“Oh, but you had enough time to learn how to talk like Smithers? Okay…so the World Series is a really important battle in this traditional yearly summer ritual here called ‘baseball,’ and if you’re sitting on the bench, that means you aren’t very good, all right?”
“So winning this World Series means…submission of your foes?”
“No! There’s no murdering in baseball, okay? It just means you get bragging rights for the year! Look, what I’m saying is that you can’t fight with someone else’s armor, you get me?”
“Ah. I see. So you establish your position on this ‘bench,’ then when the time is right, you engage in ‘baseball’ until your opponent is soundly defeated?”
“That’s…kind of close, yeah, but I think you’re envisioning something a lot different from what it is. But uggggh, why am I even playing this game with you?! This is gonna devolve into ‘Who’s on First?’ in a second, isn’t it?”
“Maou! They don’t play the World Series here! That’s in the U.S.!”
“Huh? Oh. Right. Wait, so what’re all the teams over here playing for?”
“Wh-who goes there?!”
“Well, there’s the World Baseball Classic, too, don’t forget about that! I’m, um… I’m kind of Maou’s, like, friend from work!”
“Yeah, I taught her how to run things around the…………Huhhhhh???”
Just as Maou cursed himself for letting an inane argument about pro sports take over the subject:
“Ch-Chi?! Why are you here?!”
Chiho, not even visible to Maou before now, descended into existence, as if she had always been there. Farfarello and Erone both tensed up, wary of this new and unexpected presence, but Maou was thrown into disorder for different reasons.
By now it was clear that Farfarello had used some sort of barrier spell to separate Maou away from his physical presence in Japan. He could tell from the way it served to cut him off from Emi, Suzuno—and, of course, Chiho. And now Chiho was here, without any previous warning. If Emi and Suzuno had found a way to break down the barrier, they would’ve stormed in without bothering to take another breath. Their absence meant that, unbelievably enough, Chiho had found a way in by herself.
After making her triumphant entry, Chiho faced the two mystery figures. “You…you can’t bring Maou back to Ente Isla!” she shouted, her voice quivering a little. “He’s still got a bunch of stuff left to do in Japan!”
“Ch-Chi, knock it off! Please! Get back a little bit!”
Maou felt obliged to step between them, given how Chiho gave every indication of wanting to slap silly the pair in front of her. Farfarello might be in human form, but as part of the Malebranche force, there was no telling what tricks might be up his sleeve. And this Erone guy, too—between his bizarre dress and the way the Malebranche chieftain called him his “pilot,” he must have been far more powerful than any normal human child.
“Why are you attempting to protect that human?”
A dark fire began to burn behind Farfarello’s eyes. Maou could sense the danger.
“No ‘why’ about it, man. You’re watching out for that Erone kid yourself, no?”
“I should say not, my liege! This child Erone is working for us. We are not on an equal basis with each other.”
Erone betrayed no reaction to this.
“Your Demonic Highness, is what this human claims the truth?”
“What is?”
“She claims you have…unfinished business in Japan, is it? What is it you are doing, exactly, in this land called Japan? I understand you have successfully regained the full brunt of your strength, which led us to believe that you have extended your conquered territory to this planet as well. It greatly excited all of us.”
Farfarello paused to size Maou up, from head to toe.
“But what is this great business of yours that remains undone? This…business which requires you to dress in such mundane garments and hide a human girl behind you?”
“……”
Maou valiantly resisted the urge to shout, You better apologize to UniClo for that!—something about the current atmosphere suggested it was ill-advised.
“I regret to tell you, my liege, that some among the Malebranche are spreading dark rumors that your will to conquer the world has atrophied. Ciriatto, in particular, has refused to join us in the Eastern Island…and now I find you here, in this country, with only a sliver of your powers intact. Is this part of some great, intricate plan beyond my imagination…?”
Farfarello turned his eyes away from Maou and onto Chiho, behind him.
“Or has my liege decided to abandon us…abandon his own realm…?”
The change in Maou’s attitude at that instant was nothing short of dramatic. “Don’t give me that BS!” he shouted from the pit of his stomach, loudly enough to startle Chiho. “Never…never for a moment have I forgotten about the demon realms. About the subjects who served me and called me their king!”
“But what of—”
“Do not try me any further! Why aren’t you waiting for my return under the watchful eye of Camio? If it wasn’t because you’ve cast off all loyalty to me, why, then?!”
“…!”
Now it was Farfarello’s turn to fall silent.
“The whole reason Barbariccia managed to split the demon realms’ loyalties was because of that bastard Olba egging him on, right? I left Camio to govern in my stead as I led the Ente Isla invasion force. He is my regent and sole representative in that land! And if you refuse to serve him, what reason would I possibly have to trust you?!”
“But, my liege! Simply deploying a large Devil King’s Army force into Ente Isla does not solve the core problems that plague the demon realms! If my liege has been felled in battle, it is vital that we send a second, even a third army as quickly as we can! And yet Lord Camio lacks the mettle to do so!”
“The mettle?! Even with the unexpected element of the Hero, the finest troops of our land, led by the strongest of Great Demon Generals, couldn’t even keep their territory safe for three years! Do you guys have some kind of amazing plan to turn the tables this time?!”
