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

by Satoshi Wagahara

  “Whoa! I haven’t seen one in real life before! It’s pretty!”

  The angel feather pen in Emeralda’s possession was granted to her by Laila long ago, allowing her and Albert to travel to Earth in search of Emi.

  “Yeah,” Maou retorted, “and Laila claimed she could make one for all of us in that room if she wanted to. I dunno if she meant it as a reward or so we could all do something for her with them.”

  “…In thaaat room?” Emeralda frowned. “I don’t know how they’re maaade, but the end results would be rather dusssty, I imagine.”

  “No doubt. We know archangel feathers are used for them, but we don’t know exactly how they’re made at all. Hey, Gabriel? They didn’t try writing with their own feathers long ago or something, did they? Like some kinda fairy tale?”

  Gabriel gave this his usual cheese-eating grin.

  “What if they did, hmmm?”

  “If they did, it’s kinda gross.”

  They may have been angels, but if you saw one on the street, they looked human, pretty much. A lot of wigs are made from real human hair, but that worked because they were processed in just the right way, used in the proper situations, so that it all worked without issue. The idea of angels plucking out their own feathers to make these pens was yet another blow to any sense of divinity they emanated in the demons’ minds.

  “Well, not that it matters if you know or not, but they aren’t physically plucking out their feathers, mm-kay? There’s a secret technique.”

  Gabriel’s nonanswer made Chiho and Emeralda realize something at the same time.

  “Ohhh? But…”

  “Yeah. I heard the same thing.”

  They both looked at Maou.

  “I think you told us, Devil Kiiing…”

  “Demons aren’t capable of using angel feather pens, right?”

  Maou casually nodded. “Oh, yeah, I did say that, huh?”

  These pens could only be harnessed by those in possession of holy force. Demons, who by definition don’t have that, were blocked. A young Maou learned that from Laila himself way back when. But why didn’t Maou react when Laila claimed she’d make a feather pen for him?

  “I do not know how it applies with that feather pen, but if demons cannot use them, then what about Lucifer?” Suzuno asked from the side.

  “It’d only half work, I guess? Maybe it’d make a Gate, but I wouldn’t know how stable it was unless we tried.”

  “So…what about you, Maou?”

  “Well, first, I figured maybe there was some special trick that’d let me use it. Second, the angels are still against us, so I thought we could glean some important info from them. That’s it, pretty much.”

  “Ohhh, I see…”

  “Some special trick, huh? I have my doubts.”

  Chiho thought about this a bit. Suzuno, on the other hand, continued giving Maou a concerned look.

  “…” He shrugged, not indicating whether he noticed her or not. He continued, “Either way, Emeralda’s right. No feather pen coming out of that hoarder’s place is gonna work at all, and for all we know, she may be lying about the whole thing. Like, should a licensed caregiver really be living in such a mess?”

  “I had no idea she was a nurse, though… Maybe she took care of me while I was unconscious in the hospital.”

  “Oh, she had to. There’s only so many people who could’ve slipped that ring on you while you were sleeping, Chi.”

  “True.”

  Chiho recalled the ring with the Yesod fragment on it, still safe in its accessory case.

  “’Course, it ain’t so weird to think of Laila as a nurse at all. She used to work as a doctor long, long ago, so I’m sure studying for medical exams must’ve been a breeze for her, yeah?”

  “Huh?”

  “What?”

  Maou’s eyebrows shot up at the revelation Gabriel casually tossed into his reply. “Laila was a doctor?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Do they have…occupations, so to speak, in heaven?”

  “They do, or they did kinda… But y’know, you can’t expect everyone up there to be a first-class philosopher like Lucifer, mm-kay? Most of ’em are unemployed, and I’m not too sure any of ’em would work as hard as the salarymen of Japan. But hey, I’m employed. I’m guarding the Yesod, remember? Probably got fired long ago, for all I know, but…”

  He smiled broadly to himself as he watched people go through the turnstiles to the Seibu Ikebukuro Line out the window.

  “But back when Laila was a real doctor… Boy, that was back before we had become angels.”

  “Before you became angels?”

