The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 (7 page)

“Daddyyyy.”

“
Please
, man, stop throwing any more dynamite into the volcano for me!!”

Maou’s mind ran like a well-oiled machine, searching for some way, any way, to mollify the aghast Chiho and Ashiya. After a moment, he came up with the perfect question to break through this morass.

He had no idea that it was merely the prelude to an even deeper, darker abyss.

“W-wait, wait! Who’s your mom, then? Your mom!”

Alas Ramus’s wide eyes squinted a little as she returned Maou’s gaze.

It was the last straw for Maou within grasping distance. The identity of whoever this mystery mother was could give him ample breathing room to prove his innocence.

The girl was no older than two, judging by her appearance. That was right around the time Emilia and the Devil King waged their final battle in Ente Isla. Ashiya and Emi knew that Maou was cornered, on the retreat, and in no way free to enjoy torrid affairs with sly devil temptresses.

“Mommy.”

This time, Alas Ramus responded without repeating the question.

As she spoke, a pudgy arm raised itself into the air, finger confidently pointed ahead of her.

The rest of the group followed her arm. She apparently had full control of her hands and fingers, not that that mattered, either.

“…Eh?”

Emi was standing right where she pointed.

“Uh… M-m-me?”

In a single instant, Emi’s face was whiter and more drained of blood than any other.

It was the dead of summer, but the air in Devil’s Castle had completely frozen over.

“Daddy. Mommy.”

Then, as if striking the final blow, Alas Ramus clearly pointed to Maou and Emi in order.

The pair stood dumbfounded, unable to parse her behavior.

“…………ooh.”

Ashiya fainted on the spot. Urushihara rose to help him.

“Aghh! Ashiya! Ashiya, don’t conk out on me! You okay?!”

“Yu… Yu, yu, yu, Yusa?”

The cup of ice cream in Chiho’s hand, still largely full, was crushed in her iron grip.

“The Devil King is the father, and the Hero is the mother? This is nothing short of a cataclysm…”

Suzuno’s observation perfectly summarized the mad fury that commenced soon after.

And on the ground, oblivious to the chaos, Alas Ramus stood between “Mommy” and “Daddy,” waving her arms back and forth gleefully.

It was the next afternoon, the day after the incident that turned Devil’s Castle upside down.

Chiho checked out the scene around the Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartments for just a moment before modestly tapping on the door to Room 201.

She heard someone fumbling around inside as he slowly approached the door.

“Ashiya?”

As she spoke up, the door unlocked and opened to reveal Ashiya’s gaunt face, crow’s-feet cascading below his eyes.

“…Hello, Ms. Sasaki…”

The fatigue was written all over his voice, now completely bereft of his usual haughty resolve.

“Is she okay right now?”

“…She finally fell asleep a moment ago. Come on inside.”

“All right. Thanks.”

They took care to keep their voices hushed as Ashiya closed the door behind them.

Removing her shoes, Chiho stepped inside, then crouched down to gently place the plastic bag she was carrying on the floor.

The rustling of the plastic seemed like an air horn in the silence.
Ashiya leaned down on the other side, just as a motorcycle roared down the street outside.

Ashiya and Chiho held their breath for a moment as they turned toward Alas Ramus, napping beneath the shade provided by the bamboo blinds. She remained motionless, in a deep sleep.

The pair breathed a sigh of relief before their faces turned serious once more.

“Here… I bought pretty much whatever I could think of.”

Chiho fished her purchases out of the bag, again taking extreme care not to make any noise.

“Powdered milk… Sugar-free yogurt… And a few different brands of microwaveable baby formula to test out. What did you do for dinner last night?”

“…Crestia gave us some udon noodles yesterday. We minced them up and boiled them with an egg and some ground-up fish. That was soft enough for her to eat. She didn’t have any trouble chewing it, and she can drink water all right, so I think we are safe feeding her human food.”

Chiho nodded slightly as she continued emptying the bag.

“Here are some sterilized wet tissues for cleaning up any accidents. And here’s a children’s toothbrush. Don’t use any toothpaste, though; not until she’s able to spit it out by herself. I got a bottle of mineral water, too.”

“Toothbrush… Ah, yes, we didn’t brush her teeth last night. Why such a small bottle of water, though? How is it different from regular mineral water?”

“It’s a special oral rehydration formula for infants.”

Ashiya’s heavy eyelids blinked at the unfamiliar term.

“It’s hot out right now, right? If she gets dehydrated, you can have her drink this to maintain her salt and blood sugar levels. It’s kind of like a sports drink for little kids.”

