The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 1 (19 page)

“This isn’t what you’re fully capable of, is it, Lucifer?”

She had to buy time. They needed a grip on the battle situation. Ashiya was near death, and it was doubtful Maou could help the cause any longer.

More than anything, as long as Chiho remained ensconced under Lucifer’s arm, she couldn’t just strike wildly at him.

“…So?”

Lucifer didn’t deny Emi’s words.

“Those finger blasts, and these balls of magic… This isn’t the Lucifer
I
remember fighting.”

“…It is more than enough to bury the three of you now.”

Lucifer had opened the window a crack. Emi lunged at it.

“Any demon who acts like he has it in the bag always loses, in the end.”

“Yeah!” Maou interjected. “That’s the biggest lame trope in the—
arrghh
!”

Emi, not looking back at the wailing Maou, gave him a swift kick. He groaned in response.

“So, basically, you’re the same as I am. Neither of us can unleash their true force right now. And…”

Olba, for reasons known only to him, slowly followed behind Lucifer.

“…
you
can’t afford to waste energy, either, am I right? You
are
still a bishop, after all. Unlike Lucifer, you can’t just do something evil to restore your powers. You
wish
you had it so easy.”

Olba certainly could have heard her, but refused to respond.

“But even I lose my patience sooner or later. Emilia the Hero didn’t build that name getting beaten up over and over.”

“Wait! Don’t do it now—
ooof
!”

Emi’s back heel stopped Maou midsentence once again.

“You
touched
my foot, you perv!!”

“Is grabbing your foot because I wanted you to notice my bloodied husk on the street a crime punishable by a boot to the stomach?”

Maou staggered to his feet, but he was plainly not well. Ashiya, still balanced on his shoulders, was liable to make him collapse at any moment.

“…If you die, I’m leaving you here.”

“Don’t worry about that. If I let one of my own minions kill me, it’d be an embarrassment to my entire bloodline.”

With that, Maou suddenly grabbed Emi’s hand, pulled at it, and began staggering his way away.

“Wh-whoa! What’re you doing?!”

Maou’s arm was unexpectedly strong as it pulled Emi along. But this was no opponent he could flee from by tottering around with uneasy steps.

“What are you trying to do now? You cannot escape me.”

With an easy smile on his face, Lucifer shot Maou again. He fell as the blast tore through his leg.

There were screams around them as the bloodied trio vaulted into a wide-open intersection.

“Oww…”

“What are you
doing
?! Are you trying to die?!”

“Heh-heh… Does it look like I’m about to…?”

Emi tried to support the collapsed Maou, but Lucifer and Olba followed along, like a pair of vultures looming over their weakened prey.

“Heh-heh…”

“Stop laughing! Ugh, you make me sick! This isn’t a joke! If anyone’s killing the Devil King, it’s
me
! Why do I have to sit here and get killed right next to you?!”

Maou and Ashiya were sprawled out in a car lane on the street, neither moving a muscle.

By sheer luck, it was the exact intersection, restaurant and all, where Maou and Emi first encountered each other in Japan.

A finger blast from Lucifer scraped past Emi’s nose before smashing through Maou’s shoulder. The force of the shot sent both of them to the ground.

“Pathetic!
This
is the Devil King that stood tall above me? That had Ente Isla in the palm of his hand?!”

The pity in Lucifer’s smug laugh was almost palpable.

“…Hurry up! We can kill the both of them at once! I have to retain my powers for the Gate!”

Once Olba stopped speaking, he reached into his robe and pulled out…a pistol. Emi’s eyes opened wide at the sight.

Firearms, of course, were unheard of on Ente Isla. Either Olba or Lucifer must have come across one in this world.

Olba must have been an active participant in the string of street robberies, not to mention the first sniper attacks upon Maou and Emi.

