THE HERO DISCOVERS SHE CAN’T COME HOME AGAIN
“What are you planning to do?”
Emi growled at the items just delivered to her chamber.
“Isn’t it obvious?” the man replied breezily as he spread them out on the tabletop, pointing out each one.
“Are you looking to die, Olba? You actually want to arm me?”
She was addressing Olba Meiyer, one of the Church’s six great archbishops and her former traveling companion on the quest to rid the world of the Devil King Satan. Now, though, he was nothing more than an adversary. Which made it all the more confusing that her nemesis had just brought in a double-edged sword and a suit of armor, complete with full-face helm. The equipment was all obviously top-of-the-line, and judging by the workmanship on the armor, it was from Saint Aile on the Western Island not Efzahan, where Emi was.
“Oh, I have my reasons. We’re moving you to the capital in Heavensky tomorrow.”
Emi lowered her eyebrows. “You want me to speak to the Azure Emperor? I thought Efzahan was taking on the world in order to get a holy sword. You can’t be planning to offer me and my Better Half up to him and sue for peace, are you?”
She had only met the emperor once during her duties as Hero. An old, decrepit man, as she recalled him—one who’d be lucky to see another week in life, much less another year.
Olba brought a hand to his chin at Emi’s question. He smirked at her. “I could say that you’re closer than you think.”
“What?”
“But that is not the issue. You do remember, Emilia, that there’s a fair distance between Heavensky and here in Phaigan, yes? And we certainly cannot risk using a Gate or other magical device to transport us there. If your holy-sword child will need anything, ask one of the maids for it before the day is through. We leave tomorrow morning.”
With that, Olba showed his undefended back to Emi and left the room. Picturing herself plunging a dagger into his chest in her imagination, she waited for him to politely lock the door behind him.
“What was that about…?”
Gathering her thoughts, Emi walked up to the sword and armor Olba left behind.
“It’s just normal battle gear, isn’t it?”
She took care not to touch it—it could always be outfitted with traps—but after careful scrutiny from up close, it all appeared to be perfectly typical equipment. The gear of the commanding-officer class in the Saint Aile army, yes, and of rather high-end make at that…but that was it. Emi had worn similar armor as a member of the Church knight corps, before she gained her Better Half and Cloth of the Dispeller skills.
“The sword’s sharp, too. It’s no living-room piece. What is he even thinking?”
Considering her circumstances, being given this equipment could easily allow Emi to storm Phaigan’s military port and singlehandedly lay waste to it. Olba must have known that. She cursed herself for being too weak-willed to go through with it, but regardless, here it was—and she would be wearing it on the way to Heavensky.
She recalled her previous quest to slay the Devil King. This very port was where she, Olba, Emeralda, and Albert established their first base of operations in Efzahan. The Eastern Island was under Alciel’s full control by then—she recalled how it took them a full week of careful undercover travel to reach the capital from there, taking a long, looping detour around and behind Heavensky before storming it. It didn’t quite erupt into full-scale combat against Alciel during that visit, but…
“Why do they need to take all this time to arm me and take me to Heavensky?”
Emi engaged in a staring contest with the helm for a few moments. Then, letting out a deep sigh, she flung herself onto the bed.
“If I knew this was gonna happen, I wouldn’t have let Eme and Olba handle all the travel arrangements and strategic decisions for me during our quest. I knew I shoulda used my head a little more…”
It was a declaration of defeat, and it sounded just as pathetic as the words portrayed it. This sort of espionage wasn’t beyond Emi’s abilities, but when it came to political guile and negotiation skills, she could never keep up with Emeralda and Olba—two people who made such skills their career. This made them the brains of the expedition, which meant that Emi and Albert were the brawn, more often than not.
That had already been hurting her in Japan. She was fully aware of it now, but no matter what the topic, it always seemed like Maou had a deeper understanding of issues than she ever did.
“Heh. The Devil King’s the company boss, after all. I was just a temp worker.”
Then she remembered something else. Back before Suzuno was fully on her side. One time, Ashiya explained Emi and Maou’s relationship to Rika by portraying them as business rivals.
“Wow, that seems like ages ago… I don’t think Alas Ramus was around yet, even.”
Emi lay on her back in bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“Wish I could go back to Japan…”
“Mommy…?” a worried Alas Ramus asked within her mind.
Emi smiled a little. “It’s all right,” she said, trying to calm her adoptive daughter. “It’s all right now.”
“Yeh?”
“Yeah. I’m with you, after all.”
It wasn’t really an answer, but it was enough for Emi. She sat up and looked at the water pitchers near the room’s entrance. There were two of them for some reason. At the bottom of one, a large number of black granules had settled. Emi had deliberately avoided that pitcher over the past few days. It helped her maintain the rage in her heart—keeping it from turning into helpless timidity.
“That’s all it took, though… To keep me from fighting. If Olba and his people are planning something…do I have what it takes to fight?”
The black mass at the bottom of the pitcher sent Emi’s memories back to the first day she returned to Ente Isla.
A light began to come into view at the other end of the rainbow-hued Gate. Emi could feel something powerful tugging at her hands. She was being pulled in—not by the friend ahead of her, but by the world waiting at the other side.
The next moment, the digital static that dominated the Gate’s inner space disappeared. Her heartbeat started to ring in her ears.
“Uh… Whaaa?!”
Emi couldn’t help but scream upon opening her eyes. She was someplace she was not at all expecting to be. She could feel the pull of gravity against her body. One second, two seconds, five, ten, twenty… Time wore on and on, and her body kept falling, irresistibly attracted to whatever lay below.
“Wh-why are we in the—Gapff!”
The thinness of the air around Emi made her involuntarily cough. There was hardly anything to breathe. She turned her eyes down, mind still adrift in chaos, only to find a level field of cloud cover below.
“We don’t know who might see us, sooooo…!” shouted the easygoing friend who had just led her through the Gate.
“Okay, but isn’t this too high?!”
It must have opened up well into the stratosphere. Emi let her body fall, observing the full table of stars spread out above the cloud field.
“Ah…”
Then she noticed two particularly large heavenly bodies, sparkling brighter than the rest as they looked down upon the two of them. A blue moon, and a red one. Two moons of mystery that were like nothing on Earth. It was the exact sky that Emi had spent the majority of her life looking up at.
“Emiliaaa! We’re going in the cloooouds! Cover your eyes and eeeears!”
The warning snapped Emi out of her reverie. She looked back down.
“Ngh!”
Adjusting her position, the Hero closed her eyes and plunged into the carpet of white headfirst. The wind pounded against her ears—but only for an instant, compared to the cacophony inside the Gate. She was out of the clouds in the blink of an eye, something she could tell by the change in the soundscape around her.
Emi opened her eyes and took it all in.
“Ente Isla…”
The tears were rolling from the corners of her eyes, keeping them from drying out in the wind. That’s what she told herself. But either way, there was no stopping them now. Her life hadn’t changed a bit since the day she set off as the Hero of legend. If anything, it had only grown more complicated and chaotic. This was no safe haven for Emi. But to her, the vast landscape could have been nothing else.
“I’m…home…”
It was home, on a faraway world, something she dreamed about, something she even cried about as she searched within her dreams.
“Emiliaaa…”
The warmth of her friend wrapped around Emi’s outstretched hand. She looked up at the smiling Emeralda Etuva, her irreplaceable friend, the one who had just guided her back home.
“Welcome baaack!”
“…Thanks!”
Emi used her free hand to wipe away the tears she could no longer make excuses for.
“Ah-ha-haaa! We’d better find some clothes for us firrrst…”
No matter how dry Emeralda’s laughter was, it wouldn’t be enough to wring out her and Emi’s wet clothes. And they weren’t just wet, either. They were covered in mud, from head to toe.
“Well, at least our luggage is safe…”
“I-I’m sorryyy! I didn’t realize there was this huge maaarsh where we laaanded…”
Emeralda was being endlessly apologetic. She had set up the Gate to discharge them into the sky to keep the resulting gigantic energy discharge from being detected. Her Gate-opening skills had less to do with her conjuring ability and more to do with the angel-feather pen Emi’s mother, Laila, had given to her—but either way, it still generated a large burst of holy energy.
That was why, even when they went into the ensuing free fall, Emeralda didn’t cast any kind of flight spell on Emi until she was just about ready to pancake on the ground. They planned this drop at night to reduce the chance of eyewitnesses spotting them in the sky. Magic-driven flight would envelop the two of them in an eerie glow—something a nearby watchman or knight corps could easily spot and investigate.
Considering the current political headwinds in Ente Isla, they had to eliminate any potential trail. The Hero Emilia was one thing, but if Emeralda, a major Saint Aile authority figure, was caught smuggling her to safety, the fallout would be dramatic.
So she kept the two of them in free-fall right down to the surface before she deployed her magic. Everything worked well up to then—but considering all the holy energy flying around in the air uses, she had opted to glide themselves down to a safe landing instead. What she didn’t notice until too late was the marshland within the forest she picked as her touchdown point. She and Emi wound up splashing down near the edge of it.
Emeralda had attempted to take off again once she realized her mistake, but the moment had already passed. The air from her gliding flight was already kicking up marsh water at them. It left her and Emi forced to stare at each other sheepishly, both of them smelling slightly like raw sewage.
“…Oh, it’s fine. Maybe smelling like this will keep us safe from animal attack anyway. The bag’s fine, at least. See? It’ll take a lot more than this for Japanese flashlights to stop working.”
Emi fumbled through the large knapsack she brought along for her trip home. She took out a headlamp and flicked it on.
“I’m sorryyy!”
Emeralda, head still bowed in apology, stood in the middle of the light beam. To say the least, she needed a change of clothes.
“It’s all right, okay?” Emi said as she tightened the lamp around her forehead. “I’m more worried about you than me, Eme. That’s a court robe, isn’t it?”
“Ooh…I’ll just say I tripped and fell while inspecting a pig styyy…”
It sounded like a pretty far-fetched excuse to Emi, but there was no point dwelling on it.
“Okay, so where are we?”
“Well, ummm… Ooh, all this mud…”
Emeralda took a map out from inside her robe, griping at the water already making its way into it here and there. It was a close-up map of the eastern section of Saint Aile, the empire that dominated the Western Island and that both Emi and Emeralda were native to. She pointed at it, drawing an imaginary line toward its southwest.
“Your home village of Sloane is over heeere, and I think we should be here, in this forrrest.”
“If I follow that path, I should run into a few big towns and villages, right?”
“Indeeed,” Emeralda said. “And few of them have retained the size they had before the warrr. Lucky for us, perhaaaps, but…”
Emi could guess what war she was talking about.
“So…”
“Yes. The walled ciiity of Cassius is being rebuilt muuuch more quickly—it has an official Church-run cathedral within its boooundaries, after all. The surrounding villages and towns… Well, they’ve hardly been touched, saaad to say.”
“Hardly been touched? How is that possible?”
Emi blinked in surprise as she pointed out a dot nearby Sloane.
“I mean, this village was home to a stagecoach guild and a warhorse breeding farm. I thought it was flourishing.”
Emeralda shook her head. “Well, based on our investigaaations…”
“Uh-huh?”
“This probably isn’t what you want to hear, Emiiilia, but quite a number of the villagers here gave their liiives up against the Western Island invasion forces led by Luciferrr.”
“I’ve come to terms with it, okay? Don’t sugarcoat it for my sake. What happened after that?”
“Well, by the time Al and I met you in Japaaan, the cathedral in Cassius was buying up a lot of ownership and develllopment rights to this land.”
“Buying it up? So the Church was running the rebuild work? How is that possible? Isn’t that Saint Aile’s job?”
The Church, centered at its headquarters on the far western edge of the Western Island, was the largest religion in Ente Isla. Its sphere of influence extended well beyond the Western Island itself, spilling out across a variety of regions worldwide, and it enjoyed the faith of several hundred million followers.
