"Try anything funny, and I'll throw you out," Kaede warned them, laughing. "I'll know right away if you pocket a candy. And no energy drinks on a loan. I'm serious."
Konrad didn't even have to ask anything after throwing out so many cans.
"We only need garbage bags," he promised, raising his hands in surrender. "If you'd point us in the right direction—"
"Garbage bags? For real?!" The girl's eyes widened. "You made him clean his room?! Tensai."
Because, of course, she had to be aware of that trash situation, too.
"It's on this end of that last row," she chirped, flashing the widest grin at him. "But for the love of anything holy, don't leave the tarps open. We've got a crow problem."
Crow problem? Tarp? Konrad was too busy thinking about that spell to notice anything.
"Yeah, whatever," Midori-kun grunted instead. "I'll go grab them."
"Uh, one roll should be enough," he yelled after him, staying behind.
The kid moved much faster when the dragoness kept an eye on him.
Konrad watched him go, fiddling with his uniform.
It has been a while since he's been in a shop. It was overwhelming.
Did he need something from here?
He had only two sets of clothes and the food that this girl left him.
He had no idea how far ahead he should have planned for his life here.
Not that he brought his valet. From school, he went straight to the Demon Lord's castle, and he saw no reason to bring money with him that morning. Back in his day, it wasn't customary.
Did this kid even have any?
He thought about going after, but Kaede's voice stopped him.
"So, had your chat already?" she asked in a whisper, her eyes still following the schoolboy.
"Something like that," Konrad mumbled, unsure what to say. "You knew he didn't want to return to Kasserlane." That, for one, wasn't a question. "You wanted me to convince him?"
"To be fair, even I considered staying here before he showed up," Kaede said with a shrug.
That didn't answer the question—and she was so mad when he floated that idea earlier.
"What changed?" he asked, stepping closer to the till.
"Everything," the girl smirked. "I spent seven months here thinking I was alone; that I was stuck. Then this idiot appeared with my ticket back home, and—"
She paused when the idiot in question reappeared with a roll of garbage bags in his hands.
Fair. She said she didn't have that kind of magic, not to mention wasting her mana on a fight.
But Konrad could learn it. He didn't need Midori to cast it for them, only to teach him.
How long would it take? Was it even possible to get it right without practicing?
No, the right question should have been if that prototype spell was working at all.
And, well, if leaving the Demon Lord behind was an option—
"I don't have money," the kid grunted, dropping his spoil on the counter.
"It would have surprised me if you did," Kaede said without batting an eye, scanning the barcode. "Two hundred yen. Anything else?"
She pulled out some coins from her own pockets, shoving them into the cash register.
Forget rent, this girl must have paid for everything, and Konrad felt terrible about it.
But, well, this also confirmed his suspicion.
Without mana, the Demon Lord was no more than a helpless little kid. A grumpy one, who didn't even try to fit in, but he couldn't hurt anyone in this state.
If anything, he needed someone to hold his hands, and Konrad was no babysitter.
"I'll repay you," he said, voice low, but determined. "I swear."
"Sure, sure," Kaede waved him off. "You'll pay me back in Kasserlane."
Yeah. He could do that. Take her back, return to his allies, all their problems, and—
"Great, everyone's in the same place, so I won't have to round you up," a voice boomed. It was all too familiar, but he hadn't heard it in ages. And even then, only in his dreams.
Lucifer.
The lighthearted mood and all the pondering about a brighter future were gone.
Midori-kun paled, Kaede's hands frozen over the register, his heart about to explode.
The angel didn't have his raven wings now, reminding him of Gabrielle more than ever.
Except for the hair. Short, black, and spiky, which didn't fit heaven's image at all.
How the hell did he wind up in here?!
"Good question, dear Konrad," the angel smiled, but it didn't reach his void-like eyes. "You see, your girlfriend—not this one, her future self—gave me quite a headache."
He didn't say that out loud.
Ugh. Two days on Earth, and he almost forgot that mind-reading existed.
And of course, he could appear when Lily disappeared from his arms yesterday.
If she were the only one keeping this—
"Now, language, boy," Luficer said, shaking a finger at him. "I'm still your guardian, you know."
Damn it. He had methods to fight mind reading. Even ones that didn't use his mana.
It made thinking harder, but he could live with that.
"What do you want from us?!" Konrad demanded, trying to list the first twenty numbers of the Fibonacci sequence. At the same time, he sifted through every rune he knew.
"So hostile," the angel sighed, his eyes narrowing as he noticed what he was doing.
One, one, two, three, five, eight—did it even do anything?
"Remember when I said we have a rule about not altering fate?" Lucifer asked, crossing his arms in the store's entrance. "I have a little correcting to do on that front."
"I'm not going back," Midori-kun shouted, surprising Konrad. "My fate was to—"
"Yes, to leave that world. I know. But not this early," the angel cut him off. "And this boy has no reason to be here, either. I'm going to return you and pretend this never happened."
"Wait, what?!" That was it? He only wanted to take them back? "Everyone?" Konrad asked.
Lucifer didn't answer right away.
"Well, not her," he said after a while, pointing at Kaede. "Lilith is way too much headache, present, past, future. I'm not stupid enough to restore her now that she's finally gone."
Of course. It would have been too good to be true.
"It would be a waste not to kill her now, while she has no way to fight back."
He said that with the most angelic smile.
Konrad needed all his self-control before he burned the place down.
"How about no?" he asked, faking calm as he tried to shield her with his own body instead.
Not that he could beat an angel. Both Gabrielle and this bastard were way out of his league.
But he knew of someone who could—
'How much mana do you need for your banishment spell?' he sent the mental question to the Demon Lord on his left. The kid's reaction almost betrayed it, but the angel focused on him.
"You dare to oppose me?!" Lucifer asked, his face distorting into a sneer.
But Konrad only cared about the answer.
"Eight hundred," Midori-kun announced out of the blue.
"What?" The angel raised an eyebrow, his anger forgotten.
But nobody answered him. Konrad grabbed the kid's arm, giving him everything he got.
"Do it."