THE DEVIL KING GOES OUT TO DINNER WITH HIS BOSS

The air in Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka was still penetratingly cold when Maou stepped inside, careful not to make any noise. Turning on the fluorescent light in the kitchen, he looked around his one-room apartment, which was a bit dim and yellowed thanks to the old light cover. They hadn’t really acquired a lot of things since they first came to Japan, but now, in the corner farthest away from the light, there was a large box on the floor.

Maou peeked inside, then let out a small, relieved sigh.

“…You’re alive, huh?”

Inside was a very large and plump-looking chicken…or to be more exact, Camio, the arch-demon and de facto father figure to Maou.

“Peep…chrr…peep…chrr…”

He listened to Camio sleep a bit, taking shallow but rhythmic breaths, as he sat in front of the box. Then, recalling the crumpled-up MgRonald notice he tossed in the nearby wastebasket, he sighed.

“Ugh… How did I mess it up with them?”

He wasn’t being conceited. He honestly didn’t suspect for a single moment that he’d be turned down. It was smooth sailing through every screening. His rivals were shot down, one by one, and he made it all the way to the final selection process. For applicants from the shift-employee ranks at MgRonald (as opposed to new hires from college), this meant an interview with a company executive—and he was confident about his interview skills, as well as the assorted roles he played in the group discussions. He had tirelessly researched the industry as well.

Only about a quarter of the applicants made it as far as the executive interview. Maou was among them, and by that point, he was sure he hadn’t made a single misstep. But they turned him down. They didn’t reveal their screening standards, of course, and they didn’t explain why they gave him a pass.

“Where did I go wrong…?”

Maou kept his moaning to a quiet murmur, so as not to wake up Camio. Griping wouldn’t accomplish anything. It wouldn’t change reality. But the experience of being rejected with a single thin sheet of paper hurt nonetheless.

“It’s been like this with everything lately.”

Things were not going the way he wanted.

That didn’t bother him if everything worked out successfully in the end, as it did with the Spear of Adramelechinus. But failing to earn a career-track job at MgRonald was a failure like none before.

“…I’ll need a bath before tomorrow’s shift.”

Having a dream he’d held close to his heart ever since his first shift at MgRonald crushed like this weighed heavily on the Devil King of another world. He lifted that heavy heart upward, coming to his feet. It was time to prepare for bed…but as he got up, he noticed that his futon was still laid out on the floor, instead of folded up and in the closet.

“Oh. I didn’t put it away this morning?”

He tried to remember, but the shock of receiving that rejection notice in the morning blurred his memory. Based on how unfolded and messy the comforter was, he must’ve left it that way.

“Ashiya would ream me for being so messy if he were here. I should get some sleep for now… Hmm?”

Then he noticed. There were no pillows.

“Hmmmm? Where are they? And my pajamas… Huh?”

If he’d woken up and left the room unattended this morning, both of those things should have been right in front of him. But they weren’t.

“Did I only put those away? Would I even do that?”

Maou frowned as he opened one of the closet doors.

“Oh, hey, you’re back.”

“Aaaah?!”

Hanzou Urushihara, Master of the Closet, was lying down in front of him. “Dude, what?” he spat, lowering his headphones as he eyed Maou, who had fallen on the floor in shock. “I’m not that surprising.”

“Yes, you are! If you’re home, say something! I thought you were a burglar!”

“Why would the Devil King be afraid of a burglar? And for the record, I didn’t notice you were home at all, either, and you don’t see me screaming.”

“Yeah, I kept quiet because I don’t want to wake up Camio! Besides, you didn’t hear anything because you had those headphones on… Wait, where’d you get those headphones?”

At the moment, Urushihara’s unannounced return to his closet when he shouldn’t be in Japan at all wasn’t as important as the wireless headphones he had on. His laptop was bathing the closet space in a pale-blue light.

“Oh, these? I got here this afternoon, so I ordered them same-day delivery from Jungle. They’re pretty good.”

“Wow, impulse shopping online? Just like the good old days! What the hell are you back here for anyway? Without even warning me!”

“What’s the big deal, dude? Things are pretty chill over there, now that we got the Spear. We rounded up most of the surviving demons on the Central Continent, and the Malebranche are keepin’ them all disciplined and stuff, so I thought I’d take a break and screw around over here for a bit.”

“I can’t believe you… Wait, what happened to the demonic force I stored in the closet?”

“Oh, yeah, it was takin’ up too much space, so I moved it out to the far end of the hallway. That’s why all the futon crap is out on the floor, by the way.”

“Do you have any goddamn common sense whatsoever?!”

Not only had he palmed off all of his Ente Isla responsibility on other people, but Urushihara had also committed the cardinal sin of using Maou’s credit card. But the rage bubbling within Maou was almost a welcome feeling for him. Nostalgia, perhaps, reminding him of who he truly was.

“…Chweep…ngh…”

And with all the shouting, nobody noticed that Camio had repositioned himself in his box a little. Still, he remained asleep.

Their united mission was to storm the blue moon orbiting Ente Isla and attack the angels that controlled the planet’s history from behind the scenes. Maou and company had signed up for this god-slaying struggle, which involved restoring Devil’s Castle on Ente Isla and launching it like a spaceship toward heaven. To do that, they needed four sacred relics—the Nothung, the Sorcery of the False Gold, the Spear of Adramelechinus, and the Astral Gem.

The Spear was their most recent find, discovered on Ente Isla’s Northern Island, where it served as a monument commemorating victory over the Devil King’s Army. Satan, the Devil King, and Emilia the Hero were leading this struggle, accompanied by a large group of allied humans and demons, but this alliance wasn’t the sort of thing that could be publicized to the world. If they seized the Spear by force, then whether they succeeded or not, they ran the risk of sowing the seeds for future wars.

Maou and Emi were the flag bearers for this effort, but there was nothing among the preparations they could contribute to, so they kept up with their jobs in Sasazuka. On the other hand, Suzuno Kamazuki, Laila, Albert, and Saint Aile’s General Rumack were all involved in the negotiations with Dhin Dhem Wurs, chief herder of the Northern Island and bearer of a Yesod fragment. A longtime acquaintance of Laila’s, Wurs understood the importance of this heavenly struggle and promised her cooperation in supplying the Spear to them. This was done in the midst of a zirga, a part-ceremony, part–sporting event to decide the next chief herder, and Chiho Sasaki posed as Wurs’s granddaughter to participate.

The (literally) trans-dimensional archery skills she showed off at the event’s climax, the Bowman’s Offering, astounded the crowd. Her arrow, supported by the lingering magic from the long-gone Adramelech, had summoned a spear of ice up from the ground. As it did, Suzuno and Laila had transported the real Spear of Adramelechinus away, while Malebranche chieftain Libicocco had used his illusionary skills to summon a living image of its namesake. The way average Northern Islanders heard it in the rumors, Adramelech had come back from the dead to fetch the spear he left behind.

Maou played no part of any of this, which irked him, but as far as he was concerned, all’s well that ends well. That just left the Astral Gem to track down.

Chiho, back in Japan after her now-legendary actions in Ente Isla, later discovered a seriously wounded Camio in her front yard, bereft of his magic force and back in chicken mode. The guardian angel Camael was hot on his heels, wielding his three-pronged spear and ready to tear down the Sasaki family house with it, but the day was saved by Amane Ohguro, part of the Sephirot on Earth. Everyone was safe, but the ordeal put a pall on the whole relic search that still hadn’t cleared out.

It certainly made for an exciting start to March, as winter slowly slipped away from the Tokyo landscape.

“So what, dude? I know you look pretty down and all, but did that one-page rejection letter really depress you that much?”

Maou was seated on the floor, listening to Urushihara’s quiet lecturing from the closet.

“I almost wish that was the case, but that’s not the only thing I got going on tonight…”

“What, there’s more? Something else that could make the Devil King mope like a baby?”

“Shut up. It’s been like a one-two punch for me, okay?”

“Huhhh?”

Urushihara naturally knew about the career aspirations Maou had since he came to Japan. He could understand that kind of rejection taking the wind out of his sails. But he couldn’t think of anything else that could bring him down so hard.

“Look, don’t tell anyone yet, okay? Not that you have anyone you could tell, except Emi and Chi, but…”

Maou heaved a sigh. “Kisaki’s getting transferred.”

“Ohhh.”

“…‘Ohhh’? That’s all you’ve got to say??”

In a way, the news that Hatagaya Station MgRonald manager Mayumi Kisaki had received a transfer order sucker-punched Maou even more than his rejection had. It was akin to removing the very backbone of that MgRonald location. That was why Urushihara’s reaction—going beyond indifference and well into the realm of spite—sincerely annoyed Maou.

“That sort of thing happens all the time, dude,” he offered nonchalantly. “Staff get moved around in chain restaurants a ton, don’t they? Plus, I dunno Kisaki, but she’s supposed to be really talented, right? If she’s worked there long enough, maybe at this point she’s gonna get automatically promoted.”

Maou watched, mouth agape, as the still-disinterested Urushihara snorted at him.

“Why’re you looking at me like that, man?”

“Uh, no,” replied Maou, “I’m just surprised at how right you are, even though you almost never do any work.”

“I’ll be expecting an apology, dude, once you see how hard I’m workin’ in Ente Isla. I think a ten-thousand-yen Jungle gift card’ll help me forgive you.”

The fallen angel’s consumer-minded bribery aside, Kisaki’s situation was a common one. She’d said so herself; if anything, it was odd that she hadn’t been moved from the Hatagaya Station outlet until now. Their MgRonald was once on the smaller side, compared to the average location, and its revenues were commensurate with that when Kisaki joined. But with her at the helm, sales had continually risen year after year—and they had even expanded into the second floor of the building they rented. That was why their location was almost always picked for pilot projects like the café and the delivery system—because Kisaki and the crew she trained always gave the company solid results.

“I must’ve done too well. The higher-ups had their eye on me…in a good and a bad way.”

Kisaki swirled the ice in her glass of oolong tea around and snickered.

“Had their eye on you…?”

Kisaki would transfer out at the end of the fiscal year—by April 1. Maou was too shocked to offer much besides that instinctual reaction.

“In a good way, because it meant a big promotion to me. Do you remember my old friend who tried to start stuff with me at our location?”

If it was a “big promotion,” Kisaki didn’t seem so happy about it.

“Yeah, Tanaka from Sentucky. How could I forget?”

Himeko Tanaka was both an area manager for Sentucky Fried Chicken and Kisaki’s childhood friend. That made her the boss of Mitsuki Sarue, aka Sariel the archangel—a business rival of Maou’s in two separate ways.

“In terms of job ranking, this is gonna leapfrog me right past her. Not that it means much more of a paycheck in this industry, but it’s gonna change the job title on my business card to something fancy-sounding.”

Himeko and Kisaki were dyed-in-the-wool rivals for all time. They had known each other since they were children, but neither would dare use the term friend to refer to their current relationship. If they were in the same room, the slightest provocation could result in a knock-down-drag-out between the two of them. But again, if Kisaki was now ahead of her on the career track, she didn’t look at all excited about it.

“So what about in a bad way?”

“I’ll stop being involved with day-to-day restaurant operations. I’m not going to some other location or area. I’m joining the Consumer Insight Team.”

“The Consumer Insight Team?!”

The term was invented for the advertising industry toward the end of the twentieth century. Now, it was an indispensable concept when building diverse relationships with businesses and consumers, in every aspect of corporate management.

While marketing and planning work would sometimes get mixed in with consumer insight at a company, the essence of the term actually referred to something earlier on in the business process: Basically, in the real world, sometimes a good product doesn’t sell well, while the most popular products aren’t always the best ones. You might find true gems among unpopular products, or you might find that products that were no good to start out with later had improved in quality.

There were exceptions, of course, but in the long run, it was a given in any industry that if a product was vastly superior to the competition, it’d likely gain massive support in the market. But that didn’t mean all the companies in the world should just develop one excellent product and sell that for all time. In a capitalist society, a company was obligated to pursue profits—but outside of that ironclad rule, the fundamentals of business management were rapidly changing.

Toward that end, the job of a consumer insight department was to research the hooks that connected a company to a customer in an age when mass marketing was gradually waning as a force in advertising, then feed those hooks back into every aspect of the company and indirectly contribute to its bottom line. Such hooks could be more than just things like product quality and price; for example, a company being mired in scandal could affect consumers’ purchasing decisions. If the firm took it seriously and held a press conference to apologize, consumers might become anxious and stop buying the product, which hurt profits. On the other hand, if PR execs running official social media accounts picked humorous fights with rival companies online, it could spread like wildfire and often improve the company’s brand image. A good consumer insight team analyzed these trends and fed their findings into the company’s operations across the board.

Their actual work wasn’t that simple, of course, but basically, Kisaki’s new department continually researched which products, ads, behaviors, aspects, attitudes, or strategies either attracted consumer eyeballs or made them turn away.

As someone who underwent managerial training, Maou naturally had the MgRonald organizational chart memorized. Thanks to that knowledge, he knew that a promotion from a store manager to the Consumer Insight Team was all but unimaginable. That was why he was so shocked.

“We’ve done a lot at our location, you know?”

“Yeah. The café and deliveries, one after the other.”

“So I guess they liked what they saw. Plus, I bet they want to get some on-the-field data from me. The sites I’ve run are near the top of the company in both sales and crew retention. Hatagaya Station, in particular, is just off the charts. Our new features were hitting their sales goals in half the time we were projected to.”

Maou knew that. It came up in their business meetings.

“The Consumer Insight Team is still kind of in the experimental phase. It’s pretty new, and most of the staff are on the younger side. It’s led by a woman in her forties, and they’re trying to get as many people as they can. Normally, I’d be promoted to an area manager, but that team plucked me up instead… Hey, eat up, okay? I’m gonna be pretty much bragging for the next little while. It’s gonna get uncomfortable fast if you don’t eat on my dime.”

“Oh, sorry. Thanks. Um, oolong tea… No, I mean jasmine tea.”