This meant that high-level Church clerics often wielded far more power than the kings and nobles of smaller, less influential nations. Saint Aile, however, was not one of them. It had the political force to take on the Church in its home turf, preventing it from fully dictating its terms on its home continent. The idea of the Church being the sole director of recovery work in and around a city as large as Cassius seemed unthinkable—unthinkable, at least, within the boundaries of Saint Aile.
“Oh, they were craaafty with it,” Emeralda explained. The way she put it, not only had Lucifer’s invasion force killed off the majority of landholders in the area, but once the demons’ dirty work was done, it wasn’t even clear where most property boundaries lay any longer. After Devil King Satan and his army were expelled in the climactic battle in the Central Continent, Saint Aile naturally solicited its citizens to settle back down in these lands, so they could get back to normal as quickly as possible. They also deployed merchants to ferry over the resources they needed, as well as knight corps to lead the rebuilding operations.
“The Churrrch started by bidding on rebuilding projects for Cassius, where their catheeedral is based. They gained the right to lead the recovery effort in all the lands around the ciiity.”
And rebuild they did. Things proceeded at breakneck speed inside and outside the walls of Cassius—and while no one was looking, they had expanded the boundaries of the city’s walls, calling it “repair work.” This was followed by the Church offering the new immigrants to the surrounding villages the right to move to these new frontiers at low prices. Having this influx of new population within direct control of the local cathedral instead of spread out across the countryside provided assorted advantages for the Church at large.
So what happened to the villages these people abandoned? On paper, at least, a large number of Church-affiliated people had poured into them. But it was strictly on paper. On the ground, it was clear that recovery work had barely started at all, if any had been embarked on in the first place.
“Wh-whoa. Hang on a sec. What’re the Saint Aile knight corps doing, then? They were stationed in Cassius and all the villages, weren’t they? Even if the Church snapped up the land rights in the area, that doesn’t mean they get to just take over everything, does it? They can talk about all the rights they have, but they’re still bound by Saint Aile law!”
“Well,” Emeralda rumbled, “hate to saaay it, but that piece of traaash Pippin and his gang seized controlll of the area.”
“That piece of… Huh?” Emi was startled. It wasn’t like Emeralda to use her prim voice to curse at someone like that. “Do you mean General Pippin of the Saint Aile Imperial Guard?”
“Oh, no need to call him generrral. Just call him Piece of Traaash Pippin, please.”
“…So you don’t, um, like him or something, Eme?”
Guard General Pippin Magnus was the head of Saint Aile’s Imperial Guard—essentially, the top authority figure ruling over the empire’s knight corps. Emi had met him during her attempt to rescue Saint Aile’s emperor, but only casually. She couldn’t quite picture what he even looked like any longer—but it was obvious that Emeralda, someone who hardly wore her emotions on her sleeve, detested his very existence.
“Oh, why couldn’t Luciferrr just kill that little sewer raaaat of a general when he had the chaaance?”
“Um, Eme?”
“When the Church forces selected the kniiight corps leaders deployyyed for the recovery effort, they almost alllways chose that sewer rat Pippin’s laaackeys, it pains me to say.”
“Oh…really?”
“The Saint Aile corrrps director in Cassius was totally iiin on it, too. Not only did the Church briiibe him to the point where he rubber-staaamped any plan they wanted, but he also falsified the state of immigration into the nearby villages. That’s how that dunnng beetle Pippin gets away with dancing to the tune of the Churrrch. He’s sucking on their teeeat like the little rat he is.”
“Hmm…”
“No doubt about it. The recovery effort’s seeeriously behind schedule, and it’s all thanks to that stiiinking old man’s meddling.”
“How much do you hate General Pippin, anyway?”
He couldn’t have been a very upstanding citizen, given Emeralda’s consistent appraisals of him, but Emi still couldn’t help but feel bad for the Guard general currently being subjected to this onslaught of abuse—whether she could remember his face or not.
“He’s a craaafty rat, never letting anyone catch him in his evil deeds. And the worrrst part of it is, I don’t even know why he’s deliberately delaaaying the rebuilding work. I escaped the confines of the court so I could ‘inspect’ the delaaays in the planning effort.”
“…I see.”
“So the biggest issue heeere… Well, it’s that this rotten Pippin and his men may have sunk their dirty claaaws into Sloane as well.”
Emi let out a light gasp.
“Given that Sloane was your hooometown and all, they were pretty caaautious with rebuilding it. They decided to delaaay work on the village early on. So for Sloane, at least, the delay makes sennnse, but…”
“But you think General Pippin and the Church people he’s working for don’t mind that one bit, either?”
“Mm-hmm. So do be careful, all riiight?”
Emeralda folded up the map.
“Now, then… I have your identificaaation here, Emilia…”
It was similarly waterlogged, but there it was nonetheless—a wooden card with a symbol branded on it.
“Any card released under my authooority will have the mark of the Holy Magic Administraaative Institute on it. General Fessstering Mold and his men may not appreciate that too muuuch, but to heck with them.”
“Can you at least call him Pippin for me?” Emi chuckled. “It’s too confusing for me otherwise. I’m surprised you’re calling him that, even. Do you ever refer to him that way in front of other people?”
“He and I are eeeven by now. His men call me Lady Midget Broccoliii.”
Plainly they were born destined to clash against each other. That, or the Imperial Guard and Emeralda’s Holy Magic Administrative Institute had had this sort of bureaucratic rivalry for generations before.
“Why does someone like that get to throw his weight around, though? What about General Rumack?”
“Of course!” Emeralda replied, leaping at Emi’s question. “Wouldn’t you thiiink she’d care at all? I don’t think any of this would’ve happened if Rumack was in the couuuntry.” Grief began to cross her voice. “But Rumack was volunteered as the Western Island represennntative in the Federated Order of the Five Continents, the group rebuilding the Central Connntinent. Ever since Efzahaaan declared war on the world, she’s been traaaveling back and forth between there and Saint Aile. She’s got no time to relax at all heeere.”
If Pippin Magnus was Saint Aile’s top general at home, Hazel Rumack was the nation’s commanding officer on the front lines. Emi had collaborated with her multiple times—from the first raid on Lucifer’s forces after her journey began, to the operation to take back the Northern Island, to the final push toward Devil’s Castle. Their relationship had never grown that familiar, but she was the veteran of many a battlefront, and in Emi’s eyes, she seemed like the ideal general—fair, talented, and aboveboard in all her actions.
“But on the othhher hand, someone as slooow and smelly as Pippin could never engage in the delllicate, high-level diplomatic negotiations Rumack can. A mixed blessing, if you will.”
Emeralda seemed to have similarly lofty words for Rumack. But the only conclusion Emi could make from all this was that once she was away from Emeralda, it was easiest to picture everyone around her as an enemy.
“All right. Well, I think I get the picture. I’ll use this ID if the times call for it. So…”
“…Yesss?”
“This ‘Amy Yousser’… Is that supposed to be my alias?”
“Ooh, I thought it’d be easy to get uuused to…”
Easier than a wholly unfamiliar false name, she had to admit. But something about it still didn’t sit right with her. It wasn’t like “Emi Yusa” was her real name, either, although people tended to forget that lately. Then again, she recalled, she decided to go from “Emilia” to “Emi”—did she really have any right to accuse Emeralda of a lack of originality?
“That… Ah, whatever. It’s fine. Thanks.”
She carefully inserted the pass, emblazoned with the seal of Holy Magic Administrative Institute leader and court sorcerer Emeralda Etuva, into her bag.
“I’m prepared to camp out for a week with this stuff anyway. I’ll find a clothing shop somewhere outside Cassius’s walls without coming too close to them…and then I’ll figure out the rest myself. I’ll keep this ID hidden until I really, really need it.”
“That would be smaaart, I think. Also, it won’t repay your ruined clooothing, but here’s a little money for traaavel expenses. This is mostly Airenia silver coin, so make sure to waaash it first.”
Emeralda nodded to herself before meekly offering Emi a thoroughly soaked leather pouch. She took it, marveling at its weight.
“…Thanks a lot. I’ll try to pay you back somehow.”
“Huh? Oh, don’t wooorry. I can scrape up thaaat much anytime I want.”
“Yeah, but it’s the thought that counts, okay?”
It couldn’t be helped, but life on Earth had changed Emi to the point that she couldn’t simply accept other people’s money for nothing. And considering the weight of this bag, if it really was all Airenia silver, it didn’t matter whether you converted it into Japanese yen or Ente Isla’s going rates—it was a hell of a lot more than Emi could procure by herself.
Emi considered the literal and figurative weight of this money in her life as she wiped the mud off the pouch. “Merchants can only operate outside the castle walls in the daytime, right?” she said. “I can’t help but think how nice it’d be if there was a Denim Mate 24 or a Donkey OK nearby. Guess that’s proof Japan’s slowly poisoning me, isn’t it?”
“What’re thooose?”
“Um, those are clothing stores and general stores in Japan. They’re both open twenty-four hours.”
“Whaaat?! That’s increeedible, isn’t it? Did you have much occaaasion to purchase clothing in the middle of the night in Japaaan?”
“Not me, no…but I guess someone does, if they’re open that late.”
“Those Japaneeese sure like working hard, don’t they? My goodness, a store open all day and niiight… I couldn’t imagine how they keep it going! I can hardly belieeeve anybody works in the late hours, eeeven.”
Emi had to chuckle. “Don’t bother trying to copy them. It just somehow all…works in Japan, you know?”
Conventional wisdom in Ente Isla dictated that the only people walking around at night were watchmen and pickpockets, both who often caught eye of the drunkards. No matter how safe a given region was seen as being, a woman traveling by herself was nothing short of suicide—unless the woman in question was the Hero, basically. The system in Japan worked precisely because 99.9 percent of people there were born hard-wired not to rock the boat—to live out their lives crime-free and without bringing shame upon themselves and their families.
“It’s really kind of a miracle,” Emi said to admonish herself. “I’m gonna have to be a lot more careful walking around by myself here.”
“The Hero’s party never has it eeeasy, no…”
“Yeah, you said it.” The statement sounded familiar to Emi’s ears. She sighed. “But enough wallowing in memories. Thanks for taking me here, Eme. Where should we meet up for the return trip?”
“Well, about thaaat… Wouldn’t it be better if you kept this, Emiiilia?”
Emi watched as Emeralda presented something to her. It was the angel-feather pen. A grand treasure, one that let anyone open a Gate whenever they wanted. Straight from the wings of her mother, Laila. It gave her mixed feelings.
“You can have it.”
Without much hesitation, Emi pushed it back toward Emeralda. Among all the dirt and muck that covered them both, it still shone a pure, untarnished white. “Even if I don’t want to, I might run into some kind of interference. There’s maybe a one-in-a-million chance, but it’s still there. So I want either you or Al to keep it. If it actually happens, it’s better to keep our cards spread out.”
“…All riiight!” After a moment’s pause, Emeralda seemed convinced enough. She put the pen back in her pocket. “In that caaase, there’s no need to tell you where to meet, Emiiilia. I’ll travel to Sloane for youuu.”
“Are you sure?” Emi replied, not expecting her to go that far for her.
“I want you to spend as much time as possible in your seeearch…and I’m meant to inspect the general aaarea regardless, so it’ll be more naaatural this way.”
“…All right. I promise I’ll find something useful for us!”
Emi was astonished, deep down. At every occasion, no matter what, Emeralda was prepared for anything.
Her friend, perhaps sensing that Emilia was starting to get a little too ramped up for her journey, placed a finger to her lips, smiled at the world-leaping young Hero before her, and spoke in Ente Isla’s language.