  Suzuno and Emeralda gave each other concerned looks as Maou pouted.

  “Ahh,” a convinced-looking Amane replied, “that kind of thing? I couldn’t get it out of your friend at Sentucky Fried Chicken, but when did you guys become angels?”

  “Oh, you knew Sariel, Ammie? To put it in a Japanese kinda way, he used to sort of be a lawyer, by the way.”

  “What kind of crappy HR department do they have in heaven?”

  Gabriel laughed off Maou’s joke. “Well, we measure time on different scales up there so I can’t give an exact figure, but… We’ve been angels for, what, maybe about ten thousand years?”

  Ten thousand years. To a human being, who’s extraordinarily blessed if they reach a hundred, it was a fearsome, incalculable amount of time.

  “Gabriel?”

  “Hmm? What’s up, Chiho Sasaki?”

  “Do you know why Laila’s doing what she’s doing?”

  “Oh, more or less. We weren’t in contact, so I don’t know all the details…but I learned she was married right when you invaded Ente Isla, Devil King. Kinda indirectly once I learned about Emilia, but still…”

  He must have known when the Yesod fragments were first deployed in Emi’s holy sword and Cloth of the Dispeller.

  “Now, unlike Laila, I’m more of a ‘wait and see how things pan out’ kinda guy, mm-kay? She decided to leave us, and I decided to stay put. That made for a pretty huge difference. Sometimes, we’d go for a century or so without talking to each other. But, like, it’s the same for you guys, ain’t it? If you go out with a friend for the first time in years, you start chattin’ all day about the past, don’tcha? It’s like that.”

  Maybe the situation was similar, but to a normal person, several months was quite a difference from several centuries.

  “Can I ask a question out of curiosity?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Laila wants Maou and Yusa to save the people of Ente Isla, right?”

  “It wouldn’t be totally right to say it’s just that, but in the end, yeah.”

  “Um… How much time will that take?”

  “Chi?”

  Chiho’s voice was serious, unshaken.

  “Why d’you wanna know that?”

  “When you kidnapped Yusa and Ashiya, all I could do was sit here and wait. I didn’t want to join them, since I knew I’d be nothing more than dead weight, and Maou and Suzuno said they’d be back here as soon as they could. But it’s not like a quest to rescue someone from another world normally takes only a week or so, the way it did with them.”

  “Hmm. Well, how much time do you think it’d take? You’re one of the Devil King’s ordained witnesses. I’m sure Laila told you at least some of the story.”

  “…She did.” Chiho nodded, recalling the content of Laila’s doomsday file. “And, um, if you asked me for a prediction, I’d say a month at the shortest, maybe even a hundred years or so at the longest.”

  “Wow!”

  “Wh-wha—?!”

  “A hundred yeeears?!”

  “……”

  Suzuno and Emeralda, unaware of the file and Laila’s story, almost leaped out of their chairs. Gabriel lifted his eyebrows in fascination. Maou stayed silent, head down.

  “Man. Chiho Sasaki. What a gal, huh? No wonder Laila counted so much on you, mm-kay? Can I ask,” Gabriel said without
denying the figures, “what made you come up with that time range?”

  “You and Laila have been preparing for this for at least several centuries. People with your strengths and your life spans still needing that much time to work it out—it can’t be anything too easy. But I also thought that maybe, as long as all the conditions were right, it’s the kind of thing you can wrap up pretty fast once it’s underway.”

  “Mmm. But that’s not all of it, is it?”

  “No.” Chiho shook her head. “The Yesod fragment we call Alas Ramus is with Laila’s daughter; Acieth is with the demon Maou. With everything positioned all crazy like that, the possibility of a really long-term mission seemed plausible, too.”

  “W-wait, Chiho. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “How so, Suzuno?”

  “Long-term or not, a hundred years? It is simply far too long. How would Emilia figure in that? It took her less than five years to defeat the Devil King, from start to finish.”

  “But this is different from beating the Devil King. I mean, Laila’s basically asking Maou and Yusa…”

  Chiho laid out the truth with barely a shred of emotion.

  “…to defeat the almighty god of Ente Isla for her.”

