The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 (17 page)

Trying to bring the girl into the conversation, Maou noticed something was off.

Alas Ramus, normally a bubbly, excitable girl who adored colorful objects, was staring glassy-eyed at the stage, her face totally expressionless.

“Uh…Alas Ramus?”

The tone of Maou’s voice made Emi take notice.

“What’s wrong?”

“I dunno, she’s kind of spacing out. Hey, what’s up, Alas Ramus? Your tummy hurt or something?”

“Se…pila.”

“Huh?”

“Fall down…”

“What? What is it?”

The cheering from the crowd made it hard to discern Alas Ramus.

“Daddy, that’s Sepila!”

“Huh? What’s wrong?”

“All fall down from tree. Mommy took me and ran. Market’s gone, too.”

“Tree? Market? What do you… Agh!”

Maou was thrown into a panic.

He had no idea what triggered it, but out of the blue, there it was—the crescent moon mark, plain upon Alas Ramus’s forehead.

The emblem was almost crystalline, bearing the same purple twinge found in the girl’s eyes and that one little clutch of her hair.

“What…is that?”

Maou tilted her hat to cover it up, but not quickly enough to keep Emi unaware.

“…Didn’t you notice it? That same mark showed up on her head the first time she showed up in my yard. It went away really quick, but… Hey, Alas Ramus, speak to me!”

“Whoa, don’t shake her like that! We better get out of here. Um, pardon me! My child’s not feeling very well…”

Not waiting for Maou’s response, Emi picked up Alas Ramus, navigating the excited crowd as she shouldered her way outside the arena.

She considered calling for an attendant, but there was no explaining away the crescent moon on her forehead.

Tossing a glance behind her to ensure Maou was in tow with all their belongings, Emi carried away Alas Ramus, still staring into space and mumbling something to herself, as she searched for someplace cool and quiet to rest.

She tried touching her forehead, but she was neither warm nor sweating profusely. It wasn’t a case of heat exhaustion, but Emi had no idea what the mark apparently causing all of this meant.

Jumping inside the Lagoon building in search of air-conditioning, she quickly spotted an empty bench. She sat down, then barked at Maou, who was lagging behind.

“Devil King! Buy me something for her to drink!”

“Uh, does this work?”

He showed her the bottle of oral rehydration formula.

“Give it!”

Emi snatched it from his hand and brought it to Alas Ramus’s mouth.

“Get me something else cold, too! Not to drink, but to put on her head and stuff to cool down!”

“R-right!”

Even in his helter-skelter state, Maou faithfully followed Emi’s orders, running off in search of a vending machine.

“Is she all right?”

Suddenly, someone called to Emi, Alas Ramus still in her hands.

Looking up, Emi saw a fetching young woman standing before her, clad in a long white dress and a broad-rimmed white hat.

Her eyes, which seemed to absorb everything they saw, fell upon Emi and Alas Ramus.

“Uh, yeah, she’s fine. I don’t think it’s heat exhaustion, so she must have an upset stomach or something…”

“…Mommy?”

Suddenly, Alas Ramus—oblivious until now to Emi’s voice—came back to attention.

Emi brightened up as she peered into her face.

“I’m right here. Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh…”

Her face didn’t appear flushed, but the voice indicated she wasn’t all quite there. Emi tried to hide her forehead, pretending to wipe her head clear of sweat.

“May I have a second?”

Then, the girl in white knelt down to eye level, bringing her hand above Alas Ramus’s head.

“Wh-what’re you doing?”

“Sshh. This will take just a moment.”

There was nothing threatening to her voice, but Emi still fell silent as instructed. On the new girl’s ring finger, there was a ring embedded with a small stone.

For a moment, Emi noticed that it seemed to shine purple in the sunlight. Then:

“…Oo…ooh?!”

Out of nowhere, Alas Ramus picked herself up.

“Ngh? Ooh? Huh? Daddy?”

Squirming as if waking up from a bad dream, Alas Ramus swiveled her head around to gauge her surroundings.

To Emi, the biggest surprise was that her forehead—exposed to the world after the sudden motion knocked the hat off her head—was back to normal, the moon mark wholly disappeared.

“Ah, Mommy—wpph!”

Moving quickly, Emi picked Alas Ramus up, keeping her safely to the rear as she rose to face the girl in white.

“There’s no need to be so distrustful. I am not your enemy.”

