The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 15

by Satoshi Wagahara

  Neither Kawata nor Akiko took their eyes off the front door for a while after the mismatched pair left.

  “Take your hands off me! Enough of this! I’m going to call for help!”

  “You’ve attracted quite enough attention already, thank you. And if I see you running back in and continuing with that charade, I will make sure His Demonic Highness informs Ms. Kisaki.”

  “All right! All right! Just let me go!”

  Even at half past ten in the evening, there were still plenty of people hanging around Hatagaya station, most of whom were now watching Ashiya whip Sariel around like a rag doll. Finally regaining his composure, Sariel gave him a hateful glare once he was finally put down, but he simply fixed his clothing, making no sign of running.

  “Ah, what have I done? I suppose the blood must have gone to my head.”

  “Did you have any in there beforehand?”

  “Pfft. Stupid Devil King. Full-time employee training? The thought of him alone with Ms. Kisaki… How repulsive! I knew the Devil King had an obsession about becoming a salaried employee, but was he angling for my goddess this whole time?”

  “Hold it. I will not allow you to engage in wild speculation about my liege. And why do you think they will be alone at all?”

  “What are you talking about?” Sariel snorted. “At times like these, companies have never been more reluctant to bring on more full-time salaried employees. If we are talking about promoting from the hourly ranks, then being invited to training would be unthinkable without the recommendation of a manager. With Sentucky, at least your direct supervisor becomes your training partner, teaching you everything you need to know… Yes, everything… Curse youuuu, Devil King!!!!”

  Sariel had succeeded mainly in making himself angry, but given his status as a full-time SFC manager, his words held some weight. Still, as the Devil King’s right-hand man, Ashiya couldn’t take this sitting down.

  “A word of advice. No matter how you slice it, His Demonic Highness and Ms. Kisaki are not engaged in the kind of liaison you are imagining.”

  “And how would you know?!” the archangel countered, shooting the Great Demon General down. “We’re talking about a man and a woman! You can never predict what kind of infinitesimally small seed could sprout the seedlings of love! The Devil King is Ms. Kisaki’s most trusted of employees, someone trustworthy enough to reveal her own career dreams to! Someone she has worked with on the front lines over thick and thin! Nothing could possibly make me more anxious!”

  “You—you truly believe so?” Ashiya was a little surprised. Sariel seemed to be worried for far more realistic reasons than he had surmised. Based on what everyone from Maou himself to Chiho, Emi, and Suzuno had let on about, he figured the archangel would have some different, more insane concern.

  “I had wanted to ask you, actually…”

  “What?!” Sariel snapped back.

  “What kind of relationship do you even want to build with Ms. Kisaki?”

  “Hmm.” Something changed in Sariel’s eyes. “A thorny question.”

  “Oh?”

  “Considering both of our lives, it would likely be best for both of us if I took on the Kisaki name, rather than the other way around.”

  “…Oh?”

  “Plus, I may be a fool in love, but I am not optimistic enough to believe Ms. Kisaki sees me as marriage material right now. Currently, the issue is not whether she would be my wife but rather whether she’s interested in me being her husband.”

  “………Um. One moment.”

  “What?”

  “You are working on insane assumptions.”

  “What’s so insane about that? I wouldn’t act like that around her if I didn’t have marriage in my sights.”

  “You have marriage in your sights, and yet you act like this?!”

  “I know of no other way.”

  Ashiya could no longer hide his dumbfounded shock. “Er… No, um, that is to say, your approach is not the issue, perhaps. More to the point, you see a human being as a potential marriage partner?”

  “What’s so strange about that?”

  When it came to Sariel, it had to be said, pretty much everything. But there was no point dwelling on that.

  “You angels live hundreds of times longer than any human ever could.”

  “Yes. And? Do you think we could never be happy because of our life spans? Is that what you are insinuating?” He shrugged. “What I’m trying to say,” he continued before waiting for an answer, “is that it’s up to me to decide whether I’m happy or not, do you see? Could love truly be called love if a few passing words from someone else was enough to make it waver?”

