Soon, things grew darker outside. Keiko went around the apartment, turning on the lights and getting everything ready.
Then it happened. A knock, from outside Room 501.
“—?!”
Keiko almost dropped the camera she was holding. Who could it be—her boss, or someone else from the office? Or had the workmen forgetten something? Either way, wouldn’t they just open the door with their master key?
She froze in place. Another knock. Then she remembered that the door wasn’t locked at all. The master key didn’t play into it. Anyone affiliated with the company would’ve just walked right in.
“Wh-who is it…?”
Silently, Keiko tiptoed toward the intercom in the living room (video monitor included) and turned it on.
“…?”
The high-resolution, wide-angle camera view showed a woman with long hair she had never seen before. She was wearing a simple, rough-looking shirt and pants, a very large garbage bag at her feet, and she looked a little out of sorts as her head swiveled around.
She was no ghost, at least. Keiko was relieved about that. Her choice of clothing was a little odd, but maybe she was someone from the rental-furniture company bringing over something they forgot about? That would explain why she hadn’t just rung the doorbell on the intercom—she knew this apartment wasn’t occupied by any residents.
Keiko’s heart still accelerated as she gathered her breath and spoke into the intercom.
“Oh, sorry, I’ll be right over!”
The woman on the other side started frantically looking around as if she’d lost her mind. She must’ve been startled, after Keiko took so long to reply. That was about all the thought she gave to it as she opened the door…
“Um?”
…and immediately froze once more. The woman was gone. All she saw there was that garbage bag.
“…Huh?”
Keiko looked toward one end of the corridor, then the other. Not a soul was in sight. It couldn’t have been ten seconds between speaking into the intercom and opening the door. Could someone vanish off the face of the earth like that within ten seconds?
“What’s this?” Keiko whispered. Still trying to comprehend the situation, she took a step out the door and wound up kicking the bag by accident.
“Whoa…”
There was something weirdly solid inside. She opened it up to see what was inside.
“A-armor?! I, ah…!!”
She instinctively jumped back and fell on her rear end. There was no mistaking this—it was a set of European-style battle armor. Maybe not the samurai design she thought she saw earlier, but still enough to remind Keiko of that frightful night spirit.
“What…What could this possibly be about?!”
No matter how much time passed, or how much she rubbed her eyes, the armor inside the garbage bag never went away. It paralyzed her, robbing her of the ability to move.
Emilia, meanwhile, had been keeping watch over the apartment building, waiting for the chance to hand that light-up board to her. Keiko Yusa showed no sign of leaving, even after all the men did, so she figured she’d learn where the woman was if she waited her out.
The lights in the room happened to be on, so Emilia swiftly leaped up there and knocked on the door. But the response came not from the room, but from a voice that seemed to erupt out of thin air, making her erroneously believe that Keiko Yusa had a soldier set an ambush for her. So she hid, beyond the corridor—in other words, stuck to the outer wall of the apartment building.
However, as she continued to hide, there were no signs of reinforcements. The only person she could detect in the vicinity was Keiko Yusa herself. What was the meaning of this? She held her breath as the silence continued.
<“…Wehhhhh…”>
“Huh?”
Suddenly, Emilia’s eyes shot open as she heard the sound of Keiko Yusa crying.
<“I—I can’t take this… What is going onnnnn? I, what did I even…? Aahhh…”>
“Huh? Huh?”
<“I didn’t do anything wrong… It’s all those construction people who cheaped out on this project! Why do I have to deal with all of this?!”>
Emilia, body still pressed against the wall, was bewildered.
<“It all happened years ago! Why do I have to be yelled at about it? Why do I have to work all this overtime and deal with all these scary things…? I can’t stand it!”>
Now Emilia was struck with a sense of guilt like none before. She had come to apologize—so what was she doing here, making her cry instead? She didn’t quite understand much of what Keiko Yusa was howling about right now, but it was clear that Emilia’s behavior had scared the wits out of her.
So—this time, for sure—she decided to finally come out and apologize to her face.
<“U-um, I, I’m sorry if I surprised—”>
<“Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!”>
As to be expected, Keiko Yusa screamed at the top of her lungs, tossed away her company-issued camera, and fled into the apartment.
“Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!!”
With an ear-piercing scream, Keiko all but tumbled back into the apartment.
There wasn’t any place for a person to stand on outside the corridor’s guardrail, but then that woman just appeared out from nowhere. Only a ghost could pull a feat like that off. After the eerie events of the past few days, it’d be impossible not to lose one’s head.
“Stay away, stay away, aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!”
“Um, um, please, wait! I am not a suspicious person!”
If this didn’t count as “suspicious,” what a wondrously peaceful world this would be.
“Die, evil spirit! Die, evil spirit!”
“E-evil spirit…? I am only a…”
“Aahhh, nooooo! Help! Somebody, help meeeeeeeee!!”
“……XXXX! XXXX!!”
“Hffph!”
At that moment, Keiko was surrounded by a warm pocket of air.
