The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 2 (21 page)

“Wow, you’ve really thought this through.”

Listening to the explanation, Rika’s eyes darted excitedly between Maou and the
sasa
tree. Finally, she turned straight toward Emi.

“He’s
good
.”

It was pure, unadulterated praise.

“Ooh, did you hear that, Emi? Your friend just said the assistant manager’s
good
!”

Maou readily took the compliment, standing defiantly over Emi.

“Hee-hee! Don’t make her take that back, Maou!” Chiho tittered at Maou’s all-too-predictable response.

Emi, watching Maou like one watches a toilet flush after emptying one’s stomach into it, scrunched her face tightly.

“…………………………………You apply yourself to your work” was the only thing she finally managed to expel.

It pained Emi deep down to do, or say, anything that might paint Maou in a positive light when the man himself was around. Rika, not quite aware of the extent of this neurosis, gave a satisfied nod.

A crew member ran up to the table, carrying two large plastic objects with both of his arms.

“Maou! I found the broken plastic cones. That, and here are some of the no-parking poles, the kind you fill with water on the bottom to keep them upright. We could probably stick it on these to make it more stable.”

“Ah, perfect! Thanks a lot! Now we just need to decide on a location!”

Picking up the cones and poles, Maou darted outside.

Emi watched him go. Seeing him excitedly direct the crew around as they prepared the Star Festival decorations, fighting tooth and nail to get customers through the door, it seemed utterly impossible for her to see any ulterior motive, any malicious intent to it.

All she could see was an assistant manager who had the trust of his employees supporting him.

“Are you feeling okay, Yusa? You don’t look too good.”

Chiho felt obliged to speak up as Emi wrestled internally over this. Emi smiled, unable to hide the complex feelings welling inside.

“Oh, no, I’m fine. Just thinking about something.”

Her eyes never removed themselves from Maou’s back.

Chiho seemed like she was about to open her mouth again, but another employee chose that moment to call her over to the register.

“Well, if you’re tired, try not to overdo it, okay? I’ll yell at Maou for you after we’re done.”

With that final turn of kindness, Chiho returned to work. Taking her eyes off Maou, Emi watched as the two employees behind the counter performed maintenance work on one machine or another.

The work atmosphere around here, she thought, was something “Ms. Kisaki” must have created. But now Maou, in a position of responsibility, was still perfectly friendly and cheerful, even with customer numbers as far down as they were. It was the truth, one she couldn’t ignore.

All of the crew—not just Chiho, who smiled around Maou for different reasons—were in an equally festive mood as they tackled the project Maou gave them, even though a Star Festival bamboo plant didn’t seem to have much to do with selling hamburgers.

Satan, the Devil King, was a foe that needed to be vanquished. But Emi, watching as Maou tried and failed repeatedly to keep the plant upright next to the door, had other thoughts on her lips.

“But he’s…he’s just not doing anything
bad
here…”

She didn’t want to admit it. She
couldn’t
admit it, in her position.

Even if a criminal admits his guilt, serves his time, and becomes a rehabilitated member of society again, that doesn’t make the crimes he committed disappear forever.

She noticed that Suzuno, too, was watching Maou’s back with a puzzled expression on her face.

Even after witnessing the scene for herself, Emi wondered if Suzuno still thought Maou had some kind of master plan for world domination in mind.

Just when he had succeeded in keeping the plant from tipping over at the slightest breeze, Rika noticed something.

“Huh?”

The voice jarred Emi out of her solitary thoughts.

“Rika? What’s up?”

“Well…it’s just they’re kind of getting this huge onrush of customers all of a sudden…”

Rika pointed an unsteady finger out the door. Following it, Emi was shocked. The waves of people flocking toward Sentucky Fried Chicken seemed to magically dissipate. In its place, another wave began to push into MgRonald in droves.

Maou noticed this just when his valiant fight against the
sasa
plant came to a satisfying close.