Maou was so caught up in the conversation that he barely even noticed the assorted fried appetizers on the table. Realizing his nerves were making him thirsty, he ordered a refill on his tea.

“I guess you don’t drink, either, huh, Marko? I remember someone telling me that.”

“Either?”

“Aki and Kawacchi don’t drink, usually. Not that they can’t, but they choose not to.”

“Well, maybe there’s just nothing they want to drink that bad when they’re going out. Like, the stuff they like is expensive or whatever.”

“That was kind of how Kawacchi put it, yeah. Of course, he’s got that motorcycle, so I’m sure that’s where he puts a lot of his money.”

“But you don’t drink that much, either, do you, Ms. Kisaki?”

“Mm… Well, like Himeko said that one time, it makes my face all red almost immediately. Plus, if I drink tonight, I have a feeling I’m gonna spend all night bitching about my life.”

She did describe this as a “whining” session earlier. For the time being, it still sounded like her bragging about a big promotion. She worked hard, delivered results, and got picked for a strategic-planning position from the front lines. And while she downplayed how much more her paycheck would be, there had to be some kind of raise. But she still seemed reluctant about it.

“So,” Kisaki said suddenly as Maou thought that over, “what do you think of consumer insight?”

“I don’t think it fits you.”

This brutally honest appraisal made Kisaki do something she never, ever did on the clock—laugh uproariously.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Right? You’re totally right! This doesn’t fit me at all. I mean, it’s not like the team is ‘Ohh, consumer insight, consumer insight’ all day. They do some on-the-ground stuff, too. But like…”

“You don’t like not seeing your customers’ faces.”

“Right! Exactly!”

She might not have been drinking, but Kisaki was still acting pretty intense.

Maou never asked her directly, but Kisaki was twenty-seven or twenty-eight this year. In Japan’s business culture, that was still considered young. And given how aloof and detached she acted at his workplace, Maou felt like he was getting a taste of Kisaki actually acting her age.

“When I first heard about this, I didn’t think I was suited for it. Like, HR must think I am or else none of this would be happening, so I’m not gonna say ‘No way,’ but…”

Thinking you’re unsuited for something was much different from actually being unsuited for it. Kisaki understood that. That must have been why she had that ambiguous expression.

“And I knew this was coming, but now that I’m actually going to be in that position, of course that’s gonna make me start to think about it again.”

“Think about what?”

“You know. I told you about my dream, didn’t I?”

She hadn’t been secretive about it. She had told Maou, Chiba, Emi, and even Sarue about her dream of running her own place—a café and bar, in the Italian tradition.

“I like being on the floor…but as much as I wanted to deny it, that’s just not enough. I think this is a necessary step on the way to that dream.”

“A necessary step?”

He never thought he’d see that emotion from Kisaki. But it was clear as day on her face—her anxiety for the future.

“Ugghh! Why can’t we just have a world where you make nice things, and people buy lots of them, and that’s it, Marko?”

“Huh? Um…”

“Marko! Which do you like more on your yakitori? Sauce or salt?”

“Uh? S-sauce, I guess, if it’s one of the two.”

“I like salt!”

“Oh? Don’t you wind up tasting the salt a lot more than the chicken?”

“But that yakitori sauce is just a big sweetness bomb. Bad sauce can ruin chicken in a way bad salt never does.”

In the end, Kisaki used her powers as Maou’s boss to order…chicken wings, for some reason, in a sweet-and-salty sauce.

“See? It’s something so simple, and we can’t even agree on that! What does being ‘good’ even mean? What does ‘selling’ something even mean?!”

“…Well, I just hope these chicken wings turn out well. I’ve never had them prepared like this before.”

“Right! Right there! Encouraging consumers to challenge themselves with new things! With Japan in a deflationary period, what’s it take to sell stuff when people are so tight with their wallets? I think about it and think about it, and I come up with a solution and throw it out as all wrong three hours later. Can I ever go independent like this?”

They later engaged in a fiery debate over the chicken wings, but given the late hour, they didn’t speak in-depth about much else before going their separate ways.

“See you later, okay? I know I don’t have much time left here, but keep up the good work.”

Right up to the end, Kisaki didn’t even come close to mentioning Maou’s application results. But the way she chose to say good-bye still felt like an arrow through the heart.

“Oh, man, don’t talk to me about yakitori and chicken wings in the middle of the night. You’re making me hungry.”

“That’s the part you care about?”

“What else could I care about? It’s not like I’m emotionally attached to Kisaki or anything, my dude.”

This attachment, or lack thereof, was the classic reason why workplace complaints tended to fall on deaf ears at home.

“What?” Urushihara protested. “What do you want me to say, man?”

“At least prove to me you’re worth the headphones you got on. I dunno how much they cost, but if you can actually give me a little help, I can let it slide.”

“Oh? Wow. That’s a good deal. Ashiya would’ve whined about these to me for the next ten days.”

Maou’s face was turned away, but he could tell Urushihara was smiling.

“But you know, things never change. You should know most of all, Maou, that things don’t go the way they should in an ideal world. They sure haven’t for me.”

“Yeah, because you just mooch off everyone else.”

“Hey, being an unemployed bum doesn’t mean you’re happy about your life. If I had a situation where I could use my abilities, I’d quit this life in a flash. But that sort of thing just doesn’t come walkin’ along, and I don’t really feel like trying to make it come along. I don’t think I like it or anything, but that’s how I’m living.”

“You can at least try to act apologetic about it. If you don’t like it, act that way. You’re not convincing me at all.”

“If I acted all mopey, it’d just bring the energy down more. Don’t you see I’m doing this for you?”

“You really know how to drive me insane, you know that?”

“Sure. And actually, I was thinking I better say this to you sooner or later…”

Maou could sense Urushihara dangling his legs down from his perch in the closet.

“Maou, don’t you think you oughta quit with this Japan stuff soon? Is right now the time to be talking about Kisaki, or your ‘career’ or whatever you call it here?”

His voice was dead serious.

“I’m not criticizing His Honor, the Devil King, for this little side diversion he fell into after all the torment he went through, all right? But that’s all it really is. A diversion. A hobby. Do you really need a career-track job for your life to be complete, Maou?”

“…”

“And you know, living in Japan is fun. I wouldn’t mind keeping this apartment if it was a second home. And Chiho Sasaki and Rika Suzuki are…you know, I don’t mind talking with them. But c’mon, do you absolutely need any of it? It’s not gonna hurt anyone if you make Japan just someplace you send a New Year’s card to every year. So if you want me to advise you or whatever, I’d say it’s about time you went back to Ente Isla and started packing up your life here a little.”

“…”

“And that’s even more true if the reason you wanna stay involved with Japan is Chiho Sasaki or your boss or whatever. Because there’s at least a few other people you should probably focus more of your attention on right now, you know? Oh, but…”

Urushihara clapped his hands.

“You know, if you really don’t give a damn about Ente Isla any longer… Like, if you decided this is your main thing from now on, then fine. But you do give a damn, right?”

“…You really know how to twist the knife, don’t you?”

“You told me to.” Urushihara hopped out of the closet and crouched in front of the box Camio slept in. “’Cause beyond that, the only real obstacle is Emilia, isn’t it?”

“Don’t call her an obstacle. She’ll kill you.”

“Well, she is; let’s not lie to ourselves. We’re demons from the demon realms. Meanwhile, she’s still got Emeralda, and Rumack, and Albert, and Bell. In the end, do you think you’re gonna come to any kind of real understanding with them? You won’t. And in the not too distant future—like, within a year—this holding pattern you’re in is gonna come to a shuddering halt. That’s what you and Emilia decided on, isn’t it? That’s what killing Ignora’s gonna accomplish.”

Once they lost their common goal, and their common enemy, their split would come soon after. They never got along very well to start with. If their paths started to diverge, it wouldn’t take that much time for them to be at each other’s throats once more.

“And while I’m at it, lemme just say, ‘staying together for the kids’ only works for so long. The fact that I’m still alive is proof enough of that.”

Urushihara’s parents—Ignora and Satanael—were supposed to be pursuing the same dreams. But for one reason or the other, they broke it off…and in the end, they fought each other. And they had Lucifer, their flesh and blood, but it wasn’t enough to keep them together. Would Alas Ramus, “child” of Maou and Emi, function any better as a bond for them?

“Do you even remember when your parents split up?” Maou asked.

“No. Like I said, I barely remember anything. I’m not even sure I can tell you what they looked like. But in the end…I think it was Satanael who acted the most like a parent to me, really.”

“Like a parent?”

“I…think he saved my life? Probably.”

“You sound kinda unsure about it.”

“I told you, my dude, I don’t remember. Once Malacoda and his gang joined the Devil King’s Army, I started remembering things from, like, when we boarded Satan’s Ark for the first time. But it’s all, like, sense memory. It’s irritating. I don’t really remember anything—or maybe I wanted to forget about it. But in the end, I know I was with Satanael. And who’s it gonna be with Alas Ramus, huh?”

“I really don’t want to have a custody battle. The father almost never wins those in Japan.”

“Y’know, you really need to stop shoehorning the most important parts of your life into the framework of Japan and making a joke out of them.”

“Stuff it.”

“And how much time does old man Camio have left anyway? You should put his mind at ease already, you know.”

“I really don’t need you telling me that.” Maou got to his feet and stepped closer to Camio’s box. “If you were working soooo hard over in Ente Isla, then tell me this: Why did this happen to him? He was looking for the Astral Gem in the demon realms.”

“I dunno. Chances are, he found it, but then Camael stuck his spear in where it didn’t belong and whooped his ass. There are a few odd points about that, though.”

“Yeah.”

And as they watched the wizened old demon sleep in the cardboard box, they both said in unison:

““Fight against Camael, and you’ll never come back alive.””

Camael was a guardian angel from heaven. It was a given that he’d be at least as powerful as fellow guardian angel Gabriel. And before fusing with Acieth, Maou had no chance against Gabriel even in full demon mode. As old as he was, Camio was still incomparably more powerful than your average demon, but that still only made him a bit stronger than, say, a Malebranche chieftain. It was doubtful he and Camael knew each other. If such an overpowered angel came across Camio on the battlefield, he’d have no reason to spare the life of that old soldier. But why would he chase Camio all the way to Japan, get blocked by Amane Ohguro right when he was about to strike the final blow, then simply leave without further comment?

“The spear itself was Camael’s, right?” Maou asked.

“Probably. We’d know for sure if Camio would just open his eyes already—not that I can blame him. What did Amane and Chiho Sasaki say to you?”

“Neither of them actually saw Camael.”

“Hmm… What’s up with that?”

“Either way, we’re gonna have to be careful. I talked with Emi, and we agreed that she and Chi should share shifts as much as possible.”

“…”

It was hard to believe Maou would say that after the conversation they had just moments ago. Urushihara gave him an exasperated sneer.

“What, you got a problem with that?”

“Hey, if you wanna use her, then use her while you still can, dude.”

“Look, if you think I’m flying blind without thinking anything through, you’re wrong.”

“Sure, sure.”

“Hey—”

“We found three out of four Devil Overlord’s relics in no time flat. If heaven didn’t make any moves at all during that time—why not, I have no idea—but that’s a seriously lucky break. So we better be prepared for a slog finding this fourth one. It’ll make recovering the Spear look like a trip to the store.”

“At least it’ll be an easier slog for me to grasp this time…”

While they’d been searching for the Spear of Adramelechinus, they’d been obliged to keep careful tabs on the goings-on in the human world the whole time. Having Chiho’s courage be the single unifying factor in the plan’s success in the end—something Maou wasn’t privy to until it was practically about to begin—mentally exhausted him.

“With this one, if someone’s in our way, we kick their ass. Simple. And Acieth and I could whip a hundred Camaels all at once.”

“It’s not gonna be so easy. If you do fight him, where are you gonna do it? You don’t want to have a huge epic battle in Japan, do you? But there’s still a lot of people on the Central Continent who have no idea what’s going on. Whether you got Acieth or not, if you fight using your Devil King–level force, people are gonna start flooding in.”

“Maybe we could, like, set up a Gate to the south pole for it or something.”

“That’s a distressingly realistic-sounding idea, my dude. But I guess we’re at the point where we’ll need something like that, huh? And we’re thinking about Camael right now, but there’s still Raguel and a bunch of other annoying angels, too.”

“Gabriel hinted that heaven didn’t have that many useful pieces to work with. I wonder how true that is. He said there’s about five thousand total, but it’s not like they can all fight. Apart from you and the Heavenly Regiment guys, we’ve only really run into four of them—Sariel, Gabriel, Raguel, and Camael. That’s kind of weird, if you think about it… Hmm?”

The phone in Maou’s pocket vibrated.

“Pretty late to be receiving a text… Oh, Emi?”

“Sorry if you were sleeping,” began her text—an oddly thoughtful thing for her to say to him. “I’m probably overthinking things, but when you get up, look at these—” followed by two web links.

“Hey, Urushihara, this isn’t spam for a porn site or something, is it?”

“Huh?”

“Because it doesn’t read like Emi’s writing. At all.”

“I’m shocked she even texts you. I know I shouldn’t be at this point, but… Lemme see.”

Urushihara raised an eyebrow at the URLs.

“The top one’s a social media post—like, one of the photo-oriented ones. I think the bottom one’s some kind of news site. Neither’s gonna take you anywhere weird, I don’t think. She’s gonna bitch at you if you ignore her, so just open them.”

“Social media… Yeah, they asked me for my online handles and stuff during the job-training interviews. I told them I wasn’t on any, and they looked at me like I was insane.”

“Oh. I figured that’d reflect on you better with the company, but they rejected you anyway, huh? So what’re the links for?”

“Stop twisting the knife without warning me first, man. The first one is… Huh?”

Maou’s eyebrows slanted downward as he checked his screen.

“An alligator?”

“What?”

“It’s this post about how there’s an alligator on the loose somewhere in Shibuya.”

“Whaa? What’re you talking about? …Oh, whoa, you’re right.”

Urushihara, curious, had sidled next to him for a peek at the screen. But there was no other way to describe the photo. It was a night scene depicting some kind of large reptile from far away, with the caption Maou described.

