THE DEVIL KING’S ARMY FIGHTS ON

Maou stood in the middle of Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka. Erone was next to him, with Amane, Laila, Emi, and Urushihara each taking a corner. Chiho and Nord were in the corridor outside, peeking in through the kitchen window. Kinanna was snoozing as usual in his cage in one of the corners, and Camio, his feathers having regained a healthy sheen, was nervously perched on top of it.

“Okay, here we go.”

Erone touched Maou’s right hand.

“Acieth, come out.”

“’Kay.”

“That easy?!”

As Chiho shouted through the window, yes, it was that easy. It was all it took to separate Maou from Acieth, easier than digging a carrot or potato out of the garden.

“You feel any different?”

Maou shrugged at Urushihara. “Not really, no.”

“What about you, Acieth?”

“Me, all is well. But I have hunger.”

Everyone ignored the latter half of her statement.

“Mmmh…! You ignore me, I pluck Camio and fry up!”

“Gah! Enough of this! Stop peeeep at once!”

“Acieth, don’t start a racket over there. You’ll wake up Kinanna.”

Between the chicken and the lizard, it was like a nature documentary in that corner of the room. Maou took a moment to smooth things over before surveying the room again.

“Well, you all saw that. That’s gonna be a problem.”

“So are you saying the person in that space suit wasn’t Ignora?”

“Well, nobody saw the face. Laila thought it was Ignora, but…”

“…Right. Just… You know, the atmosphere, and her body language. We’ve been separate for so long that I can’t be sure, but the voice sounded pretty similar, too.”

“Can you hear someone’s voice if they’re in a space suit?”

“I…I don’t know.”

Suddenly, the identity of this other-world astronaut didn’t seem like nearly the open-and-shut case it once was. Only Laila and Gabriel personally knew Ignora, which didn’t help matters. Urushihara said his memory was so murky that he couldn’t identify her face or voice with confidence, and Laila, by the sound of it, wasn’t much better off.

“B-but this is an emergency!” Chiho exclaimed. “Shouldn’t we let Ashiya and Suzuno know as soon as possible?”

She had a good point, but Emi scowled at the idea.

“If we can, I’d like to wait for them to contact us. Alciel and Rika have already been attacked by the Eight Great Scarves knights here in Japan once. I have no idea who’s watching the Central Continent right now, or how. Until we get word from Eme or Bell, I think we should avoid any interaction, no matter how short.”

“Yes, I know I said it’d be carefully guarded, but if this is how things are…”

“I’m putting my vote in with Chiho Sasaki. If the guys we’re trying to protect might turn into our enemies soon, I think it’s worth risking the danger to let them know, dude.”

“I can see the logic to that, but we can’t. Maybe we don’t mind if we’re exposed to danger, but think about the Eight Great Scarves, and the knights from the Western Island under Rumack and Eme and Bell’s command. We’re gonna have to tread cautiously.”

Emi couldn’t deny Urushihara’s point, but she still shook her head at it. The area around Devil’s Castle on the Central Continent was secure thanks in no small part to Hazel Rumack and the Azure Emperor. Before they stepped up, there was talk of the Federated Order of the Five Continents stepping in, dismantling Devil’s Castle, and rebuilding Isla Centurum. Instead, Maou’s team had enough time to round up the surviving demons, repair the castle, and launch it when the time was right—and that was thanks to the Emperor, Rumack, and all the knights sent to the area. If the Church knew about them, it was bound to become an international crisis, one that could lead to conflict not just between them, but between other human nations. That was the danger Emi warned of.

“Well, personally, I’d say sowing more chaos like that would actually be good for us. It’d stop the Church knights in their tracks, y’know? But I guess that wouldn’t work for you guys. Like, the artifact search was going really well, and now we’re looking at a likely defeat, huh?”

“And with Kinanna in this peep state of affairs…”

Urushihara and Camio made the air seem heavier than ever.

“But… Well, what do you think, Acieth? The person in the astronaut suit… Did it seem familiar to you at all?”

“I dunno.”

“You dunno?” Laila asked, exasperated. “You flew into a rage and beat the crap out of ’em.”

Acieth shrugged. “At the time, the space suit, I did not think I was knowing him, no.”

“But looking at Erone right now, and judging how the space suit plucked Alas Ramus out of me just like that, I’m more convinced that was a Sephirah child now, not an angel.”

“Yeah, but what’s their motivation for attacking us, then? If the Sephirah are runnin’ around all over the place, they don’t even need rescuing.”

“What? That, it is not what we were saying before! We are going to go and rescue the all of them, no?!”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Supposedly you and Alas Ramus’s friends are being held and forced to do the angels’ bidding. That’s why we’re tryin’ to save them, right? And now not only are they going around perfectly free, they’re actively hostile against us. That’s totally not what I signed up for.”

“But maybe it was the accident! They do not know true situation, so they try to rescue me and big sister!”

“They weren’t, Acieth. That astronaut recognized me as Laila. They were ready to fight me from the beginning.”

“Besides, if that were true, that means you beat one of your siblings to a pulp for no reason, Acieth.”

“Oh…”

This was apparently the first time that dawned on her. The contradictory thoughts in Acieth’s mind made her grimace.

“Maybe the space suit guy went berserk?” Emi looked at Erone. “Because that was kinda the theme of our battle in the Fukutoshin Line.”

“Was it?” he asked. “I don’t really know myself.”

“That’s all right, Erone,” Maou said to soothe him. “We don’t have much to work with right now, so the more elements we can consider, the better, is all.” He figured Erone still felt a little responsible. “Besides, even if that was a Sephirah gone wild, the question becomes why the angels would let it run around without a chaperone. Maybe Erone escaped their attention during all the Eastern Island stuff, but if they let the other Sephirah go around fighting whoever they wanted, it means the angels can’t control them at all.”

Everyone in the room looked at each other…before they all reached the same conclusion.

“That bastard Gabriel’s still hiding something, isn’t he?”

“Either that, or there’s something even he’s unaware of maybe.”

“He was pretty adamant about not knowing the astronaut last time we talked…not that any of us believed him.”

“I read Sariel’s file here, too, and Satan was right. It’s full of weird stuff.”

Chiho looked up at the envelope in Laila’s hand. “Oh, that envelope…”

“What’s that?” the unaware Nord asked.

“It’s a record of assorted things Sariel knows about heaven and the angels,” Emi said. “Bell and I heard the same things from him before, but…”

Laila, looking at her daughter, seemed confused. “But according to this, I think Gabriel and I might’ve terribly misunderstood something. Sariel, too, for that matter.”

“Yeah, assuming you’re remembering it correctly.”

“Hey! Satan!” Laila glared at Maou for that snide remark. “But Sariel’s understanding of the history of heaven and the angels is completely different from mine.”

“…How do you mean?” her husband asked from outside.

“It’s exactly that,” Laila replied, distressed. “Like, how he describes Lucifer, and the first- and second-generation angels, and so on.”

“Yeah, I don’t remember too much about the past, but there were a few things in there that struck me as kinda odd. I think we’re gonna need to call an angels’ conference, dude. Get me and Sariel involved, plus some guards just in case. That’s another reason why we need to get in contact with Ente Isla fast.”

“Hmm…”

“Dude, it’s an emergency,” Urushihara said, pressing the ambivalent Emi. “I really think we should contact them, rather than waiting for Bell and everyone to contact us. I know assorted folks may be monitoring them, but there are Idea Links being tossed around all over the world, aren’t there? It’s only been a week since those old cranks in the Church had those weird dreams, right? It’ll be fine!”

“True… Do you think a voice link would be safe?”

“Letting your guard down like that could really be raising the ‘death’ flag for y’all, you know…”

“Amane, could you stop saying things like that?”

Maou had his complaints about her less-than-elegant jab. But considering that Emeralda, Rumack, and Suzuno were back in their native lands attending to their own posts, unadvised behavior could put all of them in danger.

“If only we had a contact we could turn to,” Emi wondered out loud.

The group heard a ringtone.

“Oh, sorry, that’s me…” Chiho hurriedly reaching for her phone. “Ah!”

Looking at the screen, she smiled and shouted into the room. “It’s Emeralda! She’s calling me!!”

“Whoa!”

“Really?!”

It was the exact person they wanted to get on the line right now. Overjoyed, Chiho pushed the Talk button.

“Hello! Emeralda, it’s Chiho, um……………huh?”

But her expression and voice gradually began to ratchet downward.

“Wh-why?”

They morphed into abject surprise, accompanied by a dark air of foreboding. Chiho nervously gulped, eyes open wide, as she finally managed a reply.

“Why are you on Emeralda’s phone…?”

The entire room tensed up. But it was actually someone Chiho knew well.

“What… What’s going on over there, Farlo?”

She was hearing the voice of Farfarello, who should’ve been in Devil’s Castle on the Central Continent right now.

“Farfarello… Wait.” Maou came to his feet. “Chi, can I talk to him?”

“Oh, uh, sure. Um, Farlo, Maou—I mean, His Demonic Highness—wants to hear from you, okay?”

Chiho, still bewildered, walked into the apartment with Nord, handing the phone to Maou. Nervously, he accepted the call.

“Farfarello, where are you? North? East? South?”

“What is all this?” This line of questioning unnerved Emi.

“Really? North? Damn. Ashiya musta done pretty well, then. That old biddy’s a more formidable foe than the Azure Emperor, nine times outta ten… Right, yeah.”

Judging by Maou’s side of the chat, while he wasn’t expecting Farfarello to contact him, he did have an idea of what the demon might be up to.

“Okay, so you’ll be able to move around and stay in contact from the North, then? Good job, good job. Sounds like everyone else is getting along well, too.”

“Devil King, what are you…?” Emi began.

He avoided her question for now.

“Well, I was actually hoping for you since you know a fair bit about Japan, but being head chieftain and all, that’s not too possible, huh? That’s why I’m kind of in a hurry, you know. Aren’t Libicocco and Ciriatto free right now? …Oh. Okay.”

And then, at the next moment, what Maou had to say shocked not only Emi, but Urushihara and Chiho as well.

“Right, send Libicocco over here to Japan for me. I’ll have him work at my joint. We’re super short staffed right now.”

“Ah—”

“Huh?”

“Whaaaaaaaat?!”

It was, of course, Emi who let out the most piercing of shrieks.

“Oh? What is commotion, everyone?”

Only Acieth was left unaware of what all of this meant.

Several days back…

The word heat no longer seemed potent enough to describe the landscape.

“The rays of the sun are like needles.”

“This is still cooler than the Fire Road any day. Those lands truly are a living hell.”

Golden yellow sand surrounded them in all directions. Not a cloud was in the sky. In this realm, the two tall men here stood alone.

“How could a nation, of all things, ever be born in a place like this?”

“Well, an oasis city, at least. Humans can’t survive without water, y’know. On the other side of that wall, things are decently comfortable.”

Albert pointed at a long wall ahead, standing tall as it reflected the sand-colored sunlight. Ashiya nodded his acknowledgment.

“I certainly hope they are.”

It was the day before the six-person, three-species breakfast summit with Chiho. This was the Great Olidyma Desert, extending vertically across the Southern Island, and Ashiya and Albert were right in the middle of it. In front of them was a vast wall, a seeming mirage at the end of this expansive waste. This wall marked the border of Vashrahma, a nation home to the most powerful army of warriors on the entire island.

“Ooh! They sure cleaned up the gate in the past two years!” Albert declared. The wall was adorned with a gigantic wooden gate, almost a work of art in itself. “Y’know, when we first came here, the lizards had smashed the gate to splinters.”

“Lizards? You mean the dragonices that live in the Great Olidyma Desert?”

“Oh, you know them, huh?”

“That’s impossible. This looks like quite a sturdy gate to me, but a dragonix is only about this large at best.” Ashiya held his hands out, cradling a large, invisible ball with them.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t believe it, either, until I saw it, but I tell you, nature can be one fierce mother sometimes. Of course, I have that to thank for getting to know the warrior chief around here. But let’s go in. We ought to have someone greeting us soon.”

“Right.”

So they began walking toward the wall. Underneath his billowing cape, Ashiya regretted not bringing along the sunscreen lotion Maou had bought on sale a while back, one that barely managed even one star in online reviews. No matter how advanced Japan’s fabric industry was, there was nothing that could withstand sunlight as intense as this within easy reach of him. So Albert procured some traditional desert clothing for them—but Ashiya had far, far underestimated how punishing this would be.

“Hey, you all right? You look pale.”

“Mmm… Ah, I am getting along.”

Ashiya and Albert hadn’t walked across this entire desert, either. They had just flown in through a Gate that opened around a mile and a quarter south of Vashrahma. This was based on a commonly accepted international policy that Gates should never be used to invade a country’s borders, but Ashiya assumed a mile or so of marching wouldn’t present any challenge. Yet, the moment they set foot on land, he immediately realized that the sun wasn’t the only heat source around here. The white sand absorbed that sunlight, radiating it, warming up the body two or three times over again. He was wearing the same thin-soled sneakers he always wore in Japan and Devil’s Castle, but now he felt like he was walking barefoot on fire. What’s more, he wasn’t sweating. The temperature on the surface was so high, any sweat coming out of his pores immediately evaporated.

A journey of just over a mile seemed like a grueling odyssey.

“Ah, here we are.”

Albert threw a cloud of sand into the air. Before long, he noticed a man riding in on a camel, a spear-like weapon strapped to his own back.

“Albert Ende! We have been expecting you.”

The masculine-looking desert youth dismounted and came up to Albert, his shiny white teeth visible from under his hood.

“Thank you for coming! Chief Rajid is beside himself waiting for you!”

“And thank you for picking me up. Sorry to push this on you so suddenly.”

“Not at all. You are every bit the savior of Vashrahma as Emilia the Hero. Ever since the day you arrived, we swore to the heavens that Vashrahma would always be open to you… Do you remember me, by the way?”

“Hmm?”

The patrolman looked at him, a bit bashful, before removing the object on his back and showing it to Albert. It looked like a spear at first, but now he could tell it was actually a broom with a bamboo handle.

“Ahh! You came to greet us last time as well…!”

“I did. Afterwards, I was rewarded with an honorary warrior’s title. This time, I have been ordered to serve as a guide and bodyguard for the two of you. You can call me Garni Vidou.”

He bowed to them a bit.

