The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 (23 page)

“…oof…”

Emi rose, awoken by the one-two punch of the early morning sun and the rapidly rising temperature. She squinted at the cracks and blotches of an unfamiliar ceiling.

“…!! Uh…?”

The sudden recollection of a reluctant night spent in Devil’s Castle flooded back to her mind, making her attempt to leap upward.

“…Whoops.”

The attempt was foiled by Alas Ramus, sleeping peacefully as her body was straddled against Emi’s.

She noticed just in time. If she had bolted upward as planned, she would’ve woken up Alas Ramus along the way.

With a sigh of relief, Emi craned her head upward to look at Maou on the other side.

He was looking less than graceful.

Apparently succumbing to the heat, he had tossed away his T-shirt, snoring loudly in the morning sun. Emi was almost expecting a snot bubble to blow in and out of his nose with each breath.

“Nnnnh…”

Slowly, Emi removed her arm so as not to disturb Alas Ramus. She thought any touch might wake her up, but she remained still, apparently deep in sleep.

The clock on the wall still hadn’t passed five
AM
. It was easy to see how deeply into summer they were.

Thanks to sleeping on bare tatami with a blanket over her, she was sore from head to toe. Stretching out her head and shoulders, Emi yawned, thinking about how they needed to purchase at least a futon for the child.

Nothing could be heard from Suzuno’s room. They must have been asleep. The main concern at the moment was whether Chiho had actually heeded her advice and stayed home.

Giving the adjacent Alas Ramus a light brush on her hair, Emi grabbed her bag, took out the bottle of 5-Holy Energy β she brought along, and chugged it in one swallow.

There was no telling when Gabriel would arrive, nor if he would (which hopefully he would not), but
if
it came to a fight, she needed all the force she could muster.

It was because Alas Ramus needed her protection. It was definitely
not
because the Devil King had smooth-talked her into it.

“This is for Alas Ramus…for Alas Ramus…”

She muttered the mantra to herself as she winced at the energy shot’s medicinelike aftertaste.

“Better wash my face…”

Emi made a step toward the kitchen sink.

“Mornin’, child!”

Until that moment, Emi had completely failed to notice the other presence in the room.

“Gnhhh!!!”

The man, in Emi’s blind spot opposite the kitchen before now, placed a hand over Emi’s lips before she could react.

“Now, now, no fussing! I’m not gonna do anything rough, mm-kay?”

“Mnh! Mrnngh!”

Emi tried to kick Maou awake. He was just barely out of range.

“Oh, stop! They’re both livin’ it up in dreamland…and they’ll be stayin’ in there awhile, too.”

Emi glared back at the smarmy voice’s owner, her entire consciousness focused upon him.

“Oop, look out.”

Then, almost too easily, the man removed his hand from Emi’s mouth and edged away.

Given the size of the apartment, however, there wasn’t much edging away to do without going out a window. He would still be within easy range of Emi’s holy sword.

“You angels sure have forgotten your manners, huh? Kidnapping people, putting bugging devices in people’s bags, trespassing into people’s apartments without permission…”

The man laughed heartily in his utterly nondivine, high-pitched voice.

“Aww, but this is the Devil’s Castle! Hopefully I can get a pass on
that
at least, hmm? I mean, we’re talking the bad guys’ headquarters here!”

“You’re here kind of early, aren’t you? Or did you think it’s okay to take this girl away just because the date on the calendar’s changed?”

Emi’s right hand was pointed squarely at Gabriel’s throat.

In the blink of an eye, the Better Half sword appeared in her hand, its point aimed straight for his neck.

“Hang on, hang on! I mean, didn’t I say I wanted to talk this out yesterday? Because you’re kind of being
awful
judgmental with me right now!”

“Alas Ramus or not, you wanted my holy sword, didn’t you? If someone’s trying to prevent me from my goal, I won’t hesitate to take him down.”

“Oh, you are
such
a party pooper. Women these days are
soooo
self-minded, aren’t they? No
wonder
so many people aren’t getting married anymore. You girls are scary!”

Whether due to his off-kilter personality or the natural confidence that came from being an archangel, the holy sword wasn’t enough to make Gabriel so much as flinch.