The girl, perfectly composed, brushed her skirt away and smiled.

“Nor am I the enemy of this child, either… You have done well to keep Alas Ramus safe.”

“!!”

Emi never voiced the name in front of this girl.

“How did you know that…?”

The woman smiled serenely.

“How could I not? It is a very important name to me.”

Emi’s heart skipped a beat as she watched her.

The conversation with Emeralda three days ago flashed across her mind.

Obviously she was indicating that she knew Alas Ramus.

Was this woman…?

Emi felt a warmth quite different from the summer heat, but the smiling woman suddenly melted into a serious-minded glare.

“You need to be careful. They’ve probably noticed the Yesod fragment in that girl’s forehead now. The enemy will make their appearance soon. The Heavenly Regiment in Gabriel’s command are on the move.”

“Yesod…fragment? Who’s Gabriel…? Wait. Are you—”

“Hey! Emi! I got some stuff!”

The moment the enraptured Emi attempted to ask the fateful question, Maou thundered in, bearing a bottle of water and a can of juice.

Emi’s attention was distracted for just a moment, when:

“Mommy…”

“!!”

The girl in white was gone.

It was completely without warning, like she had been talking to a daydream.

“Good thing there was a whole wall of vending machines nearby. Here… Huh? Oh, did Alas Ramus wake up?”

“Hi, Daddy!”

“Oh, uh, hey. Well, jeez, that wound up being a lot of nothing, huh? I mean, great, but… Hey, what happened, little lady?”

“Whaaa?”

“Um… Ah, never mind. But hey, Emi, what’s—
urphh
!”

“Why can’t you
ever
see what’s going on? You never do! Never, never,
never
!”

“Wh-what?! What did I ever do?! Why’d you have to punch me like that?”

“Mommy’s scaaaary!”

“Ooh! There he is! That’s him over there!”

“Hee-hee! Good job, Chiho! There’s the power of love, huh?”

“Aw, stop messing around like that!”

“Ughh… You must have a pretty wimpy stomach, Ashiya. Who ever heard of someone getting sick on olive oil? It took a long time finding you, you know.”

“M-my apologies…”

Thanks to Ashiya’s stomach proving overly sensitive to the olive oil from the Italian restaurant they dined at, Chiho and her friends had lost sight of Maou, Emi, and Alas Ramus.

Failing to spot them among the crowd leaving the stage show, they decided to walk around the park grounds for a little while. Soon, Chiho noticed Emi from behind, Alas Ramus in her hands, all but dragging Maou as she walked.

They were headed for the Tokyo Eye, the gigantic Ferris wheel that jutted high above the park.

“Are they going on the Ferris wheel? Emi looks like she’s dead set on it, but…”

“It must get pretty hot on that thing this time of year.”

“Oh, all the gondolas on that Ferris wheel are air-conditioned. As long as you’ve got sunscreen on, it’s pretty comfy.”

“H-how wastefully luxurious!”

Ashiya proved typically quick to criticize any AC usage that didn’t involve his permission.

“But you have to wonder… Why’s Emi so eager to drag Maou into an enclosed room suspended in the air, hmm?”

“Suzuki!!”

“Jeez, I’m just joking, Chiho! Boy, you can look really scary when you want to, huh?”

Knowing full well that Chiho was aware it was a joke, Rika was just being a bitch.

“Well, you wanna follow them? I doubt we’ll see anything, but… Are you okay with that, Ashiya?”

“I think so…”

He nodded, arm raised upward, his face still a tad pale.

Given the intense heat and the sad state of his regular diet, eating a sumptuous Italian meal in an open-air café was enough to KO his stomach with one punch.

“Y’know, I don’t know what drove the both of you to do this, but I don’t think anything bad’s really happening, huh?”

Rika’s overly sunny observation, the result of her lacking a few pertinent points of knowledge, made Chiho and Ashiya exchange glances with each other.

“Hello there, and welcome to the Tokyo Eye Ferris…wheel…?”

The ticket attendant at the Ferris wheel entrance found herself groping for words at the sight of the young family before him, a cloud of black, ominous miasma hovering over their heads.

Perhaps
ominous
wasn’t the right term. The husband appeared downright frightened at the seething anger demonstrated by his wife, their two-year-old daughter seemingly unsure which side to take up with.

“Three!”

