The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 2 (4 page)

In terms of external appearance, the difference between “Lucifer” and “Hanzou Urushihara” wasn’t much. Far less than that between the rest of the group’s human and demon forms. Until Olba met his fate, whatever it was, Urushihara essentially couldn’t take the risk of going outside.

But he had a key asset to his name, one that made his new indoor-oriented lifestyle possible. Two months ago, he went to an Internet café and hacked into the Hero’s workplace network. Witnessing this great potential, Maou purchased a notebook PC and Internet connection for Urushihara, hoping he would provide support for them from within Devil’s Castle.

The Devil King had ordered him to use his computer skills to
gather information about any world culture that may have dabbled in magic powers, in hopes he would uncover a way to refill their demonic energy here on Earth. Yet, his work ethic was proving to be a problem.

“So, did you find anything useful today?”

Maou broke into Urushihara and Ashiya’s tête-à-tête, a concerned look on his face.

“I’m not gonna hit pay dirt that easily. You
know
that.”

Returning to his computer desk with the pork bowl in hand, Urushihara dug into his dinner, not giving Maou a second (or even first) glance. Even Maou was growing annoyed by the act.

“That’s all you’ve said to me for the past two months, man!”

The remonstration fell on deaf ears.

“Well, what do you want from me? I’m not gonna go on some webpage and find the secrets to all the magic in this world, just like that.”

Back before the Devil’s Castle joined the infobahn, Ashiya was obliged to do all the legwork himself in his quest to recover his master’s magic force. He went through an endless cycle of research, poring through promising-sounding books in libraries, going from museum to museum to evaluate any special showings, hitting the books again, discovering another museum. To Maou, having Internet access at home meant the search would surely be on easy street from now on.

“I mean, look, Maou…”

Urushihara was just as openly hostile to Maou back during the Lucifer era, but even then he used the proper Demonic Highness terminology. Now, in human form, his mentality had shifted to the point where it was just “Maou” by itself. This led to at least one pitched argument with Ashiya per week.

“Do you think that computer and the Net are, like, some kind of magical potion that’ll solve all your problems?”

“Nggh.”

Maou groaned in frustration. He
did
think that. Correctly gauging this response, Urushihara exhaled a very deliberate sigh, mouth full of freshly microwaved pork bits.

“Heh. Well, look, dude, the Net isn’t a miracle machine, okay? Also, maybe you didn’t notice, but the government’s starting to give out jail time these days if you start screwing around online too much. You want the cops putting their eyes on us any more than they probably are now?”

Maou could no longer resist taking the bait.

“And you call yourself a demon?”

“And
you
call yourself Devil King, Maou?”

Ashiya remained silent, no longer able to drum up the energy to intervene. Silently, Urushihara picked up the garbage strewn around his desk, his face that classic midteenage sort of petulant.

“Like, let’s say everything works out and you really did find some museum exhibit that could link us to demonic force. Do you really think we’d just rappel down the wall and steal it like we’re in some Hollywood film?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at with that example…but, like, maybe you could reprogram the surveillance cameras, or hack out the code to the museum storehouse, or something. Can’t you?”

“Pfft. You sound like some kid who’s watched too much TV. And we don’t even
have
TV in here.”

Urushihara showed no mercy.

“I mean, sure, hacking lets you read and mess around with data on whatever computer you gain access to. But you can’t just hack right into a museum’s entire administration system. And you
definitely
can’t do it with this ancient relic.”

The PC Urushihara was slamming was the very first purchase Maou had made with his shiny new credit card. To him, it was like taking the plunge into a completely unknown realm, but the way Urushihara put it, he had been sucked into buying old, useless inventory.

“Take a look at this.”

“Huh?”

Urushihara called Maou over to the computer. A black-and-white video of something or other was playing on one end of the LCD screen. Maou looked on, unsure what he was watching, when he
noticed a car passing by the camera, stuttering forward at a painfully low frame rate. At the same time, he heard a car engine passing by outside the window.

“…Whoa. What’s that?”

“I got an old webcam and made it into a surveillance camera. See? Over there.”

