The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

air-conditioning. A bare wisp of wind coursed through the room when all the windows were thrown open. Their only recourse was to hope the fan could amplify the fresh breeze just a little.
    Said fan was another purchase from the 100th Street shopping district, this one having run Maou one thousand yen at the thrift shop. That, alongside the bamboo blinds they bought from a home-improvement store to block direct sunlight, allowed them to just barely survive in the heat.
    “Hey, by the way, what was all that clattering outside?”
    Lucifer asked the question out of the blue, fanning his face with a paper fan festooned with advertisements for a neighborhood pachinko parlor. Maou and Ashiya exchanged glances.
    “You’ve been here the whole time and you didn’t notice?”
    Maou pointed at the wall they shared with the adjacent apartment.
    “Someone moved in next door.”
    Urushihara looked toward the wall as he nibbled on the pickled ginger included with his meal.
    “Huhh?! Are you kidding me? Who would actually
move into
this pile of crap?”
    There was no clearer demonstration of how useless the surveillance camera was, not to mention the person controlling it.
    “You had to have heard
something
from the other room. There was a moving truck here and everything. Plus, the corridor window is wide-open. Didn’t you notice the moving guys or anyone?”
    Urushihara shook his head.
    “Nope. Sure didn’t.”
    “You were browsing videos and listening to music or whatever, weren’t you?”
    Maou tried to frown as disapprovingly as possible. Urushihara shook his head as he continued tucking into the pork and rice.
    “No, really, I totally didn’t notice.”
    “Quit talking with your mouth full! You’re spraying bits of rice all over the place! And throw away that pointless surveillance camera at once!”
    Ashiya’s running commentary on Urushihara’s self-indulgent lifestyle was quickly becoming another hallmark of the summer season around Devil’s Castle.
    “No way, dude! It cost me five thousand yen with the software!”
    The shock waves that price quote sent across the room caused Ashiya’s hand to slip as he attempted to tie a garbage bag closed, ripping it open at the mouth instead. Maou brought a hand to his forehead, staring listlessly at the floor.
    “So did you run into whoever moved in yet?”
    Maou shrugged at the useless Urushihara’s question.
    “Well…we met, I guess.”
    Nothing, not even shaking her or slapping her cheek, could get the girl who fell off the stairs earlier to wake up.
    With no other option at hand, Maou brought her back upstairs, to the room she (hopefully) was moving into. The entryway to Room 202 was propped open with a door stopper.
    The lighted one-hundred-square-foot space, a dead ringer for Devil’s Castle next door, was packed to the gills with unmarked, new-looking cardboard boxes, as well as a polished, wooden, valuable-looking clothes chest and (oddly enough for the season) something resembling an open-air brazier.
    Her appreciation for the traditional Japanese lifestyle apparently went beyond her wardrobe.
    Maou and Ashiya looked at each other for a moment before venturing inside the residence of this strange woman. They brought her to the center of the room, laying her down gently.
    She showed no signs of awakening anytime soon, but she wasbreathing. After some debate, Maou and Ashiya decided to leave her alone, resolving to check up on her later and call an ambulance if she was still knocked out.
    They removed the doorstop for safety’s sake, though they naturally had no way to lock the door from the outside.
    “The girl must have a hell of a lot of stuff, too. The room was floor-to-ceiling boxes.”
    “I’m not gonna ask you to stay out of sight since she’s right next to us anyway, but try not to get involved with her as much as possible, all right?”
    Urushihara’s eyes teared up a little after Ashiya finally lost his patience and landed a sledgehammer blow on