The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 2 (10 page)

The look Kisaki gave Chiho was one of delighted interest, a complete 180 from what she had for Maou.

“Go get changed, okay? Maou’s gonna have a lot of work to do starting tomorrow, so he’ll probably have a lot to discuss with you, too.”

“Ah…uh, yeah. Sorry.”

Chiho nodded, then walked past Maou’s side and into the staff room behind the counter. She was mere inches from him, and they didn’t even make eye contact.

“Heh. Looks like a terminal case.”

Kisaki grinned to herself as she saw Chiho off.

“I have to admit, this
is
leaving me ever-so-slightly worried as I leave the store in your capable hands.”

“Ever so slightly…? I know Chi and I are a little awkward with each other right now, but it’s not like we’re fighting or anything. It’s not going to affect our work at all,” Maou half whined, half defended himself as he stared at the staff-room door.

“Well, even if
you’re
fine with it, Chi might not be so much.”

The words breezed out of Kisaki’s mouth. Maou looked at her, surprised.

“We may all just be cogs in the huge machine that we call the MgRonald Corporation, but before that, we’re human beings. You can’t get a bead on how people interact with each other from a single viewpoint. Even if you try to, it’s not going to improve things around the workplace.”

“You…think? I suppose so.”

Maou cast his eyes downward. The observation made him realize exactly how shallow he was being. Then, with consummate timing, Kisaki lightened the mood.

“Ahh, you’ll be fine. Chi’s still young. Inexperienced. She just needs a little while longer to get herself together. Once the right spark comes along, she’ll be back to normal in no time.”

In terms of life experience, Maou had an advantage of several centuries over both Chiho and Kisaki. On paper, at least. Unfortunately, the sort of experience he’d gained over those many years was nothing he could apply to
this
thorny affair.

But, as he soon realized, Kisaki’s advice, while not solving the problem, did help relieve the load on his mind a little. He took a long, hard look at his boss, like he suddenly knew everything about her.

“I have to hand it to you, Ms. Kisaki. You’re really something.”

“Hey, it’s just work drama. Get as old as I am, and it starts to come naturally.”

Still a bit lost in the fog, Maou tried his hardest to focus on the predinner rush checklist. Kisaki stopped him.

“Let’s have Chi handle that, shall we? I want to take a close look at how she works while we’re not busy.”

“Um, sure…”

Kisaki plucked the check sheet from Maou’s hands.

“Better take your break while you still can, Marko. You can go out and have dinner as long as you’re back by six…unless you wanted to eat here?”

Maou shook his head at the invite.

“Thanks, but I’ll take my break in the staff room. I brought a bento box along today.”

“A bento, huh? Starting to cook for yourself a little? Well, just make sure whatever you cook doesn’t start rotting in this heat before you can eat it. That goes double in a food-service job like this. Keep your bento in a cool, dark place, and don’t forget to stick a dried
umeboshi
plum in there to absorb the moisture.”

Maou nodded. This was all common sense.

“I’m all squared away there. I’d be in trouble if I couldn’t work, after all. Anyway, see you after my break.”

Maou set his time-clock code to
BREAK
, then ventured into the staff room.

Immediately he ran into Chiho, who had just stepped out of the women’s changing area.

“Oh…”

Chiho, realizing Maou was there, swallowed nervously, averting her eyes.

“Uh…so, I’m going on break for a second. Ms. Kisaki said she wanted to check out your, like, work ethic or whatever before we got busy.”

“A-all right…”

She nodded, hands held forward as if holding a hot potato in front of her chest, then started to pass by Maou’s side when:

“…?”

Noticing Maou take a package out of his messenger bag, wrapped in a bandanna he purchased at the local one-hundred-yen shop, Chiho stopped for a moment.

“Maou, is that…?”

It was one of the rare occasions in the past two months when Chiho actually initiated conversation with him.

Maou unwrapped the bandanna, revealing a dual-tier bento box, both on the large side and featuring a design that was just a little too gaudy for a man to comfortably sport around.

Then he brought it up to face level.

“This? Just a bento meal.”

“A bento…? That’s kind of a cute pattern on it. Did Ashiya buy it on sale or something?”

Being aware of Maou’s true colors, Chiho had naturally met Ashiya before. She was also aware of his demonic origins, as well as his role tending to the household chores and Maou’s self-centered demands.

It was a harmless enough question, but Maou, blessed with the first chance at a decent conversation in two months, put little thought into it before giving his honest answer.

“Nah, I borrowed it from my neighbor. Did I mention that? Someone moved in next door a little while ago.”

“Someone moved in? …Into
that
apartment?”

