The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 2 (6 page)

After that came to a close, Emi gained a key advantage Maou lacked—the ability to accept support from Emeralda and her companions.

Further, to prevent their regular “idea link”–based conversations from being intercepted by a third party, she had sent her friends Emeralda and Albert a handy device for long-distance verbal communication—a cell phone, in other words—making it easier to exchange information on a more intimate level.

“Ugh… Look, I’ll admit I’ve been a bit lazy with monitoring him. I’ll go check him out tomorrow, all right? It’ll be a good chance to test out these bottles, besides. Too bad I can’t invoice you for the transport costs to
his
place!”

The old wound to Emi’s heart, caused by a hapless police officer who mistook her and Maou for a couple having a spat when they were taken to the station one night, continued to fester within her.

“I don’t know what you meeean by that, but anyway, greaaat!”

Emeralda’s voice suddenly changed tone as she spoke.

“Emer?”

“So…pleeeease, Emiliaaaa?”

Emeralda’s normally easygoing verbal pace seemed to slow down even further as she took pains to emphasize each word.

“Pleeeease, don’t do anything that would turn me and you into ennnnemies, all riiight?”

“…!”

Emi swallowed nervously. This came as a complete surprise.

“I know about ‘Emiiii’, and Japaaaan, and Maoooou, too. So pleeeease…”

Her voice was soft and approachable. It made the meaning lurking behind her words all the more powerful.

“I’ll take that to heart. Don’t worry. I am the Hero. On the name of my mother and father, I swear I will not follow the path of the mistaken.”

“Ah, how reassuring to hear thaaaat!”

Nordo, her father, disappeared into the raging flames of the battle between human and demon. And:

“Your moooother, you know… She was suuuuch a nice woman, Emilia!”

“It’d be a bit strange if an angel
wasn’t
nice, wouldn’t it?”

Her mother was the archangel Laila. Such was the power granted to Emilia Justina, the Hero who bore the power created by her half-angel blood.

“But how have things been over there? I know it’s weird how peaceful things are even though the Devil King’s running free, but has anything changed with the Church and all the other nations at all?”

“Wellll…”

Emi could hear Emeralda shuffling a large sheaf of papers in her hands.

“The plan to kill you off alongside the Devilllll King was led by only a tiny cabal of high Church officers. And in public, anyway, you and all of us are the heroes that saved the world! So no nation’s shown any outward signs, anyway, of sending assassins your waaay.”

Emi immediately noticed what Emeralda was trying to tiptoe around.

“Outwardly, you say.”

“Indeed, veeery much so!”

She could practically hear Emeralda grin bitterly across the line.

“But even if the main powers don’t make a mooove, there’s been quite a lot of suspicious actiiiivity from powerful nobles with deep
Church connections, not to mention smaller nations and entities hoping to ingraaatiate themselves with the Chuuurch.”

“I wonder what I could’ve done to make those big shots hate me so much.”

“Oh, not like logic works against them. All they care about is protecting themselllves, and their iiinfluence.”

The bitterness was now clear in Emeralda’s voice.

“I’ve heard talk about someone enlisting the Assassin’s Guillld, and underground bounty hunterrrs, and even the Reconciliation Panel taking aaaction…but that’s still firmly in the realm of ruuuumors.”

“Panel of…what?”

Emi was offput by the unfamiliar term. Emeralda, apparently realizing this, corrected herself.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I mean the Council of Inquiiisitors. They changed their naaame recently.”

“What? The Inquisitors…? Then why would they be targeting me? It’s not like they’d bother going after the Devil King at this point, either. Why’s that rumor going around?”

“Probably because Olba hasn’t returned, I’d saaaay.”

Olba Meiyer was one of the six archbishops, the ordained group of ministers that wielded the brunt of power within the Church.

The archbishops were tasked with making all final decisions related to the direction of the Church. Each of its members retained direct and exclusive control of their own section of the Church hierarchy.

Olba was able to gain a position of such confidence with Emilia, accompanying her for most of her conquest against the Devil King, in part because he was in control of the Church’s diplomatic and missionary operations.

As archbishop, Olba had extensive experience spreading the tenets of the Church far and wide across foreign lands.

Emilia’s travels began in the Western Island, where the Church’s grip on power was strongest. Since the Hero still had little exposure to the outside world at that time, Olba—with his talents as a Church
administrator and vast knowledge of lands where the gods he served were less known and accepted—was the ideal choice to accompany her as she challenged the Devil King.

The Council of Inquisitors was a somewhat unique subgroup within the Church’s missionary department. Their work was the sort that never came into the limelight, but was nonetheless essential to the entire organization, from surveying foreign lands as a sort of vanguard force for the missionaries, to purging the younger clergymen of their corrupt morals should they lose themselves to debauchery during training, to aiding the Church theologists as they nurtured and developed holy doctrine.

On the other hand, they also served as a sort of public police force within the Church bureaucracy, declaring a nontrivial number of people to be heretics in their regular inquisitions. This more public face of the Council saddled them with the sort of dark reputation no political organization enjoyed.

“It sounds like the missionary department is trying to find out what haaaappened to Olba, so it might be that some among them are aware of you, too, Emiliaaaa. Try not to let your guard down, all riiight? Some of them might try pushing things too quickly and start meddling with Japaaaan before long.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. So are you and Al all right?”

“Oh, they’ve got their eyyyes on us, what with all the stuff we pulled on ’em. But nothing beyond that’s happened to us, noooo.”

“Guess there’s no rest for the Hero and her companions, huh?”

“Guess notttt.”

Neither Emeralda nor Albert was the sort of guileless goody-goody that could be rubbed out of existence by some half-cocked assassin. If she said they were okay, Emi was perfectly fine with believing her.

