The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 13

by Satoshi Wagahara

  “Oh, man…” Moau groaned with glossy eyes. “There’s no way that wouldn’t freak me out.”

  “It was certainly a shock,” Chiho agreed. “I mean, something like that goes beyond sane living conditions…”

  “Not even Lucifer would descend to that level,” Suzuno added.

  “Nooo, I am hardly in a position to criiiticize myself, but oh my worrrd…”

  “I heard the two of them had squabbled in Emi’s apartment,” said Amane, “but this… Well, I hope Nord doesn’t file for divorce.”

  “Mmm, yeah, they say irreconcilable lifestyle differences is one of the top reasons given for divorces, y’know?” Gabriel hummed.

  “Yummmm!”

  “I like this.”

  But even after that dreadful sight, Acieth and Erone still had the wherewithal to order yet another bucketload of food from the MozzBurger inside Nerima Station, leading Maou and Amane to question their sanity.

  “Maou! The fries, they are more thick here than MgRonald’s!”

  “…Great.”

  “But the burgers are messier. I don’t like them as much.”

  Seeing the Sephirah children express not a care for the world (or their blood sugar levels) made Maou feel overwhelmingly desperate for Alas Ramus’s future.

  Gabriel sipped on an Aserolla Hard Soda next to them. “So, Devil King? You more convinced about Laila now?”

  “I sure wish I wasn’t,” the pallid Maou replied, shaking his head. He thought he wanted to know more about Laila’s personal life, but he had no idea it was anything like that. Amane and Gabriel’s chatter about divorce suddenly didn’t seem like such a joke any longer.

  “What…is this?”

  Emi was the first to come up with a complete sentence.

  “My goodness,” Nord groaned again.

  Laila remained there by the open door, looking apologetically toward the side. “…I’m sorry. I tried, but it was at such short notice, so…”

  “Mommy, it’s all dark!”

  “For real…?”

  “Whoaaa…”

  “What on…?”

  “Whaaa—?”

  “…Pretty cramped.”

  “Um, are we safe in here?”

  “What a mess.”

  The sounds of wonder and disgust filled the hallway, rounded out by Acieth exclaiming, “Ooh! Such the pigsty!”

  It was, as she suggested, not even worthy of being called a home. Normally, it’d be a compact studio, maybe hitting two hundred square feet, with a kitchenette and unit bath attached. But as far as could be seen from the door, it was hard to tell where the kitchen ended and where the main living space began.

  Around 40 percent of the floor space was occupied by books, 20 percent by clothing, and about 10 percent by cardboard boxes. The rest was merely piles and piles of…well, stuff, stacked up in the most disorderly fashion. Not stored—stacked. The door to the closet, normally used for clothes and bed linens, was taken completely off, a thick pole hung from it to the other end of the room. Dangling from it was such a grand variety of clothes that it formed a thick curtain blocking the view to the rest of the apartment. There were no bookshelves; instead, books of all shapes and sizes were haphazardly stacked everywhere, forming a sort of incline from the walls to the center of the room like an ant lion’s pit. In the middle was a small heap of blankets, coiled around in a bird’s nest–like clutch. Near the border toward what they assumed was the kitchenette was a low sitting desk like the one Urushihara used, a computer monitor perched on top of it that looked pretty vintage to Emi’s eyes.

  “This…is after you did your best to clean up…?”

  ““Ah!””

  Her husband and daughter both gave her looks of disbelief.

  “Um, well, when I’m not visiting your apartment in Sasazuka, it’s usually because I’m pretty busy with work…”

  “Work…? Hey, what do you do anyway?”

  “Well…”

  Laila reluctantly turned toward Chiho.

  “Huh?”

  “I’m actually a registered nurse. I pick up spot shifts instead of being assigned to a single place, but lately I’ve been settled down at the Seikai University Department of Medicine’s clinic in Tokyo…”

  ““““Whaaaaaaat?!””””

  The gathered shouts of Emi, Chiho, Suzuno, and Maou broke the silence.

