The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 12, page 14
part #12 of Devil is a Part-Timer Series
“No, you’re not one to talk about that. And I’d advise you to be careful. She’s sleeping now, but Acieth’s always going on about how she wants to kill you whenever she sees you. There’s no tellin’ when she might strike atcha in bed when the landlord’s not paying attention.”
“Yeah, ahh, she’s tried a few times already, soooooo…”
“Too bad you didn’t let her finish the job.”
“Oh, you are being such a meanie tonight!”
They kept walking as they bickered, until they finally reached Villa Rosa Sasazuka just before one in the morning. Parking the Dullahan II, Maou turned back toward Gabriel.
“Thanks for guarding me. You’re relieved of duty.”
“Oh, at least let me hear the story to the end, mm-kay? I’m curious!”
“What do you mean, ‘to the end’…?” Maou rolled his eyes. “…See, that’s exactly what drives me up the wall the most.”
“Hmm?”
“You’re right. I can’t avoid everything just because I keep myself in the dark about it. So, yeah, maybe I should make an effort to know what you guys and Laila have been up to. But you know what?” Maou pointed at his own chest. “Why,” he softly spoke, “do we have to expend all our strength every time we find out about something? Since when did we agree to take that on?”
“Even if it winds up destroying worlds?”
“I don’t care.”
“It could wipe out any future your descendants could ever have, mm-kay?”
“If you mean humans are gonna die out, then great. I’m a demon. And if you mean demons, I’m gonna be dead by then anyway. Let them figure something out.”
“But you all have strength. The kind of strength nobody else has, you know? That could help solve all of this, but you still aren’t gonna move on it?”
The Lord of All Demons smiled as he shut his eyes tightly in a wince.
“…So that’s how you really feel?”
“Huh?”
“Well, lemme turn that around on you. Why should I let people push all this responsibility on me just because I’ve got strength?”
“Oh? …Ohhhhh.”
Gabriel ran out of words for a moment, unable to counter Maou’s logic.
“You guys just wanna do it all over again, don’t you? Like, ‘O the Hero Emilia, thou art the only one with the power to smite the evil Devil King Satan. Venture forth, and bring us his head!’”
The smile disappeared.
“And what’ll that get Emi? Huh?”
“Um…”
“I mean, I can think of several motives why Emi might be after my life. I know what I did to her, and I know she wants to follow through on her anger and earn that release for herself. But all the humans on Ente Isla joined the bandwagon on that, didn’t they? They took the burden they all should’ve borne equally and just plopped it all on her. Just because she was strong.”
This was the sin committed by the entire human population of Ente Isla—something Emeralda regretted to this day. It led to her imprisonment in Efzahan, locking her heart there as surely as if behind iron bars.
“She chased me right into a corner, let me go, kept on chasing, and just when she almost had me, her closest confidant betrayed her. And until Emeralda, Albert, Suzuno, and I did something about it, you had every human over there dancing in heaven’s hand. Why do I have to save their future? Do I have any reason at all to do that?”
“…So you don’t want to because Ente Islans are a bunch of sinners?”
“No, you still don’t get it.” Maou gave Gabriel a withering sneer. “Me and Emi are doing just fine here. It’s, like, super chill. So why do we have to throw all that away and take on a piece of your moldy old plan yet again? Like, is that a joke, or what?”
“Aw, whaaa—? That’s kinda selfish.”
“Who’s selfish?” Maou spat out. “Lemme ask you: Do rich people have a duty to throw all their money at the world’s poor until they’re bankrupt?”
“Um…”
“Do you think poor people should just unhinge their mouths like baby birds and wait for someone to give ’em worms?”
Gabriel fell silent.
“If me and Emi are more powerful than anyone else, do we have a duty to abandon everything in our lives to help the world out? Hmm? Who put that kind of duty upon us?”
The anger and irritation were now clearly present in his voice.
