THE HERO REALIZES THE DIFFICULTY OF STEPPING IN

“Gah?!”

Maou woke up to find the still-on ceiling light searing into his eyes. He winced as he looked at his wristwatch and found it to be two in the morning. He hadn’t been knocked out for that long, but the repair bill for the renovations he was currently enjoying was still in his hand.

“Ooooh…”

He shook his groggy head, as Urushihara and Camio still huddled up against each other and shivered in the closet.

“Guess I’m gonna have to ask Nord or Laila tomorrow. Actually, Laila wasn’t downstairs. Did she go back to Nerima?”

He had no idea what they saw, but he felt uneasy about leaving Kinanna in the care of these two after whatever they were exposed to. It would be cruel to them. Urushihara’s normal behavior caused nothing but stress to Maou and Ashiya, but if the landlord was involved, they were willing to forgive anything.

“Guys, you can spend tomorrow recuperating, so just get some sleep. You’re gonna mess yourselves up, curled up like that.”

“……!”

“………………chirrrr………”

They didn’t voice any disagreement, so Maou didn’t prod them any further. Thus he took his futon out from the closet, glad that the door no longer had claw marks and missing pieces to it, and lay down.

“Ooh, the tatami smells great.”

The fresh straw aroma was stronger closer to the floor. It made Maou take another look at the repair list. It described these mats as “normal grade,” manufactured in Kumamoto Prefecture down South and sized for apartments and condominiums. One mat retailed for 9,000 yen—Maou wasn’t sure if this was cheap or a rip-off, but now he understood why families liked changing out their tatami on regular occasions.

“…Over 90,000 yen with tax, huh?”

Even if it did vastly improve Maou’s living situation, it was a hard pill to swallow. No matter how much of this was Maou’s (or, really, Kinanna’s) fault, having this annotated invoice handed to him seemed somewhat unfair. Of course, given a lease violation like this, the landlord could’ve easily given him an eviction notice instead…but given that the three original tenants had proven themselves reliable, sensible renters so far, this seemed awfully one-sided.

“Ashiya’s gonna be pissed… Well, I guess he was pissed already… But can we pay something like this?”

Recalling Ashiya’s rage at Kinanna’s tirade, Maou sat back up again and opened the cabinet under the sink. This was where valuables were stored in Devil’s Castle, and Maou fished his checkbook out from inside.

“…I’m short.”

Maou brought a hand to his forehead. Shiba wrote that they could work out a payment plan, but it’d be extremely inadvisable to stretch this thing out for longer than urgently necessary. If the landlord was willing to loosen the lease terms a bit and even build a setup for Kinanna, it was Maou’s job to reply with real sincerity as soon as possible, or else he’d be working in bad faith.

But…

“Mmm… I thought I had more saved up than this…”

A while back, the demons had lost nearly 40,000 yen due to Urushihara falling victim to fraudulent door-to-door salespeople. That was the food budget for Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara for two months. Since then, Maou had been working with Ashiya to save money in case of illness or other emergency—but even so, the most money they could take out all at once was at best around 80,000 yen. Next month’s payday wasn’t going to suddenly expand that figure, and he was already taking on no shifts for the entire month of July.

When he went to Ente Isla to rescue Emi, he was able to get compensated for his time off from her—but as a side effect of that adventure, Acieth Alla came into their lives, and Acieth could eat enough to suck up the trio’s entire food budget. Nord and the Shiba family were footing half of her food bill, but even then, Maou had to buy all sorts of business apparel for his managerial training, at least high-quality enough so he looked as good as anyone else in the classes, and that outlay hurt, too.

“And there’s no way I can borrow gold or jewels from Ente Isla…”

As Urushihara wasn’t shy about telling him, there was really no reason at all for Maou to keep diligently working in Japan. With the power of the three demons, they could bring in all kinds of stuff from Ente Isla that could be exchanged for cash. But it was impossible to believe that Miki Shiba, overseer of Earth’s Sephirah, would look upon that too kindly. Shiba, after all, had given Maou a fair amount of leeway because she wanted him and Ashiya to adapt to life in Japan. If Maou lived up to his rep in Ente Isla and wrested valuables from its people in order to repay these damages, there was every chance he’d never be allowed back again.

“Over 90,000 yen with tax… Oof. And apart from Urushihara’s credit card payment next month, there’s all the chocolate I bought for White Day. That’s a few thousand yen that’ll get withdrawn. And even if we cut costs, we need to think about Kinanna’s food… Ngh…”

Crouched down on the sparkling wooden kitchen floor, Maou stared at the numbers in his checkbook, which steadfastly refused to change for him. He was already feeling the pressure from his battle against heaven and the rapid adjustments to his work environment, and now these financial issues were making his stomach hurt.

But then he realized—something seemed off about the path he’d taken to these money issues. There was something they could use besides what was in his account, right? Not one-off jobs or anything like that—something more intangible. A bit like a personal check…

“…!!”

Maou stood back up, then looked down at his feet. Ever since he’d come to Japan, he had worked hard to keep his feet on the ground, no matter what their financial situation was. And he’d put some insurance in place back then, too, hadn’t he? It was time to tap that.

It was seven AM the following morning, as Emi went to pick up the newspaper Nord subscribed to, when she noticed something strange through the mail slot.

“What is it, Emilia?”

“Is there something up?”

“Mommy?”

Nord was setting up breakfast on a kotatsu table not much different from the one in Devil’s Castle. Alas Ramus and Erone were eagerly waiting for the meal to be served. And Emi, her back turned to them, let out a sigh as she remained crouched in front of the slot.

“I’m sorry. You guys can start ahead of me.”

Emi placed the newspaper on top of the shoe compartment, slipped on some sandals, then went out to the first-floor corridor.

“…What’s gotten into you this early?”

Then, making sure she closed the door tightly behind her, she looked down—partly confused, partly annoyed—at the figure lying prostrate before her.

“I need a favor.”

Through that mail slot, as she picked up the paper, she had spotted Maou kowtowing to the door in the early dawn, opting against ringing the bell.

“What?”

Not a day seemed to go by when it wasn’t something with him. Emi figured it had something to do with Room 201, but still she couldn’t imagine what he might say to her.

“You still owe me one, don’t you?”

The wording seemed a little inappropriate for someone on his hands and knees. Emi was about to ask what kind of nonsense this was when she recalled exactly what she “owed.”

“Oh. Yeah, I do. You didn’t say anything about it afterward, so I forgot about it… But was there a bike you wanted this early in the morning?”

What Emi owed was related to her rescue in Ente Isla. She had already paid for the work he missed, as well as the supplies and damages incurred during the operation, but Maou had also assigned her an extra “rescue fee” as her sworn nemesis—and that came in the form of a moped purchase.

“You told me yourself, right? As long as it wasn’t crazy expensive, I could pick whatever I wanted.”

“I did, but I can’t get you something commercial like a Gyro-Roof. Those go for like half a million yen new. A hundred thousand’s about the best I can do—”

Maou didn’t let her finish.

“Then change that to this for me!!”

Maou extended a piece of paper her way—the repair bill his landlord gave him last night. Picking up the text-heavy sheet, she looked it over with still-bleary eyes, then let out a shoulder-trembling laugh.

“Wow. Wasn’t expecting that one.”

“Say whatever you want. It’s the angels’ fault for all of this anyway.”

“Very indirectly, maybe…” Emi giggled and gave the sheet back. “But the landlord won’t mind that?”

“As long as I earn the money legally in Japan, it’ll be fine.”

There was room for debate over whether the Devil King was a valid creditor to the Hero in the eyes of Japanese law, but Emi had known him long enough.

“All right. Are you paying her directly, or does she want a bank transfer or something?”

“She gave me her account info, but I’ll be charged a fee, you know? I wanted to talk to her anyway, so I wanna contact her and pay her directly.”

“Seriously? If I’m the one owing you, you could at least act a little more like it.”

“Do you think I care about how I look right now?”

It all seemed so incredibly contradictory to Emi, but this was likely Maou’s way of showing his sincerity. If it wasn’t for this, she thought, he might’ve forgotten about the moped entirely.

“Okay, okay. I wanna talk to Ms. Shiba, too. Can I hold on to that bill? I’ll go withdraw the cash.”

“Yes! I can’t thank you enough!”

Maou shot to his feet, hands clasped together as Emi smiled at him.

“I don’t know how many times you’ve tried to make me feel grateful for a favor. Have you done more favors for me, or the other way around?”

“Ahh, that’s another conversation. Now at least Ashiya won’t yell at me!”

If Maou and his cohorts ever ran into police issues again, would she be called to save them? The memory, surfacing from so far back, made Emi smile.

“How about we do it tomorrow morning? Your shifts start in the afternoon, right?”

“Yes, the sooner the better with this. All right. By the way, were Lucifer and Camio all right? Because they were practically in a trance when I last saw them.”

“They managed to fall asleep in the closet, so I think they’re recovering. The hair and the feathers and stuff are back to normal.”

“Well, what could’ve freaked them out so much? Father said a bunch of different workmen filed in and out of the place, but he didn’t see anything unusual.”

“I dunno, but judging by how Nord and Gabriel and Erone aren’t affected by the landlord at all, there’s gotta be something up with her that’s harmful to demons.”

“I know that, but if it’s that potent, don’t you want to know what it is?”

“I do, but I’m hesitant about asking her in person… Anyway, sorry. I gotta go to work, so let’s figure out a time over there!”

“All right. Have fun.”

Emi sighed as she watched Maou hurriedly flee once his business was done. Then she went back inside.

“I could barely hear you out there,” her father said. “What’s up?”

“Just repaying my remaining debt to him. I guess they got charged a bunch for the renovations yesterday. Whew… Sorry I took so long.”

“Want me to reheat the miso soup?”

