Gabriel sighed in exasperation as Urushihara flashed a victorious smile.
“Well. Anyway. I’m sorry, but, uh, we’re a bit occupied right now? In several ways? I’m trying to talk this out, but if you don’t want to get hurt, I’d recommend getting out of here while you can, mm-kay?”
“Ooh, dude, I love it. That’s total level-one-boss street-punk dialogue. I can just eat that crap up all day.”
Nobody was lending an ear to Urushihara’s chippy repartee. Their eyes were on someone else.
“Please. Don’t take Alas Ramus away from us.”
They were focused on Chiho, her head bent deeply downward toward Gabriel.
Even though she knew the move assuaged her ego more than anything else, even though she had no idea what would truly make Alas Ramus the happiest, everything that Chiho saw drove her to take action.
“Alas Ramus really loves Maou and Yusa. So…please.”
A droplet fell to her feet.
“Chi…”
“Chiho…”
“Aw, sheesh, lady, cut that out! C’mon, put your head up for me…”
Then, to the surprise of everyone involved, Gabriel found himself deeply moved by the actions of a simple human, a mere wisp of a teenage girl.
“This is totally unfair, mm-kay? You’re all making me out to be the mean ol’ angel here! It’s like I’m some kinda grifter in a TV show, brushing off the crying girl in the corner while I strong-armed some poor schlub for the money he owed me!”
“What the hell are you going on about?”
Maou, somewhat unversed in the world of TV crime drama, quizzically looked on.
“Please… I really mean it…please…”
“Dahhh!! Come on already! Stop crying! Really, cut me a break already! Sheesh, if I knew this was gonna happen, I would’ve taken someone flailing at me with a baseball bat any ol’ day! Hey, c’mon, give an angel some slack here!”
Gabriel, now completely ignoring Maou and Emi, did his level best to assuage Chiho’s nerves.
“Please…please…”
But Chiho refused to raise her head, repeating her appeal to Gabriel over and over again.
“Ugggghhh, all right!”
Gabriel waved his hands in surrender, his voice indignant.
“You have until tomorrow!!”
“Lord Gabriel?!”
“What are you saying?!”
The men around Urushihara and Suzuno turned to Gabriel, their faces betraying total disbelief.
Gabriel ignored them as he uncomfortably watched the teary-eyed Chiho stare up at him.
“I… Oooooh!! Look, we angels, we’ve got our own problems to deal with, too, mm-kay? So first thing in the morning tomorrow, we’re hoppin’ right on back here! Feel free to get your family photos taken or whatever in the meantime! But don’t think you can escape or anything, mm-kay?”
“R-really?!”
Chiho’s face brightened.
Gabriel, unable to look her in the face any longer, averted his eyes.
“J-just till tomorrow! I can’t wait any longer than that, mm-kay? And you, Devil King! If you try fishing your demonic power out from behind the closet or whatever, you’re gonna pay for that! And that’s a fact, Jack!”
“Th-thank you very much!”
He intended to lay a final line in the sand, but this pure, unsullied expression of goodwill from Chiho stopped him in his tracks yet again.
“Let… Let’s go, you bastards!”
The outburst of holy power from before was now a barely discernible mist as Gabriel stomped toward the door.
“…Oh, nice closing line, Gabriel! ‘Let’s go, you bastards!’ I sound like such a street punk…” With that final self-effacing remark, Gabriel shook his shoulders angrily and trudged out the door with his entourage.
The minions followed him out in line, like ducklings following their mother, each one of them nudging Maou’s shoulder on the way in classic mafioso fashion.
“Ow! Hey! Hey! Dammit!”
Maou glared sullenly at them as they left, knowing full well he was outpowered, just as Gabriel took the first step downstairs.
“Agh!”
The demons heard the sound of something heavy tumbling down the stairs with a tremendous clatter.
“Lord Gabriel!”
“Lord Gabriel!!”
Gabriel had taken the stairs via the express route. He wasn’t alone.
“Ah!”
“Wah!”