When Albert had first come to Vashrahma, the nation was facing an existential threat. It was spawning season for the species Ashiya called “dragonix,” and a gigantic horde of them had been migrating across the desert. Hundreds of thousands could be in one herd, their movements evoking tales of the legendary dragons of ancient times. That particular year saw unprecedented numbers of dragonices, and Vashrahma was right in the middle of them. The result was a thoroughly thrashed gate and wall—and if the dragonices decided to strike again on the return trip, the nation itself could very well have been toppled.

Witnessing this, Albert and his band had kicked things off by capturing the lizards stranded in Vashrahma and its surroundings, then holding a nationwide barbecue with their carcasses. The dragonices, keenly sensitive to threats to their kin, thus imprinted on the idea that the main city was a Danger Zone, avoiding it for the return migration and saving the nation. Garni would later guide them to the way out of the Fire Road, even fighting against the Malebranche force that had invaded the Southern Island for a little bit.

“Ah, I see, I see. You’ve made a name for yourself, eh?”

The reunion was a warm one for Albert, but considering you could already fry an egg on any available surface around here, they didn’t want to get any warmer.

“…I must apologize but,” Ashiya said, jabbing at Albert with a scratchy voice, “can we save this for later?”

“Oh, my apologies. This guy here’s not too used to the desert, so we’d better get over to…whoa, hey!”

“…Mmfh.” But then Ashiya’s eyesight began to fade out on him.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re…”

And before he could hear what Albert had to say, all was dark.

The first thing Ashiya saw when he awoke was the canopy of the black oaken bed he was resting on.

Forcing his creaky joints to move, he got up and realized he was inside a room now. A soft breeze flowed in from an open window, blowing the canopy’s lace curtains around a little. Beyond them, he could see a pitcher of water. It immediately reminded Ashiya of his intense thirst. He leaped out of bed and took it up.

“Nngh… Ugh.”

It was more lukewarm than cold, but it still slaked his aching throat.

After drinking about half the jug, he finally had the strength to examine his surroundings. A town was visible out the window, and he was in an unusually large space, with tiled floors and a stone ceiling lined with intricate sculptures. Between the bed, the jug, and the other furniture, he could tell he was in an upper-class estate.

“…Where am I?”

“Oh, you’re awake?”

From out of sight, a voice rang out. He turned to it and found Albert with a large man, even larger than him.

“Oh… Did heatstroke take me?”

“Ha-ha-ha! I was hardly expecting one of the Great Demon Generals to get overheated in the desert! If you came down South, maybe we would’ve had an easier time of that war, eh?”

The man was one head taller than Albert, his arms a measure thicker. His skin was darker than Albert’s as well, and he had a large and well-grown mustache.

“Welcome, demon. I am Rajid Rahs Rian, leader of this land.”

It was Chief Rajid himself, chief of Vashrahma, nation of warriors. He should have been already past fifty years old, but the power his body exuded would make him easily pass for thirty. Ashiya nodded to him, steadying his legs enough to stand up.

“And I am the Great Demon General Alciel. It is with great regret that I must show you my current sorry state, Chief Rajid.”

“Oh, there’s no need to worry. Beyond this door, there are sentries more powerful than even Albert, the strongest men of the Southern Island, all instructed to kill you should the need arise—but no matter their pride as the strongest of the land, every one of them is deathly afraid of you. No, you are not the only sorry one here.”

The giant man, as gregarious a person as ever existed, stepped toward Alciel.

“You look the very picture of a human.”

“I am a human, right now. I am deliberately not absorbing any demonic force to avoid taking the form of one. If your powerful warriors decided to attack me, my life would be over in seconds.”

“Oh, would it? Albert tells me of urgent business we need to discuss, but what would you, one of the generals who struck terror in the hearts of people worldwide not long ago, wish to talk about with me?”

Ashiya looked straight into the obsidian eyes of Rajid. “About the future of ‘people,’ and the future of this land.”

The chief, for his part, made no secret of the fact he was scrutinizing every word Ashiya had just said. His lips curled into a grin.

“So demons speak of the future, then?”

“Demons are as alive as you are.”

Until now, few humans would have imagined that: that as strong and fearsome as they were, they were still living, thinking things, considering their own futures.

“Albert, how long can you stay in this country?”

“Well, if you conclude that Alciel is harmless, I’d like to take my leave right this moment, in fact.”

“Heh-heh-heh… I see. In that case, can you stay until morning for me? I wish to ask you about a few things as well. There is nothing but sand, sky, and wind around us. The sand will muffle any of the more…extreme topics we might discuss.”

With that, Rajid lightly tapped Ashiya’s shoulder with one of his massive fists.

“You still look pale. I will have some fruit sent over that will help with your heatstroke. We can speak tonight.”

“…I am obliged to your kindness.”

“And once you recover, you may walk anywhere you like within our borders, as long as Albert is with you. It is not a large place, but I am sure a Great Demon General will soon see why this is one of the most vital points on the Southern Island.”

Two or so hours later, when his strength finally returned to him, Ashiya joined Albert and Garni on a walk through the town of Vashrahma.

This was a planned city, one whose sections were laid out down to the last block. The warrior chief’s fortress was the building closest to the oasis spring; from it, row-home-like houses of sun-dried brick gathered around a well that tapped into the underground water source. The northern part of the city was home to vast irrigated fields, a completely unexpected sight in the desert, laden with melon-like fruits similar to the watermelon sent to Ashiya’s room.

“Are those melons purely for food consumption?” the demon asked.

Garni shook his head. “The fruit itself provides valuable water for us, but you can also burn the rind and mix the ashes with a little water to create a decent surfactant.”

“Ah. So detergent, then?”

“Yes, but not exactly like the soap they have in the East and the West. Vashrahma has a large and bountiful oasis, but water is still carefully rationed out to every resident. Thus we do not launder our clothes so much as rub the dirt out of them.”

In addition to using the ashes alone, one could also dry the rinds in the sun, add a little water, work in ashes, and rub that against clothing. That way, the ashes wouldn’t blend into the fabric, while any natural oils and such got absorbed and worked out.

“What do you do for salt?”

“Salt is a valuable commodity in our land. Our warriors would lose their neutrality if we had to rely on the commercial sector in the southern lands of Haruun, so we select some among them to traverse the Fire Road and purchase it from the ports up North. Thus the government has a monopoly on it.”

“And I hear you eat the meat of those dragonices?”

“Good eatin’ on those things,” Albert chimed in as Garni nodded.

“It is a traditional foodstuff of ours. But it does not store well, so generally we hunt only what we can use during the spawning season.”

“I see. What is that?”

Ashiya was pointing at the eastern wall of the city. A large number of people were clinging to it, supported by lifelines from above.

“Oh, yes, that…”

Garni paused, looking toward Albert.

“It’s fine,” he told him, sensing his concern. “You can treat him as a whole different beast from the demons we knew.”

“…All right. Well, they are actually examining the walls before we begin construction work to expand them.”

“They are expanding the walls? Not repairing them?”

Garni turned his eyes upward, a bit conflicted. “Vashrahma has a limited plot of land, so we have restrictions on the number of children a family can raise. However, the birth rate has gone down in recent years, so after the battle against the Devil King’s Army, we’ve started to expand the walls, and thus our territory, to boost the allowable population.”

“……”

The fact they kept statistics was a surprise to Ashiya. But externally, he merely nodded.

“Of course, that work has only begun. For now, we are examining the wall areas weakened by dragonix collisions and reconstructing those parts first. The full construction project will take five or more years to complete.”

“Five years?”

If a nation with as few people and resources as this one was conducting a project this large, it likely would take that long.

“But doesn’t that mean the walls are gonna be wide open for a little while? Not to criticize, but you’re not gonna get attacked by someone in the meantime?”

Garni chuckled at Albert’s question. “Not as long as Chief Rajid lives and breathes,” he breezily replied. “There is no way anyone could defeat Vashrahma, here in the Olidyma Desert.”

This wasn’t confidence or boasting. It was, to Garni, the obvious result of any attempt.

“We are strong. Vashrahma is the only supply point within the Great Olidyma Desert, a bridge connecting the Southern Island’s north and south halves. Turning our land into a battlefield is the same as declaring war on every inch of the Southern Island.”

“…Then why have walls at all?”

The question came instantly from Ashiya. Based on Garni’s story, it’d seem that the walls had little meaning apart from marking out the nation’s borders. There were dragonix infestations to worry about, of course, but thanks to Albert, they had countermeasures now. Thus, if there were no enemy armies waiting to storm the land, Ashiya wondered how the government could justify outlaying so much funding on walls of this scope and size.

Garni gave Ashiya a surprised look. Then he recalled that the human in front of him was actually a demon. He nodded.

“Only a fool of a human would say without evidence that tomorrow will be just as peaceful as today,” he said. “Warriors train themselves because there may be a battle tomorrow. Merchants save their money because there may be a need for it tomorrow. We enjoy the peace we have today because people do not neglect to prepare for tomorrow. Save a little bit, day after day, and in ten, fifty, a hundred years, it will support those who call Vashrahma home. As long as Vashrahma remains firm, so will the Southern Island. Fail to prepare simply because nothing is happening right now, and the nation will fall that little bit faster. I imagine even Chief Rajid can fight on the front lines for perhaps another ten years, at best. People are lucky if they reach a hundred.”

“…Ah, yes, true.”

Generations proceeded extremely slowly for demons by comparison. The warrior fervently discussing his nation’s future had not even lived a tenth as long as Ashiya—and yet he was viewing tomorrow, the future, more clearly than Ashiya did.

“A fine nation you have.”

The appraisal seemed to satisfy Garni as he walked them over to the next spot.

“So! What did you think of my Vashrahma?”

“A strong nation, indeed. And not just in terms of war power, either. Call it the attitude of your people, influenced by the harsh climate and geography. But I also appreciate how you do not reject weakness, or scarcity.”

That night, Ashiya was extended an unofficial invite to Chief Rajid’s dinner banquet.

“There was a Church site on the outskirts of the city. When was that built?”

“Around two hundred years ago, by a traveling priest who had come here. He was exiled from Haruun for preaching a ‘pagan’ religion, only to be rescued by a group from Vashrahma as he wandered the desert. Thankful for them, he wound up settling in town, eventually seeing his last days here before joining the sand and the wind. These days, around ten percent of our people are Church adherents.”

“Oh, that many?”

“That’s news to me, too. There wasn’t any conflict? Most of the Southern Island is dominated by sun-worship religions, isn’t it?”

“There’s been no record of conflict, no. I can’t speak for the emirates of Haruun, but in Vashrahma, at least, no one is repelled by people of other religions. In fact, the current priest at our cathedral is fairly…well, beautiful, you could say. I attend services once a month.”

Rajid phrased it in a rather joking manner, but his taking the time to do that was likely why the Church recognized Vashrahma as a full-fledged nation. There was no doubting that it factored into Rajid’s decision.

“And not just the Church, either!” he continued. “The farmers that manage our lands have studied the mountain religions of the Northern Island, and we have sun worshipers of our own here. And while there aren’t many, we have a small temple devoted to the spiritual traditions of the Eastern Island within my fortress’s grounds. If you had come a bit earlier, you could’ve seen them celebrate their holy holiday. A gaudy occasion, let me tell you. Everyplace within the walls is lined with lanterns of a thousand colors, and the streets are filled with stalls at night.”

By his demeanor, it seemed like that was one of Rajid’s favorite moments of the year.

“And next week, you know, it’s not as large as that holy holiday, but we have a summer harvest festival that’s also rather impressive. People born in the North prepare this wonderful drink for us from fermented goat’s milk.”

Ashiya tried to imagine this. It sounded a bit like Japanese people celebrating Christmas one week, then New Year’s the next.

“The origins of Vashrahma are among the darker stories you’ll find on the Southern Island. We are a small nation with a small position in the world—it behooves us to keep our minds and hearts broad. As much as we can, at least.”

Ashiya and Albert, neither too familiar with Vashrahma, sat up in their seats.

“For example, Garni, your guide today, can trace his ancestry back to a man from Tajah, one of the nations that comprise Haruun. Mine comes from Kehvel, again in Haruun. Not counting immigrants from other islands, the majority of us living here can claim ancestors in Haruunian nobility or affiliated families.”

“Nobility?”

“Haruun has a long-held tradition of the firstborn son inheriting the family fortune. Once, in Haruun’s largest city-state, the eldest son of a major family was murdered, leading to all manner of mayhem and the establishment of multiple branch nations. Vashrahma’s ancestors, you could say, are those who lost any chance at an inheritance in their old homelands. A nation of the weak, banding together for strength. Tolerance isn’t everything, but continual intolerance can only lead to conflict.”

“And now you’re the most powerful nation of warriors on the island. Pretty ironic.”

“Our first warrior chief wrote a screed in his journal about how our home nations had best prepare for us to strike back. That journal is one of our nation’s greatest treasures now.”

“Is that…healthy?” Ashiya laughed. It sounded like something a kid would write in his diary about the mean kids in class.

“So are we ready to discuss matters?” Rajid adjusted his posture and turned to Ashiya. “The savior of mankind recommended you to me, and despite your past hostility, I have kindly allowed you to tour our lands. I will hope to be amply rewarded by the news you have for me.”

“Indeed.”

Ashiya placed his goblet of traditional Vashrahman wine—part of the warrior chief’s private cellar, he was told—on the table and nodded.

“I want to make your nation even stronger.”

“Oh, do you?”

“But as tolerantly minded as all of you have proven to be, I cannot say whether you will accept this or not.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Ashiya’s following words would grab the attention of both Rajid and anyone else he could’ve said them to.

“But both Hu Shun-Ien, the Azure Emperor of Efzahan, and Chief Herder Dhin Dhem Wurs have already given their agreement to it. We are currently engaged in concrete discussions with both of them.”

“…!”

Rajid sat up straight, his eyes turned to Albert.

“The Azure Emperor I can’t speak of,” Albert replied, “but old Dhin Dhem’s pretty serious about this, yep.”

“Hmmmm…”

Name-dropping before offering an off-the-wall proposal wasn’t the best negotiating tactic, but names quite simply didn’t get any bigger than these. Even Rajid had to rumble his admiration.

“All right. So if a demon general is treating the head of a tiny desert nation on equal footing with the Azure Emperor and Chief Herder, what sort of business could it possibly be?”

“……”

Ashiya took a deliberately extended pause before beginning.

“Have you gone mad?”

“How would a human evaluate the sanity of a demon?”

It didn’t take long for Rajid to hear the entirety of Ashiya’s proposal. His eyes darted around at nothing in particular, revealing the disarray it put his mind in. One could ask every warrior in the land, and not one of them could say when their chief had last been this lost.

“Albert, this man… This man is truly…”

“And the thing is, they’re always serious! Doesn’t it make you laugh?”