During her journeys across Ente Isla, he was a humble servant of the Church, one who held the title of archbishop in high esteem and easily won the respect of his peers. With his heavenly powers and fatherly smile, he had provided Emilia and her friends with solace
and comfort across their voyage. Now there was some other force behind that façade, one brandishing a deadly weapon at her. Emi—Emilia—gnashed her teeth in sadness and frustration.

What could have changed Olba so much?

The corrupted clergyman, paying no heed to Emi’s emotions, pointed the gun barrel toward the fallen pair.

Just then, Emi heard several sirens approaching from afar. The police and fire department must have started casing the area. Thousands of people must have witnessed Maou and Lucifer by the time they reached this intersection. Of
course
the authorities were called. But trying to take on Lucifer right now would only add to the victim count.

Maou took in the scene, as much as his rapidly fading mind could amid the blood loss and fatigue.

“…Good. Good. Now they’re probably gonna…”

His voice was too soft to be heard by anyone. Then:

“Emi, hold on.” He took the hand of the girl who had fallen, defeated, next to him.

“Mmm?”

A soft, white light enveloped Maou and Emi. By the time Lucifer’s magical blast and Olba’s bullet reached them:

“…He had enough power left to teleport them all?”

All that remained was the blood Maou and Ashiya shed. The three of them were gone.

“Lucifer!”

“…He waited for just this situation. He couldn’t have enough power left to go far. It’ll be easy to track him.”

“…Gah! You scared me!”

Emi was shocked that Maou used his teleportation magic without warning, but now was no time to chide him. They needed a grip on their situation.

They hadn’t gone far. In fact, they had simply returned to the area they first saw Lucifer, so his magical trail would no doubt be followed shortly.

What differed from before was the masses of typical Japanese onlookers (
still
no sense of danger at all!) and the police and fire vehicles tending to the victims caught up in Lucifer’s magical blasts.

“But…but what’re you trying to do, taking us here?”

This time, they truly had nowhere to go. They lacked the strength for it. Judging how their foes made quick work of that residence earlier, Maou and Emi knew they hadn’t hesitated for a moment to consider the innocent victims.

“…Hey! Don’t die on me! You okay?”

“… …”

Maou was breathing, but his face was completely white, likely due to the bleeding. Ashiya, meanwhile, was beyond white and into the realm of light blue, teetering on the brink of death.

“You didn’t come here for the ambulances, did you?”

“You…kidding me…?”

“Well, what, then?! If you just stay here, you’re both gonna die!”

“I…know.”

Borrowing Emi’s hand, Maou somehow forced himself to sit up.

“Just a little…more, I think.”

“Oh, you still have some kind of trick up your sleeve, now?”

A forlorn voice loomed over them. Looking up, they were greeted by the same sight as before: Lucifer and Olba floating below the towering Shuto Expressway. Teleporting this short distance away was nowhere near enough to lose them. They were at the end of their rope.

“Lucifer! We’re only attracting more witnesses with these delays!”

“Ah, you’re always so flinchy, Olba. If there are too many, I can always cull them down a bit.”

Emi shuddered. Lucifer’s magical power skyrocketed as he spoke those disquieting words.

“Wh-what’re you gonna do?!”

“Who can say? A terror bombing? Destroying the Shuto Expressway? Countless victims? I think it a good fit for this nation.”

Lucifer flashed an evil grin.

“But I don’t need the Devil King returning to life…the way he did underneath Shinjuku.”

A light zoomed past Emi.

“Ngh! Ah…”

The groan came from within Emi’s arms.

“Satan!!”

Lucifer’s blast of light had shot through Maou’s chest. A black hole opened up in his midsection, and the light flickered out of his pupils in an instant. The strength drained from the hand supporting Ashiya, collapsing his body to the ground.

“No! You’re the Devil King! Stay here for me!”

Maou leaned heavily upon Emi’s arms. She slapped his cheek several times, with no response.

“No! You’re kidding me! Come
on
, Satan!”