“No, that’s all right. I need to head to the bank after I eat anyway.”

“Pank?” Alas Ramas interjected.

“No, ‘bank.’ It’s where Maou and other people put in and take out their money,” Erone clarified.

“…I don’ get it.”

“You will when you’re older, Alas Ramus.”

It was funny to see Erone act like an elder brother when even Acieth was larger than him. Emi laughed a little.

“Big? I’m a big sis!!”

And it was equally charming to see the protests from the ball of cuteness that was Alas Ramus.

“Wanna go on a walk with me, Alas Ramus?”

“Yeh!!”

“We won’t be going right after breakfast, so don’t hurry, okay? I have work this afternoon, so take it easy.”

“Yay! Walking!”

This isn’t the right time to bring it up, Emi thought, mentally shrugging. But she ate at Alas Ramus’s pace anyway, wolfing down Nord’s breakfast. For reasons only he knew, Erone copied the pace, showing off poor manners as he shoveled rice into his open mouth.

“Whoa, whoa, chew a little more, please,” Nord said, amused, chiding Emi as if she were a small child. The three of them exchanged looks and smiled.

Then they heard someone rapidly descending the stairs. Hearing Maou tear off to work, Emi took a sip of miso and sighed a little. Is it really all right? To have this quiet moment in the middle of all this? Having a leisurely breakfast, preparing to head out…and I’m sure lunch and dinner will be like this, too.

Every knight affiliated with the Church was being mobilized. Nervous excitement was in the air among everyone assembled around Devil’s Castle. Ashiya, Suzuno, Emeralda, and Rumack were no doubt working hard to keep everything running. That was clear in how Suzuno hadn’t sent a single message in the several days since Emi’s astronaut run-in, despite sending them frequently while she was in Ente Isla. She and Emeralda’s responsibilities were taking them back to the Western Island; Ashiya contacted Emi to say that they’d likely be difficult to reach.

And here they thought they had a grasp of their enemy. But she couldn’t even touch that astronaut, losing badly in a one-sided battle—and yet, now just a couple days later, she was enjoying a lovely family meal, as if there were no depressing war at all.

“It’s fine, Emilia.”

Nord, perhaps surmising Emi’s heart as her chopsticks stopped, spoke up.

“You’ve risked your life and worked harder than anybody in this world. You need to rest up when you’ve got free time like this. Rest up and wait for news from everyone else. It won’t hurt you.”

“…Mmm. Yeah.”

How did he know?

“Believe me, I know. After enough years around you, you’re pretty easy to understand.”

She imagined it was that sort of thing, but she wished he wouldn’t break that skill out in front of Alas Ramus too much. She was her “mother,” after all.

“Grandpa? Mommy? What’re you sayin’?”

“Nothing, Alas Ramus. You have some peas left on your plate.”

“…Oh.”

She’d left more than some peas. She’d left a lot of peas. Beginning to demonstrate food faves and dislikes like this was, perhaps, a sign of her growing. Or changing. Emi wasn’t sure which.

“You have to eat them up, Alas Ramus. You’re a big sister, right?”

“Hmm…”

Erone was just as big an eater as Acieth. His plate was clean; Emi wondered if he’d licked every drop of sauce off of it. Looking at it, then her plate, Alas Ramus groaned.

Emi was still troubled over how to deal with situations like this, but Nord stepped up first.

“I don’t want her to be a picky eater, but maybe they’ve gotten cold enough that the butter congealed. Here, let Grandpa heat ’em back up for you.”

Nord must’ve still been in his forties, but he really had the role of Grandpa down pat. It was funny to see in person.

“Well, I guess it comes down to doing it, or not doing it. If you don’t like any path besides the ideal one, you’re never gonna get anywhere, huh?”

Looking at the back of her father as he recooked the peas in a small frying pan, adding just a few kernels of frozen corn to spice things up, Emi recalled back when Alas Ramus had first merged herself with her holy sword. At first, the concept of raising a toddler when she’d barely interacted with children in her life had distressed her. Could she really do it? There had been many, many mistakes—but thanks to the aid of Suzuno and Chiho, Maou and Ashiya, and (more or less) Urushihara, most of the child-rearing had become routine. Her mind was less troubled now.

“Just do what you do, and sooner or later, you’ll reach something, I guess.”

“Right, all set. Still got room for these, Alas Ramus?”

“Okeh!”

The buttery smell of the sautéed peas and corn convinced Alas Ramus to devour them at remarkable speed, considering her earlier refusal. Watching the child chow down, astonished by her father’s good judgment, Emi decided to make up for the fat and salt in the morning with something a little healthier for lunch.

“Hello there—oh …”

At four forty-five in the afternoon that day, Emi arrived at work to replace the lunch shift, only to run into Iwaki for the first time. She was a small woman, wearing glasses and her full-time managerial uniform, but she didn’t notice Emi come in at first. Instead, she was staring intently at a job listing magazine, writing something on a sheet of paper.

“Uhmm…”

Emi regretted breaking the woman’s concentration, but she had to grab her attention sometime.

“Oh! Uh, um, hello there. My name is Iwaki, and I’m the new transfer to this location.”

With that hurriedly spoken self-intro, Iwaki stood up.

Emi bowed her own head. “My name’s Emi Yusa. It’s good to meet you.”

“Yusa… Oh! Yes, I hear you’re our best employee on the phone.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’m best or anything…”

It must’ve been Kisaki who’d given her that awkward-to-accept praise.

“I’m still new here after all, as of four months ago. There’s still a lot I don’t know yet, so thanks in advance for your guidance.”

That wasn’t her being modest. She had never considered herself the best before, and while Maou and the rest of the team helped her get used to things behind the counter, whether that was getting fed back into her customer service skills was still an open question. There were still a lot of items on the regular menu she hadn’t even tried for herself yet. She still felt firmly in new-hire territory.

“…!”

But surprise seemed to register behind Iwaki’s glasses anyway.

“Ms. Iwaki?”

“…Sorry. Thank you as well. Ms. Kisaki will be here to help with the handover again this evening, but we’ll be a little short-staffed for the start of the dinner rush, so hang in there.”

“Sure thing,” Emi meekly replied, before moving on to the changing room. Iwaki gave her a nod as she left before diligently returning to her writing project.

Looking at the schedule, Emi saw that she, Maou, Akiko, and Kawata were on duty. Chiho was due in at six PM, and if Kisaki was also around later, the shift wasn’t as short-staffed as Iwaki let on—a relief to Emi. She didn’t think their first meeting went badly at all, but Iwaki did seem to have this vague sense of irritable impatience she couldn’t quite grasp.

“Hey, Emi. Sorry about this morning,” Maou said from the counter as she went toward the staff room.

“Sure, sure. I’m all set, so we can meet anytime tomorrow. I just said hello to Ms. Iwaki.”

“Oh? Did she say anything?”

“No, just hello.”

Emi raised a curious eyebrow. Maou’s, meanwhile, were slanted downward—but he quickly shook it off.

“Oh. Well, all right, then.”

“Look, what’s been occupying you since yesterday? You’ve clearly been hiding something.”

“Sorry. I’m not hiding it, exactly…”

The apology was an unusually sincere one for him.

“…but you’ll probably find out tonight. I’m sorry, I can’t stop wondering about it.”

He was being just as vague as ever, but the context was clear enough to Emi—something about the workplace was troubling Maou.

“All right, all right. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure life’s never easy for a shift manager—oops, I got a call.”

A delivery call beeped its way to Emi’s headset. She jogged over to the order station. It was a group order from a regular customer, a small company a fair distance from the MgRonald; they could handle it, but if both Maou and Kawata were doing a delivery at the same time, things could get a little hairy.

“Maybe I should get my license,” Emi said to herself after the call was over and Maou had headed out. Thanks to her previous experience, she was semi-dedicated to taking phone orders at the moment, although other crewmembers handled that job as well. The day shifts were often manned by married women with driver’s licenses, but with the night staff—younger and having more irregular shift schedules—only Maou and Kawata were qualified to do deliveries, which seemed like an issue to Emi. She knew the company would cover her costs if she applied for a license (Maou had told her a million times), so there wouldn’t be any harm in trying.

Interrupting her thoughts about this came a chirp of “Good evening!” from Akiko. Emi gave the biggest smile she could from behind her counter. But internally, she was trembling. Even a newbie with four months’ experience saw what this was—the first signs of the dinner-rush peak. Losing Maou at this exact moment was beyond inopportune.

Emi used her handset to call in Iwaki for help. Quickly seeing what was up, the manager flew right out.

“One Hanami Burger coming right up!”

“Okay, out of 10,000… I need a check on a 10,000-yen bill, please!”

“Yes, your Happiness Set will come with one of the toys here… I apologize, ma’am, but unfortunately you’re not able to choose your toy with this promotion… Yes, they’re packaged like this, you see, so sadly, I’m not able to see what they are. My apologies for that…”

“Thank you for calling MgRonald at Hatagaya Station! This is Yusa speaking! Is this a delivery order?”

“Hi, guys! I’ll open up the other register! …I’ll take the next customer over here, please!”

“Sorry for the delay. We’ll bring it to you when it’s ready, so if you can put this number card on your table…”

“Marko’s out? Kawacchi, you stay here; I’ll handle this one. So it’s a cola, a small shake, and…three pies…”

“One Teriyaki Chicken Burger and one Big Mag set to go! Thanks for your patience!”

Dinner tonight was a razor’s-edge battle. Emi, Akiko, and Kawata knew that Chiho and Kisaki were on hand now, but the more staff they had on hand, the more customers came in to distract their attention. Nobody had a moment to breathe.

Despite that, the presence of Iwaki did a lot to keep everything together. When Kisaki’s departure was first announced, people had started whispering their concerns about whether the new manager had much on-the-floor experience, but those doubts had proved baseless. No matter what it was, Iwaki did it quickly and accurately. The smoothness of her teamwork was astonishing for only her second day on the job; she immediately knew where all the machines and condiments were.