Albert’s joke likely applied not only to Ashiya here, but also to his cohorts’ entire lifestyle over in Japan.

“Then you realize that I can’t give you an instantaneous response?”

“Of course.” Ashiya nodded. “I imagine you don’t have the unilateral power of an Azure Emperor, or the natural inclination to accept it that Phiyenci did. We are talking about a nation of a different size from those, after all, so I have no intention of forcing matters. But it is no lie that both the Azure Emperor and Dhin Dhem Wurs are ready to join in. It is likely that only the Western Island, where the Church has greater influence, will decline. In a way, it will be first come, first served.”

“Perhaps so, but it’s not the kind of offer the entire world will take up.” Rajid chuckled and took a hefty swig from the goblet nearest to him. “I swear. Ever since your Devil King’s Army arrived, the most bizarre things have been happening to this world.”

“You simply weren’t aware of us. We have always been there.”

“For the sake of a single young child, the Hero and Devil King are uniting to slay a god up above? Not a topic that comes along every day, no! …So, please, give me some time.”

Rajid wearily stood up, his inebriation making his pace perhaps a tad unsteady as he left the banquet room. Ashiya’s and Albert’s eyes met. But Rajid was back within five minutes—and with a heavy sigh, he presented Ashiya with a small golden object.

At first glance, it seemed to be a compass made of gold—but the needle itself was gold as well, and even when Ashiya received the nod to take it in his hands, it seemed to spin around at random, never settling on a direction. Albert seemed befuddled as well, but the attendants serving Rajid were visibly astonished.

“Take it. Consider it a deposit. It contains a secret formula crafted by ancient arts. Only the king of Haruun himself possesses another.”

“The king of the emirates… Wait, you mean what King Ezramha told me…”

“I gave King Ezramha another one in advance. Yes, as you surmised, this is a cipher linking the leaders of Vashrahma and Haruun. It contains a magical device that lets the warrior chief of Vashrahma converse with their king. I’ll show you how to use it later.”

The Haruun royal family had retained, for many years, a way of tapping into the warriors of Vashrahma. When they received the call, Vashrahma could then make contact with other kingdoms of Haruun, ensuring the initial request was for a just cause. In other words, anyone possessing this golden compass was in a de facto alliance with Rajid’s land.

“I thoroughly understand your offer. This may very well affect the future of our nation, and I would prefer to debate over it without preconceptions. But it is a delicate issue. I doubt it will all work out very neatly. So please understand that this is the will not of a nation, but of me as an individual.”

“…Thank you.”

Ashiya bowed his head down. He figured he could interpret this as Rajid’s approval. And with the skills that he and his nation’s people possessed, things should turn out well, even if it wound up taking a certain amount of time.

“Ah, yes. And while I am not seeking payback, would you mind listening to a request of mine?”

“What is that?”

“I want to see your true form.”

“Whoa…”

“Chief, are you…?”

This alarmed Rajid’s attendants, to say nothing of Albert. Rajid raised a hand to silence them.

“It strikes me that this is a wise man before me. One a little too human, in fact. I would never doubt Albert at this point in time, but if you reveal your true form to us, it would do much to convince everyone else in this room. It’d show them you are one demon who can be reasoned with.”

Judging by Ashiya’s face, he wasn’t expecting this. But Rajid did have a point.

“Very well. If I could have some space, please? Albert, erect a barrier of holy force, just in case.”

“Uh, you’re really gonna do it?”

“Warrior Chief Rajid has been open-minded with me from the beginning. I must be open with my own powers in turn.”

With that, he stood up and walked a distance from the other people in the room. Rajid, eyes full of curiosity, watched his every move, his attendants looking on with far warier gazes.

“No need to brace yourselves so much. It is really nothing too impressive.”

Then he removed the top of the Vashrahman clothing lent to him. The looks on Rajid’s entourage begged him to say what he was doing. “I wouldn’t want to tear it,” he explained, eliciting a laugh from Albert and nobody else.

Suddenly—

“…!”

In a moment, a plume of black flame erupted.

“Ohh…!” exclaimed Rajid, full of wonder—and in the next blink of an eye, the tall, wispy man who had collapsed from heatstroke in the desert was gone, replaced by a gigantic form with shell-like armor and a barbed, two-pronged tail, towering even higher than Rajid.

“I see…”

“Wh-whoa…!” Albert tried to stop Rajid as he approached Ashiya without a moment’s hesitation.

“No need to fear. This level of demonic force is but a passing breeze to the likes of me!” Rajid shooed him away, then stood in front of the Great Demon General Alciel. The tension in the air made it difficult to breathe. Alciel waited.

“I suppose this force of yours presented some issues in the North and East.”

“It was no harm to the more powerful among them. People like you, in fact.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t. And ours is a land of warriors.” Rajid smiled, thoroughly enjoying this. “All right. Allow me to take charge and proceed with this offer.”

He placed a hand on the iron-like shoulder of his former adversary, a foe to all mankind.

“When your battle against heaven is done, we will see about accepting the demon realms’ citizens as our own.”

At roughly the same day as Ashiya’s visit to Vashrahma, Suzuno was being jostled around on a wagon trundling down the main highway to Sankt Ignoreido, on the western tip of the Western Island. For Suzuno, it was a long-overdue homecoming. The air of Sankt Ignoreido, as sampled through the window, made her boundlessly restless.

The insides of the Church cathedral here were nowhere near as solemn and tranquil as people thought.

Here, on the western tip of the island, the scene was dominated by the sacred mountain of Ignoreido. At the foot of it was a great shrine, and around it was a town known as Shrine City—and the believers who lived there were abuzz with both rumors and a sense of exaltation, putting them in an almost trancelike state.

The loss of Archbishop Robertio must be mourned, but with his death came a divine revelation as clear as day. It made everyone giddy around town, just like when the Hero Emilia had defeated Lucifer in the name of the Church’s knights.

“People are the same everywhere, I suppose.”

The people of Sankt Ignoreido were not exactly chosen ones, the upper echelons of Church practitioners. But its residents still took pride in living within a holy land. That alone guaranteed a certain level of pious devotion among them. Now, however, with the order to mobilize from the Archbishops fresh on their minds, they seemed full of a more self-centered pride, arrogance perhaps, that the group they were a part of was finally about to deliver justice upon the world. It was little different from someone driven to action by their nation, or king, or people.

Notices exhorting peasants, merchants, travelers, and mercenaries to join the knight corps’ volunteer armies were posted everywhere, their courageous purple prose emphasizing the validity of the revelation and demanding vengeance against the unknown evil smoldering in the Central Continent. Each one of them seemed to draw great crowds wherever the notices were nailed up.

“People are lining up to volunteer. We’ve gathered nearly twice the donations we usually receive…” explained Henri Vazzo, Suzuno’s assistant and a Reconciliation Panel official aware of the details behind the battle against heaven, as he joined her for the ride.

“Is that true across the land?”

“It would appear so, yes.”

“Quite the revival, then.”

With the declaration of a “crusade” from the knights, things were rapidly coming to a head across the Western Island. People, goods, and money began moving long distances, greatly stimulating the economy. It could be called the most miraculous crusade since the founding of the Church. Joining it—or supporting it—would be a great honor, and serving all those throngs seeking honor was good business. It was all driving the Western Island nations ruled heart and soul by the Church into a frenzy.

Suzuno watched all of this with sullen eyes, but as she surmised, this was not at all a bad trend.

“Well? How many cases has the Reconciliation Panel received?”

“Ah, the members of the Panel are practically crying out for you to come home and join the conference they’re holding for this drive.”

Suzuno laughed at Henri. “…I see.”

In other words, they had a mountain of proposals on hand, just waiting for Suzuno, the head of their organization, to say yes to them. She looked up from her wagon’s main-street vantage point at the vast shrine before her and smiled.

“I look forward to seeing how many monsters this small body of mine can fend off.”

“Crestia Bell, chief councilor of the Reconciliation Panel, has returned!”

When Suzuno arrived at the shrine, she didn’t stop for a moment at the condolence service for Robertio, open to the general public. Instead she marched straight into the office of Archbishop Cervantes Reberiz, the de facto leader of the crusade.

“Thank you for coming so far to see me, Bishop Bell. I am sure you grew used to the clear waters of Saint Aile?”

He chided her for being away from headquarters for so long, but she expected that, so she fought back.

“Thank you. The food at the Holy Magic Administrative Institute was all rather sweetly flavored. I fear I may have gained some weight.”

“How has Olba been?”

“I cannot say. Myself and Director Emeralda have no right to intervene in Saint Aile’s justice system, so I cannot tell you any more than the stories going around about his statements.”

“Oh? Ah, well.” Cervantes nodded, remaining seated at his desk as he pointed at the door behind Suzuno. “I need you to address your work at once. We must have every knight in the Church mobilized.”

“Yes, sir. I will do everything I can…but before that, is it all right if I asked you something?”

“Later, please. I am busy.”

“It will take but a short moment. Lord Cervantes, I have worked in the ministry for a long time now, but something bothers me.”

“Oh?”

“Was it God who appeared in the Archbishops’ dreams?”

“……”

Cervantes gave Suzuno a look of surprise. He tried searching for an ulterior motive behind the query, but quickly shook his head.

“I…do not think so, no.”

Now it was Suzuno who was surprised. Cervantes, a symbol of what confidence and a crying need for more, more, more can accomplish for a man, was hesitant about the most vital question of the day.

“Was it an angel, then?”

“…Perhaps. Its form was not as described in scripture or tradition.”

“If you will forgive my rudeness, why was it declared to be a holy dream, then?”

This rankled Cervantes a bit, this revealing of Suzuno’s doubts, but he quickly reconsidered. He was far higher in Church hierarchy than Suzuno, but toying with the Reconciliation Panel might cause it to question the validity of the entire crusade. It was Robertio and Cervantes themselves who spearheaded the Panel’s founding, and since Robertio’s death had spurred this crusade, Cervantes, as the presumptive leader, would never think of spurning Suzuno and her group.

“It was, at the very least, something not of this world. More than anything, Verdigris, Cesar, and Mauro all had the same dream, where they saw the same figure. Does that suffice?”

Verdigris Chirico, Cesar Quaranta, and Mauro Valli were the current surviving members of the Six Archbishops alongside Cervantes.

“Allow me to say this. The assignment here is to mobilize every member of the Church’s knight corps. A revelation from a figure not in our scripture could perhaps be a demonic conspiracy.”

“Bishop Bell, are you insinuating that all of these Archbishops are foolish enough to be tempted by the devil?”

“Of course not. But even if it is in form only, we need to pin down the guide within this holy dream. Otherwise, we will have nothing to so much as create a crusade banner with.”

“……”

Cervantes fell silent. But he didn’t seem peeved, and he wasn’t the type to betray that on his face anyway. He understood this was the kind of thing the Reconciliation Panel was designed to intervene about—that’s why he was trying to counter her with this strong-worded but unusually sketchy defense, no doubt.

A “crusade,” or large-scale mobilization of knights, required a symbol, expressed by an angel or piece of scripture. If that symbol was an angel, then an angel was imprinted on a flag; if it was some other holy device, it would be that instead. This banner was proof that the justness of this movement had been sworn to the scriptures and to God. In the past, there had even been a crusade featuring Sariel, front and center, on its banner.

“Would it be possible for the Archbishops to come to an agreement on the appearance of the figure in their holy dreams, and describe it in concrete terms? Then I could pore through our scripture and literature and make the necessary arrangements.”

The lack of a banner would affect the ordering dates for anything that required a printed design. It was one of the first tools the Church had to convince other nations to join in. Any delay on its design would be ill advised. But in the midst of all this work, attempting to align the schedules of all four Archbishops was a Herculean task. Considering that, Cervantes revealed a silent moment of anger, but quickly checked it back into the pit of his stomach and gave Suzuno a generous nod.

“…Very well. That is an important issue. I will summon an Archbishop conference as soon as possible and send an envoy your way afterward. For now, please focus on your accumulated work duties. All right?”

“Thank you, sir. In that case, I will offer my condolences to Archbishop Robertio’s relations and then attend to work.”

“……”

He had just told her to get to work, but instead she was going on about mourning Robertio. It rubbed him the wrong way. This was Suzuno—Bishop Crestia Bell, head and chief councilor of the Reconciliation Panel. He doubted these “condolences” would involve simply placing some flowers and writing her name in the memorial book. No, she’d have to visit Robertio Igua Valentia’s relatives, his dependents, and locations related to him, or else it’d violate order and manner in the Church. And even if she kept her travels within Sankt Ignoreido, going around to offer her greetings would take up at least four days by itself.

But Cervantes couldn’t stop her. This whole movement had been kicked off, after all, by Robertio’s death. And if it came out that he’d told her not to offer her condolences to a man so greatly revered the world over, that alone could endanger his post.

“We are all shaken by this sudden turn of events. But please try to be quick, so as not to cause trouble for others.”

“I will endeavor to. Thank you for your time. Excuse me.”

“You may go.”

Suzuno knew that he didn’t exactly take kindly to this. It must’ve taken nerves of steel for Cervantes to say that and let her go without changing his expression.

“This will do at first. For now, I should focus on my work.”

Going too far with this could put suspicious eyes upon her. So once she was sure her opening jab had had the right effect, she hurried straight over to the Reconciliation Panel’s meeting hall.

“Ah! Bishop Bell!”

“Crestia! We’ve been expecting you!”

“Oh, wonderful! Now we can stop getting yelled at!”

The Panel members noticing her return all breathed sighs of relief, their faces visibly loosening.

“Everyone, I apologize for leaving my seat vacant for so long. Now that I am back, I wish to devote all I can to my duties. I look forward to your support as we seek a truer faith.”

“Right!”

“Understood!”

“Um, if we could start with these documents…”

Her team, no longer able to stand the strain in many ways, were all smiles now.

“To tell you the truth, I have only returned just now. I haven’t even paid my respects to Archbishop Robertio where they are needed. I apologize, but please allow me to be absent a little longer. Henri, you take care of the rest.”

“Yes, Bishop. Safe travels.”

“Wha…? Whaaaaat?!”

“Bishop! You must be joking!”

“H-Henri! Um, we’ve received mounds of requests for decisions from all over today as well…!”

Hearing the shouts of her panel behind her, Suzuno issued them a silent apology in her heart as she returned to her long-abandoned office. There were condolences to be offered now.

“Ahh…I wish I were back in Villa Rosa Sasazuka.”

