The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 1

by Satoshi Wagahara

  “…Ah, well. Not like they’re the only kids dressed up all goofy over there.”

  The man no longer spoke, apparently satisfied with what he had told them. Soon, Satan and Alciel were taken to a place referred to only as “the station,” a building apparently meant for the enforcement of laws in this kingdom.

  They were taken to a room within this building for investigation purposes, and there the Devil King and his general were able to recover at least some of their grandeur. Satan unleashed a bout of hypnosis magic upon the investigating officer, seeking to extract as much information about this world as he could. It seemed that, no matter what world one found himself in, the nobility and military men swaggering around the castle were always of far weaker wills than any stalwart man of battle.

  As the hypnotized officer revealed, the pair of demons were on a world called “Earth,” within an island nation known as “Japan.” They had come to this world near “Harajuku,” an outpost on a transport network known as the “railroad” that had been installed around “Tokyo,” the nation’s capital region.

  Things like magic, magical force, Devil Kings, even demons themselves, were all treated as imaginary things in this world, mere flights of fancy that could never actually exist. Magic was something the denizens of the demon world harnessed to exert their wills upon the world, similar to the forces of gravity or magnetism, but there was no way to access this magic if it did not exist in the first place.

  “So you’re saying we’ve…lost our magical powers?”

  Alciel threw himself upon a chair, unable to wrap his mind around it.

  “…Ah, but, Your Demonic Highness, you just…”

  “I have a small amount of residual force left. It’s proving difficult to keep it from flowing out of me, though…”

  The Devil King and his demonic subjects were able to accumulate a vast amount of magical power within their bodies. Even though his stores had been drained in combat with the Hero, Satan still retained several times as much magic as Alciel could ever hope to. It was that residual force which allowed Satan to bend the officer’s mind.

  “I don’t think it will dry up immediately, as long as I strictly regulate the amount I release. But…”

  But the problem was, there was no way to recharge the force he used.

  His wounds would heal with time, but at this rate, he would never recover his magical skills. Any Gate he could open would be impossible to keep uniform. Not only would he be unlikely to reach Ente Isla; he might uncontrollably blunder into an even more dangerous world.

  Instead of taking such risky bets, he reasoned, it would be wiser to find some other method of survival where he already stood.

  There may be no concept of demons or magic in this realm, but the concepts of gods and piousness seemed fairly sparse as well, which was a comfort. This nation, Japan, apparently had a vast array of official ceremonies for dispelling evil spirits, but it was all a formality, a façade, at this point. It seemed safe to conclude that none of their practitioners held any actual holy powers within themselves.

  As long as they remained in Japan, it seemed unlikely that anyone would attempt to slay these demons. Controlling the officer’s mind, Satan ordered him to complete his investigation and release them from the station without any further meddling.

  Holing up in a narrow alley the streetlights didn’t reach, Satan and Alciel discussed their future plans.

  First, they needed a method to recharge their magic in this world. Achieving this would likely require a lengthy stay, something they had to resign themselves to.

  Failing to find a method—failing to recharge their magic—was, for a demon, even more a threat to their lives than being wholly robbed of the magic.

  The higher-level demons could live without consuming food because they were able to convert magic into bodily energy. A world where magic no longer existed was the same as a barren world with nothing to eat.

  But some demons did eat food. Why? Because doing so allowed them to absorb energy in the same way lesser creatures did.

  To live in this world without a source of magic, they would need to forage for sustenance. Japan apparently used a currency-based economy. They needed money for food.

  But, of course, they lacked any Earth currency.

  “Let me ask you this, Alciel. If you had willed it, could you have escaped those officers?”

  Alciel shook his head stoically. Satan nodded his convinced agreement.

  The two great demons, ones who had set the human race upon their knees, were no longer able to fend for themselves against even a small rabble of them.

  And not because the humans of this world were somehow stronger. The only conclusion to be made was that they had grown that much weaker. That was how bitter, how bruising, the battle against the Hero had grown.

  “So…so we will remain like this…?”

  Alciel winced as he beheld his hand, as if observing some strange and hideous being. The soft, thinly stretched skin. The flat face and disheveled hair. The rounded, unsharpened nails. The muscles that formed their bodies, so flabby and pathetic.

  “It pains me to say it, but our lack of magical force likely makes it impossible to retain our greater demon forms.”

  The form a demon took depended on the level of power instilled within it. Foe-slashing claws, powerful legs that propelled it over castle parapets, leathery wings on its back, snakes for hair—every aspect of its ethereal form ran on magical force.

  “Amazing to think this is how you look when stripped of that power. Perhaps the human form is what lies at the foundation of all life.”

  “Surely you jest, Your Demonic Highness! I hardly bear to even entertain the idea that we house…humans inside of us. It is no doubt some machination placed upon us by this world, or the Gate.”

  “…Regardless. We have other matters to be concerned about.”

  They lacked the magic to summon another Gate. They lacked the strength to overwhelm the humans of this world by force. In other words, if they wished to survive, the only choice was to abide by the human race’s rules in this…Japan.

