’m coming to take your soul’ stuff. I think anyone who started gettin’ scared about vengeful spirits and stuff…I bet they lived pretty evil lives. Enough so that they got all worried about what happens to them in the afterlife.”
“Yeah, but everybody’s afraid of dying. Is there more to it than that?”
Urushihara butted in from the side. In front of him were ten or so snakes, their ashes starting to crumble and blow off into the sands. He must have liked them after all.
“Well, being afraid of death’s one thing, but being afraid of the dead reaching out and touching you is totally different, no?”
It was a very sudden opening to Amane’s debate about their views of life or death. Suzuno probably would have been better qualified to participate.
“I’m just saying, why all the hate for spirits just because they maybe had some regrets in life they didn’t get around to atoning for? I mean, what’s really scary…”
Amane’s eyes darted over to the edge of Cape Inuboh-saki, and the tower throwing its light upon the dark waters.
“What’s really scary, are people who live on forever. Immortality’s always gonna be a lot worse, in the long run. Plus which, most of the things we see as bad omens, there are scientific explanations for. It’s all just a bunch of coincidences. So…I guess what I’m trying to say is…”
She returned her eyes to the beach.
Ahead of her were Maou, Ashiya, Suzuno, Chiho, and Alas Ramus, happily grasping at the sparkler Chiho was guiding into her hand.
“Try not to raise your child so she starts discriminating against spirits, okay?”
“…Amane?”
“What’d you mean by that?”
Emi and Urushihara, not following Amane’s point, both interjected. Then, they were interrupted.
Buooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn…
Buooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn…
Buoooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…
A low-pitched, siren-like blare echoed across Kimigahama.
It was sudden enough to make everyone except Amane twitch in shock.
“Uhm?”
Alas Ramus, still busy with her sparkler, stopped and swiveled her head, a dissatisfied look on her face, dropping her still-sparking stick as she did.
“It, it’s okay. Nothing’s wrong.”
Chiho nimbly gave her a reassuring hug, caressing her cheek to assuage her. But the incessant blare made Alas Ramus’s face morph closer and closer into crying mode.
“It’s all right! There’s nothing wrong!”
She tried her level best to calm her down, but by now, Alas Ramus was a millisecond away from exploding. This supernatural being, who once stood (more like floated) proud in the face of Gabriel, was just as weak against the ominous and unfamiliar as any other baby.
Then another salvo of this unfamiliar rumble stormed across the beach. That was the trigger. The tears began to flow.
“Nnn-waaaaaaaggghhhh!!!”
“Oh, dear, dear… That always does unnerve the young’uns a bit.”
Amane, perfectly composed, turned her eyes back toward the lighthouse again.
“Um, we were kind of startled too, but…”
Another blare sounded off as Emi replied.
“Well, that’s the sound of the lighthouse’s foghorn. It doesn’t mean we’re in danger or anything, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
“Foghorn?”
Emi parroted back the unfamiliar term.
“Yeah. It’s a horn in the lighthouse that makes that droning blare whenever the fog’s real thick to warn the boats. To keep ’em from running aground, you know. I guess there’s some fog out there, huh?”
If the conditions allowed it, fog could appear just as easily in the summer months as it did in the dead of winter.
“Yeah, but wasn’t it totally clear just a second ago?”
Everyone on the beach gasped a bit as they looked up at Maou. There, on the faraway ocean, a white mist appeared, as if from thin air. It had already enveloped the fishing boats, their lights now hazily shimmering in the distance.
“It…is certainly fast.”
Ashiya darted his eyes to and fro around the area, as Chiho hugged Alas Ramus tight to keep her from panicking any further.
“Yeah, it’s sure coming in.”
There seemed to be a hint of nervousness to Amane’s voice.
“Kimigahama used to be called ‘Kirigahama,’ or ‘Fog Beach,’ back in the day. That’s how notorious it is for the stuff. We might see it here on land before too long. Sorry, guys, but the firework show’s over for now.”
Amane nodded to herself as she pointed the burnt firework casings out to Maou.
“Would you mind cleaning that up for me? I’ll take the girls over to the inn. Once that fog rolls in, it can get so thick that even the locals don’t leave their homes.”
The snappy, order-giving Amane was a far cry from the laid-back stoner act she stuck to earlier.
“A-all right.”
Maou and Ashiya teamed up to collect the spent casings. Alas Ramus refused to stop crying.
“Feehhhhhhhraaaayaaaiaiaaaaa!!”