  “Or could you call it love if it is as completely one-sided as it is with you?”

  Even with having this pointed out, Sariel just stared at Ashiya and chuckled. “I heard you were a strategic genius on the battlefield. Who knew you found it difficult to grasp concepts as simple as this?”

  “What?”

  “I’m the only one who decides whether living with Ms. Kisaki is a happy thing for me or not.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “But would Ms. Kisaki be happy living with me? I could spend my whole life never knowing the answer to that.”

  “W-wait, what are you…?”

  “I’m saying, only you have the ability to feel whether you’re happy. Happiness, of course, requires effort on your partner’s part as well—but would my partner see my efforts as a happy thing? The answer to that lies strictly within the heart of Ms. Kisaki. I am not her, you see, so even with my eternal angelic life, I could never truly feel her inherent happiness the way she feels it.”

  This caught Ashiya completely off guard. He lost his voice for a moment. In one way, Sariel’s statement could be construed to mean “all that matters is me and screw what anyone else feels,” but examine the actual words, and he meant the exact opposite.

  “You’ve been alive for, what, a thousand years? Hardly a short life. But have you ever exhibited such absolute happiness that nobody would ever doubt for all time that you were happy? With all my experience in life, I can confirm to you that you haven’t. Thus, to me, happiness is making a continual effort toward that absolute happiness, something I can hardly say exists for me. Right now, though, I am closer to that kind of happiness than I’ve ever been before in my life. Physically speaking, no less!”

  He defiantly pointed back at the MgRonald, still visible in the distance.

  “And fortunately for me, I have an example right here.”

  “An example? You mean…”

  Sariel nodded. “Exactly! Emilia’s mere existence is proof positive of a happiness forged across races, across worlds! When word of her went around the heavens—oh, heads rolled, believe you me! And now I firmly believe that furor was a shot to my heart, a clarion call to shed the malaise of ten thousand years and finally seize the initiative with the goddess I have encountered here!”

  Both arms were now raised high as Sariel kept shouting, pedestrians keeping their distance as they walked past. Ashiya remained still, as if strapped to the ground.

  “And I believe you have heard too, no, Alciel? About Gabriel’s plan?”

  “…You…”

  “Because I certainly didn’t—not until fairly recently. If I had known, I would have banished him and Raguel from the heavens centuries ago! That was well before I was aware fate had implanted a goddess into the living world by the name of Mayumi Kisaki, after all. I believed the guidance of the beautiful Ignora was what we needed to keep heaven alive…but no longer.”

  Sariel finally lowered his arms, running a hand down his long hair.

  “If you have the earth under you, the sky above, the sea ahead, and your own freedom to enjoy, you can go anywhere. Now I’ve finally realized that the only thing stopping me is myself. Ignora, you see, tilts at utopias. If she ever caught sight of Earth or Japan, she would call it a confused, immature jumble of a world. But compared to life in a spotless, opp
ressive, white-walled room, I’ll take this jumble any day, for it has so many colors to show that I’ve never seen! …Although I’ll take a hospital nurse in a prim white uniform, too.”

  If it weren’t for that final sentence, it would have been a fairly intelligent statement to make. But no. Just Sariel being Sariel.

  “Why are you getting involved with other people here?”

  And the unluckiness of having Mayumi Kisaki in business attire walk right up to him at this moment was also, well, pretty Sariel-like. He swiveled his head toward her, resulting in a fairly awkward body position to be frozen in.

  “Oh…um, well, hello, Ms. Kisaki.”

  She was carrying a shoulder bag so full of documents that she couldn’t close it all the way, a bag Ashiya recalled seeing before. The stylish peacoat framed her as an elite businesswoman, and it added even more force to her eyes as they shot a gaze at Sariel.

  “Why are you revealing your nurse fetishes in the middle of the sidewalk?”

  “N-no, um, we were having a philosophical conversation about what happiness truly means for a man…”

  “Um, not exactly, you see, er…”

  Sariel’s quivering knees made Ashiya worry he could collapse at any moment. He wasn’t lying, but even Ashiya was nervously stammering, not wanting to raise the ire of Maou’s boss.