“That’s exactly what I hate about dealing with you guys. Like, ‘Ooh, you’ve got the power, you’ll do it for us!’ You approach us like that because you assume we’re always gonna be like ‘Oh, sure, we’ve got a responsibility to work hard for you all, let’s do it.’”
“N-not to thaaaat extent… Hey, it’s the middle of the night, try to keep it down a bit…”
“It’s not? So what’s your motive, then? Tell me.”
“I-I’m not gonna defend myself, but Laila’s not like that at all, mm-kay? She’s risked her life up to now, trying to keep all this destruction at bay. She wants to keep Emilia and Nord safe, and she just wants the world of Ente Isla to get back to the right direction, as much as she can…”
It was rare for Gabriel to step up to defend someone else. Maou easily brushed it aside.
“Aha… I see. And that’s the attitude you all are taking? Great. Now I get it. I should’ve known. You’re the kind of dude who figures that a couple scratches aren’t gonna break a steel plate, huh?”
“Um? S-steel?”
The sudden gear change bewildered Gabriel.
“Steel’s really strong, right? It’s not gonna break if just any old thing hits it, and it’ll stay sturdy no matter how much it’s damaged. Right?”
“R-right…”
“Does that make it okay to hit it?”
“Huh?”
“I said, if you can’t hurt it, does that make it okay to hit it?!”
He was now shouting. A far-off dog howled at the sound.
“If it’s that sturdy, does that make it okay to punch it, kick it, throw it around? If it’s hard to damage it, does that mean it’s all right to treat it like garbage? If it’s strong enough to deal with it, does that mean it doesn’t care how you use and abuse it? If me, and Emi, and Ashiya and Urushihara and Suzuno all do the dance you’re tellin’ us to, are you gonna guarantee that we’ll have a life to go back to afterward?! Or are all our lives expendable enough compared to the world or mankind?”
“…Um. Yeah. I—I see what you mean.” Gabriel nodded, finally beginning to follow Maou’s fervent argument. “And I say that because you convinced me, mm-kay?”
“…You really understand now?”
“Oh, you bet. It’s kind of like, y’know, someone’s griping atcha about the environment and saving our precious nature, and you visit their house and they got all the lights on and the AC cranked up to max. It’s like, who the hell they think are, huh?”
“…If that’s the example you bring up, I’d say you’re just as infected by life here as we are.”
For the first time that night, Maou softened his expression.
“But…yeah. I guess Laila wants us to do something, but for us, there’s no reason, no responsibility, no duty, no merit, no nothing to hear her out. Ente Isla’s politically stable, the demon realm is chilling out, and heaven’s cut itself off from Earth. To me, the only outstanding issues are taking care of that guy who gave Chi and Emi a scare tonight, and…well, how I oughtta square up my relationship with Emi, I guess. And once that’s all done, we’ll both live however way we want to. And I’m not gonna let you guys interfere with that.”
“There’s a lot I could say about that…” Gabriel grinned. “But if you wanna live however way you want to, does that mean trying to conquer Ente Isla again, or…? ’Cause we might try to stop you.”
“And that’s fine. Go right ahead. I’m not expecting zero resistance, and I’m ready to eliminate anything in my way. What I’m not ready to do is go out on this playing field I know nothing about, being controlled by the puppet strings of good faith. You said I’ve dealt with a lot of trouble here on Earth, but if I didn’t, it would’ve put either myself or someone close to me in danger. I never once did any of that for the sake of the world or whatever.”
“I see, I see. You had the strength and force of will to unite the demon realm at such a relatively young age. You care for your companions. And now I see Laila completely misunderstood all of that. If you’re puttin’ it that way, I doubt she’s gonna get her say with you for a few hundred years.”
“Glad I made myself understood. I’m going home. You do that, too.”
“Yeah, guess I oughtta.”
They were under the apartment’s stairway when they went their separate ways.
“Y’know, though,” Gabriel called from below once Maou was fully up the stairs, “it might’ve been a mistake for you to bring up that topic with me.”
“What?”
He flashed a proud smile at the dubious Maou.
