“…Like hell it doesn’t! That baby girl made a total beeline for you!”
They kept their argument to a well-advised whisper.
The apple, back in pre-infant mode, had indeed all but called for Emi by name. Whether it was attracted by her holy energy or just happened to be rolling in her direction was unclear, but considering she was drawn to Emi almost from the moment she drew her holy sword, the former reason was more likely.
“You have to take her with you! Or at least, like, stay here until we figure out what’s going on!”
“Forget it! You know what happens whenever you try to ensnare me in your crap? Nothing good, that’s what! I want out of here, as soon as I possibly can!”
“His hands… So tight…”
Chiho continued staring into space next to the raging feud.
“You think I like this, either? You, constantly butting into my daily life and making me solve all of your problems? I’m sick of it!”
“Well, you’re sure gonna have to do it now, aren’t you?”
“Like hell I am! You made that mess yourself, lady! And now I’m gonna make you sleep in it!”
“Stop being gross! I always live up to my promises! It’s not my fault if you keep pretending I promised you the world and a half!”
“Will you quit acting like—”
“Both of you, be quiet! You’re going to wake her up!”
Ashiya softly took them both to task. Their voices had gradually ratcheted up in volume as they quarreled.
“So tight… Maou’s hands… So big…”
“…What happened to Chiho, exactly?”
“She’s been that way ever since we all came in here.”
“Silence, Lucifer. Nobody asked you.”
Suzuno groaned as she placed a hand upon her temple. Outside of Ashiya and his attempts at defusing the situation, there was nobody she could rely on.
“This is all your fault for lighting that freaky fire anyway! You called her over here like all those customers when you put that dumb tree out at MgRonald!”
“How is that my fault?! And what’s the tree got to do with it?! You didn’t even know what a mukaebi was! What right do you have to whine at me? That stuff’s common knowledge in Japan! It’s got nothing to do with me!”
“Hah! I knew it! You really did summon her! Whatever fumes of demonic power you’ve got left must’ve reacted to another traditional Japanese ceremony! You brought her here; you take responsibility!”
“What the hell d’you mean by ‘fumes’?! I’ve got a strategic reserve, dammit! You could at least try to help out a little whenever trouble shows up!”
“Help out? As if I’ve never done anything for you before now?!”
“Well? Have you? ’Cause lately, it’s mostly been you stickin’ your neck in my business and gettin’ nailed to crosses and stuff!”
“What?!”
“You wanna go, or?!”
“Will the two of you shut up already?!”
Suzuno, no longer able to bear the vitriolic (if still markedly hushed) war of words between the Hero and Devil King, mercilessly aimed a Light of Iron attack upon both of their heads.
Ashiya and Urushihara had no way of stopping her.
“Agh! Wait! Sorry!”
“Hey, if you’re trying to be funny, then rngh!!”
The hammer hit more squarely upon the taller Maou’s forehead.
There wasn’t much strength behind it, but even a regular, nonmystic hammer could be a murder weapon in the right circumstances. Maou grimly stared at Suzuno, eyes welling up with tears.
“Nnnh… Aphh!”
Time stopped at the quiet yawn and the rustling of movement.
The apple girl sat up, yawning as she rubbed her eyes for a few moments. She looked around the room before her eyes settled upon Maou’s.
“Uh… Hey.”
Maou dared a greeting as his bleary eyes took in the scene.
“Oooo?”
It was hard to tell if his message came across, but she should have understood the nuance of it, at least.
“…Hell-oooo.”
He shouldn’t have worried. The girl’s voice was halting, but it was clearly the simple Japanese of a child—not the Japanese that Maou and Emi relied upon their idea-link skills to cultivate when they first arrived here.
Maou, unable to understand how this girl from the Gate became so erudite in minutes, approached slowly, to keep from scaring her.
“Y-you can speak Japanese?”
“Mm, a li’l.”
“A little, huh? Hmm. I see.”