Chiho’s eyes opened wide in innocent surprise. She knew the state of squalor he lived in, of course. But his next few words were enough to make her entire body freeze.

“Yeah. It’s this girl, actually…”

“This
girl
?!”

“Whoa! You don’t have to yell like that.”

Chiho’s bloodcurdling scream was enough to make Maou jump. Chiho ignored the rebuke.

“Y-you, you borrowed a bento box from, from this young girl? What on earth is—”

“Hey, Chi, stop shaking me!”

Before he knew it, Chiho had grabbed the collar of Maou’s work uniform, pulling it to and fro.

“S-so, so, so, this
girl
…this girl lent it to
you
, Maou…”

“Y-y-y-yeah. Yeah, so please stop shaking me, Chi…”

The Devil King was physically helpless against a teenage girl.

“I…I really don’t want to imagine this…like,
really
,
really
don’t want to! But…but did
she
make it?”

The whites of her eyes shone as she glared at Maou, hands still firmly gripping his shirt. The look of desperation on her face was nothing like the standoffishness he’d had to deal with these past two months.

The girl he was talking about was Suzuno Kamazuki, and with Ashiya still bedridden—okay, floor-ridden—and incapable of much physically, it was none other than Suzuno who’d obediently volunteered to whip up a bento for Maou instead.

Between the udon she lugged over on moving day and the ginger and whatnot she had today, Suzuno had no qualms with bringing her own ingredients into Devil’s Castle and whipping up meals for them on the spot.

The demons, of course, had no room to complain. The ice was firmly broken with their new neighbor, and the savings in their food budget were proving to be substantial. But Maou had never even dreamed that this arrangement would prove to be such a minefield later on.

“I…I…I guess she did, probably. I think.”

Chiho was no longer in any mood to accept Maou’s feeble attempts at muddling the bare truth.

“C-c-can, can, can, can…”

“Can?”

“Can, can I take a look at, at what’s inside?”

“Yes! Yes, so stop shaking me! Please!”

Finally removing her hands from Maou’s collar, Chiho warily peered into Maou’s open bento box, almost scared to see what was inside.

The topmost tier of the box was packed to the gills with little side dishes in a dazzling array of colors. Chiho’s face stiffened at first sight of the deluxe spread before her, but the next thing she noticed made her blink in confusion.

It was the braised burdock root that caught her attention first. Followed by the
chikuzenni
—braised chicken and vegetables. Then the
kikka-kabu
, the baby turnips steeped in salt water and cut into flowery shapes. Then the vinegar-marinated sliced carrots and daikon radish. Then the
kuri kinton
sweets made of chestnut paste.

“Osechi…?”

“
Osechi?
Which?”

Maou asked reluctantly, not having had any past experience with the traditional Japanese New Year’s cuisine, which is often the most money a family spends on a single meal all year. Chiho shook her head.

“Let me see the bottom tier!”

She whisked away the topmost box.

What unfolded before her was all too expected, which made it all the more horrifying for her to see.

Atop a bed of white rice was an enormous heart-shaped design made of seaweed, bordered by an enclosed row of fresh dried plums.

Even after night fell, the heat wave dominating Tokyo showed no signs of dissipating.

“’Lo…”

As Emi stepped into Friend Market, the convenience store on Nanohana Street nearest to her home in Eifukucho, she was greeted by a clerk whose passion for customer service was a far cry from Maou’s.

Emi, the only customer in the store, breathed a blissful sigh upon feeling the AC on her forehead, then made a beeline for the bento corner.

“…I always wind up buying the same thing, don’t I?”

Emi muttered it to herself as she reached for a plastic-wrapped curry meal with the improbably long title
HEALTHY FILL-UPS—SUMMER VEGETABLE CURRY! ALL THIS AND ONLY
1500
CALORIES!
Figuring this wouldn’t be quite enough, she also picked up a small package of coleslaw, a cup of instant soup, and an éclair for dessert, stacking all of it above the curry package.

With any of her curry dinner’s alleged health benefits now thoroughly neutralized, Emi strode to the cash register.

Working at a call center guaranteed that she never had to worry about unscheduled overtime, but thanks to her earlier stop at Hatagaya for the purposes of her Hero duties, she was coming home quite late tonight.

Out of the four days she had kept her vigil going, this was undoubtedly the most tumultuous. Thus Emi decided that a stop by Maou’s workplace would be in order. Boarding the Keio New Line, she disembarked at Hatagaya station and took up her favored position at the magazine rack in the bookstore opposite MgRonald, the ideal location for her stakeout.

But—and she had a feeling this would be the case—all this earned her was the right to stare at Maou, his manager, and Chiho Sasaki, the only Japanese person who knew the truth about him, as they dutifully carried out their shifts. The full stalker experience, in other words.