She tried to lay him down to perform CPR, but seeing the hole in his chest made her gasp and freeze on the spot. The area of the body where his heart was located had been cleanly pierced through. There was no way to revive him.

Lucifer watched the pair, a satisfied smile on her face.

“My work is done. You can have the girl back.”

He flung Chiho away from his arm like a wadded-up piece of paper.

“Chiho!”

Emi raised her tear-stained face, lunging toward her landing point, but:

“Ngh…”

Her fragile human body was capable of being crushed simply by having a girl land on it from several meters above. Emi’s leg, which was poised beneath the falling Chiho, was now twisted in assorted unlikely directions.

Lucifer, watching this unfold from up high, let a sadistic smile unfold over his face.

“It is time to complete my contract with you, Olba. I hope you will hold your end of the bargain.”

He opened his arms wide, to both sides of his body. Massive amounts of magical power, far more than the force that pulverized the house from before, flowed into his palms in a torrent.

“Wh-what’re…?!”

Emi, holding back the pain, looked up at Lucifer. But Lucifer wasn’t looking back. His eyes were on the Shuto Expressway above.

“Lucifer! Lucifer, stop!”

She shouted it from beneath Chiho, fully understanding his intentions. But it was nothing that could stop a Great Demon General.

“…Such a beautiful voice. Go ahead. Sing a beautiful chorus for me, alongside the roar of destruction and the screams of despair, until the end finally arrives!”

He unleashed his balls of magic toward an expressway bridge support.

“Farewell, Emilia the Hero! You will follow in the path of Alciel and the Devil King!”

A pair of explosions completely vaporized the support.

Every man and woman in the area looked toward the sky. The black concrete roadway above them rumbled its way downward, like some otherworldly being emitting an alien roar as its jaw descended upon them.

There was no way anyone could stop the tilting expressway from collapsing any longer.

The road panels began to come apart, cars plunging downward amid the chaos.

Emi hugged Chiho’s head tightly as the expressway fell, snuffing out even the crowd’s crazed screaming.

Their faces and bodies were covered in darkness, their souls filled with despair and helplessness, as their consciousness and vision were cut off.

“Total B movie. Just like…I thought.”

No one noticed the smile that had come across Maou’s face.

Emi opened her eyes.

She remembered resigning herself to her fate, but if she was awake, she must have avoided death.

But she couldn’t have emerged safe from having the Shuto Expressway fall on her. What happened to…?

“…Ngh!”

She moved her body. Something was draped on top of her. She remembered it was Chiho, thrown down upon her by Lucifer.

“Chiho!… Oof!”

Trying to get up, Emi noticed the state of her leg for the first time. As she did, a swell of pain rushed across her body, like her blood was boiling. But she didn’t mind. It was all the more proof she was alive.

“Ngh…ergh…”

Chiho groaned. Slowly, Emi extracted her body from below, keeping a close eye on her leg as she placed the other girl on the ground.

“Chiho! Chiho!”

“…Ah.”

Slapping her cheek, she found Chiho waking up far more readily than she guessed. She was less knocked unconscious, it seemed, and more put to sleep by Lucifer’s force.

“Yusa… Nnh…!”

She had recognized Emi, but Chiho still grimaced, apparently in pain.

“Those wings… That scary guy…”

Emi looked upward, her memory jogged by Chiho’s rambling. Yes. If they were safe right now, then Lucifer was the one menace they had to watch out for. But the sky above them was cut off by a vast, uniformly black presence. What was blocking it out?

The Shuto Expressway had collapsed, making a hideous groan that portended doom as it did.
I was almost directly below it. So why am I still here?

“Heh-heh-heh…”

Emi shuddered as he heard the low, guttural laugh.

He was darker than the most profound of darkness, his body emitting a light blacker than ink. The horn that Emi had smashed to pieces once upon a time was still missing, but there was no way to
wipe away the magic force, the foreboding strength, the sheer presence looming over her.