“…For future reference maybe.”
Now Rika nodded, her face more severe. She must have been concerned about what her potential love looked like.
“I’d say Lucifer, or Urushihara, has the least difference between his two forms. The only big one is the large black wings. Otherwise, he looks like he does now.”
“Oh, they don’t change too much?”
“Well, as the demon Alciel, Ashiya has two scorpion-style tails.”
“T-tails?!”
Technically speaking, it was a single forked tail. Emi, who wasn’t that much of an expert on the rear ends of demons, simply relayed her understanding of it to Rika.
“His skin’s really tough, like the shell of a lobster, but made out of metal that swords can’t cut through. That covers everything from his face to his arms and the rest of his body. His natural voice is incredibly grating to the ears. You could describe his overall shape as human if you squinted hard enough, but he’s a little taller than how you know him. In terms of the parts he had clothes over, like his feet, I haven’t really seen those in detail, either, so I couldn’t tell you.”
“A—a lobster…?”
Rika’s imagination was failing her mightily. All she could imagine was the spiny lobsters that take center stage in a traditional Japanese New Year’s meal, dancing in and out of her mind, with Ashiya’s head on top of them.
“That’s…kind of hard to picture…”
“Yeah, well, in terms of looking human, the Devil King’s a good deal closer than that.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, but he’s almost ten feet tall, his arms and legs are the size of tree trunks, he’s got horns and hooves on his feet, and there’s also these wings he can take out or remove anytime he wants.”
Calling this closer to human was a bit of a stretch. It made the look on Rika’s face even blanker.
“What do you mean, ‘take out or remove’?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s his actual body, maybe it’s demonic magic at work. He can still fly without those wings, though, so I’m not exactly sure what they’re for.”
“You aren’t embellishing this, are you?”
“How would I even do that?”
Emi could understand why Rika would doubt her, having never seen these demons in person. But it was all the truth.
“Whew… I just can’t imagine them at all.”
“I doubt they’ll be kind enough to show you if you ask, and it might even kill you unless we take some precautions, so we might have to disappoint you.”
“Huh? Why would I die?”
“Being exposed to high levels of demonic force is potentially lethal to normal human beings. These are all upper-class demons so they can take measures to prevent too much force from leaking out, but we can’t guarantee that there won’t be any aftereffects.”
“……”
Now it was Rika tensing her face.
“But you’re fine right now, though. Even without any demonic force, they can live off food like anyone else, and I get the impression Ashiya’s deliberately removed the force from his own body, so it won’t be dangerous to hang out near him.”
“You’re making him sound like some poisonous spider…”
“In terms of handling, it might be pretty close to that.”
Emi’s voice grew a bit louder. The more honestly she talked about these demons, the more it resulted in her slamming the man her friend loved.
“Man, talk about a thorny path to tread. Beyond thorny.”
“Yeah,” Emi agreed.
“But I guess someone else went down that path before me, huh?”
“Yeah. And if that girl was born in Ente Isla, I bet she would’ve been one hell of a celebrity.”
“She already is, in my book. Like, before I came along, she was the only one who had this huge secret she knew? No way I could handle that stress.”
“Yeah… You’re right.”
Like Chiho, Rika came to know the truth about Emi only after Ente Isla–related events put her in mortal danger. But there was a marked difference in how they were treated after the big reveal. Rika was attacked by Gabriel and the knights of Ente Isla’s Eastern Island, sent there to kidnap Ashiya, and was rescued by Amane Ohguro’s intervention. As she put it, she had come down with a fever subsequently, Chiho coming to take care of her and later guiding Maou, Suzuno, Urushihara, and Amane to provide further treatment.
