“That was quite the nice little refrain, wasn’t it? Do not retain hope; proceed forward; blaze your own trail to survive. Well, now look at them. These people of Phaigan, capable of nothing but clinging to whatever hope they can scrape together. Why, it is like…”
Olba looked to the sky. It was a pale shade of blue, the red moon just barely visible at this afternoon hour.
“It is like the Malebranche, back on that very day. Those foolish Malebranche leaders, who believed every word of it when I told them they could gain revenge against the foe who slew the Devil King and his generals.”
“…!”
“I know you can hear them, Emilia. The rapt joy in their cheering. The cheering of these sad, sad people who have pinned their hopes upon you in an attempt at salvation—without raising a finger themselves.”
“Olba…you…!”
The anger, sadness, and hate welling up from Emi’s heart made her voice harden. She was afraid for a moment that her welling emotions would reach out to Alas Ramus, too, inside her.
“And now that you’ve exposed your face to the people like this, all their hopes are upon your shoulders. There is only one road left for you to take. You, the Hero Emilia, are the icon we will reach out to as we save the empire of Efzahan from the Devil King’s Army that has taken it over. Don’t worry, you won’t have to do anything that goes counter to your nature. From here on in, you and I…”
The desperation and emptiness behind the words’ meaning made them dark in her mind, just as his words felt on that day back in the village.
“We are going out to hunt the horrible demons that have eaten their way into the core of Efzahan.”
“Uh, Suzuno?” Maou asked, eyes wide open in disbelief.
“What?”
“You don’t see anything…wrong with how you look right now?”
“Wrong how?”
“…Forget it. Just try not to move around when you’re in eyeshot of me, all right?”
“Rather rude of you. What is so unacceptable about this?”
“It’s not about being ‘acceptable’ or not, it’s just… Ahh, never mind.”
Maou sat down on the meadow and sighed.
It was their first camp on Efzahan, in the Eastern Island—the land in which all three of them, counting Acieth, found themselves upon reaching the other side of the Gate. Judging by the geography around them, as well as the positions of the sun and two moons above, they were in the forested areas north of Heavensky, along a mighty river that ran from the capital to the bordering ocean to the north. That was a tremendous stroke of luck—no lack of drinkable water, and no concerns about ever becoming too lost. The river would also be lined with villages, allowing them to gain useful intelligence along the way when needed.
As Suzuno put it, she was not quite able to pinpoint their destination through the Gate—not when using The Gates of Hell as an amplifier, something it wasn’t built for. The fact they wound up in an uninhabited area was “complete happenstance,” she admitted.
Thanks to the time-zone difference—whether Earth’s or Ente Isla’s, Maou couldn’t say—they had left the museum late at night and reached Ente Isla in the early evening. Suzuno waited until the stars came out to calculate their position more exactly, and so, about six or so miles south of where the Gate had plopped them, they had set up shop for the night.
Not that Maou enjoyed every aspect of it.
“Hey, do you really think it’s too early to be going around like that?”
He had dropped the subject once, but as he watched Suzuno hammer the pegs of her domed touring tent into the ground, he couldn’t help but bring it up again.
“It is hardly any of your business, is it?” Suzuno countered. “I need to grow used to this clothing while we are still safe. This is practice.”
“Wellll…yeah, but…”
“Ooh! Maou! Look, look!”
“Hmm? What is it, Aci—pppft!”
Maou took a moment from griping to look over toward Acieth. It took the words out of his mouth.
“See? Now I am like Suzuno!”
“I… C’mon, guys…”
Maou held his head in his hands.
Both she and Suzuno were walking around in their sleeping bags.
These were so-called “mummy” bags, the type that covered your body all the way up to the top of your head to keep you warm. They did the job well, to be sure, but one other unique trait of theirs was that you could undo the zippers along the sides and bottom to free your hands and feet while still “wearing” the bag. This let you do things like read or operate a lantern inside your tent without having to zip all the way out, or unzip your legs so you could run from bears or other campsite intruders.