“’Eat it up ’ere?”

She nodded at the clerk, who had the enigmatic habit of omitting syllables here and there, as her purchases were totaled up.

Something seemed unfair about all this. Thanks to a generous neighbor, Maou was eating like a king, and meanwhile Emi was wasting time and energy and being rewarded for it with artery-clogging convenience-store food.

“’nk youuu. Come back soooon.”

Emi picked up the plastic bag housing the warm curry, turning toward the exit, when:

“!!”

She flinched and looked upward, feeling a clear and present murderous rage fixated upon her.

Summer or not, going home from work or not, no longer able to live without air-conditioning or not, Emi had a trained sixth sense for this that had never left her.

Especially when her own life was involved.

So by the time the black shadow which suddenly appeared lunged at her like an enraged murderer, at a speed no Japanese person could ever manage to top, Emi was already positioned for battle.

And when, thanks to this excessive speed on the shadow’s part, her assailant failed to notice the automatic door slowly lumbering open between it and Emi, crashing straight into the clear glass door
and falling down with a
thud
, Emi didn’t move an inch from her fighting stance.

“Nn? Whuzzat?”

The clerk, apparently a native speaker of mole-people language, shot a glance toward Emi.

Beyond the glass door, still lumbering open but now cracked, Emi’s diminutive assailant lay on the ground, dressed in a shiny plastic rain poncho, camouflage pants, and a black ski mask, looking the part of a bank robber who’d just darted out of the barber after a quick haircut to hide his identity.

The weight of his body kept the sensor activated, allowing the door to remain open and the cold air inside to swarm out of the entrance.

Emi tossed her bag on the floor and slinked toward the register to put her purchases down, wanting to be rid of her luggage as soon as possible.

“Sssir, y’all right?”

The clerk leaped out from behind the counter, mistaking this new guest for someone who just had an unfortunate accident. It wasn’t until he approached the door when the assailant’s out-of-place clothing gave him pause.

“Get away!”

From the side, Emi pushed the frozen clerk out of the way. He barreled into the rack of free help-wanted magazines, surprised at this sudden attack, but the effort ultimately saved his life.

A blade of light ripped through the space where the clerk once stood. Emi felt a large, weighted mass fly by, scraping her shoulder, reducing the sleeve of her shirt to ribbons, and worst of all, cleaving the bag with her just-purchased bento cleanly in half.

Emi, checking to ensure the clerk was still on the ground, was quick to react.

“Heavenly Wind Blade!!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Emi launched her holy sword, the Better Half, at the bizarrely dressed burglar who’d just destroyed her sleeve and dinner.

The guided shock wave released by the sword in her right hand slammed against the assailant, sending him flying outside of the store with a loud
crash
.

“Stay in here and call the police!”

She didn’t know if the clerk was listening, but Emi shot out of the store before he could have an opportunity to see her sword, pursuing the plainly suspicious-looking suspect.

But another flash of cleaving light was waiting for her from the side as she exited.

Emi deflected the bolt with a deft turn of her holy sword. The clang of metal against metal echoed. She leaped, attempting to get above the head of this ambusher.

“Heavenly Fleet Feet!!”

Focusing the powers of the Cloth of the Dispeller that lurked within her squarely upon her legs, Emi jumped forward and landed cleanly on the roof of the house across the street.

It was no physical feat any regular person could have managed, but the ski-masked burglar’s eyes never turned away from her.

Emi went through the effort of summoning her holy sword and Cloth without hesitation because she realized that, apart from his crazy garb, this was no ordinary thug she was dealing with.

No mere burglar, for one, would have an enormous scythe in hand.

It was the kind of scythe most people only see on the Death tarot card, one just as tall as the masked assailant wielding it, easily capable of cutting in half three or so human beings in a single swipe.

The stylistically mismatched burglar had nothing like that in hand during that first headlong lunge into the convenience-store door.

Unlike the sort of weapons most would-be felons tend to prefer, this was nothing one could easily hide in a pocket or violin case.

Considering the
clang
of metal when that scythe met Emi’s holy sword, and considering the scythe was solid enough to withstand Emi’s blade in the first place, and considering how this maniac seemingly produced it from thin air, there was no way this fashion disaster was from Earth.

“I don’t know if you’re human or a demon or whatever, but why are you attacking me in public like this?!”

Emi began by giving her attacker her honest opinion.

“I don’t care about myself, but if you’re going to hurt the people of Japan, don’t expect any mercy from me!”

Bringing Better Half level with her body, she kept it high as she leaped off the roof.

“Rrnnnngh!”

The fall was driven by more than just momentum. It was an all-out bullrush toward her foe, powered by the maximum amount of force the Cloth covering her legs allowed.