“<No need to work yourself up too muuuch. What do I always tell you? Stay calm, stay cool, stay relentless on the battlefield.>”
Emi gulped. The words were harmless enough, but she could sense the force Emeralda put behind them. There was no doubt Emi could destroy her in one-on-one battle, but Emeralda was the most powerful sorcerer in the human world, an equally shrewd and seasoned politician and courtier, and a clever fighter whose multilayered strategies could take down even the greatest of powers. Her words, coming from the lips of someone capable of surviving alongside Emi in battle, sunk deep.
“Yeah. You’re right.”
“Oh, I knooow! And it’s no longer just you in your body, eiiither.”
Emeralda smiled, the inscrutable edge now gone from her voice.
“I wish you wouldn’t put it like that.”
“Well, am I wrooong? Hmm, Alas Raaamus?”
“Ugh… Alas Ramus?”
With a sigh, Emi brought a hand forward and summoned the child.
“Yeh, Eme-sis?”
“Ooh, you’re soooo cuuuuuuuute!”
“Hoooh?!”
Emeralda’s near-scream made Alas Ramus’s body tense up in midair.
“Please don’t make her cry again, Eme.”
That was exactly what had happened when Emeralda had come to see Emi in Japan, screaming in delight at the child and freaking her out to the point of tears.
“Awww, I’m sorry. C’mon, Alas Ramus, can you look at me? I’m not scaaary.”
“Oooh…”
Emeralda tried her best to comfort Alas Ramus. The child wasn’t buying it.
“Alas Ramus, watch over Mommy for me, okaaay? Don’t let her do anything too craaazy.”
“Crayzee?”
“Oh, and be good, okaaay? Listen to what Mommy says.”
“Yeh! Alas Ramus good!”
She nodded, both stubby arms in the air. It was enough to make Emeralda lose all self-control.
“Aaaaiiieeeee! So cuuuuuuuute!!”
“Ahhh, waaaahh!”
“Eme!”
She had Alas Ramus’s rapt attention, and she just had to shout at her anyway. The tears were already forming.
“S-sorrrrry!” Emeralda said, clearly not sorry at all as she stuck out her tongue. Then she pointed a small fist at Emi. Emi smiled in response, face stern, and reached out her own arm, crossing fists with hers.
“<Do not retain hope.>”
“<Proceed forward.>”
Then, together:
““<You must blaze your own trail to survive!>””
The motto had found its start among the human forces after the battle against Lucifer, the first victory for mankind in the Devil King’s Army war. Even with Lucifer gone, the continued threat of the demons ruling in the central, northern, eastern, and southern lands remained fresh in every human being’s mind. The Hero’s appearance, and her wresting the Western Island back, gave hope to all of them, but even then the frontline soldiers couldn’t find much in the future to be optimistic about.
The world had almost fallen to its knees in the face of the burning rage of the Devil King’s Army. The rebound engineered by the Hero was nothing short of a miracle. They needed to save the world while this miracle was still fresh. If they had the time to retain hope in their hearts, they had time to fight, to push forward, to change the world. That was what the fighters of the Western Island learned, and that was what they constantly told themselves.
Remembering it reminded Emi and Emeralda once again that, heart and soul, they were embroiled in battle once more.
“Well, good-bye, Emilia. Take care over the next week.”
“You too, Eme.”
“Eme-sis is gone?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll have to travel by myself… Well, with you, too, Alas Ramus.”
“Okeh. I’ll be a good girl!”
“Yeah, try to go easy on me. Come on back for a bit, okay?”
Emi wiped some of the mud off her hand before lightly tapping Alas Ramus’s head, fusing the child back within her.
“…Might as well head for Cassius first. Gotta do something about these clothes.”
The mud was one thing, but she had a bigger concern in mind. Her outfit was still from Japan. The only clothes she brought with her from Ente Isla to Japan were what she had on under her armor at the time. She thought about having Emeralda provide something, but Emeralda had balked. She needed to keep acting as natural as possible, or else there was no telling how General Pippin and her other rivals would react.
“Why do all these people find hurting others so much fun?”
She sighed again—for the nth time today, for reasons she couldn’t articulate—and there, inside the dark forest, made her first muddy step back home.
“Please… Just one convenience store…”
Day 2 of her return to Ente Isla. As weak-kneed as she knew it sounded, Emi was already starting to crack.
She was at an inn about a day’s walk east of the Cassius city wall. It was a gathering point for the stagecoaches and merchant caravans that plied the lands of eastern Saint Aile, and despite its relatively small size, it was a remarkably lively place.
“Ngh…hnh…”
Alas Ramus was sleeping in bed, a pained expression on her face. She didn’t have a cold or anything, but it appeared that her dinner hadn’t settled well with her. Emi was taking her meals in her room to hide the presence of the child, but most of the food she could take up there wasn’t anything someone her (external) age could eat.
It simply amazed her. Was the culinary scene in Saint Aile and the Western Island really so crude and unrefined? To her, it seemed like nothing but meat, meat, alcohol, meat, and the occasional vegetable for variety. Trying to obtain prepared food rewarded her with incredibly salty meat that turned her stomach at first sight—and here were all these people chowing down on it in broad daylight, using it to sop up the booze. The village market she attended wasn’t totally bereft of fruits or vegetables—but while they looked like what was available in Japan, they were completely different from the well-cultivated produce of her former home.
On the first day, she stopped at a small, inexpensive inn near Cassius, using its kitchen to prepare whatever she could find that looked close enough to Japanese stuff and feeding Alas Ramus with it. But it was strange—the child was never a picky eater over there, but just a single bite of carrot was enough to make her twist her face and spit it out.
Seeing that made Emi realize exactly how much she had gotten used to the food and water in Japan. Was the cuisine really that bad where she grew up? Whenever she picked up one of the ingredients in her pack, Emi felt more and more depressed.
The vegetables in Japan were so flavor-packed, so sweet, so soft—Emi had no idea why Japanese children were so finicky with them. That was thanks to the farmers and produce companies who constantly improved their crops to make them more palatable, perhaps, but sadly, the vegetables in the Saint Aile region of the Western Island simply weren’t up to snuff. The carrots were bitter, earthy, and left stringy fibers that stuck in your teeth. The tomatoes were acidic, enough to almost stab at your tongue; the cucumbers more bitter than Emi thought natural plants could ever be; the corn drier than a TV dinner left in the freezer too long; and so on. Emi had grown up on this stuff, eating it on a daily basis until she came to Japan, and now she could barely stand to chew it.
She could have just stuck to fruit, of course. The problem with that, though, was the price. In a word, it was ridiculous. Emeralda had provided her with a more-than-ample travel budget, but if she wanted something at least as good as what got sold in cans at the supermarkets in Tokyo, she’d be giving up at least one silver piece a go.
Saint Aile’s history as an avid producer of fermented beverages meant that most of the decent fruit grown across the empire was hoarded by distillers or the local nobility. The common folk would have to be satisfied with what apples or oranges they could find, and it was all low quality (by Japan standards, at least) and cost several times as much as the veggies.
Emi figured she could conceal the taste of all this stuff in a sandwich or something, at the very least. But the kind of white bread she could buy in Japan for 100 yen a loaf didn’t even exist at the local bakery. Instead, it was nothing but wheat, wild oat, and rye bread, the kind of thing that went for a premium on Earth. There was no milk or sugar used in its production, no cultivated yeast to aid in the process, and it was all brick-like and sour-tasting without exception—nothing like what Alas Ramus had eaten before.
All this meant that, in order to keep her charge’s stomach full, Emi found herself resorting to the ready-made food she had brought from Japan—strictly meant as emergency rations—on Day 1. She quickly had to revise her entire approach to keeping themselves fed for the next week. The clothing issue had worked itself out quickly, even for Alas Ramus’s swaddling. But she had never expected something as basic as food to be such a major issue.
Still, she made it. And here they were. On Day 2.
It turned out there was another problem facing both of them—one that she was too tensed up on the first day to notice.
“I can’t believe how…dirty that toilet was…”
Emi reflexively wrinkled her nose as she watched Alas Ramus struggle in bed.
The bathrooms here were simply a mess. She knew not to expect anything as advanced as a flush toilet or reliable indoor plumbing, but every latrine she had the misfortune to run into seemed to present a new case study in sheer nastiness.
And it wasn’t just a matter of being disgusting. It was a matter of being disgusting and being charged for the privilege. Travelers had to pay up every single time they used a toilet. There was some old guy poised next to each one, taking tolls. Five copper coins were the going rate, and even that only got you a plain stall—if you were lucky—with a door.
There was, of course, no toilet paper. The lack of cleaning, regular or otherwise, made the stink overpowering. Emi could hold her nose well enough, but she couldn’t stomach the idea of making Alas Ramus do her business in them. So she resolved, as annoying as it made her life, to stick to the diapers she brought along for the trip instead.
Thus Emi found herself suffering at the start of her grand adventure thanks to the food and the sanitation—two musts for any civilization that seemed to be so incredibly lacking in this one.
Tonight, at least, she had managed to cook the food well enough that Alas Ramus ate her entire dinner. She mashed up a few potatoes, seasoned them with salt and pepper, then further mixed them into hot water. Adding mushrooms, onions, and minced chicken breast, she boiled the whole mixture into a ready-to-eat soup. That, at long last, was enough to earn an “Mmmm” from her audience.
If she was traveling by herself, she wouldn’t bother making these things that took up so much expensive water, fuel—all right, more like kindling—and kitchen usage fees. But that wouldn’t pass muster with Alas Ramus.
“Ugh… A convenience store…a microwave…some heat-and-eat food…some vending machines…a curry joint…”
Emi could almost feel herself tearing up as she swore in her heart that, whenever she realized her life’s goal and returned to her homeland in Ente Isla, she’d bring at least a microwave and fridge along with her. She knew she must have looked haggard and weak at the moment. At least she didn’t have to feel discouraged over it every time she looked in the mirror. There’d never be a luxury item like that in a cheap inn like this.
Suddenly:
“Amy? Amy?”
A knock on the door. Emi stood up straight. It was the innkeeper.
“Y-yes?”
She stood to her feet, tied her hair back up, ran to the door, and warily opened it a sliver to keep the visitor from seeing inside.
“Ooh?”
It really was the innkeeper, that old man standing in the hallway. His face looked honestly surprised.
“What is it?”
“Oh, er, I wasn’t expecting you to open up.”
“Oh…”
Emi cursed her tactical error. This wasn’t Japan. There was no guarantee the innkeeper was an honest person. If he weren’t—if this was some highway bandit disguised as the innkeeper—he would’ve elbowed his way inside the moment the door was unlatched. It was standard manners in Saint Aile to keep the door locked after a knock until you were sure everything was safe on the other side. Even here, her experiences in Japan were hatching potentially troubling results for her.
“Um, regarding what you asked about, it looks like we have a caravan ’ere that’s slated to head through Valcroskh. I reckon they’d let you ride with ’em for the right compensation.”
“Oh, was that it?”
Emi nodded. The village of Valcroskh was about half a day’s walk from Sloane. When she paid for this room, she inquired about immigrants or caravans traveling not to Sloane, but to the assorted villages that surrounded it. It would be foolish to reveal her real destination to anyone at the moment. Both Sloane and Valcroskh were a long hike from here, but if she could grab a seat on a wagon caravan, that would cut down her travel time immensely.
“Thank you very much. If you could give them a deposit for me…”
Emi took out two silver coins she had ready in her pocket and handed them to the innkeeper. A cheap inn like this, with no security whatsoever, meant that Emi could never reveal how much money she was carrying—not even to the boss. She remembered that much, and yet she had just flung the door open in front of this guy. So stupid.
Two silver coins were pretty high for a “deposit,” but Emi meant one of them as a tip for the innkeeper. Don’t cheap out when the times call for it—that’s what Albert had taught her.
“Hmm. Very well. Good evenin’ to you, then.”
The innkeeper gave a satisfied nod to Emi as he cupped the coins and left. She locked the door and breathed a sigh of relief.