The waves of customers finally receded a bit around nine in the evening.

Emi was finally able to chat a bit with Chiho. “Tonight sure was something, huh?”

“Oh, man, I’m so sweaty.”

Iwaki, finally at ease a little, suddenly sounded far more casual. “It’s amazing to see how slammed we can get when everything comes together. I went up and down the stairs so many times, my legs are aching.”

In the end Maou, Kisaki, and Kawata were out ferrying deliveries for most of the past few hours, so there weren’t enough people to man the café counter upstairs at all times. Iwaki was wearing short-heeled pumps, as befitted her manager’s uniform, so her legs must’ve been killing her.

“But it’s rare for delivery and upstairs to max out at the same time like this,” Chiho said. “It’s rare enough for all of the bikes to be out, so I think today was just an unusually busy dinner.”

“Yeah,” agreed Akiko, “it’s not like there were more customers than usual, but they all had pretty heavy orders. I don’t think those numbers would keep us this busy normally.”

“We are getting more deliveries lately, though. And I think we’re seeing all three bikes in use at once more often.” Emi smiled. “But with our location, even if we got more bikes, I’m not sure where we’d put them.”

“Oh, right.”

Iwaki nodded at the three women’s evaluations before bringing up the journal screen on a register to look up the night’s stats.

“Actually getting to experience this location is something else…”

“Oh?”

“I mean, I knew the trends based on past sales numbers and so on, but now that I’m in here, it’s still pretty surprising.” Iwaki adjusted her glasses and sighed. “It’s not just the number of customers after all.”

Emi wasn’t sure how to respond, but judging by how Iwaki looked, it seemed to give her serious food for thought. She hesitated to give too casual a reply. Kisaki’s performance, she knew, went beyond the call of duty for a single location manager; maybe the new girl felt under pressure. Chiho picked up on this, giving Iwaki a concerned expression—but, Emi thought, Chiho looked kind of anxious herself. And Maou seemed to suggest that all his murky concerns would become clear once Chiho was around—did this have to do with it?

“……”

Between Maou, Chiho, and Iwaki, having these people mope around all evening made things tremendously uncomfortable for Emi. But the next moment:

“Once! Once, this was the curtain for a stage that sent my heart soaring, illuminating the castle of my goddess in the twilight!”

“Huh? What?!”

The sudden booming tenor made Iwaki take a step back, head lifted.

“But what about now? With every night, as the curtain falls once and again, the day my goddess and I are separated grows ever closer, a merciless song from the depths of hell itself!”

“Whoa…”

“Ahh…”

“Ohh…”

“What happened?!”

Chiho, Emi, and Akiko immediately knew who this was, their faces instantly going blank. It was another poem of love from Sariel, for what seemed like the first time in ages. He rarely showed up at night, so a lot of customers caught unawares were now staring at the front door. Emi and Chiho looked around for Kanako Furuya, shift manager at Sentucky and a girl who had proved a worthy overseer for Sariel—but unluckily for them, she apparently wasn’t at work tonight.

“And ah, hello there, Ms. Iwaki! Thank you again for this morning! And who do I see but Sasaki, and Yusa, and Ohki. I hastened over once I was sure your wave of evening traffic had subsided!”

“Uh. Ah. Yes, thank you. Um, you’re Mr. Sarue, correct?”

It wasn’t unnatural for the manager at a rival fast-food outlet to come in here as a customer. It was unnatural to go about it like this. Iwaki’s mind had difficulty keeping up. Judging by what they said, they were already familiar with each other, but nobody must’ve told Iwaki about this aspect of Sarue’s personality. Emi and Chiho gave each other looks, silently agreeing with each other. No, even if she was told, there was no way she’d believe it unless she saw it for herself.

Chiho stepped up. “Yusa, Ohki, I’ll handle this.”

“All right. Don’t worry, Manager. Chiho will cover for you.”

“Huh? Uh, wh-what? Are you sure you want to?”

“It’ll be fine. Oh, I’m gonna go check on the freezer with Emi-Yu.”

Seeing Chiho volunteering to take the brunt of this while Akiko and Emi stepped back made it impossible for Iwaki to hide her concern. But Akiko and Emi had their antennae out in case anything happened. Depending on how Sarue chose to act, Iwaki might have every right to call the authorities and ban him from the premises—commonsense measures, really—and Chiho wouldn’t be able to stop her, assuming she thought it best to. For now, this approach was the best.

“…Good evening, Mr. Sarue. Are you having dinner with us tonight?”

Sariel would usually break out a bouquet of flowers right about now. But upon closer observation, he was dressed in a suit today and looking, well, as normal a member of society as he ever could.

“No, ma’am, I actually have something for Maou.”

That was why his opening serenade seemed so out of place—and why was he busting that out if his business was with Maou?

Chiho, well familiar with Sariel by now, cut right to the chase. “Maou? You didn’t say all that weird stuff because you wanted to see Ms. Kisaki?”

“Realizing,” he explained, “the day will come shortly when Ms. Kisaki will be nowhere to be found in here is enough to tear apart my heart. Those stark emotions just naturally emanate from my lips, you see. Of course, if I could see Ms. Kisaki, I would wish for nothing else, but…”

This was already setting off Chiho’s danger sensors. She felt an urgent need to nail Sariel down as much as she could before he tried anything funny.

“…Well, Ms. Iwaki is a normal person, okay? If you mess up and she calls the police, I’m not gonna be able to cover for you.”

“I am fully aware of that, trust me. Did you think I would do anything as rude as that to a woman who’s such a cutie in a pair of glasses?”

Did anyone use the word cutie these days? And didn’t he realize that what he did just a few seconds earlier was “rude” to everyone in the dining area? Chiho resisted the urge to begin lecturing him and opted to stick only with what needed to be said.

“Well, Mr. Sarue, all those habits of yours were something that Ms. Kisaki tolerated strictly because she’s Ms. Kisaki. And now that Ms. Iwaki’s here, you should really avoid singing songs about how much you lament Ms. Kisaki being gone.”

“Hee-hee-hee! Take heart, then, Chiho Sasaki. I am hardly as imprudent a man as that.”

He was certainly dedicated to Kisaki, but exactly how “imprudent” he was, was worthy of debate.

“I intend to build a beneficial relationship with her as a fellow member of the industry. The impression I give after Ms. Kisaki leaves will be vital for what comes later… Ms. Kisaki… She’s leaving… Ohhh…!”

Immediately after declaring himself prudent, the angel was about to collapse on the floor and bawl. Chiho wasted no time.

“Don’t sprawl out on the counter and cry, please. You’re bothering our other customers. If you had something for Maou, I could take it from you, but…ah.”

Just as she flatly stated her warning, Maou stepped in, motorcycle helmet in hand.

“Maou, Mr. Sarue is here.”

“Oh, perfect.”

He put the helmet and his insulated delivery bag back in their respective places, noticing in his peripheral vision that Iwaki was watching as he approached Sariel.

“Sorry to bother you while you’re busy and all, Sarue.”

“…Say, Maou, what day is today?”

“April the second.”

“If only it wasn’t so…”

“It’s officially Ms. Iwaki’s location as of April first.”

“Pleeeeeeease tell me it’s a lie…”

“Even if I did, it wouldn’t change reality, you know. Oh, is this it?”

Chiho was too distracted by the first new love song from Sariel in a while to notice, but there was a manila envelope in the man’s hand. Fishing it out from him as he sobbed at the counter, Maou opened it up and looked inside.

“Thanks. I appreciate this,” he said with a businesslike tone—and then placed a hand on the shoulder of the inconsolable angel and smiled. “Sorry to put you through the trouble. If you want, I can treat you to a cup of coffee.”

“I want one poured by Ms. Kisaki!!”

“All right, all right. She’s out on deliveries right now, so you’re gonna need to wait, okay? I’ll ask her to make one.”

“Ah…ahh…nnnngh…”

Maou was acting oddly nice to Sariel. That itself was a creepy sight, but his whisperings must’ve had the intended effect, because Sariel meekly followed Maou up to the second floor.

“Wh-what was that about?”

Just as Chiho found herself totally lost, Maou’s voice spoke up in her headset.

“Sorry for the trouble, but when Ms. Kisaki comes back, can someone tell her to head upstairs for me?”

“All right. I’ll tell her… Oh, actually, she’s back now. Ms. Kisaki!”

Kisaki walked back in from a delivery run. Chiho gave Emi in the kitchen a quick nod and went up to her. The news that Sarue was crying upstairs made her laugh.

“Oh, all right. Emi-yu, got a moment?”

“Yes?” Emi asked, Iwaki next to her.

“Sorry, but can you back up Ms. Iwaki? Aki and everyone else, stay on the first floor for me. Ms. Iwaki, I’d like you to go about halfway up the stairs, if you could. You’ll get a better picture of what he’s really like then.”

“Um… Huh?”

“It’s all right, Manager. I’ll be there with you.”

“Huhh?”

Iwaki, not at all sure what was going on, was pulled out from behind the counter by Emi, who took her a few steps up as instructed.

“Okay, I’ll go up,” Kisaki agreed.

“M-Ms. Kisakiiiiiiiii…!”

“Eep!”

Iwaki was visibly shaken by the sudden iridescent groan above, mixed with happiness and sadness like a film of heavy oil on the surface of the sea.

“It’s all right. Generally, he only acts like that with Ms. Kisaki, so…”

Emi, realizing her role, gave Iwaki a little support, attempting to ease her trepidation.

“I—I—what will I ever do? Ohhh…”

“I hope you’ll treat Ms. Iwaki well for me, for one. You like an Americano, right?”