The wife presented three passes like a boxer throwing a jab. The attendant vigorously nodded and pointed forward.

“Right! Good afternoon! We’ll be glad to take a photo for you guys right over there! Then you can buy a print of your special day at that booth over there!! Feel free to take a look once you’re done on the wheel!!”

Another attendant stood near the gondola entrance, a large digital camera in hand, ready to sell a photo to them for the usual amusement park ripoff rate.

“I…I don’t really need one…”

“Oh, we’ll be glad to delete it if you aren’t happy with it, ma’am! If you could just stand over there… Good! Okay, if I could have Dad pick up that cute little girl and stand in the middle… Perfect! Oh, would you mind putting her balloons behind you a little?”

The attendant seemed oddly amped up for this dysfunctional family photo.

“Daddy, what’s that?”

Alas Ramus’s eyes set upon the camera in the employee’s hands.

“Hmm? Oh, that’s called a camera. They’ll use it to take your photo.”

“Photo?”

As gifted in the Japanese language as she was, she still had trouble with concepts that didn’t exist on Ente Isla.

“Uhh, you know, a picture… It’s a tool that can draw pictures with magic. Just stay still and look into that black, round thing the girl’s carrying.”

“Ohhh!”

Whether she understood that or not, Alas Ramus peered intently into the lens as her curiosity took over.

“Okay, can I have Mom look this way, please?”

“……”

Emi had been anxiously turned to the side up to this point. But, not wanting to act too contrarian around an innocent stranger, she made a token effort to readjust her pose.

“Greeeat! Okay, here we go! One, two, and…
cheese!
…Super! That was a nice picture! Come on back down here if you’d like to make a purchase later!”

Sent off by the oddly intense attendant, the trio finally boarded their gondola.

“…Ooh. Chilly.”

They were expecting a sauna inside the booth, but a blast of cold air emanated from behind the seats’ backrests, accompanied by some peppy background music. The seats were hard and bleacherlike, but it was surprisingly comfortable inside.

“Be careful with those balloons, okay? It’ll take about fifteen minutes to go around once. No smoking, eating, or drinking allowed inside the gondola. Have a great trip!”

The attendant quickly went over the basic rules before shutting the door.

“Ooh, they’re already on!”

Outside of Emi’s or Maou’s notice, Chiho, Rika, and Ashiya had just made it to the Ferris wheel ticket office.

“They’re gonna get away! Hurry!”

Pushed on by Rika, Ashiya and Chiho hurriedly threw some money into the ticket purchasing machine.

“Um, excuse me.”

“Huh?”

Someone suddenly called out from Chiho’s side.

Turning around, she found an older woman, a child young enough to be her grandson next to her, looking helplessly confused by the adjacent ticket machine.

“Do you have any idea how to work this machine?”

“Oh, sure. First, you put your money in here… This is a touch panel, so…”

Chiho was well aware by now that some of the older generation still had trouble following the concept of how a touch panel worked.

The money slot on this machine was a fair distance removed from the panel itself, and the screen offered little in the way of guidance,
displaying nothing but a simple numeric keypad. User friendliness wasn’t a priority in this design.

“I don’t think there’s a children’s rate for this Ferris wheel, so they’ll both cost this much. So just push the number for how many tickets you want…”

Chiho was all but forced to take the woman step-by-step through the purchasing process.

Thanking her profusely, the woman headed for the Ferris wheel.

“Dahh! Oh, no!”

Then it struck Chiho. All this fervent instruction was costing the three of them time.

“……Huh?”

Then it struck Chiho again. The ticket booth and gondola entrance weren’t that large, and yet Ashiya and Rika were nowhere to be spotted.

“Huh? Huhhh?”

She stared upward in a daze, only to find her eyes meeting with Rika’s as her friend stared through the gondola window, face frozen in an awkward smile.

“Huhhhhhhh?”

“All right. Can we talk now?”

Maou, caged inside the small gondola, found no escape from the glare of Emi’s pinlike pupils. Her gaze, seeping between the helium balloons in Alas Ramus’s hands, was nothing short of terrifying.

“I should’ve known from the start you were acting fishy. Why did you come out and say that you’d take this girl? You
hate
dealing with annoying crap like that.”

“Oh, well, that…”

“And back when that moon thing appeared on her forehead, you acted like you knew what it was, didn’t you? Out with it! Everything! Right now!”