HMS 3-3

Chapter 3

The Demon King and Hero Heed Advice and Go to an Amusement Park

“Emi, did something bad happen to you?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been frowning aaaall the time since this morning.”

Emi put her hand on her forehead as her coworker, Rika Suzuki, pointed that out.

“Did you get into a fight with Maou-san and his people again?”

Emi was taken completely off-guard as the question nailed her straight through the chest.

“Wh-why would you think that!?”

“Because whenever you’ve been worrying about anything recently, it’s always been about them.”

“No-no! That’s not true!”

“Really? I don’t remember you worrying about anything in particular before you started talking about Maou-san.”

Unthinkable.

As the hero whose ultimate mission was to eradicate the demon king, Emi had always maintained her vigilance and will to fight. “I’ve never lived a relaxed, worry-free life!” thought Emi.

“Now that I think about it, whenever I ate with you, you were so happy that you’d make me forget all my worries. And whenever we went out together, you looked like you were thoroughly enjoying yourself. You’ve only started making that serious expression very recently.”

“Ugh…”

The lies Emi told herself in her heart fell apart in an instant.

There actually was a time when Japan’s various cuisines and cultures had filled her with new wonders and changed her priorities. In particular, the entire world of Ente Islan cuisine combined could not even hold a candle against the variation and quality of Japanese cuisine.

“Oh, come to think of it, you did say one time that you couldn’t sleep at night because the A/C wasn’t working and it was too hot.”

“…”

Emi fell face down on her desk.

She had been in Japan for a little over a year. Questioning just how worry-free a life she had been living in, Emi wallowed in self-hatred.

“Oh, and you also complained about how you had too many shifts and couldn’t fit the apartment gas inspection appointment into your schedule.”

“Rika…you win. Please stop killing me.”

“Hm? Really? Oh, a call.”

A signal came on in Rika’s booth, keeping her busy for a while as Emi groaned.

“So, what is it? What are you fighting about this time?”

Rika finished her phone call, lifted up the microphone on her headset, and leaned over the booth wall.

“Why are you acting like you’re having fun?”

Emi replied with resentful eyes, but Rika was not the type to be phased by something like that.

“Listening to you always cures my boredom.”

Speaking openly like this was one of Rika’s positive traits, yet it was also a negative trait at the same time.

“Besides, I can’t just let a friend struggle with her troubles on her own, riiight?”

“Your honest answer right before that and your tone just now aren’t helping.”

Emi gave a strained smile.

“This time’s trouble isn’t something I can just ignore.”

“Go on, go on.”

“There’s this little child.”

Rika placed her elbow on the desk and her face on her hand, nodded, and asked completely naturally,

“A child between you and Maou-san?”

“That’s just what the child is saying… huh!!?”

Emi did not grasp the situation Rika had put her in, and instinctively tried to deny it with all her might, but by doing so she dug her own grave.

However, not even Rika had been expecting that answer. She let her head fall off of her hand, and looked at Emi with wide eyes.

“Wait, what, seriously!?”

“N-no! It’s not like that, um, uh, well, that’s what it is, but it’s not like that!!”

“What are you talking about? Hey, come on, calm down.”

Emi breathed heavily, having been told to relax by the person who had been teasing her in the first place.

“…Will you listen to me seriously?”

“I was serious from the beginning.”

Replied Rika blazenly. Emi gave her a light glare, but calmed down and began talking.

“…There’s a little child at Maou’s place. He… is looking after the child for someone else.”

“Maou-san’s relative?”

“I don’t know the details.”

Emi gave a vague answer after deciding that she didn’t want to involve Rika too much.

“Do you remember meeting that girl in the yukata? I met the child when I was visiting her.”

“Uuuh, she had a really rare last name… that’s right, Kamazuki-san, was it? Suzuno Kamazukisan.”

“Yep. I ended up talking to him because she lives next door. So that’s why I have to see him even if I don’t want to. And then,”

Emi also placed her elbow on her desk and her head on her hand, and let out a sigh.

“That child thinks I’m the mother, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Huh?”

Rika stuck her head forward with a shocked expression.

“A little child I’ve never met before started calling me ‘Mommy.’”

“You mean, she’s attached to you to the point that you’re like a mother to her?”

“No, she’s at a level where she’s completely mistaking me for her mother.”

Emi shook her head and looked at Rika, who had been joking around but now looked completely serious.

“That… really is a problem. Not just attached to you, but completely mistaking you for her mother…” muttered Rika, frowning and folding her arms. She leaned back in her chair.

“This might be a bit morbid, but could she have lost her mother right after she was born?”

“Huh?”

Emi’s eyes widened upon hearing something much more serious than she had expected.

“If her mother was usually around her, then there’s no way she’d mistake some other woman for her mother after being separated from her for only two or three days. So going off of that, I thought maybe either you and her mother look alike to the point of being identical twins, or maybe she has no memories of her mother.”

“No-…”

Emi was about to reply, “No way,” but she stopped herself.

She had no memories of her mother as well, and until recently, she hadn’t even had any idea that her mother was still alive.

Emi recalled that when she was young, she had often mistaken different women in her village to be her mother.

To begin with, they had no confirmation that Alas Ramus even had a “previous family.” But then, could Alas Ramus saying, “mommy, are you leevin me again?” mean that she was separated from her mother for some unknown reason?

“Did you think of something?”

“…Hmm, I don’t know. I don’t really understand it, but…”

“Mm, well, this is something to do with Maou-san’s people, isn’t it? I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Possibly because Emi had started to think very seriously, Rika tried to lift the mood by talking in a lighthearted voice.

“I might be overthinking it, and besides, we outsiders can’t do much about it anyway. If you don’t plan on seeing this through to the end, then there’s no need for you to butt into their business,”  said Rika as she patted Emi’s shoulder. The chime that signaled the end of the shift rang, and Emi lifted her head.

“…But I already said that I’d stop by on the way back today.”

“Hey! So you’re in on this after all, Emi!” Rika interjected yet again.

“It-it was in the heat of the moment…”

“If you’re just being stubborn with Maou-san’s group, you should stop it right now.”

As always, Rika knew exactly what to say to hit Emi in her weak spots.

“N-no, that’s not what I’m doing… but… but it’s not just that…”

Even with Suzuno next door, and putting Alas Ramus’s true identity aside, a baby being in Demon King Castle was not something Emi was comfortable with.

Besides…

“I’m not acting out of pity or anything, but I wanted the child to spend her time here as happily as possible…”

Rika looked at the flustered Emi while standing, took off her headset, and smiled with a bit of a frown while shrugging.

“You’re so kind, Emi. Even at your own expense.”

Emi replied, “Because I’m the hero” in her heart.

“Either way, we won’t know what was good or bad for children until they grow up, so why don’t you try doing what you think is best? Assuming Maou-san and others are okay with it.”

Rika however, made a complex expression as if she was adding a large “but” to the end of that sentence.

“Emi, you’ve never done anything like taking care of someone else’s pet for a while, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Even feeding it for a day or two will get you attached to it. Don’t get too attached to her and get depressed when her real parents come by to pick her up, okay?”

“…I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Hm! Very well! Then let’s get out of here, for your beloved child is waiting!”

“Rika!!”

Emi shooed away the joking Rika, and took her headset off as well.

“Her real parents, huh…” wondered Emi as she put her headset on its designated spot and stood up.

“Hey, hey, Emi, if you’re trying to create fun memories, how about this?”

Once Emi entered the locker room, Rika, who had already changed, called out to her with her purse in her hand. As Emi came up to Rika, she was handed a small piece of paper.

“I didn’t know this until now, but Docodemo is funding it, so there’s an employee discount.”

****

Six long, skinny pieces of paper lay on top of Demon King Castle’s table.

“…”

“…”

“wha’sis? wha’sis?”

Maou, Alas Ramus, and Emi stood around the table and looked at the papers in prolonged silence.

“Even for a coincidence, we sure got a lot of them.”

Chiho looked on from the side, and struggled to decide what expression to make.

On the table lay a combination of six tickets and coupons to the amusement park “Tokyo Big Egg Town” attached to Tokyo Big Egg, located in Bunkyo District.

**Tokyo Big Egg is an nickname of the Tokyo Dome.

The envelope that Maou had received from Kisaki contained a single one-day pass for free rides throughout the park, as well as a pair of discount coupons for more one-day passes, given out as a newspaper subscription sign-up bonus. On the other hand, what Emi had received from Rika were three corporate discount coupons for one-day passes. However, the discount rates for those three coupons were better than the two from Kisaki.

In other words, both Kisaki and Rika had suggested making memories between the three of them, parents and child.

Logically, they couldn’t just keep Alas Ramus locked up in a six-tatami apartment, and besides, Ashiya would die from exhaustion sooner or later.

“Well, why not? An amusement park is an recreational facility, is it not? A place where children can enjoy themselves. You should go with the maximized savings from these tickets and coupons,” stated Suzuno. However, there was a problem with that.

“fun time with mommy and daddy!”

Alas Ramus was already in family vacation mode.

And in this case, the family included Maou and Emi.

Kisaki’s case was completely coincidental, but there seemed to be an ulterior motive behind Rika’s action of giving Emi a set of three coupons.

“…sigh.”

In the suffocating atmosphere, Maou nodded as if he was resigning himself to something. Hearing that, Emi shivered slightly.

“So since you brought something like this here, I take it that you’ve made up your mind, right?”

“A-about what…?”

“Hey, Alas Ramus, let’s go somewhere fun together, but is it okay if Mommy doesn’t come?”

“no! we all go!”

It was a soul-filled answer that would shake any person’s heart.

Alas Ramus took off from Maou’s lap and ran towards Emi, in the process nearly knocked over the barley tea on the table. Fortunately, Ashiya rushed to move it out of the way just in time.

“Then, how about you go with Mommy and I don’t go? Is that okay?”

“no!!” she said emphatically, then pouted.

“…and that’s what she says. If anyone has a good idea, please convince Alas Ramus right away.

You have Emi’s and my full support.”

“Is Chiho Sasaki really okay with thiwhaaaa!”

Urushihara tried to tease Chiho unnecessarily from inside the closet, but Suzuno, who had been standing next to the sliding screen, pounded on it to silence him.

“Ho-however, the demon King, Emilia, and Alas Ramus… the three of them are…”

As Ashiya was giving his honest advice, the one to express an opposing opinion was actually Chiho.

“…Yusa-san, will you please go with them?”

“Huh? Chiho-chan?”

Even Ashiya and Suzuno were surprised, and raised their heads.

“Here, why don’t you just think of it as making sure Maou-san doesn’t do anything weird?”

“…”

“If you think about it, Maou-san’s never been to an amusement park, right? Wouldn’t you be worried if Maou-san, who’s only ever been from Sasazuka to Shinjuku, takes Alas Ramus-chan and goes around Tokyo on his own with her?”

Maou wasn’t that clueless, but realizing that Chiho didn’t really think of him that way, he remained silent.

“Besides, we still don’t know why Alas Ramus-chan is in Japan, right? If someone evil like Sarielsan had something to do with her, and someone targets Alas Ramus-chan while they’re on their own, would you really be okay with Maou-san being killed by someone other than you?”

“…Chiho-dono, you really should consider a career in law.”

Suzuno muttered in a voice that no one else could hear.

While they still didn’t know whether Alas Ramus was being targeted or not, the possibility that Chiho raised was not out of the question, either.