“This is all so hard. It used to come so naturally to me, too…”
She undid her hair again, slowly sat on the bed, and gently caressed the hair of Alas Ramus, who looked like she was still suffering under a bad dream.
“Though, really… I’ve only been alone once in my life. That year or so in Japan before I met the Devil King. Other than that…”
Until she awakened to her Hero abilities and freed the Holy Empire of Saint Aile from Lucifer, Olba and the Church knight corps were her benevolent companions and guardians. Once she freed Saint Aile, she met Emeralda, who became her inseparable friend. Albert she’d first met on the ship to the Northern Island after she defeated Lucifer and freed the entire Western Island—and thanks to his knowledge and power, they’d managed to persevere through the northern and southern lands’ harsh weather conditions.
Alciel’s forces retreated from the Eastern Island before Emi and her comrades could test them in battle. So the four of them, buoyed by the will of the entire human race, smashed their way into Devil’s Castle on the Central Continent—and then Emi drifted into a world where life-threatening danger almost never appeared.
“I acted all big and strong as the Hero, but in the end, I couldn’t do anything by myself. And now I’m freaking out over all these things I’m running into during my trip… It’s not even funny anymore.”
“Mnh…mmm…”
“I’ll try to whip up something nicer for you tomorrow, okay, Alas Ramus?”
Emi smiled a little, then climbed into bed—no changing her clothes, no taking off her boots, no waking up the child.
“Going to bed in my shoes… Talk about bad manners, huh?”
She recalled how she, Maou, and Alas Ramus went shopping together in Seiseki-Sakuragaoka for a child-sized futon. She had scolded her, hadn’t she, for climbing up on the train seat in her shoes, yearning for a look out the window?
“Come on, Alas Ramus. Listen to your mommy.”
“Ugh, she always listens to you…”
Emi groaned at the words.
If something about the food or the weather here put Alas Ramus in a bad state, she was sure that so-called “daddy” would give her a whole bunch of sarcastic lip back home. Like he always did. She wanted to avoid that, and another part of her couldn’t believe she actually cared what he’d think. She sighed painfully.
“Daddy, huh…?”
It was hard for her to admit, but compared to before, the drive in her to hate the Devil King, to slay the Devil King, was falling out of sight. Learning that her own father was alive contributed to that, but really, it was Satan, the Devil King himself, who had triggered it. Sometimes, the Hero just couldn’t understand him anymore.
There was that doubt in her mind again. The one percolating within her for the past several months they had spent together in Japan: Where did the personality, the character, the thoughts of “Sadao Maou” bubble up from? By this point, Emi was starting to wonder if Maou was really Satan at all. Her image of Sadao Maou, and her image of Devil King Satan, were no longer one and the same—to the point that she returned to Ente Isla without a single doubt that Maou, her sworn enemy, would do anything villainous in Japan while she was gone.
“Maybe being back home will kindle some of that old hatred again…”
Emi looked at the sleeping Alas Ramus as she pondered the idea.
No matter what kind of “person” Maou was now, Maou’s presence behind the armies of Lucifer—which had destroyed her home—was the unmovable truth. Even the news that Nord was alive was given to her by an archangel, a completely unreliable source. There wasn’t a shred of evidence to back it up.
Right now, Sadao Maou was still her enemy. The villain who irrefutably killed her father, destroyed her village, and ruined her young life.
She had told this to herself time and time again. And yet the completely outlandish idea that her father was alive had moved her heart so much in another direction. It made her feel pathetic.
“…What am I fighting for? Who am I even fighting…?”
The unanswerable questions melted into the darkness as Emi’s consciousness faded away.
“Ya sure this is good? ’Cause you’re more’n paid up for at least two more stops. We could take ya all the way to the walled city if yer willin’ it?”
There was, perhaps, a slight trace of concern visible underneath the caravan boss’s craven capitalist spirit.
“’Cause, I mean, ye see how Valcroskh’s shapin’ up at the moment—no travelers’ inns or the like. And y’know, nearby ya got Millady, ya got Gohve, ya got Sloane, an’ the whole lot’s two or three stragglers short of empty. If yer makin’ a pilgrimage or whatnot, then godspeed with ya, but I ain’t too sure anyone’s left to pray to, ah?”
Emi helped herself off the wagon once it stopped at Valcroskh, on a side road off the main path to Cassius.
“It’s fine, sir. Thanks for the ride.”
The caravan ride had saved her a good day or so’s worth of traveling. A grown woman could do the trip from here to Sloane on foot in half a day.
“And you could call it a pilgrimage of sorts, I suppose. I lost track of someone important to me when the Devil King’s Army invaded here, and I’m traveling in order to track him down.”
“…Ah, sorry if I’m pokin’ around too much. It ’ad to be sommin’ like that, mm? For a girl to be travelin’ alone like ye is?”
The boss, still seated at the coachman’s post, removed his wide-brimmed hat.
“’Ey, I’ll give a prayer to the god of commerce for ya, ah? So’s you can meet that whoever guy. Yer overpayin’ for my services anyways. Little bonus for ya, ’n all that.”
“I appreciate that, sir.”
Emi smiled at the gesture.
“Hope to see ya again,” the man said as he replaced his hat. “Right…” Then, with a flick of the reins, the caravan was off again. The men who staffed the six wagons each waved at Emi as they passed by, shouting their farewells before disappearing down the road. Emi watched them until they did, then brought a hand to her chest.
“Letting something like that move me… I really have gone soft.”
The boss’s sincere prayer really had moved Emi’s heart, a little.
“…Things have been so peaceful, I almost forgot. This is Ente Isla, isn’t it?”
She took a deep breath, attempting to cool down her newly warmed heart. She could feel the power coursing through her body. That was no illusion.
“Warmth creates power. Nobody can beat me now.”
Her body was brimming with holy energy as she exultantly walked away from Valcroskh and took her first steps toward Sloane.
In her previous journeys, the only thing Emi could rely on, traveling through the night, was the light the moon and stars provided. Now, she had a headlamp over her forehead, the LED flashlight in her right hand—yet another triumph of Earth’s civilization—bathing the path ahead in near-blinding light. She was planning to rely on both of these light sources on the way to Sloane.
The flashlight was solar-powered and theoretically never ran out of juice—and even if she used it too much at night, it came with a hand crank, too. If she had the right cord, she could charge a phone with the connector on the bottom, and the foldable side stand made it useful as a desk lamp as well. She could even adjust the light between two levels to save on power. And if any wolves or bears decided to peer at her through the darkness at a forest detour, the built-in emergency siren let her scare them off without a fight.
“If there was a lighter or a Swiss Army knife on the back, I could mass-manufacture these and change the way everyone on Ente Isla travels.”
Emi realized she was starting to sound like an infomercial as she spotted something on the edge of the woods: a small, seemingly abandoned house, one she could have easily overlooked. Once she caught sight of it, she turned off the light, not wanting to reveal her presence just in case any rogue characters were lurking inside. Or worse. Considering what this house was, the sort of people Emeralda was concerned about might be guarding it right now.
Slowly, Emi scoped out the area for any other presence, moving at half the speed from before. Soon, she spotted another building in the moonlight ahead, just barely visible. She stopped and looked around once more.
“…Not like anyone would be here.”
She sighed. Not that she let her guard down, but—thinking about it—over a year had passed since Emi disappeared from Ente Isla, and it’d been a good half-year since any of the angels, demons, or Church officials had confirmed her presence. None of those forces had the free personnel to station here for a Hero who might or might not ever show up.
Besides, before the Devil King invasion, this place was nothing more than a farming village. Nothing special at all about it.
As she came closer, she caught sight of a flat area along the path, one where humans plainly used to dwell. This was the land they used to cultivate. Emi crossed the path that went through it, taking step after careful step toward the dark ruins that spread out across the night ahead of her.
Soon, she was at the village’s “main street,” just barely wide enough for two wagons to pass each other.
“…I’m back.”
There was not a single insect cry, not a single mouse scurrying around. It was as though time had stopped for this village. The only thing that listened to Emi’s shaky voice was the fresh night breeze.
The village of Sloane was in a state of quiet decay, serving as its own gravestone.
“It’s okeh to go in, Mommy?”
Emi had helped herself into the house nearest to the path, one that still retained most of its original form, and pitched her tent inside. That, she hoped, would keep anyone from noticing the smoke and flame from her cooking, as well as the light Alas Ramus emitted when she took her out.
“It’s all right. This…belongs to someone Mommy knows.”
Emi flashed a forlorn smile as she quickly prepared for dinner. The menu for tonight featured yesterday’s potato soup (packed into a paste), along with some instant rice—good old Auntie Nan’s from Japan. It cooked just as well simmering in a hot pan as it did with two minutes in the microwave.
She filled her all-purpose pot with water, then used a smoke-free portable camping stove to bring it to boil. Adding a little water to the paste to bring it back to soup form, she used the remaining water to heat up the rice. A little jerky she packed for the trip, and she had at least the bare trappings of an evening meal.
“The perfect feast for my triumphant return, I suppose.”
“Mommy! ’Tatoes!”
Alas Ramus, illuminated by the flashlight propped up on its side, prodded Emi for her apparent new favorite food. The darkness of the unfamiliar place didn’t seem to faze her at all.
“Oh, what do you say before that?”
“Mmm… Oh! Uhh, fanks for the meal!”
“Very good. Make sure to blow on it a little before you eat it, okay?”
She had taken care not to make it too hot for Alas Ramus. She wanted to treat this as just another dinner, for her sake.
“Pff, fffffft… Om!”
“How is it?”
“Mmm, good.”
The feast inside Emi’s rotted-out homeland continued calmly. Once Alas Ramus had her fill of potato soup and rice, it was Emi’s turn to tackle her own meal. As a grown-up, her dinner was a little more basic—oat-bran bread, beef jerky, and just a little of Alas Ramus’s soup.
“Um, Mommy?”
“Mm? What is it?”
“Why isn’t Mommy’s friend here?”
“…Well.”
She must have interpreted “someone Mommy knows” as “friend.” Emi coughed.
“There used to be this man named Kopher who lived in here…”
It was the home of a couple, to be exact. A rather chatty pair, as she remembered them, maybe around ten years older than her father.
“How ’bout over there?”
Instead of waiting for Emi to finish, Alas Ramus pointed out the window, toward the abandoned ruin across the street.
“Oh, um… I think that was old lady Lireena’s place. She was really good at knitting.”
“How come she’s not there?”
Emi paused. What was driving Alas Ramus? What part of her will drove her to ask? Was it just a child asking a simple question, or was that deeper intelligence she occasionally flashed asking Emi for the truth?
“Well, these scary demons came to attack the village, and they chased them all out.”
The village fell victim to Lucifer’s slavering fangs not long after the Church took Emi in. Considering the distance from Sankt Ignoreido, on the Western Island’s eastern edge, Sloane existed for maybe a month after she left. Or maybe not. Maybe the village was already a thing of the past by the time she had arrived at her sanctuary in the Church. The hatred, the grief, her youth, and the crushing feeling of being lost in a great storm made her memories of the time indistinct. There was no way to find out the exact date now.
She was attempting to swallow down her dark recollections with a bite of bread when Alas Ramus asked another question.
“Mommy, is Garriel a demon?”
“Huh?”
“Scary, make everyone cry… Is that Garriel?”
“N-no…?”
Why did Gabriel’s name come up at a time like this? She knew that Alas Ramus had been relentlessly hostile to him long before they had this current relationship, but it seemed awfully sudden to her.
“Are demons the angels?”
“Um, I’m sorry, Alas Ramus, I’m not exactly sure what you mean…”
This triggered something in Emi’s mind. Alas Ramus seemed to understand what angels were from the moment she met her. But did she know what demons were at all? Through her role as the Better Half, Alas Ramus had seen Maou and Ashiya in their full demon forms a couple of times—and that did nothing to change her affection for them.