Maou nodded distractedly, then turned around, looking for someone, anyone, to step in. He was greeted with silent eyes from Emi, Suzuno, Ashiya, and Urushihara, all urging him to continue.
A bit frustrated by this, Maou drummed up some more courage and turned back toward the apple girl.
“So, uh, what are you?”
“Ooo?”
The apple girl looked back at Maou, bewildered, perhaps not understanding the question. Maou winced internally.
“No, uh…I mean, your name. What is, uh, your name?”
Maou recalled his work training, pretending the girl was just another precocious child at the counter next to Mom.
Now the girl’s eyes flickered thoughtfully. She yawned another little yawn before answering.
“Alas Ramus.”
“Alas Ramus?”
“Mm, Alas Ramus… Bipf!”
Another slight sneeze. Perhaps it served to wake her up; her half-opened eyes were now wide and clear as her head swiveled this way and that.
“Ah!”
Urushihara and the gang reared back at this sudden burst of activity, but Maou, a bit more used to unexpected behavior from customers’ children, successfully retained his composure.
It gave him his first chance to take a closer look at this girl calling herself Alas Ramus.
In human terms, she was no more than a year or two old. Her hair was silver, the rare sort that was light enough to reflect the sun’s rays, but a single tuft of it was purple at the end, as if dyed. Her eyes shone violet as well.
Maou’s eyes turned toward the girl’s forehead for a moment, but nothing was on it any longer. Saving that concern for later, he tested out another question.
“So, Alas Ramus, where did you come from?”
“Mm, h…home?”
After a moment, she had responded with a question of her own, one patched together with a couple of indistinct words.
“Um… Oh, home? Well, yeah, I guess you did come from home…but… Like, where is your house?”
“Hou… House? Don’t know ‘house.’”
Maou scrutinized the questions in his head carefully.
“…Do you have a mother or father?”
“Mo…fa?”
Alas Ramus shook her head, confused. Either she didn’t know, or the words were too long for her.
“Well, I mean…uh, can you tell me about your mommy and daddy, Alas Ramus?”
This was a lost child, one who at least seemed human enough. It wasn’t much of a leap to ask about her parents.
“Daddy is…Satan.”
Assuming the answer was anything but that.
Maou immediately felt the eyes of everyone in the room fixed upon his back.
“I see, your daddy is Satan. …Wait.”
“Did she…”
“She just said…”
“‘Daddy is Satan’…”
“…Right?”
“M-Maou?!”
Chiho, lost in her own little world up to this point, quickly snapped back to reality, all but lunging toward Maou.
“You, you, you had a child, Maou?!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a sec, Chi!”
“Is…is it one of those things?! Did you have a wife and kids back when you were Devil King?!”
“No! Nothing! So just calm down for a bit! I’ve never had anything like that!”
“Is…is that tru
e, Your Demonic Highness?!”
“Oh, come on, Ashiya! Don’t start on me, too!”
“My liege fathering a child out of wedlock would be earth-shattering news across the demon realms! She must be provided with the most gifted of tutors at once in order to prepare her for the throne! And yet you’ve kept this child from my knowledge for…well, obviously months, at least! What is the meaning of this?!”
“Wait! Why is everyone so freakin’ convinced that this is my girl?!”
“But, oh, what sort of devilish strumpet did you have liaisons with, Your Demonic Highness?! Our forces were mostly comprised of men, but did this saucy encounter occur before we invaded Ente Isla?!”
“No! I’m telling you, it’s not like that!! …Hang on.”
Near Maou’s hand, as he was interrogated in stereo by Chiho and Ashiya, the girl who called herself Alas Ramus climbed out from under her blanket.
“…Nff!”
Both hands clinging to the tatami mat floor, she scrunched her doe-eyed face courageously as she slowly, tentatively tottered up to her feet.
It became clear, if not particularly useful to know, that she was old enough to stand up by herself.
Swinging her arms and legs back and forth with all her might, Alas Ramus made an unbalanced dash across the several feet between her and Maou.