What about Chiho, however? Suzuno and Amane weren’t on the scene back then, and Emi and Ashiya weren’t close acquaintances yet. Lucifer and Olba had kidnapped her, she had been caught up in a crazy, out-of-this-world battle, and then she was faced with this guy at work she liked being the demon lord of another planet. There was nobody to share her memories with once it all wrapped up. It was easy to imagine the pain she must’ve felt, between her feelings of affection and her recollection of the fight. Despite all the revelations after becoming full, secret-free friends with Emi, it took a fair amount of time for her to be able to talk normally with Maou again.
“Chiho acts totally unaffected, but I know she’s suffered a lot. Or maybe is suffering, in fact.”
She knew about Maou and his true form. Her life had been threatened multiple times. Now they were setting foot upon a new truth once more, but no matter how it worked out, Emi doubted it would do much to change Chiho’s feelings.
“Can I ask kind of a blunt question?”
“What?” Emi asked, eyebrow raised as Rika gave her a grim look.
“Your father married an angel, right?”
“…Right.”
Emi’s hesitation stemmed from her still-vibrant resistance toward calling Laila her “mother” with her own tongue. Rika paid it no mind.
“So have any people ever…been together with demons before?”
This was a blunt question. But it was one that would naturally occur to anyone who knew about Emi’s parents. And the answer Emi had was clear as day.
“I don’t know of any.”
It was literally a case of devil’s advocate. If people and angels could share a relationship like that, then why not people and demons?
“…No, not like I’d know at this point anyway.”
Rika gave this a soft smile and a nod.
“Thanks, Emi. I appreciate you staying up this late to listen to me.”
She looked up. The clock on the wall was nearing midnight.
“No, it’s been really fun, sharing a meal with you for a change. Can you catch a train back home?”
“Yeah, I checked beforehand. I’ve still got enough time, but don’t you have Alas Ramus with Suzuno right now, Emi? You don’t want to be too late, for their sakes, I don’t think.”
“I warned them in advance…but thanks for thinking about them. I forgot to ask this whole time, but when’s the big day?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“That’s kind of fast.”
“I know, but tomorrow was pretty much the only free day both of us had for the time being.” Rika flashed a bashful smile. “That’s why I came to you in such a big huff, too, hee-hee-hee.”
“Ohh. Well, I know I said I can’t cheer you on, but still, good luck out there.”
“Yeah. Honestly, right now, I don’t really know what’s the best-case scenario I should even be gunning for.”
Rika stood up, reaching for the bill as she prepared to leave. Emi stopped her. “No,” she said, “lemme pay for what I ate.”
“Oh, I can’t let you do that!”
“I can’t let you do that. If you go back long enough, I’m the one who oughta be buying you a meal anyway. So let’s just split it today, like always.”
“…No defying you, I guess.”
Emi’s emphasis on doing it “like always” made Rika raise her hands in defeat.
After splitting away from Rika at Hatagaya station, Emi headed down the path toward Villa Rosa Sasazuka alone.
In her heart of hearts, she saw little cha
nce of Rika’s feelings fully coming across to Ashiya. Her impression of him was that, unlike Maou, he always made an effort to keep a prudent distance from the people he dealt with. He never fully dove into the human being role the way Maou did, didn’t adjust himself to human society the way Maou did—but didn’t act needlessly hostile toward them, either, like he used to.
“But if it does turn out okay despite that, it’d sure surprise me…”
Emi watched her breath dissipate into the streetlights as she quickened her pace a little. She had people waiting for her at Villa Rosa. True friends, people she loved wholeheartedly, in the apartment where her sworn enemy lurked.
It had been a little over a month since she became a regular there, even sharing a workplace with friend and foe. It was hopelessly complex, ever changing, and—as Emi thought to herself amid the light from the telephone poles, cars, and convenience stores that leaked out from all around her—so unbelievably comfortable for her that she wished it could continue forever.
She was well used to this path, and the light from the apartments already loomed ahead. Two of them were still on upstairs; Maou and Suzuno must have still been up. The sight of those lights gave comfort to her heart, something that began happening somewhere in the past.
