The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 (8 page)

“O-okay, okay… Ugh, what am I gonna do with you…?”

Emi, thoroughly beaten down, gave Alas Ramus her first true full-body hug.

The girl placed her chin on Emi’s shoulder as she clung tightly to her neck and shoulders, the baby fat on her arms soft against her body.

“Ennghh… Mommy…uwahhh…”

The sobs wrung themselves out into Emi’s ear as serenity returned to her face.

It was cute. Less than welcome, but cute. But unwelcome. That was Emi’s honest take.

She rubbed Alas Ramus’s yellow dress calmingly as her eyes turned to Maou.

“So…what’re we gonna do now?”

“What? I dunno, what
are
we gonna do?”

“I asked first!”

“Not that it matters, but you sure give a mean hug, you know that?”

“…You realize that’s just tightening the noose around my neck, right?”

“Hey, uh, if I could ask a question, how come that girl knew Maou was Satan?”

Urushihara gauged Maou and Alas Ramus.

“I mean,
I’m
one thing, but Maou as a human looks pretty different from his demon days.”

“Don’t ask me. She smelled my hand just now, but maybe there’s something about that only she could tell, or something.”

“Dude, the only thing she could’ve smelled from
your
hand was MgRonald fry oil.”

“So what? That smells
great
!”

It was not exactly the retort Urushihara expected.

“…But, man, I guess we’re stuck with this, huh?”

As he spoke, looking at Alas Ramus, Maou’s face suddenly grew glum.

She was almost out of Emi’s arms before wriggling back into position, grabbing on to her neck. Emi offered Alas support from the bottom in response.

“I know!”

Chiho raised her hand.

“This must be like imprinting, right? She must think Maou and Yusa are her parents because those are the first people she saw.”

Maou shook his head in response.

“It looked kinda that way, yeah, but she wouldn’t have instinctively known my name, too. She said ‘Satan,’ and I
know
that apple wasn’t around to hear that. Or did she?”

“Oh…guess not.”

“I mean, Satan is a pretty common name to give a demon where I come from, but she just plopped right down here and called me Satan. I kinda doubt she’s referring to anyone else.”

“So…so do you have any recollection of Alas Ramus at all, then, Maou?!”

“Chi, Chi—this isn’t a custody battle.”

Chiho’s sudden obstinacy wore on Maou. Suzuno prompted him to continue.

“It strikes my curiosity to hear that Satan is a common name in the demon realms…but what are you trying to say?”

He nodded in response.

“Well, here’s the simplest theory. Somebody did up Alas Ramus into that protective apple thing and sent her over to me. And…”

“…And whether that somebody’s friend or foe, we should probably expect a visit soon. Right?”

Emi, still holding the toddler, gave Maou a suitably stern look.

“Yep. Pretty much. And I hate to say it, but you’re probably involved in this as much as I am, too. Yet again. No way that girl’s got any demon in her.”

“…Thanks for reminding me. I feel bad for Chiho alone, though…getting her involved in all of this.”

“Don’t say ‘alone.’ How ’bout expanding that to us, huh?”

“W-wait, what do you mean? I don’t get what you mean by ‘Yusa’s probably involved.’”

Emi, in response to the worried Chiho, looked at her right hand, which was currently embracing their tiny, otherworldly visitor.

“This kid stopped my sword. She reacted to me when I had my holy sword out. That much is all I need to know. You remember how Sariel wanted his hands on my sword, Chiho.”

It seemed hard to believe, but the archangel Sariel kidnapped both Chiho and Emi as part of his attack just a few days previous. He attempted to use his Evil Eye of the Fallen to all but rip the sword out of her body.

“Sariel never said why he wanted the holy sword so badly. And no way am I gonna let him have it—not as long as this penniless Devil King lives and breathes. And now, with all those questions still unanswered, we have this kid who could stop a holy sword. It’d be crazy to think that
wasn’t
related somehow.”

“Hey, stop weaving little slams against me into your long-winded diatribes, all right?”

Emi, ignoring Maou’s observation, turned to Chiho.