“Hey, I’m just sayin’, I’ve gotten on in my life a bit more than you.”
“Yeah, right. I dunno how you and Laila are connected behind the scenes, but I wanna hear from you even less than I do from her.”
“Right, right, right. Let’s leave it at that for now, yeah? ’Night.”
“Yeah.”
“Also…”
“Hmm?”
“Careful on your way back home.”
“Huh?”
“I dunno if you were paying attention or not, but, ah, don’t write checks with your mouth you can’t cash with your butt, mm-kay?”
With that apparently meaningful advice, Gabriel set off into the cold night, sandals pattering over to Shiba’s place next door. It was odd. Once the stairwell gate was open, it was just a short distance to Room 201. What was there to be careful about…?
“Oh, damn, it’s one AM. Bet they’re probably asleep by now.”
Maou winced as he opened the gate. All that time wasted in conversation with Gabriel.
“Whoa!”
Then he almost whooped in surprise as he took a step back.
“Wh-what the hell?! You still haven’t gone away?!”
Emi was standing there.
The glare from the half–burned out tube light running along the walkway behind her made it hard to gauge her expression, but she was still wearing the same clothes from Shinjuku-sanchome. She must have never gone home. There was no light from either Room 201 or 202—his roommates and Suzuno must all have retired. Maou expected Emi might be staying with Suzuno tonight. But why was she standing here on this sleepy walkway like some possessive spirit while everyone else was gone?
“Um…did I wake you? S-sorry.”
The apology came softly. He was shouting at Gabriel downstairs. Perhaps Emi was nodding off just then, coming to give him a piece of her mind once he was done.
“But I mean, you know what you and Chi ran into today. And then my landlord decided to send Gabriel to guard me, which I really don’t appreciate. All the crap he was giving me, I couldn’t help but get a little loud with him, so… Like, seriously? An archangel bodyguard for the Devil King? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha……………… Emi?”
There was no reaction to any of that. Maou began to feel a tad creeped out.
“Emi? Um, wh-what’s up? Hellooooo?”
He tried waving his hand a little.
“…You’re late. Alas Ramus finally fell asleep just now. She was waiting for you.”
“O-oh? B-but you knew, didn’t you? I was clo—”
Closing tonight is what he never managed to blurt out. He felt a slight breeze. Then, the next thing he knew, Maou was being embraced by Emi.
“Hnn?!?!”
She’s gonna kill me!
It was the only conclusion to make. He didn’t know what riled Emi up so badly. She must’ve really hated being woken up. Feeling Emi’s arms behind his neck, Maou froze, already picturing them twisting his vertebrae in terrifying directions. He’d never have enough time to harness the demonic force in Room 201’s closet. Up to this point, between their duel on Ente Isla and this encounter on his doorstop, Emi had mercilessly attacked Maou on more than one or two occasions. Never, though, had she exercised her force in such a brutal, primitive way.
This is it.
But as he stood there, tensed up and preparing for the worst, he discovered that the fateful moment didn’t seem to be arriving.
“…Oh?”
Realizing he was still alive, five seconds later, Maou opened the eyes he had reflexively shut tight.
“……”
“Ummmm…?”
He could see Emi’s head right below his line of sight. Her weight leaned against his shoulders and neck a little. Her face was against his chest. What did this mean? Perhaps it wasn’t a neck-breaker finishing hold, executed the moment they met—but if it wasn’t, then Maou had no idea what it was.
“It’s fine.”
“Huh?”
He heard the voice from around his chest, more clearly than he expected.
“It’s fine.”
The sentence only confused Maou further the second time he heard it. He didn’t know what was “fine,” exactly, but he detected no anger in her voice, so he understood that Emi wasn’t mad at him, at least.
He knew that, but as his mind cooled down and he impartially analyzed how he should view this, he could feel his blood pressure start to fall. No matter how you looked at this, anyone would interpret it to be Suzuno and Rika’s ridiculous ravings come to life. To Maou, the term paired together—distilled by Acieth from their MgRonald conversation—didn’t mean anything apart from physical contact. Physical contact, however, was the only way to describe this.