“Mommy, what are demons?”
“That, um…”
Emi couldn’t answer. Half a year ago, she could have talked at great length about these merciless, bloodthirsty monsters. Now, all she could come up with was the words Gabriel had for her: that angels were living things. Humans.
“What…do you think the ‘demons’ truly are?”
Suzuno’s question seemed as fresh as before. Here was Satan, the Devil King, living out his life exactly like any other young Japanese man. He’s a living thing, too…and what does that mean? Emi had no answer for that, and therefore no answer for Alas Ramus.
“…Mommy?”
And there was another reason for her silence. The “scary demon” that chased them all away from the village was none other than the “Daddy” Alas Ramus adored. As the Hero—as a human being—there was simply no way Emi could tell Alas Ramus that her daddy was an enemy, worthy of her scorn. It wouldn’t help her in life, a part of her mind told her. And more than that, she had nowhere near the amount of resolve required to tell her that Alas Ramus’s blade would need to cleave through Alas Ramus’s daddy sooner or later. Not at this moment.
At this moment, with the possibility that her own father was still alive, she wasn’t sure whether that fateful strike even needed to happen at all.
Either way, betraying her daughter’s love in order to dispel her own hatred would be exactly the kind of “demonic” behavior Emi detested.
“…This is getting so irritating.”
Recalling the dopey-looking image of Maou in her mind, all the way over here, made Emi experience a sudden feeling at the pit of his stomach. Not of hatred, not of resentment, but of a light, dry sense of irritation.
“I give him a little slack and he starts causing trouble for me all over the place. I’m sitting here, going through the motions, talking breathlessly about my great ambitions or whatever. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“Oo?”
“Listen, Alas Ramus: Demons are cowardly; they’re cunning; and they’re incredibly egotistical.”
“Cow…egogo…?”
“What does Chiho even see in that guy, anyway? It makes no sense to me.”
“Ooo, I don’ get it.”
She knew she was getting irritated over completely inconsequential matters. But then Emi remembered something. She smiled in the flashlight’s illumination.
“I know, Alas Ramus. Once we return home…why don’t you ask Daddy?”
“Daddy?”
“Yeah. Try asking Daddy what a demon is. He’s really smart, so I’m sure he’ll tell you all about them.”
“Okeh!”
It was positively devious of her. But it didn’t seem fair, either, that Emi had to be the only one preoccupied about the relationship between Maou and Alas Ramus. It was about time Maou gave a little thought to her future, too. Imagining him falling into a panic at Alas Ramus’s innocent query made a smile naturally emerge on her face.
“I better give him an earful once I get back.”
“When can I see Daddy again?”
“Oh, in a little while. We’ve got Chiho’s birthday party coming up, so I’m sure Daddy’ll be around for that.”
He would be. Emi didn’t mean anything deep by it. She was just laying out her plans for next week.
“Well, it’s still a bit early, but we’d better clean this up and get to sleep. I’ll have to be up early tomorrow.”
Emi inserted all her possessions except for her sleeping bag and flashlight into her knapsack, took Alas Ramus into her arms, and unzipped the bag.
“Mmm, fluffy!” the child exclaimed as she patted at the thick down lining.
“Hey, stop playing with it!”
She pouted a bit at this admonishment, but within Emi’s arms, she quickly began to prepare for a good night’s sleep.
“Alas Ramus, I…I think I can still do this… I have to…!”
“Mommy? …Affh…”
She tightened her grasp on the still-not-quite-awake Alas Ramus once more, then hurriedly ran down the road she’d taken. Picking up her things from Kopher’s house, she immediately headed for the house she had lived in with her father.
That would be the base she used to reach the goal she had traveled to Ente Isla to fulfill. She knew something had to be there, under the roof she called home. Some fragment of the truth she could use to unravel the mysteries that surrounded both Ente Isla and Earth. After the unexpected miracle she had just witnessed, Emi felt all but assured of it.
“Ahhhh… There’s nothing at all in here…”
Emi, her concentration now a thing of the past, flung herself down in the area that used to be the kitchen. It was the afternoon of the third day she had spent exploring her home.
The sight of her father’s surviving wheat fields on the first day had moved her to tears. She took it as an omen that she was bound to find a hint that would reveal everything she needed to know about this world, so she had moved her base of operations to her former house. Now it was Day 3, and she had nothing at all to show for it.
The Justina residence was just a typical farmhouse—nothing overly large or grandiose about the building or the plot of land it was on. It bore the same signs of damage that every other house in the village did, but by and large it still looked roughly the way Emi remembered it: the kitchen, where she used to cook for her father; the dining room, where she used to eat with him; the living room, where she used to stare at the burning fireplace to lull herself to sleep.
The sight of the bed she slept in as a child made her tear up all over again, but there was no time to lose herself in memories. This was Emi and Nord’s home, but it was also the home of Laila, her mother, the woman who seemed to lurk behind the scenes in everything that linked Earth with Ente Isla. There had to be something she didn’t pick up on as a young girl, something they didn’t let her touch, someplace she hadn’t been allowed into before now.
But for all the effort she made, the Hero’s fervent searching provided nothing but further confirmation that her father was a strong, sincere, and unaffecting man.
They hardly had much in the way of shelves or chests to hide things in, for one. The village could have been subject to bandit raids after it was abandoned, but she figured they’d aim for jewelry and gold, not entire pieces of furniture. So she began by searching the attic and basement for anything hidden, but all the attic held was some seasonal furniture, some empty barrels and jars, a few nails and screws, and other typical household goods. And there wasn’t even a basement in the first place.
It’d be nice if there were a secret basement or something at a time like this, she thought. But there was no point griping about something that didn’t exist.
She continued her search into the tool shed, behind the fireplace, under and inside the cooking hearth, and countless other places she never haunted as a child. She was rewarded with a face full of soot and dust, as well as Alas Ramus asking why she looked so “mean” over dinner. It was, to say the least, a disappointment.
“I guess if you hid something in a chimney or whatever, you wouldn’t be able to take it out again anyway, huh?”
So much for that. But if you wanted to hide a tree, the best place to do that would always be in the forest. So on the second day, Emi decided to go through the few remaining books and papers that were left on the home’s shelves. Bound paper books still being a luxury item in Ente Isla, even important documents were still often written with block printing on parchment, papyrus, and other rough materials.
There wasn’t a lot left in the house, so she figured reading through it all wouldn’t take too much time. But:
“…All this detail…”
She had started reading in the morning. She was still at it by the time the sun began to set.
The familiar sight of her father’s handwriting made the waterworks start up all over again at first. He had used a valuable bound accounting book to record a journal of his agricultural life that went into meticulous detail. Most of its content involved his wheat and other duties, and he covered his daily routine in such minute terms that she couldn’t bear to skip any of it, fearing that some kind of deeper meaning might be locked inside of it all.
After she tired of reading this agricultural record, she decided to take a look at the parchment and woodblock-print material. It was largely things like tax payment receipts, records related to the small amount of livestock Nord kept as a side pursuit, request forms, and the like, extending over twenty years into the past.
“…Oh, the inspector’s seal changed.”
After two hours, the first major change Emi noticed was a different brand on a wooden receipt. She decided to take that cue to stop her research and get a meal going.
“Hey, Alas Ramus?”
“Yehh?” she replied as she dug into her reheated corn soup.
“Do you feel any Yesod fragments or anything like that nearby?”
“Nope!” came the immediate answer. Emi hung her shoulders. She had only half-jokingly asked the question, but it made the reality of the situation even more distressing. Of course she didn’t. If she did, Alas Ramus would’ve raised a massive hue and cry about it the moment they entered the village.
In the end, despite there not being all that many records left unscathed, Emi still couldn’t thumb through them all before the day was through. Day 3, she decided, would have to be split between cleaning up the place and wrapping up her research.
“Hmm… Nothing from here, maybe…?”
Emi sat down on a surviving creaky chair and moved on to a sheaf of documents related to land rights among Nord’s business contacts.
“Or maybe Olba or Gabriel or someone thought the same thing and took anything incriminating out of here?”
She tossed an area map depicting farmland boundaries into the “done” pile and reached back for another bound volume.
“I can’t believe this is the only diary he kept. It’s weird.”
This was Nord’s personal diary, the only real fruit to stem from Emi’s search so far. Compared to his farming journal, it was nowhere near as thickly written and impenetrable. He made sure to add an entry in that journal every day of his life, but with this diary, he kept a pace of once a week at best. It was more of a weekly summary of events than a diary.
While it did describe assorted events of daily life, including Emi’s formative years, it didn’t even mention Laila’s name once. The final entry was dated several years before the Devil King’s Army invaded.
“The exact era I didn’t need to know about…”
A bit of a harsh assessment, she knew, given that she was reading someone’s diary without permission, but it was the honest truth. She respected the memories of her father, of course, but there was nothing from this era of Emi’s life that would help her right now.
“Well, two days until Eme stops by, I guess…”
Dark clouds of doubt began to gather over her search. She let out a weak sigh.
“Land-division maintenance certifications… This is a guide to field boundaries, this is a record of fields left fallow for tax-deduction purposes…”
Emi delved back into the “to do” pile, reading through the wood-board certifications and dividing them up by category.
“Payments for town-maintenance deposits… Oh? Wow, the village mayor’s new-year greeting got stuck in here. And over in these parchments… These are all permits and titles, huh?”
She was getting used to this now, sorting through the documents like a seasoned secretary.
“Fixed-period lumber rights for the common wooded areas… An ax-possession permit? Wow, I had no idea you needed that. After that… Our baron’s home-building permit, construction permits, expansion permits—this is all house stuff, I guess. Farming tool shed building permit… Here’s a permit to clear out a new field… Hmm?”
Emi’s hand stopped on a certain sheet of parchment.
“I thought all the land-related stuff was in this pile. Did this get misfiled?”
The field permit was filed at about the same time as the house Emi was in right now was built. Nord must not have been fully categorizing his business documents, yet perhaps it was forgotten about over time. Emi was just about to replace the field-building permit with the others when something caught her eye.
“…Wait, what?”
She gasped a little and peered at the lettering on the parchment.
“Where is this?”
The permit granted the cosigned the right to establish a new field for farming purposes, provided by the local baron and village chief based on previous tax revenues and harvesting figures. It was a cheap way for farmers to obtain more arable land, assuming they were willing to clear it out themselves, but it also increased their tax burden, whether the new land produced viable crops or not. It wasn’t the kind of request a farmer would make unless they had the financial freedom to take the risk. Especially not this request.
“Why here, of all places? That’s so far away.”
The location described in the permit was within the mountains toward the east of the village, wholly separate from any of the other plots the Justina family tilled. Comparing the permit with the map Emeralda gave her, it would be a half-day’s journey from here on foot.
“Hmmm?”
It thoroughly confused Emi. She rifled back through the pages she read before. There, among a sheaf of irrigation-facility titles, she discovered another permit mixed in—this one for a shed. It was located right where this new, unknown field was.
“I…I never once heard of this place.”
As far as her childhood memories told her, all the Justina family’s lands were within a fifteen-minute walk of this house—fifteen minutes for a child, even. As far as she knew, Nord was strictly a wheat farmer—that, plus a few chickens he raised in a nearby coop so he could sell the eggs. So what’s with this field located outside the village entirely? What did he have this shed built for?
Emi leaped to her feet, grabbed the agricultural journal she had spent yesterday reading cover to cover, and flipped back to the dates written on the permits. Slowly, she pored through that time period again.
“He harvested nothing… He didn’t even plant anything. But…”
On a page dated three days after the shed permit, she spotted something she had overlooked at first—something in tiny, tiny text.
“Nine… The number nine?”