  Follow human rules. For a Devil King and a Great Demon General, the idea was enough to shatter the very foundations of their pride.

  But this new reality had been thrust upon them—one where they must eat to live, work to eat.

  Shrugging off their unholy demonic robes, the Devil King and the Great Demon General took their first halting steps toward an unknown world.

  From what they gleaned at the station, they knew that living in Japan would require at least two things: a “census registration” and an “address.” Without those, it seemed, they would be unable to acquire the work needed to earn money.

  A “census registration” and “address” were both things one could obtain in a place called a “ward office.” They decided this would be their first mission. Pushing their war-battered bodies forward, they plodded toward the “Shibuya Ward Office,” the nearest one to them… only to find it would not be open until the following morning.

  As miserable as it seemed, Satan and Alciel passed the night in front of the ward office’s door, knees tight against their chests.

  It was a city where the lights were apparently never extinguished, but things grew more animated once morning arrived. Humans strode around in clothing of a thousand different colors. As more and more of the men passing by began to sport uniformlike outfits colored in blacks and darker blues, the Shibuya Ward Office finally opened for business. Rushing toward the window, Satan commandeered the mind of the worker on the other side, one obviously surprised at the sight of these two men. In a few scant moments, they had successfully created something called a “family register” for themselves.

  Their next stop was a “real estate office,” a depot that could arrange living quarters for them.

  Satan and Alciel had become fluent in the human language of Ente Isla within just three days. Now they resolved to do whatever it took to learn this n
ew language, “Japanese,” up to a practical level.

  Noticing the pair’s broken Japanese and bizarre clothing, the real estate agent, assuming they must be rich businessmen from a foreign country, began to politely bombard them with opulent houses at equally eye-popping prices.

  Satan had to explain to the eager agent that they could not live anyplace that required too high of a fee.

  Hypnotism did not consume a great deal of magic power if used only once, but since they would naturally be evicted for failure to pay, life in a full-floor penthouse unit without the salary to match would require continual hypnosis of the landlord. So they told the agent they wanted someplace they could easily afford, one that would allow them the barest minimum of a lifestyle. The agent, more than a bit disappointed, showed them one potential location.

  “The landlord here is a very…shall we say, unique woman.”

  It was a room in an apartment building located within “Sasazuka,” apparently a subsection of Shibuya.

  The rent was 45,000 yen per month, with no deposit, no advance fees, and no guarantor required. It was Room 201 in the sixty-year-old “Villa Rosa Sasazuka” apartments, approximately one hundred square feet, no bath, one toilet per room.

  “The landlord tells me she gives preferential treatment to people like you, who are…if I may say so, unusual? Or from unusual circumstances, I should say.”

  It was an unorthodox sales approach, but if this was all he had to offer, so be it. After a ride in the agent’s “car” (so that was what they called these carriages!), they arrived at a two-floor apartment building in a quiet, almost desolate neighborhood. Plaster was peeling off the walls, and the roof was missing more than a few tiles here and there. The rain gutter attached to the roof had given itself in entirely to its brown, rusted doom, and the stairway to the second floor tilted in several different precarious angles at once. There wasn’t a soul to be seen; all of the rooms were likely empty.

  “This…this is astounding.”

  Alciel groaned to himself.

  “Yes. Even I can see that much.”

  The pair spoke to each other in the demon tongue. As inexperienced as they still were with this world, the utter dilapidation presented to them was still obvious.

  These were, bear in mind, the demon elite, two men who had clawed and struggled their way to the top of the underworld. They had fallen far since, yes, but it was hard to accept living in this hovel during their stay. And if every room was empty, this meant not even the lowly humans would stoop so low as to live here, would they?

  It was simply impossible. Just as Satan turned around to tell the young agent as much, he realized that someone else was standing there instead.

  “Is that…a person?”

  To their demonic sensibilities, it was an utterly enigmatic, strange creature. It was tall, even approaching the height of Alciel, who towered above most others even in human form. The plump, rounded body—the word endowed was not up to the task of describing it—made this creature barely recognizable as a woman.

  A colorful hydrangea headdress was perched upon her hair, dyed a silvery purple and towering toward the sky. A violet stole was tossed over her shoulders, covering a shockingly bright purple summer dress. Every finger on her hands had a large amethyst ring on it, and her high heels were coated in a purple enamel. She had on purple rouge, purple eye shadow, and enough thick snow-white foundation that one could imagine it cracking apart if you slapped her. The light dollop of red cheek blush applied over it seemed to shine as brightly as the sun. The image presented was one of an enormous purple potato that had been peeled in random locations.

  “Hello there! I understand the two of you wish to move in?”

  “It…it talks!”

  Alciel’s instinctive response was understandable, given the daunting sight before them.

  “My name is Miki Shiba, and I’m the owner of Villa Rosa Sasazuka.”

  Still frozen in place, Satan and Alciel could see the real estate agent’s car peel off behind the purple presence in front of them.

