The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 14

by Satoshi Wagahara

  “I wonder if she’ll come back to get this…? But…”

  Emilia’s eyebrows slanted downward as she looked up. She hadn’t noticed it when she awoke, but the sunlight that made it through her room’s window had apparently come during sunset. The sky visible from this corridor was now a shade of purple; night was returning. It made her realize just how tired she was. Now, with a clearer mind, all the errors in judgment she’d made were painfully obvious.

  “I don’t know who that woman was,” she said as she picked up the bag and headed down the hall, “but if someone lives here, this might get stolen sooner or later…”

  Then the sight of all the pieces of paper in the bag made her stop.

  “…”

  It felt like there was an assortment of objects inside it.

  “……”

  She pondered this for a moment.

  “…!”

  She gave her surroundings a careful look around, then slunk back to the dwelling she’d been in. Somehow managing to lock the door, she sat in the middle of its empty main chamber, facing the bag and looking at herself in its metal clasp. It made her take a deep breath.

  “I swear by the Church, the Better Half, and the name of my father that I will not steal your belongings. I will not reveal or abuse the knowledge I gain. So…allow me to learn a little more about this world, if you could.”

  She rummaged around the bag—something that should have shamed her as a person, much less a Hero. But right now, before her eyes was the knowledge Emilia needed to live in this land and find the Devil King. If someone were to bring her to task for this crime, she would gladly accept the blame and atone for it. Steeling her resolve, she undid the clasp.

  Perhaps a good half-day passed with her sitting there. It was now deep into the following night, darkness draping the room. Emilia had summoned a holy magic–driven ball of light to dispel it, giving her the illumination needed to explore every inch of the bag.

  It was her first chance to examine the belongings of an average person on this world. The woman was bound to be back for it sooner or later—and when she did, Emilia would have to give it all back and leave this room. The clock was ticking.

  “This must be money. A coin with a hole in the middle’s pretty uncommon.”

  Emilia lined up every coin and piece of paper she fished out from the smooth, leathery bag on the floor and nodded. The coins had designs of temple-like buildings, flowers, trees, rice plants, and so on. They didn’t seem to contain very much gold, silver, or copper, but it wasn’t hard to imagine all of this as currency. The scraps of paper, meanwhile, featured dazzling patterns, portraits of people, and other intricately detailed pieces of art, as well as the same written text she had seen on the coins.

  The text in question came in ten different characters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0. If these were numbers, it implied these were paper bills. She understood the concept of that, at least, but this was only the second country she’d been to where she’d seen it. The first had been a seaside port city on the Central Continent, but as one of her companions had put it, the impact of the Devil King’s Army on the land made the currency so worthless that it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.

  Any bill or coin had to have the absolute trust of its issuing nation behind it in order to function—and with paper as light as this, it had to be worth a comparatively tremendous amount of money. The bag’s owner hadn’t looked much older than Emilia, but was this nation safe and prosperous enough that even someone like her would walk around with vast sums of money?

  “Either way, I doubt I’ll get much use out of the gold and silver coins I have…”

  Emilia had none of these paper bills, and while the coins had a silvery color, they didn’t appear to be minted from straight silver. While she knew they depicted numbers, she had no idea what their order was. It’d be a waste of time to consider this currency any longer for now.

  The next thing she devoted her attention to was a large map. Opening it up, she found it made once again of high-quality paper. It appeared to be a simple one-color outline map, but looking closely, she found it covered with a vast array of (what she concluded was) numbers. Even before she came here, she’d had some impression of this nation’s advanced printing skill, but seeing all these tiny numbers covering the map every which way made her jaw drop.

  “These numbers may not be referring to money. Perhaps they are distances, or perhaps they are assigned to certain roads… There’s some sort of system to them, anyway. The roads have arrows, along with four characters on them. Two circled characters for larger regions. And this is…four characters, but they’re circled in a different way from the others… Either it’s a large road or a river. Hmm… The red text must have been written in later.”

  In the midst of this businesslike map, nothing but roads and regions and numbers, something was written in red ink.

  “Is the red mark in the middle this building?”

  Despite her semi-delirious, sleep-deprived state yesterday, she had a general idea of what her surroundings looked like. It made her realize that this outline map covered a fairly limited area centered around this building.

  “So the numbers between the arrows are distances. And the distance from one edge of this arrow to the other one is the unit distance represented by these four-digit numbers! These ten characters definitely have to be numbers, then!”

  If “1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/0” were the ten numbers, it meant this nation ran on the decimal counting system. Even that was a great leap forward. If she could figure out the order they went by, she should be able to figure out things like money and distances to some extent.

  “But this distance and that distance look the same to me. Why’re the numbers on them different…?”

  The printed numerals were so small that Emi had to strengthen the magic-driven light to view them.

  “There are a lot of similar combinations around the areas marked in red. And these buildings are marked differently, too. I’ll have to go over there myself before I… Huh? What’s this…?”

  Then Emilia realized that another map was in the bag.