Everyone’s countenances softened a bit at her fervent efforts, but as their eyes followed her, Alas Ramus proceeded to grab Maou’s hand and bring it to her nose, as if smelling it.
“…Daddy.”
Then she beamed widely and hugged him.
It is difficult to portray in words the tension in the room at that moment.
Chiho’s and Ashiya’s faces clenched, mouths agape like a goldfish plucked out of its bowl. Urushihara fled to a corner of the room, hoping to avoid getting dragged into the mess any further. Emi and Suzuno stood blankly, unable to even process the event.
And it went without saying that Maou, the officially certified father of the child, was plunged into the deepest depths of internal chaos.
“W-wait! How come you’re so sure I’m your dad?!”
“Daddyyyy.”
“Please, man, stop throwing any more dynamite into the volcano for me!!”
Maou’s mind ran like a well-oiled machine, searching for some way, any way, to mollify the aghast Chiho and Ashiya. After a moment, he came up with the perfect question to break through this morass.
He had no idea that it was merely the prelude to an even deeper, darker abyss.
“W-wait, wait! Who’s your mom, then? Your mom!”
Alas Ramus’s wide eyes squinted a little as she returned Maou’s gaze.
It was the last straw for Maou within grasping distance. The identity of whoever this mystery mother was could give him ample breathing room to prove his innocence.
The girl was no older than two, judging by her appearance. That was right around the time Emilia and the Devil King waged their final battle in Ente Isla. Ashiya and Emi knew that Maou was cornered, on the retreat, and in no way free to enjoy torrid affairs with sly devil temptresses.
“Mommy.”
This time, Alas Ramus responded without repeating the question.
As she spoke, a pudgy arm raised itself into the air, finger confidently pointed ahead of her.
The rest of the group followed her arm. She apparently had full control of her hands and fingers, not that that mattered, either.
“…Eh?”
Emi was standing right where she pointed.
“Uh… M-m-me?”
In a single instant, Emi’s face was whiter and more drained of blood than any other.
It was the dead of summer, but the air in Devil’s Castle had completely frozen over.
“Daddy. Mommy.”
Then, as if striking the final blow, Alas Ramus clearly pointed to Maou and Emi in order.
The pair stood dumbfounded, unable to parse her behavior.
“…………ooh.”
Ashiya fainted on the spot. Urushihara rose to help him.
“Aghh! Ashiya! Ashiya, don’t conk out on me! You okay?!”
“Yu… Yu, yu, yu, Yusa?”
The cup of ice cream in Chiho’s hand, still largely full, was crushed in her iron grip.
“The Devil King is the father, and the Hero is the mother? This is nothing short of a cataclysm…”
Suzuno’s observation perfectly summarized the mad fury that commenced soon after.
And on the ground, oblivious to the chaos, Alas Ramus stood between “Mommy” and “Daddy,” waving her arms back and forth gleefully.
THE DEVIL EXPERIENCES A LIFESTYLE CHANGE
It was the next afternoon, the day after the incident that turned Devil’s Castle upside down.
Chiho checked out the scene around the Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments for just a moment before modestly tapping on the door to Room 201.
She heard someone fumbling around inside as he slowly approached the door.
“Ashiya?”
As she spoke up, the door unlocked and opened to reveal Ashiya’s gaunt face, crow’s-feet cascading below his eyes.
“…Hello, Ms. Sasaki…”
The fatigue was written all over his voice, now completely bereft of his usual haughty resolve.
“Is she okay right now?”
“…She finally fell asleep a moment ago. Come on inside.”
“All right. Thanks.”
They took care to keep their voices hushed as Ashiya closed the door behind them.
Removing her shoes, Chiho stepped inside, then crouched down to gently place the plastic bag she was carrying on the floor.
The rustling of the plastic seemed like an air horn in the silence. Ashiya leaned down on the other side, just as a motorcycle roared down the street outside.