  “Ah, hello again, Mr. Ashiya. I’m sorry you have to deal with the menace of our shopping center.”

  “Oh, no, um, I really was speaking with Mr. Sarue, so…”

  “There’s no need to defend him. Has this man been bothering you? I’ll be happy to contact the mall administrator or the police if need be.”

  “No, it’s fine! Nothing happened! Um, but weren’t you working with Maou today, ma’am?!”

  “Oh? Ah. You here to pick him up?” Kisaki accepted Ashiya’s brute-force change of subject, still casting a suspicious eye on Sariel. “Well, sorry to disappoint, but we just split up at the rail station. I think he’s headed home now. Oh, and I forgot to mention it to him, but could you tell him to buy a new pen case? ’Cause he’s got this cheap plastic one with a hole in it, and he’s gotta leave a better impression than that during training.”

  “C-certainly. I will tell him.”

  “Thank you… So, Sarue, can I borrow you for a sec? There’s something else I want to ask you.”

  “Of course! Anything you like!”

  Sariel, frozen in time until a moment ago, immediately brightened up like a dog wagging its tail, even though he had to recognize the bed of thorns awaiting him.

  “Excuse me, then…”

  Seeing that Kisaki’s attention was on the errant angel, Ashiya took the opportunity to bow and walk briskly away. Sariel’s shout stopped him.

  “Oh! Ashiya! Tell your roommates that our promise from the other day’s still active, so choose whatever life you want for yourselves!”

  “Huh? …Ah. Uhh…”

  He raised an eyebrow, unable to respond to this in front of Kisaki.

  “And you stop giving people life advice! The one you’re leading’s gonna go straight to the gutter!”

  Kisaki gave Sariel a whap to the back of the head. He looked almost elated about it.

  Ashiya had planned to stay at MgRonald until closing time if he needed to, but with this new information, there was no need to stick around. Really, he was here mainly to keep watch over Maou’s regular haunts—this MgRonald location in particular—just in case some foe, whether they existed or not, decided to target it.

  “If His Demonic Highness was coming home,” he muttered to himself once Kisaki and Sariel were too far away to hear, “he could have at least texted me so I could prepare dinner for him… Oh.”

  He was stopped by the display on his smartphone. One message was waiting.

  “…”

  It had arrived fifteen minutes ago, a simple message from Maou stating that he’d be home soon. It made Ashiya lower his eyebrows.

  “Great. I must not have noticed the vibration with all of Sariel’s carrying on. I think there was a way to change the vibration pattern on this…?”

  He stopped on the sidewalk, staring at the screen for a while.

  “…”

  Then, as he stood there with a look of utter confusion on his face, the screen turned off and went back to lock mode.

  “And a way to extend the standby time as well…”

  But he didn’t act on his needs, simply putting the phone back in his pocket. Somewhere, in that dark screen, he felt like he could see the bright-eyed face of that woman again.

  “What am I even thinking…?”

  Rika Suzuki had made no contact with him since that evening. But her phone book entry was still top among the dozen or so he had on this phone, and every time he saw the name, he could sense feelings lurking in his heart like none he had felt before.

  “…I must hurry. My liege is already home.”

  Stuffing his numb hands in his pockets, Ashiya began loping on home. But the whole time it was an anxious walk back. Somehow, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Sariel’s words were looming right behind him.

  It was a few weeks ago, that day when Emi and Laila had grown just that little smidgen closer. The day Gabriel’s question had been lobbed at Chiho and the others, just after they had left the archangel’s dismal apartment:

  “Have you guys ever heard of Nauru?”

  Back then, his question had been just a little hard to appraise.

  Nobody thought they had, although since this was Gabriel asking, Chiho assumed it was something to do with heaven or Ente Isla.

  “Chiho Sasaki, maybe? Have you?”

  For some reason, he was targeting the only Earthling in the crowd.

  “Huh? Um, me?”

