The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 (20 page)

“I’ll try to go easy on you, mm-kay? It wouldn’t be fair otherwise, what with your total lack of demonic force and all. …And don’t forget about the surrender thing, too!”

That was the signal that negotiations had failed.

Gabriel’s conditions seemed generous enough. It went without saying that Maou had no chance of winning this.

A simple brush of his hand against Maou’s arm would have been enough to turn him into confetti.

But there was one thing in the room capable of stopping an archangel’s holy light.

“Maou!!!!”

It was a simple shout. Not magic, not a sword slash, but a shout.

But the shout was enough to halt the archangel’s attack.

Everyone turned toward the source of the scream.

“Maou…”

It was Chiho.

Sweaty and out of breath, Chiho was atop the stairway, looking inside the room.

“Chiho?! No! Get away!”

Emi rushed to warned Chiho away. But the girl only shook her head.

“…I thought that I needed to apologize for today…”

“For today?”

“And then…this happened… I know I can’t really do anything, but I couldn’t just sit there.”

Maou still had no idea he had been subjected to a stakeout from Chiho and her companions.

Chiho had made it back to Sasazuka ahead of the pack, but then returned home, unable to take the regret of betraying Maou’s trust in her. But stewing in her room provided no solace either, and now she was here again.

“…You must be from this world, huh? Well, this isn’t anything
you’d
be familiar with. Calling the police isn’t gonna help at all. I bet you won’t believe me, but me and this Sadao Maou guy…”

“I know all that!”

Chiho’s shout stopped Gabriel’s lips cold.

“I live here in Japan, but I know all that. All about Maou—about
Satan
, and Emilia the Hero, and Ente Isla, too. That…and how you’re probably an angel here to pick up Alas Ramus.”

Gabriel shook his head in comic disbelief.

“Well! I was impressed enough that you’ve been interacting so naturally with visitors from another world, but you even spotted me right off as an angel! Heavens be! Do I really look that angelic to you?”

The archangel’s descent back into trivial flamboyance shook Chiho for a moment.

“…Up to now, if anyone’s done anything really bad to Maou or Yusa, it’s been an angel, so…”

The response was almost too honest for its own good.

Maou, Emi, and Suzuno looked on in astonishment. Gabriel and his crew winced painfully. Urushihara, meanwhile, busted out in laughter.

“Well. No comment when it comes to Lucifer, let me tell
you
, but what’d Sariel ever do to you guys?”

Gabriel was clearly thrown. There was too much previous evidence to deny the truth any further.

“Yeah, I’ll grant you that Sariel and me didn’t exactly live up to the image people have of angels around here…”

“Welllll, then why don’t you stop digging a hole for yourself, mm-kay? Image is important, you know.”

“Oh, like
you’re
one to talk about image. And what about these guys you dragged in with you? These are, like, first-level street punks in a yakuza film.”

Urushihara glared at the four figures guarding himself and Suzuno. For some reason, they stepped back, as if scared of him.

Gabriel sighed in exasperation as Urushihara flashed a victorious smile.

“Well. Anyway. I’m sorry, but, uh, we’re a bit occupied right now? In several ways? I’m trying to talk this out, but if you don’t want to get hurt, I’d recommend getting out of here while you can, mm-kay?”

“Ooh, dude, I love it. That’s total level-one-boss street-punk dialogue. I can just eat that crap up all day.”

Nobody was lending an ear to Urushihara’s chippy repartee. Their eyes were on someone else.

“Please. Don’t take Alas Ramus away from us.”

They were focused on Chiho, her head bent deeply downward toward Gabriel.

Even though she knew the move assuaged her ego more than anything else, even though she had no idea what would truly make Alas Ramus the happiest, everything that Chiho saw drove her to take action.

“Alas Ramus really loves Maou and Yusa. So…please.”

A droplet fell to her feet.

“Chi…”

“Chiho…”

“Aw, sheesh, lady, cut that out! C’mon, put your head up for me…”

Then, to the surprise of everyone involved, Gabriel found himself deeply moved by the actions of a simple human, a mere wisp of a teenage girl.

