Hataraku Maou-sama! - Volume 4 - Chapter Pr

PROLOGUE 
Emeralda Etuva felt she was already short enough, even without the stress weighing her down. 
While serving as Court Alchemist for the Holy Empire of Saint Aile, even as the Hero’s companion, she had become a household name. Emeralda now found herself one of the most influential people in all the Western Island. 
The role of court alchemist was traditionally an academic one, with some government advisory work mixed in as necessary. Before the previous wholesale invasion of Ente Isla by ransacking demon hordes, she had been in little position to speak up on political or diplomatic affairs. 
But thanks to the role she played in the Hero’s quest, the people of this island now hung on every word she spoke publicly—and beside them, the Federated Order of the Five Continents, the group tasked with the rebuilding of the world. 
As a result, compared to her duties before the Demon King’s ultimate demise, her unexpected new role as advisor to the Federation’s top generals had the effect of dramatically increasing her workload. 
This rise in the political ladder made her the envy of Saint Aile’s power brokers. Beneath the surface, it made the Church—whose relationship with her took a major blow after the whole Olba Meiyer affair—view her with hostility. It all led to a dangerous amount of stress, enough to make her vent at her former traveling partner Albert: 
“Once the Central Continent is rebuilt, I think I’m gonna defect, you knooooow?” 
Her only solace was that her official post in the Federated Order of the Five Continents was overseeing the armies tasked with wiping up the demons that remained in the land. 
These hordes were nothing to sweat about, particularly. They certainly didn’t call for Emeralda herself to ride for the battlefield. 
But the job of annihilating the demons that remained in the Central Continent still required the efforts of warriors from every nation, united under the common banner of protecting the weak and helpless. Beholding this spontaneous show of brotherhood was enough to make Emeralda believe there was still some hope for this world yet. 
But Emeralda, and Albert as well, knew the truth. 
The battle between the Hero and Devil King still raged on. Far away. In another world. 
And though barely two years had passed since the Devil King’s forces fell, the people of Ente Isla, unaware of this, were quickly ferrying the name of the Hero Emilia away into the oblivion of legend. 
At first, Emeralda and Albert worked fervently to restore Emilia’s good name, so badly besmirched by Olba’s would-be altering of history. 
But even at this early point, the world situation no longer required Emilia. It needed a decent bureaucrat or two, not a semi-heavenly savior. 
Whether she was alive or dead hardly mattered. To most of the people who lived and breathed here, the name Emilia Justina meant little more than “this lady with a sword who lived somewhere or other.” 
Only a small clutch of people, the ones who knew Emilia personally, could associate that name with an actual human being any longer. 
And any attempt to restore Emilia’s reputation would require revealing Olba and the Church’s high crimes to the public—costing the organization its power, its authority, its whole reason for existing. 
Justice, wrought by the connected and powerful in the name of righteous anger, could damage far more than it could heal. If Saint Aile and the Church—the two most powerful presences on the Western Island—were to formally clash with each other, the entire subcontinent would be split in two, the decline of the entire region no doubt in the offing. 
Emeralda found herself lost. 
The other four lands that comprised Ente Isla were devoting their collected strength to rebuilding the world. The Western Island couldn’t afford not to keep a unified front. She had to keep that from unraveling; keep their power from being wasted on internal strife. 
Thus, Emeralda Etuva made a politician’s decision: She put her country’s future ahead of her friend’s honor. 
Emeralda was no heartless powermonger, though. Her decision was supported by another factor: 
Crestia Bell, cleric on the Reconciliation Panel. 
Once feared as the “Scythe of Death,” the leader of the Council of Inquisitors, Crestia was now a loyal companion to Emilia. 
A Church cleric, one in a position to advise the Archbishops in their Sanctuary, was working to restore Emilia’s honor and reaffirm the noble name of the Church. The news came as music to Emeralda’s ears. 
The fact that she once directly reported to Olba was also enormous. 
If Crestia, an outsider to politics, could take Emeralda’s place in exposing the corruption that threatened to topple the Church—although news of such heinous apostasy would no doubt roil the public—it would help the Church “heal thyself,” as it were. Faith in it would remain strong, and with it, stability. Wasteful infighting and disorder among the masses would be kept at a minimum. 
Emeralda, meanwhile, was pinned in place by her very public name. If she clashed directly with the Church, the resulting shock waves would throw the people into panic and agitation. 
It vexed her not to raise the flag for Emilia, considering she was her first real friend in life. But if she wanted to both restore Emilia’s name and keep the peace nationwide, Emeralda concluded it wiser to allow Crestia to take action in her place. 