The office of the chief councilor, no doubt cleaned and purified in her absence, was a place she found nearly impossible to relax in. Still, Henri and the other pious, sincere people under her had kept this room intact for her.

Suzuno opened the closet to find a set of freshly starched mourning robes, which looked like they were straight from the seamstresses. Funeral clothing in Japan was largely black in color; in the Church, it was white. Dressed in a robe of pure white, she put on her ceremonial biretta cap and looked at herself in the closet mirror. The robe was cuffed low enough to drag on the floor, the sleeves drooping downward, and the angular cap seemed far too tall for her head. It almost looked like something a bride would wear to a traditional Japanese wedding.

“Hee-hee… The perfect outfit for a heretic who hid from God and got named a Great Demon General, perhaps.”

Suzuno enjoyed the moment with a smile, then glared at the image in the mirror, tightening her face. Her exchange with Cervantes was a jab, a mere feeler. The battle had only just begun.

“Right. Off we go.”

“Are you suuure you should waste tiiime up here?”

“It’s fine. I’m tired.”

“But the royal guard was just inquiring about you a few miiinutes ago. They asked if you were coming to viiisit.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Erenium, the capital of the holy land of Saint Aile, was home to the Holy Magic Administrative Institute. On the roof of that building, Hazel Rumack was sitting on a deck chair she had found somewhere, sampling from a copper jug filled with cheap wine from a coffee table next to her as she read a book. “Wasting time” was a charitable way of putting it. She was avoiding work with every fiber of her body.

As head of the Institute, Emeralda Etuva was expecting this reply to some extent.

“Well, if you can’t visit them, then ohhh well. By the way, would you like to enjoy some of these cookies with meee?”

“Let’s see them.”

Emeralda took out a folding bench of her own and sat next to Rumack.

“Too bad we’re not closer to the beeeach, huh?”

“It’s a little early to go sunbathing over there yet. The light up here is perfect.”

Because Erenium had a higher latitude than Isla Centurum and Devil’s Castle, the weather was dry this time of year, but the sun was soft and perfect for lounging around in.

“Speaking of the beeeach, did you handle the Lamoise affaaair?”

“What’s that? I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, so you diiid, eh? That was a good job, yesss, but it was almost too good, so I built us a little ‘out’ for it.”

Emeralda and Rumack were both scarfing down cookies from a metal tin with the logo of a famous Japanese sweets maker. The delicious aroma of butter surrounded them.

“It’d be a bad idea to defy them on the surrrface, after all. So I arraaanged things so Church logistics will be handled with a high-capacity sea roooute.”

“Based on my calculations, I blocked the movement of Church goods by a week, essentially. If I got discovered and punished for that, I could enjoy the rest of my life in peace, but you just had to intervene, didn’t you?”

“Now, nowww…”

Lamoise was the largest port city on the Western Island, located on its eastern edge and overseen by the Republic of Kierence. It had been heavily damaged by the Devil King’s Army, but being a city of merchants, they began rebuilding quickly under Lucifer’s rule, which put it on far better footing than the inland cities after the war. This was less of a glowing review than it would seem at first glance; the other port towns west of Lamoise were testaments to how intense the fight against Lucifer’s army was, all but razed with many still not rebuilt. Since most cities hadn’t regained anywhere near their full functionality, sea trade with other islands was largely running through Lamoise.

And now, of course, there was this crusade work. Lamoise was already running at near maximum in terms of goods and personnel, but this had the potential to completely overwhelm it. Lumack just, you know, tinkered with it some more.

Being under Kierence jurisdiction, not Saint Aile, she couldn’t mess around with Lamoise directly. What she could do was gather Saint Aile’s armies to build a major distribution warehouse at breakneck speed, creating a hub for land transport that Saint Aile had full control over. Lamoise no doubt wondered what Saint Aile was doing, but this warehouse not only lightened the load for the larger countries of the world, but also let the owners charge whatever tax they wanted for its use. It couldn’t have been better.

Maintaining this warehouse required more personnel and goods, however, and also created traffic jams along the island’s logistical pipeline. And with more logistical hubs, more people and things would start gathering to these sites, improving the economy and attracting more money—an upward spiral that made it harder than ever for the Church to stage any major campaigns in the area.

But Rumack didn’t end it there. She even instituted a system where, as long as you had a permit from Lamoise, you earned a discount for any goods or people crossing the Saint Aile border. Supplies for the Church knights’ crusade wouldn’t necessarily all be sent to Sankt Ignoreido, but Saint Aile was still the largest nation on the Western Island, so it was already a hub for commerce. If people and their wares could travel through it at lower cost, they would naturally flock to it.

Although this measure was meant on the surface to concentrate the Church’s supply lines and keep prices down, the fact was that logistics on the Western Island just weren’t developed enough to handle this sudden surge in demand. The roads weren’t paved like in Japan; they turned into mud after the slightest rainstorm, sucking wagons into huge ruts. Commerce was expanding, but the highway infrastructure lagged far behind—and as a result, the Western Island couldn’t handle any of this new business, leading to enormous delays.

However, traffic jams didn’t cause shortages in and of themselves, of course. It meant more goods and resources at lower prices for Saint Aile, ensuring an abundance of supplies for its own citizens. Prices were on the rise for other nations nearby, but supplies were still plentiful, so none of them were panicking and taking countermeasures yet. Plus, if shipping was delayed into the two great ports of Lamoise and Saint Aile, they’d be just as delayed getting out.

And meanwhile, Rumack was sunbathing on the roof.

“If I kept this up, someone would’ve taken me to task on it, complaining that I could’ve arranged things better. If I step down, I’ll probably be replaced by one general or the other from the Pippin faction, and you know he wouldn’t be able to do half the job I could, so that’d be even more of an obstacle for the Church. Meanwhile, our nation keeps its dignity intact the whole time.”

“A new Pippin general?” Emeralda smiled. “Oh, cut me a breaaak. My nose is wrinkling up so much, I’m afraid it’ll fall off. Besiiides, this is muuuch more than just an ‘out.’ The sea route takes a northerly route to the eeeast, so their shipments will start going to Noza Quartus, not Wezu Quartus.”

“…!”

Rumack’s expression finally changed.

“Are you sure that’s all right?”

“Nooo, I don’t think sooo! But it comes as a steeeal in terms of a regular trade route, so even if it creates problems, it’s not myyy issue.”

“No, maybe not…”

“I’ve merely doing my levvvel best as a believer in the Churrrch.”

“You sneaky fox.”

“Whooo’s a fox?” Emeralda’s cheeks puffed out.

“That’s what you’re angry about?”

“Besiiides, it’s true that Wezu Quartus, the western entrance to the Central Connntinent, hasn’t rebuilt as quickly as elllsewhere! If the knights want saaafe passage there, they’ll need to go around to the North or South Continents aaanyway!”

“I know. That’s why I called you a sneaky fox.”

“Ugghh!”

The Central Continent housed four major ports, each serving as a commercial entryway for goods from one of the other four islands. There was Ea Quartus to the east, Wezu Quartus to the west, Saza Quartus down south, and Noza Quartus to the north. These served as the arms and legs of Isla Centurum in the center, and if the times called for it, each port could function as an independent entity.

All of these cities, of course, had suffered serious damage from the Devil King’s Army, with Wezu and Saza Quartus still cruel testaments to the work of the Great Demon Generals assigned to them. Both of them still had a long way to go with rebuilding. Meanwhile, Noza Quartus not only had escaped with the least damage, but still looked like the city it was before, for the most part. Adramelech, charged with capturing it, had never been a fan of needless destruction, and the Bluehorn Clan he’d led was also not gifted with aerial skills, another major factor.

The large bodies of Bluehorns made long-distance travel by wyvern a great difficulty; to invade the Northern Island from the Central Continent, they had to use both Gates and the same boats that anyone else would use. Their gifts with water- and ice-based magic also let them deal a punishing first shot to the Northern Island’s people in an epic sea battle, robbing them of the will to fight.

In the end, almost ninety percent of supplies to the Central Continent post–Devil King were routed through the North or the East. Noza Quartus did business with more than just the Northern Island, of course; there were even routes that went straight up there from Southern ports. However, the Northern Island still held a powerful influence over Noza Quartus, not only in political clout but in the size and depth of its commercial routes. Essentially, it was possible to travel from the Western Island to Noza Quartus, but only via thinly plied routes. Considering the crusade and the business it would bring, more than half of the knights would have to travel through the Northern Island on their journey.

If these ships were simply carrying supplies for rebuilding, it wouldn’t be such a difficult trek to take. The same was true for the Federated Order, charged with the peaceful mission of rebuilding the Central Continent. But no, this was an armed invasion carried out by Church knights who didn’t have all that much authority outside the Western Island. Certain routes would never welcome them.

“I know it doesn’t look that way, but I’m a busy person. I don’t have the time to serve as a go-between with the Chief Herder on the Northern Island, whether you ask me to or not.”

“Yes, well, with my current posiiition, I’m not sure any of the dignitaries up North would even want to see meee.”

Rumack and Emeralda were being shameless.

“I’m suuure the army will have some trouble securing a roooute to take.”

“You said it. But I’m sure it’s just another trial placed upon them by God, to test their faith.”

“Indeed. You’re absolutely riiight.” Emeralda turned toward the northeastern sky. “And that shooould make it easier to speak to Emiiilia in Japan.”

“Are the humans growing restless?”

“They are, my lord. I think Hazel Rumack’s departure has had a serious effect on them.”

“…I anticipated it, but it has arrived rather quickly. Not even a week has elapsed.”

The report from Farfarello, current head chieftain of the Malebranche, made Ashiya want to rub his forehead.

Upon returning from Vashrahma, he and Albert were greeted with the news that, with their royal general gone, the loyalty of the Western Island natives among their forces was starting to waver. The main human force pitted in the battle against heaven was the Knights of the Eight Great Scarves from the Eastern Island, as arranged by Ashiya—but despite being the “main” force, their numbers were little different from any other on the island.

The question was simply whether Ashiya was trusted as the leader on the field here, but with Rumack’s mediation up to now, the troops from the West were on fairly friendly terms with him. However, following word of the mass Church knight conscription, the leaders from the West were now back home, causing major consternation. Be it Saint Aile’s royal forces, the Holy Magic Administrative Institute, or the Reconciliation Panel, many soldiers on Isla Centurum were affiliated with one or the other—but since Rumack, Emeralda, and Suzuno were elsewhere, their respective seconds-in-command were now in charge. But these were leaders only by name in this effort, and not all of them had much experience in battle or troop command. Compared to the Eight Great Scarves or the demons, they were being overwhelmed.

“Albert…” Ashiya turned to the man for help.

“Lemme just say, they fully understand I’m here, so…” Albert looked fairly cowed, the confidence he’d brimmed with in his dealings with Rajid a thing of the past.

“So the glory of the Hero’s companion cannot compete against real-life politics?”

“It doesn’t mesh too well with the Western folk, I suppose. Especially with Eme’s guys.”

Emeralda and Rumack had discussed Albert’s troubles dealing with bureaucrats from the West before. While they were still around, he’d served as a talented go-between for the West and the East sides, so Ashiya didn’t consider that a problem very much. But Albert was a native to the North who had led an army composed of multiple races and tribes, while the nations of the West were all either entirely or predominantly homogenous. With that differing sort of historical background, Albert’s frank, clear-cut personality was taken as thoughtless, overly loose, and sometimes he was treated as a petulant rule breaker.

Now that was manifesting itself in the worst way possible. He may have been serving as a faithful go-between with the East, but if push came to shove, the prevailing impression was that Albert wouldn’t be a staunch ally for the West.

“If you’re not interested in continuing, I wish we could command you to return home.” Farfarello sighed.

“That is not quite possible,” Ashiya said with a smirk, appreciating the sentiment. “Right now, we cannot afford to make enemies out of everybody in the West. They are disturbed right now not simply because Rumack and her allies are gone. They are beginning to have doubts over whether their mission is truly right.”

It was already a minority of the world who had volunteered to team with demons to destroy God. And most of the people from the Western Island were pious members of the Church. They’d be happy to worship people like Sariel and Gabriel as long as they didn’t know who they really were, but when it came to killing the god that led them, that was just a nonstarter for most of them.

“Besides, don’t we have Gabriel? Won’t havin’ those angels with us keep the Western people satisfied?”

Albert recalled that they had archangels, subjects of worship from the West, on hand. But Ashiya shook his head.

“What they worship are the angels as they exist in their scripture and faith. Not the real ones, with wings and vast stores of power.”

Whether he meant it or not, Ashiya’s analysis matched the one Suzuno had given to Olba on the Eastern Island. Albert himself had said it to Farfarello during their breakfast summit the other day.

“To them, God is a living, existing thing—but if some powerful figure descends in front of them, they can’t accept that as God. That’s easy to see if you unravel God as described in their scriptures and mythology. The miracles he engineers are always these vague, roundabout matters, nothing that leaves any physical evidence behind. They truly believe that God is not of this world, but from some higher plane. Their piousness is why they think next to nothing of ‘real life’ gods and angels. And now we have the ‘holy dreams’ of the Archbishops. That is much closer to the God and angels they believe in.”

Ashiya took a moment to sigh.

“It is a thorny issue. We could have suppressed it if we had at least one Church representative out of Bell, Emeralda, or Rumack here, but as demons, we had no way to keep them on hand.”

“Can’t we call in Emilia?”

“No. We cannot call her to Ente Isla if our allies are to remain in the dark about our fight in the demon realms earlier. If our adversary in that laboratory truly managed to neutralize her holy sword, there is no guarantee that foe will not choose to attack us here. Then Emilia truly will be neutralized, and Alas Ramus may be taken as well. And have you forgotten the events of Heavensky?”

Farfarello and Albert looked at Ashiya, eyes wide open.

“The power of the person in the space suit had an effect on those with holy energy. Just imagine if we brought Emilia over here—what better prize to attract our astronaut friend? Why, we’d hardly need to wait for our Church knights to show up—the human forces would be soundly defeated by the time they did, and the war would be over before it began.”

“Then there seems to be no recourse, no.”

“I suppose we’ll just need to keep assuring people and leavin’ them in the dark, eh?”

“Perhaps offer a larger ration of the cho-co-lehte General Sasaki provided, or the like…ah, but that would accomplish little.”

Farfarello meant that as a joke, perhaps—

“Hmm… Not a bad idea.”

—but Shirou Ashiya didn’t take it as such.

“Excellent! I shall prepare some chocolate and distribute it as a bonus!”