“…She doesn’t pitch a fit like this very often…”
Maou’s eyebrows bunched downward. Even he could tell how quickly the fog was threatening to consume the shore.
“Can you take care of Chi and Alas Ramus for me, Amane?”
“Whoa, what about Kamazuki and your little lady?” Amane wisecracked back at him, though she still nodded her approval. There wasn’t much time to play around any longer.
“Sure thing. But you guys try not to linger outside too long either, okay? We’ll all be up early tomorrow, so try to get some sleep while you can. Ladies, you ready to go?”
The women, guided by Amane, hurried their way off the beach. Maou and his cohorts watched them go, their minds not entirely free of concern.
By the time they made it to the inn, the town was already swallowed up by fog thick enough to cut visibility down to just a couple hundred feet.
And yet Amane, after dropping them off, was oddly eager to dive right back into the soup.
“Right. Good night, folks. Stop by tomorrow to pick up your wages, okay?”
“Amane, the fog is still terribly thick. Would it be wiser to wait in the lobby, perhaps?”
Suzuno’s suggestion seemed like common sense to anyone. Anyone except Amane.
“Nah, I got a couple small things I gotta take care of. Kind of related to my day job, you know? Sometimes I get called to work if the fog comes out, so… Don’t worry, though. I’m pretty used to this. See you tomorrow.”
With that hurried reply, Amane plunged into the night fog and disappeared before they could stop her.
Emi, Chiho, and Suzuno watched the fog anxiously, the now-silent Alas Ramus finally giving them a moment of peace.
Amid the dense mist that so filled them with disquiet, a single beam of light—probably from the lighthouse—plowed its way through the murk.
Maou and Ashiya stared out their guest-room window.
“Man, this fog is nuts.”
“If we stepped outside right now, we would quite literally be in a fog, wouldn’t we?”
“Hey, your phone’s ringing.”
Stirred to action by Urushihara behind him, Maou reached for his cell phone.
“Ooh, Chi sent a text… Guess they made it to the inn.”
Maou opened the message, reading through it before his eyes stopped on the final few words. He tilted his head in confusion.
“…Uh. What?”
“What is it, my liege?”
Maou turned toward Ashiya.
“She said Amane walked away. Right into the fog.”
“So? She lives here. She probably just went back home.”
“Well, yeah, maybe, but Chi didn’t say she ‘went home.’ She said she ‘went off somewhere.’”
Maou turned off the screen and put the phone in his pocket before turning toward the fog one more time.
He never had found out what Amane’s day job was. Did it have her running outside on a night like this? Because you really couldn’t see more than a few dozen feet ahead right now. Hopefully she doesn’t get in a car accident or—
Buooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn…
Buooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn…
Buoooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…
The window glass vibrated as the blare echoed again.
Perhaps this is what the roar of some ancient, massive dragon sounds like.
It was enough to tear right through the fog, making the entire beach seem to shake. It caught Maou right when he was deep in thought, startling him so badly he thought his heart exploded.
“Jeeeez, that scared me!”
The fog grew even thicker as the horn continued to peal.
The view out the window was now a uniform white. The Cape Inuboh-saki bluff was now the mere suggestion of a shadow.
“Y-Your Demonic Highness!”
“Gahh!”
Just then, Ashiya shouted for his master’s attention right next to Maou, startling him into a muffled scream yet again.
“D-Do-Don’t freak me out like that, man! Eesh!”
“I, I apologize, my liege, but…did you see something in the fog just now?”
“Huh? In the fog?”
The only thing piercing through the layers upon layers of fog was the strobing lighthouse beam, the nearby beach, and the demons themselves, reflected against the window. That, and:
“…A person?”
They saw the figure of somebody in the fog. It looked like it was walking toward them, but it was staggering, eerily lumbering, like a broken pendulum. And even worse:
“Uh, pretty huge, isn’t it?”
“It is, my liege.”
The approaching figure was impossibly enormous. Not just tall, or rotund, but gigantic.
Big enough to dwarf the entirety of the one-story Ohguro-ya beach house.
“Hey, what’s up?”
Taking note of Maou and Ashiya’s increasing sense of panic, Urushihara took his own place by the window. Then he saw what Maou and Ashiya saw.
“Well, look at this fog. It’s probably one of those Brocken specter things, right? Just our shadows being cast back at us?”
“B-But that’d mean one of us was casting that shadow. We couldn’t be.”