They could just barely make out Kisaki and Sariel’s conversation.

“Mr. Sarue is, um…capable of separating work from his private life, more or less. He’s got someone watching over him at his own workplace. I know the impression he’s giving you, but don’t be too scared of him, please…”

Emi had no personal interest in being a character witness in Sariel’s favor, but she needed to be sure Iwaki wouldn’t be too alarmed by Mr. Sarue, an erstwhile manager from across the street.

Iwaki nodded at this, still a little distantly. “No, um…Ms. Kisaki did tell me about this. But he’s acting so differently from when he said hello earlier today, and…you know, it’s something of a shock, actually seeing someone carry on like that…”

The thought was on Emi’s mind, too, not to mention everyone else who worked at the Hatagaya Station franchise. As she thought about this, a grinning Maou came downstairs, leaving Sariel alone with Kisaki. “I know it’s pretty surprising at first,” he said, “but he really is polite. He just tends to be…more flowery when he’s talking to women, is all. If you ever feel like you can’t handle him, most of the crew’s used to him, so feel free to let any of them handle it.”

“Okay…” Iwaki stood there another moment. “…But thanks. I’m good now.”

She listened to Kisaki and Sarue’s conversation, a thoughtful if confused look on her face.

“I’ve worked for years in big, high-volume locations like this one. I’ve had to deal with lots of unusual characters in my time, and I can deal with them as neighbors without having to count on you all the time. Thanks.”

““?””

Despite her declaration, Iwaki still didn’t look fully recovered from the first impact. But if she said so, Maou and Emi had no reason to convince her otherwise.

“I’ll be in the back handling some business. If anything comes up, let me know,” Iwaki said, and all they could do was watch her as she went to the staff room.

“It must have really thrown her,” a worried Emi noted.

“It’d throw me more if it didn’t,” Maou countered, crossing his arms. “But it’d be weird if we intervened any further than this. Let’s go downstairs. We can’t have Chi and the rest by themselves down there.”

“Right.”

Down below, Chiho was on tenterhooks waiting for them.

“Um, M-Ms. Kisaki looked really troubled just now. Is she all right?”

“I…think she is. Right?”

“Y-yes, probably.”

Seeing the kind of impact someone like Sariel had on a normal, sensible person made it impossible for Maou or Emi to avow that all was well. Emi noticed even before Sariel’s appearance that Iwaki was acting unusual today, which made that even truer.

“So what did Sariel have?”

“Oh, this?” Maou had the envelope tucked under an arm. “There’s actually something I want to show the two of you later. Maybe when we go see the landlord tomorrow. Actually…you’re on spring break, right, Chi? Do you have some time tomorrow morning?”

“Sure, no problem, but what’s up?”

“Well, I’m not exactly proud of this, but I’m gonna go apologize to the landlord.”

“Huh?”

Maou gave her a quick summary of the state of Room 201 after their demon-realm trouble, how the landlord found out, and the measures she’d taken in response.

“I’m gonna use Emi’s debt to me to repay that, but while I do, I think it’d be a good chance to quell some misgivings I have. So I asked Sariel for something before I went to work this morning.”

He poked a finger at the envelope.

“I dangled a chance at some Kisaki-brewed coffee in his face.”

“Wha?”

Despite everything before, this almost felt like the first time Maou had done anything “evil” in her eyes. Perhaps noticing her response, Maou averted his eyes, a little bashful.

“I feel bad for Ms. Kisaki and Ms. Iwaki, but don’t you think it’s a small price to pay if it means Sariel’s gonna protect this street for the next three years?”

“Well, maybe, but…”

Chiho sounded gruff. He had kind of sucked Kisaki in unawares.

“Hey, I asked him for a little insurance when we went to rescue Emi, too, remember?”

“Right, right, I understand. So what’s in the envelope?”

Maou looked away, checking on Akiko and Kawata first before he proceeded. “Well,” he whispered, “if you take the stories Sariel, Gabriel, Laila, and Urushihara gave us and put them together, they don’t match up in some spots.”

“Don’t match up?”

“Right. With everything that went on, it’s gotten really clear that a lack of information can be lethal to us. I want to collate everything we’ve heard about before and organize what we know into one neat package. So I had Sariel summarize everything he knows about the heavens for me. I’ll put it against what Emi’s heard later and work it into a single narrative—and along those lines, there are a few things I need to hear the landlord’s take on.”

“About heaven?” Emi asked.

Maou nodded. “In particular, if you’re gonna be taking a step back, I wanna be sure we have a firm grasp on our situation. Because we’re not gonna see as much of each other before too long, you know? I wanna make sure I put as little worry on you as possible.”

A startled Chiho looked up at Maou, before bringing her face back down.

“So you heard from Ms. Kisaki?”

“Yeah.”

“What? What is it?”

Emi was thrown by the sudden dark air around the two of them. But Chiho looked up at her, her eyes filled with determination.

“I’m quitting at the end of April.”

“What…?!”

It was April of her third and final year in high school. Emi had imagined this many times, but actually hearing it from Chiho’s mouth shook her.

“For my exams…and for next year. So…”

“Chiho…”

“So right now, I’m going to do my part. So I can show you guys I’ve been working hard, too, when you’re done with your battle. So…”

There was strong resolve in Chiho’s eyes, along with a twinge of loneliness.

“I’ve done everything I could back at the zirga. After that, I’m just going to pray that you two come back winners.”

“I called a sales rep I know from the help-wanted magazines, and she was kind enough to help us squeeze into at least one of them. For all the others, they’ll come out in two weeks, but…”

After Sarue left (only with the greatest of reluctance), Kisaki and Iwaki were facing each other at the MgRonald back office, discussing the shifts ahead.

“Thank you very much,” Kisaki said. “I appreciate that. But losing five people—the kind of people who can deal with the wave we had today… Just thinking about it makes my stomach hurt. Sasaki in particular is an amazing young girl.”

“But she’s definitely leaving, right?”

“Well, she’s almost done with high school. I doubt her parents would let her stay, and she’s pretty strong-willed anyway. If she says she’s leaving, all the convincing in the world won’t change her mind.”

“Yeah…”

Iwaki was already petite enough, but right now she seemed like an even smaller presence in the room.

“Despite business conditions, the budget we have for people is trending downward. Even if we have a pretty decent headcount, we should try to keep expanding as much as we can while the current regional manager is in place. I get the impression that manager is going to be transferred soon as well.”

“A-all right.”

“Our most stable presences in the evening crew are Maou and Yusa. Kawata can be relied upon, too, but he’s in his last year of college and he told me he’ll be taking over his family’s business upon graduation, so relying on him too much could hurt you later on. Ohki’s a college junior this year, so she may need to start the job hunt this summer.”

“…Students start the job search that early? I forgot about that.”

“Well, there’s been talk about efforts to delay that more to the summer of year four, but that hasn’t been followed in practice at all. One of our staff told us that he got an informal offer from a big manufacturing firm in March of his junior year.”

Kisaki discussed a few other handover-related staff issues before wrapping up with this:

“The tough thing here is that all the crewmembers we have here right now are ‘matured.’ Even if you have to force it a little, I want them to reflect your style as soon as possible, Ms. Iwaki, not mine.”

“…Will that work all right?” a nervous Iwaki asked.

Kisaki firmly nodded. “If you lose anyone as a result, they wouldn’t have stuck around for very long anyway.”

“…!”

“I have cards for the reps from other help-wanted mags in that file. I told them in advance that we’ll have a new manager, so I think they’ll understand the situation. We have a fair amount of freedom with the layout in the paper editions, so as long as you’re not asking for an exorbitant amount, one phone call to the regional manager should get you all the advertising budget you need.”

Their conversation continued on awhile longer.

An hour later, at ten in the evening:

“Great job today, you guys. Chi, are you done for the day?”

Chiho and Emi were at the first-floor counter.

“Ah, yes, it’s ten PM. You’re off, right, Sasaki?”

“I am, thanks.”

“So am I today. Wanna go home together?”

For a moment, Chiho recalled how Kisaki took a different way home than she did.

“I have some stuff to discuss.”

But Chiho decided to humor her, so the two of them left the MgRonald together, as Emi, Akiko, and Iwaki watched them go.

“Ms. Iwaki?” Emi asked, noting the slightly stolid expression on the new manager.

“…Oh, sorry. Is Maou upstairs?”

“No, he’s out on a delivery. We’re heading up whenever customers do.”

“All right… Would anyone mind if I went up there while I have a chance?”

“Huh?”

The request confused Akiko, but Emi cut her off with her nodding.

“That’s just fine.”

“Sorry. This is my first location with the café setup, so I wanted to see how things look in operation while things are quiet.”

With that brisk statement, she went upstairs, not waiting for a response.

“I wonder why she did that? It’s not like there’s much to do up there by now.”

Ten in the evening was too early to begin the closing procedure, but there weren’t any customers to serve, either. Heading up wouldn’t seem to accomplish very much.

“Well, maybe there’s stuff that managers like her can do. Or maybe she’s checking on things she’s taking over from Ms. Kisaki.”

“Ah, yeah, maybe. She is working hard to keep the current atmosphere Ms. Kisaki’s got going.”

Most of the crew already understood that, at the very least, Iwaki was a crew-oriented manager, not the type to avoid hands-on work.

Emi said suddenly, “Um, I’m gonna go up, too.”

“Huh?”

The sight of Emi leaving the counter honestly surprised Akiko.

“You oughta be fine,” Kawata said from the kitchen. “Us, no, but you’re still new around here. We’re too influenced by Ms. Kisaki.”

“Oh.” Now Akiko understood. “Yeah, that could make things difficult.”

“Right. Even if you don’t mean them to be.”