“What’s the other URL?”

“Same thing. Looks more like a forum than a news site, but there are a few posts from people saying they saw an alligator in Shibuya.”

“Why would Emilia send you that?”

“How should I know? Can you use your computer to look this up? It’s annoying to do on this little phone…”

“One sec. ‘Shibuya,’ ‘alligator’… Yeah, it’s just bringing up random posts for the most part. I think it’s a fake, and people are trying to milk it for likes. I mean, dude, if this is a pic of an alligator, then it’s huge.”

Urushihara brought his laptop down from the closet. On the bigger screen, they could both see a mailbox-like object next to the crocodilian creature. Comparing their relative sizes, this gator was unlikely to fit in too many lakes in Japan.

“Is it fake? Isn’t that bad, if you spread fake stuff like this on the net? If there was an alligator this big in Shibuya, it’d be huge news.”

“A lot of people don’t think it’s bad at all. That’s the problem. But it’s weird…”

“Hmm?”

“Normally, if this was a onetime fake, maybe it’d get spread around a bunch, but that’s the last you’d hear about this. But look.”

Urushihara’s voice gradually grew more serious.

“Here’s a pic of the same alligator from a different angle…and a different poster.”

“So multiple people saw this?”

“Someone might have arranged these posts just to make it seem more believable, but… Hmm. Why don’t you try calling Emilia? Because if she thought it was alarming enough to tell you about—”

But before he could finish the sentence, Urushihara was cut short by the sensation of the Sasazuka air shuddering around them.

““?!””

“…Peep…”

Maou and Urushihara immediately looked up. It was far away, but they could feel it—the shock wave from an explosion. And not just any explosion.

“All right,” Maou said with urgency. “Urushihara, you keep watch over Camio in here. I’m gonna call Emi and go check this out.”

“Okay. I’ll let Ashiya and Bell know, too.”

“Thanks… Whoa?!”

“Huh?”

Then the front door, which they thought was locked, flew open, frightening both Maou and Urushihara.

“…Oh, Maou and the chicken are in here, huh?”

It was a slightly sleepy-eyed Amane Ohguro.

“And you’re back, too, Urushihara? Where’s Ashiya? Still over there, right? So what was that just now?”

“We don’t know,” Maou replied. “I was just about to go find out.”

“So it wasn’t you guys? Oh, this is the last thing I needed tonight! I was all snuggled up in bed and everything!”

Just as Maou exited the apartment, pushing the nagging Amane ahead of him, his phone rang. He didn’t bother checking the screen.

“Hi. I’m just about to go to the scene with Amane. You?”

“I’m flying to Chiho’s right now,” Emi replied. “Good thing it’s the middle of the night, at least.”

“Thanks. Talk to you later.”

“Yeah. You be careful, too.”

Maou tossed the phone back in his pocket and jumped out of Room 201.

“Was that Yusa?” Amane groggily asked on the way down the stairs.

“Yeah, she said she’s headed for Chi.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re staying in contact.”

“We need to. It helps.”

“Wow, all business with you, huh? …No time for idle chatter right now, though.”

She must have planned to poke more fun at Maou about that, but her face was already stiffening up when she said it.

“That’s in the direction of Yoyogi Park, isn’t it?”

Maou winced. The first alligator pic he saw seemed to have a lot of trees and grass, which was unusual for the cosmopolitan Shibuya ward. Everything was still far too unclear, but one thing was certain. The entire reason why Maou, Emi, and Amane were all outside—and why even Urushihara was willing to listen to his orders. The explosion had been a burst of demonic energy—but the only people on Earth who could even wield such power right now were Maou, Urushihara, and Camio.

“Can you fly?”

“I was about to ask you that.”

With a leap, they were both in the air, headed for the site of the blast.

“This isn’t your long-clawed demon lackey causing trouble again, is it?”

“If it is, I’m kicking him out of my force. Unfortunately, I’m imagining something a lot worse.”

Maou looked at Amane’s left hand. He heard she’d cut it pretty badly after stopping Camael’s spear, but it had nothing but a small bandage on it.

“Listen, it’s possible to use holy energy to create demonic energy inside the bodies of people on Earth.”

The angel Raguel had once sent off a probing blast of holy energy to search for Laila after she’d come to Japan, hiding it within broadcast TV signals. Chiho had received a direct hit from it, and the reaction had created demonic energy within her body and knocked her unconscious for a whole day.

“Right, like when Chiho was in the hospital? That sounded kind of rough.”

“There’s a chance we’ll run into an angel soon, and if there is, we better keep that in mind.”

“Ugh, I wish we could just go up there and kill all of ’em at once!”

“I’ll be happy to, if you want,” Maou replied to the unusually bloodthirsty Amane. “It’d make things easier for us, too.”

“Ah, don’t be stupid. That’ll just make it worse. Keep your Ente Isla problems in Ente Isla, please.”

This late at night, neither was shy about flying—Maou harnessing his demonic energy, and Amane just…floating there, being held up by neither holy nor demonic force. It reminded Maou once again that she was definitely not a normal human.

“Is that it?”

“I think so.”

There was a crater in a corner of Yoyogi Park, as if a small meteorite had hit the ground. The trees around it were on fire, and they were already starting to hear sirens in the distance. And the weirdest thing of all was the enormous creature in the middle of it. “Alligator” was the only real way to describe it, but it was far more gigantic than any alligator on Earth.

“Is that…a demon?”

It looked close enough to an alligator from far away, but between its horns, its fangs, and most of all its size, it was more like a previously undiscovered dinosaur species. Definitely not the kind of creature that could show up in the middle of Tokyo and not attract attention.

“Now what? The trains stopped running long ago, but it’s attracting more and more cars and people…”

Already, a decent-sized crowd was on the scene, keeping a polite distance as they gawked at the creature.

“Don’t they have anything better to do right now? …Let me blindfold them real quick.”

With a judgmental clicking of the tongue, he built a simple demonic barrier around him to cut off the crowd’s visual.

“How ’bout we off this guy while we still can right now?”

“Cool it, please. I want to know why something like this is here.”

“Well, it’s not from Earth. And this crater is unnatural, too. If we leave it be, it’s gonna kill someone.”

Amane’s eyes were as cold as ice. No, they had no idea what this thing was, and Maou had never seen a demon like it before. It was in the middle of the crater, looking around its surroundings and appearing incredibly lethal—and how was that crater made anyway?

“Sorry, but humans on Earth are always gonna take priority over creatures from another world with me.”

Maou scowled. There was nothing he could say or do to stop Amane.

““?!””

The alligator stared straight at the two of them, long snout opening wide, baring rows of sharp, pointy teeth at them.

“<A demonic-force barrier… Satan! Are you Satan?!>”

“…Huh?”

The voice, from deep inside his throat, was only understandable to Maou.

“<I was searching for you, Satan! That traitor Camuinica abandoned his duties and attempted to kill me! He must pay!>”

“M-me? Camui… What?”

“<Satan, Camuinica is colluding with the warrior Legoon! You must shore up your defenses! Where is Camuinica? Has he returned yet?!>”

“Does this demon have some business with you, Maou? I think the gator is looking at us.”

“Umm… He’s speaking demonic, yeah, but I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Who was Camuinica again? That name sounds familiar…”

But as Amane and Maou gave each other confused glances, they heard a weak voice behind them.

“C-Camuinica…is my father…peep…”

They whirled around to find a black chicken in the arms of Urushihara, the fallen angel spreading his wings wide to stay aloft and looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“Camio?!”

“<Ah! Camuinica! There you are!!>”

The alligator beneath them suddenly let out a roar of rage.

“<How dare you hide yourself all this time! Satan! That is a traitor before you!>”

“Uh, Camio, I’m assuming that when he says ‘Satan,’ he’s not talking about me, right?”

“Indeed, my liege. He speaks of Satan, the original Devil Overlord—in other words, the angel Satanael. It would also appear he has mistaken me for my father.”

“<Camuinica! I have gathered more demonic force in this land, and now I shall use it to send you to the afterlife! Prepare to die!>”

“Whoa, Maou, I think he’s gonna breathe something at us!” Amane warned. “I really don’t like how he’s acting!”

“He’s not that powerful. Here, get behind me, everyone—”

“<Die!!>”

“Whoa?!”

As Amane predicted, the alligator emitted some kind of energy beam from his mouth, aimed straight at the group. The attack was, fortunately, nothing worth losing sleep over. Maou had torn out of his apartment without replenishing his demonic energy at all, but one lift of his arm was still enough to make it vanish. But that wasn’t the problem.

“<Nh…nhhh…>”

The change was dramatic. The beam closed itself off, like turning a spigot—and like a deflated balloon, the alligator’s body started to shrink.

“<Argh… Gah…>”

In a few short seconds, the gigantic reptile had shrunk down to a somewhat plus-sized lizard.

“What was that?”

“It is the same behavior seen in my own species, sir,” Camio said. “His clan, the Lenbrellebelve, shrink in size whenever faced with great danger.”

“Lenbrellebelve?” exclaimed Urushihara. “Didn’t the Devil Overlord keep one of those?”

“You knew about that, Lucifer? Indeed, this is the lone survivor of the Lenbrellebelve species. Its final chieftain.”

“<Arghh… Camui…nica…>”

The exhausted lizard flipped on its back, limbs spread wide. They could tell it was alive, given the way its throat rhythmically breathed in and out, but that wasn’t where their attention was focused.

“What’s that on the guy’s throat?”

“I believe, Your Demonic Highness, that is the Astral Gem.”

“…Huh?”

Urushihara scowled. “I shoulda guessed.”

“Yes,” Camio said in a weak but shrill voice that seemed to thunder in Maou’s ears, “the jewel embedded in the body of Kinanna, chief of the Lenbrellebelve, is likely the final relic we seek.”

THE HERO REVEALS DEEP ANXIETIES ABOUT THE FUTURE

The morning after an enormous cryptid haunted Yoyogi Park, Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka enjoyed its largest audience in quite some time. The whole gang was there—Maou, Ashiya, Emi, Chiho, Suzuno, Amane, Laila, and even Villa Rosa landlord Miki Shiba. Alas Ramus, Acieth, and Erone were down in Room 101 watching TV with Nord, just in case their presence set off the lizard. Urushihara, meanwhile, was holed up inside the closet, given the changes to his hair color (and everything else) whenever Shiba came near him.

Maou, having gotten used to enjoying this room all by himself, frowned a bit at the sight. But that didn’t matter right now. Instead, all eyes were focused on a single point in the room.

“Mr. Maou?”

It was Shiba who spoke first, looking uncharacteristically concerned.

“You do know that your lease forbids pets, don’t you?”

“They’re not pets. Technically. Cut me some slack.”

That’s what you bring up first? thought everyone else, although they were too cowed to say it.

“I am sorry,” the crestfallen Camio said in his box. “If only I weren’t in this sad state of affairs…”

“No, no, my liege,” Ashiya said, giving the chicken a reassuring pat on the back. “If anything, Lord Camio, your normal form would present more problems for us here in Japan than this one.”

But everyone else was focused on the cage on the table, a cage crafted from holy energy that currently had a sleeping lizard curled up inside—a mere echo of the crocodilian monster of Yoyogi Park that Maou and Amane had seen last night.

Once the lizard demon pulled that shrinking act at the park, Amane and Maou remained up in the air, trying to figure out how to take him home with them without attracting attention. They ultimately decided to use Maou’s force to magically lift the inert, unresponsive creature up to them.

“My liege, you mustn’t!”

Camio’s pleading made Maou stop, but a little demonic force still launched itself off from his fingers. The effect was stark: In an instant, the lizard blew up to the size of a juvenile alligator. It didn’t wake it up, but the experiment proved that the monster had an uncanny ability to soak in demonic force.

“Maybe I can step in?”

Amane curled a finger upward. This time, the alligator’s body floated up without further incident.

“I can’t wait to see the tweets about this tomorrow. A cryptid appears in Yoyogi Park, only to die and ascend to heaven! And oh, all the witnesses!”

She seemed to be almost looking forward to it. Maou wasn’t. And the world didn’t even wait until tomorrow—by the time they got back home, Urushihara had tabs open of videos of the alligator lumbering around, the moment of the explosion, even the little guy bobbing around in the air before Amane hefted him into the air.

“I went through all the media I could find, but I didn’t see any that showed us, at least, so don’t worry about that. You can see a couple of vaguely human silhouettes in one or two of them, though. I guess that guy must’ve absorbed the demon-energy barrier you put up.”

“And you want me to ‘not worry’ about that? It sounds like I should worry about it a lot, actually!”

A tired-looking Maou placed a call to Emi. “We took care of everything, but now we got some other crap to deal with. You mind coming here to the apartment ASAP?” he asked.

“Sure, but what happened?”

“I know this isn’t really your wheelhouse, but I got no one else to turn to. Suzuno and Emeralda are in Ente Isla, and I dunno if I can wait forty minutes for them to get back here.”

“What about Chiho? Should I take her along?”

“No, that might make things worse. I’m here now with Urushihara, actually, but our hands are kind of tied at the moment. I’m being forced to ask Amane to take care of things.”

“Okay. I’ll be right there. All right, Chiho, I need to—”

Maou could hear her say something to Chiho before cutting the call off. He flipped his phone shut, then stared at it for a moment. “You know,” he muttered to himself, “Emi really isn’t that much of an obstacle these days, is she…?”

“So?”

It was Suzuno who spoke next, looking and sounding very peeved.

“Are you saying this reptile destroyed the backyard?”

“Um, pretty much.”

“What happened? Because depending on the answer to that, I will exact penance from you.”

Suzuno could likely be forgiven for her bad mood. The situation out back behind the Villa Rosa Sasazuka building wasn’t as bad as what they saw in Yoyogi Pak earlier, but there was still a deep gouge in the ground, and the concrete-block wall surrounding it was nearly collapsing in places. There used to be a nice little vegetable garden back there, the product of careful work on Suzuno’s part, but now it was just a big clump of distressed-looking soil.