  “That’s the hospital Chiho and Lucifer were kept in!”

  “You—you’re a registered nurse?!”

  “No wonder you showed up in there!”

  All three women were tremendously flustered. Not even Maou could hide his shock.

  “Yo, Nord. Did you know that?”

  “N-no, I heard she was in the medical field but not the exact location… Attaining a nurse’s license isn’t that simple a task, is it?”

  “No. Not that I know the whole process, but you can’t just get it in a year’s time or anything.”

  Now nobody could hide their confusion. Laila’s life seemed to be surrounded by layers and layers of surprise.

  “I, um, I’m not lying. It’s true. I made sure to frame my license and put it on the wall so it wouldn’t get buried. Um, you might trip and fall if you aren’t used to getting around, so let me grab it.”

  Were there trip wires installed in this room? What kind of place was this? Either way, Laila removed her shoes and went inside.

  “Ow! Oh, um, I’m caught on something…”

  They could hear her valiantly attempt to extricate herself. Then, after another pause, she came back with a picture frame.

  “Here. See?”

  She was right. It was a graduation certificate from a nursing institute, dated over ten years ago, certifying she had passed her qualification exam. And the name on it—

  “‘Laila Justina’… You kept your original name?”

  Emi’s eyes widened as she saw the name written out in katakana on the certificate.

  “Y-yeah, I’m a naturalized citizen of Japan. I went to vocational school on a student visa first, and then I applied for citizenship after five years. Ms. Shiba’s relatives helped out a lot with that. My records have me as being born in the UK.”

  Maou wondered if having her name out in the open like this exposed her to danger from her pursuers in heaven. But Laila was apparently resigned to that.

  “I had thought about using a Japanese name, of course. But when I thought about how I could become a citizen and have the humans who live in this world recognize me by my name, that really made me want to use my real one. I wanted to think this was a world where people would accept me and the name I was given as a human.”

  Another piece of trivia that was picked up on by Emi, Suzuno, and Emeralda but no one else: Laila apparently wanted to have the last name she received from Nord be her official one in Japan.

  “So now do you see how I’m officially established here?”

  Emi wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Her mother was far more committed to living here than even she was—although judging by this room, she wasn’t exactly capable of going anywhere else.

  “Oh, um, and if you want evidence that I’m working in a hospital, my next work assignment is in a couple days, so I’ll make time if you want to visit!”

  Laila must have taken Emi’s apparent confusion as outright suspicion. She was all too eager to convince her daughter that she belonged here.

  “All right? If you’re worried, I can go find my residence certificate real quick. I think my electric and gas bills are somewhere nearby. Also…um…”

  “…Any comment, Father?”

  “Huh? Umm…”

  Emi decided to address Nord, if only to remind her mother that she wasn’t the only person in the room. He fiddled with his beard as he gingerly surveyed his wife.

  “L-Laila?”

  “Yes…?”

  “Unless my memory is failing me…I don’t recall you living in such squalor.”

  “I-I’m sorry! I, um, I’m on c
all at the hospital a lot, and there’s all the Ente Isla stuff, and it’s keeping me so busy that I’m hardly here at all unless I’m sleeping!”

  Laila earnestly apologized at the expression of concern—or hopelessness—from Nord.

  “Ummm,” a voice called out, “I thiiink Laila isn’t lying. It seems like her abooode to me.”

  “Eme?”

  Emeralda gingerly raised a hand. It notably brightened Laila, (incorrectly) assuming she was throwing her a life preserver.

  “After Laiiila left, one of the dorrrm rooms in the Holy Magic Administraaative Institute was quite a bit like thiiis.”

  The life preserver turned out to be on fire, exploding in Laila’s face. Her smile froze solid.

  “Um—umm… I apologize for leaving it in that state…”

  It was admirable of Laila to not make excuses for it. But she was no longer able to lift her head back up. The thought of her daughter’s reaction scared her too much.

  “While I was having Ms. Shiba help me establish myself here…seeing all these human beings living and thriving here, like nothing I’d seen before…it made me get a little carried away. Which I regret.”