  “Hmm? Is this a map of the same place?”

  This map was printed in bright red and blue tones, with a far larger number of written-in notes on it. Regions that were more loosely circled in the outline map were delineated in detail here, each festooned with a large variety of text characters. This map also featured a picture and some larger text in every direction, designed in a way that reminded Emilia of a storefront sign.

  “Hmm… This looks more like the maps I’m used to.”

  The larger cities in Emilia’s world featured advertisements put up by the merchant guilds that provided maps to the stores and other important facilities around town. By Emilia’s estimation, this was something similar.

  The discovery also opened another problem in her mind.

  “This…is gonna be kind of tough.”

  Staring at the blue-printed map, she found the text on it featured an endless array of different characters, each hopelessly complex in design. This nation used a lot of different types of characters, something it hadn’t taken her long to spot upon arriving. Just looking at this map alone, there seemed to be three or four or five different writing systems at work. If these were all phonetic symbols, she knew she was in trouble—and if they were ideographs, representing concepts instead of pronunciation, this wasn’t something she could decipher in a day or two.

  “Unless I exercise my Idea Link muscles, this is going to be such a pain…”

  Idea Link was a mightily useful thing when venturing into a land where you didn’t know the local language, but it didn’t provide a perfect translation. Unless both sides of the conversation had the same concept in mind, the meaning you attempted to convey could often come across as something totally different and unintelligible. In the case of traveling around Ente Isla, at least one member of her group would have a grasp of whatever language was needed,
or they could hire an interpreter if necessary, but that wasn’t an option here.

  “If I just had a chance to talk for a good while with someone…”

  Emilia hadn’t had the opportunity to exchange too many words with people here yet. One look at her and most people demonstrated a clear disinterest in dealing with her, and being chased by the constables wasn’t what you could really call conversation. The only words she knew so far were what her ears picked up on the street—the “how ya doing” she heard when people spoke face-to-face with each other; the “welcome, welcome” shopkeepers used to make people venture inside; the “come here” and “be nice” parents used to calm their children; the “freeze” and “don’t move” and “get over here” shouted by the constabulary when they wanted to catch you.

  “Hang on…”

  Then Emilia noticed the same text, in the same handwriting, on both maps.

  “Here it is!”

  It was inside the leather wallet that held the paper bills. Apart from money, it contained a selection of colorful, multi-textured cards, all structured and printed in the same fashion; each featured the same small string of characters.

  “Here, too.”

  Inside an even smaller leather card case she found another stack of cards, each with the exact same string of characters as before. This stack was more varied, detailed, and colorful than the bills, even featuring a portrait of a person drawn to an exhaustively close likeness. Seeing it, Emilia could now be sure.

  “That woman… She owns this bag. So…this has to be her name.”

  She must’ve written her name on the map to make it clear who owned it. Emilia couldn’t say what all the variations in her card collection were for, but one of them featured a red cross inside an almond-shaped shield, like one used by knights. A sign that she was affiliated with a military corps, perhaps?

  “I wish I knew how to pronounce her name, at least… Is there anything else?”

  Inside the dark room, Emilia continued to rifle through the bag, seeking hints about this woman and the nation she called home.

  “Hmm… This sheaf of papers is probably for business purposes. Is this a handkerchief? That’s a very pretty color… And this card has numbers and a name, too. And this is a glass bottle with water inside…or not? What kind of light, soft, see-through material is this made of? It has some text and a picture of a mountain on it, but I can’t read it… Otherwise, a lot of this looks the same… What’s this?”

  Emilia discovered something truly odd in one of the outer pockets. It was a flat board of sorts, the size of her palm, rigid, square, and painted in assorted gaudy colors. It was heavy for its size, a leather strap attached to it from the edge. There were lots of small projections around it, along with a hole that looked large enough to insert something into.

  “That’s weird… Is this a button? …Ah?!”

  The moment she clumsily touched one of the buttons, the board’s surface lit up, causing a shocked Emilia to drop it on the floor. Would it explode? Or let out a blinding flash of light? Or was it a trap to ward off would-be bag thieves? Whatever it was, it made her leap back in self-defense.

  But the board simply emitted its light, doing nothing else. Slowly, ever so gingerly, she looked back at it.

  “Ah… That’s cute…”

  Within the light was a picture of what looked like a bear, although the drawing was heavily simplified from the real thing. It was clinging to a pillow as it lay on its back, sleeping. Above it floated four numbers.

  “The…the numbers are moving?”

  The moment she gazed at them, the number on the far right changed from a “1” to a “2.” It was another mystery for Emilia to unravel as she picked up the board.

  <“Ahhhh?!”>

  “Huh?”

  The door to the corridor had been opened at some point. She thought she had locked it, but when Emilia looked up, she saw someone there. There was no way she could forget that face, tensed in terror in the light of her magic. It was that woman again, the one who’d left her bag behind.

  This time, Emilia didn’t think about running. She had to apologize for trespassing, and for inspecting her bag. The moment she extended a hand to attempt it:

  <“Hyaaagghh!!”>

  The woman let out a shrill scream and bounded out into the corridor again.