“We can’t afford to let this guy taste any demonic energy at all,” Urushihara explained. “We didn’t know that at first, so when he woke up in here, he started freaking out. Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, I don’t even want to think about what’d happen if I still had that demonic force stored in my closet. We didn’t think the little guy would be such a menace, so… My bad.”

There was enough force in the closet to refill Maou’s demonic force to maximum, even in his full demon form. If a lizard that hungry for it chanced upon that stash and absorbed it, they’d have a lot more than a ruined vegetable garden on their hands. Urushihara’s banishing of the demon outside to secure more closet space for himself wound up saving them all by the narrowest of margins. For now, that force was being kept under careful guard at Shiba’s house.

“This was kind of my fault, too,” Amane added, looking a lot more despondent than usual. “It was totally out of control, and after we saw what he did in Yoyogi Park, I threw him out to the backyard before he could knock the whole apartment building down. I didn’t know you had a garden back there… Sorry.”

“Well…in that case…”

She sounded so apologetic—not at all her usual freewheeling self—that Suzuno couldn’t chide her that much. Besides, while she did set up the garden herself, she left the upkeep to Urushihara the majority of the time, and it was still new. Apart from the monetary loss, there wasn’t much real damage done.

“So what is this guy, then? If that stone on his neck is the Astral Gem, does that make this demon a relic of the Devil Overlord’s?”

Under bright light like this, it was clear that the stone buried in his throat was an integral part of its body, easily mistakable as a cousin of the horns, fangs, and claws that’d naturally grow on it.

“I really wish this demon wasn’t alive like this, but maybe you’re right. Look.” Laila pointed at the lizard’s neck.

His body was covered in dark reddish-brown scales, but his neck, and the area around the stone, exhibited a dazzling array of colors, sparkling in the natural sunlight like a rainbow necklace. It almost seemed too elegant of a touch for the rugged lizard trying to sleep.

“I thought,” Urushihara said from behind the closet door, “the Astral Gem was supposed to be on the Lenbrellebelve’s collar. That kind of looks like a collar, doesn’t it?”

“I wish it wasn’t,” Emi retorted, “in a lot of ways. Did Satanael do this?”

“I’m sorry,” said Laila, “I don’t know. I didn’t hear any details about the relics.”

Laila, Emi’s mother and someone around back when Satanael was still alive, was just as confused as the rest of them as she watched the lizard.

“So if this stone’s the Astral Gem,” a still-huffy Suzuno said, “what now? Are we going to rip it out of his throat? I imagine that would kill him.”

“Assuming that is even possible,” Ashiya reminded her. “Because if you put what Amane and Lord Camio said together, this is no regular demon. In case you forgot, Lord Camio is an arch-demon so powerful that Barbariccia and other Malebranche chieftains recognize him as my liege’s representative in the demon realms. Having a demon strong enough to give both him and an angel an even fight at the same time, running free in the demon realms like it apparently was… It is certainly a shock.”

It turned out that the great majority of Camio’s injuries were caused by this lizard—or to be exact, the Lenbrellebelve chief, Kinanna. In fact, it was likely Kinanna who threw Camael’s spear into Chiho’s room, after misidentifying Camio as his foe. If both he and Camio came to Japan at the same time, it was a miracle that Kinanna had remained undetected for as long as he had.

“As you saw,” Camio explained, “this Kinanna knows the name of Camuinica, my father. When I approached him to discuss the possible handover of the Astral Gem, he accused me of being Camuinica—and right then, that angel leaped toward Kinanna, trying to kill him for the same purpose. So he fought both of us back.”

“There’s nothing good about Camael, is there?” Laila muttered. Emi internally agreed with her.

“And as for why he grew so big in the park… Devil King, Alciel, that was likely your fault.”

“Huh?” “What?”

“That’s about where you guys first fell into Japan at, isn’t it?” Emi accused. “The demonic force that leaked out of your bodies here, after your final battle with me… It’s still lurking around, and now it’s causing us some serious trouble.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” Maou protested. Instead of answering him, Emi turned to Kinanna.

“Bell does have a point,” the Hero went on. “If we try to take the stone out of that thing when it’s so clearly a part of his body, no way he’s going to survive that. Are you okay with that? Because…I kind of had a traumatic moment like that once, and I really don’t want to kill the lizard if I can avoid it.”

“Ah, yes,” Suzuno whispered to herself. “There was that…”

“Well, yeah,” Maou added, “I don’t wanna kill him, either. That’s just wrong.”

Tiny lizard or not, this was a full-fledged demon. The Astral Gem was a must if Maou wanted to reach his goals and Ente Isla wanted lasting peace. But was it worth taking the life of this demon? Nobody was expecting to be asked to weigh the value of someone’s life like this. It made the air heavy around the apartment. Was it right to sacrifice a single life for the sake of many? It was a common question, but one that nobody could ever really answer, and now the strongest of humans and demons were seated together in silence, pondering it.

“Um, I have a question.”

It was Chiho who broke that silence, sitting toward the rear of the room and keeping quiet until now.

“Is that stone in his throat really the Astral Gem?”

““““Huh?””””

Everyone stared at her like she had gone mad. She realized her point was being misunderstood.

“Um, you’re all saying that the stone in, uh, ‘Kinanna’? His neck? …is the Astral Gem, but are you sure about that?”

“Sure…um, aren’t we?” Maou was about to brush the thought away, only to realize he couldn’t, exactly. He took another glance at Kinanna’s throat. “I mean, it looks that way. Like, the colors and the shape and its appearance.”

“But doesn’t the stone go up and down in size with Kinanna? Because if that’s the Astral Gem, then it’s really small.”

“Oh…”

Maou thoughtfully nodded. She had a point.

“I mean, I’ve only seen one other relic, but this just seems way too small compared to the Spear. I’m sure it’s super-powerful no matter what size it is, but I just think, you know, we should stop talking about killing him or pulling it out of him until we’re really sure that’s the Astral Gem.”

The room fell silent again, this time for different reasons.

“…What do you think of that, Camio? Because you were pretty confident it was the Astral Gem last night.”

“The legends speak of Kinanna…or peep, or the Lenbrellebelve serving as guardians of the Gem. And we have found nothing else that could possibly peep the Gem besides this.”

Camio seemed to be losing his confidence as well.

“Right,” Amane said. “We’ll have to wait for him to wake up…but depending on how that goes, we might have more than a ruined garden to think about. Can we do something about that hunk of demonic force you’re storing, Maou? Because if he sucks all that up, he’s gonna turn into the kind of lizard that smashes up Tokyo Tower and stomps all over government buildings.”

The tiny bit of telekinetic magic Maou tapped to lift his body up was enough to turn Kinanna into a large, vicious, garden-destroying monster. If that demon swallowed up a crystal of magic powerful enough to fully recharge Maou or Ashiya, it was hard to imagine what the results could be.

“Uh, Ashiya, you think you could maybe ferry that back to Ente Isla? Like, right now?”

“Yes, my liege. I have my concerns about leaving such a large store of energy over there as well, but we have little choice. I have to say, I was not expecting an obstacle like this right at the end of our search. I will tell the other leaders there about this, but I imagine we will need to regroup and reposition our strategy. My liege, what is your work schedule looking like?”

“I start in the afternoon today, so I still got some time. Tomorrow I’m there pretty much all day, so I can’t help you then.”

Amane rolled her eyes at Maou. “You’re going to work right now? Can’t you take time off? This is kind of urgent.”

The statement made nearly everyone there—Maou, Emi, Chiho, Ashiya, Urushihara, and Suzuno—realize they all assumed they’d have to figure something out with Camio and Kinanna while Maou was at work.

“His Demonic Highness is at a crucial point in his career, Amane.”

That was why Ashiya, who didn’t know better, was the first to reply to Amane, trying to offer an excuse to her.

“My liege is in the middle of managerial training. I believe his final interview and approval is coming up soon, but if he takes time off suddenly at such a vital moment, there is no telling how that may affect his evaluation.”

“…!”

“…Oh.”

“…”

Ashiya was so busy addressing Amane that he didn’t see the reactions from Maou, Urushihara, or Emi. Chiho and Suzuno noticed them instead. It made their eyebrows dart up a little.

“Regardless, Urushihara, I want you to guard Room 201 like before,” Ashiya said. “If something happens, take care of it. We will talk about tomorrow onward later on. Do you work today, too, Emilia?”

“…No. Chiho has today off, so I do, too.”

“Ah. In that case, you may help keep Ms. Sasaki safe should worse come to worst. And you, Bell…?”

“…I have to return to Ente Isla today as well, but I have some time to work with. I need to reinforce the cage we have Kinanna in. You can return ahead of me.”

The lizard’s cage naturally couldn’t be made of demonic energy, so Emi cast a couple of unfamiliar-to-her spells to construct it. But she was no expert, so it was left to Suzuno to complete the job.

“Very well. For now, it is crucial that we leave no demonic force around for Kinanna to absorb. Lucifer, my liege, do you have enough reserve left in you?”

“…Sure.”

“Yeah, dude, it’s not like that guy can suck it out of our bodies.”

“Then I will leave at once. Ms. Shiba, I apologize for always causing you trouble, but I promise we will make up for it at a later date. For now, I hope you will be lenient with Kinanna here.”

“No, no,” the landlord cheerfully replied, “no need to hurry.”

With their farewells taken care of, Ashiya joined Shiba to pick up the magic crystal at her house, Laila standing up to join them.

“I better go back, too. I need to check with Gabriel about how heaven’s reacting to the relics. Take care of your father for me, Emilia.”

“Yeah. All right.”

Mother and daughter waved at each other, the wall separating them quite a bit lower than it used to be.

Ten or so minutes later, the room was a little emptier than before, occupied by Maou, Chiho, Emi, Suzuno, Urushihara (now freed from his closet exile), Camio, and Kinanna.

“Uh, why’re you looking at me?” Maou asked, unable to hold eye contract with the female members of the audience. “Because I think Urushihara and I can handle things for today, but…”

Chiho, Emi, and Suzuno didn’t move a muscle. Seeing this, Maou sighed.

“All right. I give up. I told Urushihara last night, but—I got rejected for a managerial position.”

“What…?”

“Ah, was that what happened?”

“I kind of had a suspicion, yeah.”

“Wait. Chi and Suzuno didn’t know?”

Chiho looked honestly surprised, at a loss for words, and it seemed to be news to Suzuno as well. It wasn’t at all what Maou expected.

“I mean,” Chiho nervously ventured, “you’ve been acting a little different since yesterday…”

Suzuno averted her eyes. “It did seem like you were trying to hide something from Alciel, yes… But you have yet to break the news to him?”

“I can’t bring myself to…or maybe I feel sorry for him…or I just feel pathetic about it. Lots of stuff.”

He had always been a faithful Great Demon General, but ever since they came to Japan, Ashiya had been an anchor for everything Maou did, willing to sacrifice almost everything for the sake of his lord’s dreams. And now there was no reward Maou could offer him.

In a way, Ashiya was taking command in Ente Isla like he had in years past, overseeing field operations in a position roughly similar to Camio’s—all because Maou had his own “work” to attend to. But when it came time to storm heaven, he would doubtlessly leave the captain’s chair to Maou.

“I know he’s gonna find out anyway,” he explained. “I just thought, maybe, instead of telling him when all this crazy stuff is going on, I could apologize about it once things settle down.”

“Once things settle down when?” Emi groused.

Maou gave her a vague smile. “…Good question.”

He knew what the woman meant. Chiho, Suzuno, and Urushihara all knew what impact Maou’s failing to get salaried at MgRonald would have on his relationship with her.

“Your Demonic Highness,” Camio calmly stated, “things rarely work out exactly as one plans them. We, too, faced many trials and tribulations of our own, on our mission to conquer and unite the demon realms. Your actions in battle were so brazen, so unheard-of, that I cannot count the number of times I expected death to take me, churrr.”

He probably had no idea what MgRonald was, much less what being a manager of one entailed. But this old fighter understood well enough that his general had faced a punishing trial and was found wanting.

“Ba-kluk. But the Devil King I know would never give up after such a setback. You did not flee to this world following Emilia the Hero’s victory simply because you valued your own life too much to lose it, peep.”

“Can you not say that when the Hero’s right here, please?”

Emi couldn’t help but chuckle. Camio was starting to sound like an old man admonishing his grandson. But the sight of her loosening up helped ease the stress in the minds of Chiho, Suzuno, and Urushihara as well.

“Well, I don’t even know about that. When Emi and I were duking it out, it was intense. Even more than it was against Ashiya. I had my hands totally full.”

“…” “!”

Urushihara and Chiho knew what he meant by that. Emi and Suzuno let it slide.

“Ba-kluk. But even if the damage to your side grew over time, the Devil King I know always found ingenious measures to turn the tables and secure victory. So take heart. To you, my liege, the human race barely even registers as an enemy, peep.”

Nobody could say Camio was wrong. Not too long ago, Emi and Suzuno would’ve reflexively self-identified as his enemy. Now they stayed silent.

“For now, carry on with your regular efforts. Lucifer and I are keeping watch over Kinanna. And Emilia the Hero, Chiho Sasaki, and Crestia Bell… One moment— Peep?!”

“C-Camio?!”

He had tried to get out of the box by himself, only to lose his balance on the lip and crash to the floor. Chiho helped him up, and once he was back on his feet, he opened a wing and bowed deeply to the three women, just as he did at Ohguro-ya back in the summer.

“I am sure all of you have your grudges. Someday, we demons may clash swords with you humans yet again. But for now, for the sake of all who live and breathe on Ente Isla, I want everyone to help my lord through his hardships. This, I humbly ask of you…churrr.”

“C-Camio!” a flustered Chiho replied. “Lift your head back up! I’ve always been on Maou’s side!”

The thoroughly chastened Maou didn’t speak. Not even Camio’s interspersed peeping could provide relief from the hard truth. Maou’s representative from the demon realms, someone with no great attachment to Japan, had just bowed his head to humans. All he knew was that his lord, Satan, the Devil King, was faced with adversity, and that drove him to bow to his previous enemies.