<“Die, evil spirit! Die, evil spirit!”>
<“E-evil spirit…? I am only a…”>
<“Aahhh, nooooo! Help! Somebody, help meeeeeeeee!!”>
“……Ugh, enough of this! Please, just listen to me!!”
Approaching the screaming, balled-up Keiko Yusa on the floor, Emilia tapped a finger against her forehead.
“Link!”
<“Hffph!”>
She threw an Idea Link wave toward her—and at that moment, Emilia’s and Keiko’s minds were connected.
“…Can you understand me?”
“Y-yes,” Keiko Yusa groggily replied. Her eyes, unfocused by the terror, gradually began to come back together, and the moment they met Emilia’s:
“Who…are you?”
“…It’s a long story, but I—”
“Are you the ghost of some employee who was fired after taking the blame for this apartment getting messed up?”
“—came from another world to… Excuse me?”
Emilia scowled a bit, faced with the reality that she was still assumed to be a vengeful spirit of some sort. The concept of “ghosts” differed between Ente Isla and Japan, but they were both generally seen as spirits of the dead, wandering the world.
“Another world… You mean the afterlife?”
The “afterlife” seemed to mean what the Church referred to as heaven. A place where the souls of the dead were guided to, perhaps?
“Um, not exactly…but anyway, I wanted to see you once, so I could apologize to you.”
“Apologize…?”
“Listen, I’m really sorry that I snuck in here and scared you. I didn’t mean anything bad. I just don’t know the rules of this world very well yet.”
“Are you…human?”
“Yes. I’m not a ghost or—”
“Even though you went invisible and floated in the air on the other side of that guardrail?”
“Um, that’s easy if you have holy magic… This world doesn’t have any of that?”
/> Emilia thought for a moment, then decided to cast a form of holy magic that hopefully wouldn’t agitate her much.
“I mean, like, this kind of floating in the air…?”
“I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming, this is a dream, it has to be, I know it, it has to be, there are lots of ghosts that go around looking like regular people, it’s a dream, a dream, a dream…”
“Sorry. I won’t ask any more weird questions, all right?”
All she did was lift herself up a few inches, and that was the reaction. If she started shooting illumination orbs or beams of fire, she’d have no excuse if Keiko Yusa died of shock.
“So, today, I wanted to return this to you.”
“A dream, a dream, a dream, a dream, a dream…”
“Um, hey.”
“Ah, yes, huh? Ahhh! My phone!!”
The sight of her smartphone made Keiko’s eyes almost burst out of her head.
“Oh, is this a…phone?” Emilia gave the light-up board back to her. Keiko immediately began to furtively scrutinize it, whispering, “I hope nothing weird’s happened to it” under her breath.
“What kind of tool is that?”
Keiko stopped in her tracks. “Are you from some era before phones?”
“Huh?”
Emilia raised an eyebrow at this, but quickly picked up on what Keiko was trying to ask.
“Listen, I’m hoping you could do away with the impression that I’m a ghost from ancient times…”
“They say that ghosts don’t realize they’re dead, you know.”
“I am not a ghost, all right? Just think of me as a foreigner in Japan for the first time!”
“A foreigner who speaks Japanese that well?”
“No, this is holy magic that’s… Ughh! This is so frustrating!”
Emilia put a hand to her head, but at least this made it clear that Keiko had no understanding (or concept) of holy magic. If it didn’t exist, though, it meant that pretty much none of the cultural background built up in Emilia’s mind would work here.
“Anyway! I’ve been wanting to apologize to you for a while now! For scaring you so many times, and coming into this room without your permission!”
“Y-yeah, that! You said you came into this room, but, but if you aren’t a ghost, how did you get inside?!”
“Didn’t you see me?! I used my flight magic to come up, I was trying to get some rest on the balcony over there, and the window happened to be open!”
The language this woman was speaking continued to build up inside Emilia’s mind, but none of it was getting at the things she really wanted to know about this country. It was easier to obtain concepts from her than Ms. Kimura, but it looked like she’d have to press her a little further to reach any conclusions. If she interacted with her for too long, though, it could wind up having too much of an effect on her life. Things didn’t seem too rosy for this exchange, and it cast a pall over Emilia’s mind.
“I am not a ghost, all right? Just think of me as a foreigner in Japan for the first time!”
Keiko was surrounded by the strangest sense that something was off.
“A foreigner who speaks Japanese that well?”
It had been several minutes since she was confronted by this mysterious woman out of nowhere, but she couldn’t shake the impression that the woman’s voice was coming from some distant radio, bouncing around the inside of her skull. The voice was definitely making it into her ears, but it felt like its sounds were running counter to its content, as she understood it. But how did she even know that? It just made Keiko more confused.
“No, this is XXXX that’s… Ughh! This is so frustrating!”
Plus, her speech was interspersed with words like these she couldn’t pick up on at all. When she missed a word, it sounded like static from a poorly tuned stereo. It was the most uncomfortable feeling, there in her mind.
“Anyway! I’ve been wanting to apologize to you for a while now! For scaring you so many times, and coming into this room without your permission!”
