From what they gleaned at the station, they knew that living in Japan would require at least two things: a “census registration” and an “address.” Without those, it seemed, they would be unable to acquire the work needed to earn money.
A “census registration” and “address” were both things one could obtain in a place called a “ward office.” They decided this would be their first mission. Pushing their war-battered bodies forward, they plodded toward the “Shibuya Ward Office,” the nearest one to them… only to find it would not be open until the following morning.
As miserable as it seemed, Satan and Alciel passed the night in front of the ward office’s door, knees tight against their chests.
It was a city where the lights were apparently never extinguished, but things grew more animated once morning arrived. Humans strode around in clothing of a thousand different colors. As more and more of the men passing by began to sport uniformlike outfits colored in blacks and darker blues, the Shibuya Ward Office finally opened for business. Rushing toward the window, Satan commandeered the mind of the worker on the other side, one obviously surprised at the sight of these two men. In a few scant moments, they had successfully created something called a “family register” for themselves.
Their next stop was a “real estate office,” a depot that could arrange living quarters for them.
Satan and Alciel had become fluent in the human language of Ente Isla within just three days. Now they resolved to do whatever it took to learn this new language, “Japanese,” up to a practical level.
Noticing the pair’s broken Japanese and bizarre clothing, the real estate agent, assuming they must be rich businessmen from a foreign country, began to politely bombard them with opulent houses at equally eye-popping prices.
Satan had to explain to the eager agent that they could not live anyplace that required too high of a fee.
Hypnotism did not consume a great deal of magic power if used only once, but since they would naturally be evicted for failure to pay, life in a full-floor penthouse unit without the salary to match would require continual hypnosis of the landlord. So they told the agent they wanted someplace they could easily afford, one that would allow them the barest minimum of a lifestyle. The agent, more than a bit disappointed, showed them one potential location.
“The landlord here is a very…shall we say, unique woman.”
It was a room in an apartment building located within “Sasazuka,” apparently a subsection of Shibuya.
The rent was 45,000 yen per month, with no deposit, no advance fees, and no guarantor required. It was Room 201 in the sixty-year-old “Villa Rosa Sasazuka” apartments, approximately one hundred square feet, no bath, one toilet per room.
“The landlord tells me she gives preferential treatment to people like you, who are…if I may say so, unusual? Or from unusual circumstances, I should say.”
It was an unorthodox sales approach, but if this was all he had to offer, so be it. After a ride in the agent’s “car” (so that was what they called these carriages!), they arrived at a two-floor apartment building in a quiet, almost desolate neighborhood. Plaster was peeling off the walls, and the roof was missing more than a few tiles here and there. The rain gutter attached to the roof had given itself in entirely to its brown, rusted doom, and the stairway to the second floor tilted in several different precarious angles at once. There wasn’t a soul to be seen; all of the rooms were likely empty.
“This…this is astounding.”
Alciel groaned to himself.
“Yes. Even I can see that much.”
The pair spoke to each other in the demon tongue. As inexperienced as they still were with this world, the utter dilapidation presented to them was still obvious.
These were, bear in mind, the demon elite, two men who had clawed and struggled their way to the top of the underworld. They had fallen far since, yes, but it was hard to accept living in this hovel during their stay. And if every room was empty, this meant not even the lowly humans would stoop so low as to live here, would they?
It was simply impossible. Just as Satan turned around to tell the young agent as much, he realized that someone else was standing there instead.
“Is that…a person?”
To their demonic sensibilities, it was an utterly enigmatic, strange creature. It was tall, even approaching the height of Alciel, who towered above most others even in human form. The plump, rounded body—the word endowed was not up to the task of describing it—made this creature barely recognizable as a woman.
A colorful hydrangea headdress was perched upon her hair, dyed a silvery purple and towering toward the sky. A violet stole was tossed over her shoulders, covering a shockingly bright purple summer dress. Every finger on her hands had a large amethyst ring on it, and her high heels were coated in a purple enamel. She had on purple rouge, purple eye shadow, and enough thick snow-white foundation that one could imagine it cracking apart if you slapped her. The light dollop of red cheek blush applied over it seemed to shine as brightly as the sun. The image presented was one of an enormous purple potato that had been peeled in random locations.