“Oh, speaking of which, how’s Sariel been the past few days?”

“He’s gaining a lot of weight.”

Her reply was to the point, certainly.

“Huh?”

“Well, I mean, he’s going to MgRonald multiple times a day so he can see Ms. Kisaki. And he orders a supersize combo every time! I can totally tell Ms. Kisaki’s just acting nice ’cause he’s helping her reach our sales targets. But anyway, you’d be amazed how much of a gut’s starting to show up after just a week.”

Sariel, his mission thwarted by the rebirth of the Devil King, had decided to take his cover story on Earth—as Mitsuki Sarue, head manager at the Sentucky Fried Chicken in front of the Hatagaya rail station—and make it his permanent gig.

Smitten at first sight with Mayumi Kisaki, manager at the nearby MgRonald and Maou’s direct boss, he had now completely forgotten about his mission, and the world of heaven itself. His new goal was to travel to MgRonald daily and make Kisaki his own.

Kisaki wasn’t there all the time, though, leading to some awkward encounters whenever Maou was supervising a shift. But Sariel was resolute. He was willing to take the fall from heaven, as he put it, to make his love for Kisaki a reality.

What was more, despite the rampage of just a week or so ago,
Sariel was now almost eerily congenial toward Chiho and Maou. He must have surmised, and oh so correctly, too, that the entire crew was reporting every move to Kisaki.

“…Well. I don’t know if that slopeheaded angel is involved with this or not, but if we get any more trouble, the farther away
he
is from it, the better. That guy routinely gets in my way, after all.”

“I…I doubt that Sariel is directly related to Alas Ramus, regardless of his past behavior.”

It was Suzuno who interjected.

“He most certainly did not use up his holy magic powers in our previous battle. He remains here by his own free will. If he and Alas Ramus were aware of each other, he would have come to us at once.”

The observation struck a nerve. Unprompted, Urushihara turned on his surveillance webcam, Chiho peeked out the kitchen window to the outside hallway, and Ashiya shot a quick look out the front door.

“Besides, ‘Alas Ramus’ means nothing in the heavenly tongues. It is human—the very language spoken in Ente Isla.”

“Oh?”

“
Alas
means ‘wing.’
Ramus
means ‘branch.’ Both are terms from Centurient, a language used only in Isla Centurum.”

Centurient, literally the “central trade” language, was an international auxiliary tongue created to encourage common standards and trade in Isla Centurum, the central city that linked trade routes from every direction of Ente Isla.

The language was spoken chiefly by politicians, high-level Church clerics, and merchants involved with international trade, but—in theory, at least—it was a common language that would make one understood across the entirety of the world.

“This tells me that there is a set of parents somewhere in Ente Isla, a mother and father who loved their child enough to give her such a deeply meaningful name. Whether they are human or angel, I cannot say. I sincerely doubt she is demonic in origin, but…”

But who named her that, and for what purpose? There was no way to tell. Maou looked on sternly.

“So how ’bout I summarize everything we know? We’ve got this kid, Alas Ramus, whom we know nothing about. And we’ve got no way to respond. We just have to wait for this friend, or foe, or whomever to show up.”

Emi and Suzuno listened on, a rarity when Maou was speaking. Urushihara picked up where he left off.

“Yeah, so basically, that brings us back to the first problem. Who’s gonna take care of the girl?”

For a moment, the thudding truth made all sound, even the whine of the cicadas outside, disappear from Devil’s Castle.

“Did she fall asleep? She’s been pretty quiet.”

Maou noticed Alas Ramus’s head, still resting on Emi’s shoulder.

“…I just hope this little girl isn’t wrapped up in some kind of weird conspiracy.”

With a sigh, Emi patted her back as she rested.

“Kinda too bad, though, huh? If it weren’t for that weird apple shell, she’d just be a normal baby. Wouldn’t you, huh?” Leaning down, Maou lightly pinched one of her cheeks.

Emi winced in dread.

“Don’t do that! We just got her asleep.”

He pulled his arm back as Chiho watched on. It dawned on her that this was looking awfully like the birth of a fully fledged family unit.