“But I get it. Ms. Iwaki isn’t that much older than us, after all. Ms. Kisaki always seemed like she’s from another world, but Ms. Iwaki feels more like me in the near future. Ahh…”

Former coworker Kotaro Nakayama had scored a job offer as a college junior—and meanwhile, Maou had failed in his bid at the managerial track. Knowing that had made Akiko a bit nervous about her future career.

“No way I could ever work full-time!”

Chiho and Kisaki were walking notably more slowly than usual. Kisaki wanted to talk things over with Chiho, but as the store manager, she also didn’t want a high school girl wandering around alone late at night.

“Well? Think you can get along with Ms. Iwaki?”

“I think she seems really nice. I want to do whatever I can for her…but to be honest, I feel kind of bad about breaking the news to her on her first day.”

“Oh, there was no avoiding that. We anticipated it anyway, and I’m sure it’s better for her to know sooner than later.”

They were talking about when Chiho announced her departure.

“Really, I ought to thank your parents for letting you work the entirety of April. If you’re from Sasahata North High, that could put you in competition for Tokyo or Kyoto University if you started studying right now, couldn’t it?”

“No way I could manage that. There was a guy one year ahead of me who got into Kyoto last year, but he needed two tries to get in.”

The school put up a big banner by the teachers’ offices to congratulate him for it, this boy whose name and face were unfamiliar to Chiho. It was like he had won gold in the Olympics.

“But my grades aren’t that good, and I’m not part of any big-name sports team or anything. I think that’s partly why nobody’s really put a lot of pressure on me about college exams yet.”

“That’s still pretty impressive.”

“What do you mean?” a curious Chiho asked.

“I mean, the adults around you are giving a lot of respect to the decisions you make. They believe you’re being serious about the path you choose for your future, even if you keep working into the first semester of your final year. Normally, now’s about the time when people would tell you to start focusing on exams.”

“Well, honestly, you’re the first person to say that to me, Ms. Kisaki. My mom just told me to think it over and not push myself too much.”

“It’s too bad more people can’t say that. My parents definitely put the pressure on me. Of course, as long as my school grades beat Himeko Tanaka’s, that was fine by me, more or less, so whatever she was bad at, I was, too.”

Kisaki smiled at the memory of her youthful transgressions.

“I might have told you this before, but I’m probably giving you the most irresponsible advice out of all the adults in your life. So keep that in mind when I say that you should really go to as high-level of a university as you possibly can. No matter what path you pick for the future.”

Chiho had discussed that future with Kisaki before. If Chiho was choosing this moment, just before leaving her job, to look all distressed as she asked for more advice, you didn’t need Kisaki’s intuition to realize that here was a girl with some qualms about the next few years.

“How did you decide which universities you could get into, Ms. Kisaki?”

“Well…the normal way is all I can tell you. I went to the test prep center, I took practice exams, and I compared my results with the college acceptance standards. I used that to pick the subjects I was best at, I looked at the exam schedules, and I whittled them down to the ones available for me to take. Even back then, I wanted to run my own restaurant, but I had no idea what that entailed. I just kind of figured I should get into some kind of management or commerce major…but looking back, I didn’t think too deeply about it.”

“Oh, no?”

That was a surprising answer. Kisaki took what was probably the most common method to picking her future path, one that countless other people took.

“Why would I? Ten years ago, I was a teenage girl, too. I wasn’t old enough to think too deeply about anything. It wasn’t in my nature then.”

Chiho all but assumed Kisaki had this mature sort of personality ever since kindergarten. It was rude to think, but she couldn’t imagine Kisaki as a teen in high school at all.

“So I was kind of a slacker teen, but I worked hard in college. I wasn’t valedictorian or anything, but still… Not that this is too worth bragging about, but I never failed any of my classes. Full credit load every semester. Boy, I haven’t thought about college credits in years. Do you know what a full credit load means?”

Chiho shook her head.

“It means,” Kisaki said with a nostalgic smile, “I took as many courses as time allowed, I showed up to every lecture, and I didn’t fail an exam or miss a report once.”

“Oh… Isn’t that kind of the normal thing to do?”

“Oddly enough, it’s not that rare to mess up in college. For instance, maybe your term paper gets rejected, or your professor’s a stickler about attendance and fails you for missing too many lectures. But if you can keep a clean record up to your junior year, that helps a lot with the job search. Once you get to your senior year, your course load isn’t so bad, so you have a lot more time to find one.”

The college advice from Emi and Rika’s coworker Maki Shimizu was a breath of fresh air for Chiho. Kisaki’s, on the other hand, was fresh from a different angle. Feeling they had sufficiently broken the ice, Chiho took a step closer to her main topic.

“Um… Do you mind if I ask a strange question?”

Kisaki gave her an oddly mischievous grin, as if expecting this.

“If it’s about whether I have a guy or not, not right now, no.”

Chiho’s face reddened at having her motivations so easily guessed. But her curiosity still prevailed.

“Not ‘right now,’ huh?”

“Again, not to brag, but I was pretty popular at school.”

Chiho could imagine. If Kisaki wasn’t popular, nobody would be. But judging by her expression, the memory wasn’t a rosy one.

“But it’s funny. Guys would ask to date me, but then they were always the ones who left me. It was the same pattern, over and over. It just made me want to laugh—like, why’re they all so enthusiastic about going through the motions?”

“Really? You’re kidding me!”

“Apparently they didn’t realize how ‘scary’ I was until they started dating me. That and I wasn’t charming enough, or whatever.”

If Sariel had heard this, he would surely have delivered his divine judgment upon the men in question immediately.

“And I was never that interested in deep romance, so maybe people saw me as too detached. Usually, when we broke up, it was after talking about our stances toward studying, and the future. So I had boyfriends, but for the most part, I think I spent my whole college life with Himeko and Yuki. Honestly, I don’t even remember most of what I did with guys.”

Chiho wondered why, despite all that, Kisaki still refused to call Himeko her friend.

“All my life, I’ve lived for nobody besides myself. I never entertained the idea that I should worry about someone else when contemplating my future. So I kind of doubt I can give you the answers you’re looking for right now, Chi.”

By this point, Chiho had to concede it. Kisaki had all but read her mind.

“Just—feel free to take this as the opinion of some girl who’s ten years older than you—but it’s extremely rare for any high school romance to stick around for the long term.”

“……!”

But having it spelled out in black and white like this made her blush.

“And even if you’re one of those rare cases—when you graduate and it’s time to consider the future, you should really only think about yourself. Because in the end, that’ll help out Marko, too.”

“Yeah…yeahhhh…”

And now Maou’s name came up.

“He might’ve told you already, but I invited Marko to join me in my future business.”

“Um, yes, he told me a little about it.”

“Marko turned me down, but looking back, I guess he didn’t, necessarily.”

Kisaki had interpreted Maou’s response correctly. Chiho knew that.

“To be honest, even if I launched my place in the best possible circumstances, for the first few years I’m not gonna be able to pay Marko anywhere near the going rate for someone his age. And there’s every chance we’ll shut down, too. If you’re trying to stay with Marko your whole life, I think you’re gonna need a foundation you can make money off of, or else it’s gonna be unstable in a lot of ways.”

A foundation you can make money off of. In Japan, that likely meant one thing.

“A full-time career?”

Chiho had mulled over those words many times in the past year. It wasn’t something she ever directly addressed, but in her dreams and the future she longed for, she just couldn’t do away with that term.

“Yes, and one with the best salary and benefits you can manage, too. If you want a job at a company like that, it’s best to attend a well-known, high-level university. And maybe you don’t have much idea about what kind of business you want to work for yet, but when you do, you’ll wanna be able to have your choice of them. Otherwise, you’ll have wasted your time.”

She may have been wording them differently, but Kisaki was saying the exact same things Maki Shimizu had told Chiho earlier. They couldn’t have known each other. If they were both in agreement, this must’ve been the most common way of thinking about the issue.

“And now that we’re at this point, I can tell you—when I first looked at your résumé, Chi, I had no expectations whatsoever. It was the same kind of by-the-book résumé anyone your age would write. It’s not like you’d have a lot to write down.”

“Oh?”

“But that all changed during our interview. Do you remember what you talked about?”

“Um, not really.”

She recalled how much trouble she’d had answering Kisaki’s questions, and how she’d assumed she had blown it. Looking back, she thought the topic of her extracurricular activities came up, but she forgot all the details.

“You told me you wanted to make money for the things you hoped for. When I heard that, I thought, ‘Wow, this is a real capable kid.’”

“I said that?!”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Ohh… That sounds like I was just in it for the money.”

Come to think of it, that was another thing she’d beaten herself up over after the interview. She had talked way too frankly about money, and recalling it made her scowl.

But Kisaki shook her head. “You didn’t ‘just’ want the money. You wanted to make money. I could tell you were incredibly nervous. You were having trouble stringing together what you wanted to say, but even as you did, you talked about making money so you could buy equipment for your archery team.”

“That—that sounds pretty much like the same thing to me.”

“It couldn’t be more different,” Kisaki declared. “You fully understood that you had to work, or else you couldn’t get the kind of money you were hoping for.”

“Isn’t that pretty much…normal?”

“I wish it were. It’s not, for the most part. Otherwise, we wouldn’t print the hourly wage in the biggest font possible in our want ads. I’m not gonna blame high school kids for not getting it, but you wouldn’t believe how many college students, how many grown-ups, mistake being ‘employed’ for getting money that doesn’t even exist yet.”

This struck a chord with Chiho. She recalled how her friend Yoshiya did a far-too-optimistic calculation of what she’d make per day, getting all jealous about it.

“And everyone talks about how they want money while they’re chatting or whatever. I mean, I buy lottery tickets regularly. It’d be great if I had some income I didn’t need to work for. But if you want money, you gotta seriously work for it. If you’re working under awful work conditions or your salary’s unfairly low, that’s one thing, but it’s just a matter of common sense. You gotta work to earn money. And yes, people go on about how working the floor at MgRonald is hard work for low pay. But it’s still a company everybody knows. It has its bad sides, but it treats workers way better than the competition in several aspects.”

