The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 1 (9 page)

“Like, try to at least make an
effort
to figure it out yourself, Grandpa!”

Rika, after spending over an hour battling it out with a middle-aged man accusing the manual of excess crypticness, still had a tightly stretched smile on her face as she banged her fist against the desk several times.

“So are you going anywhere besides the bank today, Emi?”

“Umm…”

In recent days, she had been turning down lunch offers from her coworkers so she could spend time spying on Maou. The mere idea of continuing the surveillance filled her with indignant rage.

“Nope! Just the bank!”

“But Kakui, too, right? Since you need to cancel that card. So how ’bout we check out that new
okonomiyaki
place next to Kakui? The crowds there have probably thinned out a little bit by now.”

“Sounds good. Give me one sec, okay? I need to check where the nearest bank branch is… Hmm?”

Another foreign-language call transfer popped up on Emi’s terminal.

“Ooooh, you hate to see
that
before lunch!”

“Hey, it’s a living.”

The individual timing behind lunch breaks depended on how
many people were on staff each day. A call-center staffer unlucky enough to field a particularly talkative customer could wind up seeing their break pushed to later in the afternoon.

Flashing a reassuring smile to the obviously peeved Rika, Emi adjusted her headset and prepared her standard English-language greeting.

“Thank you for your patience! This is Emi Yusa from the Dokodemo customer support team. How can I—”

“…Yusa?”

“Huh? Um, yes?”

The soft, muffled voice that recited Emi’s last name was plainly speaking native Japanese, something obvious enough even with two short syllables.

“Yes, this is Yusa. How can I help you?”

“Yusa…is it? You’re a full-fledged Japanese woman by now, aren’t you, Emilia the Hero?”

“Ah!”

Emi gasped. She tried to keep Rika in the adjacent booth from noticing her shock, but a shiver still ran down and across her throat.

“May I ask who’s calling, please?”

“Someone who knows of the Hero, and the Devil King. And someone who is driven to destroy the both of you.”

Emi had no recollection of this voice.

“So you were trying to utilize the network late last night?”

“It was unexpected to see the Hero and Devil King engaged in tandem operations.”

“Yes. It was a very regrettable situation for us as well.”

“Heh-heh-heh… I could imagine. You may consider me an assassin, one sent from Ente Isla. And you may consider our encounter last night as a method of introducing myself.”

“… …”

It was difficult to make any bold moves. She had no idea who the person on the other end of the line was. Then, he made an even more confounding statement:

“I am here to eliminate Satan, the Devil King, and Emilia the
Hero, in the world they have traveled to. It is both my mission and the will of Ente Isla.”

“What?!”

Emi—Emilia—could no longer hide the shock.

Why would Ente Isla, the land returned to peace and stability by human hands, want her dead?

“I…I’m afraid that we will be unable to provide an answer to that without further consideration…”

“Heh-heh… Consideration, is it? I am keenly interested to see what the Hero and Devil King have left to consider, judging by the way they tucked their tails and fled from such a simple attack.”

The voice seemed to echo ominously, as if rattling up from the depths of darkness. Emi recognized that tone. It could only come from the demon world. Suddenly her mind was cool, serene, as she regained her Heroic composure.

“None of Satan’s generals survived apart from Alciel. What part of the demon realm are
you
from?”

“… …”

“You can try to shock me into submission with your lofty words about the ‘will of Ente Isla.’ But it will
never
faze me! I have no time for the prattlings of a monster.”

“I see. A pity you choose not to believe me. We will meet again, soon.”

The conversation ended earlier than she expected.

With a heavy sigh, Emi removed her headset.

Rika, in the adjacent seat, looked on incredulously, having little clue what Emi was talking about or what kind of conversation they were having. Emi turned back to her.

“It takes all kinds in this world, doesn’t it?”

“I…guess so.”

Rika still looked skeptical, but apparently decided the topic wasn’t worth dwelling upon.

Soon, their lunch break arrived. Rika smiled at Emi, her eyes still betraying her curiosity a bit.

“Hey, sorry. So what did you want to do? Wanna eat lunch first? The bank’s gonna be busy right now anyway.”

“Sure, Emi. If that works for you.”

Heading for the locker room, she placed her phone, passbook, and seal inside a small tote. Just as she was about to leave, her phone began to vibrate.

Her heart skipped a beat. She had put on a strong face, but that mystery call from earlier had unquestionably cast a pall upon her life in Japan.

“Is that your phone?”

“Yeah…”

Checking the screen, it was from an unknown fixed-line number within Tokyo.

“You gonna answer it?”

“I dunno… I got a bad feeling about it.”

The phone continued to ring. There was nothing else to do.

“…Hello?”

“Hello! Is this Emi Yusa’s cell phone?”

Emi’s nerves loosened themselves a bit. It was a different voice, a friendly-sounding middle-aged man.

“Yes! Can I ask who this is?”

The man had unexpected news for her.

“I apologize for bothering you. This is the Yoyogi Police Department calling.”

“Huh?”

Emi simmered silently inside the waiting room into which she had been led. Her eyebrows furrowed deeply into her forehead, as if chiseled on.

The ill temper so plain in Emi’s eyes was enough to make even the female officer manning the front desk of the Yoyogi Police Department choose to keep her distance.

“Sorry to keep you.”

Eventually, a uniformed officer entered the waiting room and
greeted Emi, who lacked the psychological peace of mind to return the favor at the moment.

“I really appreciate you taking the time to come here. There’s a whole process we have to go through, you understand.”