She thought at first it was just a mistake or a quick memo jotted down. Now the full meaning of this number dawned on her. It couldn’t have been a coincidence. The Yesod Sephirah, the core of Alas Ramus and the Better Half, was the ninth Sephirah that grew on the Tree of Life.
Emi touched her chest with her hand, unable to restrain her rapid pulse.
“Alas Ramus?”
“Mph…”
Alas Ramus was apparently taking an afternoon nap inside her. But she couldn’t wait. She had to know what this meant now.
Suddenly, Emi turned toward the sky, even now streaked with the color of evening. She had two days until Emeralda would come calling. The field was half a day’s journey away. If she’d have to engage in another wide-range search over there, she might not make it back in time for their rendezvous. But waiting for Emeralda and taking her along seemed out of the question—not with the cover story her friend was bound by.
“…Guess I’ll have to fly over.”
As long as she didn’t go too quickly, she didn’t think mere flight would arouse the attention of her “enemies.”
“This isn’t Japan, anyway. Here, holy magic’s getting used all over the place.”
It was used to power the lights at night in Saint Aile’s cities, for one. It also saw use in a vast array of categories, from magic-driven weapon forging to the sanctified crops Suzuno brought into Devil’s Castle in Sasazuka. The culture of magic was much more advanced on the Western Island than elsewhere, too—it consumed 30 percent more of it yearly than the rest of the islands combined.
Considering the time she’d be aloft and the position Emeralda was in, extending her stay here posed far more problems than quibbling over whether to use magic or not.
“…I kind of promised Chiho, too,” Emi said to herself as she looked at the beloved Relax-a-Bear wristwatch on her left arm. She had left it on for the trip so she could compare the passage of time on Ente Isla with that on Earth.
It was a miracle, perhaps, but it seemed to her that the two planets operated roughly on the same day-night schedule, accounting for time-zone differences. And Chiho and Emi’s birthday party was scheduled for September 12, Earth time.
“No point breaking that promise.”
Emi tucked the two permits into her knapsack, then began packing up the rest of her open equipment.
“Hope I can stop by again real quick before I go,” she said before stepping out the front door. She gave her home another look. By and large, it looked just as it did in more peaceful times. Her lips tensed up.
Maybe she could have Emeralda build the Gate back home in the sky above her house. They were due to meet up here anyway.
“I’ll be back.”
Her body slowly floated into the air, and soon she was off, flying toward a new destination far from her home village.
Judging by her map, the mystery area was located in a mountain glen covered in broad-leaf trees. She thought it was untouched by man at first, but apparently it served as a seasonal hunting ground as well. The remains of several settlements—inns and meat-processing houses, no doubt—could be seen at the base of the hill. They were abandoned and unmanned now, but she still managed to find a map in one of them that seemed to describe the path up the mountain.
She had pictured something of a secret forest sanctuary, but judging by the ledgers left in the abandoned inn she found, it actually played host to a fair number of hunters when the season rolled around. Perhaps her father was simply trying to enter the hunting-lease business when he wasn’t busy with the harvest. Hopefully not just that, she thought—but given how many joint-controlled hunting cottages tended to dot land-leases like these, owning one of them could earn you some decent side income from the hunter’s guilds.
“Maybe he was more of a businessman than I thought…”
These new insights, something she could only know about now that she was grown up, filled Emi with complex emotions.
“But he applied for a new field and a shed, didn’t he? I don’t see what that has to do with hunting…”
Regardless, it was the first real lead she had to go on. She had to go up and investigate for herself.
So she pushed her way into the mountain, only to find a narrow dirt trail that was a climbing path in name only. She wasn’t expecting the kind of well-kept hiking paths you’d find in Japanese tourist sites, but it seemed to wind endlessly though the vast thickets that covered the mountain. Once the sun set, an amateur climber would have trouble figuring out whether he was going up or down, even. Even now, in the daylight, the trees in this primeval forest kept much light from getting through.
She could sense life all around her. No formal hunting had taken place since the Devil King’s Army, so the path was blocked by foliage in many places. Large animals, the likes of which would never be spotted anywhere near Japan’s public paths, often loomed ahead in the distance. It made the climbing effort seem to go on forever. Wild animals were nothing Emi couldn’t easily handle, but she was the intruder here—she wanted to avoid hurting any innocent creatures she didn’t have to.
“Maybe it’d be better if I scoped it out from above…or maybe not.”
Emi wiped the sweat from her brow as she looked upward. The vibrant branches of all the deciduous trees surrounding her were what made this forest so dim. They would block any potential overhead view of the ground.
“I hope I can find this today,” a nervous Emi told herself as she compared Emeralda’s area map with the one she took from the inn.
The mountain was enormous, for one. For two, the permits described the plot of land in words only—and her current map offered no pertinent clues. Once the sun went down, she’d have to call off the search—and she couldn’t camp out in this forest loaded with vicious beasts. She’d have to return to the base.
“The fifth checkpoint on the south face… That’s still a lot of terrain to cover, and it’s not like they maintained this path. There’s no telling where that even is. I think I’ve gone up a fair distance, but…”
Emi had started her climb from the west, but it wasn’t as though the cardinal directions were clearly marked on this mountain.
Then:
“Hmm? What is it? What’s up all of a sudden? …Huh? You want to go out?”
Alas Ramus was calling for her in her mind.
“O-okay, okay, wait a minute… Oof!”
The act bewildered Emi, but she summoned Alas Ramus nonetheless. She tried to hang on to her, but the child was having nothing of it.
“This way, Mommy!” she said as she slipped out of Emi’s hands and toddled forward.
“W-wait! Alas Ramus?!”
“Come on, Mommy! This way!”
The child almost sounded irritated as she turned back around, still proceeding down the narrow path. Emi didn’t have to worry about losing her, at least, but it was still cause for surprise.
“Alas Ramus, wait a minute! Where’re you going? Let me put some bug spray on you, at least…”
Emi had the children’s insect repellent in hand as she hurried along the trail. She had the foresight to dress her in pants and a long-sleeved shirt, but there was no end of things to worry her. What if a mosquito found an open spot? What if all that running made her diaper fall out of position?
The only certain thing was that Alas Ramus was a girl on a mission. She seemed to know exactly where she was going, running through a forest that offered no notable landmarks to navigate by. It went on for what must have been fifteen minutes or so.
Finally, she stopped at the base of a large tree by the side of the trail.
“Wh-what was that about…?”
Emi managed to keep up with her well enough, giving her a chance to scope out the tree. It was large, certainly, but it was still just one out of the thousands of trees that enveloped this mountain. There was nothing special looking about it, no rare foliage or unusual size. There was only one difference from the others surrounding it.
“It’s dead, huh?”
Looking up, Emi couldn’t find a single leaf remaining on the branches that spread wide above. The moss and ivy growing around its trunk would never find purchase on a living tree.
“What’s up with this tree, Alas Ramus?”
The little girl nodded at the question, looking up at the towering tree herself. “Here!” she said—and then she went inside the trunk.
“…Huh?”
It took a few moments for Emi to realize what had happened. With a faint light, Alas Ramus’s tiny body was absorbed by the dead tree’s trunk, like some kind of teleportation magic trick.
“A-Alas Ramus? H-hey, come back here!”
Emi tried to take the child back into her own body.
“…Alas Ramus? Hello…?”
But she didn’t return. The Holy Silver that formed the sword within her showed no sign of coming back. Calling for her produced nothing but silence.
“Are… Are you kidding me? What’s going on, Alas…?”
Just as Emi was about to go into full panic mode, she heard something.
“Mommy, you ready yet?”
Alas Ramus, looking completely unperturbed, stuck just her head out of the tree. A white, misty light formed the border between her body and the trunk of the tree, a little purple light coming out of her forehead.
“Alas Ramus!”
“Mommy, over here. You can go in. Hurry!”
Then she sunk her body back into the tree.
“What do you mean, I can go in…?”
The child was safe, but the flustered Emi didn’t know what to do with her. Gingerly, she touched the tree’s trunk.
“It’s just a tree.”
It felt exactly like a dead tree. Even when she applied a little force, there was no sign she could just waft through like Alas Ramus.
“A-Alas Ramus, come back! I can’t go in there!”
This time, there was no response to her pleading.
“What are you…? What’s even going on here…?”
Emi crouched down to examine the tree’s base, where she last saw Alas Ramus. Touching it, it felt exactly the same as before. Then she realized something. The child’s head glowed purple when she stuck her head out just now. That glow came from the Yesod fragment at her core.
“Is, is that what it is…?”
Alas Ramus and her Better Half sword were already inside the dead tree. That left two fragments for Emi to work with: the Cloth of the Dispeller and the one that used to be engraved on the sheath of the jeweled sword that belonged to Camio, the Devil Regent.
Emi took out a small bottle with the fragment inside, the keychain of sorts she had made with parts from Tokyu Hand not long ago. She instilled it with holy energy, not sure if it would work at all or not.
“Agh!”
She had only put in a little, fearful of angelic detection, but the fragment inside the bottle fired a beam of purple light straight into the middle of the tree trunk.
“Um, is this what you need?” Emi asked nervously as she placed a hand on the point it lit up. It went right through without any resistance.
“Ahhh…!”
At the same time, Emi felt a powerful force pulling her into the tree. In an instant, there was no more trace of her.
“Owww…”
Between the load on her back and the complete lack of resistance, Emi found herself tumbling to the ground in very un-Heroic fashion. The ground smelled earthen to her, wrinkling her face as she slowly rose.
The sight before her made Emi gasp. Beyond the light of the tree, there was a path. A rough one, trodden mostly by animals—but it was lined with well-kept trees at regular intervals, like a sidewalk in Tokyo. Nothing was natural about it.
“Hi, Mommy! Hurry!”
Alas Ramus was a little ways ahead, waving furiously at Emi. She was glad the child was safe, but her face hardened quickly afterward as she proceeded forward. Once she was sure Emi was on her way, Alas Ramus continued on.
This path had to be connected to her parents somehow. The mere fact that Alas Ramus and Emi’s Yesod fragment sniffed it out was ample proof of that. Time seemed to pass here, just as it did outside the dead tree’s light. Emi moved on, holding the Yesod fragment to her head like a flashlight in the darkness. It was a quiet trail—no birds, no insects, no other creatures—nothing to stay her pace for the next five or so minutes.
Once she did, she suddenly discovered an open space that housed a single small shed. The land next to it had been plowed—the remains of a field, perhaps. Several trees bearing edible fruit were planted in it, trees the likes of which Emi never spotted outside. Nobody was around, and it looked as though nobody had been for a fair while, but it still made Emi’s heart race like it never had before during this trip.
The sun was already threatening to disappear entirely beneath the horizon. In its place, two moons and a fleet of bright stars were taking their places in the night sky, just as they would have outside. From their positions, Emi could tell she was on the mountain’s south face, where her father’s land was.
“Mommy?”
Alas Ramus was waiting at the shed door. Emi put the Yesod fragment in her pocket and walked up to her. “Alas Ramus,” she found herself asking, “what is this?”
She had, after all, made a beeline for this shed from the outside—but the answer she had was beyond all expectation.
“It’s not your house, Mommy?”
“…What made you think that?”
It sounded more like an accusation than a question. Emi hated herself for phrasing it that way.
This was something she constantly thought about—why Alas Ramus called her “Mommy” in the first place. She had likely been born in the Devil’s Castle that Maou built in the Central Continent. The only link between her and Emi was the other Yesod fragment Emi happened to possess. And yet she was “Mommy.”
She had no idea the answer to that concern would come at her so suddenly.
“It smells like you, Mommy.”
The answer felt all too cruel to Emi.
“It…smells like me…?”
The sky seemed so high above, the view from this mountain face so wide and majestic. But it all made Emi’s heart wither. Just as it had on the day she was separated from her dear, beloved father.
“…Um, Alas Ramus?”
“Yehh?”
“Could you tell me what…Mommy’s name is?”
