The night before his momentous business discussion:
“Hey, Ignora?”
Maou leaned against the door to Room 202. There was no answer.
“Everyone’s starting to move. You’re gonna have to get going, too, someday.”
“…”
“I think the world, and everyone in it, has forgiven you. So come on out already. You could go back to Ente Isla, you could live here in Japan… Someone can help you now.”
“………This…” The voice was muffled, and not because it was coming through a door. “How could I ever recover at this point?”
“Recover, huh…?”
“You have it good. You’re loved by everyone, forgiven by everyone. But I…”
“Don’t be stupid. This happened to me because I’m not forgiven.”
Maou cruelly declared it to the brooding woman on the other side of the door, who had tried to become God in another world and failed.
“The people you’ve encountered experienced all kinds of things before they appeared before you. That’s how you are to us, too.”
“…”
“There’s something in your life you wanted to accomplish from the heart, and that’s what made you stand up, isn’t it? So…I know you can walk. All those strong memories are still left in your mind, and your body. So…”
Maou stood back up and repeated the words for the nth time.
“No matter how ugly you get, come out while there’s still an environment where someone will help you. Then you’ll find the path to create a new world.”
There was no answer.
“Anyway, I gotta visit this super-scary sponsor. It’s gonna get a little loud again, but deal with it, okay?”
He walked off toward…not Room 201, but Room 203 of Villa Rosa Sasazuka. On the door was a small nameplate reading:
THE MAOU COMPANY, LTD.
✦ ✦ ✦
“All right, let me see your monthly report, for starters.”
Room 203 had four small computer desks shoved inside it. Emi sat down at one of them, leaning back. Maou sat at a desk on the other side, and as he did:
“Here’s your coffee, president.”
With a studied hand, Chiho poured some instant coffee from a pot in the kitchen and brought it out to him.
“Ah, thank you… Um, what was it? The report?”
Maou booted up his old laptop and launched his spreadsheet software. Synchronizing his files with Emi’s PC (via the tower machine that was a little too weak to be called a company server), he waited as Emi loaded up the images.
“Looks like you’re attracting fewer customers to the upstairs parenting space.”
“Yeah, we’re getting a lot of single customers lately. There’s been feedback that Yesodd’s is getting too popular. It’s always crowded, and there’s no space to work your way in.”
“Ah. Guess you really don’t have days when it’s not full, then.”
“So I think our new location focused on bread should adopt the Yesodd’s format as well, and I think it should be within walking distance from the main location. That way, we can point customers to the second location and keep from losing them.”
“…But that way, they’ll gradually start to clamor for reservations. That system makes it easy to gauge customer sizes, but it reduces the flow. Yesodd’s isn’t a day care center. The concept works only when parents are casually stopping in with their kids. If I’m going to build a new Yesodd’s, it needs to be at least one rail stop away, I think. If we’re going to start a new place within walking distance, we gotta mix it up a bit, not just offer the same format. Maybe low-allergen bread, or no-sugar bread, or someplace where Yesodd’s customers can stop by to eat or pick up bread on the way home with their kid. That’ll build more synergy.”
“Well, I don’t think we can do that with the bread we’d make from Nord’s wheat.”
“…Yeah. The taste isn’t exactly geared toward young children.”
“Adding honey makes it more versatile, but it also ups the price fast. We could make it a premium offering from the get-go, but then staffing will be a problem.”
Chiho lent half an ear to the discussion as she poured out some of the black tea Emi had brought to the office, offering her a cup. Then she sat down on a folding chair in the corner. Just when she was about enjoy a cup of her own:
“Well, look, I keep on telling you, we only get this rent on the main location because my landlord owns it! If we try to rent another space this big in Eifukucho, I don’t see how we’re gonna budget it!”
“I told you we’ll pay out whatever you need!”
“It’s my job to give you a return on that, dumbass! The whole point of a traded company is that it can’t go blowing all the money it has! Your approach is insanely irresponsible! We’ll be drowning in red ink before we can expand our size at all! I’m gonna build The Maou Company into a major firm in one generation! That’s what makes the beginning so important!”