“Uh, dude, are you saying that story Amane told Emilia just a sec ago…”
The moren-yassa. The legend of the seafaring ghosts of Choshi.
“No way. They show up on boats, right? That…that guy’s gotta be on land…”
“Ssshh! I… Those are footsteps…”
It might have seemed comedic, the sight of these former rulers of the demon realms quaking in their boots as they desperately tried to gain a view of the giant stomping around outside. But even demons could be afraid of the unknown.
“It, it’s coming…”
As Ashiya gurgled it out, the fog parted…and it appeared.
“Nhh…”
It was hard to say who uttered that groan out of the three.
It really was a giant, tearing his way through the fog. One all of them knew well.
And as they watched, the figure, just a bit away from them, fell to its knees with a mighty crash and a ballooning puff of sand.
“Is that…”
“My liege! Lucifer! We must go at once!”
“S-Seriously?!”
Watching as the figure collapsed a hairbreadth in front of Ohguro-ya, Maou regained enough of his senses to storm out of the guest house.
It was virtually right on top of the door to their quarters.
And as they looked down at the fallen figure, amid the fog and the swirling sand, Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara found themselves at a loss for words.
<“Gr…rr…rhh…”>
It emitted a guttural, nonhuman grunt, but it had the shape of a human being.
Its size, though, was nearly twice that of a normal man. Its armor-like skin was the color of rust, and a single horn extended from its forehead.
Most unique of all, however, was the intricate tattoo covering its entire face, completely surrounding both of its eyes.
The effect of the ink made it appear that just one large eye occupied the top half of its head. It rang a bell with all three of them.
“Is, is that…a demon?”
Ashiya whispered it, seeking confirmation from Maou. Maou swallowed, then shouted out loud.
“A…A cyclopean?! What the hell is a cyclopean doing over here?!”
<“I…I couldn’t see… How could…a human have such power…”>
The words this beast they called a cyclopean spoke had meaning: They were from one of the languages of the demon realms. The sound of them suddenly made the scene much less of a dream and far more of a reality to them. Ashiya found himself striding forward, exuding confidence and authority.
“You! Cyclopean! What is the meaning of—”
“Ashiya! Get away!!”
Suddenly, the fog began to swirl atop its enormous frame.
Maou grabbed Ashiya by the scruff of his neck, dragging him off his feet and away. Just above them, multiple streams of fog zoomed past like snakes slithering in the air, converging toward the creature.
Unable to react in time, the three demons watched as the fog imploded within itself, illuminated by a powerful flash that made them avert their eyes. Then, enveloped in the fog, the cyclopean that never should have existed in Japan vanished.
The dragon’s roar returned to their ears.
“It’s gone…”
Once the swirling fog disappeared, all that remained was a depression in the sand. That, and:
“Must’ve been a younger cyclopean… But he was definitely there. Wounded, too.”
Right there, where the hulking mass once lay a moment ago, they could see something red seeping into the sand.
Ashiya gaped at Maou’s quick analytical skill.
“But this…this is Kimigahama! In Chiba! What’s a demon doing here?!”
“Uh, what’s the Devil King and that archangel doing in Sasazuka, huh? We can probably expect Sapporo to elect a Church archbishop mayor soon. Maybe the Eight-Forked Serpent from Japanese mythology will show up in Isla Centurum before long.”
“This is no time for jokes, Your Demonic Highness! It was right here! Where we stand right now! This is a crisis, my liege!”
“I’d like to think it was a coincidence…but no luck, huh?”
“Kinda sudden for that, don’t you think?!”
Urushihara looked around warily. This was enough to unnerve even him.
“Perhaps someone in the demon realms has tracked down our location…”
Ashiya blurted out the assertion, as if it only just came to mind. But even that sounded too optimistic.
“Doubt it. Why was that cyclopean in such bad shape, then?”
“That…”
Ashiya fell silent. Urushihara was right: There was no way to be sure, but those had looked like battle wounds.
Where did the Gate open up? Who opened it? Was it injured before entering the Gate, or afterward? Depending on the wheres and whens, the story could branch into all kinds of possibilities.
And considering the demon was a cyclopean, a demon race Maou and his generals knew well, an even larger question loomed before them:
Why, even after falling into Japan, did the cyclopean retain its demonic form?
The situation didn’t give Maou any time to ponder over matters.
“…!! Whoa! Ashiya! Behind you!!”
Behind Ashiya, deep in thought, stood another demon.