“Dude, dude, dude!!”

A surprised smile crossed his face as he half ran back inside.

“They’re here! They’re here! All hands, battle stations! It’s time to rock ’n’ roll!!”

Before Maou had a chance to be clearly heard, the human wave crashed through MgRonald, leaving the automatic door open behind them.

The tables quickly filled up, an air of excitement suddenly filling the dining area.

“Holy… Are you
kidding
me?! What kinda feng shui did that bamboo give him, anyway?” Rika couldn’t help but laugh at the absurd scene.

“How could this even…?”

Emi found it less than amusing.

“……”

Suzuno focused on the bamboo plant instead of Maou, her face hardened.

“Hello and welcome! Please form a single line in front of the register once you’ve decided on your order!”

Maou’s sharp, ever-present customer service echoed above the din, well across the building.

Being on top has its advantages. That was no doubt why the council decided to place full judgment responsibilities upon her for the crisis one of their own had triggered.

Her, former inquisitor and current Reconciliation Panel investigator.

It was true that she was on good terms with Olba Meiyer, Church archbishop and director of diplomatic and missionary operations.

A worker calling the directorial responsibilities of his manager into question was one thing, but in an organization like the Church—one reliant upon the faith of the people in order to establish its truthfulness and righteousness—having the highest of officials force responsibility for the failures of one of their closest confidants upon a subordinate and otherwise attempt to cover up their own faults was simply unthinkable.

Archbishop Robertio, after recovering from his fainting spell, had given her the order:

“Within your rights as a member of the Reconciliation Panel, I command you to find a way to deliver judgment upon him while damaging the authority of the Church as little as possible.”

It was always like this.

They always treated themselves with kid gloves, in fear of their own reputations being damaged. They were unwilling to dirty their
own hands, basking in the peace they themselves made no effort to attain, and took all the credit afterward.

When Lucifer’s forces threatened to storm across the Western Island once upon a time, it proved frustratingly impossible for the Church forces there to build a unified front.

The knights of the Church Guard squabbled with those affiliated with the Unified Kingdom Guard over who should take the initiative in the upcoming battle.

The kingdoms that dotted the Western Island saw the invasion as an opportunity to unshackle themselves from Church influence, a chance the Church was eager to deny them.

Despite the overwhelmingly poor odds against them, it was not uncommon for mankind to fight among themselves for the crumbs they managed to win back against the demonic hordes. Lucifer was all too quick to seize on this weakness. As a result, the Western Island found itself all but handing over half its landmass to Lucifer’s army, unable to even put up a coordinated resistance.

Even as they faced the specter of total annihilation, the political infighting among the power brokers of the Western Island only served to further decimate the population.

She was already a full-fledged member of the Council of Inquisitors by that point. Following the orders of Olba, her direct supervisor, she orchestrated a purge in the form of an inquisition.

In a place like the Western Island, where the teachings of the Church held great influence with the people, being branded as a “heretic” essentially meant one’s departure from society.

Exercising the extensive knowledge of divinity and common law that was drummed into her in the Diplomacy and Missionary Department, she ruthlessly pursued the leaders that waged political battles, lowered the morale of the troops on the front lines, and thrust their own armies into chaos.

Until Emilia the Hero arrived to dispatch Lucifer once and for all, she and the inquisitors who worked for her went hardly a day without seeing bloodshed.

Flare-ups between the owners of holy Church lands and the neighboring kingdoms were as bloody as they were frequent. No matter how long she kept hunting them, whether holy or secular, the foolish leaders who failed to understand the crisis facing mankind continued to well up like a gushing spring.

She was as human as they, but she was hunting them down for the sake of justice. The cross of the Church was their eternal weapon, and it allowed them to even perform above-the-law assassinations.

She herself carried out much of this dirty work, using her Light of Iron as she did. That holy magic gave her the ability to transform anything shaped like a cross into a weapon.