  ““Wha…?!””

  Suzuno and Emeralda gasped.

  “God, huh?” Amane listlessly asked as she stole a French fry from Acieth. “Of all the times for that to really show up. Talk about bad luck.”

  “Why would it come to that, Chi…?”

  Maou attempted to halt Chiho in her tracks, before this idle chitchat at the MozzBurger in Nerima Station became too apocalyptic, but it was Gabriel who stopped him instead.

  “She was asking out of curiosity, mm-kay? You already know about all that, and the negotiations are strictly between you, Emilia, and Laila. But even they have the right to know the truth and think for themselves, yeah?” He vacuumed up the last of his soft drink and placed the cup on the table. “And they’ve got a right to turn to you for help, mm-kay? Even Crestia Bell and Emeralda Etuva. They’re still Ente Islans, and they’ll be rescued by all you guys, too.”

  “…Let me just say…”

  He was right, but Maou didn’t want to have Gabriel reminding him. On the other hand, he had nothing to counter with. So he merely gave Gabriel a goading stare before turning to Suzuno and Emeralda.

  “You know,” he warned, “I still haven’t accepted any responsibility to do anything yet.”

  “Y-yes…but, Devil King, what will Alciel and Lucifer think of—?”

  “Ashiya’ll say to ignore it, what do you think? And Urushihara isn’t sayin’ anything at all.”

  “…Nothing?”

  Maou meant to emphasize that his demon cohorts were acting perfectly normal about this. Suzuno wasn’t about to fall for it.

  “When will you finally face facts, Devil King? You are not lying, but you are not telling the truth, either.”

  “What?”

  Suzuno frowned and stared at him. “If Lucifer really was against it, then he would say something like, ‘Don’t get me involved in this; it sounds like work and I want no part of it.’ He wouldn’t be silent. But he is, because he feels this is something he cannot afford to ignore, am I wrong?”

  “……”

  Maou looked suddenly daunted.

  “I hate to agree with Gabriel, but I am still concerned about all of you, too. You could at least try to trust us a little.”

  “…Gahhh… I swear, what is with you people…?”

  Maou brought a hand to his forehead, unable to look Suzuno directly in the eye.

  “Maou,” Chiho said, “I don’t want to be separated from you and Yusa. I can put up with it for a year or so, like Gabriel said. But I can’t wait a hundred. If you two were together for a hundred years, then I have to admit, that will make me pretty jealous.”

  “Oooh, Chiho! You go, girl!”

  “But, I mean, I really love both of you, so…”

  Chiho was all too receptive of Acieth’s half-joking cheer.

  “And not only me, either. There’s Suzuno and Emeralda and the rest of the Ente Islans. There’s Ms. Kisaki and Suzuki and Shimizu and Kawacchi and everyone else in Japan. There are tons of people who like you both. And none of them want to see their precious friends go somewhere far away for a hundred years. That’s why I want to ask. Why did this thing you have to do wind up being something like that?”

  “Didn’t Laila tell you everything?”

  “You know things that she doesn’t, don’t you, Gabriel? You told her that you’d take care of us for her.”

  “…This is just so hard to deal with, you know,” Gabriel said, sounding like he was having much more fun than his complaint indicated.

  “And Laila still hasn’t compensated Maou and Yusa the way they need to be. She hasn’t even made an offer yet.”

  “You mean about the metal? Or about having someone strong do something for her?”

  Gabriel’s strange analogy about Laila’s compensation made Maou wince once again. The term metal reminded Suzuno of something for a moment, but Chiho spoke before she could fully recall it.

  “I don’t really understand what you mean, but I think it’s probably the latter.”

  Her provoking eyes prodded Gabriel.

  “And I haven’t heard anything from you, Gabriel, or Laila, either, about how the Hatagaya MgRonald is going to plug the holes in the shift schedule if Maou and Yusa leave Japan.”

  Having someone who should be there just disappear—Chiho knew full well how heavy that really was.

  “Holes in the schedule? Ha-ha-ha!”

  It was Amane who laughed at Chiho’s statement and the self-assured boldness she delivered it with.

