11 The Devil and the Farmer Unite

Moments before their arrival…

"Wait! Don't ya dare..." Asaga put his hand up in a futile attempt to protect himself from what he believed to be Rame's attack. He closed his eyes, accepting the fate that he failed to save this world from a demon lord's reign. A sharp sound entered his ears and… That was it. "Huh?"

He opened his eyes. The man was still alive, but more importantly, everyone else around them had stopped moving. It was as if they were frozen in time, which was precisely the case as she explained it.

"Come on." She said to the speechless man. "Let's go help out Juuto." Rame had used her powers to temporarily stop the flow of time in the entire town. Though he was kept unfrozen because he had some use to her.

"I gotcha." Even if he didn't care for her, he wasn't going to let an innocent person get hurt if he could help it.

As they ran, he couldn't help but take a good look at her. She was certainly back to that evil form he was familiar with. The form where destruction and suffering was soon to follow. So then, why was she running into danger to save the life of humans? That made no sense to him at all.

But either way, it was a good thing that they came when they did. Juuto was about five seconds away from becoming roast human, as the former farmer summoned up his power once more to throw the only liquid around to quell the flames.

And that is where these two are at in the present time.

"Uh, do ya know who that is?" Asaga asked Rame. She didn't, but it was clear to the both of them where this person was from. He hailed from Enatis, just as they did. However, there was more to it than that. That earthquake had to be caused from earth elemental magic, they could tell the difference between that and a natural occurrence. But he was using fire as well, which must've meant he was one of the few capable of using more than one element.

That only meant one thing. Whoever this was, he was just not some random person who accidentally found their way to Earth.

The two of them got into their fighting stances. There wasn't going to be any way out of this with words.

"What's going on?" Mikuto panicked asked Juuto, who was just as bewildered with this situation as him. While he might not be sure of what to make what was happening before his very eyes, he did know what to do right now.

"You need to get out of here, and make sure everyone out front is okay."

"What? But what about you?"

"Well, I gotta keep my employee safe, right?" He turned and gave a very obviously fake smile. "I'll be fine, so just stay safe, you hear me."

"I will." He may not have agreed with it, but when he saw that smile. Mikuto knew instantly what needed to be done. "Just promise me you'll walk out of here."

"You got it." They knocked forearms, then the restaurant owner made his break towards safety. Fortunately, the mysterious man was too preoccupied to care about mere humans to care about one of them leaving the scene. It was no matter to him, he had his own methods of taking care of things.

Even though Juuto had no way of actually saving the day. He couldn't just leave those two to someone that was about to kill him just a minute ago. That person was serious, and he knew how this would end should they not win.

"Well, I ain't a clue on who ya are." Asaga was the one to speak up and end the unspoken staring contest between the trio. "But I do got a clue on what I'm about to do to ya." And with that, the battle began as he struck first.

He dashed forward without bothering to listen to Rame's warning. His hand dragging along the kitchen counter, pulling along bowls filled with soup. With a swing of his arm, he threw multiple broth-filled bowls towards his target.

His opponent moved so effortlessly, sidestepping the attack with just one step. Now it was his turn, and the counterattack was simple. He moved one finger upward, and the wind knocked his backwards.

"You know, maybe you should've listened to me." Rame scolded him, now that he returned to his original position. "This guy's no joke."

"It's bad enough that I gotta work with a demon lord." He fired back at her. "Don't expect me to listen to ya."

"Fine then." She gave up on trying to work things out. "I'll finish this myself." Her powers returning caused her to have a bit of arrogance to her actions. It had been a while since she felt this way, and it was getting her fired up.

She did the same thing as Asaga, charging right at her opponent. Her magic didn't require any outside forces, as she formed a scythe with her hands. She swung, and the unknown man simply leaped up and dodged her attack. He stood upon the counter, to which to followed up with another strike. Another leap, another miss.

Now she was left wide open, which the person took advantage of. Appearing in front of her, he shoved both his palms into her torso, sending her flying.

Asaga took this as his own chance for an attack. He ran forward, dodging over her to try and get close to his target. Meanwhile, she got blown out through the kitchen doors. He thought he had a clear shot, but his enemy decided to get his own revenge. Another flick of the finger, and a pot of broth was thrown right at him.

The attack connected, which sent the farmer flying off to the side. He landed right next to where Juuto was hiding.