It was all part of her job in the Council of Inquisitors, a job driven by the holy desire to spread peace and prosperity worldwide.

Things began to change when the empire of Saint Aile, the kingdom that boasted the largest territory on the Western Island, fell to the demonic forces, its top leaders captured by Lucifer’s demon hordes.

Losing the most powerful kingdom on the Western Island meant that the Church was the only organization of any great size that could muster a front. The remaining kingdoms, fearing more Church inquisitions, soon fell over themselves to form a unified force, one under the ultimate guidance of the Church itself.

And with Emilia taking command of this force, the inquisitors quickly found themselves with very little of the “work of the gods” left to handle.

Thanks to Emilia and her companions advancing seemingly unopposed against the Devil King’s forces, it was no longer difficult to instill a firm sense of unity that rang true across the entire human army. That, and the leaders who once squabbled and lashed at each other with impunity were now fully cowed into submission, falling into line underneath the flag of the Hero.

Mankind could hold its own against the demons after all. It was a simple hope, but one that only Emilia had the power to instill in the people.

But once word that Emilia had lost her life defeating the Devil King spread like wildfire, the world that once was so united under the Hero fell to pieces in the blink of an eye.

After the Devil King’s defeat, the kingdoms of the Western Island began to hold criminal hearings against the inquisitors that demonstrated particular zeal in judging heretics during the war.

Seeking to avoid this, the Church dissolved the Council of Inquisitors, establishing the Reconciliation Panel in its place in a move to hold “more open” proceedings against those who defied the way of holiness.

It was a farce, one she found hard to stand for.

If the people of the Western Island had united against the Devil King’s forces when they still had the chance to, there was no telling how many senseless deaths could have been averted, how many needless judgments could have gone unexamined.

Without the Council of Inquisitors, the Western Island would have been burned to the ground long before Emilia appeared.

“We did not execute people because we
enjoyed
the task!”

Her voice went unheeded.

The concession to the united kingdoms helped retain political equilibrium, but to the former inquisitors, it made them feel that their pride, their faith, everything had been stripped away from them.

And now, with the world dazzled by the light of a new myth, a Hero who sacrificed her life to bring peace to the land, the Church and the kingdoms simply turned their back to the past, unable or unwilling to admit any of their faults.

The world was in the process of returning to what it was before the Devil King’s advent.

Was this the kind of world Emilia staked her own life to protect?

It couldn’t be.

The peace that so many had sacrificed their lives to gain hold of couldn’t be a simple extension of the corrupt, stagnant world from before.

Thanks to her extensive behind-the-scenes work for the Church,
she had been granted a position heading the new Reconciliation Panel. A panel meant to reconcile the world with its past.

Then let it be done.

Instead of a peace roiled by the hideous machinations of a handful of old men, let us find a peace where the flickering light of life can burn brightly with hope once more.

“Reconcile…the world.”

She opened the gate and let her body slide into another world.

Crestia Bell.

That was the name of the engineer of purges, the hunter of countless heretics in her tribunals, the executioner feared as the “Scythe of Death,” and a woman of the cloth who thirsted for peace over anything else.

“Well, I’m off.”

The clock struck nine
PM
. Chiho, already changed out of her uniform, nodded at Maou from beyond the counter.

“Sure thing. Great job today. Thanks for the bento meal, too. I’ll wash the box and get it back to you tomorrow.”

“M-Maou, you’re being too loud!”

Chiho was even louder as she tried to stop him, but the rest of the employees did not seem to notice the conversation.

“Boy, tonight sure was a relief, though, huh? I’m sure glad we saw a steady stream of customers through the dinner hours. Hopefully that was enough to prop the final numbers back up to what they should be.”

Maou and Chiho shivered as if on cue, the image of Kisaki and her Arctic-blizzard smile flashing across their minds.

“Yeah. Sure wouldn’t want to get deported to Greenland before I graduate from high school.”

“It’s kind of hard to tell when Kisaki’s joking and when she isn’t, huh?”