“Lift your face, good Sir Camio.”

Suzuno took his wing. It seemed so natural of her that neither Maou, nor Emi, nor Chiho, nor Urushihara realized the historical importance of the moment. For the first time, Suzuno had addressed a demon with heartfelt respect.

“Humans and demons are enemies. But on the surface at least, Satan, the Devil King, is my military superior, and beyond that, my neighbor. On Earth, we say that a friend in need is a friend indeed. I cannot say what will happen after our conquest of heaven, but for now, Camio, I want to respect your innermost feelings.”

“I most peeply thank you,” the emotionally overcome Camio said.

Urushihara, gauging this, turned toward the others. “…Well?”

“I’m not getting caught up in this,” Emi stated.

“No?” He grinned. “And here I thought you would.”

“I am the Devil King’s enemy. Through and through.”

“Huh. Neat.”

“I wasn’t expecting any of that from you anyway. If you started sympathizing with me, I’d get utterly depressed.”

Urushihara and Maou had both nodded at her cold reaction. It was, if nothing else, in character.

Emi responded by lifting her eyebrows a little. “Right? This makes things easier for you, too, doesn’t it? So I’m fine with it.”

““…””

The two men gave her deer-in-headlights looks, while Chiho gave her a half-exasperated, half-impressed grin, and Suzuno just shrugged her disapproval. And Camio, watching it, lifted up the edges of his beak in a smile that none of the humans could have detected. Adramelech and Malacoda were gone, but now, Satan was gifted with close companions who were every bit their equals. Nothing could have made Camio more elated to see.

“But still,” Maou said, voice a little shaky as he attempted to refocus the conversation, “either way, we got a mountain of problems to deal with. In Ente Isla and in Japan. My managerial bid came and went, and there’s no point worrying about it now. But you two…”

“What?”

“Yes?”

“Emi, Chiho, I think I’m gonna have a lot of crap to deal with, as soon as today. I would’ve preferred if Kisaki could’ve told you herself, but you two are kind of special exceptions to me, so I’ll tell you while I still can.”

The revelation he had for them made Emi and Chiho tense up, for two different reasons. It even made Suzuno stare blankly at him.

“Ms. Kisaki’s going to be transferred at the start of the fiscal year. She’s gonna be leaving Hatagaya Station.”

“Is it me, or are things a lot quieter across the street?”

Maou couldn’t help but notice the lack of activity at the Sentucky Fried Chicken facing MgRonald as he parked Dullahan II at the bike rack.

What would its manager, Mitsuki Sarue—Sariel the archangel—do once he found out Kisaki would be moving on? Most likely, Maou reasoned, he would follow her. His passion and his knack for turning it into unwanted action were both intense. If the heavens were as dull and listless as Gabriel described them, it was a miracle he had retained such a stultifying and pushy attitude for so many eons. But Kisaki would have an HQ office job. If Sariel wanted to remain near her, he’d have to find a way to get into MgRonald, just as he did with Sentucky in the past.

The morning crew at MgRonald must have heard the news by now. I’ll need to share some info with them, Maou thought as he went through the employee entrance, and we’ll need to form a strategy to deal with Sarue’s inevitable storming of the dining room.

When he went in, he felt it.

“What’s this…feeling in the air…?”

It was like a heavy weight suddenly pressed upon his shoulders. He looked around, surprised. Akiko Ohki, noticing him, ran up.

“Ah! Maou! Over there!”

“What?”

Akiko pointed at what appeared, at first, to be a whirling coil of darkness. Maou focused on it. It revealed a single customer, seated at the far end of the table space. Just a single customer, but…

“Why is he here? And so worked up already?!”

It was indeed Mitsuki Sarue, and he was gaunt, haggard—a completely different person from the last time they’d spoken. His face resembled a weathered sheet of paper, liable to break apart into little pieces at the slightest prodding. If you let your eyes off of him for a moment, he looked ready to sink through the floor and into the underworld, perhaps taking an unlucky soul or two with him.

“So you knew about Ms. Kisaki getting transferred, Maou?”

That had to be it. Akiko and the crew would know, of course, but how had Sariel sniffed it out so quickly? Did he really know? But if not, what else would make him so depressed?

“Is Ms. Kisaki in here?”

“She came in to tell everyone but then went to the home office for a managerial meeting. She said she’d be back around three or so. But um, about Mr. Sarue…”

What Maou heard next made him doubt his ears.

“She told him?!”

“Rrwwww!”

A groan like the wailing of the dead welled up from the darkness in the corner. Maou and Akiko ignored it.

“I was so surprised, too! But I guess she had a reason to… Like, she said she wanted to do it herself, but she told one of the Sentucky crewmembers instead of telling him directly. She did it that way because there’s this part-timer who apparently knows how to handle Sarue really well, so that’s probably how he found out.”

Someone knows how to handle Sarue? They must have a heart of iron. Maou never heard of the person before, but if they had an employee who could navigate Sariel and live to tell the tale, he really wanted to chat sometime.

“Ms. Kisaki said it’s better to just lay down the law with him early on instead of having him explode afterward, but…”

“‘Laying down the law’ could kill him. If anything goes wrong with this…”

“Yeah. She gave the crew permission to keep their phones on them at all times for today. The office phone is kind of far away, you know, if…stuff happens.”

It was martial law at MgRonald. Nobody could predict what kind of bizarre, perhaps criminal behavior Sarue would engage in once he learned the truth. But in a way, Maou was surprised. If Kisaki was really leaving, he assumed Sarue would be constantly nagging everyone related to her, hoping for some kind of an in. But if he was acting all shocked like this, it at least meant he was in the process of parsing his new normal—a reality where he’d have to be away from Kisaki. (Not that they were “close,” exactly, but still.)

For the time being, it was safe for the crew to assume that the chair in the corner would not be available to other customers the rest of the day. Even if Sarue left, the residual accursed miasma surrounding him might put a hex on whoever sat there next.

“Um, okay. Let me clock in first, and then we’ll talk.”

“Oh, sorry. But yeah, he’s been in here for almost two hours without even lifting a finger, so I think we’re good, but…”

He’s already been like that for two hours? The sheer devotion struck Maou as simply ridiculous. So he changed the subject, his voice casual.

“By the way, Aki, they turned me down for a manager job.”

Akiko’s eyes widened in surprise. “What? They did?! If they turned you down, who would they possibly say yes to?!”

“I dunno. Nobody else I interacted with during the testing got accepted.”

Come to think of it, Ms. Kusuda, the woman who’d met Maou during the seminar and given him chocolate for Valentine’s Day, had been crossed off at the third round of testing. Nitta, the guy who’d tried to get a party going for the whole crew, was rejected in the final interview, along with Maou. He had chatted with a number of other applicants during the process, but he wasn’t friendly enough with any of them to ask how things had turned out for them afterward.

“Wow… I mean, really…? Now I’m starting to worry.”

“What for?”

“I’m gonna graduate from college next year, so I need to start looking for a full-time job, like Kota. But really, I thought the restaurant business was gonna be easier than this. I figured it’d be a breeze as long as I wasn’t too picky…but if you think about it, there’s no way I could perform like Ms. Kisaki. I feel kind of stupid now, you know? But…wow, they’d reject someone as top-performing as you?”

“I guess. They didn’t tell me why or anything. So I’m gonna be working here like normal past March, after all.”

“Oh. Well, if you aren’t leaving, then no offense, but that’s great for us, so…” Akiko sighed. “When I didn’t get into college the first time around and took a year off to study, my parents got insanely strict with me. And I know it was my fault and stuff, but… Man, if I have to repeat a year or can’t find a job, my mother’s totally gonna kill me. How can I be more like Kisaki, I wonder…?”

“Nobody can be totally like her. Hey, I gotta change real quick, okay?”

“Ahh, sorry. I’ll leave you alone. But don’t feel too down, okay? The seniors in my classes told me to expect an avalanche of rejection letters, so…”

Akiko, who had unconsciously followed Maou into the staff room, excused herself.

“Finding steady work’s hard for everyone, I guess. I wonder if Kota’s having a hard time…?”

Maou recalled Kotaro Nakayama, another MgRonald long-termer who’d quit a short while ago. College students in Japan generally joined the work-recruitment process at the end of their junior year, in the winter and spring, and Kotaro left MgRonald so he could focus on it. Maou knew it was an arduous process, one in which a student may file applications with dozens, even hundreds of firms.

“I’m sure Kota would laugh at me if he saw me all depressed about this. That or yell at me.”

Maou had been rejected by exactly one company. Why was he so confident, so self-assured, that he’d get his shot with the exact job he wanted and nail it on the first try? Up until now, that kind of luck almost never happened to him. Being rejected wasn’t exactly fun, but the shock had subsided quite a bit. There was no rule prohibiting him from applying again, and there were a million companies besides MgRonald out there.

Compared to Akiko’s or Kawata’s or Kotaro’s, Maou’s résumé—consisting of no college education and a long stream of part-time jobs—didn’t do him many favors. But Maou almost never started something with a decisive advantage. He usually faced adversity the whole way; none of it could be described as smooth sailing, at least not until he had almost finished conquering the demon realms.

“I’ve really gotten soft, haven’t I? If I can’t power my way through something, it really beats on me mentally.”

Whether conquering the demon realms or invading Ente Isla, in the end, it mostly came down to forcing his will on others with his powers. Applying for a managerial post was another story. It involved trying to win someone’s trust through nothing but words and actions.

“I hope I can be patient with this.”

Only with that pep talk did Maou find it in him to assume the guise of Sadao Maou, A-class MgRonald crewmember.

No matter what Urushihara said, Maou felt—for wholly different reasons from before—that working his way up in human society would play a vital role in his future as the Devil King. He could only reveal why to a select few people, but not long from now, he was positive the effort would pay off. He had talked about it with Ashiya many times before; he’d never mentioned it to Urushihara, since he was so chatty and inconsiderate that there was no telling when he’d blab about it. Emi, Suzuno, and Emeralda in particular couldn’t be let in on it until there was no turning back.

That was why, for now, he had to give everything he could to his work.

“Right. First, let’s deal with Sariel. Next I gotta reinspect all the spots I didn’t get around to yesterday, and then…”

He pulled his visor down a little and opened the staff room door. Sariel—the first thing to “deal with”—was still in the corner, wavering in the air like a ghoul from some occult hot spot. Striking up a conversation would be ill-advised; until he did something on his own volition, it was better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Things proceeded smoothly all morning, until the AM crew left after the lunch rush. Everyone was thoroughly ignoring the ghoul in the corner; the regulars took one look at him and assumed he did something to piss off Kisaki yet again. But then, around two PM, when Maou happened to be running downstairs from the café space:

“Are you still feeling sorry for yourself in here?! Hurry up and get back to work already! Do you want me to tell Ms. Tanaka about this?! Ms. Kisaki’s never gonna talk to you again!”

It was a loud, confident-looking woman in a Sentucky uniform. Maou stared wide-eyed at her; she gave him a nod, stepped up to the ghoul, and pulled him away from the darkness.

“And can you please stop using that chair long after you’re done eating? You’re embarrassing me!”

The wraith let the young woman drag him by the collar, along the floor and toward Maou.

“Are you Mr. Maou, the shift supervisor?”

“Yes ma’am…”

“I apologize that Sarue’s being such an annoyance to you. My name’s Kanako Furuya, and I’m a shift supervisor at Sentucky across the street.”

Her eyes, framed by her neatly cut short hair, left an immediate impression. She was clearly strong-willed—and she had to be, or else she wouldn’t be manhandling the worn-out husk of Sariel with a single hand. In terms of her purification skills, and in terms of being broad-hearted enough to accept someone with Sariel’s personality in her life, she had a bright future ahead as a cleric in Ente Isla’s Church bureaucracy.

“Ms. Kisaki told me about her transfer, and I tried to give him the news as easy as I could, but I guess it was just too much of a shock for the man… I apologize for having him occupy your dining space for so long.”

“N-no, um, Mr. Sarue is a valued customer of ours…”

“Well, I appreciate you saying that. We all do.”

Furuya looked exasperated but not at all exhausted. A very strong woman, no doubt. Otherwise, she’d never be able to work under such a moody manager.

“Whew! Finally, Kana to the rescue!”

Akiko, running up to Maou, breathed a sigh of relief.

“Oh, hello, Ms. Ohki. I’m sorry I have to keep fetching my good-for-nothing manager.”

“It’s all right. We’re all used to it by now!”

Akiko and Furuya must have known each other. They said their good-byes, Akiko giving her a flurry of polite bows as she dragged her boss off.

“Well,” Akiko said when Maou asked about their connection, “Kawacchi and I were run pretty ragged during Valentine’s Day, and she was kind of like our war buddy in the trenches.”

On Valentine’s, Maou had been out in managerial training, and Chiho had been too preoccupied with the zirga over on Ente Isla to pay much attention to her work. Sariel was undoubtedly acting like a maniac on that day, fully expecting Kisaki to give him chocolate.

“You know, I actually didn’t hear much about how that day turned out. Anything rough?”

“I was expecting the worst, kinda, but Kisaki did her duty and gave Sarue a little bit of chocolate out of duty’s sake, so it was all good.”

“Kisaki gave Sariel chocolate?!”

It surprised Maou so much that he accidentally used Sarue’s real name, but he spoke it so fast that Akiko failed to notice.

“Ha-ha-ha! Chiho had the same reaction. I could hardly believe it myself!” Akiko looked toward the entrance Kanako just dragged Sariel through and snickered. “I have no idea what kind of unlucky star Sarue was born under, you know? Just a bit ago, he was going around like a Buddhist priest who found enlightenment or something, and now it’s like he’s a vengeful spirit from hell.”

Maou could imagine how the sugary gift would be like achieving nirvana for Sariel. But an angel going from nirvana to the deepest pits of hell was quite a transformation. Which hell that would be—Earth’s or somewhere else’s—was a topic up for debate, however.

