The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 3 by Satoshi Wagahara Page B

impossible to comprehend what they had just seen.
    “All right…
Hold up.
”
    Maou, much to his credit, was the first to snap out of it.
    “Wha, what, what on, what kind of, who…”
    His speech, however, had yet to crest the waves of confusion ravaging his mind.
    “How, how, I don’t know, how would I…?”
    Emi was no different.
    “Ma-Maou!”
    Urushihara managed to squeak out a shout from his vantage point upstairs. Suzuno and Ashiya shuddered at the sudden thunderbolt of speech as they looked upward.
    But Urushihara’s eyes were turned far away, toward the Sasazuka rail station.
    “Dude, someone’s coming!”
    The words were enough to propel everyone back into an ad hoc silence.
    Regardless of what this apple girl was all about, there was no way to tell how many people witnessed that huge flash of light. No matter what, they had to avoid the neighbors’ prying eyes.
    “H-hey, Emi!”
    “Wh-what?!”
    “Get this…this kid? She’s a child, right? Get her upstairs!”
    “Wh-why
me
?!”
    “She’s a girl! So’re you! Pick her up! I’ve never carried a human baby before!”
    “What, you think
I
have? I mean, I hugged one once, okay, but she hadn’t been lying in the dirt when I did!”
    “Hero! Devil King! How foolish the both of you are!”
    Suzuno sprang into action.
    Gently, taking care not to wake her, Suzuno used her well-practiced hands to pick up the apparently supernatural girl, now fast asleep after giving the neighborhood the shock of their lives.
    “Ooh, good one.”



“Clerics such as myself must learn how to handle the young for their baptismal ceremony! You! Alciel! I wish to bring her up to Devil’s Castle! Bring some bedding out!”
    “D-don’t you order
me
around, Crestia! Ow ow ow ow…”
    Ashiya grumbled to himself as he painfully lurched up the stairs.
    Following behind, Suzuno deftly removed her zori sandals at the base of the stairway, climbing up each dust-ridden step in her white
tabi
socks.
    “Hey, you go up there, too, Emi! Why’d Suzuno take her sandals off? Bring them up to her!”
    “Probably to keep from slipping, I’d guess! …Whoa! Bell! The bag!”
    Grabbing the things she and Suzuno dropped when the Gate opened, Emi awkwardly climbed the stairs.
    “That, and… Hey, Chi! Chi, what’s up? I haven’t seen… Huh?”
    Maou, at this point, finally realized that neither Chiho nor her trademark panicky voice had played any role in this affair.
    Looking around, he spotted her right where he had shaded her from the Gate’s light, staring into space in front of the tree.
    “Uh…hello? Chi?”
    Wild supernatural events like these shouldn’t have been enough to put Chiho in a stupor by this point.
    Did the torrent of light from the Gate have some damaging effect on Chiho, totally unprotected against demonic or holy energy? The dreadful thought crossed Maou’s mind.
    But, looking more closely, a twinge of red crossed her cheeks as a content smile spread across her lips. She was lost in reverie.
    “Hey, Chi? Chi?”
    “…We did it.”
    “Huh?”
    He brought his ear closer to pick up her whispering.
    “Maou…
held
me. He went up and held me tight. Hee-hee! So tight…”
    A hand went to her relieved, joyful lips as she whispered.
    “Ahhhhhhh…” Maou groaned plaintively to himself. “Hey!”
    “Agh!”
    He had clapped his hands in front of her face, eliciting a shout.
    “Please, Chi, back to reality!”
    “Ahh! M-Maou! I, uh, I, that—!”
    “Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry, but we don’t have time to chat about it over coffee, okay? Let’s go back to Devil’s Castle!”
    “Um? Ah, ah, ah! M-Maou! Hand, hand!”
    Unwilling to wait out Chiho as she navigated the road back to reality within her brain, Maou grabbed her hand and ran up the stairs.
    Everyone, including the apple girl, was now ensconced inside the Castle, each exhausted to the hilt for their own individual reasons.

    With the apple girl to one side—sleeping peacefully on her back atop a