“Aww, you really got it good, Yusa…”

It was a pleasant image to behold, but the jealousy bubbling within her refused to stay bottled up. Her cheeks puffed up in possessive rage.

“Chiho, Chiho, your feelings are painted on your face!”

Suzuno managed to pull her from the brink just in time.

Emi, keeping her distance from Maou (who seemed to enjoy playing the weird uncle in this family all of a sudden), sighed again.

“Well, I can’t take her in. I’m a single woman with a job. I can’t watch over her all day.”

“Perhaps, but having another mouth to feed within Devil’s Castle will stretch our finances to bursting. Plus, as three men under one roof, I feel we are ill-suited for the business of child rearing.”

Ashiya fired back briskly. They were three men in a tiny AC-less room, one of whom did little besides eat them out of house and home. It couldn’t have been a less suitable place for an infant to live.

Chiho looked as apologetic as Emi.

“I’m sorry… I really want to help you out, but I don’t know how I could get my mom and dad on my side.”

“There is no need to feel tormented, Chiho. This, after all, is an Ente Isla matter.”

Suzuno placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“Seeing a young, abandoned child go from home to home through no fault of her own would be difficult indeed to stomach. I would certainly not mind taking her in. I am not particularly employed at the moment…and I have experience with great numbers of children from the past.”

Suzuno may have looked about as old as Chiho—younger, even—but considering her career and high post in the Church, she was likely the oldest of all the women.

The rest of the gang never pursued the question, out of an instinctual sense that doing so might threaten their very lives. But given Suzuno’s maturity and Church cleric position, she was clearly the best qualified for the job.

Besides, something clicked with the mental image of Suzuno beavering away at her housework, the trademark headcloth and the apron covering her kimono, Alas Ramus snug in a carrier slung over her back.

It brought expressions of relief to the faces of Emi, Ashiya, Chiho, even Urushihara, despite his total lack of interest in even pretending to care about the kid.

“……”

Only Maou’s face remained clouded.

Things seemed to be settled—a baby somehow linked to the Better Half holy sword, now in the able care of a top Church official—but Maou furtively shifted his gaze among Emi, Alas Ramus, and his own hand several times.

“…Um, Maou?”

Chiho, as could have been guessed, noticed first.

“Is there…something wrong?”

“Yeah, there’s one thing I’m not quite comfy with… Two, actually.”

He turned to Emi, not even giving Chiho a glance.

“Maybe I’m just overthinking things, but…”

Then he brought his hand to his own forehead. Chiho’s eyebrows arched down in confusion over what his aim was. He continued on, whispering as he collected his thoughts.

“…Why didn’t she say ‘Mommy is Emilia,’ too…?”

“Huh?”

Chiho’s eyes opened wide. This was rolling the conversation back quite a long distance. But more than that, it sent an indescribable pang of pain shooting across her heart.

She tried her best to send it packing. She knew “Emilia” was Emi’s real name. She also knew that, to Maou, Emi and Suzuno were enemies.

But a new doubt loomed large in her mind.

“I wonder if the day will come when I’m no longer ‘Chi’ to him…”

She was just a normal teenage girl. No special powers to speak of. The only thing that made her stand out was her knowledge of him and his little clique’s secret.

Ignoring the fact that he had yet to give a straight answer to her confessions of love, when Sariel kidnapped her, Maou referred to Chiho as a “valuable member of my staff.”

That was all it really was, at this point. Whether at work or in his private life, she was just this girl that Maou kept finding himself in the position of protecting.

Her logical self, telling her that she had to be more aware of her place, collided with her emotional self, yearning to be called by name. The two sides squeezed against her chest.

“Hm? What was that, Chi?”

“…Sorry. Nothing.”

Embarrassed at letting her own desires take priority, Chiho edged a step away from the ring surrounding Alas Ramus.

Maou never noticed a thing, of course, as he ruminated for a moment. Then, he unleashed another bombshell.

“Right. So it’s settled. We’ll keep Alas Ramus in Devil’s Castle.”