It was time for Ashiya’s househusband skills to shine once more. The dark green apron that he suddenly took out of some mystery pocket flapped in the wind—but Albert hurriedly stopped him.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down! Yes, that treat was popular among the human folk, but a lot of that was because that girl Chiho was crafting it. Can’t you picture what’ll happen when it comes out that you made it?! There’ll be all sorts of terrible rumors about how you poisoned it or something!”

“Poison? Poison?! Do you think I would ever play with my food like that?! I have manned the kitchen of Devil’s Castle for months on end! How dare you insult me!”

“Lord Alciel?!”

“I, Shirou Ashiya, have toiled day and night to fill the hearts and stomachs of those I serve! And I would dare to poison someone’s chocolate?!”

“Look, it’s not a matter of your talents or your resolve! The fact it’s handmade by a demon is a just problem in itself!”

If Emi, Suzuno, or Urushihara were here, they would likely have a more cutting rejoinder for him. Albert was doing his best.

“Accursed humans… Are you saying you cannot enjoy my chocolate?!”

“Why are you so pained about that?”

“But this is an important time for Ms. Sasaki. She is entering a new school year, and the manager at her workplace has changed. We are obliged to restrict personnel movements at the moment, and I would feel terrible for bringing her here when things are in such disarray.”

“If General Sasaki is off the table, there is another human girl from Japan we could turn to.”

“Hmm?”

“The Hero Emilia’s friend, as she was called. Many humans saw Rumack treat her as an equal here. She seems somewhat older than General Sasaki as well. I think we would be safe with her.”

Ashiya, realizing Farfarello was talking about Rika Suzuki, shook his head even harder. “N-no, no no no, we cannot.”

“Why not? General Sasaki told us that anyone could make cho-co-lehte as long as they had the correct molds. If it would be difficult to have her make them, perhaps she could at least provide us with other sweet treats from her world…”

“No, that is not the issue. Asking her for such a favor would be…ah, a tad awkward.”

“Huh?”

“What do you mean?”

“It is an issue between two…humans of Japan.”

““?””

Albert and Farfarello were both as confused, a rare case of common agreement between human and demon. Seeing Ashiya as inarticulate as this was also a rarity indeed—but from his perspective, he couldn’t be blamed. After all, not only had he thoroughly rejected Rika’s advances, but he had given her absolutely nothing on White Day, leaving that entirely to Maou instead. Asking her for chocolate just to keep things from coming to a boil over here… There was no way he could stoop that low.

“R-regardless, Ms. Suzuki is a normal human as well, and there is no way we could bring her back to a powder keg like this one! Think of another approach!”

“Another approach? Is there one? Not like anyone would wanna have any chocolate I cooked up…”

“Stop thinking about chocolate!”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“Yes, but no matter what measure we take, I still remain anxious over how cut off from world events our troops are. Even here, we cannot afford to attempt open contact with Rumack, or Emeralda, or General Crestia Bell. Our soldiers must be nervous that they’d all be branded heretics and exiled when they return home…and I am unsure what we can do about that.”

The three of them had two issues that needed to be resolved. One was to assuage their troops, convincing them they were not in the minority. The other was to guarantee what they were doing was just.

Rumack’s absence, along those lines, had a huge impact. To natives of the West, the name of the Empire of Saint Aile’s royal guard general held perhaps even more sway than that of royalty or nobility. But her departure at this point in time further encouraged the impression that her nation wouldn’t back up the properness of her actions. It would foment doubt among the troops over whether Rumack had tricked them into joining her personal conspiracy.

It wasn’t the sort of issue they could solve with some nicer treatment or bonus rations. If their bodies were here but their hearts were off in distant lands, one burst seam could erupt into a huge hole that ate into the entire plan.

“For now, we will have to try currying favor with them. Albert, there is no one else I can leave them with apart from you right now. Use your reputation as the Hero’s companion to unite them for us.”

“Right. Thanks for the completely faithless order. I mean, I’ll try, but I really can’t keep them together for long. If worse comes to worst, wouldn’t it be better to just light up Devil’s Castle already and retreat back to the demon realms?”

“…If I could do that,” grumbled Ashiya, “I would have long ago.”

They were in danger. The entire Church knight corps was marching for the Central Continent, and they were in no position to evade them. That was why Suzuno had made the proposal already.

“The heavens and demon realms are both, in the end, moons orbiting around Ente Isla. Just because they are hanging above us, that does not mean we can simply fire a rocket straight at one.”

Maou had decided to schedule the battle against heaven for July, and not solely because Alas Ramus’s provisional birthday fell in that month. Based on their calculations, July in Japan provided the most ideal path for a flight from Isla Centurum to the world of heaven, the blue moon in the sky. If they wanted to flee to the demon realms, the red moon, they’d need to wait another month for the most suitable window—and once they did, they’d have to blast off from there.

Both the red and the blue moons revolved around Ente Isla at roughly the same speed, with heaven ahead positionally. It just wasn’t realistic to shoot a rocket from the demon realms and have it catch up with heaven. Once they fled to the red moon, they’d have to more likely travel around Ente Isla itself, going in the opposite direction of the moons’ orbit—but such a complicated flight plan would take time to calculate, and nobody knew if the ideal window for that was coming anytime soon. Thus, they wanted to stick it out as long as they could from this spot, the home of their most ideal route, and fly directly to heaven.

Albert looked at the anguished Ashiya and sighed. “Yeah, I know. But it is what it is. I’m used to playin’ the villain by now, so I guess I’ll try to whip some sense into ’em. Hey, Farfarello, could you help divide up the demons and humans a little… Hmm?”

Just then, a figure rushed into the Devil’s Castle throne room.

“Lord Alciel! Farlo!”

“Mm? Ciriatto?”

“What is it?”

It was Ciriatto, one of the Malebranche chieftains. “Humans have been sighted! From neither the East nor the West!”

“Wha?”

“What was that?!”

This news, in the middle of already painful talks, further agitated the three of them.

“What is the meaning of this? Did an army get sent through a Gate?!”

“N-no, um… There is a Gate, yes, but it’s only two people,” Ciriatto answered.

“What?! Knight captains, then? Or Church assassins or the like…?”

The unexpected circumstances of this breach flustered everyone on hand. But the truth was elsewhere.

“No, my liege… I think Libicocco knows them. They are speaking below right now.”

“Libicocco? Speaking to them?”

“Yes. They are calling for His Demonic Highness, or Emilia, or anyone who can understand them.”

“Hearing about them secondhand is accomplishing nothing. Let us descend.”

If it was only two humans, they could handle matters if a fight broke out. Ciriatto did little to clarify anything, but Ashiya transformed into demon form (just in case) and did a quick dive down to the surface, Albert and Farfarello coming soon behind.

Quickly, the situation became clear. From above, they could see a ring of people, Libicocco’s gigantic form in the middle. The strange thing, though, was that all the people gathered were deeply bowing.

“What on…?”

Libicocco looked up at the confused Alciel. The Great Demon General was clearly a sight for sore eyes.

“What is going on? I hear humans came here through a Gate.”

The humans on the scene, not used to the splendor of his demon form, cowered a little. But the next moment, a shrill voice admonished them all.

“‘Waah! Waah, demons, demons!’ Why are you all wailing like a child in a crib? Are you all a bunch of hapless weaklings, ready to flee at a moment’s notice? And you call yourselves the handpicked elites of Hazel Rumack’s Saint Aile force? Where is your discipline?!”

The voice sounded familiar. When they realized who it belonged to, Alciel—and, more than anyone, Albert—opened their eyes wide in shock.

“It’s about time you came! First you visit my homeland with your sweet words, then when I come hurrying over, you leave me to rot out here! You’ve got guts, pulling a trick like that!”

The figure about to send the enormous Libicocco reeling was an old woman dressed in Northern Island clothing, not even half the height of Alciel, and with only one person accompanying her. But the force and majesty of her carriage imparted a sense of history, one that overpowered even the Great Demon General.

“Ah, ahh…”

“Wh-why are you here…?”

“Lord Alciel! Albert! Who is this…?”

The old woman glaring up at Alciel, Albert, and Farfarello was wearing a monocle with a purple jewel on it.

“Li’l Broccoli, you know, she had the gall to come begging for me.”

“Little…?”

Alciel raised an eyebrow, but the old woman wasn’t the sort to pay such shallow doubts any mind.

“She tells me, ‘Oh, these high-and-mighty chosen warriors are busy wetting their pants over the demons’ just because she and her pals are out of the picture. I can’t have that, so I lifted up my weary bones and paid you a visit, like a grandma visiting her favorite kids. You’d better thank me for this!”

After finishing her tirade against the group, all browbeaten into silence, the old woman turned around and faced the Western Island soldiers kneeling to her.

“No matter what happens,” she called out in her clear voice, “I, Chief Herder Dhin Dhem Wurs, guarantee to you that your battle is just, and that when the time comes in the far future, you will always have a meal ticket with me! You got that? Now go get your nappies wrapped back around your butts and get out of here!!”

The oratorial skills and influence of Chief Herder Dhin Dhem Wurs echoed across not only the Northern Island, but the entire world. They were enough to shout down and overwhelm the demons, just as they quickly restored the morale of the Western Island’s soldiers.

“Right.”

Noticing the spring in the soldiers’ step, Wurs glared right back at Albert.

“That was all Li’l Broccoli asked me for. Outside of Alciel, which one of you knows the most about that land they call Japan?! You got all these big names here sittin’ silently, and nobody’s steppin’ up?!”

“Um, would that be you, Albert?” asked the overpowered Alciel.

Albert shook his head. “No… Well, I hear a lot about it, but I’ve only been there once and not for too long, so I can’t say I’m that knowledgeable… What about Gabriel?”

“Gabriel is the keystone of our defense here. I do not want him away for even a moment. Dhin Dhem Wurs, why am I out of the question?”

“Why else? With the Devil King gone, you’re the boss around here, and the boss sure can’t leave. I want one of you to come to Phiyenci with me. Nobody’s going to complain about an Idea Link or a Gate from Phiyenci, now are they? That’s your big problem right now, ain’t it? Not bein’ able to easily talk to anyone in Japan?”

“?!”

Alciel and Albert could feel the scales tipping in front of their eyes.

“We have a Church knight contingent on the Northern Island, but not a big one, and none of them have the balls to call me out on my behavior. Emeralda already gave me one of those ‘phones’ or whatever you call ’em, so I’m offering to let you use the Goat Pasture as a relay base. Besides, I want to talk with that talented young granddaughter of mine again—and if people can travel between here and Phiyenci as a side effect, then hooray, what a bonus! So do you have anyone or not?”

“…I think I could fill the bill,” Farfarello said softly. “I have extensive experience living in Japan and have learned how to look and act human, so I think I would not be too out of place in the Goat Pasture. Ciriatto can command the demons here. What do you think, Lord Alciel?”

There was a time when Farfarello lived in Japan with Erone. If Wurs was offering a connection to Japan to them, the demon would make a good attendant for her.

“Are you up for it?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Chief Herder Wurs, my thanks to you.”

Alciel turned toward the old woman and bowed his head—

“…Mngh!”

—only to have Wurs leap up and slap him right on it, as hard as she could. She stuck her chest out in apparent rage as everyone gasped at her.

“Don’t just casually bow your head down to me, you fool.”

Alciel looked completely lost. Wurs continued.

“You’re the top dog in the ‘nation’ they call the demon realms, ain’t you? You tryin’ to put your own people under the command of humans?!”

“…No.”

“Well, if you don’t want demons classified as inferior to humans, don’t you ever bow your head to one after making a request like that. That’s for servants to do. And tell that spaced-out Devil King kid the same thing for me.”

If she was already griping at Alciel about things like this, it seemed fair to conclude she had accepted his request. And now that she had, there was no doubt she’d worry over the fate of the demons as if they were her own people.

“I understand.”

Thus Alciel bowed to this kindness…if only in his own mind.

“Hmph. By that slack-jawed look, I wonder how much you do understand. Okay, now, you with the claws! You’re coming, aren’t you? Tell me your name!”

“…It is Farfarello. Thanks for— Bpph!”

“Quit with the fake dignity! Show some respect! Bow yourself down until the sand’s scrapin’ the skin off of that stupidly long head of yours! You stop being polite with other nations, it’s the same thing as rubbing dirt on the face of your boss here! Come on! Farfarello, right? How much of a tongue twister does your name have to be, anyway?!”

Farfarello scowled at this treatment for a moment, but quickly recovered. “…I look forward to serving you, ma’am.”

His tone now suitably polite for Wurs’s taste, he took the extra step of manifesting the demonic force inside him, extracting it from his body and turning himself human in appearance. He would’ve wound up nude without the customary Malebranche loincloth, but in a moment, he was a slender man with combed-down hair.

“Very good. Now, once Farlo here has some decent clothes on, we’re headin’ back to Phiyenci. You just try showing up at the Goat Pasture lookin’ like that. You’d freeze within the hour!”

Once Farfarello told the complete story of Ashiya and Suzuno, Emeralda and Rumack, Albert and Wurs, and the rest of the news from Ente Isla, the group assembled in Room 201 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka stood there silently for a few moments. Chiho, hearing how Farfarello had used Emeralda’s phone to contact them from the Northern Island capital of Phiyenci, began to feel a little dizzy.

“…And so I am charged with being a broker of people and information from here in Phiyenci.”

Farfarello’s explanation, heard through the speaker phone, was more of a surprise than Emi, Chiho, and especially Urushihara could withstand. Demons, from the demon realms, were being sent to live in human nations. How did Maou and Ashiya carry out such a massive plan between just the two of them? And even more astoundingly, they had made encouraging contacts with the empire of Efzahan, the Wurs tribe of Phiyenci, and the leader of Vashrahma—and that might be just the beginning. Even if Maou and Ashiya did stand at the peak of all demondom, there was no way acting so unilaterally was a smart thing to do.

Emi turned around to find a small, composed black chicken sitting there.

“Yes, I was aware of their plans,” replied Camio as he nervously gauged Emi’s reaction.

“……”

But after a moment of tension, Emi lightly sighed.

“Yeah. I figured you had to be involved. It’d be weird otherwise.”

“Indeed. Not that I was involved with any of the actual work. The Devil King’s Army may have fallen, but our realms are still filled with our people, and we are not talking about a complete transfer of the population. My peep role was to summarize my liege and Alciel’s plans and push them along from the demon realms’ side. Thus, I am clueless as to what peep Farfarello or anyone else might be doing now.”

“…Dude, isn’t it weird that I don’t know anything?”