“It does?”

“I mean, compensation is about more than the number of hours, or the wage on your pay slip. There’s also the ease of taking time off. There’s insurance. There’s a full system for maternity or child-care leave. There’s a company that’s open and encouraging when you use these systems. For working women, having a compliance-driven attitude is extremely important. Generally speaking, the larger in size a company is, the more likely it feels ‘easy to work in,’ and the easier it is to make long-term life plans with them. There are exceptions, but still. And companies like that tend to not pay bad, either. So if you want to realistically support Marko’s dreams, I’d recommend you keep studying with an eye toward scoring a job at one of those firms. But at the same time…”

Kisaki gave Chiho a teasing smile.

“When you’re in school, romance can often come to an end when you enter a new environment. You may just find someone you’re more attracted to.”

“Oh, no way I will! Anyone besides Maou to me is…ah…!”

Strung along by Kisaki like that, Chiho could tell how red her face was, even in the darkness of night.

“I know you’re not that type of girl, Chi. I’m more worried that, if Marko starts to fall to rock bottom, you’ll drag yourself along every step of the way.”

“Ah…uh…um…”

The fact she had already declared her unquestioned faithfulness, and the fact Kisaki had so clearly read her feelings for Maou, made Chiho incredibly embarrassed about everything.

“I hope Marko can keep himself together a little more. For your future’s sake, too.”

“I, ah, it, it’s not like me, me and Maou are dating…”

“Then all the more. If you’re not a couple, then you diving in that much would make anyone worry themselves to death. You need to do something for yourself more, Chi. Otherwise, you won’t be able to do things for other people any longer. You’re still in high school, so there’s not a lot that Marko or the people around you are asking for. But in five or ten years, when you’re grown up, if you want to be someone that people need—and Marko, too—then think seriously about what you need to do, and make a serious effort at it.”

She paused a moment.

“Not to sound pretentious, but if you choose some easy path at random and it leads you to my company or restaurant, I’m sure I wouldn’t hire you. That wouldn’t help you, and it wouldn’t help Marko, either.”

“…!”

Chiho gasped. Here was the other of the two things she and Rika had decided she needed to confirm during their talk: Would it be possible to join Kisaki’s firm in the future?

“Some things, you’ll lose sight of them if you’re too close. You won’t be able to work with those things any longer. So think about ways you can support him, and approach him with those. Otherwise, you’ll take both him and yourself down.”

They were now in front of Sasazuka Station. Chiho’s head hung low as Kisaki smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s all right. You may feel lost, but you know how to make an effort. I’m sure that’s going to help you later on. Beyond that, if Marko winds up on the streets, I can help him with that, so try not to worry too much about him for now, all right?”

“…All right.”

Kisaki couldn’t be reading her mind. But somewhere within her skull, she had been nurturing the vague, baseless notion that going to Kisaki’s restaurant would let her work with Maou. And that was why Kisaki had refused to allow that idea to take shape—because she truly cared for them both.

“Don’t worry. Grown-ups who can take responsibility for themselves kind of naturally become attractive. Unique. If you work as hard as you can, I’m sure even that dimwit will realize what a wonderful girl you are. He’ll do anything to keep from losing you.”

“I—that—that—I’m nothing like…”

Chiho was now battered by innumerable types of shame all at once, all showing themselves on her intensely reddened face and the mouth she covered with one hand. Having Kisaki bring up Maou made this discussion feel so childish, not to mention a rehash of previous talks. It was beyond embarrassing—almost pathetic.

“You know, I kind of envy you. You’re so young, and you’ve already got all these wonderful experiences to agonize over.”

“…Huh?”

“Ah, never mind. I can’t keep you too much longer. Since we’re here and all, why don’t I accompany you home?”

“Huh? Oh, no, I couldn’t…”

“Well, I’m already here anyway. Maybe while we’re on the train, you can tell me what you like about Marko so much.”

“Huhh?!”

The word huh had taken up much of her vocabulary as of late. She could feel herself being slowly cornered.

“He’s not a bad guy, of course. He works hard, he’s dreaming big, and he’s a pretty good looker, too. But if you’re asking me whether he has that something that’d make a girl like you so dedicated… I don’t know.”

“M-M-Ms. Kisaki?!”

“I’ve never had great luck with men, not that I’ve ever tried. But I hear from people my age that’re marrying and having children, so to an amateur like me… How to put it? I just wanna know what it is about him that makes your heart skip a beat.”

“Wh-what are you saying?!”

“What was that initial spark? He was your trainer, wasn’t he?”

“Please, let’s talk about something else!”

“Wait, wait! I’m sorry!”

Waiting for the moment the light turned green, Chiho ran across the street, Kisaki chasing after her with a grin on her face. She did feel a little bad about picking on a child that much, but she also felt just a tad envious of her straight-minded disposition as she ran straight on. It was a relief when she finally caught her and took her back home to safety.

“Everything all right?”

“Yusa…”

Iwaki was behind the café counter, looking a little lost.

“What’s up? Something going on downstairs? Did we have a café customer?”

“No, um…”

She had followed Iwaki up the stairs, but didn’t have any concrete plan after that. Iwaki looked preoccupied with something, so Emi was curious. But as she fished around for something else to say, Iwaki spoke up first.

“I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t be doing something like this, but…”

“What’s wrong…?”

“I’m no good as a manager at all, if people are finding out how intimidated I am.” Iwaki smiled weakly, then turned her face down, resigned to her fate.

“I’m just a part-timer so I wouldn’t know, but…is it the pressure?”

“Honestly, this is like no other location I’ve been at. I knew the numbers in advance, but now that I’m actually here, it’s like I’m part of it, I guess. I can tell how smoothly this location runs with Ms. Kisaki in the center of it, and now, well, no wonder we produce the numbers we do.”

Iwaki looked around the empty café space.

“But no matter how much I try, people are gonna know that I can’t do it.”

Emi wasn’t irresponsible enough to say something pat like, “That’s not true.” People change, and with that, their environments. If that change is to the manager, one of the backbones of a business, you’ll never create the same atmosphere even if you ape every movement, every command. Every human on Planet Earth was different, so if people changed, so too did the things they left behind them.

“But the biggest surprise is you guys on the crew.”

“Us?”

“Yes. You’re all grown up. Not in terms of age, but in how I can reason with all of you. It makes me wonder how she assembled a team full of grown-ups like you. Sasaki’s the biggest example of that.”

“Yeah, everybody thinks Chiho is amazing.”

Emi knew Chiho personally, so this was obvious to her, but even an older woman who’d just barely met her could see how far beyond your typical high schooler she was, apparently.

“Having a teenager as one of the main performers on her shift is impressive enough, but she’s even more polite than most adults, and she’s so capable in all her work. It’s really a miracle. The last location I worked at was so awful.”

“The last location…?”

“I was in another large one in a busy area like this one, but we had near-constant turnover and the clientele was just out of their minds. Anyone who works in the restaurant business deals with it sooner or later, but sometimes we’d have staff who’d stop coming to work after having to handle one customer from hell or the other.”

Emi heard that a lot at her previous job, manning the phones at the Dokodemo call center. She had to deal with more than a few monsters herself. But Iwaki didn’t seem to be talking about your run-of-the-mill issues.

“It’s just that, some of the people we hired, they’d disappear for the most nonsensical reasons. They didn’t make any big mistakes, they didn’t have any bad customer experiences—no obvious issue at all. It makes you wonder why they bothered submitting an application.”

“What kind of things did they do?” Emi asked out of curiosity, Chiho being the only teen she knew.

“One guy,” Iwaki replied, her eyes gazing off into the distance, “didn’t show up for his shift. I called him, and he said he can’t make it because he’s at Narita Airport, about to take off for his study abroad.”

“Huh?”

“It wasn’t even a week after we hired him.”

“Wha…? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It didn’t to me, either. And that was the last I ever heard from him—he didn’t even return his uniform. You don’t sign on for study abroad that quickly, right? I mean, I’m sure he just disliked the work and made up an excuse, but…”

Even Emi had to smile. That example went far beyond anything she had imagined.

“There was another girl who quit because she said she couldn’t stand touching customers’ hands. She thought it was gross when she was handling cash or giving people trays.”

“Oh…?”

“Yeah, that was my response, too. And she volunteered for front-facing work when she applied, too. I’m not asking her to shake their hands, but you’ll make casual contact with customers a million times a day. I sometimes wonder what happens if someone touches her while she’s grocery shopping.”

“That’s…impressive.”

“Of course, it’s not just high schoolers. Some of the adults I’ve dealt with were really out there, too. Like the college student who ditched her shift for a beauty salon appointment, or the guy in his forties who got fired for stealing a case of buns because he wanted to ‘eat them at home.’”

Not even in the form of rumors had Emi heard of anything as outlandish as that at the Hatagaya Station location. Since Kisaki had been appointed manager, at least, she’d never heard of crewmembers quitting for anything besides unavoidable reasons, like family issues or moving out of town.

“I was the assistant manager at my last location, so I had to interview applicants, but if the people you hire leave for ridiculous reasons like that, it gets to you, you know? But here…”

Iwaki’s eyes fixated on her feet.

“The crew’s so naturally serious-minded. They always do their job. They don’t cut corners when they think nobody’s looking. This environment is like a dream to me. And what I’m worried the most about is destroying it.”

Perhaps, through the floor, she was mentally looking at her team below, diligently performing their duties.

“Oh, no… You don’t need to think that much about it.”

“No. I mean, this is magic coming from Ms. Kisaki. It doesn’t matter who it is—me, or anyone else; it’d still get messed up. I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell anyone about this, but when I heard Ms. Kisaki was joining the Consumer Insight Team, everyone called the post at Hatagaya she was leaving the ‘booby prize.’”