Urushihara pointed out the window, toward a ball-shaped object perched on top of old, paint-chipped iron grating. A cord snaked out from the plastic device to his computer.

“I bought it ’cause I figured it’d tell us if anyone suspicious was nearby, but…I mean, it’s black-and-white and this thing
still
can’t keep up with the frame rate. You see what I mean? It’s useless.”

“I don’t appreciate how you expect me to know that intuitively…but that’s actually something pretty useful for a change, isn’t it? If you have it set up outside, does that mean it can hold up against the weather?”

“Nah. It’s old and not waterproof, so I’d have to bring it back in when it rains.”

“…Wow. Never mind, then.”

Crestfallen, Maou stepped away from the desk. Urushihara launched a parting shot behind him.

“Like, look at it this way. Any target I’d be ‘hacking’ into would be running on multiple supercomputer-class servers, each loaded with the latest in firewalls and security patches. Meanwhile, I’ve got a PC with a hard drive under one hundred gigs, a Pentium III processor, and only one USB port. It can barely even run all the crapware that’s bundled with it. How am I supposed to compete?”

Maou had only one curt phrase to answer Urushihara’s torrent of complaints.

“Dude, speak Japanese.”

Any attempt on Urushihara’s part to downplay his computer’s abilities was totally lost on Maou and his complete lack of any computer knowledge whatsoever. Any attempt to berate his PC-purchasing skills whooshed right over his head.

For a moment, Urushihara was thrown by Maou’s completely
ill-informed response, both as Devil King and as a member of modern Internet society. Soon, he pointed a finger back at his PC.

“And more to the point, if I leave this old computer running all day in this heat, it’s gonna catch fire sooner or later. I ain’t gonna be doing much of anything for a while.”

Maou remained quiet. Even he understood that electronics had trouble handling high temperatures.

The environment within the Devil’s Castle knew little of such modern marvels as air-conditioning. A bare wisp of wind coursed through the room when all the windows were thrown open. Their only recourse was to hope the fan could amplify the fresh breeze just a little.

Said fan was another purchase from the 100th Street shopping district, this one having run Maou one thousand yen at the thrift shop. That, alongside the bamboo blinds they bought from a home-improvement store to block direct sunlight, allowed them to just barely survive in the heat.

“Hey, by the way, what was all that clattering outside?”

Lucifer asked the question out of the blue, fanning his face with a paper fan festooned with advertisements for a neighborhood pachinko parlor. Maou and Ashiya exchanged glances.

“You’ve been here the whole time and you didn’t notice?”

Maou pointed at the wall they shared with the adjacent apartment.

“Someone moved in next door.”

Urushihara looked toward the wall as he nibbled on the pickled ginger included with his meal.

“Huhh?! Are you kidding me? Who would actually
move into
this pile of crap?”

There was no clearer demonstration of how useless the surveillance camera was, not to mention the person controlling it.

“You had to have heard
something
from the other room. There was a moving truck here and everything. Plus, the corridor window is wide-open. Didn’t you notice the moving guys or anyone?”

Urushihara shook his head.

“Nope. Sure didn’t.”

“You were browsing videos and listening to music or whatever, weren’t you?”

Maou tried to frown as disapprovingly as possible. Urushihara shook his head as he continued tucking into the pork and rice.

“No, really, I totally didn’t notice.”

“Quit talking with your mouth full! You’re spraying bits of rice all over the place! And throw away that pointless surveillance camera at once!”

Ashiya’s running commentary on Urushihara’s self-indulgent lifestyle was quickly becoming another hallmark of the summer season around Devil’s Castle.

“No way, dude! It cost me five thousand yen with the software!”

The shock waves that price quote sent across the room caused Ashiya’s hand to slip as he attempted to tie a garbage bag closed, ripping it open at the mouth instead. Maou brought a hand to his forehead, staring listlessly at the floor.

“So did you run into whoever moved in yet?”

Maou shrugged at the useless Urushihara’s question.

“Well…we met, I guess.”

Nothing, not even shaking her or slapping her cheek, could get the girl who fell off the stairs earlier to wake up.

