The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 9

by Satoshi Wagahara

  “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.

  THE DEVIL MAKES EVERY PREPARATION POSSIBLE

  “I told you, I have no idea how many days this will take!”

  “We have one week! I can’t spend this much on stuff I’ll only use for one week!”

  “And how is that my fault? What are you intending to do if this takes more than one week, pray tell? We need to prepare for, and invest in, a potential long-term operation!”

  “See, that’s how you always are! Always thinking in worst-case scenarios! It’s not about taking more than one week—it’s the fact that we’re gonna do this in one week in the first place! You gotta do the job in the time you’re given!”

  “What kind of sane person would schedule a time limit he has no chance of sticking to?! If bold words and idealism were enough to finish up your work, life would be far easier for all of us!”

  “Look, I’m just saying you can’t get everything that you want! There’s only so much we can prep for! Maybe politicians can get away with padding their own budgets, but I can’t!”

  “If you start dictating what we can and can’t have, you’ll cut out everything we absolutely must have over there! If you’re going to keep screaming ‘streamline, streamline, streamline,’ I can buy a parrot to do that for me, thank you!”

  “What?!”

  “What, ‘what’?”

  “Ughh! You’re being too loud, you guys! Stop arguing so much!”

  From Chiho’s perspective, it sounded like the extension of some ongoing, meandering debate about consumerism and modern society. Which she didn’t mind. Her issue was with their choice of forums—the camping-equipment section at the Donkey OK shop in Hounancho, about half an hour’s walk from Sasazuka.

  The spark that set off this latest argument was simplicity itself. If they wanted to travel through Efzahan while avoiding capture at the hands of forces from the Eight Scarves, Maou and his companion could never dare stay in a large town. They would likely be camping out most of the time, and they had come here to make the necessary preparations—but when it came to how they would camp out, Suzuno and Maou had some very apparent differences in opinion.

  “Look, it’ll just be three of us over there! It’d be easier for all of us if we just buy a single tent! The fewer things we have to abandon if we’re attacked, the better!”

  “Fah! Such nonsense! We require two tents and one sleeping bag for each of us! We have a need to keep our bodies in tip-top shape, and besides, Acieth and I are women! How could we possibly share a single cramped tent with the likes of you?!”

  Between the amount of weight they’d be transporting on their scooters and the strict one-week time limit he had assigned to the mission, Maou firmly believed that one tent would be enough. Suzuno, on the other hand, was focused on bodily stress—and, for that matter, not having to share a roof with Maou.

  “I-I think she’s right!” interjected Chiho, just as eager to keep Maou from sharing sleeping space with the opposite sex. “It’s not good to sleep with girls in the same bed like that, Maou!”

  “Oh, you think I’m gonna choose this moment to molest you guys? Geez! I thought I was something more to you than that!”

  “Y-yeah! He’s right! Maou is a real gentleman!”

  “Chiho, can you please pick a side and stick with it?”

  “S-sorry,” a carried-away Chiho replied.

  “And it is not a matter of him being more to me, or less to me, than anything! We are talking about a man who works every day of his life yet still lacks the money to purchase so much as a simple canvas tent!”

  “Hey, not everyone gets to live the rich Tokyo socialite lifestyle you got, all right? I got mouths to feed back home!”

  “‘Mouths to feed’? You actually consider people like Lucifer your family? Such a nasty man!”

  “…Look, getting back to the point, one tent’s really all we need for this. Once we regroup with Emi, we’ll have to open up a Gate right on the spot and duck outta Ente Isla anyway! If we don’t, we lose!”

  “Have you lost your mind?! Operating a Gate is impossibly complex! You make it seem as arduous as hailing a taxi, but it is far more difficult! And what if Emilia and her charge are in no shape to move when we find them? There’s no guarantee we will even be able to open a Gate on the spot. We may need to conceal ourselves, and for that, we will absolutely need multiple tents!!”

  “I… Well, can we at least go with these summer sleeping bags, then? They’re cheap, they’re compact, they’re perfect!”

  “Ente Isla is entering the latter half of its autumn! The temperatures might flirt with freezing, or worse! Rescue will be the last thing on our minds if we catch a virus!”

  Any further progress seemed unlikely to Chiho. She decided to guide
them in another direction.