  “The name Miki is made up from the characters for ‘beautiful’ and ‘shine.’ Please feel free to call me Mikitty, though.”

  The demons had thought they were beginning to get the hang of spoken Japanese, but something within their instinct made them reject the words being spoken by this puzzling tsunami of intent, this Shiba, before them that called itself a landlord.

  They must keep their distance from her at all costs. They could feel that in their veins, and yet they found themselves being dragged into a room in this beaten-up apartment house, being forced to sign a litany of documents, and receiving a rundown of the nearby facilities.

  “Well, then! Starting today, this will be your little sanctuary! I live in the house adjacent to here, so if you have any questions, please, don’t be afraid to give a holler. See you later, then!”

  The purple hurricane then left. All that remained in the room was the utterly dumbstruck Satan, the equally silent Alciel, and a rental contract onto which a pair of purple lip marks had been pressed.

  They had signed the contract, completely unable to mount any sort of protest. The two of them stood there, their minds blank, waiting to regain their composure so they could reflect over these sudden events.

  The place was a dump, its landlord a nonhuman behemoth. But what other living space would be willing to accept two homeless, unemployed young men, a concept that would send any sane landlord running at first sight? They resigned themselves to their fate, knowing the answer all too well. At the very least, they wouldn’t be rained on.

  So, deep in their hearts, the two demons swore to work hard, make the rent each month, and otherwise have as little to do with their landlord as possible.

  “‘You have to start somewhere,’ as they apparently say around here. Perhaps this is exactly what we need.”

  They were overwhelmed in battle against the Hero, battered by the wild journey across the flows of the Gate, and mentally fatigued by their adventures in an unfamiliar world. Satan, the Devil King, was rapidly expending his magical force, his breathing ragged after only two hypnoses. The sense of extreme exhaustion was like none he had ever tasted.

  So the Devil King fell asleep. And he stayed asleep for three days and three nights, healing his scarred body and drained soul.

  Then, after sleeping three days straight without eating or drinking, Satan was taken to the hospital for malnutrition. The dehydration and vitamin deficiency had immobilized him.

  In order to rescue his master—near death, skin dry and pallid, empty eyes staring aimlessly into space—Alciel had been forced to ask their landlord, Shiba, for help the third day after moving in. He had absolutely no idea what manner of medical facilities to expect in this world.

  Using a long-distance communication device known as a “telephone,” Shiba summoned an “ambulance,” a white car that, again, spat out red light.

  Sitting in a hospital room, watching his bedridden master as an IV drip flowed into his arm, Alciel realized they were akin to the humans of this world not just in external appearance, but internally as well. He started to cry, unable to withstand the humiliation.

  Reality, however, would prove cruel to them in ways that Alciel had yet to anticipate.

  In this world, receiving medical care costs a vast amount of money. There was a public system of sorts, apparently, to reduce individual medical costs, but naturally, neither Satan nor Alciel had enrolled in any such program.

  The medical fees presented to them could only be described as brazen profiteering, something Alciel could understand even with his tentative grasp on the value of this nation’s currency. Once allowed to leave the hospital, Satan was forced to use hypnosis once again to make the bill go away.

  Right now, what they needed over anything else was money. Money earned with methods besides getting arrested or wasting magic.

  That, and the national health system. They needed in on that action, too.

&n
bsp; For the final usage of Satan’s hypnosis, the pair agreed to travel to a “bank” to obtain an account and some monetary resources. Putting the teller under his spell, Satan took ten thousand yen from the employee and used it to open a regular savings account.

  It was completely illegal, but no sensible demon would even flinch at the concept of robbery. The thrill at finally obtaining the seed money for their new lives overcame the nagging impression within Satan’s mind that they were making some kind of mistake.

  The ten thousand yen was used to purchase the food necessary for survival, as well as something called “résumé forms.” A “résumé,” it turned out, was considered indispensable for obtaining employment.

  All they had to do was fill in the required boxes, bring the document to the appropriate place, make an appointment for an “interview,” and parrot out the right answers. Then they’d be able to work.

  There was just one snag. Neither Satan nor Alciel had any special skills that could be easily applied in this nation. Satan could hardly write “Job History: King of the Demon Realm; Hobbies/Abilities: World domination” on his résumé. Thus, the only option was to focus on jobs that touted “Beginners Welcome!” in their notices.

  The two of them sat down and prepared several résumés.

  Holding back the frustration and humiliation, dreaming of the day when they would defeat the Hero and regain their grasp upon all that lived and breathed on Ente Isla, they wrote their names down.

  “Name…‘Sadao Maou.’ Perfect.”

  “Name…‘Shirou Ashiya.’ That doesn’t sound odd, does it?”

  “Little point whining about it now. That’s what we wrote into the census register, no?”

  Thus, Devil King Satan (aka Sadao Maou, the surname of which was written with perfectly ordinary Japanese characters whose pronunciation just happened to be the same as “Devil King”) and Great Demon General Alciel (aka Shirou Ashiya) set off on their quest to reconquer Ente Isla, room 201 at the Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments serving as their Devil Castle for the time being.