“But, Chiho-chan, you’re…”

“This isn’t about me. If you’re worried about Alas Ramus-chan, then let’s stay with her for as long as possible and aim for a ending that we can all be happy with.”

Chiho said firmly, placed her hands on her hips, and looked down at Emi and Maou. Emi hung her head as she agreed begrudgingly.

“Chiho-dono!”

Sasazuka Town was already dark. A voice called out to Chiho as she was heading home.

“Huh? Suzuno-san?”

Suzuno ran towards Chiho, her traditional Japanese sandals making a refreshing, rhythmic sound.

“What’s wrong? Did I leave something behind?”

“No, that is not it,”

Sweeping her hair on her sweaty forehead, Suzuno asked a question.

“I do not know if I should be asking you this… Are you really alright with it?”

“Alright with what?”

“With what…? Um, about the demon king and Emilia going on an outing together…”

“Ooh… I guess we should worry about Maou-san being cut down after getting in a fight with

Yusa-san…”

“No, well, yes, but that is not what I was concerned about.”

Chiho smiled as she felt affection towards Suzuno, who fumbled for words even though she had run after her for the sole purpose of saying something.

“I’m just a little worried, that’s all. But I know Yusa-san doesn’t really hate Maou-san and the others as much as she says she does.”

Suzuno thought that if Emi would probably faint if she heard that, but she did not disagree, either.

“Besides, Maou-san said he trusted me.”

“What?”

“…Hehe, it’s nothing.”

Chiho put her index finger on her mouth.

“Besides, I’m not the one you should be worried about right now. Yusa-san is going home for the night too, right?”

“Ye-yes. As expected, she said she does not have the resolve to stay over…”

“Then I think there might be a big commotion after Yusa-san goes home, because of Ashiyasan.”

“Because of Alciel?”

Suzuno tilted her head.

“My lord, this is dangerous! Please reconsider!”

When Suzuno returned, Chiho’s prediction had already come true.

“Hey, calm down. Even Emi wouldn’t cut me down in public!”

“Even if Emilia were not dangerous, if the worst case scenario that Sasaki-san hypothesized were to come to fruition and Alas Ramus is targeted by someone…”

“I said, calm down! If that’s the case, then it doesn’t matter whether we stay here or go out! Are we going to be safe from an Ente Islan assailant by hunkering down here in this run-down apartment with our door and windows locked? Huh? If we just lock ourselves in here cowering from some unknown enemy, we’ll die of heat exhaustion in this oven long before we’re attacked!”

“Even an ant can deliver the final blow that destroys a castle wall!”

“You got it backwards! It’s like we’re trying to defend against bullets with paper shields! And what if we stay in here so long that Alas Ramus turns into another Urushihara!?”

“They are fundamentally different! Alas Ramus never fails to bring her plate to me after she finishes eating, and always makes sure to say, ‘thanks for the meal’!”

“Then are you saying Urushihara is below Alas Ramus!?”

“It is exactly as you say, my lord!”

“‘Urushihara!!’”

“Neither of you are making any sense!!”

Suzuno’s head began to hurt as she heard everything through the open windows.

“What idiotic argument are you having? I can hear everything outside.”

“suzu-neecha, wehcome back!”

Not paying attention to the childlike arguments of the adults, Alas Ramus was playing by tearing pieces of the newspaper at the front door. She raised her arm towards Suzuno enthusiastically. “Ye-yes. Thank you… I’m back.”

Perhaps due to not being used to being called Suzu-neecha, Suzuno blushed again.

“suzu-neecha, look! sefi-ott!”

“Hm? What is it?” G

Alas Ramus pulled on the sleeve of Suzuno’s yukata and showed her a color page from an old newspaper with a minivan ad.

The ad tried to promote the minivan’s high storage capacity with a picture of many colorful balloons coming out of its trunk and a caricaturized city in the background.

“sefi-ott!”

“Hm…? Ye-yes. I see.”

Suzuno answered half-heartedly, not knowing what she was saying, and then,

“Where is Emilia? Did she go home already?” She asked Maou.

“Now that you mention it, I think she left right after Chii-chan did. You didn’t run into her on the way back?”

“No I did not… but I am surprised that Alas Ramus did not cry.”

“She promised Emi that she’d be a good girl. We’ll proceed with the plan this coming Sunday.”

“My Lord, please reconsider…”

“keteh, nezah, malkoo… no bina. daddy, no bina!”

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

Alas Ramus seemed to have really taken a liking to the minivan ad, and called Maou as she banged on the paper over and over again.

Suzuno watched the two of them, and then whispered to Ashiya.

“…If you are that concerned, why not just follow them?”

However, Ashiya turned pale at Suzuno’s suggestion for some unknown reason.

“We still have coupons left over. They will suffice for tailing them.

“Ho-however…”

Ashiya began groaning and suddenly gave a worried look.

“My lord has the complimentary ticket, and even if Emilia were to pay for herself, Alas Ramus is a child, so her discount amount is proportionately less, and even if it’s half price, a round trip on the train would be… and depending on the time, they might have to eat out as well. If that’s the case…”

Suzuno did not need to be a psychic to understand what Ashiya was concerned about.

“Take a closer look, Alciel. This amusement park has no admission fee system. You only need to pay for the attractions you ride. If your only purpose is to follow them, you only need worry about the round trip traveling expenses.”

“Ugh… I… I see.”

“Then why don’t you go? I’ll watch the house, like always.”

As soon as Ashiya began to seriously consider it, Urushihara called out in a light tone from the closet. However, the sound of his voice caused Ashiya to grimace yet again.

“No! I can’t! Urushihara, you vermin! You’re plotting to shop on ‘Jungle’ for clothes while I’m out for an extended period of time, aren’t you!”

“…”

Urushihara’s silence seemed to suggest that Ashiya was spot-on.

“If you wish to go, go. I will keep Lucifer under my watch.”

“Hey!”

“…Why are you doing this?”

A cry of objection came from the other side of the sliding screen. Ashiya glared at Suzuno suspiciously.

Meanwhile, Maou silently picked up the scraps of newspaper that Alas Ramus had spread everywhere.

“I live here as well. If some trouble really were to occur, do you really think Lucifer by himself would be of any use?”

“…Ugh… why you…”

“Hey, hey, Ashiya? Why are you acting like she just hit you where it really hurts?”

“It is indeed possible that someone related to Alas Ramus really were to appear, but they may not necessarily be someone sinister like Chiho-dono suggested. If her real parents were to come just to pick her up, all we would have to do would be to peacefully allow Alas Ramus to go where she belongs. On the other hand, there is a possibility that our fears become a reality and someone who wishes harm on Alas Ramus arrives. If that were the case, they would most likely come here to Villa Rosa Sasazuka, where a gate has already opened once. Do you really think Lucifer would be able to take appropriate counter-measures by himself if that were to happen?”

“Ugh-mgmgmg…”

“Heeey, Ashiyaaa, tell her to take it baaack, come ooon, say somethiiing.”

“Well, you do not need to make a decision until the day comes.”

“Ughmgmgmgmgmgmgmgmgmg…”

Suzuno moved on from the overheating Ashiya and Urushihara, who used all of Ashiya’s privileges and carried none of his responsibilities. She turned to Maou. “In your case, you can depend on Emilia to protect you.”

“Mm, yeah. Plus, there’ll be a lot of people around, so depending on what happens, I might get my powers back, too.”

Maou seemed to be listening to the conversation even while looking after Alas Ramus.

“hoh, tiferez!”

And Alas Ramus continued to wave the minivan ad around.

“Well, all the worrying in the world won’t help us until something actually happens. So I’m just going to worry about the most realistic situation, that these peaceful days are going to continue.”

“Hm? What do you mean by that?”

“What do you think I mean?”

Maou patted Alas Ramus’s head.

Alas Ramus had been preoccupied with the minivan ad the entire time, but once she noticed Maou’s hand, she tried her hardest to reach around her head to touch it.

“I’m going to work hard, that’s all. Once we’re out of food to eat, it’s all over.”

“Uuugh… give me a break.”

As soon as Emi got home, she collapsed on the floor by the door without even taking her shoes off.

Alas Ramus might be an adorable little baby, but she was not related to her in any way whatsoever.

“What should I do…?”

Groaning, Emi tugged her discarded purse towards her by the handle and took off her sandals by hooking the straps on the door step.

“…Why am I being so weak!? I’m just going to pretend to be Alas Ramus’s mother, and I’m definitely not the demon king’s wi-wi-wi-…”

She could not bear to finish the word, even if no one else was around her.

“Not in a million years!!”

Avoiding the most important word of her monologue even though no one was there to hear her, Emi finished her sentence and then hung her head. She then brushed away her hair, which was sticking to her because of her sweat, from her neck and forehead.

“…Maybe I should stop by the beauty salon…”

As Emi muttered unconsciously under her breath, her cellphone suddenly began playing the Raging General** theme loudly from her purse.

**Raging General is a spoof on Rampaging General, a Japanese historical drama that ran from 1978 to 2002.

“Uuuh, ‘elloooo? It’s meeee, Emeradaaa.”

“Huh!? Emmy!? I’m not looking forward to it at all!!”

“Wha-what are you talking abooout, all of a suddeeen? Oh, are you still workiiing?”

Emerada Etuva, Emi’s long-time comrade, asked back over the phone, perplexed at Emi’s out-ofcontext defense.

“Oh, um, it’s nothing. I-I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“A-are you suuuure? You don’t sound like you areeee.”

Even though Emerada had a very spaced-out way of talking, she was also very sharp and perceptive. She wasn’t the highest-ranked official who served directly underneath the ruler of the greatest nation in the Western Continent for no reason.

“I’m calling you because I was wooorrieeeed.”

“I-I’m working hard! I haven’t forgotten my mission as the hero, either!”

Emi could not help trying to justify herself even more.

“…Okaaaay, I’m relieved noooow.”

“Huh?”

“My ‘reed’ told meee that the church was making suspicious moves agaiiin, so I wanted to make sure you were okaaaay.”

“Reed” was most likely a spy code word for something. And the suspicious move referred to Suzuno and her party.

“Oh, don’t worry. Someone from the church did come into contact with me, but unlike Orba, she was a reasonable, level-headed person.”

Emi explained Suzuno’s appearance and Sariel’s attack in a nutshell.

Emerada was wary of a high-ranked authority from the church appearing near Emi at first, but she also seemed to think that not all of the church was their enemy and appeared to be satisfied with the summary of Suzuno’s appearance and the incident.

“I’m gonna be honest with yoooou, but isn’t it dangerooous? That angel is still there, riiiight?” “That’s true… but, well, even in Japan, there are powerful people. We shouldn’t have to worry about Sariel for the time being.”

Of course, the powerful person Emi was referring to was the manager of the Hatagaya Station MgRonald, Kisaki.

“We never did find out why they were after the holy sword, though.”

“Hmm, come to think of it, we’ve never really thought about the origin of the holy sword eeeeither. The story of how it was entrusted to us from the heavens in ancient tiiiimes is also just what the church saaaays. I’ll look into it as weeeell.”

“Thanks. But you have your responsibilities to your country as well, so don’t overwork yourself. Is the restoration going well?”

“People won’t stop complaining about iiiiit, so don’t ask meee.”

Before the demon king army arrived, the five continents of Ente Isla had by no means been constantly at peace with each otehr. Now that the central continent, which served as the commercial center, was no longer functioning, all the other nations were engaged in political warfare in order to take the place of the old Isla Centrum.