  “Yeah. Or y’know, if anybody here would, it’d be you, mm-kay?”

  “Oh, is this someone on Earth, maaaybe?”

  Gabriel nodded at Emeralda.

  “And not the paaarasite found in lakes and marshes in the northeastern section of the Northern Islaaand? The one where if a cow drinks from infested waaaters, it’ll grow and proliferate so much that it’ll literally eat the poor beast from the insiiide?”

  Gabriel groaned at the woman. “Eww, no! Nothing that scary! What’s wrong with you?!”

  But as the rest of the table wondered whether such a creature actually existed or not, he revealed the answer:

  “Anyway, Nauru’s the name of an Earth nation. It’s on an island in the Pacific Ocean near the equator, the third-smallest country in the world after Vatican City and Monaco. It’s considered to be part of Micronesia, but it’s, like, way the hell out from the rest of those islands. There aren’t a lot of folks on it, either, so it relies on Australia for defense and currency and stuff. Japan had an airbase on it during World War II even.”

  The more he spoke, the more it sounded like somewhere on Earth after all. Chiho still had no idea about it, but based on what Gabriel hinted at, it was easy enough to imagine a nice little tropical getaway. But what did Nauru have to do with heaven?

  “At one point in the twentieth century,” Gabriel continued as Chiho sat with her own questions, “you could’ve called this place a literal heaven on earth. For one, nobody on the island paid any taxes.”

  “Oh?” Chiho blurted out, Suzuno and Emeralda looking just as surprised.

  “In fact, every native Nauruan was given a basic income to live off of. Every man, woman, and child on the island received enough of a stipend from the government to handle all their basic needs. I’m not just talking about pensions Japan pays out to its old people—like, you’d make more money just going on welfare instead, mm-kay? I’m talking about everyone from age one to one hundred getting enough cash that they could eat out three times a day, replace their car with a new one each year, and still have enough left to screw around with. All that, without even working. And like I said, none of it was taxed.”

  “Wow, really?”

  It was a life beyond anything
Chiho could comprehend, but Gabriel gave her an emphatic nod. “Yeah! And anyone would react like that, huh? But it’s true, mm-kay? Not a lot of people have Nauruan citizenship, but back in the day, the per capita income over there was way past Japan or the U.S. It was the highest in the world. I mean, nobody was throwing bags of money around or whatever, but in terms of world standards, everybody on that island was filthy rich.”

  Chiho just sat there, mouth open, as if hearing about an alien landscape. She couldn’t say why Gabriel, an angel from another world, cared so much about a nation that was pretty minor by Japanese standards, but the initial shock far outweighed that concern.

  “They…were?”

  “Yeah.”

  “…What about now?”

  Gabriel beamed, waiting for just this moment. “The unemployment rate’s over ninety percent. One of the poorest nations in the world. They’re managin’ to keep it together mostly with international support.”

  “Uh, how’d that happen?”

  Someone with a grasp of economics and politics as weak as Chiho’s couldn’t imagine what led to this. But someone with an understanding as strong as Emeralda’s could.

  “Did that nation have some kind of natural reeesource the rest of the world waaanted? And it’s all been miiined now, so there you go?”

  “Exactly. In particular, they had a lot of this mineral called phosphate.”

  Phosphate is an indispensable raw material in the industrial and agricultural fields. Since it is, it’s in demand across the world. And Nauru had some of the world’s best phosphate deposits formed by the droppings of birds accumulated over tens of thousands of years. The world’s superpowers pushed into the island in the early twentieth century, seeking this phosphate, and the ruling government changed in and out, depending on who among them was on the rise. But after the war, when it joined the Commonwealth and became independent, the most striking thing was how the paradise Gabriel described was basically nonexistent by the nineties.

  “So in just over ten years, it went from a paradise to this nation deep in poverty. It used to have some of the world’s most valuable natural resources, but”—he snapped his fingers—“ten years. Which, hell, that’s what you get for takin’ something built over millennia and running through it in less than a century. Humans are a scary bunch, yeah?”