The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 1 (2 page)

It was filled with an intense, pulsating energy, the likes of which Satan and Alciel had never seen. Their infernal conquests had never prepared them for the towering structures and seemingly endless stream of shining, dancing lights that surrounded them now.

They were inside a large city, it seemed, one filled with just as many dark, dingy alleys as glorious, massive edifices. They peered into the dim crevices between the buildings, listening in wonder at the unfamiliar, raucous noises that seeped from each one. Who could say what sort of intelligent life-form ruled this land, or what kind of insidious, ferocious monsters might populate it? Still not fully recovered from the shock, the pair of demons decided to find someplace to rest and heal from battle.

Just then, a sharp, intense light shone upon them.

“Hey! What’re you doing over there?!”

It was a man’s voice, speaking what Satan could tell was a clearly defined, intelligent language. Turning toward the light, he saw someone there—a
human
, just like the ones that infested Ente Isla. The tubelike object in his hand emitted a blinding white light.

“You guys okay? Have you been fighting?”

Apparently the human race ruled this world. Another human was behind him, dressed similarly, eyes turned his way.

Alciel was eager to avoid any further trouble.

“Fall back, foul beasts! Who do you think stands before you?!”

This bold declaration failed to have the intended effect on the man with the light. He furrowed his brows in apparent exasperation.

Even Satan couldn’t hide his surprise at this reaction. There was pure, unadulterated magical force bubbling behind the noble cadences of demon speech. It was simply impossible for a human to ignore that domineering essence, treating it like the bleating of some animal.

“Augh, great. Foreigners, huh? Man…”

The first man tilted his head before taking out a small, boxlike object and muttering softly into it.

“Uh, this is Patrolman Sasaki. I’m looking at a possible case of simple assault here. Victims are two non-Japanese Asian nationals. Location is—”

The two humans were dressed in sturdy-looking, well-kept clothing, woven from some manner of leather or cloth. Weapons hung from their waists, their daggerlike hilts visible. The front of their headgear featured a golden emblem modeled after an unknown type of plant foliage. Knights from one of this world’s nations, then?

That box must provide some form of long-distance communication. If these
were
knights, perhaps they had just called for reinforcements. A battalion of them could prove dangerous, especially in the demons’ current wounded state.

For now, it was two against two. They had their guards down. Seeking to eliminate these possible witnesses, Alciel transformed his remaining magic force into a ball of crackling energy, sending it flying toward the humans. Or he meant to.

“What…?!”

The magic wasn’t focusing, somehow, the way he expected. In fact, the more he tried to harness his magic skills, the more it seemed to drain harmlessly out of his body, something he was powerless to stop. He turned toward Satan to explain this anomaly.

“My, my liege… That…that form…!”

Alciel’s voice shook as he beheld the ruler of the demon world, bathed in intense white light.

“Hold your magic, Alciel. We must learn of this world first.”

Satan appeared serene in demeanor, but his teeth were clenched, as if fighting off some heavy weight acting upon him.

As well he may have been. For the Devil King was standing there in human form—the form of the puny, weak creature he fought, his battle scars still plain to see.

“Okay, so listen, guys… The car’ll be here in just a minute, so… If everything checks out, you can go home right afterward. Okay?”

The men seemed blissfully unfazed by Satan’s presence. Still reeling from the shock, Alciel looked down upon his own hands. They were
human
hands, hands completely alien to him.

Soon a carriage arrived with no horse driving it, colored black and white and topped with a mysterious device that drizzled red light across the area in dazzling patterns. More men appeared, each wearing the same outfit as the first, and Satan and Alciel were thrown into the carriage.

“Do you speak Japanese? Aren’t you hot, wearing that in the summertime?”

The first man spoke slowly to the pair of ex-demons, once noble, proud, with chiseled bodies that would far outclass any normal human’s. Now they were human themselves, their clothes as unnatural as a toddler wearing a bedsheet cape, the ominous-looking gilt meant to represent their lordly strength now catching against this or that part of their lanky frames.

Satan and Alciel shared a look, but neither had anything to say to that. Even if they did, it didn’t appear the men could understand their speech.

“…Ah, well. Not like they’re the only kids dressed up all goofy over there.”

The man no longer spoke, apparently satisfied with what he had told them. Soon, Satan and Alciel were taken to a place referred to only as “the station,” a building apparently meant for the enforcement of laws in this kingdom.

They were taken to a room within this building for investigation purposes, and there the Devil King and his general were able to recover at least some of their grandeur. Satan unleashed a bout of hypnosis magic upon the investigating officer, seeking to extract as much information about this world as he could. It seemed that, no matter what world one found himself in, the nobility and military men swaggering around the castle were always of far weaker wills than any stalwart man of battle.

As the hypnotized officer revealed, the pair of demons were on a world called “Earth,” within an island nation known as “Japan.”
They had come to this world near “Harajuku,” an outpost on a transport network known as the “railroad” that had been installed around “Tokyo,” the nation’s capital region.

Things like magic, magical force, Devil Kings, even demons themselves, were all treated as imaginary things in this world, mere flights of fancy that could never actually exist. Magic was something the denizens of the demon world harnessed to exert their wills upon the world, similar to the forces of gravity or magnetism, but there was no way to access this magic if it did not exist in the first place.

“So you’re saying we’ve…lost our magical powers?”

Alciel threw himself upon a chair, unable to wrap his mind around it.

“…Ah, but, Your Demonic Highness, you just…”

“I have a small amount of residual force left. It’s proving difficult to keep it from flowing out of me, though…”

The Devil King and his demonic subjects were able to accumulate a vast amount of magical power within their bodies. Even though his stores had been drained in combat with the Hero, Satan still retained several times as much magic as Alciel could ever hope to. It was that residual force which allowed Satan to bend the officer’s mind.