“But who would have thooought, that a Judge of the church nicknamed ‘Grim Reaper Death

Scythe Bell’ would be such a little, cute persoooon? It’d be nice if she’d join our siiiide.”

Emerada said lightly, stopping the of the conversation from taking a dark turn.

“You of all people shouldn’t be labeling someone ‘little and cute.’”

“I do get mistaken for a lost new recruit soldier or a little child a looooot.”

Like Suzuno, Emerada had a small build and child-like face, which caused her a fair amount of trouble. Her appearance did not reflect the dignity and duty required of the Palace Magician of the great nation Saint Aire’s in the Western Continent.

“So, was that why you called me?”

“Oooh, that’s riiiight, that’s part of the reasooon, but I had something to ask yooou. Did Lailah come over to your siiide?”

“Huh?”

Emi was surprised by the sudden shift of topic in the conversation.

“Just a little while agooo, she said she was going to the market right outside the castle, but she hasn’t been back siiiince. She said herself that she couldn’t move about freelyyyy, so I thought if she were to go somewhere, it’d probably be to where you aaaaare.”

“Well, to begin with, I don’t even know what my mother looks like… huh? Wait a second, you were living with my mother?”

“It’s not so much living together… um, I don’t know if I should say this to you, buuuut, it’s more like she’s totally mooching off of meee.”

“Oh… I see.”

Emi couldn’t think of any other reaction.

“A-anyway, aside from Bell and Sariel, no one’s come over to this side… oh.”

As Emi was about to finish speaking, she raised her voice again.

“U-um, I don’t know if this is related, but…”

Emi made up her mind and told her about Alas Ramus. Of course, she left out the part where she and Maou were supposedly the mother and father.

“A little giiiirl… in the shape of an appleee, is it? I’ve never heard of any person or demon like thaaat, and aside from Crestia Bell, I haven’t sensed any big Gates opening on the western contineeeent.”

“I see… I thought as much.”

Ente Isla was a large world, and there were countless people who could use Gates. Emerada might be an incredibly powerful figure in her nation, but she couldn’t possibly sense everything. “Sorry. I thought it might be related, but don’t worry about it. Either way, I’ll be careful. But even if

I say that, there’s not much I can really do the way I am now.”

“Noooo, it’s okaaaay. She’s always been the independent, my-pace type of persooon, so she might even come back todaaay. I just thought that I should let you knoooow. I’ll alsooooo look into her without looking suspiciooous. That’s aaaall.”

“Uh-wait, Em-…”

Once Emerada finished saying that, she hung up quickly. Alas Ramus aside, Emi had never met

Lailah before. But since she didn’t even know what Lailah looked like, there was nothing she could do even if she wanted to.

“…Oh well. Since it’s my mother, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

Quickly arriving at that concluson, Emi took off her sandals and entered her apartment.

She turned on her TV and A/C at the same time, and as she sat down in her chair,

“…Maybe… I should stop by the beauty salon after all. I don’t want to look exhausted,” Emi mumbled as she played with her front hair.

Coincidentally, the TV was showing a commercial for Tokyo Big Egg Town.

It was about some strange collaboration between a special effects hero show for little boys and a heroine anime for little girls.

***

Four peaceful days had passed since then. The entire group prepared themselves for something related to Alas Ramus happening, but surprisingly, nothing had happened.

Emi, the only person who had leaked the knowledge about Alas Ramus to an “outsider,” was not contacted with any new information either.

The only changes possibly worth noting were that, perhaps finally responding to being compared to Alas Ramus, Urushihara had started to take his own dishes to the sink and splash some water on them, and that every resident of Demon King Castle became skilled at changing Alas Ramus’s diaper.

Perhaps the mindset that if nothing happened today, nothing would happen tomorrow either was proof of becoming too lax in this peaceful time, but days of childcare and working waited for no one.

However, too used to the peace or not, knowing the tricks to doing both childcare and work at the same time is essential to preventing eventual death by exhaustion. Suzuno was the only one who didn’t have to worry about this problem, but even she had her limits.

In the end, four days of “nothing” had passed, and Sunday morning had arrived.

Maou and Ashiya were forced awake by Alas Ramus at seven in the morning.

She had remembered that Sunday was “a day out with Mommy.”

They were meeting up with Emi, who had reluctantly agreed, at 1 PM in the afternoon, at Tokyo Metro’s Kourakuen Station.

Emi couldn’t get out of her morning shift no matter how hard she tried.

Maou’s workload from the day they had decided to go to Tokyo Big Egg Town until the day of

had pushed him to his limits.

According to Chiho and the others who worked the same shifts as him, his furious working resembled that of a six-armed, eight-faced, demonic Asura.

Even temporary shift managers had a pay scale, and Maou worked as hard as he could to increase his wages by even one yen.

The tradeoff was that he couldn’t spend as much time with Alas Ramus, but Suzuno and Ashiya took turns taking her on walks and to MgRonald, so her mood was at an all-time high.

However, Emi hadn’t shown herself in a while. Her only contact with Alas Ramus was through Suzuno’s phone.

Alas Ramus was satisfied with just talking to Emi, since she knew it was her by her voice.

Perhaps she wasn’t cynical towards Emi using a phone because she was still a little child. It was now nine in the morning after breakfast.

“daddyyy, ca’we go? ca’we go yet?”

Alas Ramus could not wait any longer, and pulled on Maou’s sleeves over and over again. After telling her to wait each time she did so, Maou remembered something and put his hands on his knees.

“Oh, that’s right. I’ve been working so much that I forgot all about it. Ashiya, I’m going out for a sec.”

“Where are you going, my lord?”

“To Hirose-san. I need to talk to him about my bicycle.”

Dullahan II, the bicycle that Suzuno had bought him, was brand-new and hadn’t even been used for a week yet. Why he needed to go have a talk about it was unclear.

“Because of this little girl.”

“ou?”

Alas Ramus tilted her head as she was suddenly patted on the head.

With the added benefit of making Alas Ramus happy, as she kept wanting to go out, Maou held her hand and headed towards Sasazuka in the morning.

The Bosatsu-Dori shopping district’s bicycle shop, Hirose Cycle Shop, was just about to raise its shutters.

“Hirose-san!”

“Hm…? Oh, Maou-chan, ‘morning. What do you ne…”

Hirose’s sleepy eyes opened as wide as if he’d had a bucket of water thrown in his face at the sight of Maou pulling something alongside him.

“Hirose-san, you said when I bought my bike that you could put a luggage rack and stuff on, right?”

“Ye-yeah… are you, did you…”

“wafu!”

Maou picked up Alas Ramus, as if enjoying Hirose’s flabbergasted reaction.

“Do you have a child seat that she would be able to sit in?”

Maou asked the dumbfounded Hirose seriously. He then proceeded to take nearly an hour looking at different types of seats before heading home.

“Well, I figured he’d react like that, so I was ready for it.”

In the apartment yard where the sun hadn’t risen high yet, Maou attached the child seat that had cost him five thousand yen to the front of Dullahan II.

“You shouldn’t have done that, my lord. What if this starts a rumor?”

“Don’t worry, I told him that I’m taking care of a relative’s child.”

Ashiya frowned, but Maou paid no attention.

“…My lord, may I ask you a question?”

“What?”

“I should have asked you sooner, but why did you decide to take in Alas Ramus, my lord?”

“You don’t like her?”

“No, that was not why I asked, but I just thought it wouldn’t have been a problem if Crestia took her in instead…”

“Well, I guess in the end, it’s you, Suzuno, and Chii-chan taking care of her. Sorry.”

“P-please, that’s not…”

“I just thought that if some problem does happen, I should take responsibility for it. That’s all. I don’t have any proof that anything will happen or any clue what it might be, though.”

Maou began gathering the vinyl wrapping scraps and the hexagonal wrench that came with the seat.

“There’s something I’m curious about,” said Maou as he tapped his own forehead and went back inside the apartment, leaving an unsatisfied-looking Ashiya outside.

“My lord… please, please be careful! She’s the hero! We don’t know what she might do!”

As Maou headed out, Ashiya pleaded with him desperately. One would think it should be the other way around.

“Well, if something happens, I’ll just run crying to the security officers, so don’t worry. No matter what happens, at the very least, I’ll protect Alas Ramus.”

Maou left Demon King Castle, not making Ashiya feel better in the slightest.

If Maou had been by himself, as he had been before, he most definitely would have preferred to walk to Shinjuku Station which was one station further from Sasazuka, then get off at the JR Suidoubashi Station, the train station next to Tokyo Big Egg Town, and save 120 yen on train fare. However, Maou had a little child with him this time. It was safer to get on the train from the Keioushin Line at Sasazuka Station, then switch to the metropolitan government-operated Shinjuku Line and change to the Nanboku Line at Ichigaya Station, and finally get off at another station close to the park, the Tokyo Metro Kourakuen Station.

They left early so that they wouldn’t be yelled at for getting there late, but the sun was already high in the sky and showing no mercy in illuminating the entire city.

 

 

 

Inside the tote bag that Maou usually took to work were a cup, wet wipes, extra diapers, and even oral rehydration solution. All this preparation would have been for naught if he made the foolish, money-saving choice of not taking the train all the way and caused her to get heatstroke. Alas Ramus was happy and excited from the moment she hopped on her first train ride, but she also showed a somewhat scared side of her when the train went underground through a tunnel.

After being told how absolutely adorable Alas Ramus was by an elderly couple who boarded the train at the Keioushin Line Shinjuku Station, they switched to the Nanboku Line at Ichigaya Station, which in turn was directly linked with the metropolitan government-run Shinjuku line, which Maou had never done before. They then arrived at Kourakuen Station, and rode up the long escalator to ground level.

When Maou was about halfway up the escalator, a shadowy figure looked up at them worriedly.

“…No one suspicious… I, Ashiya, will protect your back as your shadow, my lord!”

It was Ashiya. No one other than Ashiya could be this inept at tailing someone. He wore a cheap pair of sunglasses as if they were a disguise, and was peeking out of the shadows with his back against a pillar, drawing the attention of everyone around him. Furthermore, he was already failing his mission by focusing solely on Maou and not his surroundings.

“You’re the one who’s acting most suspicious, Ashiya-san.”

Ashiya froze in place as he heard a lecturing voice behind him.

“Please take off those hundred-yen-store sunglasses.. They don’t suit you at all, and you stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Wa-wa-wa-wa-wah! Sa-Sasaki-san!”

Is it really acceptable for an archdemon to be ambushed by a high school girl so easily?

“I was on the same train. I found out about this from Suzuno-san’s email… but anyway, won’t you be the one in trouble instead of Maou-san if something were to happen?”

“Wha-what do you mean…?”

“Ashiya-san, you don’t have a cell phone, right? How are you going to contact someone if something happens?”

“Uh, I-I was going to look for a pay phone…”

“…That’s what I thought… Since you don’t have a quick way to contact him, Maou-san must not know that you’re tailing him.”

“Um, well, yes, because if Emilia finds me, it would cause nothing but trouble…”

While his prediction was not without reason, she could not fathom why he was so completely underprepared to tail them.

“If something comes up, you can use my phone. Let’s go! We’re losing them!”

Spurred on by Chiho’s firm words, Ashiya followed after her quickly, but he couldn’t help but to ask her something.

“But um… Sasaki-san, why are you…”

Seeing Chiho’s unpleasant expression as she turned around, Ashiya regretted his thoughtlessness immediately.

“I understand why this had to be done, but I’m still bothered by it!”