“What a pain,” he blurted out.

“Yeah, but at least Kana came to pick him up. Let me cleanse the evil spirits real quick.”

Akiko took up a duster and some alcohol to clean Sariel’s table. Right when she was about wrapped up, Kisaki emerged from the staff room, warily eyeing the dining space.

“Did he show up? Or is he gone already?”

“Good afternoon, Ms. Kisaki!”

“Hey there, Marko. Anything happen here?”

Maou didn’t know if Kisaki could sense the undead or not, but she must have had an inkling, at least. She gave Sariel’s seat a perplexed look, then turned back to him.

“All clear, then?”

“…Yes.”

He didn’t need to have Kisaki spell out her intent. If anything, he felt a little awkward about replying. It implied that she knew a lot more about Kisaki than he intended to let on.

“Well, good job, Marko. I was expecting it to take longer, but you put your foot down, huh?”

“We have to, or else we’ll never get anywhere with him.”

“No, you sure won’t. You’re right.” Kisaki cracked her neck, looking fatigued as she surveyed the space. “With most things in this world, if you keep sweating the small stuff, you’ll never get anywhere… Sorry to ask you again, but you wanna hang out for a quick dinner again after work today?”

“Sure, I’d be—”

He’d be happy to, but then his memory reminded him of something. He had some serious issues left unresolved at home. If anything, he really needed to get over there early this evening.

“…Oh, um, I’m sorry, but I need to be home ASAP tonight.”

“Oh? Sure, that’s fine. It’s nothing urgent anyway. Next time! But if Sarue was in here, how’re our afternoon sales?”

Kisaki sprang right back into business mode—but Maou couldn’t begin to guess why Kisaki was inviting him out after work two days in a row. His mind pondered it for a while after, distracting him from work. After all, the next time he could accept that invite—or any invite, really—depended on the lizard in his apartment.

“Kind of dark out, huh?”

The sky, as seen out the front windows from inside the shuttered dining space, did indeed look unusually dark. It couldn’t have been Sariel turning Sentucky across the street into an undead house of horrors, but when Maou went outside, he found the night sky starless and the temperature unseasonably cold.

“I guess we’ll still see some cold nights for a while, huh? Better head right home after I wrap— Aaaahhhhhh?!”

As he shut off the automatic doors and stepped out to take all the outdoor displays in, Maou was spooked by a dark presence crouching in the shadows.

“What is it, Marko?!” Kisaki shouted from inside.

“Um, n-nothing! I just tripped on something!”

“Oh! Well, be careful!”

“Okay! …What are you doing down there?”

Maou was still in a cold sweat as he bent down and spoke to the presence.

“…I’m cold.”

“Yeah, I bet. You still need a coat if you go out in Tokyo in March. How long have you been there?”

It was Sariel, of course, in his street clothes and on his knees in front of a row of plants by the MgRonald entrance.

“I finished closing just now, and um, the moment I left Sentucky, my legs gave out on me.”

At least he kept up with his work duties, Maou thought.

“Wow. I guess you’ll just have to freeze to death within the hour, then.” His gaze narrowed pointedly. “You weren’t planning to ambush Ms. Kisaki, were you?”

“Of course not. If I wanted to ambush her, I’d stake out the staff entrance.”

He may have been rotten to the core, but he was still coolheaded enough to just barely avoid committing any crimes. Maou wondered how he did it.

“I finished the workday in utter despair. When I left, the lights of MgRonald looked so warm and inviting. The happy times I’ve spent here floated to my mind before disappearing, so fleeting…and then they would come back, again and again. And as I marveled at this, I found myself unable to move an inch.”

“Can you just go home, please? I know you live close to here. If you freeze to death in front of our entrance, that goes way past just annoying all of us, y’know.”

Sariel was starting to sound like the fairy-tale Little Match Girl. Giving him attention would delay his store-closing duties. Thus, Maou paid him no further mind, making sure to lock the automatic doors once he was back outside.

“Ahh… God…heaven…Earth mother… Whatever should I do…?”

Maou put his hands to his ears, shutting out the weak whisper leaking through just before the doors shut for good.

“…Was that Sarue out there?” Kisaki asked with a grin.

“Yeah. He was going on like the Little Match Girl.”

“Oh. Well, if he’s gonna freeze to death, can you tell him to do it somewhere else?”

Hans Christian Andersen would likely be aghast, but the two of them continued their work without further comment on Sariel. When they left through the back door, all that greeted them were the sights of the city at night. The presence was gone from the front as well; he must have left in the last ten or fifteen minutes.

Once she was sure Sarue was gone, Kisaki gave Maou a malcontented sniff.

“Hmph. You know, I always thought he was a weak man.”

“Pardon?”

“Ah, never mind. Good work today. See you later.”

“Um, sure. You too.”

So Kisaki headed home, not looking particularly scared of Sarue or even particularly tired after a full day of work. Maou watched her for a moment…and then it struck him. As long as he didn’t get violent, Sariel really didn’t matter. He really did need to get home fast, or else he’d put unneeded stress on Urushihara and Camio—and most importantly of all, perhaps even anger their landlord.

Hopping on Dullahan II, Maou pedaled as fast as he could back to the apartment. But when he raced up the stairs and opened the door to Room 201, he just stood there blankly.

“What in the…hell…?”

It was no longer the room he had left that morning.

The morning sun that came a scant few hours later literally exposed the travesty of it all in broad daylight.

The sliding screens were a twisted mess, the paper completely torn off the smashed-up frames. The tatami-mat floor was scratched and mangled beyond repair. More claw and teeth marks were on the wood supports. The curtains were ripped off the wall and pulverized. It was no longer the Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka Emi and Chiho knew.

“What…happened here?”

“Maou?! Urushihara?! Camio?! Are you okay?!”

The room’s occupants were roughly similar to that of the room itself. The three sat blankly on the floor in a semi-conscious daze. They were surrounding Kinanna, who was loudly snoring in the middle of the room.

“Uh, sorry it’s a little untidy in here.”

“N-no, um, but what happened?”

“He ate it.”

“He ate it? Ate what?”

“This lizard freak of nature ate my apartment.”

““What?!””

Emi and Chiho couldn’t believe it. It looked like a squad of ten cats had spent the past week doing their worst to the room without rest.

“By the time I got back last night, it was already like this. Urushihara and Camio couldn’t do a thing about it, but we couldn’t kick him outside unattended, and with what happened to the room, we hesitated contacting Amane or the landlord…and the next thing I knew…it was morning.”

“W-wait a minute. So that lizard did all this? Uh, he chewed up your closet and the curtains and everything?!”

“Y-y-y-yup…”

“I thought demons didn’t need to eat.”

“You’d…think so, but…”

“I suppose Kinanna’s species demonstrates his anger by chewing and devouring things…peep. I have dealt with a large number of demon species, but I have peep rarely seen one like this…”

“Thank God he doesn’t eat plastic. The dude was trying to eat my computer…”

Upon closer inspection, the sleeves and hems on Urushihara’s clothing had bite-sized holes in them. He must have spent the past night gallantly defending his closet territory.

“So he’s sleeping now?”

“We caught him. My little trick.”

“Trick?”

“Oh, you mean…”

“…Yeah. That.”

Chiho guessed it first. She recalled, during Camael’s attack on Sasahata North High School, how Urushihara had cast a holy-magic spell that sealed off every door and window in the school complex.

“So he’s all better now?”

“Hell no. He broke right through the barrier Emilia and Bell made for him. All my trick does is buy us some more time. Before he fell asleep, he ordered us to find something tastier for him to eat. He’s just toying with us, dude.”

“Oh… I see…”

Emi and Chiho were still standing at the front door, taken aback at the sheer scope of the destruction. Maou was too busy agonizing over the situation to invite them in.

“Now, this isn’t gonna kill me or anything, but— How the hell are we gonna explain this to the landlord? We already know she charges for every little thing…” he muttered.

“Wait, hang on, Maou! Didn’t you repair the Shuto Expressway when it was falling down? Fixing up a room like this ought to be a snap for you!” Chiho suggested.

She was awfully excited about the idea. Maou, sadly, was not.

“I tried… But he soaks in all the demonic force. And I can’t restore anything he’s already eaten.”

It was true. Kinanna did look a measure larger than yesterday.

“And whenever he gets a taste of the dark force, he goes on a rampage all over again. It took us hours just to beat him into submission.”

Every escape route was blocked. And for all they knew, when Kinanna woke up again, he’d chew through the floors and walls and start working on Rooms 101 or 202, rendering Nord and Suzuno homeless. But relocating him to one of the other rooms, or somewhere else entirely, would only lead to more mayhem and damage.

“What are we supposed to even feed him…?”

“Well, you guys eat regular human food,” Emi said. “Why don’t you try feeding him whatever lizards eat? I don’t really know anything about reptiles, but…”

It sounded like a simple idea. Urushihara promptly shot it down.

“There’s no place nearby that sells food for anything besides dogs and cats. We could buy it online, on Jungle or somewhere, but live food takes more time to get delivered, I guess.”

““Live food…?””

The two women blanched at the term.

“Yeah. Take a look at this. It’s, like, crickets and mealworms, and—”

“Wait, no, Urushihara!”

“Don’t show me! That’s gross!”

Urushihara was showing them the display from his computer, full of pictures of insects, worms, and other types of reptile food on sale—not the kind of photo album most squeamish people would appreciate seeing.

“What? This isn’t that bad, dudettes. It gets worse if you have a large reptile or amphibian, you know. Then they eat, like, cockroach-type things and frozen mice, and…”

“Urushihara!” Chiho protested again.

“I told you to stop! You wanna die?!” Emi threatened.

Urushihara shrugged at their rage and retreated.

“So,” Emi continued, “what now…?”

“You know I kept a cat here for a while once, right?” Maou said. “I tried calling Dr. Yoshimura—that was the vet I took him to—and he said it’d be okay to feed him raw chicken, depending on the species. I was thinking we could experiment with that today…”

A while back, Maou took home a kitten who was shivering in the rain, naming it Silverfish. After recuperating for a while in Devil’s Castle, the cat was adopted by a man Maou knew who ran a local bicycle shop, referred by the veterinarian Maou had taken the kitten to.

“What if that doesn’t work…?”

“I don’t want to think about that right now, okay? It’s gotta be better for him than sliding doors and tatami mats… I’m sorry. I promise I’ll pay you back. The store oughta be open by now—can you go buy us some chicken tenderloin?”

“Peep…?!”

That chirp sounded a little fearful to Chiho. She couldn’t help but wonder if the term chicken tenderloin set off some kind of fight-or-flight reflex in Camio’s mind. But unable to bear the sight of this disaster area any longer, they left to carry out Maou’s errand for him.

“Good thing Alas Ramus is still asleep,” Emi said as they walked, patting her chest.

“Does she have any interest in lizards?”

“She was really fascinated with Camio and Silverfish. She likes any animal she sees. With a lizard like that, she might start reaching for his tail first thing.”

Alas Ramus was undoubtedly an animal lover. Her eyes had sparkled the first time she’d met Camio in chicken mode, and during Silverfish’s time in Room 201, it had been “I wanna see Meow Meow!” constantly whenever Emi had been home. The ceramic dog Maou had bought for her after the cat was adopted was still on display in Emi’s room, a cherished treasure of the child’s.

“And lately, whenever there’s a documentary about sea life on TV, she’s practically glued to the screen. I have to make her sit back so she doesn’t mess up her eyes.”

“Oh, does she like fish?” asked Chiho.

“We saw this video of a school of spiny lobsters marching across the ocean bottom, and she was completely transfixed.” Emi grinned and looked back toward the apartment building. “Either way, angels and demons are one thing, but we really shouldn’t be bringing creatures from other planets into the middle of Tokyo. Let’s hurry up with this errand.”

“Yeah…”

Chiho found herself trying to keep up with Emi’s brisk pace. What’s up with her?

She had the impression Emi was changing a little, again. Exactly how, it was hard to put into words, but it felt even more unusual to Chiho than when she came back from captivity in Ente Isla.

The mystery crater in Yoyogi Park, and the “monster” that created it, were now officially a news story. It was the top feature on the MHK TV news broadcast, even. Nobody was hurt, but the impact caused sinkholes to open in several nearby roads, leading to closures. Plus, a giant animal lurking around the virtual dead center of Tokyo led to all kinds of speculation about its origins. Someone illegally importing or keeping a wild animal? Biological terror, maybe? Who knew?

Amane and Suzuno had already worked up a sweat filling the crater in the backyard, but if Kinanna slurped up some more demonic force and kicked up another ruckus, and Maou and his friends couldn’t deal with it in time…

“We should buy some thighs, too,” Chiho suggested, catching up with Emi. “And some pork. And maybe some sashimi?”

She couldn’t have guessed what Kinanna liked, but it had to be better than tatami mats and bare wood. If a larger spread of meat helped them avoid trouble, then all the better.

The reptilian eyes made an almost audible gleeeeam as they blinked rapidly.

Perhaps “reptilian” was overstating it. Nobody was sure whether Kinanna the Lenbrellebelve, certified demon, was part of the reptile family at all. But within ten minutes of breaking out their carnivore-oriented spread, Kinanna opened his eyes, immediately setting Maou, Urushihara, and Camio on edge. Ever since he showed up, there was just no telling what this guy might do—and that was especially true for Camio, who had nearly lost his life to him.

“<Mmm… I feel warm.>”

But just as they came to fear Kinanna using his powerful jaw to chomp through the chains of holy energy keeping him down, he took on a much more serene tone of voice.

“<Is the battle over?>”

They hadn’t really noticed until yesterday, but Kinanna could speak the standard tongue of the demon realms. Less than standard, actually. His accent was so thick that it was hard even for a native speaker to understand—not because he was trying to speak with a massive gator palate, but because his tone and rhythm were tremendously old-fashioned.

“<Are Legoon’s forces not here today?>”

“Legoon? What battle?”

