After saying that, Chiho turned around.
There stood the old Villa Rosa Sasazuka apartment building. Now, at this point, it was truly packed with dreams—dreams she wanted to keep going as long as she could.
The Maou Company was in Room 203. That fake firm that Ashiya had made up alongside Suzuno, trying desperately not to blow Emi’s cover with Rika, was now a full-blown corporation. Its president was Sadao Maou, and its chief shareholder was Emi Yusa. The only full-time employee for now was Akiko Ohki, manager at the inaugural Eifukucho location of Yesodd’s Family Café; Takefumi Kawata was an outside observer, Kaori Shoji and Yoshiya Kohmura were part-timers who signed up out of curiosity more than anything, and Mayumi Kisaki and Sariel were their first regulars. Chiho would come in to help with meetings, mediate between Maou and Emi, assist with basic data entry, and occasionally swing by Room 201 to cook a healthy meal for the nutritionally unsound Maou.
“I’m happy enough now, but no matter how much time passes, or who goes in and out of our lives, I want you and Yusa and everyone else to be happy together. I wanna be able to be selfish around them. And someday, I’ll convince Emeralda about that, too.”
“Well, if she didn’t give her that stupid ‘Hero Pension,’ maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about that so much, huh?”
“Ah-ha-ha! That’s true. But I don’t think Emeralda would’ve accepted the idea of Ente Islans giving her no reward whatsoever.”
Not long after Devil’s Castle had blasted off from the Central Continent, Emeralda went all the way up to the demon realms merely to have Emi review some business documents. That, it turned out, was a letter of intent for Emi to accept a “Hero Pension” drawn regularly from Saint Aile’s national budget, the result of Emeralda pulling a lot of strings. Even by then, Emeralda predicted that Emi would settle in Japan for good after the assault on heaven. The pension was paid out in metals exchangeable in Japan, and as Emeralda put it, she planned to pay out enough to let her enjoy life and play around, even if she was reincarnated three more times.
Emi, of course, wasn’t about to choose the “play around” option.
“Yusa is a Hero. Even in this other world, that truth is never gonna change, huh?”
When Emi realized the Yesod holy sword of light sucked the supernatural powers out of people, she used it to “slay the Devil King”—and what’s more, to prevent any more antics from him, she proposed the founding of The Maou Company. That was way too much for Maou to swallow; his past dreams of conquering the world were crushed, and he even failed at his shot at a full-time position. Starting up a firm would be insanely reckless—but Emi put the hammer down.
“Look, when you marry Chiho someday, how are you gonna save any money with your current career? Because no offense to Ms. Iwaki and Ms. Kisaki, but if you stick with MgRonald, you have no future.”
She was completely right. Maou felt no anxieties about his future prospects at MgRonald because he had powerful demonic force, supernatural strength, and a safe spot to retreat back to. All the human Maou had was his body and a rented one-room apartment. Could he really make Chiho happy as a part-timer? Maybe, according to Sariel’s tenets of love, but he’d likely hit the ceiling pretty fast.
“Maybe the public’s accepted you, but the summit members aren’t gonna believe me if I just say I defeated you. But if you work at a firm where I have managerial decision-making rights, and the summit chairman Chiho is there, too, I won’t let any of them bitch at me about it. I already had Ms. Shiba help create a draft business plan, and we’ve already found a space, too. So come on…”
Emi Yusa, still calling herself a Hero despite residing in a wholly different world now, smiled a devil’s smile.
“Like I told you at the start, if you’re willing to stay here till you’re dead and buried, I’ll let you live.”
That was the temptation the Hero offered to him—a sweet, devilish, merciless taste of the happiness of regular life. One that featured the Devil King fully defeated, peace spreading worldwide, and a very happy friend of theirs.
“Emi and Emeralda make me suffer so much…”
“That’s the last thing I wanna hear you whine about.”
“You’ve been acting pretty confident lately, too, I think.”
“Well, thank you. And…I’ve never tried to confirm it, and I think she’s just keeping quiet about it out of respect for me…but Yusa loves you.”
“Huhh?!”
This bomb, dropped out of nowhere, turned Maou’s eyes into little dots. But after being with Chiho for three years, he had a sharpened sense for little subtleties like that between men and women. Now he was reminded of that one night just before the assault, when he fell ill.
“No, that…”
“That just reminded you of something, didn’t it?”
Chiho didn’t overlook Maou’s hesitation. She gleefully prodded at it, draining the strength from him.
“…There’s just no beating you.”
“Of course not. I mean, can you imagine Yusa happy with some guy she doesn’t know at all? At this point? It’s only when you and she and Alas Ramus are together as a family that she’ll find happiness, I think.”
“And you’re fine with that, Chiho?”
“Totally fine…even if it’s hard to make anyone besides Copyhara believe that. But it’s better for me if I fully understand everyone, like Suzuno. There’s nothing particularly strange about all this. After all…”
Chiho brought both hands up to her temples, sticking out her pointer fingers to simulate devil’s horns.