  “Uh, uhhhhhmm,” she began. “Uh, hey, so can we drop the tent debate for now and just focus on buying all the other stuff you need? Maybe we can figure out the tents once we know how much everything else weighs!”

  “Devil King! I told you, we have strict limits on the load we bring along! What are you expecting to do with all of that mineral water? We need to bring our own gasoline along, I remind you!”

  “Hey, I’m not who I used to be, okay? I’m human! What if the bugs in the water over there screw up my stomach real bad?”

  “You pathetic excuse for a demon! The water in Efzahan is among the purest in the land, and the food there is equally abundant! There are thousands of rivers and natural springs we can rely on for water—this filter and storage tank will suit our needs perfectly!”

  The water argument raged on. The topic of food was proving just as fruitless…

  “Rice, okay?”

  “No. Udon noodles.”

  “Udon over the campfire? Are you serious?”

  “More serious than you know. An amateur like you would be hopeless, attempting to cook rice with camping tools. A supply of dried instant udon is easily prepared, takes little time to cook, and is lightweight to boot. Truly, the ideal for us.”

  “If you’re gonna go to that extreme, why don’t we just go with protein bars or army rations or whatever? We ain’t gonna be there that long.”

  “Food lies at the core of any expedition. There is no need to go into survival mode with our meals from the beginning, unless it proves necessary to do so.”

  “Well, okay, but udon?”

  …and although things were slightly rosier in the field of insect repellent…

  “We will need some insect spray, Devil King.”

  “I hear you there. I’m sure there’s a ton of bugs out there at night.”

  …they were slightly bumpier when it came to light sources:

  “We must bring a fuel lantern!”

  “No! I want an LED lantern!”

  “There are oil-powered lanterns in Ente Isla as well. If we are forced to abandon our belongings, that will lower the chances of them tracking us down!”

  “But it’ll just make more stuff for us to carry around. We can turn a battery-powered one on and off with the flick of a switch! See? You charge ’em with this crank and it’ll even charge your cell phone for you!”

  “A fuel lantern or nothing! We can procure extra lantern oil in Ente Isla, and that will save us precious cargo weight! If you need to charge your phone that badly, bring along an external battery! And…and it hardly even matters anyway! Your phone can serve only as an Idea Link amplifier in Ente Isla, so it matters not a bit whether it is charged or not! Your obsession with battery power is utterly baffling to me!”

  “There’s nothing baffling about it! An LED lantern’s a billion times more useful! Or don’t tell me you’re afraid of using an electronic device as simple as this one!”

  “What?! How could you let science and civilization poison you so deeply?! And you dare to still call yourself Devil King?!”

  “…Stop! Can you guys just stop already?!”

  “Whoa!”

  “Uhh!”

  Despite it all, it was Chiho who finally lost her temper first.

  “Guys, I think we’ve made one thing pretty clear here, okay? Neither of you have any camping experience, do you?”

  “I, uh…”

  Maou distractedly scratched at one of his cheeks.

  “C-camping, well,” Suzuno reluctantly added, “it was usually our monks-in-training who handled the particulars of our missionary caravans, so…”

  “Well, if you don’t know anything about camping, then you’re just wasting your time without a concrete picture in your mind! It’d be a lot easier for all of us if we just asked the staff! That or go to a specialty camping store and have an expert make a plan for us!”

  “…Okay,” the crestfallen Maou and Suzuno replied in unison.

  “Ooh, Chiho! Very strong!”

  Suddenly, Maou’s body began to glow a shade of purple—and at the next instant, there was a silver-and-purple-haired girl next to him, where there was empty space a moment ago.

  “I notice now,” she said, “but Maou, he is no match for the women, yes?”

  “Aghh!”

  Maou and Suzuno furtively looked around, spooked by Acieth’s sudden entry into the scene. Nobody else was around them. That came as a relief—but Chiho’s face was clearly strained as she looked at the ceiling.

  “Ummm, guys! Guys! Let’s get out of here right now!”

  The other three followed Chiho out, question marks above each of their heads.

  “You have to be more careful, okay?” Chiho spat out once they were outside. “There was a security camera focused right where we were.”

  Considering the extreme care Emi took whenever summoning Alas Ramus or putting her away, Maou was being completely irresponsible with his own charge.

  “Y-yeah… Sorry. Hey, Acieth, I thought I told you that you can’t go in and out by yourself…”

  “I had not considered the presence of such cameras,” Suzuno admitted. “Well spotted, Chiho. You are truly a member of the modern generation.”