“Oh, man. None of this should be happening, but here we are…”
After everything she just told Rika, too. Her mind must be crashing with some kind of error again.
“…Hmm?”
Then she wondered if her eyes were failing her as well. Something odd was in sight up there—someone kneeling primly in the corridor. Two of them. It made Emi instinctively hide herself behind the wall surrounding the site.
“Emi finished her shift ages ago. Where the hell is she?”
“Bell said she had to meet up with a friend after that…”
It was Maou and Laila. For reasons only they knew, they were braving the cold out there, curled up and shivering.
“A friend? Rika Suzuki?”
“I don’t know who, but she said the person showed up at her workplace out of nowhere…”
“Definitely Rika, then. She visits the MgRonald all the time.”
“I don’t know that name. She’s friends with Emilia?”
“Yeah. She’s from Earth, but she knows all about who we are. I guess she’s Emi’s best friend, so she probably knows about you, too.”
“Oh, really? Well, that’s nice. Having a friend you can talk about anything with.”
“Yeah, but did this really have to happen today? Thanks to Suzuno, I can’t go inside until Emi gets back, but if Rika’s taking up her time, who knows when she’ll be back?”
Laila was presumably there to ambush Emi so they could have that talk Suzuno had warned her about, but Maou’s motives were a mystery to her. Their relationship had changed over time, yes, but there’s no way the Devil King would let himself freeze to death just to welcome her to his apartment. The phone call earlier indicated to Emi that Suzuno might have been giving him the business (and then some) a bit ago—did that have something to do with it? If Suzuno wanted to boot him out of the apartment, it seemed unlikely Ashiya would be willing to accept that.
But as Emi’s thoughts proceeded along those lines—
“I haven’t done this in a while, have I?”
She recalled how she used to go on stakeout missions like these to Villa Rosa Sasazuka all the time. The arrival of Alas Ramus allowed her to make regular sanctioned visits instead, but the era before that seemed like eons ago, even though it wasn’t.
“Y’know, I really think we’re reading too much into this, but…”
“Whether you think so or not, it’ll sound like nothing more than a trite excuse to a woman. You were wrong in the end, were you not? No matter how effective the attempt, it’s pointless without results.”
“Like you’re one to talk.”
“Look, I’m sorry, but it’s true. I’ve met tons of people from a lot of countries by this point, but it’s pretty weird, you know? The way they all get into arguments over the same things.”
“We aren’t arguing.”
“Maybe it’d be better if you were. At least you’d be trying to express yourselves to each other.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
It seemed like a fairly uncommon conversation for a Devil King and archangel to have. It proved to Emi that Maou was out there because he invited a woman’s scorn upon him, but who would be enraged enough to drive him to this? It wasn’t Laila over there, and Emi hadn’t seen him all day today. Suzuno sure sounded pissed over the phone, but Ashiya wouldn’t put up with this kind of treatment on her part.
Beyond that, the only women who could give Maou this much guff were Amane, Acieth, or the landlord. Perhaps Miki Shiba, the Villa Rosa Sasazuka owner whom Maou and Ashiya found impossible to defy, scolded them to the point that Ashiya reluctantly put his roommate out on the doorstep for the night. That seemed the most likely scenario to Emi. But then the conversation went in a wholly unexpected direction—
“I mean,” Laila said with a sigh, “it sounds to me like you’re letting her spoil you completely.”
“Spoil…? Yeah, maybe, but she should’ve known this isn’t the sort of topic we can really tackle frankly with each other, so…”
There was little force behind Maou’s protest. It wasn’t the cold fazing him—just the understanding that his attempt at a protest was nothing of the sort at all, but instead something he still felt needed to be said.
“See? ‘She should have known.’ You let her spoil you that way. And that’s led to discontent and distrust in all kinds of situations like this. All over the world.”
“Yeahhhhh… But what other way was there to settle this?”