“…My apologies.”

Chiho and Ashiya ran up the escalators in order to not lose sight of Maou.

They had arranged to meet Emi at the ticket gate near the Marunouchi Line of the Kourakuen Station.

Maou looked at the station map for a brief moment, then started heading up the stairs with Alas Ramus holding his hand. The ticket gate of Kourakuen’s Nanboku Line platform was deep within the station, and while one might have thought Alas Ramus would get tired of walking, she was

actually ahead of Maou, churning her short legs and arms without getting out of breath at all.

Chiho couldn’t help smiling at such an adorable sight, but then,

“…!”

“Wha-what is it, Sasaki-san?”

When they reached the ground level, Chiho swallowed loudly.

She had seen a young woman standing in front of the ticket gate, impatiently looking at her thin, tight watch.

The woman who wore a hat with a wide, soft visor and a thick designer mule, and had her hair tied when she usually just let it hang, was none other than Emi.

Maou and Ashiya still hadn’t recognized Emi, most likely because she looked so different from her usual self.

“Yusa-san… is surprisingly into this.”

She had even worn a large necklace to counterbalance her neck, which was completely exposed now that her hair was tied. Her outfit was so perfect and she looked like such a mature lady, that even Chiho’s breath was taken away.

“Hm…? Is that actually Emilia? Humph. That outfit could not be more unsuited for battle. Has she forgotten her identity as a hero?”

Ashiya made a remark that completely missed the point after following Chiho’s line of sight and finally recognizing Emi.

“Ashiya-san, what’s Maou-san wearing today…?”

“His usual. There’s absolutely no reason to dress up for Emilia, and we don’t have the money to buy summer clothes anyway, since our budget’s gone up in flames ever since Urushihara joined us.”

Inside Chiho, the jealous thoughts of not wanting to see Maou dressed up with Emi the way she was dressed now collided with her simple worries of just how terrible fashion-wise it was for Maou to be dressed from head to toe in worn-out Unishiro clothes while Emi was so nicely dressed.

Alas Ramus seemed to have found Emi before Maou and starting pulling him towards her. Watching Maou’s back didn’t tell the others anything about how he reacted.

As expected, Emi smiled as she found Alas Ramus, but after seeing what Maou was wearing, her face became stern again.

Chiho and Ashiya watched the entire scene unfold from behind the shadows of a pillar, but then, “Fu-fu-fu-fu, what do you two think? Emi’s outfit coordination today is really something, isn’t it?”

Their shoulders were suddenly grabbed by someone. They froze in place and turned around slowly.

“Oh… you’re Yusa-san’s friend,”

“Su-Suzuki-san!?”

Rika Suzuki stood behind Chiho and Ashiya with a firm grip on their shoulders.

The women of this world were somehow very adept at sneaking up on demons.

“Wha-what are you doing here?”

Chiho looked at Rika, then towards down the road at Emi.

“No no, that’s my line. I was wondering what the two of you were up to together like this, and sure enough, Emi and Maou-san are standing in the direction you two are looking in. As fellow friends, I thought I had to come talk to you guys.”

Ashiya suddenly realized something.

They were meeting up at this time because Emi had a morning shift. There shouldn’t have been enough time after work for her to go back to Eifuku Town, so she must have gone to work at her company in that outfit.

“Yeaah, I was so shocked! I’ve never seen Emi look like that before. You probably can’t tell from all the way here, but she definitely stopped by the beauty salon yesterday,” said Rika as she put her hand on her chin with a tone that sounded like she was intentionally fishing for a reaction out of Chiho.

“Re-really!?”

“Hmm? Does it bother you?”

“I-I-I’m, um, not, can’t say that I’m not bothered, but, um…”

Chiho’s face turned beet-red, which was made even worse by the heat. Seeing that her reaction was far easier to read than she had expected, the first to give in was actually Rika.

“Hehe, sorry, sorry. Maybe I teased you too much. Chiho-chan, you have nothing to worry about.

That’s just Emi being stubborn.”

“…Huh?”

“Emi and Maou-san don’t get along well at all, right? She’s doing that because she doesn’t want to be taken lightly. But,”

She adjusted her line of sight slightly to look at Maou.

“If you try too hard, it just backfires on you. This round goes to Maou-san, because he’s completely at ease.”

At that moment, Emi, Maou, and Alas Ramus began walking towards Tokyo Big Egg.

When Chiho turned to look, Alas Ramus was being walked hand in hand by her “Mommy” and “Daddy,” and she couldn’t stop her heart from giving a big jump.

“Well then,”

Rika grinned.

“What shall we do, you two?”

Tokyo Big Egg Town surrounded the Tokyo Big Egg, which was the stadium of the SE-League’s professional baseball team, the Titans.*

*While this is less obvious in English, this is a spoof on an actual Japanese pro baseball team which plays in the Tokyo Dome, the Yomiuri Giants.

It was the only large-scale amusement park in the city, and had attractions all the way from the shopping center next to Kourakuen Station, The Lagoon, to the area surrounding the Big Egg Hotel.

The entrance to the grounds was not governed by an entry gate. Rather, each attraction had its own price and the park was set up such that anyone passing by could easily go on any one of them.

The mall on the opposite side of The Lagoon and Kourakuen Station also had a shop that catered to people of all ages, which was another popular shopping spot.

Another of the park’s main attractions was the hero show that took place on every weekend and holidays.

Unlike the other rides, the show was not included in the one-day pass, but the stage on which the immensely popular special effect heroes gathered together drew multitudes of children every show.

In this amusement park filled with smiles and excitement, with expressions that looked like they had just missed the punchline of some joke, Maou and Emi walked as they were pulled along by Alas Ramus.

The fountain in the outside area on the second floor of The Lagoon played music at set times, displaying a synchronized dancing fountain show. Coincidentally, it happened right as the three of them walked past it, and countless jets began shooting up, making different shapes and disappearing.

“oooou…!”

Alas Ramus watched with her mouth agape and eyes sparkling.

“Hey.”

“What?”

As Maou watched Alas Ramus from behind her, he replied to Emi lazily as if the heat was already getting to him.

“The sun is pretty strong again today. You did put sunscreen on her, right?”

“Uuh, um… I read somewhere that it’s okay if it’s prescribed by a doctor, but…”

According to the research he had made Urushihara do, the prevailing opinion was that baby sunscreen was less likely to trigger skin problems if it was prescribed by a doctor rather than an ordinary version that could be bought at drug stores.

However, Maou’s health insurance did not cover Alas Ramus. Having a checkup without insurance would have brought one problem after another to Demon King Castle from an ordinary Japanese social living standpoint, so he hadn’t been able to make appropriate preparations for sun protection.

“Then you should have at least thought about buying a hat for her or something. The Lagoon has a clothing store inside, so we’ll stop there first. If you say you’re going to take her in yourself, you have to take responsibility and think about these things seriously,” Said Emi, with a harsh tone that left no room for rebuttal. Maou had no choice other than to reply meekly.

“Yeah, sorry… Hey, Alas Ramus, you having fun?”

“oooou…. oooooooh…!!”

“Still amazed by the fountains, huh.”

Meanwhile, Ashiya, Chiho, and Rika peered down from a terrace toward the outdoor second floor where Maou and the others were.

“Hmm, they actually do look and act like family. She’s really taken a liking to Emi, huh?”

“…So-so cute.”

Chiho couldn’t help but let out a sigh as she watched Alas Ramus become captivated by the fountain.

Ashiya, on the other hand, was dutifully paying careful attention to Maou’s surroundings and safety. However, he did not forget to make sure to keep an eye out on Maou’s spending in order to make sure he was not wasting money.

Meanwhile, the group of three never noticed the reactions of those tailing them, or the fact that they were being tailed to begin with. After watching the fountain show, they held hands and started walking towards a store in The Lagoon to buy a hat for Alas Ramus.

And the other group of three followed suit from some distance behind.

“Oh, there’s a Unislo.”

Maou took a look at the map of The Lagoon and found a familiar logo. however, “No. Why does it always have to be Unislo with you?” Emi bluntly rejected the idea.

“Because the clothes are cheap and easy to pick out…”

“Hey, you need to check out other stores, too. I don’t know what goes through your head, but they aren’t as expensive as you think.”

“Whaaat?”

“Don’t ‘whaaat’ me! What if Alas Ramus grows up to be a cheapskate like you?”

“What’s so bad about being economical?”

“…Let’s go, Alas Ramus. We don’t need him.”

“needim?”

Emi pulled them up the big, scary escalator, and they reached a floor with an apparel store that carried many brands, including Unislo.

“Hmm… the sizes around here are still too big.”

Emi took several children’s clothes, put them on Alas Ramus’s shoulders, and mumbled.

“But I’m sure she’ll grow fast, so as long as the bottom isn’t dragging on the ground, it’ll be okay if it’s a little big,” Emi said, then took a quick glance at Maou.

“…You don’t have anything to say? When I say ‘fast,’ I’m talking about a few months.”

“If you’re waiting for me to say something back to you, don’t hold your breath. I’m not going to talk to you if I can help it.”

“How long do you plan on taking care of her?”

Even while talking, Emi quickly took several clothes that might match Alas Ramus and put them up against her shoulders.

“…Who knows? Her real parents could show up today, or I could have to give her off to be married one day.”

“Married… I might bring this up a lot, but why don’t you seriously think about spending the rest of your life in Japan?”

“…Oh, how about this? It’ll even cover her shoulders from the sun!” Maou suggested, and lazily

handed her a straw hat which surprisingly looked good on Alas Ramus.

“I probably shouldn’t be asking this, but aren’t you worried about your subordinates that you left behind?”

Maou’s answer to that question was short and simple.

“Oh, I’ve already given up on them.”

“…Huh?”

“It comes with either a pink or a yellow ribbon, huh. Alas Ramus, which one do you like?”

“mmm, malkoo!”

Alas Ramus pointed to the hat with a yellow ribbon.

As Emi had nothing to say to the cold answer that one might expect from the demon king, Maou shrugged tiredly.

“Come on. Don’t you understand what Emerada, Albert, Orba, and Suzuno showing up one after another means?”

Maou unintentionally glanced at the price tag of the straw hat that Alas Ramus had chose, and instinctively cringed.

“A year was a bit too long. The survivors of the demon army that invaded Ente Isla had to have been wiped out a long time ago. Otherwise, the most important fighting assets of humanity wouldn’t be taking field trips to an alternate world.”

The three great archdemons and Lucifer had been officially wiped out, and thus the chain of command for the demon king’s army had been completely broken. It was not a hard story to believe. However,

“I-I see. But, it’s a bit pathetic, just imploding without the leaders. I suppose that’s about what you’d expect from demons.”

Emi had no intention of sympathizing, and as usual, did not let an opportunity to slip an insult. 

However,

“I can’t even argue against that. They really can’t do anything without me. But if I just go back without regaining enough power, I’d just get overthrown anyway. Either way,”

Maou, who seemed to have gathered his resolve, turned his back towards Emi and Alas Ramus and headed towards the register with the hat in his hand.

“Even if I were to return now with all my powers, I probably wouldn’t be able to take over the world.”

“Tha-that’s true. If there aren’t any demons left, you can’t really call yourself the demon king.” “No demons left? What the hell are you talking about?”

Maou turned around with an expression that looked like he thought Emi was a complete idiot.

“When you humans go to war, does every single one of you march off to the battlefield?”

“What?”