Urushihara felt safe in complaining about this. But there was a reason to leave him out of the circle.

“Sorry about that. Ashiya proposed it to me from Ente Isla while you were in the hospital in Japan, and I decided to go with it after about ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes? But it’s going to affect your entire world…”

Chiho rolled her eyes. Maou didn’t care.

“No matter how big a deal something is, when I decide on it, it’s done in an instant. It’s easy enough for me to reconstruct the conversation. Ashiya said, ‘My liege, why not use the Eastern Island as a foothold to move the demons into Ente Isla? The Azure Emperor is eager to help us,’ and I said, ‘Oh, good idea.’ That was the first and last time we talked about it.”

“That’s fast!”

Even Chiho was surprised at the casualness of it all.

“Ahh, Maou’s always been like that,” Urushihara tiredly stated. “Put it in a good way, he makes decisions fast; put it in a bad way, he’s completely arbitrary.”

“It was a critical moment, remember. Emi’s and Alas Ramus’s lives were hanging in the balance. I figured we could save the details for later, but that’s generally how it shook out.”

“B-but there wasn’t any talk about holy and demonic force leaving the world at that point, was there?!”

Maou and Emi had learned the relationship between the Sephirah and the world only after they’d returned to Japan from all that chaos. Why would they talk about a huge migration to the Eastern Island then?

“There’s nothing weird about it.” Maou shook his head. “I didn’t say anything to you guys about it, but the demon realms have been facing an energy crisis for a while. Whether the invasion Emi put an end to worked or not, we already estimated that sooner or later, we wouldn’t have enough demonic force to keep everyone in our realms fed. That was just when Ashiya gained the Azure Emperor’s trust. That empire’s a multiracial state with lots of empty space and a never-ending cycle of civil wars. It’s the perfect spot for demons to set up shop in. Plus, of course, we kinda regretted what happened before, so we didn’t want to cause needless chaos and try taking over another country.”

“…What are you talking about?” Emi grumbled.

“Like they say on this planet, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. And you can ‘do’ that in lots of ways.”

She was irked at the expression on Maou’s face as he began proudly speaking in riddles. Then she realized Laila hadn’t contributed to this conversation in a while. Amane and Acieth hadn’t, either, but that was to be expected—they weren’t up on the latest situation in Ente Isla. But Laila staying mum through this entire topic was bizarre.

It didn’t take long for Laila to notice her daughter’s gaze upon her. She grew pale for a moment—then, unable to withstand her, turned her eyes away.

“…Did you know?”

“Mmuhh…”

Her mother never could tell a lie.

But as surprised as Emi was, she knew that yelling at Maou over what all this was about wouldn’t change anything. Demons moving into human countries, in any normal situation, would turn the whole world on its head. But Maou and his cohorts must have known that, and even Emi could see that this action wasn’t based on their previous, simpler goal of conquering the world. She still had no idea how that led to sending Libicocco to work in Japan, but she could pin that down once they had a full grasp of Farfarello’s report.

“Oh, right. Farlo. Is the old lady—um, I mean, is Lady Wurs nearby?”

“She’s handling business at the moment. It seems an advance force of Church knights paid her a visit, but she expressed a desire to have a nice long talk with you later, General Sasaki. I am sure she will contact you soon.”

“Okay… Well, you can call me anytime the rest of today, but can you handle that Church group all right?”

“I have called it an advance force, but she said it was really more of an expedition, mapping out an advance route for the rest of their armies, so it is none of Lady Wurs’s business at the moment. Lady Wurs has several other things to report to you, so if you don’t mind me giving you a summary…”

As Farfarello put it, while they couldn’t be optimistic yet, trends indicated that Suzuno, Emeralda, and Rumack had all successfully delayed the Church knight corps’ plans.

“Information about General Bell’s, Emeralda’s, and Rumack’s situations has also arrived to Lady Wurs, disguised as investigations into the ice spear from the Bowman’s Offering. I plan to make regular trips between the Central Continent and the Goat Pasture to keep information flowing.”

“Excellent, thank you for that!”

Things weren’t going to be quite as convenient as before, but obtaining a communication center nobody would suspect came as a tremendous relief.

“Okay, with that said, I want you to compare what you get with Sariel’s file here and stay in contact with them.”

Maou gave Laila a firm pat on the shoulder.

“Huh? Me?”

“Who else am I talking to?” Maou smiled. “You’re the only one who got a close-up view of the space suit guy, and you’re a better messenger than Acieth ever would be. And you’re also the only person here that we don’t really need on hand.”

“That seems like a needlessly mean way to put it, you know! Even if we are talking about me…”

“Wahh! Maou and Mom, they just give me dissing in front of me!”

Maou wasn’t sure where she learned that word, but either way, Acieth could tell she was being criticized.

“Look, you’re friends with Wurs, too, right? You’re the only one who can compare notes with her about Sariel and Gabriel, and your memories of them.”

Laila had little to counter that with.

“And if you’re over there, holy magic users can blend in better no matter how much flying they do, right? I wanna leave Farfarello in Phiyenci, so you go fly over there and serve as our contact point.”

“Well…so be it. All right.”

With the reluctant agreement, Maou clasped his hands, proud of a job well done.

“Good. And can you take him along for me?”

He pointed a finger at Kinanna, still snoring and never moving a muscle.

“Kinanna? But weren’t we leaving him in Japan, since we’re scared of the Church picking up on his demonic force?”

“That was my intention, but over the past few days, he’s been eating less and less.”

Previously, he’d be prattling away, shouting all kinds of meaningless things as he exhausted everyone around him. But in the few days since his return from the demon realms, Kinanna hadn’t spoken much more than the occasional rumble, preferring to spend his time soaking in the sun and napping.

“We know the stone in his throat’s the Astral Gem, but if he gets so weak that he dies, I don’t know how that’ll affect us. I think it’d be healthier for him in Devil’s Castle—if we have to inject him with some demonic force if push comes to shove, we can keep any resulting damage to a minimum in there. Besides, if he grows huge and trashes my apartment again, I really can’t afford the repairs right now.”

His concern for Kinanna’s health wasn’t a lie, probably, but his other excuse was the total, unvarnished truth.

“Will you be all right alone, Laila?” Chiho gingerly asked, concerned over the alarm rapidly spreading across Laila’s face.

“I know what you mean, Chiho, but who else could we—”

“Well, how ’bout me?”

Then an unexpected candidate took the stand. It was Urushihara.

“If Kinanna’s over there, I got nothin’ to do, dude. Camio’s all better now, too.”

He was right, but nobody had really demanded his services anyway. If there was nothing to do, they were all just fine having Urushihara do nothing.

“Hmm… A lone angel is disconcerting enough, but having peep Lucifer join her…”

“Are you sure Urushihara should join her?!” Chiho exclaimed.

“Stop sounding like it’d worry you more than Laila being alone!” Urushihara lashed back at the expected reactions.

“Looking through how things are in the heavens,” he sheepishly continued, “this has a lot to do with my roots, too, doesn’t it? So I just figure I oughta poke around and ask as many questions as I can. It’s not like Gabriel’s gonna tell us anything if we ask him point-blank.”

Indeed, Gabriel might explain matters if asked, but before he did, he’d probably start picking on Urushihara, and Urushihara knew that’d be coming, so he’d never directly ask him. No matter who was in that space suit, once they were all in heaven, Urushihara wouldn’t have time to examine his background. He had stated before that he didn’t particularly care about his past, and that was probably true at the time—but if the knowledge was available to him, he likely wanted to at least have it on hand.

“Yeah. Plus, if it’s two of you, one of you can run away if the other gets stopped somewhere.”

“I really don’t want that to happen,” a distressed Laila said, although she still wasn’t saying no.

“Hey, there are times when we all need to feel around for something. Things have been going a little too well up to now. I’d be anxious if we didn’t run into a few obstacles like this.”

“You sure got it good, Maou. It’s just life as usual for you, still.”

“Maybe it looks like that, but I got a lot of business to mind, too.”

Urushihara glared at Maou. “Oh? Like what?”

“It’s hard,” Maou honestly replied. “Not being able to move, just having to watch over things and wait for news; that sort of thing. It finally dawned on me lately.”

“Huh?”

“People might think they logically understand things, but unless they’re actually standing there, they really can’t get the essence of it sometimes.”

This didn’t register with Urushihara much, but that really was the unvarnished truth, an emotion that Maou couldn’t comprehend until a bit ago.

“Urushihara… Laila… This is for Alas Ramus’s sake. With the battle looming, we can’t afford to leave any anxieties on the table. No matter how small.”

“…All right.”

“Sure, dude. I hear you, I hear you.”

An hour later, Laila carried Kinanna’s cage with one hand and her angel’s feather pen in the other, while Urushihara used his own force to open a Gate. In another moment, they were both on their way to Wurs and Farfarello. As Maou watched them go, Emi realized that his expression was unlike any she’d ever seen from him before.

“…It’ll be all right,” said Chiho from behind the two of them. “They’ve got my ‘grandmother’ and Farlo with them. They’ll make it to Devil’s Castle just fine.”

“Yeah.” Maou nodded, not turning around. “…I’m sorry for everything.”

“I’m glad you understand now.”

They both smiled, facing away from each other.

Now Emi got it. For Maou, this entire process was one of atonement. He used to have so much confidence in his powers that he never really thought about the concept of “going back.” But in that underground lab, something happened that had finally shattered his confidence. He learned that victory, and a return trip home, weren’t so absolute after all.

And, understanding how he felt now, Emi realized something else. Looking back at the history of her own battle, nothing like this had ever happened before. For the very first time, she was heading into a battle where she had a place to return to afterward. A place she had to go back to, with people waiting for her.

Two days after Urushihara and Laila set off for Ente Isla, a new wind was blowing across the entrance to the MgRonald at Hatagaya Station, perhaps heralding the new fiscal year for the neighborhood.

“Uhmm…”

The unrest in Iwaki’s eyes wasn’t fully hidden, even through her glasses, as she averted her gaze from the person in front of her. But this person was large enough that even averting her eyes didn’t take him fully away from sight. Being small as she was, most adults in her circle were taller than her, but this person was a hefty distance away from the norm.

Not wanting the man to think she was cowering, Iwaki looked down at his résumé on the desk, trying to cheer herself on.

Boy, men from Europe really are well built…

“What?”

“N-no! Nothing!”

Perhaps her inner voice had come out of her lips after all. Iwaki looked ahead again, composing herself, but in this case, it always meant looking up. The expression of the man looking down at her didn’t indicate anger at all, but it still scared her.

However, Iwaki didn’t have the ease of mind to hesitate at this presence. The crewmember Kisaki trusted the most had introduced this man to help her out. She needed to continue with the interview, and she needed to be on her best manners. She stretched out, loosening her body so her voice wouldn’t go shaky on her, and began the proceedings.

“So, um, first, thank you very much for applying to MgRonald, um… Libi…cock…o?”

“Libicocco, ma’am.”

“Ah—ah, sorry.”

The man stood a full head above Kawata, himself a stout man, and also sported the muscles of a rugby player or a professional wrestler. His face made him hard to read, and his low voice reverberated in the pit of her stomach. Having her pronunciation corrected—always a great way to make a first impression—struck terror in her heart.

“Uh, ummm, so Maou tells me you used to work under him…?”

“I am Mr. Maou’s loyal servant.”

“His loyal…servant?! H-how?!”

“What?”

“N-no! No, um, never mind. Right. So, Maou—er, Mr. Maou…” Iwaki’s struggling to properly refer to Maou was a good indication of her alarm. “Well, you seem to be very qualified in foreign languages, and, um… Lee… Livi… Libi-koko, given that you were born in Italy, I can certainly see why.”

“………”

“Um, is that wrong?”

“…No. That is right. I am Libicocco and I come from Italy.”

“Yes, right?!”

What am I even doing?

It was proving impossible to grasp the tempo of this interview. Iwaki feared she would be physically crushed by this giant’s overbearing presence before it was over. Thus, sweating bullets inside her mind, she frantically searched for a way to open a coherent conversation with this applicant.

“I sure hope this is all right…”

Emi had repeated that many times since the fully de-demonized Libicocco came to MgRonald.

“What’s all right? And stop saying that over and over,” snipped Maou.

“Can you blame me for wanting to? And let me just say, if Iwaki is ever in any danger, I’ll…”

“I made it very clear to him that if he does anything to harm Iwaki in the slightest, I’ll hold all the Malebranche responsible. He’s a tough guy, but as a chieftain, he’s got a brain, too. Don’t worry.”

“The ‘tough guy’ bit is what I’m the most worried about! I just hope Iwaki doesn’t burst out of there crying.”

“She’s not a child, you know.”

“Well, I can’t just ignore it!”

Libicocco had come to Japan early this morning. It was a rather quick trip over, even though Urushihara and Laila hadn’t reached Devil’s Castle yet—they had some trouble finding a ship, and the one they’d boarded was no speedster. As Farfarello reported, Libicocco had reached the Northern Island just as Urushihara and Laila were at the halfway point of the strait between it and the Central Continent.

At first, Libicocco wasn’t too sure why he had been summoned to Japan. Even Emi, informed of this plan in advance, thought it was madness. But now he was “Libicocco Malebranche,” exchange student and someone Maou knew from previous work, and he was applying for a part-time crewmember gig at the Hatagaya Station MgRonald. They hadn’t Japan-ified his name like the other demons because, quite simply, they worried that Libicocco’s acting skills weren’t up to the task. Fortunately, non-Japanese people working hourly wage jobs in Japan was no longer a rarity at all.

Hiring Libicocco would no doubt become a milestone in the Iwaki era of the location—whether in a good or bad way, no one could tell yet, but either way, Iwaki couldn’t afford to be picky. She had shifts that desperately needed filling.

“It’ll be just fine!” Chiho chirped to the still-anxious Emi. “Libicocco talked a lot with the knights over at Devil’s Castle. He might seem a little blunt at first, but once we train him right, I’m sure he’ll work really hard!”

Seeing Chiho’s eyes sparkle as she tried to make her best effort at it made Emi laugh a little.

“…The effect’s ruined in assorted ways when you’re saying it, Chiho.”

“I am a general, you know!”

Transporting the demon realms’ denizens into a human nation on Ente Isla. It was a blockbuster of a plan, and Chiho had already accepted it. A lot of that was affected by Chiho’s knowledge of the history of the realms, and the Devil King’s Army; things not even Emi or Suzuno knew. She also instantly understood why Maou had called Libicocco into Japan to work at the MgRonald after Chiho and all the others would leave. Emi wasn’t as understanding for a while, but Chiho immediately spoke up and explained things to her.