“Oh, and just so we’re on the same page here, it’s not like I cast a spell or put a barrier up to keep the Devil King and the folks next door from waking up, mm-kay?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Well, and I’m just guessing here, but you guys probably didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, am I right? The folks next door were up all night keeping watch over you, I guess, but they all conked out about an hour ago. Plus which, you were totally conked out, too, yes? I mean, since I stepped in here, I heated up the bento box I bought at the convenience store, ate it, went to the john, and did a little morning constitutional around the front yard, but you people were sleeping like
logs
, I tell you. I mean, not like I expected a red carpet, but come
on
!”

“……”

Come to think of it, Maou worked until midnight the previous evening, only to be jostled awake by Alas Ramus early in the morning.

“And as someone who prides himself on being the most gentlemanly archangel in heaven, I’d
never
attack a family while they’re asleep. So I figured I’d wait until you or the Devil King woke up. We could talk a little more, and maybe I could help you see the light this time, mm-kay? So, uh, could you put that blade away for a sec?”

With pleading eyes, Gabriel pinched the edge of the sword with two fingers, attempting to push it away. Emi held firm.

Neither this world nor the one above needed an archangel so willing to fall into mortal vices like microwave cooking and jogs around the block.

“Hey, look, unlike your pal Sariel, I don’t have any natural defense against holy power, sooo…y’know, really, I’d like to settle this like grown-ups.”

“…Like
you
have any right to say that.”

“Uhm?”

“You probably have those goons from yesterday surrounding the apartment by now, don’t you? The Heavenly Regiment or whatever?”

Emi’s charged question visibly disquieted Gabriel.

“Now listen, lady, I have
no
interest in hurting anyone, mm-kay? I just want to get what I’m getting, then get
out
. But cut me a break! The Devil King was ready to duke it out right in the kitchen yesterday. So, all right, yeah, I have ’em on lookout. Ooh, but listen, we had to expend a ton of energy just gettin’
me
through a Gate, so they’re all kinda pooped right now, y’know? And, whew, it’s gonna be even
worse
once we have that girl with us on the way back. So, c’mon, be an angel and listen to one for a change, mm-kay?”

“…!”

“Aaaghh! You just poked my Adam’s apple a bit with that thing on purpose, didn’t you?! For a Hero, you’re pretty darn good at terrorizing people, you know that? Oww!”

The point Emi silently thrust forward made contact with his neck. It didn’t penetrate skin, but Gabriel at least acted like it threw him into panic.

The clamor was enough to finally make the rest of the room stir.

“…Ngh, stop making all that noise… Jeez, it’s still only five… Hey, whoa, come
on
!!”

No matter how much sleep he had missed the previous night, this would be enough to wake up anybody.

Maou was greeted with the sight of Emi facing off with an unfamiliar man, Better Half at the ready, in his already cramped apartment.

“Ooohh… Daddyyy?”

Alas Ramus came-to soon afterward, as Maou struggled to get his head around these rather sudden events.

“Gabriel… You didn’t have to come
this
early, you know…”

“Ooh, hey, sleepyhead! Sorry I had to call upon you like this, mm-kay? My schedule for today is just
packed
, let me tell you.”

Maou picked up Alas Ramus, putting her off behind his shadow. But with so little demonic power remaining, and his foe already so close to him, the battle was virtually over before it began.

“Y-you shouldn’t be brandishing a sword like that, y’know. Not
around the little one! It’ll be a bad influence! So just put it away, mm-kay?”

Gabriel, however, was his usual ebullient self.

The fact he was willing to weaken his own Heavenly Regiment in order to come here seemed to indicate supreme confidence. With a name like Gabriel backing him up, it seemed certain that this man was not the frivolous, scatter-brained ditz he acted like.

“It’s not like I’m out here looking for a fight against heaven or the angels. But they just keep coming for me, you know? That’s why I have to fight them.”

“Yikes! …That’s some mean logic to argue against.”

Gabriel shrugged in despair, his face embittered.