“Do you think I’m not considering any of this?! I looked at all the rental spaces near the main café with fixtures, and I finished the preliminary inspections on them last month! I have lease estimates right here! Look at this place! We can finish the buildup for twenty percent cheaper than our first place!”
“I told you, I don’t want any fixtures! It just proves the previous tenants ditched it for a reason! Stop deluding yourself into pretending we’re gonna find some hidden gem of a storefront that way! We gotta build up our staff and make the second location of Yesodd’s our second step to success! And if we bring in wheat from Kazuma and Nord, that’ll make it cheaper and easier to read the initial response! Come on!”
“What point is there to reading the initial response?! It’s directly proportional to the location’s size, so if you’re making comparisons, then opening the exact same location is just gonna get you a clone of our first one. And if we open up this close to it, what if one location starts declining? They’ll knock each other out!”
“Well, the bank supports my concept!”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re gonna take out a loan?!”
“Look, the interest rates are gonna plummet from here on in. If we’re a publicly traded corporation, I got a duty to make profits for my stockholders. All you have to worry about is making money from the stock you hold, all right?! I’m running this company!”
“Oooh, ‘I’m running this company!’ You know what a death knell that is?! That’s it! I’m bringing Akiko to tomorrow’s employment conference and then we can all duke it out! You and she are the only real full-timers in The Maou Company anyway.”
“Bring it on, girl!”
And so it wound up turning into that.
Chiho snickered. This, really, was how Maou and Emi should be. It was what she wanted and what Emi wanted. The ideal.
“Um, president and main stockholder? Your helper needs to step out for a bit. If you need dinner, let me know, all right?”
Leaving the bellowing Maou and Emi to themselves, Chiho made a motion for the door of Room 203.
“…Hang on. I’ll join you.”
“Huh? A-are you sure?”
Maou left his seat, heading for Chiho.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“The new FriendMart toward the station!”
“Then buy me a chicken curry plate!”
“Curry? You always ask me for curry!”
“It’s important to stay fed at times like these. We gotta go in hard on this, so would you mind, please?!”
“Tssh… All right. But I’m keeping the receipt. Meeting costs.”
“Fine! Just go! And make sure he doesn’t buy anything stupid, Chiho.”
“Yes, yes. See you later.”
Chiho snickered again as Maou pushed her out of Room 203. Once the door was shut behind them, he sighed.
“I swear, she comes in for the first time in a while and this happens.”
“I kinda want to say the same thing, in a way…”
“Ahh, I’m sorry. But it’s still gonna be hairy for a bit, so you mind staying just a little longer?”
“Hmm… But when you get too heated up, you stop listening to me… Well, how about I type in the receipts for you, and you can pay me with FriendMart’s new dessert?”
“For that much, I’d be glad to. And I’ll pay your work rate, too.”
Walking down the stairs and away from the apartment, they were greeted with a sky not quite blazing with stars but still remarkably clear for a Tokyo night.
“No progress with Ignora today, either?”
“Nah. No reason to corner her that much. But I’ll be patient. If we keep screaming at each other like that, maybe she’ll get sick enough of it that she’ll leave.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Chiho nodded as she walked by Maou’s side. “Emeralda got angry at me.”
“Huh? What’d you do?”
“She said that I needed to capture you, or else Yusa’s going to start feeling affection for you.”
“She does not give up, does she?”
“Right? Even though we’re all on the same page.”
“Well, like I told Kazuma, from a Japanese or Saint Aile perspective, I can’t help it if people raise their eyebrows at us. But still…”
Chiho held Maou’s hand, a look of from-the-heart joy on her face.
“You and I…and Yusa, and Suzuno, and Urushihara, and Ashiya… We all risked our lives working for that child, after all.”
“Emeralda would call that being spoiled, wouldn’t she?”
“I’m truly, honestly okay with this, so that’s tough to hear.”
Chiho joyfully attempted to put more concern into her face and failed.