With these words, which did absolutely nothing to help Ashiya “chill out” at all, Maou left the Devil’s Castle behind him.
If Maou was the Maou he used to be, he would certainly have walked to Shinjuku, one rail stop away from Sasazuka, in order to save himself 120 yen on the way to JR Suidobashi, the nearest full-on rail station to Tokyo Big-Egg Town. But not with a young child in tow. It’d be far safer to meekly board the Keio New Line from Sasazuka station, pop off to the Toei-Shinjuku Line, switch at Ichigaya to the Namboku Line, then get off at the Tokyo Metro Korakuen station—the nearest subway exit to the park.
He took pains to give himself plenty of time, hoping to avoid getting yelled at for being late, but the sun was already near its highest point in the sky, bouncing its punishing heat against the city pavement.
The shoulder bag Maou normally used for his work commute contained cups, wet tissues, spare diapers, even Chiho’s oral rehydration formula. He was prepared for anything, and cheaping out on train fare after all that prep work would have made him look like an utter fool if it resulted in dehydration and other worries.
Alas Ramus was boundlessly excited at the chance to ride her first train, although the roar of the tunnel’s echo when they went underground made her betray a little distress.
After accepting all the “so cuuuuute”s the elderly couple at the Shinjuku platform rained upon Alas Ramus, Maou made the unfamiliar transfer from the Toei-Shinjuku Line to the Namboku Line before getting off at Korakuen and taking the long, long escalator to the surface.
Just as he was about halfway up, a passerby looked up at them from the platform far below, the concern written plainly on his face.
“Nobody threatening nearby… My liege, I swear to you that I, Ashiya, will protect your back from the shadows that lurk among us!”
It was Ashiya. That much was clear from his fumbling, overt stalking. Standing behind a column and peering out from behind it while wearing a pair of cheap sunglasses made him incredibly conspicuous, and the way he paid zero attention to his surroundings apart from his target meant that his mission was doomed from the start.
“You’re the most threatening-looking person here, Ashiya.”
An exasperated voice erupted from behind his back. Ashiya shuddered.
“You should really get rid of those sunglasses. Did you buy them at the hundred-yen shop? They look terrible on you, and you’re sticking out like a sore thumb.”
“Ah! Ah, ah, ahhh! Ms. S-Sasaki!”
He leaped backward at the unexpected sight of Chiho, who was sporting an uncharacteristic hat today.
“Wh-wh-wh-when did you come here?!”
The sight of a Great Demon General being so easily discovered by a teenage girl made Chiho wonder what kind of qualifications Maou asked from his demon hordes in the first place.
“I was on the same train as you. Suzuno texted me your plan. …But, really, if something does happen here, aren’t you more of a problem than Maou is?”
“H-how do you…?”
“You don’t have a cell phone, right, Ashiya? How are you supposed to contact anyone?”
“I-I was planning to look for a pay phone, but…”
“…I kinda figured that’s what you’d say. If you don’t have any way of making contact… Maou doesn’t know you’re tailing him, right?”
“Um, yes, well, I thought it would be distracting if Emilia found me, so…”
There was no doubting the merits of that suspicion, but it begged the question of why Ashiya hadn’t at least tried to prepare a little more for the covert op.
“Well, I can lend you my cell phone if we need it. Let’s get going. We’re going to lose them!”
Pressed on by Chiho’s urgency, Ashiya clambered to follow before a question occurred to him.
“But, Ms. Sasaki, why are you…?”
Ashiya immediately regretted this bit of indiscretion once he saw Chiho’s face pointed at him.
“I know this is the right thing, but I’m still worried!”
“…Ah. My pardons.”
Chiho and Ashiya clambered up the escalator, attempting to keep Maou in their sights.
He was due to meet with Emi at the ticket gate near Korakuen station’s Marunouchi Line entrance.
Peering intently at the station map, Maou pulled the hand of Alas Ramus below as he began climbing a flight of stairs. He thought Alas Ramus might be tired out after walking all the way up from the Namboku Line turnstile, but instead she was running at full steam, prodding Maou to hurry up without even breaking a sweat.