“Whether there’s another way or not, did you even try to find one? Did you show any effort like that to her? Or did you just assume that she’d always respect your will and understand your motivations, so you didn’t bother showing her a little sincerity?”
“…”
Maou fell silent. Perhaps the words hit home.
“Listen. Maybe that girl really is that incredibly broad-minded and strong inside, but she’s still only in high school, all right? She’s only had sixteen or seventeen years’ experience living in this world. You can’t expect her to think the same way as a centuries-old demon like yourself.”
“I know that. I know that, but… Ugh, I’m freezing. Why isn’t Emi here yet…?”
Emi let out an unconscious gasp. There was only one high school–aged girl who shared a connection with Maou and Laila—and that was Chiho. Did Maou do something to incur her wrath?
“Well, let me just say this. Nobody actually likes bad boys, you know? Not even the ones in movies and TV shows with good looks and lots of money and high social status. They always get their comeuppances in shows like those, and that’s because nobody likes them in reality, either.”
“Quit talking about TV and movies all the time. Your husband’s gonna think you’re some kind of degenerate.”
“He likes watching samurai dramas, too, so it’s fine. And you know how many of those shows have episodes where fancy-pants gigolos go around abusing women? Usually, they don’t even make it to the third act. They get killed by the yakuza or some corrupt magistrate first.”
“Uh, what were we talking about again?”
“We’re talking about how if you hurt the feelings of a beautiful young woman, you’ll always have to pay that back with interest.”
Emi found much to agree with in Laila’s assessment of samurai-drama tropes but quickly snapped out of it.
So Maou had hurt Chiho’s feelings somehow. That explained Suzuno’s act over the phone and Ashiya’s willingness to kick him out of the apartment. Suzuno thought a great deal of Chiho, and she enjoyed at least a measure of respect from Ashiya—treating her far nicer than Urushihara anyway. But the Maou that Emi knew would never do anything to hurt her like that. As she just talked about with Rika, Mao
u had treated Chiho as someone special in his life for quite a long time. Since joining the MgRonald crew, she knew through discussions with Kisaki and Akiko and Kawata that Maou’s public attitude toward her hadn’t changed one bit before and after she learned the truth.
“Chiho… Hope she’s okay.”
Ideally, Emi would’ve preferred to leave them to shiver out the rest of the night up there and go give Chiho a big hug to console her instead. But it was well past midnight, and storming the Sasaki residence was out of the question. Plus, this was Chiho they were talking about. No matter how cruel Maou was to her, Emi suspected she would never ever bad-mouth him in any way.
But what did Maou do anyway? The conversation was lacking much detail so far.
“You are certainly striking a brave stand here, however. Reminds me of me, long ago.”
“Ugh, don’t give me crap like that. I’ll kick your ass down the stairs.”
“Ah, I love it when you react like a little boy like that. It’s so innocent and… Ahhh?!”
“?!”
The soft shouting from Laila made Emi peek out from behind the wall. She found her there, leaning against the stairway’s guardrail in an awkward position, trying to catch her breath. Maou must have quite literally tried to kick her ass down the stairs right then.
“You—you didn’t have to actually do it! What if I fell down?!”
“You should be glad an angel like you got away that lightly after taunting the Devil King, man. Plus, you know how many times your daughter took a tumble down those stairs? I just thought I’d let you join in the fun.”
The lunacy of Maou’s excuses put Laila in a silent state of confusion.
“Did—did you push Emilia down these stairs?”
“No, she slipped and fell by herself. I even caught her fall once, thank you very much.”
That did happen once, didn’t it? Emi had grown far more used to those steep, slippery steps by now, thanks to how many times she was going up and down them these days. Growing more connected to the upstairs landing of Villa Rosa Sasazuka, her fear of that stairway was all but gone now. She let out a sigh from the back of her throat, muffled so Maou and Laila wouldn’t notice. It gently ran through her nostrils.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 13 Page 9
