“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 brim
ming 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.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 9 Page 7