Chiho, looking on afar, smiled a little bit to herself. The smile survived for only a moment.
“…!”
“Wh-what is it, Ms. Sasaki?”
Chiho gasped when they reached ground level.
She noticed a girl standing idly in front of the ticket gate, a watch bound tightly around her wrist.
She wore a soft, wide-brimmed hat, her usually straight hair tied back delicately, and the mules on her feet oozed chic. There was no mistaking her for anyone else but Emi.
Maou and Ashiya had yet to spot her because of how vastly different she looked from her normal self.
“Yusa… Wow. She’s really trying hard today.”
With her neck area mostly barren now that her hair was tied back, she had decided to put on a rather large necklace. It tied up the whole package neatly, enough so that even Chiho was impressed. It was a mature look, through and through.
“Mmh… That isn’t Emilia, is it? Hmph! Not very practical battle wear. Does she not realize she is the Hero?”
Ashiya, finally following Chiho’s gaze to its target, was focused on something completely different.
“What’s Maou dressed in today, Ashiya…?”
“The same as always. No need for him to dress in such ostentatious frippery for Emilia’s sake. And even before Alas Ramus, the presence of Urushihara has already made our budget a tragedy unfolding in slow motion. There was no money to purchase new clothing for the summer.”
For a moment, Chiho’s mind fell into competition with itself. On one side, she didn’t want to see Maou being a perfect fashion match for Emi in her current state; on the other, the sight of him wearing slightly threadbare UniClo stuff alongside the Hero made her seriously question whether a fashion intervention would be in order before long.
Alas Ramus wound up spotting Emi before Maou did. Maou, dragged toward her by the girl, betrayed zero sense of disquiet as Chiho looked on from the rear.
Just as she expected, Emi beamed at the appreciative Alas Ramus, then returned to a sullen, glassy-eyed stare as she sized up Maou.
Chiho and Ashiya watched the whole thing unfold from behind a column.
“Hee-hee-hee-hee! What do you think? ’Cause I think Emi Yusa’s got the perfect look going right now.”
Suddenly, the two of them were grabbed by the shoulder. Shuddering, they turned around to face their assailant.
“Oh… You’re Yusa’s friend…”
“M-Ms. Suzuki?!”
Rika Suzuki stood there, still holding Chiho and Ashiya by their shoulders as she snickered softly.
The women of Earth had a remarkable, innate gift for sneaking up on demons.
“Wh-what are you doing here, though?”
Chiho shifted her glance from Rika to the faraway Emi.
“That’s something I’d like to ask you guys if anything! Here I was, wondering what Chiho and Ashiya would be doing in the same place, and who do I spot you looking at but Emi and Maou, huh? So I figured, hey, we’re all peas in a pod here, I’ll just run up and say hi.”
This rang a bell with Ashiya.
Emi and Maou were meeting up now because Emi had work during the morning. She couldn’t have had any time to return home to Eifukucho after work, which meant that Emi must have reported to the office in that outfit.
“You wouldn’t believe what a surprise it was to see her! I’ve never seen her show up dressed up like that. It’s kinda har
d to tell from this far, but she totally went to the salon yesterday. It’s, like, totally obvious up close.”
Rika brought a hand to her chin, brooding over her analysis, all but asking Chiho to give her opinion in response.
“R-really?!” Chiho squeaked.
“Oh, are you interested to hear more?”
“That, I, um, it, it’s not that I, if I said no, I…”
Due in part to the heat, Chiho’s cheeks were bright red. The reaction was even more intense than Rika imagined, making her relent a bit.
“Hee-hee! I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to pick on ya that much. You really don’t have anything to worry about, Chiho. That’s just Emi being all obstinate, you know?”
“…Huh?”
“Emi and Maou, you know, they generally don’t get along too well, right? That’s just her way of putting up a wall. So she doesn’t get outdone by him. Y’know, though…”
Rika took her eyes off of them for just a moment, turning to Maou.