“We do not, my liege!” Farfarello fired back. “But the more lives at stake…the longer the demon realms may yet survive.”
“…Huh?”
Maou’s ears didn’t fail to notice the voice of a very confused Chiho behind him. But he had bigger fish to fry.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You’ve got no plan whatsoever! No matter how many warriors venture into Ente Isla, what do you think that’ll amount to in the end?! It’s simply lining them up to be slain! All it will bring to the demon realms is a slow, painful death!”
“That is exactly what the Second Devil King’s Army was established to prevent! We of the Malebranche may have seceded from the demon realms, but our pride in our homeland remains ever strong. Olba may be allied with the Hero who decimated the original Devil King’s Army, but he is no fool. He listens to reason. And when the time comes, it would be trivial for us to extract all the knowledge and information we can from him, then slay him where he stands! So please, return with us and fulfill your role as king!”
“I’m telling you,” Maou bellowed back even more loudly, “that whole line of thought is one huge mistake! It takes more than that to save a world ruled by violence and blood! It takes more than that if we want to survive, and thrive, as demons! That’s why neither Lucifer, nor Malacoda, nor Adramelech, nor Alciel could retain the land they conquer. That’s why I lost!”
“But things are different now, my liege. The Eastern Island of Ente Isla is under our control. And thanks to our strategy, the humans are now distracted by a debilitating war against their own kin. Soon, the entire land will be drenched in blood and chaos, and our paradise will be—”
“Are you that stupid?!”
There was a new sense of power behind Maou’s voice.
“!”
“Agh!”
“……!”
Farfarello reluctantly remained quiet as Chiho squealed in shock. Even Erone, standing bolt upright the whole time, shivered a little. The sheer force behind his voice was all it took for Maou to make the Malebranche chieftain submit to him.
“This is the result of all that!” he continued, spreading his arms wide. “We had no idea what conquering the world really meant. All I—your king—thought about was spreading violence and massacre across the land and expanding the demon realms’ territory. And now look! If I came back with you now and the path you’ve laid out for me is identical to the highway to hell I took before, what do you think will happen? I’ll be reviled once again as the enemy of all mankind, some new Hero will slay me, and that’s the end of our realm! We’ll simply return to the bad old days of tribal warfare—the sky, the seas, the very ground soaked with our blood!”
“…Why? Why…do you refuse to understand? We will never walk down the same well-trodden pathways of the past!”
“You may think you’re avoiding that, attempting some kind of new route, but I’ll say it to you again and again! No matter how much we redraw the maps, our ultimate fate’s gonna stay the same! Unless we’re willing to change the roads themselves, it’s never going to be any different!”
“Maou…”
“…Change the roads themselves…?”
Farfarello remained in his kneeling position, but one could see a glint of disappointment to his eyes—a glint that made it clear Maou’s words hadn’t reached out to him.
“I’ll tell you this one more time: Whatever you do, don’t listen to Olba, no matter what he says to you. Pull your forces out of the Eastern Island and get them back home. Ciriatto’s willing to work with all of you, and I promise you Camio is going to punish no one.”
Farfarello slowly rose.
“…I see our conversation is at an end. I could hardly believe my ears when Olba first stated it…but I see, Your Demonic Highness, that this world has defanged you. I hope…you can understand how difficult this is for me, having to grapple with this reality thrust before me.”
“What did you…?”
The rage coursing out from Farfarello’s body was palpable. Maou tensed himself up, pushing Chiho farther behind him.
“But it is the truth, I see. And if I am not able to restore the will to conquer within you, then—”
“—then what? You’ll kill me and make Barbariccia the new Devil King?”
“No. What I see before me is a Devil King who has grown too fond of his human form. One with a changed heart. But, with enough demonic force to restore you to your original form, perhaps the passion will once again return to your soul.”
Then Farfarello, with both hands, grabbed the helmet of Erone next to him, lifting it off his head.
“?!”
The helmet, along with Erone’s mask, shrunk down into an inky-black sphere.
“I want you to accept this. Accept it, and use it to restore yourself to the proud Devil King Satan all of us once knew.”
He threw the tennis ball–sized sphere at Maou. Maou dodged it, sending it rolling until it came to rest against a streetside tree.
“……”
With his helmet and mask gone, Erone’s face was finally exposed. He was a boy, no doubt about it, likely not even ten years old. His face had a childlike innocence to it, but its expression was flat, emotionless. He was looking at Maou, but his red eyes refused to meet his own.
“…?”
Yet, Maou couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen Erone’s face before.
“You look…kind of familiar…”
Chiho, apparently, had the same thought. She craned her head out from behind Maou’s back for a closer look. From his shiny black mane, there was a single shock of red, the same red as his eyes.
“Whoa, is that…?”
Maou motioned toward the sphere that used to be Erone’s helmet.
“It is a concentrated ball of demonic force. This land has a custom of balling up its staple crop and consuming it in cooked form, does it not? This should be far less conspicuous than carrying a helmet around with you.”
“Uh, are you talking about a rice ball?” Chiho whispered. “And since when was dark power a ‘staple crop’?”