“Mommy’s name?”
Alas Ramus gave Emi a quizzical look for a moment, then opened her mouth.
“Laila.”
When Alas Ramus had dropped down on Villa Rosa Sasazuka, she immediately called Maou her “Daddy” on the spot. But when asked who “Mommy” was, all she did was point at Emi.
Emi recalled the scant few months she had spent with Alas Ramus. She had called her “Mommy,” but not once had she ever called her by her given name.
There was, of course, no doubt that Emi was the “Mommy” that Alas Ramus loved with all her heart. But from the moment she came to Japan, “Laila” had been watching Emi from behind her back.
And if Satan, the Devil King, was “Daddy” to Alas Ramus… If Emi’s mother Laila was “Mommy” to her…
“It was my mother…who saved him back then…”
It involved the past of Sadao Maou, the past he discussed with her on the Ferris wheel in Tokyo Big-Egg Town. She had already suspected it at that point, but having it thrust out like this made it a herculean effort to even remain upright. Her knees shook.
“That…stupid Devil King,” came the shaky voice, pointed at a nonexistent Maou. “The hell do you mean, ‘nobody you know’?”
That was the answer Maou had when Emi asked who saved his life in his early years: “Nobody you know.” No, she didn’t know her mother. She didn’t even know Laila, this angel. The only thing she did know was that this Laila was the only mother she had.
“All this pain… It’s like everyone’s been seeing through me. Like they’re trying to make it easier.”
But no matter how much she moaned about it, everything Emi had seen up to this moment led her to a single truth: Her mother had saved the young Devil King Satan’s life, Satan grew up and invaded Ente Isla, and so indirectly, she was responsible for ruining the happiness, the very lives, of Emi herself, her father, and countless others.
“I…”
Emi wasn’t stupid enough to attempt to shoulder all the blame for everything her mother did, unbeknownst to her. Laila’s motivations remained a question mark to her—and to Maou, back on Earth—but she couldn’t have been operating without a script. So what purpose was there to rescuing a young Satan?
“…”
“Mommy, what is it?”
Emi turned her eyes down upon Alas Ramus—the child born from a Yesod fragment that Laila had given to Maou. Maybe she did that to ensure Alas Ramus was born in this world. But not only was Maou totally oblivious to Alas Ramus’s existence until somewhat recently—he barely even recalled having the fragment.
“But…”
She recalled the day she, Emeralda, Albert, and Olba stormed Devil’s Castle on the Central Continent.
The purple light her holy sword emitted was a guiding light, she thought, leading her directly to her ultimate destiny. The legend of this light had been passed down across generations in the Church, linked to the Holy Silver that formed her sword and Cloth. Now, she knew that the light was simply the pre–Alas Ramus Yesod fragment pulling Emi’s own toward it.
“…Huh?”
Thinking things over this far, Emi stumbled upon another discovery. The “guiding light” of Church tradition was simply the side effect of two Yesod fragments attracting each other. What would have happened, then, if Emi had slain the Devil King back on that day?
“Would I ever have run into you?”
“Oo?”
Emi peered intently at Alas Ramus’s forehead.
If she had killed Satan with her sword and that guiding light didn’t meekly fade away afterward, it likely would’ve blown Emi’s mind at the time. It would’ve turned everything she had been taught upside down—she would’ve kept following the light. And if she did, and tracked it down to Alas Ramus’s fragment…
“Would we have…fused like this, then?”
The fusion between the Better Half and Alas Ramus was just a happy accident that took place during her battle against Gabriel on Earth—or so she had thought. But thinking about it—Alas Ramus had taken her sword, crumpled it up, and eaten it, all of her own volition. Two fragments attracting each other, just like Alas Ramus had attracted her sword and Cloth back there.
“My mother Laila…scattering all these broken fragments around… But is she trying to bring them back together over time?”
For what?
Come to think of it, Emi had no idea what the Yesod Sephirah even looked like—its size or its shape. There was no way to tell how many fragments there were. And if the Sephirah was torn apart by unknown means, there was no telling who could have done the task, and how. These were jewels fabled to form the cores of entire worlds—could you really make one shatter, like a porcelain coffee mug?
Not even Laila, Emi thought, was brash enough to do all of this by herself from the start. The presence of a single unclaimed fragment was enough to make the guardian angel Gabriel and archangel Sariel go into a frenzy to track it down. She had to have an accomplice—and if so, it had to be someone in heaven, someone close to her.
But who?
Based on the events Raguel triggered at Tokyo Tower, Laila was clearly no longer welcome in the heavenly realm. Unfortunately, though, the only similar case Emi could think of was the fallen angel Lucifer, better known these days as Hanzou Urushihara.
Hang on, though…
“…Nah. No way.”
Emi felt safe dismissing the idea out of hand. Not because Urushihara was so different from the other angels, nor because he lived like an unemployed college dropout. It was that, if he was aiding and abetting Laila’s little Yesod game, he would’ve reacted a lot differently to Emi’s sword and Alas Ramus.
She had fought Lucifer on the Western Island and in Sasazuka with the Better Half, and on both occasions, Lucifer didn’t act like the Better Half was anything besides this really powerful weapon the humans had. When Alas Ramus showed up at the Devil’s Castle in Sasazuka, it seemed as though he was just as harried by the group’s new child-rearing responsibilities as Maou and Ashiya.
“So somebody I don’t know…?”
Emi sighed. She was running out of threads to traverse. But this experience was still fruitful for her.
If Laila was the one who saved the young Satan—Maou—that meant she was active all the way over in the demon realms. There might be other fragments over there. And if her mission was to bring the fragments back together (Emi couldn’t guess why yet), the Church tales surrounding the holy sword and Cloth of the Dispeller were lies, retellings of the truth packaged by Laila over her long life in a way humans could more easily digest.
And more than anything else:
“My father knew all of it.”
The memories granted to Chiho. Of her father, and of a second holy sword.
When the Church arrived to take Emi away before her village was destroyed, Nord told her that her mother was still alive, somewhere. And even without that evidence, there was simply no way into this realm she was in now without a Yesod fragment. That alone proved Nord knew everything about Laila his whole life.
He must’ve applied for those permits simply as a pretense, so he’d have a provable motive for bringing the farming tools and construction equipment he needed into the mountain. Whether he actually intended to use this field and shed or not, the village and its governing baron didn’t care. If he paid his taxes, all was well. They wouldn’t bother sending an inspector to survey such a tiny strip of land yearly, either. Even if they did, all a normal person would find was uncleared forestland with a dead tree in it. They’d assume Nord failed to cultivate it, and that would be that.
“That…and now I know something else, too.”
Emi reflected back on the single path she traced on her way to the dead tree.
“My mother was the one who really ‘made’ this place.”
Her father was no master-level sorcerer—that much she was sure of. Even if he was, not even Emeralda could likely build a space locked away to everyone except Yesod fragment holders. So:
“I need to comb this place. There’s got to be some secret behind my parents to find here.”
She had discovered no answer, no shining path out of the complex maze of truths she was lost in. But she couldn’t lie down and say uncle now. She had an enormous hint dangling in front of her.
“‘Nobody I know,’ huh…?”
Emi realized that, as she traversed that maze of thoughts, the shaking in her body had stopped.
“I haven’t discovered anything yet… Not the truth, at least.”
She didn’t need to wallow in despair yet. Not until she found her answer.
“Well, better start by ransacking this shed, I guess!” she shouted, drumming herself forward in an attempt to brighten her mood. “Let’s go, Alas… Um, Alas Ramus?”
She was out of sight again.
“Alas Ramus! Where are you?”
No answer.
“Oh no!”
This was steppe land poised on top of a steep mountainside. There were no fences keeping people from toppling over the far edge. Emi’s face turned pale. Did she fall off while she wasn’t paying attention? There was no concern about her wandering far away, and Alas Ramus could fly whenever she wanted to anyway, but could she exercise those powers when she needed to? That was hard to say. But if she hurt herself off the steppe…
Emi stepped behind the shed to kick off her search. It didn’t take long.
“Oh, is that where you were?”
She spotted the girl from behind as she stood in place. It made her breathe a sigh of relief.
“Come on, Alas Ramus. Time to go back inside.”
No response.
“Alas Ramus? What is it?”
Still no response. Emi walked up to her, only to discover what Alas Ramus was staring at.
“Did they plant something here?”
The passage of time had led to all manner of weeds covering it, but on the ground before Alas Ramus was a visible depression, as though someone had buried something large down below.
“…Aceth.”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“…Aceth…Aceth!”
“Huh?”
“Mommy…where’s Aceth?”
“Um, Aceth?”
“Aceth! Where’s Aceth?” she shouted, staring right at the depression. “Mommy, Aceth! Here! Aceth was here! But she’s gone! Why?!”
“H-hey, calm down a second, Alas Ramus! Who’s Aceth…?”
Emi couldn’t hide her concern for the child’s sudden transformation. But she could tell something important was about to happen. Whenever Alas Ramus grew this talkative, whenever she started using this unfamiliar terminology, whenever she exhibited these sudden mood swings…
It always had to do with the Sephirah.
She tried her best to divine the proper name Alas Ramus was having trouble pronouncing correctly.
“Alas Ramus? When you say ‘Aceth’… do you mean Acieth Alla?”
The term had appeared from her father’s memories in the field, the ones replayed from Laila to Chiho and from Chiho to her. Nord said it himself. Acieth Alla. The “Bladed Wing,” in the Centurient language. Emi had assumed it was the name of the “other holy sword” she had heard about.
But now Alas Ramus had just used it. Called it a “she.” Said she was “here.”
And Emi had already seen someone, or something, of the same nature as Alas Ramus before. It was Erone, a child born from the Sephirah known as Gevurah. So what was Acieth Alla, this presence with the same “wing” reference in her name as Alas Ramus?
“What’s the name of the child born from the Yesod Sephirah?”
“Aceth! I came from it! Aceth! Where’s Aceth?!”
Alas Ramus all but cried out for someone, or something, that wasn’t there.
If Maou could be believed here, Alas Ramus would have been born from a Yesod fragment buried in soil. Emi could easily imagine the fragment that formed Acieth Alla being buried under this depression. And considering how much time had passed since anyone had been here:
“Alas Ramus… I’m sorry, but I don’t think she’s here anymore—”
“No! Mommy, find Aceth! I smell Aceth! She’s here!”
“Please, Alas Ramus, calm down. I’m sure Acieth went off somewhere, just like Erone did.”
Alas Ramus wasn’t having any of it. She had demonstrated her own will before, deactivating the Better Half by herself against Emi’s will during the encounter with Erone. But now, as she sought Acieth Alla’s presence, she seemed even more severe with Emi.
“Mommy, please, Aceth…”
“Alas Ramus…”
She was no normal toddler, to be sure, but never before had Alas Ramus been so stubborn with Emi. She couldn’t figure out what to do with her, so she reached out for her, attempting to pick her up and give her a reassuring hug.
“Mommy!”
For reasons only she knew, Alas Ramus used her tiny hands to grasp both of Emi’s outstretched arms.
“Let’s look together!”
“Huh? Together… Huh?! Wh-whoa, Alas…!”
Emi was in no position to stop her. Alas Ramus’s forehead gradually glowed brighter and brighter, creating a purple moon in the air.
“Aceeeetttthhh!!”
With that scream, Emi’s vision was bathed in purple and white.
“Wh-why did this have to happen?!” Emi shouted as she tore down the mountain. She had to get out of there, as soon as possible. Her mind couldn’t decide whether to abandon her belongings or not, but her body was frantically taking her downhill, her head warily watching the skies above.
Alas Ramus couldn’t have been more reckless. Amid her screaming for Acieth Alla, she had manifested Emi’s Better Half sword—at its final, most powerful level, now that Emi was back in Ente Isla. Holy magic, at a level she had never felt before, flowed out of it, and the circle of Yesod light that shot up from the spot could’ve easily been spotted from several dozen miles away.