It made Maou realize that the only way out of this was to keep his cool. Getting agitated, in his mind or in his soul, could easily alarm Acieth. She didn’t need telepathy or an Idea Link for it; her fusion with him made it unavoidable. But if Acieth woke up right now, the way people would look at him tomorrow would be horrifying. It’d be worse than waking up in a parallel world, a whole other dimension of space.
“I…”
“Uh, yeah?”
He had no idea what she was thinking. But Emi’s voice was calm, composed. He knew she had a reason for this. It was best, he thought, to avoid prodding her too much, lest he make things worse. So he stayed frozen, figuring that listening to Emi was the most practical solution at hand.
“I never thought that I wanted someone to help me before. By the time I was grown up, I could take care of pretty much anything by myself.”
“O-oh, yeah? Well, you’re the strongest Hero the human race ever had.”
“And Eme, and Al, and even Olba way back when, they’d help me out when needed, without me having to say anything. We kinda knew what each of us was thinking, always. So even if setting off to kill you was tough, sometimes, I never thought about quitting. Not once.”
“……Really? Well, great.”
It was clearly not the right thing to say, but Maou nodded anyway.
“But back there, in Efzahan…”
“Oh, yeah, back there.”
He could only humor her, utterly lost as to where this was going. It made what came next even more powerful.
“I felt, for the first time…protected.”
“…Ah?”
Maou had two reasons for that questioning grunt of his. One, he simply didn’t understand the meaning of it. Two, Emi’s body had started to shake a little.
“…Why you?”
“Wh-what…?”
“Why did you protect me, after making such a complete mess of my life…?”
“…”
I’m not the only one protecting you, lady.
Maou thought it. But not even he was oblivious enough to say it. Emi was, in a word, venting. Emi hadn’t forgotten about the friendship and sacrifices Emeralda, Albert, Chiho, Rika, and Suzuno made for her. But her mind was exhausted, to the point that not even those memories could support her. The events in Efzahan had already damaged her enough—Laila’s appearance shook her even worse. It was best just to let her say whatever she wanted. To let it all out. And as far as Maou was concerned, he didn’t mind playing the punching bag if it meant he made it out alive.
“My father used to protect me all the time.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But that ended, thanks to you.”
“I’m not gonna make any excuses for that.”
“And after that, it was me who had to keep protecting people. Since…I was the strongest of them.”
“Right.”
“And I’m still stronger than anyone…so…” Emi’s shoulders twitched. “My father won’t protect me anymore.”
“…”
Maou could tell: In that statement was embedded a lifetime’s worth of dark memories. She had reunited with Nord, tasked with keeping him safe—but she still believed his presence would provide an emotional support for her. But in that hospital room, her father stepped up to protect her mother instead. Faced with the overwhelming strength of the daughter he once risked his life to save, Nord decided to risk it all not for Emi’s heart, but for his wife’s body. The moment Laila appeared there, there was no chance the family would ever rebuild itself peacefully.
“It’s just you.”
“Huh?”
“Right now, when I’m stronger than anybody else, only you protected me. Only you. The man who I thought ruined my life.”
“…Um, are you sure you’re thinking straight?”
“I am. And I’m not drunk, either.”
“I’d hope not. You’re underage.”
“No, I’m not. My ID lists me as twenty. The Japanese police don’t have anything on me.”
“Not a very Hero-like thing to say.”
“I’m not any kind of hero. It’s just that people keep calling me that. That career doesn’t even exist in this world.”
Now he could feel her smiling as she quivered. Smiling, while shedding tears. She held him a notch more tightly.
“Talk about the devil tempting me. You were the only one who gave me the words I wanted to hear. Even just now…”
Maou could feel his blood stiffen once more. Did Gabriel say all that because he knew Emi was here? There might have been no helping it, but Maou’s words did imply on multiple occasions that he saw Emi and Suzuno as “his” people. People he needed to protect.