“Whoa!”
“Nragh!”
Four shrill, cut-off screams, followed by four heavy objects exhausting their potential energies in rapid succession, were heard from outside.
“Oh, like I’m not having a bad enough day!!”
Gabriel was heard squabbling with his entourage for another minute or two before the voices faded away.
Then, as if on cue:
“I am back, my liege. Ah, this oppressive heat…”
Ashiya, swaggering in with almost too much carefree abandon, wiped his brow as he climbed the stairs. Wholly unaware of the past chain of events, his lips curled upward a bit once he saw Maou and Alas Ramus were safe.
“I noticed a group of people leaving. More people from the MHK begging for your broadcast license fee?”
“…Not a care in the world with you, huh? We kinda have an emergency here. Where the hell were you?”
“Huh? Whuh? What?”
Ashiya took that moment to notice the dark, frigid atmosphere that prevailed in Devil’s Castle, despite the sweltering heat outside.
“Um… Ignoring the completely clueless Ashiya for a moment…”
Now that the immediate threat was gone, Urushihara chose this moment to break the ice.
“What’re we gonna do now?”
The curtain of night wrapped itself firmly around Devil’s Castle.
“Ooghooo!”
Satan, lord of the castle, the Devil King who once plotted to conquer all Ente Isla and plunge it into unimaginable terror, sat face-to-face with Emilia Justina, the Hero who stood up to crush his vile ambitions.
“Daouuu!”
Anxiety and murderous rage filled every nook and cranny of Devil’s Castle. A single provocation, no matter how slight, would be enough to trigger a bloodbath.
“Naaarrhh…”
A light breeze, a droplet of rain, even a pebble clinking against the roadside could provide the spark to engulf the room in the flames of battle.
“Mommeee, Mommeee…”
Just as the brutal waves of crashing fury and force reached their peak:
“Wapph!”
The girl jogging around the Hero and the Devil King stumbled, nearly striking her head against the table in the middle of the Castle’s sole room.
“!!”
The Devil King and Hero both responded at once, extending a hand of support.
That saved the girl from danger, but putting their arms out at the same time caused the Devil King’s hand to brush against the Hero’s.
“D-don’t touch me!”
“Ow! Jeez, don’t scratch me…”
With a frenzied shout of dismay, the Hero slapped the Devil King’s hand away, leaving a line of red, irritated skin on his hand. It was just a scratch, not enough to break skin.
“Look, can you tell me what your problem’s been tonight?” he asked.
“You’ve been relying on other people for everything here! And you pick this moment to get involved?”
“Oh, like you’ve been the ideal mother yourself!”
“Daddy, no! No fighting!”
A figure much, much smaller than the Devil King or the Hero stepped in to end the duel between the two natural-born enemies.
“Oh, uh, no, Alas Ramus, we aren’t fighting or anything.”
“N-no! Not at all! So don’t cry, okay?”
“…Really?”
Alas Ramus peered closely at the two of them. Something about their hurried defense smelled fishy to her. She needed further
confirmation.
“R-really! Really really!”
“Yeah, totally!”
“Nee-hee-hee!”
The girl, placing her trust upon the Hero and Devil King as they fell over themselves to lie to her, smiled in relief as she grabbed Emi.
“You’ll be here foreeeever, Mommy?”
“That…ummmm…”
“…! …!”
Maou sent her an invisible signal. Emi ignored the white noise.
“What about you, Alas Ramus? Do you want me… Do you want Mommy to be here?”
“Yeah! Together with Mommy! Forever!”
“Ahhhhh…”
Emi attempted a smile to hide the hopelessness in her mind.
“And Daddy, too!”
“Ohhhhh…”
Maou had no way of dodging this second salvo, either.
Then, awkward silence fell again.
Alas Ramus, not picking up on this, began a bold quest to climb up Emi’s back.
Thanks to Chiho barging in at just the right time, Maou and Emi managed to keep Alas Ramus safe without anyone getting hurt.
But it only seemed to be delaying the inevitable.