Ashiya and Chiho held their breath for a moment as they turned toward Alas Ramus, napping beneath the shade provided by the bamboo blinds. She remained motionless, in a deep sleep.
The pair breathed a sigh of relief before their faces turned serious once more.
“Here… I bought pretty much whatever I could think of.”
Chiho fished her purchases out of the bag, again taking extreme care not to make any noise.
“Powdered milk… Sugar-free yogurt… And a few different brands of microwaveable baby formula to test out. What did you do for dinner last night?”
“…Crestia gave us some udon noodles yesterday. We minced them up and boiled them with an egg and some ground-up fish. That was soft enough for her to eat. She didn’t have any trouble chewing it, and she can drink water all right, so I think we are safe feeding her human food.”
Chiho nodded slightly as she continued emptying the bag.
“Here are some sterilized wet tissues for cleaning up any accidents. And here’s a children’s toothbrush. Don’t use any toothpaste, though; not until she’s able to spit it out by herself. I got a bottle of mineral water, too.”
“Toothbrush… Ah, yes, we didn’t brush her teeth last night. Why such a small bottle of water, though? How is it different from regular mineral water?”
“It’s a special oral rehydration formula for infants.”
Ashiya’s heavy eyelids blinked at the unfamiliar term.
“It’s hot out right now, right? If she gets dehydrated, you can have her drink this to maintain her salt and blood sugar levels. It’s kind of like a sports drink for little kids.”
“How is it different from the adult version?”
“It’s made so that children can easily digest it. You can make it from tap water, too, but you don’t have a water filter installed, do you?”
Chiho’s eyes turned toward the lone sink in the Devil’s Castle, its barren metal faucet wholly unadorned of any filtering device.
“Tokyo’s tap water is supposed to be a lot better than it was way back when, but that’s not much help if the pipes in your home are old and rusting. She started out as, like, an apple and stuff… I f
igured she’ll need to have the cleanest water we can give her, so. This is meant for emergencies, though, so we can’t just have her drink this.”
“…I see.”
Ashiya nodded in admiration.
“When you do give her something to drink, put it in this.”
The next item out of the bag was a plastic cup, a large plastic sipper straw sticking out the center of its lid.
“There’s a valve inside the straw that keeps the drink from spilling if you drop it. If she can talk that much, she probably won’t have any problem with this. …Though, do they even have straws in Ente Isla?”
“There were… I believe. It was a human thing; I paid it little attention. Emilia and Crestia would know…”
“Well, if Alas Ramus doesn’t know how to use a straw, try this instead.”
Moving on, Chiho took out a drink box labeled CHILDREN’S BARLEY TEA.
“Does it make any difference whether it is for children or adults?”
“Oh, a big difference. Whether it’s brewed hot or cold, the barley tea sold in stores can be too bitter for children a lot of the time if it isn’t made right. That, and more important, this drink box comes with a straw, so she can use it for practice if need be.”
“Practice?”
“Right. So what you want to do is squeeze the box in the middle so that just a little bit is pushed out the top. That way, the baby will realize that sucking at the straw will make the drink come out. Then she’ll get curious and figure it out for herself.”
“……”
By now, the look on Ashiya’s face was one of awe as he watched Chiho.
“And all the rest of this is diapers!”
Chiho pointed toward a pile of diapers of assorted shapes and sizes.
There was a pull-up type for older children, the traditional kind fastened together with tape, and then a dizzying array of other brands, each apparently boasting its own style and list of materials.
“So you can try these out, one after the other, and use whatever works the best for her.”
Ashiya, accepting the pile of diapers, turned his face away, emotionally overwhelmed.
“I… You… You have been such a tremendous help to us, Ms. Sasaki. I, Ashiya, have no way to express the gratitude I feel for your selfless support…”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic!”
“No, I…I mean it. In fact, if you will it, I would gladly recommend you for the position of Chief General of my liege’s regrouped demon forces once he regains his powers within Japan!”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 Page 6