  “I like that kinda thing. Like, really.”

  Up to this point, she had been acting incredibly bored, ignoring the conversation and keeping a sharp eye on Erone. Now she was sitting up in her seat.

  “In terms of where I stand on this, it’s pretty close to Chiho. We’re the ones having this huge job foisted upon us. If you ask me, the lives of individual people like Chiho and Rika over here are a lot more important than the lives of an entire race on some planet I hardly even know about.”

  “Amane…”

  “I’m involved with the Sephirah, too, after all.”

  She smiled, her shiny teeth juxtaposed against her tanned skin, as she turned toward Gabriel.

  “And don’t think,” she warned, “that Chiho’s putting her fast-food job environment on the scales against the people of an entire world, okay? This girl’s putting everything in her life up there, too, against what you want to rescue. That, plus the lives of Sadao Maou and Emi Yusa—two people that she knows and all the other people who know them. If you don’t get how much that weighs, then even if Maou and Yusa say yes to you, Chiho’s never gonna budge. She’d probably wage her life on trying to stop Maou. She’d want everyone in Ente Isla to die.”

  “Eesh. Well, I hope she doesn’t do that. ’Cause if she pulls that when I have the Devil King and Emilia’s agreement, well, that’s gonna be an obstacle I’ll try to rub outta the picture, mm-kay?”

  “And then you’d be turning me and Aunt Mikitty against you. You realize what you’re saying, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, yeah…”

  As the archangel holding guard over the Sephirah, Gabriel knew or thought he knew the dangers of Miki Shiba and Amane more than anybody alive.

  “All right. Lemme come clean, mm-kay? Maybe Laila ain’t up for it, but there’s somethin’ I wanna have done so much, I’m willing to keep the Devil King and Emilia under lock and key for a hundred years, even more, if I have to. And I know this is gonna hurt Laila’s bargaining position a ton with you guys, but me having Ashiya over for tea on the Eastern Island was related to that, although kinda distantly. But as for the reward for those hundred years spent, along with the potential for more that should’ve been earned along the way… Well, that we sadly don’t have ready for you
yet, mm-kay?”

  “Well, rewaaards or not, a century is such a long tiiime… Even if she survived, Emilia would be an old woooman by thennn.”

  It was a matter-of-fact question. Gabriel gave it a matter-of-fact response.

  “What, you think Emilia’s gonna age and die like a regular human being? She’s half angel!”

  “Wait… What…?!”

  Emeralda fell silent, as if someone had just punched her.

  “How many years you think me and Laila and Sariel and Lucifer have lived and looked the exact same as we do now? Once we mature enough and our bodies reach peak condition, we angels stop. We stop getting older; we basically go on forever. If you fall from heaven, that’s a different story, but Sariel proved long ago that Emilia’s physically incapable of that.”

  Sariel had the power to banish angels from heaven, it was true. But when he opened his Evil Eye of the Fallen upon Emi, it stripped her of her holy force but did nothing to seize her ability to control the Better Half or transform into her half-angel form.

  “You know that demons live for years and years, too, right? Not as long as angels, but still. And I don’t know how many centuries this Devil King here’s been living, but by demon realm standards, he’s still in his prime. Probably hasn’t even lived a tenth as long as me or Laila, mm-kay?”

  “What’s age matter once I’m mature enough, you?”

  “Ever the young, ambitious upstart, hmm? Look, no matter how blessed with talent you are, you’re still gonna be no better than anyone else when it comes to experience—those years you’ve built up. Young people get all pretentious, like Ooh, you can’t measure someone on age alone, but what happens when they get older? Now they’re the ones disparaging the younger generation, just for being there. I’ve seen it all the time, mm-kay? But we’re getting off track. If we go any further, it might be seen as me negotiating with the Devil King, so if we’re gonna talk, let’s keep it in the realm of chitchat with this li’l lady here, mm-kay? Or if you don’t wanna hear it, you can always leave?”

  “…Shut up.”

  Maou stood up, thoroughly annoyed, taking his wallet with him to the front bar. Being banished to an empty seat didn’t exactly fill him with excitement.