  “W-wait a minute! No, wait, hang on, um…!”

  Emilia tried her best to remember what those constables yelled at her as she ran.

  <“Halt! Freeze!”>

  But despite Emilia being completely visible this time, the woman didn’t halt at all.

  <“Yaaaaaahaahhhh! A will-o’-the-wisp and a samurai ghost!!”>

  “…Will o the wisp samoorai gosst?”

  Emilia was puzzled by these unfamiliar terms. But she had to give back the bag, and if the woman got away now, she had no idea when she’d see her again. So Emilia chased after her, attempting to stop her.

  <“Stay where you are! Stop resisting!”>

  <“Noooooooooo!”>

  <“Welcome, welcome!”>

  <“Stay awaaaaaaaay!!”>

  <“Come here! Come here!!”>

  <“I don’t wanna diiiieeeee!! This building’s cursed!!”>

  Emilia’s calls echoed across the building, bouncing off its walls repeatedly, but were almost fully drowned out by the woman’s high-pitched screaming. She tried to reach her, but she had disappeared in one direction or other along the corridor, lost to her again. Emilia could hear the sound of someone descending a staircase whose location was still a mystery to her.

  She was gone—and this time, Emilia had really spooked her. This “samoorai gosst” must have been someone really strange and mythical in this world, at least that much she could tell, but even then it seemed like the woman was overreacting quite a bit. Something about the term “will o the wisp samoorai gosst” sounded incredibly sinister. Perhaps she was being marked as a violent criminal or something.

  “Hmm… Maybe this armor isn’t the best idea.”

  Giving it some thought, she considered a few elements that might arouse suspicion. She had arrived here fresh from her final battle with the Devil King, so her armor was all scratched up and damaged in places. And it was true that she had seen not a single knight in armor or even a helm during her time here.

  “So it is the armor…”

  Really, as long as she bore the Cloth of the Dispeller—the symbol of her power as a Hero—no full-body armor was necessary at all. But, perhaps due to the limits of her holy-energy coffers, she could never deploy both her holy sword and the Cloth at its maximum force simultaneously. Even if she was protected against the Devil King’s attack, it meant little if she couldn’t strike back. Thus, before the final battle, Emilia had thought it best not to use the Cloth and poured all her energy into her sword instead.

  “…I don’t smell strange or something, do I?”

  The thought consumed her once it popped up in her mind. She sniffed her long hair. The fact she had engaged in a fierce battle followed by five days without a bath was a reality she preferred not to face as a woman, but Emilia actually had a little trick to deal with that.

  “I transformed once yesterday…so that shouldn’t be it.”

  It was the angel’s blood within Emilia. Whenever she awoke its presence—an ability she’d never had in her memory, something discovered only when told about it on that fateful day—it fully refreshed her. If she were gravely wounded in battle, this angelic transformation would immediately heal it all. If she were hurt in “angel” mode, she would still heal, but gradually over time, and if she left that mode before she was fully healed, her injuries would remain how they were, without getting worse. A transformation was like a deep cleansing for her.

  When traveling in lands like the eastmost parts of the Eastern Island, where temperatures and humidity were high and clean streams to bathe in were few and far between, Emilia was the only one among her traveling party who managed to keep her
self clean and tidy despite all the fighting they’d waded through. That was the only real difference between Emilia and her three companions—a difference she’d freely taken advantage of in battle during their quest, and one that fellow female traveler Emeralda Etuva hadn’t hidden her envy of. However, transforming also required a substantial amount of holy energy—and, of course, it didn’t “cleanse” anything she was wearing.

  “Maybe it’s that…?”

  Emilia blushed, even though nobody was watching her. If her appearance stuck out like this in a rich, peaceful country, it wasn’t just a little embarrassing—it would lead to all sorts of inconveniences, a fact she had already learned through hard experience.

  “Someplace I can wash my clothing… I could hardly use the water fountains in the public squares. With all the people out at night, Light Mirror might still make me conspicuous…and besides, just because they can’t see me, it’s not like I can go…naked, like that…”

  Her thought process quickly took her there, but either way, she had few leads when it came to doing laundry. Something about that might be written on that woman’s maps, but she couldn’t do much as long as she was illiterate.

  Just when she was thinking it was time to turn to her final resort:

  “…What’s that sound?”

  There was a repetitive, heavy sound, beating out a rhythm from somewhere, almost like a large insect in flight. It seemed to be coming from the dwelling she had left. Emilia peeked back into the room from the hallway.

  “That board again…”

  The board, which emitted all that light a moment ago, was now flashing and lightly vibrating across the floor.

  “Wh-what…?”

  She reluctantly approached it, preparing herself for anything and wondering if it would leap up at her as she peered into the screen. Now, where she had seen the bear drawing earlier, there was a red-and-green rectangular shape. She stared at it, unable to figure out its meaning, and after a few moments the vibration stopped and the picture went back to the bear.