But her assailant remained still, scythe at the ready, before swiping it downward in a grand arc.

Emi had predicted the move; her sword was deflected, but she used the momentum to twist her body around and unleash a rear kick with her left foot.

The Cloth-powered kick, stabbing with Emi’s full strength, rammed into her opponent’s left shoulder.

Even though she had this foe off guard, simply flailing away wouldn’t end the battle. Aiming for a KO, Emi prepared to rush at the dazed burglar, targeting the solar plexus.

Then, at just that moment, the scythe-wielder released a flash of light from beneath the ski mask.

The purple, beamlike flash would have seemed like a terrible ’80s direct-to-video special effect to the casual observer, but Emi, feeling a cold rush down her spine, cut through the blast with her sword.

Something within Emi said that under absolutely no circumstances should she let that beam touch her.

But what happened next was far beyond anything Emi could imagine.

“Huh…?!”

The holy sword was robbed of its light.

Better Half, the sword that resonated with the holy force inside of Emi, began to flicker like an almost-spent lightbulb, shrinking down to the size of a long dagger.

Emi brought the sword back, trying to return it to its original “phase one” size, but the scythe-wielder continued with the barrage of purple light, all too ready to overwhelm her.

“Wh-what the hell
is
this?!”

The blasts were not that rapid in succession, but Emi had never heard of a force powerful enough to literally shrink her holy sword. She was at a loss to imagine what a direct hit would do to her body, but she was no longer able to brush the attacks off with her sword. In a moment, the tables had turned.

Emi found herself in a panic at this unexpected attacker, someone who she surmised must have been an assassin from Ente Isla. But the battle against this light-emitting, scythe-slashing maniac ended in equally unexpected fashion.

“Ngh!”

Suddenly, the scythe-wielder groaned as the barrage of purple light ceased.

Surprised, Emi looked over to find that the assailant’s drab-colored ski mask had transformed into a fluorescent orange, right down to the eyes themselves.

“No!”

Now it was a round, orange blast of…something that crossed Emi’s line of view, accompanied by a male voice.

The ball struck the scythe-wielder on the shoulder, spreading bright orange across most of the assailant’s Windbreaker.

Emi flashed a quizzical look back at the convenience store.

There stood the clerk in his full glory, now outside of his shop and throwing antitheft paintballs at the assailant.

Emi’s assailant was unflinchingly on the offensive during this entire battle, but now was lying on the ground in agony, face covered by a hand. Some of the paint must have seeped through the ski mask.

“Hey…”

This show of brute courage threw Emi. Having pride in one’s work duties is fine and all, but those paintballs were meant to help pursue
fleeing criminals. Apart from the special scent agents they were laced with, they couldn’t have packed that powerful a punch.

If the scythe-wielder decided to lash out against this new attacker, Emi had little means to stop the attack. Emi turned toward her assailant—

“Huh…?”

—only to find her powerful opponent fleeing, back turned, stumbling wildly back and forth across the street.

“…Uhhhh.” Emi groaned to herself.

“N-no! Get back ’ere!!” The clerk, meanwhile, was unfazed, continuing the paintball assault as his downed foe lurched off.

All they could hear was a ball or two splattering against something a bit away in the darkness. It was hard to tell if any of them hit home.

Emi dissipated her sword back within her body as quickly as she could. The only thought in her mind was:
Come on,
really
?

Here was this obvious assassin from Ente Isla, first bashing straight into an automatic door, then summoning this gigantic scythe before tasting shameful defeat by a cashier with some paintballs? How did
that
happen?

Avoiding pointless conflict was something to be celebrated, of course, but this climax was enough to make any Hero lose their enthusiasm for the whole Hero gig.

“Oh! Yer aright, ma’am?!”

The clerk finally noticed Emi, still caught up in the heat of the moment. Emi had silently sheathed her sword and Cloth of the Dispeller within her while the scythe-wielding maniac fled, but it could easily have been noticed if the clerk had kept a cooler head.

“Are
you
okay? I’m sorry I pushed you away like that.”

“Ah, no biggie. Jus’ kinda hit my ’ead a little.”

There was a red mark on his forehead from where he no doubt plunged headfirst into the help-wanted-magazine rack. That beat being freed of his intestines if he had run straight for that freaky burglar, of course.

“Should we call the police or something?”

“Oh, yeah, the silent ’larm shoulda already called the security dudes ’n the cops for us!”

Then the clerk picked up Emi’s hand, suddenly remembering something.

“Oh, ’n, uh, so the ’mployee manual sezzat I needa keep alla customers ’nside. You mind waitin’ a sec ’til the cops show up?”