And someday, there would come a time when Crestia’s name took a rightful role alongside her own as a fighter for the Hero’s cause. 
Maybe. 
“It’d be niiiiice…but, ooooh, maybe not so niiiiice…” 
Emeralda murmured to herself as she read through a weighty stack of reports on the desk in her office, a gift from the Federated Order’s headquarters. 
“But…I don’t knoooow…maybe Emilia shouldn’t come back home at alllll…” 

Japan. That alien world. That blissfully bountiful, peaceful land. 
Emilia might be better off living a quiet life over there. It was her second home now. 
The thought refused to banish itself from Emeralda’s mind as she shot a glance at the alchemic audio transmitter—Emilia referred to it as a “cell phone”—on one corner of her desk. 
“Hey! Eme! Listen to this!” 
The voice that had spoken through it not long ago was agitated, but somehow still light and airy. 
“He’s been volunteering with the neighborhood cleanup crews! Him! The Devil King! That horrible monster! Doesn’t that make you laugh like a maniac?” 
Once, not long ago, she was a knight in the Church’s service. A woman whose entire life was devoted to one thing: revenge for her father, earned by blood. 
“Can you believe this, Eme? I’m going nuts here! The Devil King is killing me! Why is changing a diaper so goddamn hard?!” 
But now, like any woman her age, she laughed, cried, and raged in equal doses. 
Her report about a “girl who popped out of a giant apple” a while ago, followed by the revelation of the child’s true identity, was enough to stun even Emeralda. But instead of this girl’s origin, the people on the other side seemed more preoccupied about the fact that she saw Emilia and the Devil King as her parents. Things like Heaven and the Sephirah, both far more pressing topics of discussion, were somehow by-and-large glossed over. 
“I want to restore my father’s wheat fields.” 
That had been Emilia’s dream. 
But if she returned to Ente Isla, she was Emilia Justina, The Hero Who Saved the World. If they could repair her reputation, the people would lovingly sing her praises as they adopted her as a symbol of justice for all time. But it would keep her from those fields, likely forever. 
To Emeralda, it wouldn’t mark the end of Emilia being solely her friend. But it would make access far more difficult. 
Besides, she was already deep into the political game, a position she accepted without asking for Emilia’s feedback. 
“Things never go as one expects, dooo they?” 
Emeralda heaved an exaggerated sigh, letting the stress out before it diminished her any further. Emilia had already accomplished her main mission in life. What happened to her next, she was free to decide on her own. 
Whether she returned to Ente Isla or not, it was Emeralda’s role to prepare a world for her that was as bright and shiny as possible. She saw this as her responsibility, the result of plucking a simple girl out from the village and transforming her into a myth. 
Then Emeralda realized it: This entire line of thinking hinged on the assumption that the Devil King, too, was staying put in Japan. 
She knew why that was so easy to take for granted. The Devil King, to his credit, was no longer the Devil King she and Ente Isla once knew and loathed. 
Satan, lord of all demons, was now hard at work in the human world, living an honest, sober life among them and even attempting to raise that girl from the apple. Like a human parent would. Emilia herself admitted to it. 
“So is that all it takes for peeeace? Without any of these other questions answered? Or should we seek to find those answers, even if it leads to certain…saaacrifices? A tough nut to crack, indeeeed.” 
Emilia Etuva, friend of Emilia, struggled against the Saint Aile court alchemist within her. 
“Hmmm…?” 
Distracted by these intertwining emotions, Emeralda’s hand stopped as she more closely examined the documents she was stamping. 
For the past half month, she had noticed that the demon hordes seemed to be, oddly enough, growing. The number of demons eyewitnessed during a typical patrol was slowly, yet clearly, on an upward trend. 
“Oooh, I don’t like thaaat…” 
Last month, there was even a day or two with zero demons put down. The rise was very slight from day to day, but through the previous two weeks, this gradual rise was starting to add up, with no sign of a decline. 
The rise in potential demon targets also led to an accompanying rise in Federated Order casualties. Emeralda frowned. 
If this kept up, she might have need to set off herself to investigate. 
It was just as she began to write her recommendations along those lines in a supplementary report that a shrill voice rang out. 
“Lady Etuva!!” 
It belonged to a knight’s assistant from the North Island, who all but sprinted into the office with a clatter. 
“What is it?” 
The young squire’s face was white as a ghost as he gasped for breath, eyes darting to and fro nervously. 
It indicated before she even asked that there was no good news to come.