“<I imagine not. With my and Camuinica’s powers, not even Legoon could resist us. Satan, bring me Camuinica. I need to see his magical sword.>”

“Um, umm, wait a minute—oh, I mean <Wait a minute. What are you talking about?>”

“<The sword. The magical sword! Bring me Nothung.>”

“<Nothung?>” Maou repeated.

It was one of the Devil Overlord’s relics, already discovered by Camio and installed inside the Devil’s Castle on Ente Isla.

“<Nothung. Do I need to spell it out for you? Nothung! Camuinica would have it, Satan, and my job is to sharpen it. Nothung… Nothung…>”

“…What do you think?” Maou asked Urushihara and Camio, going back to Japanese.

“I have no idea.” The former shrugged. “You think he’s lost his marbles or something?”

“I wonder the same cheep thing,” Camio added, debuting a brand-new bird noise along the way. “Ever since I encountered the angel Camael at the cave where this cheepture…er, creature lives, Kinanna has been convinced I am cheep Camuinica.”

“Try to keep the high-pitched cheeping down, Camio. But maybe you’re both right.”

Mistaking people for others. Eating unusual things. Making nonsensical statements. Among humans, these were the classic symptoms of dementia.

“If I could venture a cheep guess, this Kinanna may very well be the oldest demon in our realms. Among those of my clan, the Pájaro Danino, Camuinica is not a very common name. And if this Kinanna knew my ancestors personally, then I wonder if the Satan he speaks of…”

“It’s probably the Devil Overlord Satan, isn’t it?”

Maou gulped nervously as Urushihara gave Kinanna a closer look.

“Based on what the cheep angel outcast and his band tell me, the Devil Overlord’s relics are actually the subject of a great deal of folklore and traditions. In the case of the Nothung, legends of it being wielded by Camuinica have been passed down over generations…although not, I am saddened to say, by the cheep Pájaro themselves.”

The Spear of Adramelechinus was, of course, passed down through Adramelech and his clan—and in similar fashion, the Nothung was a treasure of the Pájaro Danino. The fact that Camio, current head of the Pájaro, wasn’t aware of this no doubt embarrassed him.

“I guess,” Maou reflected, “a lot of this stuff was closer at hand than we thought.”

It certainly helped that, as Lord of All Demons, he was able to tap into a wealth of information and leads others couldn’t. The Sorcery of the False Gold, an ancient tome and another relic, was tracked down following interviews with a litany of demons. It turned out to be the property of a now-vanquished demon clan, hidden within what used to be their lands. Camio sent vast groups of soldiers to comb the lands, and they finally found the Sorcery in what was once a smelting furnace.

“However, there are more than a few tales that speak of the Astral Gem as the ‘collar’ of the Lenbrellebelve, and only Kinanna matches the descriptions given in the legends that survived…”

“Yeah, and if Kinanna personally knew Satanael and Camuinica, it’s gotta be him beyond a reasonable doubt, right?”

There was still concern on Maou’s face, but an excited smile was rapidly replacing his hesitation.

“That is lucky. Now, not only do we have a relic, but we have someone who might tell us what happened between heaven and the demon realms. Or what Satanael got up to.”

“You think?” Urushihara gave him an indifferent look, the thought of learning more about a father he only barely remembered not seeming to move him much. “Because, dude, it’s pretty clear from the past twenty-four hours that his brain’s scrambled. You think we’re gonna get what we want from him? I mean, we’re talking millennia’s worth of memories.”

“<The Nothung… The Nothung…>”

“Well, thanks to Camio being here, I think that might dredge up some memories related to his dad. I hope anyway. He already brought up Satanael and Camuinica…and Legoon, which I’m still not sure what that is.”

Neither Maou nor Urushihara had heard the term before. But given that Camio ran into Camael while making contact with Kinanna, it was easy to imagine that it referred to someone in heaven.

“<Yes… Legoon; we must fend off Legoon. Quickly… Camuinica, what are you doing? You’re late, Camuinica… The blade of the Nothung will be so dull and fractured!>”

“Okay. One, let’s feed him. Two, let’s ask Laila and Gabriel if the term Legoon rings any bells.”

“But if Legoon is an angel, how come this lizard didn’t react to me—or Laila or Emilia?” Urushihara asked. “We are kind of angel adjacent, my friends.”

“Well, of course…” Maou was about to brush the idea off—until he realized he couldn’t. “Ahh, actually, I don’t know about that. Maybe it’s because you guys don’t look the part?”

“Look the part?”

“Yeah. I mean, you and Laila both have purple hair. When Miki Shiba was here, you spent the whole time in the closet, so he didn’t see you. Maybe the combo of silver hair and red eyes is the key?”

“Maybe, but then Sariel and Raguel won’t set him off, either. Then again, this is a half-brain-dead lizard. Who knows if there’s even a one-to-one connection in his mind?”

“Well, if he’s fine now, let’s just forget about it. We can’t expect to solve all our problems immediately. After that…” Maou examined his surroundings. “I’m gonna have to tell Ashiya about this room. And my rejection.”

“You really think that’s important right now…?”

“Considering what’s coming up, yeah. In several ways.”

“I have to wonder about that…”

“Hey, we’re back… Oh, he’s awake! I’ll whip something up right now, okay?”

At that moment, Chiho and Emi, respectively, arrived back from shopping, bags in hand.

“We wound up buying a bunch of stuff. You guys haven’t had anything to eat today, have you?”

The smells made Maou and Urushihara suddenly remember their empty stomachs. It also made Kinanna stop repeating the word Nothung long enough to lift his nose into the air, sniffing at it.

“Fried chicken is such a powerful thing…”

Maou slumped back in his seat, relaxed. Urushihara, Emi, and Chiho nodded their agreement.

It turned out Kinanna had little interest in raw meat but was all over the deep-fried chicken pieces Chiho brought for her friends. He gobbled up three whole packs of them—how he had room for them in his stomach was a mystery—and now fully satisfied, he was snoring yet again. It shocked everyone. Virtually anyone not on a vegetarian diet enjoyed fried chicken, but apparently that flavor profile worked just fine with the palates of ancient reptilian demons from another world, as well.

“I have very peep conflicted feelings about this.”

Only Camio, who was nearly made into chicken curry once, was distressed by it. But a peaceful Kinanna was a blissful thing to see, even if it meant no chicken for the humans in the room. To deal with that, Chiho walked into the apartment, paying careful mind to the frayed tatami mats underfoot, and made some egg-infused pork and rice. The results finally helped Maou and Urushihara kick back a little.

“Mommy, what’s that?”

“Hmm, what indeed? Daddy and I aren’t sure, either.”

Now Alas Ramus was awake, keeping her distance atop Emi’s lap as she looked at Kinanna. Emi kept her there mainly to prevent the child from getting splinters running on the floor.

“Bowwow?”

“No, not a bowwow. This is a, um, lizard, I guess?”

“Lizzerd? Meow meow?”

“No, not at all a meow meow.”

Alas Ramus’s reptile-related vocabulary wasn’t too developed yet, so she tried applying every other animal name she knew instead.

“But what is he to us? I understand that he might know about the fight between Satanael and Ignora, but aren’t we more concerned about the Astral Gem right now?”

“We’re still not sure he’s related to the Gem,” Maou retorted. “And he might know about other relics, too. He knows stuff that we don’t, and it might give us some hints for our battle, you know?”

“But we’re talking about things that happened thousands of years ago. Can we really apply any of that?”

As Emi pointed out, even if Kinanna was around to see any fighting, it would have been when the angels were still busy colonizing Ente Isla’s moon, an era before human life existed on that planet entirely. They didn’t know if they could extract that kind of history from him, but it might not matter to their current plan anyway.

“Actually, I’m thinking that we can,” Maou confidently replied. “Remember what Gabriel said? Only a very small percentage of people actually ‘work’ up in heaven. And maybe that applies to more than just its military. If nobody’s really working to advance society, that means its tech is gonna lag behind, too, right?”

“Maybe, but it’s not gonna stay frozen for thousands of years.”

“Of course not. But I don’t think it’d hurt us if we studied some of the basics about how they work. For example, they weren’t just camping out in tents, right? If we can get an idea of their settlements, or their towns, or what kind of equipment and weapons they have, that’ll let us react faster if something comes up.”

“Could we ask Gabriel or Sariel about that?” Chiho asked. “I think they’d know a lot about what heaven’s like these days… Laila, too.”

Maou and Urushihara exchanged glances.

“Chiho Sasaki,” the latter stated deadpan, “do you really think we can rely on them as impartial sources?”

“Huh?”

That seemed to surprise the girl. But the others were serious.

“In the case of Laila, at least,” Maou added, “we’ve already gotten everything useful out of her that we can. And from that, I can tell that she doesn’t know much about fighting.”

He recalled Laila attempting to fend off a berserk Erone. It didn’t end well for her. She clearly had nothing.

“She’s not totally useless in a fight, but that’s just talking about her as an individual. I guess her original job was a doctor, so it’s not like she’ll have a broad insight into heaven’s military strength. And even if she did, she’s been out of heaven for at least a few centuries. She’s an unreliable source.”

“And Gabriel and Sariel would be worse,” added Emi, looking even more dubious than Maou. “This fight isn’t some kind of video game where you beat the last boss, then the ending plays for you. We’re gonna have to live in the world that’s there after it’s over. In the society that already exists in it.”

A quick-and-dirty list of the forces gathered to face off against Ignora, the god that rules Ente Isla’s heavens, would include:

Maou, Ashiya, Urushihara, Camio, the Malebranche chieftains, and the rest of the demon realm’s denizens.

Saint Aile’s elite knight corps and the Holy Magic Administrative Institute, led by Rumack and Emeralda respectively.

The Reconciliation Panel, led by Suzuno, and the subset of Church clerics involved with it.

Efzahan’s eight imperial knight corps, in the service of Ashiya on behalf of the Azure emperor.

A select few people from the alien nation of Japan, including Chiho, Emi’s friend Rika Suzuki, and Amane Ohguro.

The children of Ente Isla’s Sephirah, including Alas Ramus, Acieth, and Erone.

Gabriel and Laila, more or less defectors from heaven.

Emi and Nord, citizens of Saint Aile.

They had all gathered under the same flag with the same goals, but this was a motley crew from an extremely diverse set of backgrounds. Among them, only Albert and Urushihara could reliably be credited with being involved just to save the human race. Albert was born on the Northern Island but had traveled the world as the Hero’s friend in support of Emi and Emeralda. He had no particular attachment to his homeland, and he was happy being anywhere at any time. And while Urushihara was living with Maou at the moment, that was strictly because of the advantages it offered to his future; he did not feel any particular responsibility for how the world would turn out afterward.

The rest, however, didn’t share that opinion. They all had roots firmly implanted somewhere, and after the dust settled, they had to make sure the buds that sprouted stayed protected. Maou and Ashiya had an obligation to carve out a future for the demon realms and its residents. Rumack and the Azure Emperor had their own nations to serve, and Emi and Nord had the Western Island village of Sloane, a homeland awaiting their return.

To Gabriel and Sariel, the heavens were really the only place they could call home. They might have forsaken it long ago, yes, but the goal of this mission wasn’t to kill every angel in heaven. It was to stop Ignora from pulling the strings of Ente Isla’s history and rescue Alas Ramus’s brothers and sisters. And as long as it was, someone would have to think about what to do with the angels in a post-Ignora landscape. Perhaps Gabriel and Sariel would return to their angelic comrades—and as a result, perhaps they were hiding some pertinent information from their current allies, even if it damaged the force’s overall chances.

“Of course, I think this all might be the last thing on Sariel’s mind right now, but…”

““Ah…””

Chiho and Emi grinned, fully convinced of that. But Maou was serious.

“It’s not funny. There’s no telling if Ms. Kisaki’s transfer might trigger a change of heart for him. Maybe he’ll decide he can’t bear a world where she never gives him the time of day, rejoins his old friends, and fights against us. There’s a non-zero chance of that, if you ask me. And even if he doesn’t go that far, he might try to get in our way here in Japan.”

If that happens, the Sephirah of Earth—Amane and Shiba, to name two—wouldn’t take that sitting down. But it still meant Sariel would be a thorn in their side.

“Maybe I should have killed him back then, after all?”

Emi recalled all the insulting things Sariel had said to her when he’d first come to Japan. That and the murderous rage they summoned within her.

“Y’know, I think the same thing whenever he causes trouble for Kisaki, but can you stop with the murder talk in front of Alas Ramus?”

“…”

Emi, who had blurted out the word kill with barely a second thought, brought a hand to her mouth.

“Whuhh?”

Alas Ramus curiously looked up at this, her smile indicating she didn’t think anything of Mommy’s thirst for blood.

“It’s too late for that anyway,” Maou said. “Besides, if you think that Gabriel and Sariel are fully on our side, I think you’re sorta wrong about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I-it’s not like one thing or the other happened, but between what Gabriel told us, and what I knew before, and what I thought of on the way to Chi’s zirga… I can’t really put my finger on it yet, but something’s weird.”

“Weird?”

“I don’t remember everything—like, I ignored a lot of it, because I didn’t think this would happen until fairly recently—but you know, it just doesn’t add up. Every little incident, I mean. Or rather, that each individual incident doesn’t make sense together, but then they show up, and suddenly it’s all linked together.”

He was being unusually vague. As he’d warned Emi, his thoughts were still disorganized about this.

“Yeah. You might be right. I’d like to think I have a good handle on things based on what Mother told me, but there are still a lot of answers we don’t have. I’m not sure any of them will have a direct impact on this battle, but I kind of get why you have a bad feeling about it.”

Watching Emi nod at him, face taut with concern, Chiho noticed something else entirely. Now she could see what about Emi had struck her as odd: It wasn’t a drastic change, but it was a change—now, whenever she talked to Maou, Emi was meekly accepting the things he said. Normally, if Maou was being this vague, she’d be sure to jab at him a little before giving her own opinions.

“But how long are you gonna try to talk to that lizard? Do you really have the time to waste on him?”

Or maybe she hadn’t changed at all, actually. Chiho found herself rapidly reconsidering her observation. It was just hard to figure out Emi lately.