Emi didn’t understand what he was saying for a moment, but Maou continued towards the register without waiting for a reply.

Since they were going to use the hat right away, Maou had the tag cut off and put the hat on Alas Ramus.

“mmfuu, am i cute?”

Alas Ramus looked at herself in the mirror, and looked up at Maou repeatedly.

“Yeah, you look really cute!”

She blew away the tense atmosphere that had been there just a second ago, and Maou’s face loosened almost to the point of embarrassment.

“Hey, let’s save buying her clothes for another time. Besides, it’s right around lunchtime. Won’t the lines for the rides be shorter around now? Hey, Alas Ramus, which one do you wanna ride?”

“zat, daddy! zat wan!”

Alas Ramus pointed at a freefall ride that could be seen from The Lagoon’s window.

“Hmm, she probably wouldn’t be able to ride that because of her age and height. Well, let’s just walk and take a look around.”

Emi had an expression like she had just been fooled by something, and followed after the two with an unsatisfied expression.

And the group of three that was following them looked at the store, then back at Maou and the others.

“Why did they look so solemn just buying a hat?”

“I don’t know… maybe the hat was expensive?”

After hearing Rika and Chiho’s conversation, Ashiya nonchalantly picked up a hat that was the same kind as the one Maou had just bought for Alas Ramus.

“Two… thousand… five… hundred… yen.”

He moaned as if he were suffocating.

“Th-the savings from the free ticket were blown in an instant…”

“Huh? Ashiya-san, you don’t look well. Do you need something to drink?”

“Ha-hahaha, no, p-please, I’m fine. Lets go, hahahaha.”

Ashiya put the hat back while giving a strained smile, and began walking after the urging Rika. Chiho picked up the hat with a label that said “The new hat of this summer!” She looked at the price tag, quietly wiped away a tear, and also put the hat back.

“Hm, but this suuure is boring. They’re surprisingly calm about this. I was gonna step in if they got in a fight or something, but I guess kids really does bring two people together.”

“Huh? Suzuki-san, you mean you didn’t come here because you were just being nosy!?”

Chiho couldn’t help asking honestly.

“Come on, Chiho-chaaan, who do you think your big sis is? Hmm?”

Rika smiled and played with Chiho’s cheeks.

“Ahm Sooey…”

“You’re not completely wrong, but it’s my time off and I’m bored. I came to keep an eye on her for aftercare.”

“Hafhaahea?”

“Yep. That girl is Maou-san’s relative, right? If a little child like that suddenly left, it’d leave a huge hole in Emi’s heart, you know? When that happens, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for someone who knows what’s going on to take her out for a drink or something, don’t you think?”

“Ouf… Ye-yes, you’re right.”

Her cheeks finally freed, Chiho sandwiched her face between her hands.

“Aaand, I still wanna know what Emi looks like on a day out with another guy, too.”

“S-so you’re just being nosy after all! You pinched me for nothing!”

“You’re wrong, Chiho-chan. This isn’t being nosy, it’s stalking.”

“That’s even worse!”

“You say that, but what about you, Chiho-chan? You’re not Maou-san’s relative or anything, so why are you following him around? Hmm?”

“I-I-I, um,”

“Come on, I won’t tell anyone else, so tell your big sis everything.”

“…I’m delighted that you two are having so much fun.” Ashiya said wearily behind the two girls fooling around.

“Come on, don’t say that!”

“Wha!”

Ashiya let out a small cry as he was pulled by his shoulder.

“Well, I get that you’re bitter towards Emi because she’s the reason your company went under, Ashiya-san. But it’s not like she’s a rival to you right now, right? You guys aren’t going to be eaten alive or anything, so do you really need to be so serious about this?”

She was their rival through and through, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if they were cut down by her, let alone being eaten alive. But it went without saying that Ashiya couldn’t tell Rika that.. “I recommend you read some Soseki Natsume, Ashiya-san.”

“Wh-why all of a sudden!?”

“Hmm, I think his words would really speak to someone who’s always living with a stick in there like you.”

After having fun watching Ashiya’s baffled expression, Rika let go of him.

Chiho and Ashiya had been constantly led around by the nose from the moment they ran into Rika, the aggressive Kaisai office lady who did not hesitate to jump on people’s weak spots.

“Well,”

Rika began mumbling quietly enough so that Ashiya and Chiho, who just looked at each other with confused expressions, could not hear her.

“I like that more than some idiot who doesn’t live for anything.”

Alas Ramus was overjoyed, with various colored balloons tied to her hand.

She seemed to really like bright, colorful things, and got Maou to buy her balloons many times along the way.

“Geez… I feel like I’m witnessing the birth of a useless father who can’t say no to his daughter.” Emi muttered, as she fanned herself with a fan that was being given out at The Lagoon and drank mineral water to quench her thirst.

As Emi watched Alas Ramus ride on a small merry-go-round while cheering happily with Maou, who didn’t look that unhappy himself, she felt as if she wanted to just throw everything away and return to Ente Isla.

The words that Maou had spoke earlier had gotten stuck in Emi’s head.

It was not just an annoyance.

That the demons had been exterminated by human forces should not bring her any emotions other than happiness.

Maou hid his true feelings at the most important moments, so it was hard to tell what he was really thinking, but on the surface, he showed no emotions of sadness or rage as he predicted that his subordinates had been annihilated.

However, Maou’s one sentence seemed to contradict something that she had always thought was obvious and took for granted, and she couldn’t help but feel alarmed.

As if her assumption about something that she believed to be as obvious as breathing or drinking water…

“…ey… Hey, Emi!”

“…Huh? Oh, sorry, what?”

As she sat thinking, Maou had suddenly gotten off of the merry-go-round and stood next to her.

“What’s wrong with you, spacing out like that? Is the heat getting to you?”

“N-n-no way! D-don’t sneak up on me like that! Anyway, what do you want!?”

“Alas Ramus wants to see this thing.”

Maou pointed to the advertisement poster on the information board for the hero show, the famous attraction of Tokyo Big Egg Town.

Emi remembered seeing a commercial about it the other day, but there was something else she was curious about.

“…Did you buy a TV?”

The show’s main draw was the special effects battle force wearing five different colors and the colorful magical girls. It was pretty popular thanks to the bright, sunny Sunday, but the problem was that it was always about the Sunday morning children’s TV show.

“Forget TV, my antennas are still analog.”

Maou replied with a predictable answer.

“But I think Alas Ramus likes this kind of super-colorful stuff. I don’t know if there’s a reason for it, though.”

Alas Ramus was nailed in place at the somewhat surreal poster right outside the theater that showed a tag team between the hero forces and magical girls.

“I don’t mind seeing it, but there’s a entrance fee. Are you sure?”

“…I’ll just apologize to Ashiya later. I already bought the hat, anyway,” concluded Maou after hesitating for a long time. Emi briefly wondered why the breadwinner of the household didn’t

have authority over the house-husband.

“…Fine. I’ll pay for Alas Ramus. But you have to figure out a way to pay for yourself.”

“Thanks so much!!!”

The demon king does not bow his head to the hero lightly.

However, from Emi’s point of view, she now had the demon king indebted to her, and of his own free will at that. This should even her debt to Ashiya for what he had to go through in the incident with Suzuno. Emi also briefly thought about paying for Maou as well just to make sure she was debt-free, but decided she felt it was even enough already.

Emi went to the ticket booth right next to them, but the employee seemed to give an apologetic look and lowered his head.

“The next show is already sold out. The next showing’s not for another two hours,” said Emi, turning to Maou.

“Seriously? Then should we buy the tickets now and go eat somewhere?”

“Sure. Okay, can I have tickets for two adults and one child, please?”

Emi bought tickets for all three of them.

“Here, one adult ticket for 1,500 yen.”

“Alrighty then.”

Maou took out the money from his wallet and gave it to Emi, taking his ticket from her. He then picked up Alas Ramus, took a look at the map of the park, and started heading towards a nearby restaurant.

“Hmm, they’re getting along surprisingly well.”

“…”

“…”

While the entire situation was entertaining enough for her already, Rika added her commentary to get more fun reactions out of Ashiya and Chiho.

“But the hero show, huh. I wish I could’ve seen it when I was a kid. What do you guys want to do? Wanna go in, too?”

“This is too much…”

“I don’t think we should…”

“Huh? Why?”

Confused, Rika tilted her head at the indecisive Chiho and Ashiya.

“Be-because that show is for little children, right? It’d be strange for a group like us to watch something like that…”

“Chiho-chan, you’re so out of date. The entire new generation’s attitude is out of date.”

“What!?”

“Nowadays, a surprising amount of adults watch stuff like this in private. A long time ago, some older ladies got into special effects hero shows because they liked the hunk actors before they transformed and put on their masks, but on stages like this, they’ve already pre-recorded the voices of those actors. Stuff like that really draws them in.”

“Whaaat?”

“And this anime over here…”

“I used to watch it when I was little, but there are too many of them out there for me to keep track of them now… PrePure, right?”

Somewhat similar to the hero forces, the anime series “Magical Girl Pretty Pure” depicted cute, colourfully dressed fighting girls. The iconic, girl-oriented anime was so popular that it received a film adaptation every year.

“There’s always a steady demand for anime, and the voice actors have been getting some major popularity recently, right? I read in a magazine that there’s a cult following of grown men who like stuff like this.”

“Hmm… so things like this appeal to all genders and generations.”

“Um, well, that’s not what I’m worried about, but…”

Chiho was fascinated by something completely off-topic, and Ashiya interjected timidly.

As there was an entry fee, there was obviously no way to peek in from outside, but voices that clearly did not belong to children could be heard from inside.

Rika gave a strained smile as she saw Chiho’s expression become stiff at the sound.

“Well then, we’ll go eat, too.”

Rika pointed to the open cafe-style Italian restaurant directly across from the stage entrance.

 

Two hours later, Maou and the others sat down in the seats that had been assigned to them near the front of the theater the hero show would take place in..

“These are pretty good seats. I’m surprised there are assigned seats for a simple theater like

this, though.”

Maou leaned back in the long bench and took a look around.

“If this was free seating, some kids might not be able to see the stage.”

“Huh? Why?”

“There are all kinds of people in the world.”

The assigned “seats” were not like those in movie theaters that were divided by arm rests, so people would be shoulder-to-shoulder with whoever sat next to them.

Alas Ramus and their belongings separated them, but Emi found it difficult to be sitting so close to Maou.

Even if they were in the middle of a huge crowd of people, she would never be able to stand being having to be next to Maou.

This showing also seemed to be full, and with the sunlight beating directly down on them, the temperature was about two or three degrees higher than outside. In that atmosphere, a loud theme song suddenly started blaring, and smoke and fireworks blew from the stage. The special effects heroes were apparently up first in the show, but Alas Ramus could not help but jump at the sudden loud sound.

The special forces hero program had a theme song, and combining mecha and ultimate moves were usually shown in parallel to the song. However, the special forces heroes were in a ninja theme.

From the large tree object in the middle of the stage that was about the height of a two-story building, the five heroes struck their poses one by one and jumped down.

“Huh. They jump down from pretty high!”

“…What are you getting so amazed for? Aren’t you the demon king?”

“But why would ninjas wear such colorful outfits?”

“Why are you nitpicking about a children’s show?”

The action sequences had sprinkles of ninja-like characteristics, but the fluorescent-colored ninjas couldn’t stand out more if they tried.

The tree in the center was apparently going to be used by PrePure segment later as well, where it would gather “natural energy” to aid in the fighting.