Now was no time to worry about her knapsack. Or, really, about her regrouping with Emeralda. The Better Half, and Alas Ramus’s outburst, emitted a shocking amount of energy—and Emi didn’t like her chances that it would go undetected by anyone. So she ran. Without having a chance to explore either the shed or the flat space that surrounded it.
Everybody currently opposing her in the struggle over Yesod fragments now knew who she really was, and where she came from. There would be no going back to Sloane for her.
“…Not here. Aceth not here. Why…?”
Alas Ramus was bawling inside Emi’s mind. Such a burst of holy energy, even in a land as vast as Ente Isla, would have picked up on other Yesod fragments—apparently she couldn’t find any reaction from Acieth Alla’s.
“Mommy, I’m sorry… I’m sorry.”
Then the child must’ve grasped what she had just done. She apologized to Emi again and again, voice still strained from the tears.
“It’s fine, all right? I’m not angry with you! It’s not your fault, Alas Ramus!”
Emi blindly leaped from the smaller cliffs, letting the branches of passing trees slap her in the face and body, all but snapping them in half as she ran downward.
“Acieth Alla’s just as important to you as Erone and Malchut, isn’t she?”
“…Yeh.”
“You’ve been aching to see her for ages, haven’t you?! You’ve been alone all that time! Ever since you got separated from the tree of Sephirot!”
“…Yeh.”
“…I’m with you, okay? Mommy’s with you!”
“Mommy…too?”
“Yes! …Ugh, screw this!”
Emi had had enough of her knapsack. It slowed her down too much. She tossed it, and everything inside, to the ground. Not having to carry around Alas Ramus’s baby stuff, as well as the best camping gear and food modern Japan could offer, gave her an extra burst of speed as she continued downward. The only real “equipment” she had left was the smartphone in her pants pocket, meant for Idea Link communication with Suzuno and Chiho in Japan.
“I was alone all that time, too… I spent all that time searching. Because even if she’s my enemy…even if I hate her enough to kill her…I still want to see her!!”
It was as though Emi’s screaming was what allowed her to zoom down the mountain at superhuman speed. The trail began to widen for her, the slope growing easier to handle. Before long, they were back at the hunter’s inn. There, making sure no one was near, she deployed Heavenly Fleet Feet and started to run. The skies, the land, it didn’t matter. Any destination was fine, as long as it wasn’t related to her past.
No more meeting up with Emeralda. No more keeping her promise to Chiho. No more returning to Japan, even. But Emi still couldn’t chide Alas Ramus for what she had done. She didn’t want to. Because there was someone she wanted to see. Someone she didn’t have to hide her true nature from. Someone who knew the real her.
Outside of her involvement with the Tree of Sephirot, Alas Ramus acted like any other toddler would. There was no way to yell at her about it. Not when Emi considered how long she had been all alone in that Yesod fragment core—since back when Devil King Satan was barely a newborn.
Right now, she had to get away before the “enemy” found her. She could beat any enemy she ran into—but if Ente Isla was the battlefield, her foes would likely be much stronger than they were in Japan, just like how it worked with her. Depending on who showed up, she might not be able to go easy on them—and that would neatly broadcast to all of Ente Isla that the Hero Emilia was here. It would intensify the struggle over Emi and her Better Half, making it even more of a violent confrontation than before.
Emeralda and Albert would have to become involved. And the Church wouldn’t be an idle spectator, either. Once their leaders knew Emilia was back, the fallout might prove to threaten Suzuno back on Earth. And if she was in danger, then Chiho, Rika, and everyone else in Japan were dramatically more so.
If she ran into the enemy right now, that was it. There would no longer be any safe space for Emi and Alas Ramus, either in Japan or in Ente Isla. There would be no discovering the truth, or attending birthday parties, after that.
For now, she had to hide. So she ran. Even if the “enemy” found her, she couldn’t let the public discover her.
Then she stopped.
“What…?!”
It was just as she tried to cross the central plaza in front of the inn…
“Mommy…?”
Emi had no words for the nervous question.
The air was shimmering across the entirety of the inn’s length, like a hole in the air or a crack in the ground. The very space was crumbling before her, like a dilapidated cityscape.
“A Gate…”
Emi gritted her teeth. She was out of time. The enemy had the slip on her. She had never expected they’d use a Gate and this massive array of fighters to pursue a simple Yesod fragment.
The first to emerge from the giant crack in the air was a group clad in the armor of Efzahan’s knight corps from the Eastern Island. They all wore armbands of light green inside a white frame, identifying them as Knights of the Inlain Jade Scarves. They surrounded her from all sides like she was an escaped animal, keeping their distance as they pointed spears at her.
“Ngh…”
Emi raised her hands up, attempting to summon her Better Half even as Alas Ramus was still sobbing inside. She was stopped by a voice among the Jade legion:
“It’d be better for your health if you stopped, Emilia.”
She stopped breathing.
“Yes, you could easy annihilate both myself and all the soldiers you see before you. But…”
“But somethin’ tells me you’d regret it afterward, huh?”
Two men, looking markedly different from each other, stepped out from the squadron. One was an old man sporting a tonsure and a stiff, rigid robe. The other was a younger man wearing a leather jacket with English lettering and a hairstyle that could only be described as an Afro.
“Olba…” Emi begrudgingly groaned. “Raguel…!”
“Ahh, quit acting so scared, lady!” Raguel shrugged. “We can’t really just stroll on over here unprepared after that light show you just busted out, y’know? Of course we’re gonna open a Gate.”
“Indeed. We wouldn’t want to be…beaten to the punch.”
Olba flashed an inscrutable smile—just as he had when he traveled alongside Emi; just as he had when he stood before her at Sasazuka as her enemy.
She glared at the tonsured head and the Afro.
“…So what’s a traitorous archbishop and the angel of judgment doing here with all these Efzahan lackeys? That team-up makes absolutely no sense to me.”
“What do you think, lady?” the wholly unaffected Raguel fired back, answering the question with another, more disparaging one.
“Well,” Emi began, sizing up her foes, “if the Church and the heavens want me to join the struggle to free Efzahan from Barbariccia’s control, I might be willing to listen to you.”
Olba and Raguel paused, flashing surprised glances at each other.
“I would say,” Olba intoned, “you’re closer than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yeah,” Raguel said, interrupting the current staredown, “well, we’re not exactly here to strip your Yesod fragments from you, like I was in Japan. Assuming you’re willing to cooperate, that is. The situation’s changed a little bit, so… Emilia Justina, we need you to join us in Efzahan.”
“No, thanks,” Emi instantly replied.
Olba and Raguel, expecting this, didn’t move an inch.
“Why not, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Ask your own heart. Try to recall what you guys did to Japan. You’re willing to do all kinds of evil deeds for the sake of your mission, hurting untold numbers of people along the way. How could you guys ever dare to claim you’re legitimate?”
“Mm,” rumbled Olba. “I see. Stands to reason, I suppose.”
“Yeah, can’t really make excuses about that. But you’re still gonna have to come with us, all right? We can’t really take no for an answer.”
“Say whatever you will. I’m already booked for the month. If you wanna keep having these stupid playground squabbles, go invite the Devil King to join you if you want.”
Then Emi unleashed her Better Half, a physical personification of her iron will.
“You’re right, Olba. If I truly wanted to, I could wipe all of you off the planet. I have no reason to hesitate doing that. Get out of my way. If you do…”
Emi was a hairsbreadth away from readying her sword for battle. She never made it.
“What’s that…?”
Suddenly, the air around them began to vibrate. It was as though somebody had set off an explosion, far away—but they couldn’t see any such destruction in the visible area.
But Emi could feel it. It was far to the west, in the direction of her hometown of Sloane.
“Dark… Is that demonic energy?!”
It was nothing angelic, or human, in nature. Only a denizen of the demon realms could wield it. And the shock waves from the explosion made it all the way from Sloane’s direction.
Raguel, realizing that Emi had sensed it, flashed a distressingly sinister smile—one no angel should ever show.
“You ever heard of Draghi…um, something? I can never remember the whole thing. You know…from the Malebranche?”
He made a great show out of turning his gaze toward Sloane.
“I told him that the Great Demon General Malacoda met his end around this area. He insisted on joining me. Kept going on about revenge, you know?”
“…No…”
The color drained from Emi’s face.
“I told him not to get violent here. This is the Western Island, and I can’t have him getting killed by the Saint Aile knight corps. They don’t know anything about this, besides. But…you know, if you aren’t willing to listen to us…I can’t be so sure he’ll listen to me, huh?”
It was such a childish threat to lob at the Hero Emilia and all her boundless strength. Naturally, Olba saw fit to expand upon it:
“The Malebranche are demons,” he said. “They cannot hope to harness much dark force here on the Western Island, now that it has started to rebuild. But he certainly has enough strength to render a certain abandoned, forgotten village nonexistent.”
It was doubtful Emi would ever forget the devil Olba exposed from his heart then, as he addressed her, even if it was hidden behind his expressionless face.
“Emilia. If I recall, your one dream in life was to restore your father’s fields, was it not?”
“O…Olba, you…how could you be so…?!”
“I actually paid a visit over there just now. Your father must have been cultivating some very hardy strains, wasn’t he?”
The tip of the holy sword shrank back, its power draining.
“Well?” Raguel asked. She couldn’t answer. Her mind raced, but she just couldn’t come up with anything. Even if she shook Raguel and Olba off and shot herself over to Sloane, destroying a field and a human dwelling would be about as challenging for them as flicking a speck of dust off Raguel’s jacket.
Olba would have known Emi’s residence. She had showed it to him when they stopped by Sloane on the way to defeating Satan. There was only a little wheat left then, and without her father around she assumed there was no hope, that the field would never grow back again. The ensuing dreams she had on Earth made her cry every time—the smell of the wheat, the golden hue, the calm, peaceful life she had with her father in her homeland.
A single tear fell from her eye.
“I, I…”
The name of the Hero was a symbol of hope for all mankind. The true mark of justice. That was what she was told, and it rewarded her with nothing but a bloodstained past. But her companions—Emeralda, Albert, and Olba—all realized that her true motivation for fighting the Devil King’s Army was gaining revenge for her father.
Then, in the morning light, she saw the frozen moment of her childhood spring into action again. She gained hope that her father might be alive. Hope that the wheat she had raised with him might survive. Hope that she could move on from the tearful moment she was separated from him. Now, it was all falling apart.
Revenge would have been easy. Whether they torched the field or not, she could have flown into a rage of hatred and tore apart Olba, Raguel, the Jade Scarves, and the Malebranche undoubtedly stationed in Sloane. But that would be the end of it. There would be nothing else for her.
It was just some wheat in a field. But to Emi, it was a ray of hope, one that she had placed her dreams upon from a young age, hoping against hope that it could all come back.
It was all too easy to break Emi’s heart.
“What…should I do?”
Was this the heart of the Hero who had saved the world from oblivion?
As if to symbolize the meltdown, the Better Half in her hand shrank down until it was smaller than even when she deployed it in Japan, before finally disappearing.
“We told you, lady! Just follow us, and it’ll all be good.”
“…If I follow you, will you leave my village alone?”
“Of course. And like I said before, we’re not tryin’ to hurt you or anything. I’m just sayin’, if you do anything weird like resist us or run back to Japan or whatever, that might not be the case any—”
“…I’m not going to do that.”
“Oh? Well, lovely.” Raguel and Olba gave each other satisfied smiles and raised their arms in an at-ease signal to the squadron.
“You ready, then?”
Emi nodded, meekly walking toward the Gate. For just a moment, right at the lip of the portal, she glanced back at the mountain she had just run down.
“…I’m sorry,” she whispered into the air, before following Raguel’s lead into the light of the Gate.
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