"What are you guys doing?" He yelled. Things were looking bad for all of them. "You outnumber him, just attack at the same time."

"Easy for ya to say." Asaga retorted. "Ya just found out who she really is." The man was more than ready to get back up and fight, but he cursed the one flaw to his magic in this world. "Darn, if only there was more than just stupid soup and noodles for me to throw at him."

"Well, this is a soup kitchen." Juuto remarked, but then his statement made him realize an important detail about their environment. He looked up, and found exactly the plan that could save them all. The sprinklers.

This was a kitchen to a restaurant after all. There was need for safety considering the circumstances. Before she froze them, there should be tons of water going through as a result of the explosion. If Asaga needed a large source of water then…

"All right, I ain't done with you yet." Rame came charging back through the doors. She was starting to get really irritated that this random person seemed to be giving her a challenge.

"Rame!" Juuto yelled out in a commanding voice. "The pipes! Cut them now!" He pointed over for her to use the scythe magic for his plan to work. She didn't know why he wanted that to happen. But he was the boss after all, and he never gave bad orders.

So she did as he asked, swinging her weapon. It shot out a slash of darkness, cutting the pipe off just as he was hoping for. Her magical attack also allowed it to return back to its natural state. Soon, a flow of water came shooting from the now open end of the pipe.

"I see you're the person I'm looking for." The man said as he witness her dark magic in action. "Now I know who to kill." He went for the final blow at her. She had been distracted by Juuto's command, and there was no time for her to dodge.

Fortunately for her, Asaga was more than ready to execute his full potential in this world. Using his arms to grab at the water source like a rope, he pulled out a powerful stream from the pipes. He directed it with a powerful hose of water, hitting his target and blasting him out through the back window.

"Thanks." She said, then went running out through the door to give chase. When she got outside, she saw their attacker making a run for it. Or more accurately, a jump as he leaped up atop the buildings to get away from them. As much as the demon lord would've love to given chase, her body was beginning to feel the impact of battle. It had been a while since she used this power, and it was starting to wear on her body.

"Darn it." Asaga was frustrated over their failure to get a real victory today. "He got away."

"It's fine." While Juuto wasn't the biggest fan of allowing someone like that free in his town. There were more pressing matters. "Let's go back out front to make sure everyone's okay." Without any other options, they all went to the front. This was when Juuto found that everyone except for his friend Mikuto appeared frozen in time.

"What is this?" Said restaurant owner was freaking out over the sight. "What's going on today, everything's just so crazy." He waved his hand over the face of Sunae, where she didn't react at all. "Juuto something weird is going on, it's like everyone…" He went to explain the situation, but Rame put her hand up to his face, causing him to faint and nearly fall flat on the ground if it wasn't for her intervention.

"What did you just do?!" Juuto asked with worry in his voice, but she calmed him.

"I just erased his memories of what just happened." She was going to do that to everyone here. When they woke up, the only thing they'll believe just happened. Was that an earthquake shook the building a little, but that it was able to not break down from the pressure. Fixing the restaurant was the other major thing she did, in order to set thing right once more.

"I can't believe you can just do that." Juuto couldn't help but be impressed over her true powers.

"But, if ya do all that…" Asaga raised the concern over the obvious point for the two of them.

"I'll still have some left over." She said, as her form returned back to what Juuto had gotten used to. "It's fine. There's nothing I can do with these powers right now, so I'll make sure things get back to normal."

She did as she said she was going to do. With time still frozen for everyone but them, she performed a spell to implant a new memory to the people that were present here. Then she took the time to put them back inside of the now fixed and stable restaurant for the story to make sense.

"And now." She went to do the same with Juuto, putting her hand right up to his face.

"Wait." He grabbed her arm, stopping her from committing to the spell. "I don't want to forget about what happened today."

"Uh, I'm not so sure if we should let people know who we are." Asaga told her. There was a major risk if he was to know about the world they came from. Especially given that she was a demon lord. If people knew the truth of who she was, then it was probably going to be a death sentence.

"I'm your manager." He said to her, making a case for himself. "And I know everything about this neighborhood. Not to mention, that guy apparently knows who I am. So wouldn't it be safer if I knew what was going on as well?"

"…" Silently, her eyes stopped glowing. That gave the unspoken confirmation that she wasn't going to take away his memories of the truth.

"Thank you." Juuto said when it was clear that his mind was going to be safe. "Now, the two of you are going to tell me everything about what's going on here."