Maou’s eyes remained focused on Farfarello. “So you intend to have your king eat something off the street?”
“These are trying times, Your Demonic Highness. And even if you are our leader, I cannot have you refuse to recover your force.”
“……”
So was all the armor Erone had on him the same way? And perhaps that explained why Farfarello was in human form—he extracted as much of his own power as he could to form it into that armor. Which meant that if he wanted to, he could release the power he had infused in Erone and turn himself back into a demon at any time.
Thus, much as Ciriatto did, Farfarello could tap into his demonic powers whenever he wanted while in Japan. But what did Erone himself have to do with that?
“…All right. I’ll keep it. But this ain’t gonna change my mind.”
“You will keep it? What are you saying, my liege? Please, you must ingest it right this moment. How long has it been since you have been able to savor demonic force in its purest form?”
“…I’ll eat it once I take it home and wash it, okay?”
“…But not here? If you find it unappetizing, you may slay me on the spot, my liege! You may do whatever you wish with me!”
“What’s the big hurry?”
“……”
“You had no idea what happened to me for over a year,” Maou continued. “What difference is a day or two gonna make?”
“It…”
The frustration on Farfarello’s face was starkly clear. But just as he opened his mouth to say something:
“?!”
Suddenly, Erone looked upward.
“It’s breaking.”
“Mmh?”
The warning made Farfarello shudder as Maou and Chiho followed his gaze.
“Wh-what…?”
There was a crack in the sky. A straight one, in what was otherwise thin air—and as the four of them watched, it raced across the sky.
“Heavenly Fang of Light!!”
With an ear-splitting shout, a golden bolt of lightning descended between Maou and Farfarello.
“E-Emi?!”
“Yusa!”
It was the Hero Emilia, her scarlet eyes wide open beneath her silvery hair as she carried her shining holy sword. The Better Half was teeming with power, and Chiho—who had never really seen it as anything besides a really strong sword that lit up on command before now—now had enough holy-power experience to realize exactly how much of it Emi had at her fingertips. It felt like something from a new and unknown dimension. Perhaps this was what Emi and Suzuno meant when they described it as an overwhelming presence, constantly exerting pressure upon you.
Suzuno followed soon after, her hammer just barely making it through the hole in the barrier. She squared off against Farfarello and Erone, keeping Maou and Chiho behind her.
“E-Emi! Suzuno!”
“…You’re both all right?”
Emilia had no intention of looking Maou in the eye, but there was still a sense of relief mixed into the voice. Then Maou found himself looking up at yet another voice—the last one he was expecting here.
“Emilia! Bell! That child built this barrier!”
It was Sariel, wings open and his eyes a shade of purple, who had broken through the barrier for them.
“Guys…” Maou sighed, taking in the sight of Emilia and Sariel exercising the nuclear option and Suzuno swinging her bizarre home-improvement tool around again. “Seriously? In the middle of the city?”
Suzuno turned around and looked toward the hole in the sky.
“It is a full moon. A time when Lord Sariel’s powers are at their peak. He was able to destroy the dimensional-phase barrier that exists above the one sheltering us now. Breaking that barrier c
hanges nothing to the outside observer, except perhaps improve their cell phone reception.”
“…You disappeared right in the middle of starting a fight with me,” Emilia groaned. “I wasn’t gonna let it end like that.”
Oh, right. They had been in the middle of an argument just now, hadn’t they? Maou was so preoccupied with his debate against Farfarello that he’d completely forgotten.
“But don’t overthink it, all right? I’m pretty much over it anyway. I had a pretty good workout getting this barrier out of the way.”
“What’s that mean?”
Maou had no idea why the girl was being so casual about it. But he smiled anyway, glad to see a bit of the old Emi back in action.
“So…if my hunch is correct, you’re a Malebranche messenger who’s here to bring the Devil King back to the Eastern Island, right?”
Farfarello, in his suit and glasses, placed a hand on Erone as he faced Emi. “Who are you?” he said, tensing up. “Why do you know that?”
“Oh, haven’t you seen me before?” Emi replied smarmily. “You’re a demon, I’m guessing.”
It was enough to make Farfarello’s eyebrows rise.
“Y-you…! It couldn’t be!!”
“I’m not generous enough to allow demons to go running around willy-nilly in the human world. You shall bear my name, Emilia Justina the Hero, upon your heart as you crumble to pieces!”
“Rrgh! No! How could this be…?!”
Farfarello twitched a little, attempting to infuse himself with the demonic force in Erone’s armor. But Emi, and the godlike speed she had control over, wasn’t about to let that happen. A light leap, and then the next instant, her fist was planted deeply into the pit of his stomach. The force sent the all-too-human Farfarello to the ground, one heel planted squarely on his back.
“Gnngh!”
“If you forget everything you’ve seen in Japan, run back to the demon realms, and live out the rest of your life in peace, then maybe I’ll let you go. But if you try anything funny right now, you can say good-bye to your head.”
“That’s still not very heroic-sounding, man,” Maou muttered warily to himself. One glance from Emilia’s scarlet eyes was enough to silence him back into submission.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 6 Page 13