“It’s funny how you can try really hard with something like that and totally miss the mark sometimes. Maou, meanwhile… He’s totally natural. I’d say he won that battle.”
Just then, Emi, Maou, and Alas Ramus began to walk toward the Tokyo Big-Egg stadium.
Turning around, Chiho found Alas Ramus flanked by her “mommy” and “daddy,” holding hands with them both as she tottered along. The sight made a restless feeling churn in her stomach.
“Well, there they go.”
Rika grinned mischievously.
“What’re you two gonna do?”
The Tokyo Big-Egg Town was built in a large circle surrounding the Big-Egg stadium that served as the home field for the illustrious Tokyo Hulks, a professional baseball team.
Stretching from the Lagoon shopping complex next to Korakuen station to the Big-Egg Hotel by the stadium, the park offered a wide variety of attractions. If you wanted to visit a full-sized amusement park without taking the train out to the suburbs, this was it.
There was no real entrance gate separating the park from the outside world; instead you paid for access to each individual attraction, allowing passersby to make visits to particular rides or exhibits on impulse.
The mall across the street from Lagoon and the Korakuen station also boasted a wealth of shops that catered to the needs of young and old alike, making it a popular shopping spot for Tokyoites of all walks of life.
The live superhero shows held on weekends and holidays were another unique attraction for the complex.
While they weren’t covered by the One-Day Passports that otherwise allowed unfettered access to all attractions, the shows—each featuring whatever live-action hero or heroes were currently lighting up TV sets nationwide—played to sellout crowds full of excited kids and bored parents nonetheless.
Yes, this was a theme park that’d put a smile on anybody’s face. Anybody, that is, but the confused-looking and vaguely prunelike Emi and Maou as they let Alas Ramus drag them hither and yon.
At certain times of the day, the pond built on the second outdoor terrace of the Lagoon building would play home to a concert, with fountains of water swaying to and fro to the piped-in music. The trio happened to be just in time for the show as they passed by, the undulating streams of colored water making Alas Ramus exclaim “Oooooooooo…!” with mouth agape.
“Hey.”
“Whaaat?”
Maou, enthusiasm already flagging in the summer heat, grunted dully at Emi as they watched Alas Ramus become enthralled.
“You put some sunblock on her, right? It’s pretty sunny out.”
“Ahh… Well, they said it’d be okay as long as a doctor prescribed it, but…”
Based on Urushihara’s research, going with a doctor-prescribed infant sunscreen over the types sold in drugstores was the conventional wisdom on the Internet. Doing so would (allegedly) prevent future problems with the child’s skin.
Maou’s health insurance, however, didn’t apply to Alas Ramus. And taking an uninsured, undocumented child to the doctor, in addition to whatever issues that presented within the rules of Japanese society, would almost certainly create problems with the current way of life over at Devil’s Castle. Thus, Maou had failed to provide the appropriate sunscreen for his charge.
“Well, you could at least think about buying her a hat or something. There’s clothing shops in Lagoon here, so let’s go there first. If you’re gonna step up and care for her, you really need to start looking out for what’s best for her.”
The way Emi so quickly adopted that lecturing-wife tone belied her previous position on another world. Maou didn’t have much of a leg to stand on.
“Yeah… Sorry ’bout that. …Whaddaya think, Alas Ramus? Having fun?”
“Oooooohhh… Aaaahhhh…!!”
“Absorbed in those fountains, huh? Well, great.”
Watching from a terrace that overlooked the show, Ashiya, Chiho, and Rika focused on the trio below.
“Wow, what a happy li’l family, huh? That girl’s sure taken a shining to Emi, hasn’t she?”
“…She’s so cute.”
Chiho sighed at the sight of Alas Ramus, still hypnotized by the fountain show.
Ashiya, for his part, was keeping a keen lookout to ensure Maou remained safe, although he naturally hadn’t forgotten another, almost more pressing task—ensuring his leader didn’t splurge on anything.
Unaware of their pursuers’ thoughts, not even aware there were any pursuers at all, the newly minted family watched the show to the end before walking hand in hand with Alas Ramus inside the Lagoon mall to search for a hat.