  “In the middle of what’s supposed to be a recession, too,” Maou butted in. But Laila shook her head, expression serious if a bit covered in a cold sweat.

  “I’ve seen too many countries where children who lose their parents are forced to finish their short lives begging on the streets. They say times are tough, but if a nation’s full of people trying to make tomorrow better than today, that’s what I call thriving. If everyone’s looking in the right direction, the world’s bound to reach a better place. That’s such a happy thing to see.”

  “Yeah,” her daughter said from beyond her eyesight, “but if you call this room of yours ‘thriving,’ then I’m not sure I agree with your interpretation of that.”

  “Oof.”

  “Lucifer’s the exact same way. You angels are all such slobs. Now I’m a little worried about how Sariel and Gabriel are living.”

  “…I have nothing I can say.”

  “Yeah, I sure don’t,” Gabriel added for some reason.

  “Uggh…”

  Laila’s body shrunk down at Emi’s unseen sigh. But—

  “…Yusa?”

  Chiho noticed her face. It was surprisingly composed, vivid with color.

  “If you’ve messed the place up this bad, do you think you’re ever going to get your deposit back? Do you even know what living in an apartment means?”

  “I think Aunt Mikitty will give it back to her as long as she didn’t really mess up the walls and floor.”

  “That’s not the issue, Amane. If you’re living in a rented space, you’ve got an obligation to adhere to a bare minimum of cleanliness, at least.”

  “Oh, but wasn’t there a Devil King who came to my shop because the room he rented had a gigantic hole blown in it?”

  “That was this guy’s fault, Amane.”

  Gabriel shot back at the spreading flames. “Hey! Not me! Your kid did that! This isn’t the first time I’ve had these wild allegations against me, mm-kay?”

  “What I mean is, even the Hero and Devil King need to clean their apartments once they go back home. I don’t know what motives you have for lurking behind the scenes all this time, but I don’t want to listen to someone who can’t even keep her place decent.”

  “That…”

  Laila’s face was full of remorse, but given how obvious Emi’s assessment was, it was difficult to take her side.

  “…Hey, Emeralda, what’re we gonna do about that? Emi’s found another excuse not to listen to her.”

  “…Yeah, I wish she’d giiive up on it alreaaady…”

  But it was also clear that Emi’s indecisive attitude—a transformation in her personality brought on by her inability to decide on an approach to Laila—was starting to wear on her friends. Having lived in Emi’s apartment all this time, Emeralda in particular had a front-row seat to this attitude of hers. Now they were all scared she’d use this dump as an excuse to turn on her heels and walk away.

  But then Emi herself let off a bombshell.

  “So I’m not going to listen to your story today…but I am going to clean this place up.”

  It instantly restored the color to Laila’s cheeks.

  “…Emilia?”

  That offer was one thing. The mere act of Emi stepping inside and addressing her mother to her face was another.

  “R-really?”

  Emi took obvious pains to keep from locking eyes with her. “I just don’t want my friends to think my own mother’s living in a pit like this!”

  “Emilia… Th-thank you… Thank you!”

  In a roundabout way, Emi had acknowledged Laila as her mother. It made tears instantly well up in Laila’s eyes.

  “And let me just say, don’t forget that you owe Eme, too. Trying to sponge off your daughter’s friends… Could you get any more embarrassing?”

  “I—I know…”

  “And I can’t believe you forced Father to take full care of Acieth even though you lived right near him. And don’t tell me you weren’t involved with Alas Ramus just getting tossed into Villa Rosa Sasazuka without a word. Do you have any idea how much pandemonium it was at first?”

  “I know… I’m sorry.”

  “But…”

  Here, finally, Emi softened her voice.

  “I didn’t imagine anything like this, but for the first time in my life, you’re actually acting like you’re alive to me. That’s something, at least, I can take away from today.”

  “Yusa…”

  “Emilia…”

  “Oh, enough of that aaattitude, Emiiilia…”

  Emeralda, along with Chiho and Suzuno, were all ever so slightly relieved to see Emi try to get a little closer to Laila, even with all the words she needed to get there.