“Maou said so right in front of us. It was a long time ago, but…”

She was recalling the time when Farfarello first took Erone to Japan. Chiho deliberately left herself in his hands, attempting to find out what the demons thought about the whole situation. Maou then appeared to rescue her and convince Farfarello of the error of his ways—and when he did, he said this:

“This country… This world, really, is full of things we can harness to save the demon realms from the mess it’s currently in.”

Maou had presented him with a thousand-yen bill back then. At the time, he was already starting to think that the way to guide his people was to make the demons into another race in “human society,” one that revolved around the circulation of money.

Farfarello wasn’t wholly convinced, Chiho thought. Perhaps his understanding wasn’t necessary. But what changed both of their minds were the events on the Eastern Island. The reason, and the motive, might’ve been pessimism over the state of affairs—but in the end, Efzahan, the giant empire that ruled over the Eastern Island, had (in some small part) accepted the rule of Alciel and the Malebranche.

Maou said they had talked things over enough, but when she had asked for more detail, it turned out matters were more complicated than that. In his first meeting with the Azure Emperor, he had told her, Ashiya had decided to move this plan along on his own volition. Later given command over Efzahan’s knights, he had used that power to move the empire’s government, in the end quelling the disturbance with a minimum of human casualties.

He was taking advantage of the Azure Emperor’s ambition to rule all of Ente Isla, yes, but he had his deal. The power of the demons would be used for the nation’s sake, in exchange for a promise that Efzahan would accept the demon immigrants—and as proof of the Azure Emperor’s willingness to keep that promise, he was diverting his knights to help prepare for the battle against heaven.

“No matter where they go, the one thing they need is what I said before—that ‘when in Rome’ spirit. The drive to work, make money, and get along with that nation’s people. Ashiya, Urushihara, and I have cultivated that spirit here in Japan, and little by little, we gotta spread it around to the people under us. And I want Libicocco to be the forerunner of that.”

The definition of “get along with” would differ greatly depending on where they went. Considering the past actions of the Devil King’s Army, there would be regions that would never accept them, no matter how much the demons gave up. For example, Vashrahma and the rest of the Southern Island would never accept the Malebranche, their past invaders. But on the Northern Island, where Adramelech’s invasion was relatively accepted, there’d likely be a fair number of tribes willing to take in the Bluehorns. Borders up there were little more than political constructs; people were more grouped into their respective races or tribes, and if the demons behaved, they could be accepted as another tribe—that was the expectation anyway.

Of course, Efzahan would likely accept the greatest number of demons. It was much larger than any other nation, accepting of diverse races from the start, and the constant string of internal conflicts made it easy for foreign elements to get in. Meanwhile the Western Empire, full of single-race (or single race–dominant) nations where citizenship was a strong uniting force, would promptly show the demons the door. The spirit of the Church, based on its holy acts, had taken firm root on that island; the people’s opposition to the presence of demons ran far deeper than elsewhere.

Thus Maou and Ashiya struck the Western Empire off the list of potential choices immediately, a move he predicted the other potential choices would find pleasing. The Western Island had more nations overall than the other continents, but they sported military and manufacturing strength bound together under the common presence of the Church. The Azure Emperor immediately accepted demons in part to gain the essential framework, and the strength, to compete against the West. But the North and the South thought along similar lines, too, to be sure.

Anyone who moved in would certainly face many attacks about their former position as invaders. But to go beyond that, they needed to have a constant, thorough “when in Rome” philosophy. Don’t disgrace the people that accepted you—it all came down to that.

To build this spirit and transmit it to the demons, three people were selected—Chiho, a normal human from another world with no fighting power; Farfarello, who proved capable of talking with her at their first meeting; and Libicocco.

“I explained to Libicocco all about the importance of that, the achievements he made and the hopes I have for him, and the way he’s holding the future of the realms and its demons on his back. The Malebranche aren’t stupid. They built a society with a long history in the demon realms, one featuring demons of different shapes and forms working together. They went from the biggest force in the realms to a part of the Devil King’s Army; they’ve got experience with respecting other people, but also figuring out how to maintain a line they’ll never give up on. So don’t worry. He’s a capable man.”

Seeing how serious Maou was, Emi surrendered.

“All right. I hear you loud and clear. But can’t he get any smaller? If he starts running around in the kitchen, he’ll get in everybody’s way.”

Libicocco already dwarfed Kawata. Having him in the not-exactly-large kitchen at Hatagaya Station was going to be an overwhelming sight. But Maou confidently raised a finger into the air.

“No problem there. Once he’s hired, I’m gonna have him get a moped license. With Kisaki leaving, we’ll have fewer delivery drivers, so I want him scooting around outside all day.”

“…That’s worrying, too.”

When she and Maou first reunited, Emi was afraid to take her eyes off him and Villa Rosa Sasazuka for a single moment. Concern over leaving Libicocco to himself in the outside world and causing problems welled into her head.

Maou nodded at this. “If something happens,” he stated firmly, “I’ll take care of it. So both of you lend me a hand here, okay? Keep an eye out for him.”

“Maou?”

“I’d like…to believe in him, but…”

Emi wasn’t comfortable giving this her nod. Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara had her trust, but that was because they were Maou, Ashiya, and Urushihara. Giving that to a demon who had literally showed up in Japan today didn’t seem right to her.

But just as she was about to voice these concerns:

“Okay, well, um… For now, there isn’t a uniform in inventory here that he can wear, so until we can order one…”

“…All right.”

From the staff room emerged Iwaki, looking slightly dizzy as she talked with Libicocco next to him. “I’m thinking a double XL ought to work,” she said. “Um, also, I know your living situation so I’m not gonna force you, but if you could get yourself your own phone that we could get in touch with…”

“…Do I need one?” Libicocco asked.

“Oh, no, no, no, no! Not at all! We can certainly go through Mr. Maou as well! But, you know, uh, I just think things would be a bit more convenient that way, so, ah, you don’t need to or anything!”

“…I will discuss the matter and get one soon, then.”

“Y-y-you will?! Th-thank you! B-but don’t kill yourself over it, all right?!”

““What just happened?””

Emi and Chiho burst out in unison at the unnatural conversation. Soon, the manager and the interviewee were at the counter with them.

“Uh, um, Mr. Maou?”

“What is it, Manager? Um, no ‘Mr.’ is needed, so…”

Maou shot a glance at Libicocco, having no idea where this came from. The demon closed his eyes and slightly shook his head.

“Ah. Um. Maou. I, he, I decided to hire your friend, so…”

“Huh?!” This reaction from Emi, thankfully, fell on deaf ears.

“It’s just, um, we don’t have a uniform for him, so I’ll need to make an order, and after that, maybe Monday, I’d like to talk about shifts and stuff with him. Also, um, his contact info all leads to you, Mr. Maou, um, I mean, Maou…”

“All right. That’s kinda inconvenient, isn’t it? Let’s go buy you a phone soon, Libicocco.”

“…Very well.”

“R-right, yes, that’d be a big help to me! And, uh, about the moped license, the company will help pay for the costs, so there’s no need to worry about that, so, um, I’ll talk to you soon! About the shifts!”

“…I understand. Thank you very much.”

Libicocco bent his back downward, lowering his head.

“Eeep! N-no, um, thank you…”

His head was blocking the ceiling light, making Iwaki think Libicocco’s enormous body was about to tumble down upon her. She flinched a little.

“He’s a little blunt, but he’s really an honest, down-to-earth guy. I think he’ll take to training just fine. You know the way home, right?”

“I do. In that case, excuse me.”

Bowing once more to everyone there, Libicocco silently left.

“Thanks very much for this, Manager. Taking time for an interview and everything…”

“N-no, no, I wasn’t expecting you to bring in someone so quickly…um. I appreciate it. His Japanese seems fine, and…um…honestly, he looks kind of scary, but…”

That comment was a little too honest for its own good, but look at it from another angle and it showed that Iwaki’s interview with Libicocco went without any major hitches. Chiho tapped Emi on the arm and gave her a wink, Emi replying with a defeated nod. For now, at least, Libicocco had a drive to master life in Japan, just as Maou said.

“He’s kind of new to Japan, so he’s still pretty, you know, stiff with the language. I’ll train him in smiling and other customer service stuff at home.”

Iwaki shook her head at Maou. “No, no, that can wait until he’s used to life in Japan first. He needs practice, experiencing what to do when this or that happens, or else I think he’ll get all mixed up. Judging by his Japanese, maybe he learned a few case studies like that at school or in his home country, but things are always subtly different in real life, you know?”

Considering how terrified she was of him, Iwaki sounded pretty firm and flexible about his future. Maou smiled gratefully and bowed a little.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. But all right. Thanks again.”

“Thank you. Hmm… But what will we do if the 2X size isn’t big enough? Oh, right, and his name tag! Li, Libi… Hmm. Kind of hard to pronounce. Maou, his name tag has to be written in katakana, but how should I render his name?”

“Oh, yeah, good point. How should we? If we put his first and last name on, the text would be too scrunched up to read.”

Watching Iwaki and Maou banter, Chiho smiled.

“It might be way too small a step, but hopefully this helps demons gradually find a place for themselves among people.”

“Yeah… Maybe.” Emi’s response was strained.

“Right.” Chiho didn’t need to ask why. She knew full well, but she wanted to just keep it at that. To her, there was a line that needed to be drawn, and she wanted herself and Emi standing on the same side. And Emi fully understood that, too.

So that was why…

“So who’s going to be Libicocco’s trainer?” Emi asked.

“It probably shouldn’t be me, for his sake,” Maou said. “I bet Iwaki’s gonna say the same thing, too.”

It was ten in the evening and Emi was already changed and at the café counter, her shift coinciding with Chiho’s so she could bring her home.

Taking out her smartphone, she looked at the clock, then pointed at the counter.

“Let me have a large latte. I don’t need the employee discount.”

“Oh?”

“I’ll pay you the money.”

“……”

If a customer, whether an employee or the Hero, had the money, it was Maou’s job to make her order.

“Can you leave once Chi’s done changing?” he said as he delivered the cup.

“I’ll drink this really quick.”

Emi produced a thousand-yen bill, receiving 660 yen in change from it. In Japan, this is paid out in four neat coins—one 500-yen, one 100-yen, one 50-yen, and one 10-yen. She looked at the coins in her hand, scowling at them, then accepted the latte from Maou’s hand and sighed.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just thought, you know, this is the simplest thing, but…”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind.” Putting the coins in her bag, Emi brought the cup up to her lips right there.

“Dude, take a seat. Someone might show up…”

“If they do, I’ll go.”

“…If you wanna say something, say it. When you’re moping around me like this, it usually means you’re irritated about something stupid.”

“If you know that, then shut up and let me rant a little.”

“I’m not interested in being your sandbag,” Maou said as he cleaned the latte powder and filter and returned the milk to the fridge.

“It was a surprise, though, wasn’t it? Ms. Kisaki never told us the results of an interview right there.”

“It’s not that weird, is it? His contact number is my phone for the time being, so if she called him, I would’ve found out that way anyway. Besides, we’re gonna be so short on staff, we can’t really be choosy.”

“Right, yeah. I can’t believe five people are leaving.”

“Well, no way I can fill up five posts with demons, but if we’re opening holes in the schedule thanks to our personal stuff, nobody’s gonna complain if I help cover them.”

“I pity the rest of the staff who has to deal with him.”

“It’s for the sake of all our futures, in a roundabout kinda way. What do you mean, you pity them?”

“Oh, is it? Yeah. I’m sorry. That was going too far. It’s gotta happen, huh?”

“I can see if you’re conflicted about it and stuff, but once he’s on staff, you mind relenting a bit and working with him? The way a veteran crewmember should?”

“All right, all right. I had a dedicated veteran crewmember train me, after all, so I’ll try to learn from that. I never bring my personal issues to work.”

“Look…”

“Thanks for the latte. It was a little bitter for my taste.”

Emi had been diligently sipping on the large latte for all of that short conversation. Maou accepted her empty cup, despite the disgusted look on his face.

Just then, they heard Chiho wishing her good-byes to the staff downstairs. Emi stopped leaning on the counter, lightly waving and turning away from Maou.

“Hey, Devil King?”

“Huh?”

“If this demon migration plan of yours turns out okay…”

“Uh-huh?”

Her back was still turned, her hands still in the pockets of her spring coat, and her voice reminded Maou of the more authoritarian tone of a long-ago Emi.

She turned back toward him. “Where are you gonna keep being king?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re gonna join Ms. Kisaki’s firm, aren’t you? In three years?”

“Yeah.”

“And when that comes…”

Emi’s voice seemed ever-so-slightly shaky to Maou, and he knew he wasn’t imagining it. So why was it shaking? Not even Emi knew, likely.

“When that time comes…what will you be?”

Once the people he ruled over joined the human world, what would happen to the King of All Demons?

“I think you’ve got the wrong idea about that, so lemme say this first.” Maou started cleaning the utensils he doubted would be used again tonight. “I’m not just gonna scoop up every single demon and plop them in Ente Isla. There’ll be a decent number left in the demon realms.”

“…There will? But if all the demonic force is gone, there’s nothing else to eat or drink in there…”

“It’s not completely barren. We just never tried searching for or cultivating anything since we didn’t need it. We will, though. The migration’s a major step, but for those who don’t want to leave the realms, we still got a lotta stuff left to do. Plus…”

Maou looked up as he rinsed the soap lather off his hands.

“Like the Japanese expression goes, ‘Talk about next year and the devil will laugh.’ How the hell am I gonna know about three years from now?”

“You’re a grown man. You could try to make some plans. What’re you gonna be in three years?”

“Three years ago, did you imagine in the slightest that you’d be working at the same place I am?”

“…No.”

Admitting that put her in a weak position. A very weak one.

“Right? That sort of thing. Whatever happens, happens. So quit worrying about it. I’m gonna try my best not to piss you off.”

“Don’t ‘try your best.’ Just do it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s impossible for me not to piss you off. I’ve already got my hands full trying to play nice with you.”

“How nice of you to say,” she spat out with a smile. “I’m already getting a little irritated.”

She wasn’t expecting to hear anything honest from him tonight. Still, though, she felt her mind had cleared a little.

“Yusa! Sorry I’m late! I dropped my change purse in my locker, and there were coins all over the… Oh?”

Chiho had run halfway up the stairs to find Emi standing awkwardly in the middle of the café space. It puzzled her.

“Oh. No problem. Ready to go?”

But Emi whirled over and began slowly trudging down the stairs.