It was a beast demonoid, its bottom half that of a carnivorous beast, its top a twisted, demonic monster. Many were those in the demon realms that praised the heroic exploits of this race.
<“Grrnnnnngghhhh…”>
But this demon, like the one before it, was gravely wounded, groaning and writhing in pain.
It looked like a midlevel demon, the sort Maou and Ashiya would have assigned an army unit to in the past. The armor it wore was in tatters, the swords in both hands so dented and nicked that it was a wonder the blade remained in one piece.
“A beast demonoid?! From Satanas Arc?!”
There were many half-demon, half-beast races in the demon realms, many of whom lived in Satanas Arc, the de facto capital.
<“Humans…of this world… Do you seek battle with me, too?”>
The demonic tongue was invitingly familiar. It screeched across the air like a buzzard’s cry, but even with their human ears, Maou and Ashiya understood it perfectly without the need for an Idea Link.
“H-Humans? Us?!”
All three of them understood the demon’s speech. But, as he still failed to fully comprehend the situation, Ashiya found Japanese coming out of his mouth, a language that seemed much more natural to him by now.
“You insolent fool! I am Alciel, Great Demon General of the—”
<“Enough with your nonsensical warbling. Let us fight, so I may show you how my sword tastes!”>
“Phwaaahhh?!”
To the wounded beast demonoid, the rantings of the thoroughly offended Ashiya sounded like little more than an alien from another world prattling on about nothing.
Its twin swords had long lost their sharpness, but now it swung them high, thrusting them down upon Ashiya.
“Ashiya!!”
With a pointed shriek, Maou barreled into Ashiya, sending both of them rolling in the sand. They felt a sword whiz above their heads.
<“Sheathe your swords! I am not your enemy!”> Maou, still sprawled out on the ground, shouted at the beast demonoid. He could see the hesitation in its ghoulish face.
<“Ashiya, calm down! He’s not gonna understand Japanese, dude!”>
<“Oh. Er. Right.”>
It took Urushihara’s scolding for Ashiya to finally figure it out. Flustered, he switched his brain from Japanese to demon-language mode.
<“Ngh… The demon tongue… That demonic power… Who are—”>
“!!”
“Huh?!”
The end of the beast demonoid’s sentence never reached their ears.
Just like the cyclopean before, the demon’s body was enveloped by snakelike whorls of fog. An instantaneous flash ran across this miniature tornado of mist, and then there was nothing.
Then, that dragon’s roar again.
“What the hell’s going on here?! Is the Church attacking us?!”
“I, I’ve never seen that manner of holy force before!”
Right before their eyes, two wounded denizens of the demon world had appeared…then disappeared.
They left not a trace of demonic force. Nor did any hint of the power that whisked these demons away reveal itself.
No… Now, they felt another force.
“Above us! Here comes another one!!”
This time, Maou and Ashiya and Urushihara could feel the demonic power before it approached them.
“?!”
With a boom like someone blew off an artillery-grade firecracker, the fog above them began to shimmer.
As it did, something began to fall, aimed squarely at the beach Maou stood upon.
“Get away!!”
The three demons nimbly dove for cover.
Another few moments, and then the demon that hurtled downward at such speed that Maou thought it was blown in by an explosion unfurled its wings, touching down for a soft landing.
In terms of size, it was much smaller than either the cyclopean or the beast demonoid. About as tall as Ashiya, the birdlike demon was covered in an array of jet-black armor.
He, too, sported several open gashes. Although he landed on his feet, he soon fell to his knees.
“D-Damn it all…! How could anyone wield such force in this realm…!”
Unlike the previous two demons, while this demon fighter’s armor and helmet were all but destroyed by the ravages of battle, the sword hilt and scabbard by his side were in sparkling condition, the colorful jewels that festooned them shining in the dim light.
It was a sword of some notoriety. That much was clear. But Maou and Ashiya paid it little heed. Their eyes were focused on the avian demon’s face.
They knew it.
“C-Camio?!”
“Sir Camio?!”
The avian warrior, his round, evocative eyes a rarity for a demon, raised his heavy head at the call of these strange humans.
“You… Humans. Why do you know my name…? Rgh!”
Blood poured from the demon’s beak, his sharp eyes glaring at Maou and Ashiya.
“It doesn’t matter! Camio, what happened to you?! Your wounds…!”
“My liege! The fog!!”
Maou attempted to run up to the warrior, but for a third time, the snakes of fog were too fast for him.