  “I could help you, Yusa…”

  Emi turned Chiho down. “Thanks, but it’ll be hard for too many people to navigate through all this. This is a family issue, and it’s gonna take a family to fix it. And…sorry for everything, guys.”

  That short apology contained her fervent desire to atone for how weak willed she had acted for the past month or so. She rounded it out by addressing Maou, the man who had wanted to learn of Laila’s lifestyle even more than Emi.

  “What about you, Devil King? Seen enough yet?”

  “…If you’re happy, I’m happy. Go ahead and clean this place if you want. It’s not like seeing this immediately changed my mind or anything.”

  “Ah. Well, thanks.”

  She informally raised a hand to see him off.

  “…Hey. We’re going.”

  “Whaa—?! We go now? Why did we come here?!”

  Acieth had a point, but this peek into Laila’s personal life was pretty much the beginning and end of Maou and crew’s objectives. Acieth and Erone were brought along simply because their guardians couldn’t leave them alone. But to Acieth, at least, she saw no point in going home yet.

  “Huhh?! Come on! This is the total waste of time!”

  “Ugh… Fine, you wanna eat somewhere?”

  “That’s the spirit, Maou!”

  This carrot was the only way Maou really knew to keep her from whining until the cows come home.

  “You just had some curry. Keep it light.”

  But now, he already sensed doom ahead as Acieth all but tied the bib around her neck right where she stood.

  “We’re headed home, Nord.”

  “Oh?”

  The farewell left Nord uncharacteristically silent. Emi was already busy dissecting Laila’s room behind him.

  “Right! We’re gonna throw away everything you aren’t using any longer!”

  “Wait, Emilia! I like those piglet-print socks! Those were the first ones I bought when I came here…!”

  “No back talk! If they’re that important, then wash them, fold ’em up, and put ’em away! Do you have any idea how
neat the Devil King keeps his place? Have you no shame?!”

  The cleanup battle between mother and daughter was off to a lively start.

  “Do—do I have to stay?” Nord found himself asking.

  “Of course you do. This is your wife and daughter here,” Emeralda replied succinctly.

  “N-no, I know that, but…”

  “Have fun taking caaare of your faaamily!”

  “No, Emeralda, umm…”

  “Father, give me a hand! Go to the pharmacy and buy us some dust masks! I’m gonna get asthma if I breathe everything in the air here!”

  “See? Yusa’s calling for you.”

  “Um, good luck…”

  “I guess this’ll be some good quality time for you guys.”

  “Yeah. Tell Laila that we’ll hold down the fort on our end.”

  “Whoo-hoo! Time for the eating!”

  “Hey, where should we go…?”

  “Father! Buy some trash bags and twine and scissors, too!”

  “Please, Emilia, wait! I’ll wash these! And those are my textbooks! I still open those up sometimes! Don’t throw them away!!”

  As Nord blankly watched Maou and his cohorts file away from the apartment, screams and shouts began to erupt from inside.

  “Honey, say something!”

  “Don’t spoil her any longer, Father!”

  “…Granddad?”

  Feeling something tugging at his pants leg, Nord looked down.

  “Mommy an’ her’s kinda scary.”

  “They sure are.”

  Alas Ramus came to his aid, looking concerned. He lifted her up, a look of sorrowful resolve on his face.

  “Better step up and help them out…”

  “You think they’ll make up?”

  Chiho’s eyes were watching far beyond the window.

  “Who knows? They’re closer to each other, at least, but I don’t know if they’ll go all the way.”

  “Well, if they’re cloooser, at least that presents more of an opportuuunity.”

  Compared to Maou, Emeralda was certainly far less pessimistic, if not wholly optimistic, about their chances.

  “But how was she planning to make a whole bunch of angel feather pens in that mess?”

  “Oh? Pens? What do you meeean?”

  Surprised, Emeralda took one of those feather pens out from the shoulder bag she purchased in Japan. Chiho marveled at the dull glow.