“Hello there! I understand the two of you wish to move in?”
“It…it talks!”
Alciel’s instinctive response was understandable, given the daunting sight before them.
“My name is Miki Shiba, and I’m the owner of Villa Rosa Sasazuka.”
Still frozen in place, Satan and Alciel could see the real estate agent’s car peel off behind the purple presence in front of them.
“The name Miki is made up from the characters for ‘beautiful’ and ‘shine.’ Please feel free to call me Mikitty, though.”
The demons had thought they were beginning to get the hang of spoken Japanese, but something within their instinct made them reject the words being spoken by this puzzling tsunami of intent, this Shiba, before them that called itself a landlord.
They must keep their distance from her at all costs. They could feel that in their veins, and yet they found themselves being dragged into a room in this beaten-up apartment house, being forced to sign a litany of documents, and receiving a rundown of the nearby facilities.
“Well, then! Starting today, this will be your little sanctuary! I live in the house adjacent to here, so if you have any questions, please, don’t be afraid to give a holler. See you later, then!”
The purple hurricane then left. All that remained in the room was the utterly dumbstruck Satan, the equally silent Alciel, and a rental contract onto which a pair of purple lip marks had been pressed.
They had signed the contract, completely unable to mount any sort of protest. The two of them stood there, their minds blank, waiting to regain their composure so they could reflect over these sudden events.
The place was a dump, its landlord a nonhuman behemoth. But what other living space would be willing to accept two homeless, unemployed young men, a concept that would send any sane landlord running at first sight? They resigned themselves to their fate, knowing the answer all too well. At the very least, they wouldn’t be rained on.
So, deep in their hearts, the two demons swore to work hard, make the rent each month, and otherwise have as little to do with their landlord as possible.
“‘You have to start somewhere,’ as they apparently say around here. Perhaps this is exactly what we need.”
They were overwhelmed in battle against the Hero, battered by the wild journey across the flows of the Gate, and mentally fatigued by their adventures in an unfamiliar world. Satan, the Devil King, was rapidly expending his magical force, his breathing ragged after only two hypnoses. The sense of extreme exhaustion was like none he had ever tasted.
So the Devil King fell asleep. And he stayed asleep for three days and three nights, healing his scarred body and drained soul.
Then, after sleeping three days straight without eating or drinking, Satan was taken to the hospital for malnutrition. The dehydration and vitamin deficiency had immobilized him.
In order to rescue his master—near death, skin dry and pallid, empty eyes staring aimlessly into space—Alciel had been forced to ask their landlord, Shiba, for help the third day after moving in. He had absolutely no idea what manner of medical facilities to expect in this world.
Using a long-distance communication device known as a “telephone,” Shiba summoned an “ambulance,” a white car that, again, spat out red light.
Sitting in a hospital room, watching his bedridden master as an IV drip flowed into his arm, Alciel realized they were akin to the humans of this world not just in external appearance, but internally as well. He started to cry, unable to withstand the humiliation.
Reality, however, would prove cruel to them in ways that Alciel had yet to anticipate.
In this world, receiving medical care costs a vast amount of money. There was a public system of sorts, apparently, to reduce individual medical costs, but naturally, neither Satan nor Alciel had enrolled in any such program.
The medical fees presented to them could only be described as brazen profiteering, something Alciel could understand even with his tentative grasp on the value of this nation’s currency. Once allowed to leave the hospital, Satan was forced to use hypnosis once again to make the bill go away.
Right now, what they needed over anything else was money. Money earned with methods besides getting arrested or wasting magic.
That, and the national health system. They needed in on that action, too.
For the final usage of Satan’s hypnosis, the pair agreed to travel to a “bank” to obtain an account and some monetary resources. Putting the teller under his spell, Satan took ten thousand yen from the employee and used it to open a regular savings account.
It was completely illegal, but no sensible demon would even flinch at the concept of robbery. The thrill at finally obtaining the seed money for their new lives overcame the nagging impression within Satan’s mind that they were making some kind of mistake.
The ten thousand yen was used to purchase the food necessary for survival, as well as something called “résumé forms.” A “résumé,” it turned out, was considered indispensable for obtaining employment.