“My, my liege… That…that form…!”
Alciel’s voice shook as he beheld the ruler of the demon world, bathed in intense white light.
“Hold your magic, Alciel. We must learn of this world first.”
Satan appeared serene in demeanor, but his teeth were clenched, as if fighting off some heavy weight acting upon him.
As well he may have been. For the Devil King was standing there in human form—the form of the puny, weak creature he fought, his battle scars still plain to see.
“Okay, so listen, guys… The car’ll be here in just a minute, so… If everything checks out, you can go home right afterward. Okay?”
The men seemed blissfully unfazed by Satan’s presence. Still reeling from the shock, Alciel looked down upon his own hands. They were human hands, hands completely alien to him.
Soon a carriage arrived with no horse driving it, colored black and white and topped with a mysterious device that drizzled red light across the area in dazzling patterns. More men appeared, each wearing the same outfit as the first, and Satan and Alciel were thrown into the carriage.
“Do you speak Japanese? Aren’t you hot, wearing that in the summertime?”
The first man spoke slowly to the pair of ex-demons, once noble, proud, with chiseled bodies that would far outclass any normal human’s. Now they were human themselves, their clothes as unnatural as a toddler wearing a bedsheet cape, the ominous-looking gilt meant to represent their lordly strength now catching against this or that part of their lanky frames.
Satan and Alciel shared a look, but neither had anything to say to that. Even if they did, it didn’t appear the men could understand their speech.
“…Ah, well. Not like they’re the only kids dressed up all goofy over there.”
The man no longer spoke, apparently satisfied with what he had told them. Soon, Satan and Alciel were taken to a place referred to only as “the station,” a building apparently meant for the enforcement of laws in this kingdom.
They were taken to a room within this building for investigation purposes, and there the Devil King and his general were able to recover at least some of their grandeur. Satan unleashed a bout of hypnosis magic upon the investigating officer, seeking to extract as much information about this world as he could. It seemed that, no matter what world one found himself in, the nobility and military men swaggering around the castle were always of far weaker wills than any stalwart man of battle.
As the hypnotized officer revealed, the pair of demons were on a world called “Earth,” within an island nation known as “Japan.” They had come to this world near “Harajuku,” an outpost on a transport network known as the “railroad” that had been installed around “Tokyo,” the nation’s capital region.
Things like magic, magical force, Devil Kings, even demons themselves, were all treated as imaginary things in this world, mere flights of fancy that could never actually exist. Magic was something the denizens of the demon world harnessed to exert their wills upon the world, similar to the forces of gravity or magnetism, but there was no way to access this magic if it did not exist in the first place.
“So you’re saying we’ve…lost our magical powers?”
Alciel threw himself upon a chair, unable to wrap his mind around it.
“…Ah, but, Your Demonic Highness, you just…”
“I have a small amount of residual force left. It’s proving difficult to keep it from flowing out of me, though…”
The Devil King and his demonic subjects were able to accumulate a vast amount of magical power within their bodies. Even though his stores had been drained in combat with the Hero, Satan still retained several times as much magic as Alciel could ever hope to. It was that residual force which allowed Satan to bend the officer’s mind.
“I don’t think it will dry up immediately, as long as I strictly regulate the amount I release. But…”
But the problem was, there was no way to recharge the force he used.
His wounds would heal with time, but at this rate, he would never recover his magical skills. Any Gate he could open would be impossible to keep uniform. Not only would he be unlikely to reach Ente Isla; he might uncontrollably blunder into an even more dangerous world.
Instead of taking such risky bets, he reasoned, it would be wiser to find some other method of survival where he already stood.
There may be no concept of demons or magic in this realm, but the concepts of gods and piousness seemed fairly sparse as well, which was a comfort. This nation, Japan, apparently had a vast array of official ceremonies for dispelling evil spirits, but it was all a formality, a façade, at this point. It seemed safe to conclude that none of their practitioners held any actual holy powers within themselves.
As long as they remained in Japan, it seemed unlikely that anyone would attempt to slay these demons. Controlling the officer’s mind, Satan ordered him to complete his investigation and release them from the station without any further meddling.
Holing up in a narrow alley the streetlights didn’t reach, Satan and Alciel discussed their future plans.
First, they needed a method to recharge their magic in this world. Achieving this would likely require a lengthy stay, something they had to resign themselves to.
Failing to find a method—failing to recharge their magic—was, for a demon, even more a threat to their lives than being wholly robbed of the magic.
The higher-level demons could live without consuming food because they were able to convert magic into bodily energy. A world where magic no longer existed was the same as a barren world with nothing to eat.
But some demons did eat food. Why? Because doing so allowed them to absorb energy in the same way lesser creatures did.
To live in this world without a source of magic, they would need to forage for sustenance. Japan apparently used a currency-based economy. They needed money for food.
But, of course, they lacked any Earth currency.
“Let me ask you this, Alciel. If you had willed it, could you have escaped those officers?”
Alciel shook his head stoically. Satan nodded his convinced agreement.
The two great demons, ones who had set the human race upon their knees, were no longer able to fend for themselves against even a small rabble of them.
And not because the humans of this world were somehow stronger. The only conclusion to be made was that they had grown that much weaker. That was how bitter, how bruising, the battle against the Hero had grown.
“So…so we will remain like this…?”
Alciel winced as he beheld his hand, as if observing some strange and hideous being. The soft, thinly stretched skin. The flat face and disheveled hair. The rounded, unsharpened nails. The muscles that formed their bodies, so flabby and pathetic.
“It pains me to say it, but our lack of magical force likely makes it impossible to retain our greater demon forms.”
The form a demon took depended on the level of power instilled within it. Foe-slashing claws, powerful legs that propelled it over castle parapets, leathery wings on its back, snakes for hair—every aspect of its ethereal form ran on magical force.
“Amazing to think this is how you look when stripped of that power. Perhaps the human form is what lies at the foundation of all life.”
“Surely you jest, Your Demonic Highness! I hardly bear to even entertain the idea that we house…humans inside of us. It is no doubt some machination placed upon us by this world, or the Gate.”
“…Regardless. We have other matters to be concerned about.”
They lacked the magic to summon another Gate. They lacked the strength to overwhelm the humans of this world by force. In other words, if they wished to survive, the only choice was to abide by the human race’s rules in this…Japan.
Follow human rules. For a Devil King and a Great Demon General, the idea was enough to shatter the very foundations of their pride.
But this new reality had been thrust upon them—one where they must eat to live, work to eat.
Shrugging off their unholy demonic robes, the Devil King and the Great Demon General took their first halting steps toward an unknown world.