Maou was aware of all the uses this sleeping-bag structure allowed them. But did they really have to go around in them when they were just setting up tents and stuff? It made them look like a pair of large, colorful butterfly larvae as they wriggled around by the river. The sight creeped him out, especially considering how otherwise attractive Suzuno’s and Acieth’s faces were. Besides, he himself had set up his own tent long ago; to him, the only reason they were taking longer was because they were cosplaying as gigantic maggots.
“You guys… You just wanted to try those things out, didn’t you?”
“Ooh, yes!”
“Wh-what?! Nonsense! I would never dream of such a thing!”
At least Acieth was being honest with herself.
“Geez…”
“N-no! I-I-I fully intend to change clothes after this! I simply wanted to wear this because I could hardly bear the idea of you peeking upon me yet again… Ah!”
It was a painfully bad excuse, one accentuated by Suzuno flapping her arms wildly out through her arm holes. The physical activity made her accidentally kick one of the tent’s binding pegs out of place.
“Ooh, all fall down!”
“Oh, no… Devil King! This is your fault!!”
She must not have hammered the other pegs in place all that well. Once one of them came off, the others joined them, making the entire tent tilt to the side.
“Look, I’ll do it for you, okay?” Maou said as he snatched a peg from Suzuno’s hand. “If you’re gonna change, do it right now while I’m not looking.”
“Nnnnhh!!”
The giant larva shooed him away, but soon it wriggled its way down to a hedge by the riverside, carrying along a cloth wrapping with what Maou imagined was her clothing.
“And don’t forget the bug spray!”
“Silence! I know!” the irritated Suzuno shouted, hackles raised (not that it showed through the round sleeping bag) as she hid herself.
“Can you push that peg back in for me, Acieth?”
“Okaaay!”
The other larva shimmied its way up to Maou’s right side.
“By the way, Acieth…”
“Oh?” Acieth replied, fumbling with the peg before finally driving it into the earth.
“When did you and Nord wind up in Japan, anyway…or on Earth, I mean?”
“When? Uhh… Pretty long back, I think.”
“Pretty long? Like, about half a year?”
That was just about when Maou ran into Emi and Urushihara again—when his life started getting all screwy.
“Haffa year? Uhh, six of the months?”
Maou gave her a look.
“I was born, um, just one year. So before that, I don’t know.”
“Seriously?” Maou exclaimed as the larval Acieth laced a tent line through the peg.
“Ooh, yes. When I was born, I already live with Father. So before that, I don’t know, really.”
This was an unexpected pearl of wisdom for Maou. If Acieth could be believed, she was Alas Ramus’s “younger” sister—but considering the difference in growth, Maou assumed Acieth had attained human form long before her sibling did. Being “born,” to these things, must mean transforming from a seed or a Yesod fragment or whatever to what they were
now.
Alas Ramus was “born” less than three months ago. There was less than a year’s difference between the two of them taking human shape—but just look at the difference in growth rates.
“But how come you’re the younger sister, even though you became human first? How’s all of that work?”
“Um?”
“No, I mean… Let’s pick up that topic once we have Alas Ramus back. So I guess that means Nord was in Japan a lot quicker than I thought, then.”
“Ooh, yes, I think.”
That was probably why less-than-native Japanese was the only language Acieth was capable of speaking.
“Man, what a pain.”
“What is the pain?”
“Mmm…” Maou nodded, approving of the job they had done getting the tent back in shape. “Once this is all over, I think we’re all gonna have to sit down and have one heck of a family conference.”
“Family what?”
“I’ll explain once we get to it. What’s taking Suzuno so long? Did a bear swipe at her or…”
“No bear can defeat me!”
“Whoa!” Maou jumped in the air, shocked at the voice from behind. “Wh-what the heck? If you were back, say so, man!”
“It is your fault for leaving your back unprotected. I have often felt that you are greatly underestimating my powers, Devil— What is it?”
Maou had fallen silent, mesmerized by Suzuno’s peevish state. It put her further off.