“How is it different from the adult version?”

“It’s made so that children can easily digest it. You can make it from tap water, too, but you don’t have a water filter installed, do you?”

Chiho’s eyes turned toward the lone sink in the Devil’s Castle, its barren metal faucet wholly unadorned of any filtering device.

“Tokyo’s tap water is supposed to be a lot better than it was way back when, but that’s not much help if the pipes in your home are old and rusting. She started out as, like, an apple and stuff… I figured she’ll need to have the cleanest water we can give her, so. This is meant for emergencies, though, so we can’t just have her drink this.”

“…I see.”

Ashiya nodded in admiration.

“When you
do
give her something to drink, put it in this.”

The next item out of the bag was a plastic cup, a large plastic sipper straw sticking out the center of its lid.

“There’s a valve inside the straw that keeps the drink from spilling if you drop it. If she can talk that much, she probably won’t have any problem with this. …Though, do they even
have
straws in Ente Isla?”

“There were… I believe. It was a human thing; I paid it little attention. Emilia and Crestia would know…”

“Well, if Alas Ramus doesn’t know how to use a straw, try this instead.”

Moving on, Chiho took out a drink box labeled
CHILDREN’S BARLEY TEA
.

“Does it make any difference whether it is for children or adults?”

“Oh, a big difference. Whether it’s brewed hot or cold, the barley tea sold in stores can be too bitter for children a lot of the time if it isn’t made right. That, and more important, this drink box comes with a straw, so she can use it for practice if need be.”

“Practice?”

“Right. So what you want to do is squeeze the box in the middle so that just a little bit is pushed out the top. That way, the baby will realize that sucking at the straw will make the drink come out. Then she’ll get curious and figure it out for herself.”

“……”

By now, the look on Ashiya’s face was one of awe as he watched Chiho.

“And all the rest of this is diapers!”

Chiho pointed toward a pile of diapers of assorted shapes and sizes.

There was a pull-up type for older children, the traditional kind fastened together with tape, and then a dizzying array of other brands, each apparently boasting its own style and list of materials.

“So you can try these out, one after the other, and use whatever works the best for her.”

Ashiya, accepting the pile of diapers, turned his face away, emotionally overwhelmed.

“I… You… You have been such a tremendous help to us, Ms. Sasaki. I, Ashiya, have no way to express the gratitude I feel for your selfless support…”

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic!”

“No, I…I mean it. In fact, if you will it, I would gladly recommend you for the position of Chief General of my liege’s regrouped demon forces once he regains his powers within Japan!”

“I’ll…pass on that, thanks.”

Chiho internally questioned what kind of recruitment standards Ashiya had if he was willing to appoint her to the top command in exchange for taking a walk down the baby aisle in the supermarket. It unsettled her slightly.

“Besides, all I did was use some of the money Maou gave me to shop for a few of the things you need. Oh, lemme give you the change and receipt. Could you give this to Maou for me?”

“…Yes. Yes, I most certainly shall. I, Ashiya, stake my very life upon it…!”

Chiho smiled a bit as Ashiya fulfilled his blood promise and accepted the change.

“It was kind of fun, too, so…”

She looked toward Alas Ramus, still sound asleep.

“My cousin on my dad’s side got married, and he’s already had a kid. Whenever I come to visit, I like helping out with him while we’re playing around together. His wife taught me a lot about this kind of thing while we chatted.”

“I…see! Is that how you learned…?”

“Yeah. That, and…um…”

Just as she concluded her trip down memory lane, Chiho suddenly grabbed her left hand, her cheeks glowing red as she hesitated to continue.

“And I… I thought…someday, with……Maou………I wouldn’t mind that…”

“Um, Ms. Sasaki?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, um, um, never mind never mind never…!”

She flailed her hands and shook her head, her face bright red. Luckily, she noticed something that gave her an opportunity to rapidly change the subject.

“Oh, but did Urushihara go somewhere?”

Urushihara, the consummate listless lout, the resident money drain in Devil’s Castle, the angel who fell both from the heavens and commonly accepted standards of cleanliness, was nowhere to be seen.

That, and the desk he was always found crouched over was gone, along with the laptop computer that rested on top of it.

“He didn’t…escape from you, did he?”

Anyone who knew Urushihara would never imagine the man finding a job, or going out shopping, or making any other positive move with his life. Besides, his criminal past meant he was still in no position to walk around his surroundings in broad daylight.

“Pfft… If he had the guts to attempt something like that, do you think I would be as exhausted as I am?”

Ashiya’s temple twitched in time with the edge of his lips. He let out a deep, pensive sigh.