No matter how much Alas Ramus railed against it, Maou knew—and Suzuno, with all her theological training, certainly knew—that the Sephirah called Yesod was the property of the heavens.
And right now, none of the people involved with Alas Ramus had any ability to fend for themselves against Gabriel.
Emi and Suzuno retained some semblance of fighting power, barring something like Sariel’s special holy energy–draining skill.
But—and this was something else they already knew—they had no motivation to actively risk their necks over this.
Once Gabriel left, it was naturally Chiho who first questioned the unfamiliar “Tree of Sephirot” term.
“The Tree of Sephirot is the tree in Heaven from which everything in the world sprang forth. Anyone who partakes of the fruit of Sephirot, it is said, shall gain immortality and the gifts of boundless knowledge. The first human beings created by the gods consumed one of these fruits, as the story goes, breaking a divine promise and causing the gods to cast them away from the paradise they lived in.”
“Wow, that’s pretty similar to what we have on Earth. Like, Adam and Eve in the Bible and so forth…”
Suzuno nodded at Chiho.
“The tree bore ten fruits, known as Sephirah, each one corresponding to a different aspect of the world, or life itself. Each has its own planets, colors, metals, precious stones, and so on associated with it… For example, the first Sephirah, Keter, is said to govern over the soul, human thought, and imagination; it corresponds to the number one, its jewel is the diamond, its color white, its planet that of the god of the underworld, and its guardian angel Metatron. The fourth Sephirah is known as Chesed, governing over divine love; its number is four, its metallic element tin, its color blue, its planet that of the god of thunder, and its guardian angel Zadkiel…and so on down the line. All ten Sephirah possess aspects that correspond with the elements of the world, and I imagine Alas Ramus is attracted to colorful objects because they remind her of the colors each Sephirah lays claim to. Yesod, by the way, is the ninth Sephirah; it governs over the astral planes and one’s self-consciousness, its number is nine, its metallic element silver, its color purple, its planet that of the blue heavens, and its guardian angel Gabriel.”
The room fell silent for several moments after Suzuno’s quick rundown. Maou was the first to speak.
“…You actually memorized all of that crap?”
“These are the core tenets of our theology!”
“Can you just, like, give us the thirty-second recap, dude?”
“What right does a former archangel have to say that?!”
Suzuno bit back at Urushihara’s blithe request.
“Now, now, now… That’s just Urushihara being Urushihara, so…”
Chiho’s comment was enough to quell Suzuno’s anger, though she still remained dissatisfied at his lack of dedication to his heavenly origin. Next, Emi spoke up.
“So why did she call herself ‘Alas Ramus’ from the get-go? Why didn’t she say ‘Yesod’ instead?”
“It may be because this child is simply a fragment of the Sephirah, or there may be some other, as-yet-unknown reason. It seems clear, at least, that Gabriel did not give her that name. He never once referred to her as Alas Ramus. But regardless, assuming we should take the old legends at face value, if Alas Ramus is truly a fragment…a segment of the Sephirah Yesod from the Tree of Sephirot, then everything Gabriel told us would make sense. In other words, the elements of the world governed by Yesod are facing imminent danger. A danger that could affect the whole world. And if Gabriel wants to protect the balance of the world, as is his job as its guardian angel, then he would need Alas Ramus.”
“Oh…so…”
Chiho sadly raised her voice.
“So Alas Ramus needs to go after all, huh…?”
“Not necessarily.”
Suzuno’s sudden veer over to her side caught Chiho by surprise.
“The presence of the fruits of Sephirot as the core that forms the world, and the guardian angels managing them are really only something laid out by our holy scriptures and mythology. It is not something anyone has ever seen with their own eyes. There has been no confirmation of it.”
“Confirmation…?”
“For example, the tenth Sephirah, Malkuth…”
Suzuno was stopped midsentence.
“Market!”
Alas Ramus immediately reacted to the term. Maou stepped in.
“…Come to think of it, she talked about being friends with ‘Market’ on the Ferris wheel. Do Malkuth and the other Sephirah have personalities like Alas Ramus?”