“Okay, well, hopefully you don’t mind if I talk first, then… Ooh, but try to make sure that point doesn’t hit my hayoid again, mm-kay? …Y-y’know, if I could offer a compromise here, at the very least, if I can get home with either the holy sword or that girl, then I don’t have a complaint in the world right now. I’ll explain everything to you, and I mean it. But after that I’m giving you two choices. Hand it over, or no?”

Gabriel retained his composure as he spoke, his raised hands waving around to back up his point.

“I’m the guard of Yesod, a Sephirah from the Tree of Sephirot that forms the foundation of the world. And Yesod got stolen a long time ago, mm-kay? And as if
that
wasn’t bad enough, the thief split the Yesod Sephirah into a bunch of fragments and tossed ’em all over the place. And you know, Emilia, the Better Half sword in your hand and that girl behind the Devil King were both born from those fragments. And…and, you know, having stuff like that outside of heaven for long is real,
real
bad news!”

“My sword…from a fragment of Yesod?”

Gabriel raised a finger in the air, breezily continuing on as if discussing something he read in the news that morning.

“You betcha, lady! You see that? The purple crystal embedded in it?”

He used his finger and his eyes to point out the handle of Emi’s sword.

The Better Half’s handle was emblazoned with a wing motif, the center of which was decorated with, yes, a jewel that shone purple. Emi had assumed it was just some nonessential piece of design work.

“That Better Half’s one pretty dangerous dealie-o, you know? Pretty high-priority to get back for us. But then you, Satan—y’know, before you invaded Ente Isla, we had
no
idea where the heck you were! I’ve been going around for centuries, picking up a shard here, a fragment there, but I just had the worst time finding the fragments the girl and that sword came from, mm-kay? And, you know, I was trying to keep this search a secret ’cause I didn’t want any of the grand pooh-bahs to know I messed up, if you know what I mean, but going off by myself all the time to look…well, let’s just say that raised some eyebrows. Folks thought I was plotting against the gods, can you
believe
that? So Sariel figured out what I was
really
up to first. I almost got booted off the island, if you know what I’m gettin’ at! Ha-ha-ha!”

Of
course
Gabriel was the sort of angel to laugh at his own jokes. The cold stares surrounding him were nothing he concerned himself about.

“What’s so dangerous? We need the holy sword to defeat the Devil King. There’s nothing
dangerous
about it.”

“There kinda is to
me
…”

Maou was ignored.

“Well, that’s what you humans say… I mean, that’s what the Church said, anyway, way back when they got hold of those fragments. And if I told you
why
they’re dangerous…well, all that time I spent looking for them would go to waste, y’know? I can’t very well go around doing that!”

“What the Church said…?”

“That, and gee whiz, lady, use your head! Like, did you think you can just go to the big-box store and buy magical swords that
only
affect demons and Devil Kings? The Better Half’s power is amplified
by holy force, mm-kay? Just like the Light of Iron magic your Church knights use. The only difference is the form it takes! You can search the entire universe for all I care; there’s no such thing as a special antidemon weapon!”

“But…but this sword brought me straight to the Devil King inside his fortress…”

The glowing of Emilia’s holy sword had led her party of invaders down the correct path to the Devil King during their assault on his Ente Isla headquarters. That was what had allowed them to navigate the castle’s labyrinthine corridors in such quick order.

“Lady, I don’t think it was leading you to the Devil King. It was directing you to where that child was.”

Gabriel’s reply was nonplussed.

“The separate Yesod fragments were attracted to each other. That’s all there was to it! And thanks to
that
, I had to waste a lot
more
time running around like a chicken with its head cut off searching, mm-kay?”

And after the fragments resonated with each other, the Hero dove into her final battle against the Devil King. A battle where she used her sword’s holy force to bring the demons’ leader to his knees.

“Y’see, you probably used up so much holy force during that fight, that child’s fragment likely stopped reacting to anything else for a while. And then you took a little weekender over to Nowheresville, Japan, so
that
trail went cold on me, too, until I figured out where the heck you were. I had no idea the fragment had become part of the Devil King’s gardening hobby, either!”

The last time Maou saw the tree that sprouted up from the crystal he was given, it had only begun to form two trunks snaking around each other. Only a few hardy leaves had budded on it, and it would be long before it would bear any flowers or fruit.