“Practically speaking,” Maou replied, “we still don’t know if we’ve found the Astral Gem. Until we know for sure, I don’t see why chatting with Grandpa a little is a problem.”

“Are you sure the lizard is a grandpa, by the way? Not a grandma?” Urushihara interjected bluntly.

“Whatever,” Maou replied with a shrug. “And also, we’re kind of free until the Devil’s Castle in Ente Isla is all fixed up. Either way, we got pretty much nothing else to do. Camio’s hurt bad, and we have no idea where Camael is, so we can’t go searching in the demon realms quite yet. So why don’t we focus on keeping this lizard fed and happy for a little while?”

“Raising an elderly lizard to save the world, huh…? I was kind of hoping we could go beat up someone, and he’d give us a hint or something.” Emi sighed.

“That would be more up your alley, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, and that’s why this whole thing’s annoying me. But oh, well. Lucifer and Bell and Alciel can’t come back here all that often anyway, and we all know how Camio is.”

And then Emi said something that shocked Chiho, Urushihara, and Maou all at once:

“I can stop by to lizard-sit from time to time.”

“““Huh?!”””

“But if we’re both at work, you’re gonna have to figure something out.” Emi looked Maou straight in the eye. “And all I’m gonna do is watch him. If he starts rambling about the good ol’ days of the demon realms, I never said I’d listen. And also, if this is how it’s gonna be for a while, you’re gonna have to fess up to the landlord about this place and have her fix it up. If I’m here, that means Alas Ramus will be, too, remember. If she cuts her hands or feet or gets something in her eyes, that’s gonna be trouble, all right?”

““…””

“Y-yeah…”

Urushihara and Chiho were speechless. Maou wasn’t far behind.

“And you’d like that, too, huh, Alas Ramus? Now you’ll be at Daddy’s home more than ever!”

“Rilly?!”

And while the three of them were too shocked to reply, Emi started egging Alas Ramus about it. That sealed the deal.

Certainly, Emi volunteering to watch Kinanna was exactly what Maou wanted. But this was so perplexing. Emi nominated herself for the job before anyone could say anything else. Maou didn’t consider her part of the Kinanna team anyway, and Emi virtually never paid any respect to his needs.

He couldn’t help but double-check.

“But um, are you sure?”

“Is there a problem?”

His question was met with another question.

“No. No problem. I appreciate it. Thanks.”

Now the Hero had the Devil King’s permission to enter and leave Devil’s Castle whenever she wanted. And while this was no longer the bombshell it would have been at one point, any visit up to now was more forced on Emi’s part and only grudgingly accepted on Maou’s.

Thus was birthed a historical moment. But…

“Are you sure you want to go that far, Yusa? I mean, helping Maou out like that?”

Chiho found herself asking that as they walked back from Villa Rosa Sasazuka.

For a while now, Chiho liked to imagine a future where Maou and Emi could coexist as neighbors. Emi had certainly relaxed her stance as of late. She and Maou were seeing each other so much now that Chiho envied them a little.

But this felt like something different. It was hard to be sure, since Emi was getting looser with him in general, but before now, that meant three things: She’d do her best not to bring her personal beefs with her to work; she stopped griping about everything Maou did; and she wouldn’t hesitate to work with him if they shared a common goal. Camio talked how about they were still enemies, but today, she used her own time and money for Maou’s sake. She poked her nose into his affairs. She even promised her assistance in the future. Chiho wasn’t childish enough to add it all together and think Yusa was harboring feelings for Maou, but she still wanted to clear the doubt from her mind.

But Emi openly nodded at the question.

“Maybe…I shouldn’t have, no. Was it that easy to spot?”

She sounded a bit anxious. Previously, whenever she did something to help Maou in the end, she’d always bite back or obfuscate the subject if someone pointed it out to her. “I don’t think Maou noticed, no…”

“Maybe Lucifer did. He’s weirdly observant about that kind of thing.”

Emi frowned. Frowned, despite smiling just a moment ago over making Maou owe her a favor.

“Mommy, you okeh?”

Alas Ramus’s eyebrows arched upward in worry as Emi pulled her along. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m fine…but a little anxious.”

“Not anxious about Grandpa Kinanna, I assume.”

Something about Chiho adding that honorific to the name of a lizard seemed so unbeatably like her. It gave Emi the smile she was hoping to find. “I wish everybody stayed the same as much as you do.”

“Huh?”

“…I’m sorry, can we rest for a moment?”

The park they were passing by was a common site for Ashiya and Suzuno to take Alas Ramus out to, back before she fused with Emi’s holy sword.

“Are you okay?”

Chiho, sitting next to the downtrodden Emi on a bench, peered at her face through her long hair.

“Listen, Chiho. Do you think the Devil King is still a king, really?”

“Hmm?”

“When this battle is over, what do you think he’s gonna do?”

“…You mean if you beat Ignora and release Alas Ramus’s brothers and sisters?”

“It’s gonna set the gears of history in motion for Ente Isla, whether we want it to or not. What’s gonna happen to him and his realm then?”

“You’ll lose holy magic.”

After returning from the chaos on the Eastern Island, Miki Shiba—landlord of Villa Rosa Sasazuka and eleventh personification of Earth’s Sephirah—broke the news in Urushihara’s hospital room: If the people of Ente Isla kept using holy or demonic force at the current rate, they’d be annihilated before long. Holy energy was spiritual energy, something flowing all around the planet. If it dissipated over time, the souls needed to fill a body would go unborn, and the human population would dissipate with it. Normally, the children of the Sephirah would support the growth of human civilization, preventing so many people from harvesting the vast wells of energy holy and demonic force could produce. That wasn’t happening here.

“Not ‘lose,’ so much as we won’t be able to use it, is how I think it’ll work. But really, nobody knows what’ll happen once we release Alas Ramus’s siblings.”

For a sorcerer, it was the same thing.

“But that energy was a given to the whole world. Gradually losing the ability to harness it is probably gonna trigger a panic. People will search for new energy sources, and I’m sure it’ll lead to wars. Anything that relies on holy energy or sorcery will need to change.”

“But that’s what General Rumack and Wurs and everyone on the Eastern Island is there to help with, right?”

“Well, who knows how it’ll actually work out? Whether it’s General Rumack, Lady Wurs, or the Azure Emperor, they’re all gonna have to focus on their own nation first. That’s a given. There’s never gonna be a future where nobody dies. We’ll save the human race from total annihilation, but there’s still going to be fighting. By that point, though, I’ll no longer be the Hero.”

She may have been half-angel, but much of Emi’s power depended on holy energy. Without it, the Hero Emilia—or really, the human Emilia Justina…

“I’ll just be a person. And depending on how fast the world changes, I might not be much different from anyone else in Japan. Slash at me with a sword, and you might just kill me. No more flying. If I jump off somewhere high, I’ll probably break my legs. If I break my legs, I’ll need months to recover from it. And if that’s what happens…”

Emi sighed, her voice quiet and shaky. She looked upward.

“He’ll still be king. Ruling over his people. The demons.”

There were many more humans participating in the assault on heaven than demons. Emi was strictly talking about holy energy, but if Shiba was to be believed, the release of the Sephirah would bring a sea of changes to demonic energy as well. What would happen to the demons then? They’d struggle to survive, of course. But without demonic force, where were they going to find energy to live off of? The answer was obvious. Emi had predicted it long ago. She’d seen how much Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara enjoyed the food they had at home.

They might decide to invade Ente Isla again, before their demon energy fully vanished, in search of “something” to replace it. Who would be their leader? Who would fend them off? If this invasion took place before the demonic force disappeared, then holy energy would still be around as well.

“Is there anything that’s really tethering him to Japan at the moment? Something that’ll keep him from doing something…stupid again, before this battle is over?”

Emi was expecting more. She had hoped Maou would be accepted as a full-time employee in this world. That he’d then live out his life in Japan. That, even if drastic measures were needed for it, he’d keep staying in this world as Sadao Maou for as long as possible. She had known long ago that Maou was serious about becoming a part of life in Japan. Now, though, one pathway to that goal was cut off from him. The path to full-time employment, the tether keeping him on Earth, was closed. And in a very short time, he’d be faced with a choice leading him down some other path. A choice where Satan’s personal desires—a life among humans, a full-time job—would no longer get to be a priority.

He was still beloved and followed by many as the Lord of All Demons. Emi knew that loyalty and respect hadn’t changed, even when their king was forced into the body of a human. He couldn’t possibly abandon all those supporters. And if he couldn’t, he would have to fight.

But with whom?

Chiho watched as Alas Ramus picked up a branch at her feet and used it to draw mysterious abstract art in the ground.

“I don’t like this. I’ve been saying since forever that I didn’t want you and Maou to fight, but…”

“…Yeah.”

“Whether it’s Suzuno or Emeralda or Albert, or Wurs or Rumack, or Ashiya or Urushihara, or Camio or Farlo or Libicocco or Ciriatto… I don’t want anyone to fight anybody.”

For now, they were able to be together in the same place. To make chocolate treats together. Why, at the moment they remove something twisting the world away from what it needs to be, does all of that have to fall apart? Because that’s the world. That’s nations; that’s politics; that’s economics; that’s people. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that.

To everyone fighting against heaven here, this battle was just a destination. And once they got back from it, they’d have to live in the place they chose. But what if, over there, survival became a question? They’d have to fight to live.

Emi’s groaning seemed to take physical form in the air, plopping to the ground like mud.

“After fighting for so long, the seeds for the next battle between human and demon are already growing. How long do I have to go before I get some rest?”

“Yeah… I know.”

“I don’t care who it is. I just want someone to make his dreams come true. Then I wouldn’t have to stay up worrying about whether I’m going to make this child have a sad experience.”

The chief mission of the battle against heaven was to release Alas Ramus’s siblings. But what would a grown Alas Ramus do if she found out being released meant her beloved mommy and daddy would have to fight each other? Would she love the world, the way she did now? Would they wind up like Caiel and Sikeena, who tried to destroy Ignora and Satanael’s research?

A full-time employee. It sounded like such a stupid term, given the context. Economic downturn or not, vast numbers of people became full-time employees in Japan—every year, every month, every day. Why couldn’t such a studious, serious-minded, talented person like him join them? These days, it wasn’t uncommon for a new college grad to get rejected from dozens of firms before finding something. Just because Maou got rejected by one, it’d be far too hasty to assume the dream was done forever. But apart from his own desires, Maou had no particular reason to be a full-timer. He’d have a perfectly normal life either way. He didn’t have to save up money for marriage or children; he didn’t have elderly parents to take care of; and he didn’t have to worry about his retirement budget. He made it this far simply out of his desire to do so.

“Plus, I’ve told him how much I love him, and he still hasn’t given me an answer…”

Chiho deliberately kept her tone light, like the observation didn’t matter to her.

“If you can’t stop him, Chiho, I’m not sure anyone can.”

Stewing over a question without an answer gets you nowhere but feeling down. Chiho tried to end the topic there, but Emi knew how she felt about it. She smiled at her as she stood up.

“Chiho?”

“Yeah?”

“I…”

“…Yeah?”

“Seeing him try his best in Japan… I guess I don’t hate that.”

Chiho beamed. “…I can tell.”

She turned to Emi, smiling happily, while her friend’s smile was chagrined.

“It’d be nice if this works out,” Chiho pressed.

“I have no idea what that would look like, to be hon—”

“Chi! Saemi!”

Suddenly, they heard a voice behind them. They turned around, surprised; Alas Ramus stood up to see what was going on…and there, on the road outside the park, they found a woman in a business suit waving at them.

“Ms. Kisaki!”

“…You smell like Magrobad!”

“Are you serious…?”

“Would I joke about this to you?”

Ashiya was seated on the small tatami-mat floor section of Devil’s Castle on Ente Isla, his long legs folded in front of him. He was watching Laila, who had just stood up in surprise, eyes wide open.

“I thought about going by myself,” he continued, “but you volunteered first the other day. A second or third time would not be any different.”

“Of—of course it wouldn’t! He’s never going to listen to me…”

“I will make him,” he coldly replied. “We have no time. The link between Kinanna and the Astral Gem is still unclear, but there is still every chance we will have all four relics by this time tomorrow. Once we do, that triggers the final battle. And you know full well that we need all our eggs in one basket beforehand.”

“But…”

“As I’m sure you know, you cannot tell anyone about this. Especially not Emilia—or Emeralda Etuva. And not Crestia Bell or Hazel Rumack, either.”

“Wh-what about Albert?” she asked.

“…He will be the first to learn of it either way,” Ashiya said after a moment of deliberation. “But now is not the time.”

“B-but what if it gets discovered before battle begins? Won’t defeating Ignora be the last of our worries then? It’ll take all of us gathered here and tear us apart.”

“That will not happen if you keep your mouth shut.”

“!”

The force of Ashiya’s demonic presence made Laila gasp.

“The truth is, it has not been discovered yet. However, the Azure Emperor and a subset of the Efzahan generals are aware of my plan,” Ashiya continued ruthlessly.

Despite that, it was clear who had the upper hand in these negotiations.

“We are not the only ones running out of time,” he insisted. “If I had to guess… His Demonic Highness’s application for a permanent position was turned down.”

“What?!”

Maou had never said so himself, but Ashiya was all but sure of it.

“When my liege entered training, he was convinced he would be accepted. The other day, however, I detected none of that conviction, none of that aspiration. If he was accepted, he would have sprinted over to tell me first. And with that great hope of his going unrealized, if we let any more time pass without making a move, His Demonic Highness may be thrust into a brand-new wilderness.”

This statement was, to be frank, a mere threat on Ashiya’s part. Even if Maou recovered his full majesty as Satan, the Devil King, he would doubtlessly avoid taking the path Laila imagined, the one Ashiya threatened her with. But being honest about that would be a terrible negotiating tactic.

“It is time to decide, Angel, because we of the demons have already chosen our path for the future.”

He paused, waiting for just the right timing to drive in the final blow.

“I want you to link me to Chief Herder Dhin Dhem Wurs.”