  “Ooh! Chiho! So nice!”

  “If Suzuki was around to see this, I think she’d start doubting whether you’re really the Devil King or not…”

  Chiho found herself sighing at the three astonished faces looking at her.

  “Oh! Suzuno, did you ask Yusa what kind of preparations she made for her trip? We could use that as a guide once we start browsing around a real camping store.”

  “Hmm… Hard to say. Emilia had Emeralda making the arrangements. She was planning to travel alone once she arrived, however. I suppose it depends on her plans for Alas Ramus.”

  In other words, Suzuno didn’t know.

  “…Well, let’s just go somewhere else,” Chiho replied as she took the lead. “We could try Tokyu Hand, or I’m sure there’s a camping equipment store somewhere downtown. I think we could use some expert guidance right about now. We’re kinda short on time, too.”

  She took a glance at the three people meekly following her. It made a question pop up in her mind. Once Emi safely came back, what then? Rika was taking this calmly enough, or at least acting like she was, but would she forgive Emi for essentially lying to her face during their entire friendship? She had gone directly to work after their chat at Devil’s Castle, claiming she was on the clock for that day. The conflicted look on her face as she left remained an unaddressed concern to Chiho.

  Watching Maou and Suzuno continue their debate from Donkey OK behind her, she realized all over again what a unique position she was currently in.

  “Juggling different cultures like this is so difficult…but even if Yusa and Ashiya come back…”

  She spotted the sun getting blocked by the clouds above, symbolizing the current state of her heart.

  “I wonder…how long we’ll all get to stay together…”

  Nobody in the world could hear the barely audible whisper.

  “Thank you for calling today!”

  “““Thank you for calling today!!”””

  “Bringing orders to customers quickly and accurately!”

  “““Bringing orders to customers quickly and accurately!!”””

  “MgRonald Delivery!”

  “““MgRonald Delivery!!”””

  “…And those are the basic keywords, I suppose.”

  Kisaki’s cold eyes scanned the papers in front of her.

  The crew of MgRonald’s Hatagaya station store—Maou and Chiho included—were reciting the lines in front of Kisaki in the staff room, faces taut as they awaited their boss’s next command.

  “Well, this won’t be in operation for a while to come yet, but you guys are gonna be my main weapons for the time being, so I’m handing training manuals out to you all now. Brush up on what’s written in there for me.
”

  Maou gave the small stack of copied sheets handed to him an earnest look.

  “You can also go to stores where it’s in operation for training purposes; I can pay you all hourly helper compensation for that. Anyone interested, you can talk to me later. There’s not much of an open period available, though, so the sooner, the better.”

  “Y-yes, ma’am!!”

  “Oh, and I know I don’t need to remind any of you about this…” Kisaki rapped a finger against her copy of the manual and shrugged. “But it’s a given around here that everything we provide, we provide with sincerity. I believe that all of you here, in this room with me right now, aren’t the type of greenhorns who think they have to recite this manual by memory in order to provide that sincerity. Let’s make this day another well-fought battle, all right? Back to work!”

  Maou stole another look at his copy of the manual as the team members shuffled away from the meeting. He would’ve killed for one of the on-site training sessions Kisaki mentioned, but—painfully, for him—he still had yet to obtain a motor-scooter license. It’d be hard to train very well without one…and aside from that, he wouldn’t even be at work (or on the planet) during the available period.

  After navigating a gauntlet of shift juggling and favor promising, he had finally managed to obtain the time he needed for his renewed conquest of Ente Isla. He’d owe nearly every crewmember at the Hatagaya store for it once he returned, but it spoke volumes about his job dedication and his close relationships with his coworkers that so many of them agreed to take on shifts for him, albeit very grudgingly at times. It was nothing he could’ve engineered by going it alone this whole time.

  “Maou…are you sure you’ll be all right?” asked Chiho, perhaps concerned over Maou’s conflicted staredown of the manual.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Kinda sucks that I can’t attend any training, though. Like, no way I’d fail that exam again, but I’ll pretty much be going by the seat of my pants once delivery starts.”

  “Oh? …Oh.” Chiho blinked, not quite expecting this response, then emitted a smile of relief. “Well, I’m glad you’re still the same old you, at least.”