“Huh! They’ve got some good moves! I wonder if they can actually fight in the military.”

The enemy standing before the ninja forces that they would have to fight were, for some reason, aliens.

When the space monster that seemed like the boss character appeared, a great cheer came

from the crowd of children in the theater. “Oh, go get’em, bad guy! You’re pretty popular!”

“Hey, that’s not what’s popular. That getting defeated is what’s popular.”

“You’re the one who should stop nickpicking. Hey, Alas Ramus, which do you li…”

Maou noticed something strange as he tried to pull Alas Ramus into the conversation.

Alas Ramus normally liked vibrant, colorful things, but she was just blanking out, gazing vacantly at the stage.

“Hey, Alas Ramus?”

Hearing Maou’s voice, Emi also realized that something was amiss.

“What’s wrong?”

“Um, she’s spaced out… what’s wrong, Alas Ramus? Do you feel bad?”

“se… ott.”

“Huh?”

“We fell…”

“What? What’s wrong?”

There were surrounded by noise, so even if they realized Alas Ramus was saying something, they couldn’t hear what she was saying.

“daddy, that sefiott.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“we all fell from da tree. mommy took me and ran away. markoo is gone.”

“Tree? Markoo? What are you…wha!” Maou panicked.

He didn’t know what had triggered it, but a crescent-shaped mark suddenly appeared on Alas Ramus’s forehead.

The mark somehow seemed like a crystal,, and began glowing in the same color as Alas Ramus’s pupils and hair.

“…What… is that?”

Maou had Alas Ramus pull her hat all the way down to her eyes, but Emi saw the mark.

“…So you didn’t notice it before? The same mark showed up when she first arrived at the apartment. It disappeared right away, though. Hey, Alas Ramus, come on!”

“Hey, don’t shake her like that. For now, let’s get out of here! Um, excuse us! This child isn’t feeling well…”

Not bothering to wait for Maou’s reply, Emi picked up Alas Ramus and fought through the excited crowd to get out of the theater.

She briefly considered calling for an employee, but decided against it as they wouldn’t be able to explain the phenomenon on Alas Ramus’s forehead.

Emi turned back and saw that Maou had taken their belongings and followed them out. She held Alas Ramus, who was still staring into blank space and mumbling, and looked for a cool, secluded place.

Emi placed her hand on the baby’s forehead, but there was no fever or profuse sweating. It didn’t seem like heat stroke, but she had no idea what the crescent moon-shaped symbol on her forehead that was the cause of everything meant.

Heading for air conditioning, she went inside The Lagoon and fortunately found an empty bench. 

Taking a seat,

“Demon King, go get something for her to drink!” Emi yelled at Maou, who had finally caught up to them.

“H—how about this?”

Maou took out an oral rehydration solution.

“Give me that!”

Emi snatched it from Maou, and held it to Alas Ramus’s mouth.

“And go get something that’s cold! Not for drinking, but we’ll put it against her neck and other places to cool her down!”

“G—got it!”

Even though he was jittery, Maou promptly obeyed every command that Emi gave. After he had left to go find a vending machine…

“Is she okay?”

Someone came up and asked Emi, who was holding Alas Ramus.

Emi looked up and saw a beautiful lady standing in front of her in a long, white dress and a white, wide-visored hat.

The lady looked down at Emi and Alas Ramus with eyes of such incredible colors that it felt like they just might suck them in.

“Um, yes, she’ll be fine. I don’t think she’s having a heat stroke, she just didn’t feel well…”

“…mommy?”

Suddenly, Alas Ramus snapped out of dazed, non-response state, and asked for Emi as if she had realized something.

Emi smiled and looked into Alas Ramus’s face.

“I’m right here. Are you okay?”

“yesh…”

Her face didn’t look any different, but her voice was weak, as if she had a fever. Emi pretended to wipe Alas Ramus’s forehead in order to hide her crest. But then,

“Excuse me.”

Suddenly, the lady dressed in white leaned in and placed her hand on Alas Ramus’s head.

“Wh—what are you doing?”

“Don’t say anything. This will be over in a moment.”

Her tone was not imposing by any means, but Emi stayed silent as she had been told. On the ring finger of the woman’s left hand was a ring with a small gem.

The ring seemed to glow violet for a moment, perhaps because of the strong sunlight. And then,

“…ou…ou!?”

Alas Ramus suddenly leaped up.

“hm? ou? wha? daddy?”

Alas Ramus acted as if she had just woken up from a nightmare, and looked around quickly. However, what shocked Emi the most was that as the hat fell as Alas Ramus leaped up, she saw that the crescent mark on her forehead had completely disappeared.

“o, momm-wah!”

Emi acted quickly to cover Alas Ramus with her body, and glared up towards the white lady who had stood up calmly.

“You don’t have to be cautious with me. I’m not your enemy.”

The white lady calmly dusted her skirt cuff and gave a small smile.

“And I’m not the enemy of that little girl, either… Alas Ramus, you’ve gotten so big.”

“!!”

Emi had not called Alas Ramus by her name even once in front of the lady.

“How do you know her name…?” asked Emi, and the lady smiled gracefully.

“Of course I know it. It’s an important name.”

As Emi looked at the lady’s face, her heart suddenly started racing.

The conversation she had had with Emerada three days ago began playing through her head.

The way she talked as if she knew who Alas Ramus was.

Could this lady be…?

Emi suddenly felt hot, and not because of the temperature outside, but she saw that the lady’s expression had suddenly turned solemn.

“Be careful. Because of what happened just now, they must have sensed the existence of the Yesod fragment on her forehead. This little girl’s enemies will be here soon. Gabriel and his angelic subordinates are already on the move.”

“Yesod… fragment? Gabriel…? Wait, are you…?”

“Heey, Emi! I got them!”

Emi thought she was onto something and was about to ask the lady, but at that precise moment, Maou ran up to her, yelling and carrying bottles and canned drinks in his arms.

And in that moment that Emi was distracted,

“mommy…”

“!!” 

The white lady had disappeared.

As if it had all been a daydream, the lady had simply vanished.

“Lucky I found a vending machine so close. Here… huh? Alas Ramus, you’re okay now?”

“daddy, wehcome back!”

“Oh, ye-yeah. What? It was all for nothing? But I’m glad you’re okay. But what happened to you?”

“whachu meen?”

“Um… well, uh, oh well. Hey Emi, what’s gotten in-gah!”

“Why can’t you read the atmosphere around you!? You!!”

“Wh-what!? What the hell did I do!? Wh-why are you punching me all of a…”

“mommy, you scaawie!!!”

“Oh! There they are! Suzuki-san, over there!”

“Oho! Good job, Chiho-chan! This must be the power of love!”

“P-please, don’t say that!”

“Sheesh… Ashiya-san, I can’t believe you wrecked your stomach with just some olive oil. You’re in surprisingly poor health. We wasted a lot of time looking for them because we had to wait for you to use the bathroom.”

“M-my apologies…”

Because of Ashiya’s stomach reacting instantaneously to the Italian restaurant’s olive oil, Chiho and the others had lost track of Maou, Emi, and Alas Ramus.

They didn’t see them coming out of the hero show stage, so they had to walk around looking for them, and Chiho had eventually found Emi holding Alas Ramus and dragging Maou forcibly. Emi seemed to be headed towards the Great Ferris Wheel: Big Zero.**

**Great Ferris Wheel: Big Zero is a spoof on Great Ferris Wheel: Big O, an actual ferris wheel in Tokyo Dome City. A rollercoaster runs through the empty center of the ferris wheel.

“Are they going on the ferris wheel? It looks like Emi is forcing them, but…”

“It seems like it’d be way too hot to go on a ferris wheel right now, doesn’t it?”

“I heard that that ferris wheel has air conditioning in every gondola. As long as you have sun protection, it’s pretty cool.”

“Ho-how wasteful!”

The one to object to something being fully equipped with air conditioning was none other than Ashiya.

“But hmm. What’s Emi up to, forcing Maou-san into a floating, confined room…?”

“Suzuki-san!!”

“Chiho-chan, relax. I’m joking.”

Rika was obviously doing everything intentionally, which made it that much worse.

“Well, we should follow them anyway. I don’t think anything will happen, though. Ashiya-san, you okay?”

“Yes, somehow…”

The pale-faced Ashiya raised his hand and muttered.

Since he had been eating cheap, simple budget food all the time, and because it was the middle of the summer, eating heavy Italian food was like a death sentence to Ashiya’s stomach, which had weakened by the summer.

“Well, I don’t know why you came to follow them today, but nothing seems to be happening, right?”

Chiho and Ashiya looked at each other with difficult expressions as they heard Rika’s unaware, happy-go-lucky words.

 

 

“Hello! Welcome to the Great Ferris Wheel: Big… Ze…ro.”

The employee in charge of checking tickets at the entrance gulped as a young couple shrouded in a dangerous atmosphere with a little child walked up.

The dangerous atmosphere could be described more precisely as the husband cowering to the wife’s rage. The child, who looked to be about two years old, seemed to be unable to decide whose side to take.

“For three!”

The wife ordered passes for the three of them as if she were throwing a punch, and the employee violently nodded and let them through.

“Hellooo! Take your pictures right over heeere! The photo can be bought as a souvenir at that booth right over there!! Please make your purchases after the ride! Thank you!”

There was an employee with a large, single-lens reflex digital camera in front of the gondola who took pictures to be bought as park souvenirs.

“…We don’t need one, thank you…”

“Oh, if you don’t want it, it’ll be deleted right away! Please stand right over there! Oh, there! Can the dad please be in the middle with your child? There! Great! Can you move the little cutie’s balloons?”

The photo shoot was unnecessarily high-energy and forced.

“daddy, wha’s zat?”

Alas Ramus pointed towards the camera that the employee was holding and asked curiously.

“Hm? That’s called a camera, and it’s going to take your photo, Alas Ramus.”

“fo-toh?”

If the word didn’t exist in Ente Isla, she wouldn’t understand what it was even if she understood Japanese.

“Um, let’s see. It’s a picture. It’ll paint a picture magically for you. Look at that big, round thing that the nice lady is holding, okay?”

“ooooh!”

Whether she understood everything or not was unclear, but Alas Rams began fixating at the camera lens with all her curiosity nonetheless.

“Hey, mooom! Can you look this way pleeease?”

“…”

Emi had been looking to the side with an irritated expression, but there was no point acting immaturely to a complete stranger, so she reluctantly turned her gaze as if she ertr apologizing.

“Okaaay! I’m taking the picture noow! One, two, cheeeese!! …Good! The picture turned out great! If you would like a copy, please purchase one on the way off! Thank yooou!”

The three of them finally got on the gondola after being sent off in an awkwardly enthusiastic manner.

“Oh, it feels nice and cool in here.”

Maou had expected a sauna, but a cool, air-conditioned wind blew from behind the seats, and there was background music as well. The seats were hard, but the experience was far more enjoyable than he had expected.

“Please watch the balloons. One rotation takes about fifteen minutes, and please do not eat or smoke in the gondola. Now off you goo!” an employee said quickly as the door was closed.

“Oh, they’re already on!”

Emi and the others didn’t notice them, but right at that moment, Chiho, Rika, and Ashiya showed up at the ferris wheel ticket booth.

“They’ll get away from us! Hurry!”

Spurred on by Rika, Ashiya and Chiho hurriedly placed money in the ticket machine. However,

“Um, excuse me,”

“Yes?”