“This is totally unfair, mm-kay? You’re all making me out to be the mean ol’ angel here! It’s like I’m some kinda grifter in a TV show,
brushing off the crying girl in the corner while I strong-armed some poor schlub for the money he owed me!”

“What the hell are you going on about?”

Maou, somewhat unversed in the world of TV crime drama, quizzically looked on.

“Please… I really mean it…please…”

“Dahhh!! Come
on
already! Stop crying! Really, cut me a break already! Sheesh, if I knew
this
was gonna happen, I would’ve taken someone flailing at me with a baseball bat any ol’ day! Hey, c’mon, give an angel some slack here!”

Gabriel, now completely ignoring Maou and Emi, did his level best to assuage Chiho’s nerves.

“Please…please…”

But Chiho refused to raise her head, repeating her appeal to Gabriel over and over again.

“Ugggghhh, all
right
!”

Gabriel waved his hands in surrender, his voice indignant.

“You have until tomorrow!!”

“Lord Gabriel?!”

“What are you saying?!”

The men around Urushihara and Suzuno turned to Gabriel, their faces betraying total disbelief.

Gabriel ignored them as he uncomfortably watched the teary-eyed Chiho stare up at him.

“I… Oooooh!! Look, we angels, we’ve got our own problems to deal with, too, mm-kay? So first thing in the morning tomorrow, we’re hoppin’ right on back here! Feel free to get your family photos taken or whatever in the meantime! But don’t think you can escape or anything, mm-kay?”

“R-really?!”

Chiho’s face brightened.

Gabriel, unable to look her in the face any longer, averted his eyes.

“J-just till tomorrow! I can’t wait any longer than that, mm-kay? And you, Devil King! If you try fishing your demonic power out
from behind the closet or whatever, you’re gonna pay for that! And that’s a fact, Jack!”

“Th-thank you very much!”

He intended to lay a final line in the sand, but this pure, unsullied expression of goodwill from Chiho stopped him in his tracks yet again.

“Let… Let’s go, you bastards!”

The outburst of holy power from before was now a barely discernible mist as Gabriel stomped toward the door.

“…Oh, nice closing line, Gabriel! ‘Let’s go, you bastards!’ I sound like
such
a street punk…” With that final self-effacing remark, Gabriel shook his shoulders angrily and trudged out the door with his entourage.

The minions followed him out in line, like ducklings following their mother, each one of them nudging Maou’s shoulder on the way in classic mafioso fashion.

“Ow! Hey!
Hey!
Dammit!”

Maou glared sullenly at them as they left, knowing full well he was outpowered, just as Gabriel took the first step downstairs.

“Agh!”

The demons heard the sound of something heavy tumbling down the stairs with a tremendous clatter.

“Lord Gabriel!”

“Lord Gabriel!!”

Gabriel had taken the stairs via the express route. He wasn’t alone.

“Ah!”

“Wah!”

“Whoa!”

“Nragh!”

Four shrill, cut-off screams, followed by four heavy objects exhausting their potential energies in rapid succession, were heard from outside.

“Oh, like I’m not having a bad
enough
day!!”

Gabriel was heard squabbling with his entourage for another minute or two before the voices faded away.

Then, as if on cue:

“I am back, my liege. Ah, this oppressive heat…”

Ashiya, swaggering in with almost too much carefree abandon, wiped his brow as he climbed the stairs. Wholly unaware of the past chain of events, his lips curled upward a bit once he saw Maou and Alas Ramus were safe.

“I noticed a group of people leaving. More people from the MHK begging for your broadcast license fee?”

“…Not a care in the world with you, huh? We kinda have an emergency here. Where the hell were you?”

“Huh? Whuh? What?”

Ashiya took that moment to notice the dark, frigid atmosphere that prevailed in Devil’s Castle, despite the sweltering heat outside.

“Um… Ignoring the completely clueless Ashiya for a moment…”

Now that the immediate threat was gone, Urushihara chose this moment to break the ice.