“Do you have some issue with my clothing again?”
“N-no, of course not…”
Maou frantically shook his head.
“It’s just that…that’s how you look here, huh?”
“What?”
Maou’s surprise was, perhaps, justifiable. After completing her metamorphosis from her larval form, Suzuno had returned in an outfit quite unlike her usual kimono. She wore leather sandals, Church vestments that came down to her ankles, and a dark-red hooded overcoat. The clasp that kept the overcoat on her around the shoulders bore a jeweled motif—a holy-force amplifier, perhaps.
Clad in this, Suzuno was no longer the loudmouthed, nagging neighbor in the apartment next door. She was Crestia Bell, leader of the Church’s Reconciliation Panel, and the majesty and mystery she now projected lived up to her title in every way.
“This is the garb of the Church’s diplomatic and missionary arm. We have many monks and proselytizers working the lands of Efzahan, and the nature of my previous work means that few people would know my face. With this outfit, we would never arouse suspicion in any of the villages we— Why are you looking at me like that?”
It was perhaps unfair to say, but while this holy garb would go perfect with a holy scripture or the like in her hands, pairing it with the deflated mummy-bag shell draped across her arms largely ruined the effect.
“Did you just, like, molt or something?”
“Maou, what is ‘molt’?”
“Devil King… You dare compare me to a snake, or some lowly shellfish…?”
“N-no, no! Stop picturing creepy animals like that! You’re a girl, aren’t you? You could’ve said ‘butterfly’ or something!”
Suzuno gave him a blank, confused glare.
“…Butterfly?”
Then, as she digested what he meant, surprise spread across her countenance.
“Y-you call me a butterfly? Well, of all the things a Devil King could ever…”
“Um, Maou, what is ‘molt’?” Acieth interjected, still in larval form, before the flustered Suzuno could ask what he really meant.
“Oh, um… So ‘molting’ is when a snake or a crab or something sheds the skin or shell it was living in and grows bigger. That, and butterflies and cicadas make what’s called a ‘cocoon’ that they grow inside of. By the time they come out of it, they’ve transformed into something completely different. That kind of thing.”
“…Enough of this.”
Suzuno sounded hurt, strangely enough, at Maou’s biology lecture. She began to roll up the sleeping bag in her hands.
“Ooh, a butterfly? Boy! Suzuno is the beautiful molting!”
“Mm? Mm. Well, perhaps, yes.”
“Suzunooo!” Acieth raced up to her. “Maou said you are beautiful!”
“Ah, did he? A pitiful joke of a Devil King, indeed,” Suzuno replied, taking a neutral, philosophical approach to it all.
“Whoa, whoa, what’s that supposed to mean?” Maou said, feigning shock. “I’m being totally serious here. Like, didn’t Emi and Chi say as much to you at first? Your kimonos and stuff are fine and all, but you should try putting on something more modern. I think those robes look good on you.”
“What…did you…?”
Suzuno’s eyes opened wide, unprepared for this sudden bout of serious talk.
“No, I mean, I just never see you in anything except kimonos, so it’s kind of fresh to me, is all. Regular clothing’s a lot easier to put on, though. Cheaper, too. I think it’d work on you.”
“You, you, y-you think so…?” Suzuno stammered.
“Huh?” A concerned Acieth turned to her. “What is wrong, Suzuno?”
“To, to be honest, I was… I was at my clerical post for so long, I had grown rather used to these long, heavy robes. The shorter, more revealing articles of clothing Emilia and Chiho wear… I had my qualms about them, one could say. Even after I realized it was no longer the norm, I liked kimono because they resembled my vestments in all of the…dimensions, perhaps…but…”
“Hmm?” Maou lent Suzuno an ear, as she nervously rolled up and unfurled the sleeping bag in her hands.
“You think it…”
“I think it…?”
“Suzunooo! Your face is red—mng!”
Suzuno shot a hand up to push the jaw of the intruding Acieth back into the shut position. She reflexively grabbed at the hem of her robe with the other one.