He had no idea what was driving this living, breathing fog, but there was no telling what would happen if it chose to smother him. He stopped.
“Ugh! Shit! This is all or nothing!!”
Urushihara’s voice rang out, and then a strong wind began to blow.
The next moment, the fog around the three demons fell back.
“Urushihara?!”
Behind Urushihara, they didn’t see the black wings of a fallen angel. These were white, bathed in holy energy as they hung in the air.
With a single flap, they summoned a more powerful gust, bringing the entire space between the demons and Ohguro-ya back into clear focus.
“Uh, why’re your wings white—”
“Couldn’t you tell that something’s up with this fog?! Hurry up and get Camio inside!”
“Oh! Right! Jeez, this is nuts… Ashiya, you take that side!”
“Y-Yes, my liege!”
The two of them held the avian warrior by the shoulders, bringing him back into Ohguro-ya. It wasn’t far. All of this had happened practically on their doorstep.
Urushihara continued flapping his wings to keep the fog at bay as he took rear guard, shutting the door behind him once everyone was inside.
Buooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn…
Buooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn…
Buoooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn…
The haunting scream, like that of a carnivore whose prey had slipped through its talons, boomed across Kimigahama.
“Your Demonic Highness! The fog!!”
After setting the warrior down, Ashiya looked out the window, only to find the fog receding just as rapidly as it came, as if the guttural scream just then had scared it away.
Several more moments, and Kimigahama was back to its normal nightscape—the moon, the stars, the lights out on the sea, the town overlooking the beach, and the lighthouse.
There was no sound, apart from the ebb and flow of the sea. The events of the past few minutes seemed like a passing daydream.
“Camio! Camio, hang in there!”
The three demons looked on, concerned, down at the wounded warrior.
“I know not who you are…but meddle with me, and it will cost you your lives… Know your place, hu…”
Strangely, the words coming from the warrior’s beak didn’t match the cyclopean’s or beast demonoid’s speech. It was fluid Japanese from the start, a bit of a mismatch for the creature’s visage.
“Can’t blame you. Satan and Alciel look pretty much totally different now.”
The warrior fell silent at Urushihara’s voice.
“But you can still tell who I am, I bet. Right, Devil Regent?”
The avian warrior’s face shot up.
Urushihara was dressed in a baggy T-shirt, shorts, and hoodie, but his pure white wings were still there as he stood before the warrior.
The sight was enough to make him gasp.
“Lucifer… Is that you, Lucifer?!”
“Sure is, Camio. You never did call me by my full title, did you?”
Ignoring the pouting Urushihara, Camio refocused his eyes on the other two men watching on.
“Alciel? …Satan? …It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be…”
The words fell shakily out of his beak.
“General…of the Eastern Island…”
“…I look like this now, it is true…but yes, Camio, I am Alciel.”
Ashiya kneeled down to gain a closer vantage point to the demon’s eyes.
“And, and you… Could it truly be…?”
“Camio, what happened to you? Tell us.”
Maou’s and Camio’s eyes made contact.
“Lord Satan… My Devil King… You’re alive…! What a glorious stroke of luck…”
“Yeah, sorry we’ve been neglecting the demon realms for so long. But I kind of wasn’t expecting to see you in Ja—in this world. What’s going on?”
“My…my apologies, Your Demonic Highness.”
The avian warrior Camio attempted to rise, in order to prostrate himself before his rightful king. Maou tried to stop him, but he shook his head in refusal.
“I…I was unable to keep your realm protected during your long…departure. I can hardly bear to face my Great Demon Generals…nor your dearly departed comrades from the north and south…”
“What do you mean?”
“My liege… The demon realms…and Ente Isla. They both face chaotic times once more. I was powerless to quell the waves… I…I am…”
“Whoa! Camio! Camio! Speak to me! Hey!”
The flame of life rapidly flickered from Camio’s pupils.
As it did, a dim light enveloped his entire form, his body growing smaller and smaller.
“My liege! What is this…?!”
Perhaps it was the start of his transformation into human form, following the loss of its demonic power. Or perhaps, with his energy gone, this was the end for him.
The three swallowed nervously as they looked on. However, the transformation was complete in but a few seconds.
“The hell…?”
Urushihara’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
Even Maou himself was rendered speechless.
As the light faded, all that remained on the futon was a shattered black battle helm, a stained and torn black cape, a glittering sword still in its scabbard, and:
“Huh. Kind of cute.”
A limp, but seemingly uninjured blackbird.
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