“What’re we gonna do now?”

The curtain of night wrapped itself firmly around Devil’s Castle.

“Ooghooo!”

Satan, lord of the castle, the Devil King who once plotted to conquer all Ente Isla and plunge it into unimaginable terror, sat face-to-face with Emilia Justina, the Hero who stood up to crush his vile ambitions.

“Daouuu!”

Anxiety and murderous rage filled every nook and cranny of Devil’s Castle. A single provocation, no matter how slight, would be enough to trigger a bloodbath.

“Naaarrhh…”

A light breeze, a droplet of rain, even a pebble clinking against the roadside could provide the spark to engulf the room in the flames of battle.

“Mommeee, Mommeee…”

Just as the brutal waves of crashing fury and force reached their peak:

“Wapph!”

The girl jogging around the Hero and the Devil King stumbled, nearly striking her head against the table in the middle of the Castle’s sole room.

“!!”

The Devil King and Hero both responded at once, extending a hand of support.

That saved the girl from danger, but putting their arms out at the same time caused the Devil King’s hand to brush against the Hero’s.

“D-don’t touch me!”

“Ow! Jeez, don’t scratch me…”

With a frenzied shout of dismay, the Hero slapped the Devil King’s hand away, leaving a line of red, irritated skin on his hand. It was just a scratch, not enough to break skin.

“Look, can you tell me what your problem’s been tonight?” he asked.

“You’ve been relying on other people for
everything
here! And you pick
this
moment to get involved?”

“Oh, like you’ve been the ideal mother yourself!”

“Daddy, no! No fighting!”

A figure much, much smaller than the Devil King or the Hero stepped in to end the duel between the two natural-born enemies.

“Oh, uh, no, Alas Ramus, we aren’t fighting or anything.”

“N-no! Not at all! So don’t cry, okay?”

“…Really?”

Alas Ramus peered closely at the two of them. Something about their hurried defense smelled fishy to her. She needed further confirmation.

“R-really! Really really!”

“Yeah, totally!”

“Nee-hee-hee!”

The girl, placing her trust upon the Hero and Devil King as they fell over themselves to lie to her, smiled in relief as she grabbed Emi.

“You’ll be here foreeeever, Mommy?”

“That…ummmm…”

“…! …!”

Maou sent her an invisible signal. Emi ignored the white noise.

“What about you, Alas Ramus? Do you want me… Do you want Mommy to be here?”

“Yeah! Together with Mommy! Forever!”

“Ahhhhh…”

Emi attempted a smile to hide the hopelessness in her mind.

“And Daddy, too!”

“Ohhhhh…”

Maou had no way of dodging this second salvo, either.

Then, awkward silence fell again.

Alas Ramus, not picking up on this, began a bold quest to climb up Emi’s back.

Thanks to Chiho barging in at just the right time, Maou and Emi managed to keep Alas Ramus safe without anyone getting hurt.

But it only seemed to be delaying the inevitable.

No matter how much Alas Ramus railed against it, Maou knew—and Suzuno, with all her theological training, certainly knew—that the Sephirah called Yesod was the property of the heavens.

And right now, none of the people involved with Alas Ramus had any ability to fend for themselves against Gabriel.

Emi and Suzuno retained some semblance of fighting power, barring something like Sariel’s special holy energy–draining skill.

But—and this was something else they already knew—they had no motivation to actively risk their necks over this.

Once Gabriel left, it was naturally Chiho who first questioned the unfamiliar “Tree of Sephirot” term.

“The Tree of Sephirot is the tree in Heaven from which everything in the world sprang forth. Anyone who partakes of the fruit of Sephirot, it is said, shall gain immortality and the gifts of boundless knowledge. The first human beings created by the gods consumed one of these fruits, as the story goes, breaking a divine promise and causing the gods to cast them away from the paradise they lived in.”

“Wow, that’s pretty similar to what we have on Earth. Like, Adam and Eve in the Bible and so forth…”

Suzuno nodded at Chiho.