“Aaanyway, I know talking for too long’s gonna rack up your phone bill, so I better hang up, huhhh?”

“I’m not sure if it costs anything past the base fee or not, actually. It’s the idea link that’s actually connecting our two voices, after all. The phones are just an easier way to access it.”

“Welll, just in case, I wouldn’t want you going broke on myyy account, sooo…”

“I appreciate the thought. Thanks for the holy magic, anyway. Say hi to Albert for me.”

Just as she was about to shut off the call, Emeralda quickly interjected.

“Ooh, wait, I forgot somethiiing! Watch you don’t drink too many 5-Holy Energy βs at once, okaaay?”

“Too much? Is there a limit or something?”

Turning the small bottle of liquid in her hand, she noticed that, where the label would usually list up the ingredients, it simply read
Holy power
instead.

“There is! I mean, we can refill our own holy powers here as eaaasily as we breathe. But deliberately ingesting it like that? Well, it’s never been done beforrre.”

“Oh…”

“So that’s why it’s in beta, you seeee? We tested it on people heeeere, but let’s just say two bottles per day should be your max, all riiight? Drink one in the morning and one in the afternoon… Oh, but if you forget your morrrning dose, don’t try making up for it by drinking two in one go.”

“…I wouldn’t mind asking a few questions about that, Emer, but anyway, I hear you.”

“Wonderfulll! Always stick to the proper dosage, okaaay? Bye for nowww!”

Emeralda ended the call. Emi placed the phone on her low
kotatsu
table, still confused.

The packing slip, with Emeralda’s unsteady, childlike Japanese writing on it. The hefty boxes Sasuke Express just delivered to her. The weird way she seemed to soak up Japanese culture and customs, even though her stint in Japan lasted just a few hours.

“Where…
is
she, anyway?”

Still confused, her eyes scrutinized the bottle in her hand.

“Guess I’ll give it a shot.”

She twisted off the metal cap and was immediately greeted with the unnatural smell of syrupy cold medicine.

Slowly, hesitantly, she tasted a few drops.

“Huh. Yeah, it’s just an energy shot, all right. Does this really work?”

It certainly tasted familiar enough—the heavy sweetness that seemed to linger on the tongue for far too long, almost past the cloying medicinal aftertaste.

Emi didn’t distrust Emeralda, exactly, but between the packaging, the smell, and the taste, it was no different from the sort of off-brand energy drinks flogged in plastic racks next to the register at seedy twenty-four-hour convenience stores.

It was as if those companies were trying to invent new laws of physics in order to cram just a few more milligrams of taurine into each bottle.

Emi took her time emptying the bottle into her mouth. The liquid burned as it went down her throat, leaving a lingering, metallic, vitamin-y essence that made her twitch her nose. It energized her, yes, but regular usage couldn’t be good for her long-term health.

Holy energy or not, it didn’t seem like the drink offered any immediate dramatic effects. She was about to toss the bottle into the kitchen trash when she noticed a disheveled mess at the edge of her vision.

“Whoops…”

The packing tape she had pried off the box and tossed haphazardly away was now stuck to the cover of the TV-listings magazine she kept next to her set.

“Aahhhhhhh!”

She squealed in dismay as she ran to the magazine.

“They put
Vice-Shogun Mito
on the cover, too…”

Carefully, she tried to peel the tape off of the photo of her favorite samurai-drama star. The adhesive mercilessly stuck to the cover, ripping the smiling face apart.

Emil looked at the magazine in her right hand, then the ball of
tape in her left hand, then sighed. The breath seemed to ferry all the emotion in her body out with it.

“No, no, I can’t let this bring me down…!”

She had just promised Emeralda that she’d go behind enemy lines and stake out Devil’s Castle. A soldier’s mental outlook always had a disproportionate effect on her performance. Venturing past no-man’s-land in her current state of gloom might cost her everything she held dear.

Rallying her spirits, she tossed both tape wad and magazine into the trash.

“…I don’t have any energy to cook. Curry works, I guess.”

Despite her rebellious sneer of resolve as she rose, her steps were slow and clunky as she plodded toward the kitchen and took out her favorite New Hampshire curry mix and Auntie Nan’s instant rice packet.

Tossing the curry block on a plate, Emi put it in her microwave and set it on high for two minutes.

With a low, exhausted groan, she watched listlessly as the plate happily spun around, and around, and around inside.

Something about the upcoming visit to the Devil King’s precariously flimsy apartment tomorrow made her feel inescapably despondent.

“I…
am
the Hero, right? Zapping a plate of expired curry for dinner doesn’t
not
make me the Hero, does it?”

Beep
, replied the microwave. She responded with a sharp glare.

Next came the instant rice. Opening the packet just a bit, Emi shoved it back in and tapped out another two-minute order.

“That journey across Ente Isla would’ve been a lot easier with a microwave and some instant rice, though. Maybe I could take some kitchen appliances home with me, at least. I bet we could harness some lightning alchemy or something to power it with… Oh, wait, would a Divine Thunder spell generate AC or DC power?”

The gap between ideal and reality that began to trouble her long ago had ballooned since she defeated the Devil King—something that Emi herself was less than aware of.

Her expression loosened softly at the smell of the curry plate, a hot meal brought to her in four minutes by the mighty triumphs of her adopted civilization.

“Ooh, I’m almost out of shampoo. Better grab some soon…”

After dinner, she thought over her shower plans while glancing at her wall calendar.

“Is there anything good on TV yet? Oh, wait,
Vice-Shogun Mito
airs tonight!”

The recent rise in moments spent talking to herself was another change that escaped Emi’s notice.

Emi sighed as she stared at the passcard the ticket machine spat at her, beeping its annoying tune the whole time.

“At least Sasazuka and Hatagaya are within range of my commuter pass. Got that going for me, anyway.”