“The booby prize?”

“It seems like the best environment you could ask for, but nobody besides her could ever keep it going.”

The phrase fit perfectly, Emi couldn’t help thinking. But if she said that, Iwaki might interpret it badly.

Despite that, getting all that out of her system seemed to give Iwaki a measure of relief. “I’m sorry. You’re still busy getting used to things around here, and here’s your new manager griping at you.”

“No, not at all…”

“I have responsibilities of my own, so I’ll try to make this into my own MgRonald, as much as I can… But thanks. I’ll make up for this sometime.”

She burst into a smile just as a customer climbed the stairs to the café space.

“Good evening! I’ll take care of this, Yusa, so can you head back down?”

“Oh, sure. Talk to you later…”

Emi turned around, a little concerned, but Iwaki was already deftly handling the café order. For now, she had done what she’d set out to do. At least Iwaki didn’t exhibit the look of despair Emi had picked up from her at first.

Heading back downstairs, Emi spotted Akiko’s and Kawata’s eyes on her. She nodded at them, and they went back to work, looking visibly relieved. They must’ve been concerned about Iwaki as well.

“I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

Yes, being Kisaki’s successor was a higher-pressure gig than Emi could’ve ever pictured. But she was right. Everyone on staff here was a grown-up. As long as Iwaki didn’t maliciously cross them, she had all of their respect and support. And as time passed, Emi was sure Iwaki would settle down and get comfortable in her post.

“Being her successor, huh…?” she mumbled.

“Being what?”

Maou, swinging in from out of nowhere, caught her whispering to herself. Emi turned, not particularly surprised. He had his helmet and delivery bag on his side, presumably back from another run.

“Hello. And never mind. I had a long chat with Ms. Iwaki.”

“Oh? Is she upstairs now?”

“Yeah, a customer just showed up.”

“Ah. Well, I’ll get changed and head up. Chi already left?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t join her on the way home, but Ms. Kisaki said she’d join her instead.”

“Oh, all right. That oughta be fine.” Maou nodded as he put away the bag.

“…Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“Just theoretically speaking…”

“Uh-huh?”

“If I had killed you back then, what do you think would’ve happened to the world?”

“Huh? Where’d that come from? Did you have to bring it up right now? It’s not like I can give you a quick one-sentence answer.”

“…Right. I’m sorry.”

The question, now that Emi heard it for herself, did sound a little crazy. She regretted it.

“But I’m just wondering. Like, if you weren’t around, what would’ve happened to your realm, and your army?”

“What would’ve happened? That’s easy,” Maou casually replied, checking to be sure Akiko and Kawata weren’t nearby. “Ashiya and Camio would’ve made everything work out. Always have, always will.”

“…Even now?”

“We’ve already anticipated the worst-case scenario and taken measures for it. So quit worrying. We ain’t gonna cause more trouble for you humans than you already got.”

“Uh… What do you mean…?”

“We’re still on the clock. I’ll tell you next time I have a chance. Ente Isla’s important to me, too, now. And Japan.”

And so Maou returned upstairs, leaving the nonplussed Emi behind. Iwaki was behind the counter up there, comparing the café inventory with the ordering app on her tablet.

“That’s why I better support Iwaki, too,” Maou muttered to himself, waving at her to indicate his presence. “She’s the main driver of Hatagaya Station from now on.”

He needed to offer his full backup to the woman who’d be his new boss shortly, in name and deed. The location was in the midst of a personnel transfer, something that happened to every company in every nation on the planet—and Maou was sure this event would help provide a future for all the many lives lived out within the demon realms. For now, Ashiya was laying down all the groundwork for him…but over here, Hatagaya was facing a potential staff shortage that was nothing short of desperate.

“Three months to go. Given how things are over there, I better start seriously thinking about this.”

He was seriously thinking that he had to start taking action. Action that was possible within his everyday Japanese life. It may not seem like he was capable of anything, but still he needed to reach out for his future.

“But first things first. I gotta pay the repair bill on my apartment.”

For the upcoming clash against heaven, Maou and his team actually didn’t need to know much more than they already did. But their encounter underneath the demon realms had taught them that when it came to those last few question marks, they knew well near nothing. That was why Maou had to take Emi and Chiho to the Shiba residence. Paying for Room 201’s repairs was a secondary affair—they needed to take another step toward the truth behind the Sephirah.

So the day after assorted tales began to unfold at the Hatagaya Station MgRonald, Maou forced his quivering legs to take him up to the doorbell of Miki Shiba’s residence.

After a few anxious moments…

“All right. Yes, yes, the whole payment’s here. And, ah, this is all well and good, but if you don’t mind my saying so, I like to think of myself as an understanding landlord. So the next time something happens, if you could tell me as soon as possible, that would be greatly appreciated.”

“…Certainly. I’m deeply sorry about this.”

Maou was frozen in place at the Shiba living room, head hung deeply down. Next to him was Emi, who accepted Shiba’s receipt, watching Maou break into a cold sweat out the corner of her eye, and next to her was Chiho, worriedly watching the proceedings.

Landlords were always difficult creatures to gauge the disposition of when you dealt with them, but within the force field of the Shiba residence, Maou was like a canary in a cage. He was legitimately concerned that, at some unforeseen point, the house itself would literally swallow him up. How could Acieth, Erone, and Gabriel be so content, so unaffected living here? And Emi and Chiho didn’t seem particularly terrified of her presence, either—why did she strike mortal fear in the hearts of Maou and the other demons? No matter how often he asked himself, he couldn’t find an answer. It was asking someone with claustrophobia, or a fear of heights or needles, why they felt that way. He had an illogical, impossible-to-explain fear of the landlord, and so did Ashiya, Urushihara, and Camio. That was the only way to put it.

“So I understand you wished to discuss other matters today as well?”

Shiba looked at Maou, Emi, then Chiho in order.

“What would be so important to ask that you’ve put Alas Ramus, Acieth, and Erone in Amane’s care for now?”

“Ms. Shiba…” Maou drummed up all the courage he could. “What is ‘latent force’?”

This was what Maou and his friends needed to know the most about, when it came to their relationship with the heavens.

He had the vague idea that it was a force united across the people that inhabited a world visited upon by a Tree of Sephirot, and the Sephirah children that resulted from it. But there seemed to be no consistency to it. Chiho, from Earth, had no problem harnessing a Yesod fragment from Ente Isla; Emi could manifest the fragment inside her into battle gear; but then there was Erone, who was wholly independent and not fused with anyone. Maou just happened to unite with Acieth; Emi just happened to unite with Alas Ramus—but otherwise, they couldn’t really describe these jewels as anything but “things with great unknown powers.”

More to the point, the only cases of Sephirah and people merging together they knew of were Alas Ramus and Acieth. It wasn’t even clear whether that behavior was uniform among all the Sephirah. If that were the case, however, it greatly reduced Maou’s chances at victory. It meant, after all, that the Sephirah apart from Yesod and Gevurah could be merged with the fighting powers of the angels. If what Acieth told Maou before could be trusted, she couldn’t fuse with an angel, but did that apply to the other Sephirah? They didn’t know.

But Erone did side with the angels on the Eastern Island. Acieth stated that his merging with an angel would be unthinkable, but if you recall the “episode” he had inside the Shinjuku subway line earlier, there was a nonzero chance that a Sephirah child could bend their principles and do the deed anyway.

Of course, neither Maou nor Emi had ever succeeded at forcing Acieth or Alas Ramus into granting them their powers. Acieth’s capricious tapping into her force had caused headaches (and worse) for Maou many times. Even Alas Ramus had dulled the power of Emi’s blade before.

“The children of Sephirah,” he said, “refer to the people they fuse with as their ‘latent forces.’ But if you look at it, aren’t they the more powerful force that’s grafting themselves onto us? Because I think the relationship is pretty one-sided between me and Acieth.”

Even in regular life, Maou added to himself.

“But she still goes on about how I’m the latent force for the Sephirah. What does she mean? And what do Sephirah latch on to people like me for?” he asked.

“What for? Is that all you wanted to ask me?”

“Huh?”

“I can certainly give you the answer to that. I can, but I do think that’s ever so slightly different from the information you seek.”

Maou, unable to grasp the meaning of this, just sat there. But Shiba, not going into any further depth, gave him a light nod.

“The ultimate purpose of the ‘latent force’ system, like I briefly touched upon before, is to ensure the prosperity of the species that it chooses. But there is another, more fundamental reason behind it. A very simple one, in fact. Mr. Maou, in your eyes, what do I look like?”

“Um?”

Maou was at a loss for an answer. Which is to say, he knew the answer, but as he came to realize, he never really thought the landlord was human at all.

“You look like…a human being, right?”

He felt like he was being deliberately goaded into the wrong reply. Hopefully Shiba understood his hesitation to indicate that he didn’t understand the meaning behind the question.

“Ah, very good. If I didn’t look like a person, I wasn’t sure what I would do.”

Was this meant as a joke? Maou had no way of telling. But Shiba gave a warm, bewitching smile, before turning next to Chiho.

“Ms. Sasaki, have you taken any biology classes in school?”

“Biology? Yes.”

“It’s said that the form, nature, and behavior of all creatures, humans included, is geared toward three general goals. Can you name those goals?”

Maou and Emi turned to each other. Shiba, noticing this, spoke up again.

“And I think the same would apply to demons and angels, yes.”

With that, her gaze returned to Chiho, who thought about it for a few moments.

“Um, I think it’s…predation, self-defense, and reproduction, right?”

“Well done,” Shiba said, grinning.

Predation is the intake of other organic manner to preserve your own life. Self-defense is protection from stresses stemming from internal and external threats. Reproduction is the passing on of your genes to the next generation. These form the instincts of self-preservation, etched into all living things.