Chiho suddenly heard a voice from next to her.

An elderly lady and her grandchild were standing next to Chiho, looking to be at a loss in front of the machine.

“Um, how do I use this?”

“Oh, yes, you put your money in here… you see, this is a touch panel.”

Chiho knew that there were many elderly people did not understand the concept of a touch panel and would just not know what to do.

The location where money was to be inserted was not near the panel, and there were no explanations on the screen, which only showed buttons with prices. The ticketing machine was not terribly user-friendly.

“The ferris wheel is free for kids, so you choose this price and quantity here…”

Chiho carefully explained the process to the elderly lady to assist her in buying the tickets. And finally, the lady and the grandchild were able to get their tickets, safe and sound.

The elderly lady thanked Chiho over and over again as she headed to the ferris wheel.

“Oh! Oh no!”

Since she had been very attentively teaching them, Chiho thought that she had made Rika and Ashiya wait.

“…Huh?”

The gondola entrance point and the ferris wheel ticket booth were not that large.However, Ashiya and Rika were nowhere to be found.

“What? Whaat?”

Dazed, Chiho looked up at the gondolas and made eye contact with Rika, who had her face against the window with a frozen expression.

“Whaaaat?”

 

 

“Well then, explain yourself.”

In the confined space of the gondola, Maou had nowhere to hide from Emi’s imposing glare. The glare that came from between Alas Ramus’s balloons was especially terrifying.

“I thought it was suspicious from the beginning. Why did you decide to take her in in the first place? Weren’t you the one who was always trying to avoid trouble?”

“Um, uuuuh…”

“And that crescent mark on her forehead, you know something about it, don’t you? Spill everything out!”

“mommyyy, whas’zat big thing’?”

“Hm…? That’s the Tokyo Skytree.”

“Because of that thing, just buying a TV is pointless because you still can’t watch anything.”

“Stop trying to change the subject!”

The gondola that the three of them were in shook slightly at the heavy impact.

Meanwhile, Rika and Ashiya sat two gondolas behind them.

“Ugh… if only we were one gondola over, we might have been able to see what’s happening…”

Although they were able to get in, the gondolas were not transparent and there was no way for them to see inside a gondola two positions away.

“…”

On the other hand, Rika sat on the other side of Ashiya, staying quiet and staring at her feet.

Chiho seemed to have been held back by something, and Rika was now by herself with Ashiya.

“Suzuki-san, is something the matter?”

“Hyah! Huh!?”

Rika had been so energetic until just moments ago, but she was now closed up like a clam. Even someone other than Ashiya would have been able to notice such a drastic change.

“Um, uh, um, I was, I was feeling bad that we left Chiho-chan behind…”

“I see. We were in a hurry…”

Ashiya agreed to Rika’s unnaturally flustered answer without further questions, sighed, and leaned back in the chair.

“…!!”

The ferris wheel’s gondolas were not large by any means. If the tall Ashiya sat back, there would be no avoiding contact at the knees or the feet.

Rika’s confidence until now had been supported by the presence of another person, Chiho. If there was someone else there, physical contact or being in a confined space would not bother her at all, but being in a locked gondola with a man was not a situation she had been in before.

Furthermore, that man was Ashiya.

When they had met about a week ago in a commotion that had involved Emi and Suzuno, she had thought that he was just a somewhat eccentric person, but spending the past several hours together had caused that impression to grow stronger.

“Are you alright? Your face is red. Have you been in the sun for too long?”

“To-too close!”

“Pardon?”

“Uh-uh-um, nothing, it’s nothing! My sunscreen didn’t work well probably, that’s all. Yeah!”

Pulling herself back as far as possible, Rika waved both her hands quickly. Ashiya did not become suspicious at all, and began looking at the scenery outside.

The staff had said one rotation took approximately fifteen minutes, but Rika was so embarrassed that she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to make it until then.

Around that time, Chiho was sitting on a bench near the gondola entry point, downing a bottle of

“Hey! Tea!” 

**that she had bought from a vending machine

**”Hey! Tea!” (Oi! Ocha!) is a spoof on a tea brand, “Heeeey, Tea.” (Oooi, ocha.)

“So, are you going to talk!? Or are you not!? Are you choosing to die right here!?”

“There aren’t enough choices! And don’t just spit out words that aren’t good for a little girl to learn!”

Two gondolas ahead of them, the interrogation continued.

“I said, why does it matter!? It’s not like I didn’t do anything wrong, but I’m just okay with being

Alas Ramus’s dad!”

“Even if it’s okay with you, it’s not okay with me! Didn’t you see that white lady who was standing in front of me!? Something is going to happen again! She said something about angelic soldiers! If you don’t want to make me your enemy, spit out everything you know!”

“See what!? And are you saying if I talk, you’ll be on my side!?”

“Not on your side! On this little girl’s side!”

Emi gestured at Alas Ramus with her eyes. The little girl had been staring out the window the entire time.

While the two of them looked at Alas Ramus’s back, the gondola had nearly reached the top of the rotation.

“…someone gave it to me a long time ago.”

Maou seemed to have given up, and gave a sigh while making a difficult expression.

“Forget being a demon king, this was back when I was just a little brat that looked like a goblin with some hair.”

Seeing that Maou was finally ready to talk, Emi backed down and began listening.

“Before you were even born, the demon world was a pitiful place. If demons from two different races just saw each other, they’d start fighting to the death… it was that kind of a world. My clan was so weak that it could have been blown away by a stiff breeze, and we were wiped out by one demon that couldn’t use any spells and had muscles for brains. My first and last memory of my parents is them lying dead on the ground.”

The life story began unfolding suddenly. This was far worse for Alas Ramus’s upbringing, but Emi let Maou continue talking uninterrupted.

“We lost in a battle against another clan and my clan was massacred, and I was tossed aside like trash just waiting to die. But there was someone who saved a small filthy demon brat on a whim.” Maou looked to the distance, and said nostalgically.

“That was the first time I met an angel, with the whitest wings I’ve ever seen.”

“daddyyy, whas’zat?”

“Hmm? Oh! Alas Ramus! I’m impressed that you saw that! That’s called a blimp!”

“bwimp?”

Alas Ramus stared at the blimp in the sky with her mouth wide open.

“Where did I stop?”

“You said you were rescued by an angel when you were about to die…”

“Oh, right right. Well, I was a goblin-level idiot, so I tried to fight back even when I was wounded. When I think about it now, it must have been a really high-ranked angel. I couldn’t even lay a finger on it. But it’s not like it was trying to kill me, though. Since I’m a demon, I would have eventually healed on my own anyway, but it kept coming back to see how I was doing, and kept telling me stories that I didn’t care for. I listened because I couldn’t move anyway. But because of that, I learned a lot of things I’d never heard of before.”

Emi was extremely surprised.

Since he was called Demon King Satan, she had always assumed that he had been born into a high-ranking demon family line (assuming demon family lines actually existed) and that his way to kingship had been paved for him.

“Well, my wounds were pretty bad, so it took a while before I could move around again. But it finally got through to my head that the angel wasn’t trying to kill me. Since it kept telling me things I didn’t know, I also learned all sorts of things. But as I kept listening, I began to understand how strange it was for an angel to save a demon. So one day, I asked why it had saved me.

“…And?”

“…Don’t you dare laugh. If you do, I’m not finishing the story.”

For some reason, Maou broke eye contact as if he were embarrassed.

“…It said it was because I was crying.”

“Huh?”

“It said it was the first time it’d seen a demon crying, so it couldn’t leave me alone.”

Emi couldn’t imagine why a demon would cry, but she realized that she knew next to nothing about how demons lived and functioned.

“So why were you crying?”

Maou frowned at Emi’s question, but seeing that she wasn’t ridiculing him, he replied honestly with a bitter expression.

“Well, a lot of reasons. I said the same thing earlier, but it’s not because I was sad about my family or someone I cared for dying. To put it bluntly, I think they were things like how easily and meaninglessly I was going to die, and how frustrating that was.”

Perhaps because Maou was speaking of bitter memories from his past, he broke his eye contact with Emi.

“Anyway, even after that, it kept coming to talk to me and I heard a lot of stories. That was also when I first learned about the human world.”

“!!”  

Maou said it without blinking an eye, but to Emi, it was a significant revelation.

The reason the demon king had invaded Ente Isla could be traced back to an angel?

Of course, there was no proof that the story Maou was telling was true. However, if it was, the universe might be turned upside down.

“And she… that is, the crystal that she originated from, was left by that angel on the day it disappeared. It was a beautiful, violet, crescent-shaped crystal.”

“stopeet, im wanta seee!”

Alas Ramus protested as she was suddenly picked up by Maou.

There was nothing on her forehead, but had that crescent shaped mark been the manifestation of that crystal?

“‘If you want to learn more about the world, plant this seed and nurture it. Do your best, Great

Demon King Satan.’”

“What?”

“…Thatt was a note that it left behind. ‘Writing’ was one of the most precious skills I gained from it; a method of communication other than screaming and violence. I’ll keep it brief and skip over the glorious part where I grew up and spent two hundred years turning the world of carnage into a legitimate demon society, but without the knowledge that I received then, none of that would have been possible. That’s why I planted the crescent seed. I thought it would be to my benefit somehow, even though I had no idea what it was. Well, I was told to plant it, but I was pretty shocked when a plant actually started growing out of a crystal like that.”

Maou seemed to be gazing into the not-too-distant past. The actual Demon King Castle that was built where the commerce city of the central continent, Isla Centrum, once stood. The symbol of the demon world’s revolution.

Seeing a world other than the demon world, Demon King Satan planted the violet, crescentshaped crystal in hopes of it sprouting, in a pot that faced toward the skies behind the demon king’s throne room, where no one else was allowed to enter.

“I didn’t become the demon king by being born into it. The name Satan was so common that if a Cerberus walked around, it would eventually run into one. The name Satan came from the legendary demon king who existed even before the heavenly legends, although I don’t know how a legend like that managed to survive in such a shitty demon world. I don’t know why she called me the great demon king, but you could say everything started from back then, and with this thing.”

Maou patted Alas Ramus’s head, but she wanted to look outside, so she ran away from his hand and became glued to the gondola windows again.

“Well, that’s more or less my reason. I guess in a way, because I planted that violet crystal that eventually became Alas Ramus, I really am like a father to her.”

“Then, that angel is Alas Ramus’s real…”

“Logically, I guess you could say that. But when I got it from that angel, it was just a violet crystal.

I don’t know if she had a consciousness then.”

As Emi listened to Maou, a combination of excitement and a foreboding feeling in her chest caused her to break out in a cold sweat. She asked,

“Who was that angel?”

Lailah, who had disappeared from where Emerada was. The white lady who knew Alas Ramus’s identity. The angel who gave the crystal that eventually became Alas Ramus to the young demon who eventually became the demon king. And Alas Ramus, who was born from that crystal, thought she was her “Mommy.”

Could it be?

A storm of excited anticipation and ill omen brewed in Emi’s heart.

As if Maou had sensed the turbulence in Emi’s heart, he paused for a second and said,

“No one you’d know.”

The storm within her heart dispersed before it could build up to full strength.

“…You’re not trying to hide it from me, are you?”

“No, I’m not, but it wasn’t a famous angel that you can find in the Bible either. But anyway, how did Alas Ramus turn back to normal? You know something, don’t you?”

No matter how she looked at it, Maou was hiding something. But since Emi would gain nothing by learning more about his past, she answered honestly.