“Y-yeah, that! You said you came into this room, but, but if you aren’t a ghost, how did you get inside?!”
“Didn’t you see me?! I used my XXXXX to come up, I was trying to get some rest on the balcony over there, and the window happened to be open!”
“But whether it’s open or not, how did you climb up five floors just to…!”
It was difficult to glean much information from the woman’s words. Her speech sounded familiar enough, but there were moments when Keiko had the strangest impression she was hearing a word for the very first time. It was almost like those last few moments of a dream, when reality mixes with fantasy, except it seemed to go on and on for her.
“Look, anyway, I promise I won’t appear in this room again, and I promise I won’t cause you any more trouble!”
“Umm…”
“And…before I go, let me ask you one more time… I mean, about something I want to know about…”
“Yes?”
Keiko had a lot of questions herself for the woman, but this sense of imbalance in her mind was growing more and more intense. She had trouble collecting her thoughts.
“What kind of tool is that ‘phone’ of yours? I heard your voice from that phone yesterday, but does that let you talk to people far away, like the XX in an XXXX”
Is she asking what a mobile phone is? Is she really serious?
“A phone… Well, this is a smartphone, to be exact…but…”
A smartphone was a type of telephone, one that used high-speed data transfer technology to serve as a kind of palm-top computer device, sold by three big carriers and a multitude of Internet providers in Japan. Purchasing one required going to a phone or mobile-device shop, picking a device and data plan, and either paying for it all at once or dividing it up over several months.
“Huh? What’s this…?”
The smartphone Keiko had bought was a brand-new model from Dokodemo. After her old feature phone broke, she flexed the ol’ wallet muscles a bit and splurged on this one, but she was never that good with computers so a lot of the features were opaque to her at first. Only now was she really coming to grips with the thing.
“W-wait a moment. I didn’t ask for this much…”
Since the contract for her old cell phone was in the name of her father all the way up in Aomori Prefecture, Keiko had to have her family send over documents proving that she was related to them when buying the new phone and sign a new contract in her own name. It all seemed so pointlessly confusing, especially since the last time she bought a phone, she was in high school and needed nothing but an ID for the purchase.
“Wh-what’s going on?! This is so…”
It was only at that point, after three years of working for this company, that it dawned on her that her parents back home were still paying her phone bill. Looking at the family-register documents they had sent over to her made Keiko cry a little—she’d grown up in this little place in Aomori, and now she was employed with the Ohmura Group, a major firm in the big city. Her parents were happy for her, of course, but the news soon broke on this whole Urban Heights Eifukucho debacle, making her first year at Ohmura a mentally and emotionally trying experience.
Amid all the confusion, Keiko had been thrust into the front lines of work with barely any in-house training and asked to do all kinds of crazy, unreasonable things. Many people who had joined the company with her didn’t even make it the whole year. But Keiko made it through, she thought, because back when she lived alone in Tokyo as a college student, she’d had a part-time job at a call center handling Dokodemo customer support, which let her develop a sort of immunity to verbal abuse and unfair questioning.
Once this Urban Heights renewal project was over with, she hoped to get enough time off to go back home again and see her parents for the first time in three years.
“No… I can’t take any more…!!”
At that moment—and just for a moment—Emi’s consciousness was thrust
into darkness.
Keiko’s thought process surged like a tidal wave.
“Huh? What’s this…?”
All this woman did was ask about this phone, but before Keiko could open her mouth, all these thoughts and memories related to cell phones cascaded out of her, as if their minds were linked up with each other.
“W-wait a moment. I didn’t ask for this much…”
Everything up to how Keiko got involved with this apartment building flashed brightly before her, as if the two of them witnessed it all together the whole time.
At the same time, Emilia was exposed to everything—all the information Keiko had needed to learn, to work, to live in this nation called Japan.
“Wh-what’s going on?! This is so…”
That unknown middle-aged man must be Keiko’s father… Their home in “Aomori” was covered in heavy snow, and his deep, rugged facial features reminded her of some of the mountain men she knew in Ente Isla’s Northern Island. He didn’t seem the type of father to say very much, but he had a deep love for Keiko, and Keiko firmly understood that. That’s why, even living alone in the big city, she worked hard in her college classes, never taking the easy way out. The part-time work at Dokodemo was punishingly difficult, but the money was good—well, good enough that she didn’t ask her family for much support at all while she searched for a job post-graduation.
Once she was done with the work relating to this apartment, she wanted to go see her parents.
“No… I can’t take any more…!!”
Emilia screamed as she held her head.
“Link Cancel! …Hahh!!”
She forced the Idea Link to disconnect.
Keiko took a light breath and closed her eyes, as Emilia panted, eyes wide open and sweat running down her forehead.
“What…What was that…? That’s never happened in an Idea Link…”
She looked at her trembling palms, shivering at this unbelievable event. It had to be an Idea Link gone out of control. Her head was warm, as if she’d caught a fever; her mind was unfocused, her heart palpitating. The amount of stamina those few minutes had cost her, she realized, was staggering.
The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 14 Page 18