“Yeah…”

“Um, first off, if I could check your ID… Thank you. Now, if you could just write your name and address on this paper and place your seal right here…”

She was starting to wonder why she bothered to bring her insurance card and seal with her today. They were
supposed
to help her obtain another bank card, but now here she was, waiting and waiting and waiting.

Emi signed the document, almost applying enough pressure to rip the paper apart, then smashed her seal into the inkpad before practically stamping it through the sheet and into the desk.

Slightly put off by this display, but not realizing what was causing it, the officer continued to smile as sincerely as he could at this law-abiding citizen.

“Right. That should take care of the transfer documentation. Mr. Maou and Mr. Ashiya are waiting in another room, so you can go ahead and leave together. We might need you back here later on if we find out anything, though.”

“I am
not
leaving with them!”

Emi snarled at the officer like a caged tiger.

“Yeahhh, sorry about that. We couldn’t think of anyone else, so…”

“We truly,
truly
wished to avoid relying upon you for this, but…”

Maou and Ashiya tried their best to keep it cool near the police station entrance.

“When that detective showed up at the door, man, we were freaking out. I had no idea they could track down our address from my bike! That’s some pretty killer police work.”

“And the Hero truly
was
faking her age, too.”

“Yeah, just like I said, right? You can’t do something like rent a condo if you’re underage—not unless you get some guarantors and
your parents’ approval. I don’t know what kind of trick she pulled off, but I figured she
had
to be registered as an adult, at least twenty years of age. Funny, huh? Usually people round their age
downward
if they want to lie about it.”

“Indeed. Unless she wanted to buy some beer. Could that be the main motivation, perhaps?”

“It doesn’t matter!”

Emi’s sudden shrill scream made Maou and Ashiya cower before her, covering their ears.

“Why…? Why does it have to be me…?”

She was shaking with anger at this point.

“Why do I, the Hero of Ente Isla, have to serve as a personal ID reference for a bunch of demons?!”

“Sh-Shut up! You’re being too loud!”

Smiling distractingly at the people staring at them, Maou pushed Emi outside of the station.

“What do you want from us? I told you, we couldn’t think of anyone else!”

“I had thought about Ms. Kisaki at MgRonald…but even if my liege
was
the victim here, I feared she would fire him for his issues with the law.”

“Ahh, I doubt Kisaki’s that kind of manager…but, no, I don’t want to bother her, either.”

But Emi was singularly uninterested in their excuses. Besides, lending an ear to a demon’s malicious lies would make her a very unworthy Hero.

“What?! So it’s okay to bother
me
, then?!”

“Well, hey, it’s the Devil King’s job to bother the Hero, isn’t it?”

Emi ran a frustrated hand through her hair. He didn’t have to look so
smug
about it!

“How did you even get my phone number?! You didn’t go snooping through my phone last night, did you?”

“Of course not! You had to write it down when we got taken to the station last time, remember?”

“Okay, but…but why did you have to name
me
?!”

“There was nobody else! What do you want from us? We don’t have any friends, either! Besides, c’mon, we let you sleep over last night.”

“Nnnnnghhhh!!”

“Hey, is that your work uniform, by the way? The Hero’s a secretary or something? That’s pretty cool.”

“Who asked
you
?!”

Emi ripped the bow tie off her neck, then hung her head in abject shame.

“Look, calm yourself, Emilia. What kind of Hero acts like that?”

“I don’t need
you
lecturing me, Alciel! Look at you guys! It’s the start of the month, and your refrigerator’s absolutely barren! They called
you
the greatest strategist of the demon forces! Hah! Don’t you idiots have a budget or anything?!”

“Urrgh!”

Alciel fell to the ground, apparently suffering mortal injuries from this brutally accurate verbal strike, groaning something about it not being his fault as he did so.

“Will you people just take care of yourselves a little more, please?! I had someone making death threats to me over the phone today! And
you’re
being targeted, too, Devil King! Better be careful, you got that?!”

“What?”

Ignoring Maou’s question, Emi placed a hand on her hip, puffed up her chest, and pointed a finger straight at him.

“You
got
that?! I’m warning you, all right?! But don’t you forget this!
I’m
the Hero, and
I’m
going to slay the Devil King and guide Ente Isla into a bold era of peace! Okay?!”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but please, try not to forget we’re in public.”

Maou looked frantic. Ashiya was rolling around on the floor, crying. And Emi continued jabbing her finger at Maou, ranting on with the stentorian voice of a natural-born ranter.

Suddenly, Emi noticed the officers and visitors staring at her. In an instant, the entire region between her neck and the ends of her ears glowed bright red.

“I…I…uh… Look, just be careful, all right?! That’s all I want to say!”

“Thanks for the warning…”

Emi, ignoring Maou’s listless response, swung her small tote bag around and quickly strode off, making her escape.

“Me…
and
her. They’re after us both. And yet they called, huh?”

Maou took a moment to pick the fatally wounded Ashiya off the floor.

“Get a grip on yourself, Ashiya.”

“It…it wasn’t my fault… I kept a perfect accounting ledger…”

“Snap out of it! Look, let’s go home. I need to meet up with Chi later.”

“Dammit! Those cops made me waste so much of my off day.”

“But it worked out well in the end, did it not? They even fixed your flat tires for you.”

It wasn’t enough to keep Maou from groaning as he wheeled his returned bicycle back home.

He
was
questioned by the police, yes, but was treated strictly as the victim of a passing thief, not a shooting suspect.

The reason he gave for the abandoned bike in the intersection was not exactly his most eloquent moment as Devil King.

“I, uh, I was scared… I didn’t know what was going on, so I ditched it and ran.”

The officer questioning them accepted it without an ounce of suspicion. He even said he felt
sorry
for them. An utter humiliation.