Suzuno shook her head despondently.
“I have never heard of anything like that…but I think the fact this is news even to me could lead to what I am trying to say.”
“Oh, right, sorry to cut you off. Keep going.”
“Yes. Malkuth is located at the bottom level of the tree of life, governing over the physical world. Its number is ten, its precious stone crystal. It is associated with multiple colors, including bright yellow and olive green, and its planet is the Land of Life, which is meant to symbolize Ente Isla. According to legend, at least, if Malkuth were to cease existing for some reason, that would put the existence of crystals, the color yellow, and even Ente Isla itself in danger.”
Suzuno paused for a moment, glancing around her audience.
“But take a moment to consider this. Could you imagine all the crystals in the world disappearing all at once simply because some fruit fell off a tree in another world? What kind of phenomenon would it take for a single object to engineer such massive disasters across sea and land? Even the story in our scriptures about the ‘first human beings’ eating the forbidden fruit is subject to many interpretations. Is that fruit related to the Sephirah, or not? The Church has yet to reach a conclusive answer. As the Devil King just said, there may indeed be something to the Sephirah we could interpret as individual personalities. But, in the end, the idea that the Tree of Sephirot supports all in the world is simply something told in legend. There is no evidence of it. There are many of us who hold a connection with the heavens, but no human being has ever set foot in that divine realm. Thus, in my opinion, I doubt the world would be plunged into crisis due to Alas Ramus not being available.”
“Dude, I’m sorry, is this college all of a sudden?”
“…That being said, there is no doubting the existence of heaven, or angels, and if they wish to have this fragment of Yesod back, we have no way of resisting them. It is a horribly cruel state of affairs.”
The eyes of everyone were focused on Alas Ramus, held against Maou’s knees.
“…Man, this is a total pain in the ass.”
Maou blithely picked at his ear in response.
“Yo. Alas Ramus.”
“Hii
i, Daddy!”
“That guy just now wanted to bring you back to his home, but do you wanna go with him?”
“No!!”
The refusal was clear and intense.
“Okay.”
Maou slapped one of his crossed legs.
“Right, end of discussion. If those guys tomorrow do anything Alas Ramus doesn’t like, we’re fighting to the end.”
“Wh-whoa! Wait a second!!”
Emi was less than accepting.
“Don’t you understand what kind of situation we’re in?! Bell and I don’t stand a chance taking on someone like Gabriel face-to-face, and Alciel and Lucifer don’t even have any of their power back!”
“I know. If it comes to that, I’ll take ’em on myself.”
“Yourself? Are you crazy?! How can you say that?! You realize what kind of shape you’re in?!”
“All right. Eesh, lay off a sec. Like me getting my ass beat by him is anything bad for you guys, right?”
“…I, wait, are you…?”
“This is what I want, okay? I don’t want to give Alas Ramus back, because she doesn’t want to go back. And to you humans, if I lose, then ding-dong, the Devil King’s dead and the Yesod fragment’s back where it should be in heaven, right? What’s the problem?”
“But…but…!!”
“Devil King! Are you truly fine with that?!”
“Maou!”
Emi remained unconvinced, as Suzuno and Chiho found themselves similarly unable to remain silent. Maou rolled his eyes as they confronted him.
“Hey, Ashiya? Urushihara? A little help here?”
“…Y-your Demonic Highness, this is simply…”
“Uhh…well, not like I give a crap either way, but I’m really startin’ to dig life inside this closet, so that would kinda harsh my buzz, y’know?”
“Oh, not you, too, guys…”
“And despite everything we say, you still fail to see?!”
Suzuno lashed out at Maou anew.
Alas Ramus, surprised at the suddenness of it, took a tumble off Maou’s lap.
“No! Suzu-Sis, you’re mean to Daddy!”
She stood strong, extending her little body as straight up as possible to protect Daddy from danger. Suzuno briskly pushed her aside as she moved to grab Maou by the collar.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 Page 18
