The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, Vol. 5 by Satoshi Wagahara

situation, trying to follow them and getting spotted could even potentially cause cracks to form in her and Rika’s friendship. The idea offered no benefit to Emi.
    “In which case,” Emi whispered to herself, “maybe I should work toward my own goals every now and then…”
    She could no longer simply walk up to Maou and slay him. Not with Alas Ramus fused into her holy sword.
    Even if Suzuno’s hunch was right and someone decided to kidnap the Devil King and his general, that didn’t mean Emi was obligated to stick by them at all times. Until something actually happened, it’d be unwise to approach Rika, either.
    Which opened up other opportunities.
    Emi unfastened a pocket in her shoulder bag, inserted a finger, and plucked out a small, stone-like object.
    It was a Yesod fragment, misshapen and smaller than a marble.
    It had been embedded in the sword held by the Devil Regent Camio. Maou had tossed it over to her on the way back from Choshi, claiming he didn’t need it.
    Remarkably enough, Alas Ramus didn’t offer much interest when shown it.
    This was the first time Emi had obtained a fragment by itself, but considering Alas Ramus’s behavior and past, she assumed the child would extract whatever power the stone had and merge it with her own, or something. Just as Emi’s Better Half inadvertently led her toward Alas Ramus in the Devil’s Castle on Ente Isla. Just as the fragment on the other side of Ciriatto’s Link Crystal led his horde to the holy sword.
    And…
    Emi was trying to hunt down another Yesod fragment she was pretty sure existed in Japan right now.
    At the time, she hadn’t noticed it as such, but later Maou had named it a Yesod fragment.
    The jewel with the power to return Alas Ramus to normal. Carried by a woman who knew Alas Ramus’s name. A woman in white who approached her at Tokyo Big-Egg Town back on that day, wearing a ring festooned with a purple jewel.
    Could she be…?
    “…I better just leave it at that in my mind for now…” Emi shook her head, chiding herself.
    This was a person who shouldn’t have been here at all. A person she knew only through what other people told her. Someone who crashed with friends for days at a time, but never showed her face to Emi. It might have been her.
    “I can’t go breaking out my holy sword in public, either…”
    Ever since she obtained the fragment in Choshi, Emi had been putting together a way to make use of it.
    Yesod fragments were naturally attracted to each other.
    But the only ones Emi had so far were the Better Half, Alas Ramus, and her Cloth of the Dispeller.
    No matter how much she toned down her holy force, the sword would never shrink down beyond the size of a knife. Once her energy fell below a certain level, it would disappear entirely.
    She considered using the fragment in the sword’s scabbard, but that would require her to materialize the Better Half anyway. If the woman in white was in an urban area somewhere, Emi and her unsheathed weapon would be reported to the police in an instant.
    With Alas Ramus, though, the Yesod fragment that formed her core essence was apparently the crescent-moon design that occasionally appeared on her forehead.
    If she used that fragment to attract other Yesod fragments to her, that’d require her to carry a baby around with a light-up forehead that looked as if it should be firing death lasers at giant movie monsters. It wouldn’t be very inconspicuous.
    The Cloth of the Dispeller wouldn’t work, either. She didn’t know where the core of it was in the first place.
    Given the alternatives, taking a fragment the size of a pebble on the street and walking around with it in her bag was not a problem at all. She could camouflage it in any number of ways, too.
    There are tons of light-up key chains and other dinky little accessories these days, besides.
    The only concern that remained was the potential for this Yesod fragment to bring Gabriel and his heavenly cohorts upon her if she used