The pair exchanged dry, cracked smiles with each other.

“Well, be careful on the way home.”

“Yep! And, uh, sorry I took your bike this morning.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Oh, hey, Emi!”

Removing his gaze from Chiho, Maou noticed that Emi and Suzuno were behind him, a distance away.

“You guys are free, aren’t you? You sitting at that table all night messed up our turnover ratio, so you could at least repay me by walking home with Chi, okay?”

He was hardly in a position to boss them around. He did anyway.

“Well, fine, but we
did
place orders, you know. I don’t think you have the right to scold us like that.”

Emi was just as sulky in her response.

Ashiya may have been long gone, but Emi, at all costs, wanted to avoid owing any kind of debt to demons. Two women spending upward of two thousand yen at MgRonald had to go a long way toward that goal.

“Watching Maou really puts my mind at ease.”

Those were the words Rika left as she departed, just before the peak dinner hours began. She was the one who sparked all of this in the first place, but at least Emi was reassured that she didn’t have to erase any of her memories in the end.

She hoped to leave with Rika, but Suzuno intervened.

“If possible, I would like to inspect you on the job for a little while longer, Sadao.”

Maou, brightened by his apparent newfound success as assistant manager, readily accepted.

Emi didn’t know what drove Suzuno to make the request, but Emi was in no mood to leave her alone. There was still no telling what kind of disquieting things Suzuno might attempt.

That was why she stayed so late in the dining area. It wasn’t until Chiho hung up her apron for the day that Suzuno finally got the picture and stood up.

“…Tell Ashiya that we’re even now, okay?”

“Huh? Why should I care? That’s
your
fault for getting in a position where you owed him one.”

Maou retorted snappily at Emi, making shooing motions as he did.

“What’s past is past, all right? Just get out of my sight. And I want you to see
Chi
all the way home, got it?”

Emi found it impossible to understand why Maou placed so much emphasis on “Chi.”

“Of course. You don’t have to tell me. Come on, Chiho.”

“Okay. See you next time, Maou.”

Chiho, well familiar by now with the way Maou and Emi sniped at each other, paid the banter little mind as she walked after the departing Emi.

Watching on from across the dining area, Suzuno remained where she was, not bothering to approach Maou at the counter.

“…Excuse me.”

Her voice was just barely audible as she bowed at Maou and left.

“Thank you very much! Come again soon!”

Maou replied with a warm smile and the standard workplace-video line.

“So, where do you live, Chiho?”

Chiho turned toward the direction of Sasazuka.

“Um, it’s pretty much on the opposite side of Koshu-Kaido Road from Maou’s apartment, but are you sure you want to walk all the way over with me?”

“No problem. I was planning to take the train from Sasazuka anyway, so it’s not that far of a detour from there. Not that I’m doing this to please
him
or anything, but it’s night and all, so…I wouldn’t want a girl to just go off by herself.”

“Aw, you’re a girl, too, aren’t you, Yusa?”

“Yeah. Just kind of a special one. But let’s get going.”

Emi, Chiho, and Suzuno accompanied each other down Koshu-Kaido Road. Car traffic was still heavy this time of night, too early to be called “late night” but too late to be called “evening.”

Not many other pedestrians were on the sidewalk. Most shops had their lights shut off, making the walkways notably darker than expected.

With the Shuto Expressway towering above them the whole way, the effect was akin to walking down a tunnel that pierced through a mighty mountain of concrete and metal.

They reached the intersection bordering Sasazuka, the Hatagaya Land Bridge spanning high above, when a red light stopped them.

“Ah, but I’m still happy we got all those customers in.”

Chiho stretched as she spoke, as if to herself.

“Was it that bad since morning?”

“I think it may have been the slowest day since I began working there.”

It really was breathtaking. One minute, emptiness. The next, a tidal wave of customers descending upon MgRonald, filling the air with crackling excitement.