The other trio followed on, ensuring they stayed a discreet distance away.
“Hey, a UniClo.”
Maou noticed a familiar logo on the information board near the entrance. Emi immediately stepped in to dismiss the idea.
“Forget it. Why are you so preoccupied with UniClo anyway?”
“What? It’s cheap. Cheap and easy. Nothing I don’t need.”
“You could at least try going to another store sometime. I don’t know what kind of picture you’ve got in your mind, but it’s really not that much more expensive.”
“Huh.”
“Don’t just go ‘huh’! What happens if Alas Ramus winds up being as low-class as you are?”
“Nothing wrong with being frugal.”
“…Let’s go, Alas Ramus. We don’t need this dead weight with us.”
“Ded way?”
Pulled ahead by Emi, the girl timidly rode the escalator up to the clothing floor, filled with UniClo and a selection of other apparel shops.
“Hmm… These are still gonna be a little big for her.”
Emi sighed to herself as she checked out a few children’s selections and placed them above Alas Ramus’s shoulders.
“She’s gonna grow pretty quickly, though. I guess getting a bigger size isn’t too bad, as long as she’s not dragging it behind her. …And I notice you aren’t speaking up. You realize I’m still talking about several months down the line when I say ‘quickly,’ right?”
“If you’re waiting for me to chime in every time you open your mouth, keep waiting. I’m not exactly interested in long conversations with you.”
“Look, how long are you planning to keep this child anyway?”
Emi continued thumbing through children’s accessories, draping them over Alas Ramus to gauge how she looked.
“…Who knows? Maybe her parents’ll show up today. Maybe I’ll be taking care of her until she gets married.”
“Married…? I’m sorry if I keep asking this, but are you sure it wouldn’t be better for everyone if you just stayed in Japan forever?”
“…Ooh, hey, this one looks pretty good. That’ll cover her down to her shoulders, too.”
Maou, oblivious to the conversation, plucked a straw hat off the clothing racks. It fit the little girl remarkably well.
“Maybe this isn’t something I should ask, but don’t you
care about the generals you left behind on Ente Isla or anything?”
Emi was expecting a much less direct answer than Maou wound up giving.
“Them? Yeah, I’ve given up on those bastards.”
“…Huh?”
“Hey, Alas Ramus, you can get this with a pink ribbon or a yellow one. Which one do you like?”
“Mmm, Market!”
Alas Ramus pointed at the hat with the yellow ribbon.
Emi found herself unable to respond to Maou’s heartless, somewhat Devil King–like statement. Maou shrugged.
“Haven’t you ever thought about why Emeralda and Albert and Olba and Suzuno just pop over here whenever, like, they’re in the next city over?”
His eyes burst open wide as he glanced at the price tag on the straw hat Alas Ramus chose.
“…It’s been over a year now. I kinda missed my window. Whatever part of the Ente Isla invasion force survived must’ve been stamped out ages ago. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having the most powerful fighters of the human world going on these grand tours of Earth all the time.”
That much was logical enough. Officially speaking, all four of the Devil King’s Great Demon Generals—Lucifer included—were defeated. The chain of command in the demon world had been slashed to pieces.
Emi had zero sympathy for Maou, something that came across pretty clearly by now.
“You… You think so? Well, jeez, that was easy. Guess that’s the demon realm for you, huh? The big man at the top falls, and the rest just crumbles to dust.”
“I couldn’t have put it better. Without me, those guys are worthless. But even if I went back now, without any of my power, I’d be killed whenever the next would-be king decided to come around. That…”
Having resigned himself to the purchase, Maou turned his back to Emi and Alas Ramus as he took the hat to the register.
“…That, and even if I did regain my Devil King strength, no way I could conquer the world now.”
“W-well, yeah. With the demons annihilated, there’s not much point calling yourself Devil King anyway, huh?”
“Demons annihilated? What’re you smoking, lady?”
Maou sneered at Emi in abject ridicule.
“When you humans fight a war, do every single one of you march down to the battlefield en masse?”
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 Page 13