With no other option at hand, Maou brought her back upstairs, to the room she (hopefully) was moving into. The entryway to Room 202 was propped open with a door stopper.

The lighted one-hundred-square-foot space, a dead ringer for Devil’s Castle next door, was packed to the gills with unmarked, new-looking cardboard boxes, as well as a polished, wooden, valuable-looking clothes chest and (oddly enough for the season) something resembling an open-air brazier.

Her appreciation for the traditional Japanese lifestyle apparently went beyond her wardrobe.

Maou and Ashiya looked at each other for a moment before venturing inside the residence of this strange woman. They brought her to the center of the room, laying her down gently.

She showed no signs of awakening anytime soon, but she was
breathing. After some debate, Maou and Ashiya decided to leave her alone, resolving to check up on her later and call an ambulance if she was still knocked out.

They removed the doorstop for safety’s sake, though they naturally had no way to lock the door from the outside.

“The girl must have a hell of a lot of stuff, too. The room was floor-to-ceiling boxes.”

“I’m not gonna ask you to stay out of sight since she’s right next to us anyway, but try not to get involved with her as much as possible, all right?”

Urushihara’s eyes teared up a little after Ashiya finally lost his patience and landed a sledgehammer blow on his head, but it wasn’t enough to put him off finishing dinner.

“Huh. So she’s young? Must be pretty effed in the head to move someplace like this.”

He sat up as he attempted to toss the paper container into the garbage bag.

“How many times have I told you?! You need to wash out containers like that before throwing them away! I’ve said it a thousand times, if you don’t clean them out, they’ll stink up the place until the next garbage day!”

Ashiya, like clockwork, went off once again.

Urushihara was clearly peeved, but silently followed his orders and washed the empty bento box. Ashiya shouted at him again shortly for not separating his garbage the way the local authorities demanded, but Urushihara was less receptive to that advice.

“Ah, screw that. C’mon, let’s go to the bathhouse! It’s dark now!”

As always, he had his own priorities.

The Villa Rosa apartments lacked bathing facilities. That was part of the reason the rent was so cheap, but failing to bathe in Japan’s hot, sticky summers was less a matter of being clean or not and more an issue of public health.

Urushihara, usually forbidden from journeying outside, was allowed to accompany Maou and Ashiya to the local public bath as
long as it was after dark and he used a cap and his hair to conceal himself.

“Ughh… Give me a sec. I’ll be ready once I brush my teeth. Can you get the ticket book out for me?”

The exasperated Ashiya barked the orders to Urushihara as he reached for his toothbrush.

“Sirs!”

The three demons stared at each other.

It was a woman’s voice. The trio’s eyes turned toward the front door. Then the doorbell rang out a single time.

They all knew a little about “speaking of the devil,” being, by and large, devils themselves. The relief that she was alive and well intermixed with a sense of nervousness at having to deal with neighbors for the first time in their lives.

“Wh-what do we do?!”

Maou was stricken with panic. His two minions were far more collected.

“You’re the man of the house, Your Demonic Highness.”

“It says
Maou
on the card, right? Get your ass out there.”

It was just the sort of warm encouragement he needed.

Glaring at his two humble servants, Maou gathered his breath and replied to the visitor outside.

“I-I’ll be right there!”

Still gripped by an inexplicable nervousness, Maou opened the door.

“I apologize for intruding so late at night. My name is Suzuno Kamazuki, and I moved into the room next door earlier today.”

A large cardboard box stood in front of the door, politely introducing itself to Maou.

“……”

UDON NOODLES —RESTAURANT USE ONLY
, the box read.

“Um.”

“If I may, about earlier…”

The box of noodles opened its mouth again.

“I must humbly apologize for my abject rudeness upon our first encounter, and for placing such an onerous burden upon you.”

The box of noodles that had introduced itself as Suzuno Kamazuki bowed toward Maou, maintaining perfect balance as it pitched forward gracefully.

“Oner…wha? No, uh, it really wasn’t anything big… Anyway, my name’s Sadao Maou. It’s good to meet you.”