“Um, sure. Have a good night, Maou!”

Still confused, Chiho followed Emi’s lead, waving brightly to Maou before leaving. He could faintly hear the automatic doors opening and closing, and then his hands stopped.

“What will I be in three years…?”

Emi didn’t need to remind him. He had thought about it many times over. It was on his mind ever since he learned that Ashiya and the Azure Emperor were considering a transfer of demons to Ente Isla during the Eastern Island strife, at a location far away from him.

“I said it was crazy… How pathetic. Who could’ve ever imagined this happening back a year ago…? How am I supposed to know about three years on?”

Memories, bitter but still making him smile, flashed across his mind.

“I’ll need to find a new life, huh?”

Maou grinned at the empty MgRonald upstairs space.

“What will I be in three years? I’m not sure that’s up to me to decide.”

“What are you muttering about up there?”

Suddenly, another familiar figure emerged from the stairs Emi and Chiho descended.

“Ms. Kisaki?”

“You’re still on duty.”

“Sorry. I was just musing a little about my future.”

Kisaki was in a business suit instead of a floor uniform. “I heard from Iwaki you already found a new hire with potential.”

“Oh, it was all luck. The timing just happened to work out right. We’ll have to see how much potential he has.”

“But I still appreciate it. It’s a good opportunity, in a way. It’s good for her to be training more crewmembers of her own.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I worked with the guy before, but I’ll make sure we don’t wind up creating weird cliques within the staff, so…”

“Well, don’t think about it too much, or else it’ll have the opposite effect. Just keep it natural. If everyone tries to look out for each other on the job, things will work out like they were meant to be… Of course, I’m starting to resent the relationships I need to build in my new department already, so maybe I’m hopeless. Oh, and Marko?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll take a Blend, regular size.”

“…Right away.”

Maou straightened himself up, then used the tools and beans he had spent the last day keeping in prime condition as a MgRonald Barista to produce a Blend Coffee, the first item on top of the menu. Pouring a regular-size quantity into a cup, he placed it on a saucer and tray and presented it to Kisaki.

“Would you like milk or sugar?”

“No thanks. I’ll take it black.”

Accepting the tray, Kisaki sat down at the table nearest to the counter and took a sip. Five seconds of nervous tension ensued.

“Not bad.”

A passing grade. She didn’t say it was good, but Kisaki took another satisfied sip before looking at Maou.

“Neither of us knows what’s ahead, but when I say something, I always go through with it. I’ll be waiting for a good reply in three years.”

“And I hope you’ll make me want to give you a good one.”

“Oh, there you go.” Kisaki shut her eyes, taking in the joke, and placed her cup on the saucer. “This location’s all yours now.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep it going.”

There was no need for much else by now. If there was, that need would come in three years. Both Maou and Kisaki understood that well—but tomorrow, Kisaki would be leaving for good. She turned down Akiko’s going-away party, saying she’d speak to everyone individually instead—and this was how she wanted to thank, and wish well for, Maou.

“Working with you made me a happy woman.”

Three days later:

“Now listen! As a rule, when you hear the automatic doors open, you can’t go wrong saying ‘Welcome!’”

“…Yes.”

“Try to make eye contact as much as you can with little kids, okay? Up to around age eight! The kid earlier looked a little scared, so try to bend down a little and speak softly and slowly to him!”

“…Yes.”

“Okay, let’s start wiping up some trays! The alcohol disinfectant is right here, so give each tray a quick squirt on both sides, then wipe it down with this disinfected washcloth. If you run out of spray, we have more on the shelf by the service entrance…”

“………Yes.”

“Well, good. Things seem to be going nicely, then.”

“Um, yes…”

A ways behind the counter, Iwaki gently smiled at the sight of the giant figure wiping trays with the much smaller one next to him. Emi gave it more of a distressed smirk.

It was the first official day of work for Libicocco. Kawata was assigned training duty for him, but he was out on a delivery for now, so Chiho was teaching him some of the simpler jobs. At another time, Libicocco had been fond of calling her a “little ant,” but now:

“Ms. Sasaki… This tray just snapped, but…”

“Y-you’re putting too much force into it! How did you break something this solid?!”

“…Sorry.”

Now Chiho was learning how to be a leader.

“I don’t know if Libicocco brought some luck in with him, but I have two interviews scheduled for today. I’ll consider them carefully, of course, but I’m starting to hold out a little hope.”

“Oh… That’s good.”

Emi just nodded, not wanting to shoot down the elated Iwaki. The manager had apparently been practicing her pronunciation of “Libicocco,” but the sound of that name coming from Iwaki’s lips made every fiber of the battle-forged Emi tense up.

They both got back to work, Emi trying to convince herself to loosen up a little, just as a pair of new customers came in. Chiho looked up.

“Welcome!”

“……”

“Libicocco?”

“…Ah, w-welcome!”

Libicocco failed to react quite as fast as Chiho.

“Doing all these things, I’m impressed you could hear such a soft sound…”

“You’ll gain an ear for it eventually… Okay, we’re ready to help you at—oh!”

Chiho was about to man the register when she realized she knew this couple.

“Kao! Kohmura! Welcome!”

“Hey, Sasachi.”

“Yo.”

It was Kaori and Yoshiya.

“What’re you up to today?”

“I’m back from the test prep center, but Shoji was all, like, ‘Hey, let’s pop in!’”

“Kao said that?” Chiho looked at Kaori, who gave her a harried smile.

“Well, like, we’re all in our last year of high school now, right? I figured we wouldn’t have a chance to see you in a work uni for much longer, so, you know…”

She sounded a bit awkward about it, but Chiho nodded, not suspecting anything deep.

“I can’t hide it from you, huh, Kao?”

“Hmm?”

“I’ll go visit your table if I have some time later. For now, can I take your order?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Right. I got a coupon.”

“All right, thank you very much. If you could put that up to the scanner there…”

Chiho rapidly took the order.

“Right, I’ll have you wait over here a moment, please… Libicocco! I’ll need a salad from that fridge over there. Can you fill a large cup with ice for me, too?”

“…Yes.”

Libicocco deftly carried out the commands.

“…Ms. Sasaki, do we have enough potatoes?”

“That works. It’s just one small order for this one. Actually, watch as I do this. We use this shovel here, and you can open up the top of the fry bag and slip it on the bottom like this.”

“…That looks hard. The paper’s pretty soft.”

“You’ll need some practice to learn how many fries go in each size, so try to pick that up as you do it. Oh, here’s the burger. Read the order slip and make sure you put it on the correct tray. Can you read kanji? Let me know if you don’t understand anything.”

“…Yes. I can read this.”

It was only with difficulty at first, but Libicocco successfully set up Kaori’s and Yoshiya’s orders.

“…And here you are.”

“Thanks!”

Kaori and Yoshiya were a tad awed by Libicocco’s size, but still gracefully accepted the trays and sat at a free table. Libicocco, watching them, let out a small sigh.

“I think I’m getting dizzy.”

“Yeah, it’s hard at first. I felt the same way.”

“No. It’s not about getting used to the work. The fact humans eat all these different things for a meal just repulses me.”

“Well, MgRonald has a pretty restricted menu, if anything. I’m sure there’s an even bigger variety to sample in Ente Isla.”

“……” Libicocco had no response. There was no denying what Chiho had said.

“I’m going to leave for a moment. I’ll be back if a customer shows up, so practice your ‘Welcome!’ for now, okay?”

“…All right.”

Waiting until the work and customers had died down a notch, Chiho left the counter and went up to Kaori and Yoshida’s table. Kaori looked up, expecting her. She couldn’t leave Libicocco alone for long, so Chiho cut to the chase.

“Well, you’re right, Kao. I’m quitting my job this month.”

“Ahh, I thought so.”

“Aw, too bad. What’re you gonna do with the free time? Go to test prep?”

“I haven’t decided on one yet, but I imagine I will, yeah. I’m not really in a position to study alone right now.”

“Ohh?”

Kaori let that slide, but to Chiho, it was the honest truth. If she quit her job with no other structure behind it, she’d be so preoccupied with Maou and the rest that she wouldn’t be able to focus on college exams. Remain idle for too long, and she’d no doubt start thinking about how she could help Maou—and they, in turn, might see her as an “unsung hero” to call upon.

This time, though, that couldn’t happen. Both sides needed to handle the work in front of them—then they could cooperate on what they could. And the job ahead for Chiho wasn’t delivering meals to the famished Maou.

She needed to make every effort right now to mature into someone who really could help them, if—at some point in the future—something crazy happened and he finally accepted her feelings. Once they were done with their great task, if she wanted to be someone who could stand proud with Maou and everyone, Chiho had to powerfully fulfill her duty in her last year of high school, both internally and externally.

“Of course, if there’s something else only I can do apart from studying, I’ll wanna do that, too, but…”

“I dunno what you mean by that, but if you cleared the fog a little bit, then great for you.”

“Did I look that fogged up?”

“You thought you could hide it from me?”

“No. Sorry.”

There was no beating Kaori. Chiho chuckled and stuck out her tongue.

“So is that big guy really newer here than you? I can’t believe it.”

Kaori all but announced the end of that topic as she began a new one. Chiho nodded.

“He’s the newest one, yeah. His trainer’s out right now, so I’m teaching him a few things.”

“Ohh… I feel like you were tellin’ us about your training not too long ago. Wow. You’re teaching an older dude like that?”

Come to think of it, Kaori and Yoshiya saw Chiho back when she was brand new in here. Thinking back to then embarrassed her a little, but it was still a good memory.

“He’s actually pretty young, so don’t call him an ‘older guy’ quite yet—oh, welcome!”

She heard the door open, causing her to reflexively turn around and smile. This time, however, Libicocco picked up on the sound first.

“WWELLLLcommme!!”

A low baritone vibrated across the room, grabbing the attention of everyone inside. Chiho, Kaori, and Yoshiya all flinched backward, before Chiho gave them a wave and hurried over to the counter. Even Iwaki and Emi were out from the kitchen to see what was up.

“W-welcome, sir! I’ll take you over here!”

Libicocco couldn’t man the register on his first day, so Emi took his place while Chiho offered him a few words of caution.

“Libicocco, I know I said to be loud with it, but I didn’t ask you to roar it out! Listen to the crewmembers around you and try to copy them! It’s no good if you’re too loud.”

“…Tch. What a pain…”

He made sure only Chiho could hear him complain. His trouble carrying out the instructions given to him was starting to irritate him.

Realizing Emi had an ear pointed at her as she dealt with the customer, Chiho decided at that moment to break out a hidden move she had stored up. Bringing a hand to her waist, she barked out her orders, like the teacher she was.

“Ilwacol tuka ilwabolg nitze, Libicocco.” (When in Rome, do as the Romans do, Libicocco.)

“!”

“?!”

Libicocco was surprised, of course. So was Emi, who stopped at the register long enough to shoot Chiho a look. She had just spoken a phrase of Centurient, the central trading language spoken in Ente Isla.

The night Farfarello had contacted them, Dhin Dhem Wurs herself placed a call, as if she were Chiho’s granny from the mountains. They had a long talk, and as the topic turned to welcoming demon settlers to her land, a thought occurred to Chiho: How would you translate the “when in Rome” expression into Ente Isla’s language? Wurs taught her, using the Centurient that Adramelech spoke. Being Wurs, she then offered to give Chiho the best teacher she knew if she wanted to become fluent. It took a while for Chiho to fend her off, but judging by Libicocco’s reaction, asking was a great idea.

As the demon stood dumbfounded by the confidently spoken Centurient, Chiho continued in Japanese.

“Your leader and Alciel have gotten this far because they took that advice to heart. If you start complaining about this much, they’d laugh their heads off at you.”

Libicocco was weak against references to Maou and Ashiya. He coughed, averting his eyes and looking generally ashamed.

“…I know. Ugh… Nngh, welcome!”

“Good! Keep it up!”

Chiho slapped him on the back as he uncomfortably returned to work. Emi looked like she had a question or two for Chiho, but things were too busy at the moment, so she gave up and got back to her own post. Iwaki had been watching the two of them, but seeing Libicocco meekly follow Chiho’s instructions relieved her enough that she slipped back without comment.

“She really does look like all her troubles are gone.”

Kaori gave Chiho a satisfied nod as she watched her from afar. She really had changed since she started working here. Her anxiety when she began here last April, after not being sure where to go next in life, was nowhere to be found. No matter what trouble she had, no matter how hard it got, Chiho was never going to stop or hesitate as she kept moving forward. The sight of her dealing with that large new guy reassured Kaori about “Chiho Sasaki” as a person, not just a friend.

“I better get myself together, too.”

“Me too…”

“Hmm? What’s up, Yoshiya? You look troubled.”

“Nah, I mean, Sasaki totally just spoke to him in a foreign language, didn’t she? Like, a year ago, she had her hands full keeping up with the seniors in the kyudo club. Does having a job really do all that for you? Oh, man, I thought I was so cool for going to test prep, but forget it. No way I could achieve that in a year.”

“You don’t really need to. But if she inspires you to try harder, then great. Maybe we could talk with Sasachi about all going to the same college again?”

“…You’re already hard enough on me, Shoji. If I go with Sasaki, too, it’ll be even worse.”

“C’mon, show me some guts! Don’t give up the fight before you even start!”

Chiho’s finishing move was proving to be effective in unpredictable ways.

Mayumi Kisaki was leaving, as was a small crowd of part-timers—and Chiho was about to join them. Now, in the midst of this, Libicocco was proving to be quite literally a giant new presence. How would he impact the location? Emi couldn’t even imagine. But as she saw him and Chiho together, she had resolved on something big in her mind.

As shown by the tray he’d snapped a bit ago, Libicocco wasn’t as deft at controlling his human body as Maou, Ashiya, Urushihara, or fellow Malebranche Farfarello. Urushihara mentioned that the Malebranche had a lot more dexterity than one would think, but being in a human body meant learning a few things over again, perhaps. Whether he meant it or not, all that power could cause trouble, in one way or the other.

So:

“…We gotta get back alive.”

That was one more reason why they couldn’t afford to lose the battle against heaven. The MgRonald near Hatagaya Station was going to remain a cherished place to herself, to Chiho, to Maou, to Kisaki, and to Iwaki and Libicocco, too. As long as Chiho was able, she wanted to watch over it—for the important people, and the important things, in her life; for all of her friends trying their hardest in Ente Isla right now.

“Also…let’s try to wrap this up ASAP, so I can get some shifts in July, too…”

That was her resolve, and it resonated deep within her.