“A lady dressed in white healed her, just by placing her hand on her.”

“…What the hell? Was she part of some kind of religion?”

Maou seemed to not have seen the lady. Emi started to get riled up.

“No, she wasn’t! You really didn’t see her when you got back!? After her ring started glowing,

Alas Ramus was back to normal, as if she was just waking up from a dream!”

“I said, I didn’t see it! And what was the ring like?”

“It was a plain ring. I think there was a violet gem on it, though…”

“…So it wasn’t plain at all.”

Maou’s head began hurting due to Emi’s occasional mental lapses.

“What else was there?”

“I didn’t have enough time to look because of some idiot who couldn’t read the mood and ran back screaming.”

“Hey.”

“And then she said something about Gabriel and his angel subordinate soldiers, and Yesod? A fragment of whatever that wa-ow!”

Maou couldn’t stop himself from delivering a massive chop to Emi through her hat..

“W-what do you think you’re doing!? I’ll cut you down!”

Emi retaliated violently, but Maou didn’t stay silent either.

“Are you really an ex-knight of the church!? Kids these days! Do some studying about the world every once in a while!”

Maou had suddenly raised his voice, then hung his head, and slouched.

“Yesod… Yesod!? So that’s what that was! Damn it! What the hell was that angel thinking, shoving something like that onto me! So what happened just now was…!”

“Wh-what? What’s gotten into you?”

“When we get back, Suzuno is going to laugh at how hopelessly stupid you are.”

“What!?”

“Look, Yesod is—”

“whaaat, daddy?”

Alas Ramus suddenly focused her attention on Maou in response his utterance of the word “Yesod.”.

“Huh?”

Emi tilted her head, as she had no idea why Alas Ramus had responded the way she had, but Maou questioned her with an expression that seemed to be a combination of conviction and despair.

“Hey, Alas Ramus,”

“what, daddy?”

“What’s this?”

Maou pointed to the red balloon. Alas Ramus responded without hesitation.

“ge’ura.”

“This?”

He then pointed to the one with a deep yellow color that resembled a Japanese kerria flower.

“tiferez.”

“What about this bright yellow one?”

“malkoo. mah fwend.”

“And this white one.”

“keteeh!”

“Wh-what is she saying…?”

Emi’s eyes darted at the unending barrage of words she had never heard of before.

“Then this?”

Asked Maou, as he took another balloon. Its color was violet.

“yesod. da’s me.”

“…I see. You’re so smart, you were able to pronounce it right!”

“smaat? eheheee.”

The gondola was finally nearing the end of the rotation. Emi squinted instinctively at the sun shining down on Tokyo Big Egg Town from the west.

“I don’t know how this can be, but… Alas Ramus might be an existence even more amazing than demons or angels.”

“Huh?”

“Gevurah, Tiferet**, Malchut, Keter, and Yesod. They’re all names of Sefirot, the jewels of the

Tree of Life that compose the world. Alas Ramus might be… the incarnation of Yesod.”

**In the original script, Maou lists Hod instead of Tiferet. However, the colors of the Sefirot used here appear to correspond to the Kabbalistic Queen Scale. According to this scale, based on the color of the balloon Maou picked out (deep yellow), Tiferet (yellow) makes more sense than Hod (orange), and Alas Ramus’s answer sounds like Tiferet in Japanese (she mispronounces all of them except Yesod). We believe that Maou listing Hod instead of Tiferet is a mistake in the original Japanese script.

While Maou, Ashiya and the others were in the gondolas, Chiho sat on a bench, quietly occupying her time with self-loathing.

Now that she was alone and was able to analyze the situation objectively, she realized that she was in no position to criticize Rika for being nosy.

Chiho may have had a valid reason in letting Ashiya borrow her cellphone in case something happened to Maou, but in the end, she realized that she was only jealous of Emi for pretending to be a married to Maou.

“Maou-san said he trusted me, but I…”

Chiho felt she had wronged both Maou and Emi by betraying his trust.

As she thought more and more about it, she only grew more embarrassed.

“Maou-san… I’m so sorry…”

Superficial worries and jealousy had driven Chiho to do something she shouldn’t have done. She

got up and headed down the stairs without waiting for Ashiya or Rika.

Not long after Chiho left, Maou, Emi, and Alas Ramus came out of their gondola.

“Phew, it sure is hot out here.”

“mufuu.”

Maou and Alas Ramus scowled as they were once again exposed to the heat after being cooled down in the gondola.

Emi silently emerged from the gondola after them.

“Thank you for ridiiiing! Your photo is readyyyy!”

They turned to the source of the voice that called to them as they got off, The photo that had been taken before they got on the gondola had been printed out and inserted in a custom folding frame.

“oooh!!”

“…What a terrible face.”

Alas Ramus was moved to the core by the photo that had a picture of herself in it, and her eyes shone like stars, while Emi frowned as she saw herself in the picture with an expression that looked like she had just bitten down on a bitter insect.

“It comes as a set with this custom folding frame, and you can write your own message! It’s one thousand yen. We can print more if you’d like!”

“Huh? It’s not free?” Maou blurted out involuntarily, earning him a slap in the back of the head from Emi.

“Ugggh… a thousand yen…”

“daddy, daddy, dis! dis!”

Alas Ramus obviously wanted a copy of the photograph. However, considering the price of the photo paper, frame, and ink, just how much markup was added to make it a thousand yen?

“…One copy, please.”

Surprisingly, Emi quickly came to a decision, paid the thousand yen, and took the picture. She then handed it to Alas Ramus.

“waah!”

Alas Ramus opened the folding frame, saw the picture with Maou smiling strangely, Emi glaring bitterly, and herself, and gave a shout of joy.

“H-hey, are you sure about this?”

“Don’t be so stingy about a thousand yen. You really don’t have your priorities straight, do you?

Isn’t this her first picture?”

“Ye-yeah, but…”

“And let me be clear! When Emmy and Al come, don’t you dare show this to them! I have a reputation to uphold!”

“So it’s fine to show it to Ashiya and Suzuno or Chii-chan?”

“What’s the point of hiding it from them now? But keep it a secret from Lucifer.”

“How am I supposed to do that…?”

Maou gave a strained smile to Emi’s absurd demands, then leaned to Alas Ramus and said,

“Come on, Alas Ramus. Say thank you to Mommy.”

“sankyuu mommy!!”

Emi turned bright red at Alas Ramus’s loud voice that could be heard by all who were near the gondola entrance.

“I-I-I’m the mother, so of course I’d do this for you! I had to do this because your father doesn’t know any better!”

She blurted out excuses that made no sense, but it was obvious that Emi had just wanted to do something for Alas Ramus, and it had nothing to do with Maou.

“Le-let’s go!”

Emi hid her face and quickly walked down the stairs. Maou and Alas Ramus followed suit.

At that precise moment,

“Hold up a sec, Emi. I got a call.”

“Huh? …Oh, me too. Alas Ramus, wait right there.”

Maou and Emi got phone calls at the same time from Urushihara and Suzuno, respectively.

 

 

“We lost them!?”

Ashiya panicked as he looked around the gondola entrance and saw that no one was around.

Since they had only been only two gondolas behind, the others shouldn’t have been more than a few minutes ahead of them.

They ran downstairs to the shopping floor and looked down from there, but they couldn’t find Maou or Emi.

“I-I wonder where Chiho-chan went, too…”

She had just been inside the air conditioned gondola, but Rika’s face was hot.

“Maybe Chiho-chan is following them… wh-what should we do, Ashiya-san?”

This was not good at all. If they coudn’t’t find Chiho or Emi right away, she would be forced to be alone with Ashiya.

“…Even if I wanted to do something… I don’t have any way of contacting them…”

“Huh?”

“I don’t have a cellphone.”

“What? Seriously!?”

Having finally been freed from the locked gondola, Rika was finally returning to her usual self.

“I was planning on borrowing Sasaki-san’s if the need arose… but if this is the case…”

It was nearly evening, but there was still a fair crowd of people around them. Finding Maou and Emi would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

“…Alright then. Well, this might get messy, but…”

Rika took out her own cellphone, and called Emi’s number.

“Oh, hello? Hey Emiii?”

Ashiya nearly screamed at Rika’s reckless action of calling Emi so suddenly, but she put her finger to her mouth to tell Ashiya to be quiet. He obeyed, as he had no other choice.

“Hm? Oh, not muuuch, but I was just wondering if your date with Maou-san is going weeell… ahaha, sorry, sorry. It’s for the little girl, riiight. Did I call at a bad time? Are you guys eating right no… huh?”

Rika pretended to tease Emi in order to find out where she was, but she got an unexpected answer.

“You’re on your way home?”

“What?”

Ashiya was also shocked. Rika tried her best to not let her surprise show in her voice.

“Oooh, I got it, the little girl is tired out, huh. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, if she had fun, then that’s great. Oh, you’re headed to the train station. Okay, got it. Sorry I called you all of a sudden, get home safely, ‘kay? Yeaah, okay… so that’s what’s happened.”

Rika hung up and said to Ashiya.

“So they went home… sigh… I see.”

“Then there’s no point staying here, right? Perhaps Sasaki-san went home as well.”

“I don’t know if she did, but I really feel bad about this… Next time you see her, can you apologize to her for me?”

“Of course. I should get going as well. Thank you for everything today.”

“Oh, um, hold on!”

Ashiya was about to start running after Maou and the others, but Rika stopped him without thinking.

“Yes?”

Although she had stopped him, Rika hadn’t thought about what she was actually going to say, and couldn’t form any words for a while.

“Um, uh, that’s right! Um, here!”

Rika took a memo pad out of her bag. She ripped a page out, quickly scribbled something on it, and handed it to Ashiya.

“Is this… a cell phone number?”

“Th… it’s my…”

“Your number?”

Ashiya asked, carefully examining the paper that was handed to him.

“It’s for um, if something happens, call me maybe, and I might be able to help you out.”

Even Rika didn’t know what she meant when she said “if something happens,” but she had to break the silence somehow as the awkward atmosphere was unbearable.

“I see.. of course. Perhaps I may ask for your assistance again.”

“…Huh?”

Ashiya agreed to something she had made up on the spot out of panic.

“As I said earlier, I don’t own a cellphone, so if something were to arise, I will give you a call from

Maou’s…”

Ashiya stopped mid-sentence, and looked like as if he had remembered something, then shook his head. Normally, all outside contact made from Demon King Castle was done through Maou’s cellphone, but Ashiya didn’t think it would a good idea to share his master’s number with someone else.

“No… I learned a valuable lesses today. Even if this stretches our budget somewhat, I will obtain a cell phone as well. Could you lend me your assistance in purchasing one?”

Rika’s face instantly turned bright red.

“Suzuki-san, you are employed at a company that manufactures cellphones, correct? I don’t know at this time if I will end up buying a device from the company you work for, but if it doesn’t inconvenience you, your assistance in helping me make my choice would be greatly appreciated.”

When Rika came to her senses again, she gave an exaggerated nod as if she were going to fall over.

“Thank you. Then I will contact you in the near future. It will most likely be from a public phone.”

“Sure…”

“Well then, if you’ll excuse me.”

Ashiya gave thanks, and finally began running towards Kourakuen Station.

“No way… what… what did I just do?”

Meanwhile, Rika could not move from where she stood, even after Ashiya was long gone.

“What do I do… What do I do…. What do I do?”

Eventually, she began walking shakily towards Suidoubashi Station in the opposite direction from Ashiya.