“I don’t think it will dry up immediately, as long as I strictly regulate the amount I release. But…”

But the problem was, there was no way to recharge the force he used.

His wounds would heal with time, but at this rate, he would never recover his magical skills. Any Gate he could open would be impossible to keep uniform. Not only would he be unlikely to reach Ente Isla; he might uncontrollably blunder into an even more dangerous world.

Instead of taking such risky bets, he reasoned, it would be wiser to find some other method of survival where he already stood.

There may be no concept of demons or magic in this realm, but the concepts of gods and piousness seemed fairly sparse as well, which was a comfort. This nation, Japan, apparently had a vast array of official ceremonies for dispelling evil spirits, but it was all a formality, a façade, at this point. It seemed safe to conclude that
none of their practitioners held any actual holy powers within themselves.

As long as they remained in Japan, it seemed unlikely that anyone would attempt to slay these demons. Controlling the officer’s mind, Satan ordered him to complete his investigation and release them from the station without any further meddling.

Holing up in a narrow alley the streetlights didn’t reach, Satan and Alciel discussed their future plans.

First, they needed a method to recharge their magic in this world. Achieving this would likely require a lengthy stay, something they had to resign themselves to.

Failing to find a method—failing to recharge their magic—was, for a demon, even more a threat to their lives than being wholly robbed of the magic.

The higher-level demons could live without consuming food because they were able to convert magic into bodily energy. A world where magic no longer existed was the same as a barren world with nothing to eat.

But some demons did eat food. Why? Because doing so allowed them to absorb energy in the same way lesser creatures did.

To live in this world without a source of magic, they would need to forage for sustenance. Japan apparently used a currency-based economy. They needed money for food.

But, of course, they lacked any Earth currency.

“Let me ask you this, Alciel. If you had willed it, could you have escaped those officers?”

Alciel shook his head stoically. Satan nodded his convinced agreement.

The two great demons, ones who had set the human race upon their knees, were no longer able to fend for themselves against even a small rabble of them.

And not because the humans of this world were somehow stronger. The only conclusion to be made was that
they
had grown that much weaker. That was how bitter, how bruising, the battle against the Hero had grown.

“So…so we will remain like this…?”

Alciel winced as he beheld his hand, as if observing some strange and hideous being. The soft, thinly stretched skin. The flat face and disheveled hair. The rounded, unsharpened nails. The muscles that formed their bodies, so flabby and pathetic.

“It pains me to say it, but our lack of magical force likely makes it impossible to retain our greater demon forms.”

The form a demon took depended on the level of power instilled within it. Foe-slashing claws, powerful legs that propelled it over castle parapets, leathery wings on its back, snakes for hair—every aspect of its ethereal form ran on magical force.

“Amazing to think
this
is how you look when stripped of that power. Perhaps the human form is what lies at the foundation of all life.”

“Surely you jest, Your Demonic Highness! I hardly bear to even entertain the idea that we house…
humans
inside of us. It is no doubt some machination placed upon us by this world, or the Gate.”

“…Regardless. We have other matters to be concerned about.”

They lacked the magic to summon another Gate. They lacked the strength to overwhelm the humans of this world by force. In other words, if they wished to survive, the only choice was to abide by the human race’s rules in this…Japan.

Follow
human
rules. For a Devil King and a Great Demon General, the idea was enough to shatter the very foundations of their pride.

But this new reality had been thrust upon them—one where they must eat to live, work to eat.

Shrugging off their unholy demonic robes, the Devil King and the Great Demon General took their first halting steps toward an unknown world.

From what they gleaned at the station, they knew that living in Japan would require at least two things: a “census registration” and an “address.” Without those, it seemed, they would be unable to acquire the work needed to earn money.

A “census registration” and “address” were both things one could
obtain in a place called a “ward office.” They decided this would be their first mission. Pushing their war-battered bodies forward, they plodded toward the “Shibuya Ward Office,” the nearest one to them… only to find it would not be open until the following morning.

As miserable as it seemed, Satan and Alciel passed the night in front of the ward office’s door, knees tight against their chests.

It was a city where the lights were apparently never extinguished, but things grew more animated once morning arrived. Humans strode around in clothing of a thousand different colors. As more and more of the men passing by began to sport uniformlike outfits colored in blacks and darker blues, the Shibuya Ward Office finally opened for business. Rushing toward the window, Satan commandeered the mind of the worker on the other side, one obviously surprised at the sight of these two men. In a few scant moments, they had successfully created something called a “family register” for themselves.

Their next stop was a “real estate office,” a depot that could arrange living quarters for them.

Satan and Alciel had become fluent in the human language of Ente Isla within just three days. Now they resolved to do whatever it took to learn this new language, “Japanese,” up to a practical level.

Noticing the pair’s broken Japanese and bizarre clothing, the real estate agent, assuming they must be rich businessmen from a foreign country, began to politely bombard them with opulent houses at equally eye-popping prices.

Satan had to explain to the eager agent that they could not live anyplace that required too high of a fee.

Hypnotism did not consume a great deal of magic power if used only once, but since they would naturally be evicted for failure to pay, life in a full-floor penthouse unit without the salary to match would require continual hypnosis of the landlord. So they told the agent they wanted someplace they could easily afford, one that would allow them the barest minimum of a lifestyle. The agent, more than a bit disappointed, showed them one potential location.

“The landlord here is a very…shall we say,
unique
woman.”

It was a room in an apartment building located within “Sasazuka,” apparently a subsection of Shibuya.

The rent was 45,000 yen per month, with no deposit, no advance fees, and no guarantor required. It was Room 201 in the sixty-year-old “Villa Rosa Sasazuka” apartments, approximately one hundred square feet, no bath, one toilet per room.