“You think,” she softly warbled, “it would look…good…on me?”
“Is that what you’re so worked up about?”
Maou doubted it was Suzuno’s aversion to Western shirts and pants that made her act like this. He began to sweat a little, concerned he was overstepping his bounds.
“No! Not that! I just… No one has…has ever said such a thing…before…”
Her firm, resolved eyes, in a wholly unfamiliar show of weakness, began to waver.
“Well, I think everyone got used to regular clothes pretty quick over there, but…yeah, I think they’d look good on you.”
“De…Devil King, what is this nonsense you spout, out of nowhere…? Do not expect any rewards for your petty compliments…”
“Mmph fpph rrrrrpmmpphhh!!”
Unbeknownst to Maou, Suzuno had gradually been applying more and more force to Acieth’s jaw. It was wholly instinctive on her part, but enough to make Acieth voice her discomfort.
“Well, it’s still the truth. Plus, Ashiya told me that as opposed to a kimono, you can just toss regular clothes into the washer as-is and it’s no problem.”
“…Mmm?”
“And, I mean, I buy a lot of stuff at UniClo, but you can find discount clothing stores in most shopping centers. And if you like something, you can buy a ton of it in the same pattern or size or whatever.”
“…Mmmmmm?”
“Pnngnngngnnh!”
“I’ve never tried on a Japanese outfit before, but for someone living in our wage bracket, there’s no way we could keep ourselves going without the more modern stuff.”
“…”
“Plus, isn’t the thing with kimonos—like, you’re only allowed to wear certain kinds on certain seasons or occasions? You never have to worry about that with Western clothes, as long as you got the right type on. It couldn’t be easier. Try it.”
“…Mm. Yes. Indeed.”
“Hmm? What?”
“…Nothing. Perhaps I caught a wild hair up my nose for a moment there. I think I shall meditate for a bit to expel these distractions from my mind.”
The ashen-faced Suzuno finally released her grip on Acieth.
“Oh? Um, did I say something bad?”
“You did,” she boomed as she made for her tent. “You misled my heart and nearly led me over the cliff. Truly, the whisperings of the devil.”
It took this long for Maou to realize that he had offended Suzuno, somehow or another. “Oh,” he attempted. “But, um, hey, I do mean it when I said, y’know, it might look good, okay?”
“…” Suzuno stopped, like the words had bolted her to the ground. “I…I refuse to be deceived!!” she shouted, turning her reddened face toward him for only a moment as she burrowed into the tent Maou put up for her. (They had previously decided, after a long struggle, to divide the tents by gender.)
“Huh. Guess I did say something bad.”
It looked to Maou like Suzuno was flailing around inside her tent. He brought a hand to his head.
“Oooh, thag hurrgh,” the teary-eyed Acieth groaned as she rubbed her own reddened cheeks. “Suzunooo! What do you doing?!” Then, still in larval form, she squirmed her way into the maelstrom going on inside the tent, the very picture of foolish bravery.
“…Great. Well, guess I’ll get things ready for bed, too.”
They were planning to discuss how they would trade watch duties after dinner, but levelheaded conversation was no longer on the menu for tonight.
“This sure doesn’t bode well,” Maou sighed, scoping out the stars that lit up the Ente Islan sky.
“We went through a lot more gas than I thought… Think we can reach Heavensky like this?”
It was mid-afternoon on the third day of their jaunt through Efzahan, and at a village tavern they had stopped by, Maou was sizing up Suzuno on the other side of the table.
“Our detour this morning cost us dearly, indeed. I was not expecting to all but run into a Regal Crimson patrol. We were going fast, and the roads were poor.”
The fuel gauges on both of their scooters were one tick away from the “E” mark. They had extra gasoline with them, but considering the lack of flat, well-maintained asphalt roads in Ente Isla, they didn’t have much wiggle room to work with. Food and water were not an issue, as long as they had access to the village they were currently in, but there was no hope of finding a gas station on this planet. That was the bottleneck.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 9 Page 16