“And the Sephirah, and the Tree of Sephirot, are all living creatures,” Shiba continued.

“Living…?” Maou said.

“We can leave offspring for the future like anyone else. Amane’s father was my older brother, the one you know as Binah—but my parent, the Tree of Sephirot, engages in behavior of its own to produce offspring. When the Sephirah children help mankind grow prosperous and firmly rooted to their world, the tree sets off—to a new planet, in search of the next species.”

Emi cut in. “So Sephirot and its Sephirah select humanoid species to ensure their own survival?” There was a sharpness to her voice. This was the selection of very lives she was talking about.

“That’s exactly correct,” Shiba said with a nod, as if it were nothing notable. “Does that disturb you, Ms. Yusa, the fact that we select the seeds of mankind as if we were gods? Or that the ones we don’t select are doomed to fail?”

“……”

“I think that anger stems from the arrogance of the seeds we call people. Besides, it is not like we latch on to the strongest of seeds in order to live. There are cases where we’ve merged species with each other; it is rare for the genes of a species to be completely done away with. But that doesn’t change the fact that a Sephirot and its Sephirah are still part of the great, eternal cycle of life.”

Maou felt that one of the doubts in his mind was now clear, albeit not in the way he had imagined.

Previously, Rika had asked why the Sephirot and Sephirah went about choosing human “seeds” like this. The Sephirah, despite all the strength they wielded, still merged with human hosts because it simply let them create a world easy for them to live in. Once the Tree of Sephirot saw this process unfold, it would then seek a new world, a new place that’d be comfortable and healthy enough for its new batch of Sephirah.

“But…again, wouldn’t that make them the ‘latent force’ here?”

“It is just a different way of thinking about it. Many species, when faced with mortal danger, borrow our powers in one way or the other. That has been true of Earth in the past as well. From our perspective, it comes down to who takes leadership, in terms of survival of the species. It is a matter of subjective opinion.”

In other words, it depended on how you looked at it. And to the Sephirah, it must have felt more like “Hey, here’s power for you,” a power which had saved Emi’s and Maou’s hides more than once. Either way, it was just how both sides saw the relationship—and the term latent force didn’t have any especially deep meaning to it after all.

Which brought the topic back to Shiba’s initial question. Shiba was a fully matured Sephirah—what was the “even more important thing” that someone needed to ask her? After a few silent seconds, it was Chiho who spoke up first.

“Speaking of this ‘latent force’ relationship… Meaning, the way Sephirah can fuse with people like Yusa… Is there a way someone can tear a Sephirah away from a person?”

“Oh, yes.”

The three of them were shocked. Such a casual way to describe it.

“Um, can anyone do that?”

“I believe I’ve told you before about that. There are three ways to end a latent-force relationship. One is to have the fused person pass away. Another is for the Sephirah to willfully end it. And the third is the so-called final option.”

Laila had discussed that right after she had revealed herself to Maou, back in Urushihara’s hospital room. But she never did reveal what the “final option” was.

“I hasten to add that the ‘final option’ is not something that requires great sacrifice to engineer or the like. It is simply rather difficult to set up the right situation, and the decision is rarely made to go through with it anyway…hence why we call it the final option. The phenomenon itself is quite simple. I’ve done it once myself in front of you, Mr. Maou.”

“““Huh?”””

In other words, Acieth had been separated from Maou before? And it was that easy to pull off? That alone was enough to plunge Maou and Emi into confusion.

“Really, it could hardly be easier. All that has to happen is, a Sephirah touches another one and uses its will to separate it away.”

“Ah, hello there, Emilia—whoahh?!”

“Where is Mother?!”

The door to Room 101 was all but kicked off its hinges as Emi confronted Nord.

“Uh…?! She hasn’t come back since leaving for her place in Nerima three days ago. I haven’t heard from her today at all…”

“You haven’t heard from her?!”

“N-no. I don’t know why, but she’s not picking up her phone. She does send me texts every now and then, but…”

“H-hey! Hey, Emi, calm down already! Things are fine over here for now…”

“How do we know that?! There’s no guarantee Ms. Shiba or Amane will cover for that, and I need to talk to Mother anyway, so I’m going over there!”

“Ah… Hey! Emi!!”

“Yusa!!”

Maou’s and Nord’s pleas fell on deaf ears as Emi stormed outside and flew straight into the air. “Don’t worry! I’ll be back before my shift begins!” she shouted before she soared away.

“Don’t let…anyone see you up there…”

Maou shrugged. At this rate, Alas Ramus would likely be fused back inside her within a minute’s time.

“That impulsiveness certainly reminds you of her mother, doesn’t it?”

“I think she’d be livid if she heard that.”

“You’re one to talk,” Maou said, grinning at Nord after he wandered outside to join them.

“Did something happen?”

“A few things, yes. I’ll leave Laila to her, but are Erone and Acieth back yet?”

“No… Is it bad?”

“Maaaaaybe. It’s probably something we should’ve anticipated, somewhere along the line.”

Maou sounded unaffected, but his eyes weren’t smiling. Neither was Chiho’s weighed-down face.

“It seems our ‘enemy’ is not only the angels.”

The intercom button for Room 306 at the Royal Lily Garden Toyotama apartment building was in danger of being permanently smushed against the wall, judging by how fast and forcefully Emi was jabbing at it. The conclusion derived from Shiba’s words completely upturned Laila and Gabriel’s understanding of matters. And Laila—Emi’s mother, but more importantly, the key ringleader in this struggle against heaven—could no longer be allowed to stay untracked.

“What…are you doing…?!”

Emi glanced at her hand, then the doorknob—then recalled that Ms. Shiba owned Royal Lily Garden as well. Bashing down the door wasn’t quite the best option yet.

“From outside…!”

Without hesitation, keeping an eye out for potential witnesses, Emi leaped off the outside corridor and floated up along the wall to reach the balcony to Laila’s apartment. The window was blocked by a thin lace curtain, but she could still faintly see inside.

Squinting to get a closer view, Emi suddenly gasped.

“……!!”

Someone was on the floor. Several seconds passed. No motion.

“Mo…!”

Emi almost shouted out before finally realizing that the balcony door was unlocked.

“Mother?!”

She opened it and flew inside. And she was right—it was Laila on the floor.

“Good, you’re alive…”

Up close, Emi could tell she was breathing. Her clothing oddly had sand all over it, her hair all unkempt and greasy, but she let out a groan when Emi propped her up. It seemed she wasn’t unconscious so much as in a deep sleep. The sudden change of position made Laila cough a couple of times as she opened her eyes.

“Ah, Emilia… What’s going on?”

“What’s going on?! Father said you aren’t calling him, so I come to visit, and you won’t answer the door, and then I see you lying here through the window, and…!”

And I was worried, she caught herself almost saying. She thought the ill will between them was all but gone by now, but still she hesitated to expose her true feelings at times like these. Whether Laila was aware of that or not, she slowly got up, giving her daughter a light smile.

“I’m sorry… I’ve been pretty busy the past three days.”

“Oh? Busy at your hospital job?”

“That, too, but more putting my own affairs in order, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

That sounded alarming to Emi, and it made her pulse quicken. But between the rings under her eyes, illuminated by the sunlight through the window, and the strange sense of pride as she spread her arms wide, her actions weren’t matching her words.

“Well, Emilia? Notice anything new?”

“What?”

Emi, confused, took her eyes off her defiantly smiling mother and looked around the room. She had been here before. It was just a typical apartment room, with a computer desk to one side…

“……!”

Then Emi finally realized: She and Laila were standing on the floor. Looking around, there were walls, furniture, doors—the usual.

“I don’t think I’ve worked this hard in the past ten years oww!”

For the first time in a while, Emi slapped her mother on the cheek.

“What was that forrrr?!”

“Mother, do you have any idea what kind of predicament we’re in…?”

“Of course I do! That’s why I got rid of all the stuff I didn’t need! Do you have any idea of the state of Satan’s room?! And what happened to it next?!”

“I was the first one to find out!!”

Laila’s room was a demonic realm in and of itself. After Emi’s visit to the proper demon realms, that was almost understating it. Things were everywhere, in disorganized heaps, never getting disposed of…a complete mess. This, even after the entire Justina family pitched in to clean up, rendering it at least hospitable for human residence.

“So you haven’t talked to Father the past three days because you were cleaning your apartment?! After all that cleaning we did?! How could you let it fall back into this again?!”

“That’s why I’m breaking my own heart to make sure this never happens again! I’m decluttering, all right?!”

“What does an angel know about decluttering?!”

“Amane contacted me… She said Ms. Shiba forcibly renovated his place. She said he had to pay her for it.”

“He sure did!”

The fact Emi literally just got back from covering that repair fee for him only made her angrier.

“So Amane said the landlord might check up on my place, too, and I kind of panicked.”

Unlike Maou, Laila had not physically damaged her apartment. But if her place was back to the way it used to be, the landlord wasn’t likely to take that lightly.

“…Well, I’m glad you’re taking up valuable time with this right now, when we’ve got Church knights breathing down our necks and Ignora to fight before long.”

“I—I don’t need you telling me that, all right? You’re still working at MgRonald in the midst of this, aren’t you? It’s the same thing. There’s nothing we have to hurry with right now, so I’m just trying to firm up my position!”

“Stop sounding like the Devil King…”

Right. Yes. Put it like that, and Emi didn’t have much of a leg to stand on.

“Anyway, I found out something pretty bad. Can you take a shower and come back to Sasazuka for me?”

“Something bad? Like what?”

“Bad enough to affect the core of our strategy. We already have the astronaut to deal with…”

Emi finally regained her composure enough to reveal the truth.

“…But we may have to fight all the children of Sephirah.”