“…As I am sure you could imagine, Ms. Sasaki, the volume and frequency of Alas Ramus’s crying overnight was beyond anything we could have imagined.”

With a newborn infant, being up and wailing half of the night was just part of the package. But for a child who could speak and understand her surroundings to some extent, outbursts like that represented a demand for some particular need.

Family needs forced Chiho to return home that evening. She had no idea what transpired after that.

Judging by the extent of Ashiya’s fatigue, it was hard for her to remain optimistic.

It gave Chiho a chance to recall everything she did witness before she had to leave.

For her (apparent) age, Alas Ramus was picking up on language remarkably rapidly.

That much was clear between “Daddy is Satan” and her fingering Emi as the other side of the couple.

But Emi, after regaining control of her rational thoughts, fervently attempted to prove her innocence, just as Maou had denied everything.

Despite the initial chaos, the other four people in the room never truly thought there was something going on between Maou and Emi. The Hero and the Devil King were like oil and water. Two identical poles on a pair of magnets. They couldn’t…interact, not in the least bit. Alas Ramus’s age level made that particularly and abundantly clear, and more to the point, neither party had any recollection of the events that would’ve been required. It would have led to utter chagrin if they did.

Still, it was only natural that after having been turned away by both of her certified parents, Alas Ramus plunged into a fiery, cacophonous crying fit.

Maou, still bewildered to the core, tried his best to keep the girl serene.

“Hey… Hey, calm down, Alas Ramus. Your mommy and daddy are right here, all right? Me, and that girl over there.”

“Erraaggghhhhh! Satan, Daddyyyyaaahhhh!!”

She was crying and screaming simultaneously out of her tiny mouth, creating a noise akin to the shrieking of hell.

“Oh, man… Hey, what’re we gonna do about this?”

“……”

“Hey, Emi…”

“……”

“…Hey!”

“Agh!!”

Maou clapped her hands in front of Emi’s confused, downtrodden face.

Surprised, she fell to the floor, almost into Suzuno’s hands.

“Mwaaaammmmiiiiieeeee!!”

Alas Ramus, face covered in tears and snot, chose this moment to fly into her arms, shouting.

It sounded like the guttural groan of some enraged beast, but she appeared to be saying “Mommy” as she clung to her.

With no escape in sight, Emi pulled the child upward.

“Weeaaaaannnnngggghhhh!!”

“Whoa, hey, uh…”

With a thunk, she thudded into Emi’s arms. She was heavier than she anticipated.

To a Hero, a crying child seeking companionship was someone who required protection at once.

But
this
girl? A girl saying Emi was her mother? Emi, elbows bent oddly as she attempted to wrangle the ball of forlorn rage in her arms, had no way to deal with this unimaginable situation.

“What am
I
supposed to do about this?! …Ah!”

Emi, at her wit’s end, turned her eyes upward.

“…Don’t just
stare
at me like that!”

There she found the rest of the group watching her with every fiber of their bodies, on the edge of their figurative seats, waiting to see what happened next.

“Uggghh… You people haven’t forgotten already, have you? This child stopped my holy sword without a scratch. She can’t be any
regular
kind of baby, all right?”

“Yes, Emilia, but stating the obvious will do nothing to improve our lot. Think of this child, this mere babe, seeking out the only mother she knows in life.”

“Bell! Quit lecturing me like an advice columnist! This is
your
problem, too!”

“Weeeaaaannnnhhh!!”

“You should be happy for this, Yusa! I almost wish I could take your place, even!”

“Yeah, I’m sure, Chiho! Probably for different reasons, too, am I right?!”

“Mrraaaammmmiiieeee!!”

“I
told
you, I’m not your mommy or anything… Please…”

Signs of resignation began to flash across Emi’s face as she slowly, gingerly, put her hands on Alas Ramus’s shoulders.

For now at least, just to calm her down, she tried lifting her into her arms…and found her much lighter than she imagined, this time.

“……”

It was honestly a shock, how heavy she felt when she jumped on her. And now this.

Her skin and body frame were soft, so soft that the slightest application of force seemed enough to snap her apart. The memory of Emi’s sword meeting its match flew away from her mind as she timidly lifted Alas Ramus. The child latched on to Emi’s chest and turned her face upward.

“……”

Emi looked downward, now fully defeated. A silvery bridge of snot arched between Alas Ramus’s nose and Emi’s shirt, glistening in the light.

“Ngh…
snif
… Mommeee!”

Even as she quivered and cried, her large eyes sought out Emi’s face, pleading in their young, immature, begging way for protection.