WE WENT TO BEELZEBUB’S HOUSE
It was another day, and we had another visit from Beelzebub.
“As always, here’s your present. These are valuable nuts in the demon lands.”
“Yaaay! Thank you, Miss Beelzebub!”
“Many thanks.”
She was currying favor with my daughters again, trying to play her cards right to adopt them and take them home with her.
If she thought my daughters were that cute, then she should just get married and make her own. Well, I’ve been single for three centuries; I have no room to talk. I shouldn’t make comments about other people’s lifestyles, anyway.
“My manor is full of all sorts of delicacies. I am the agricultural minister, after all. I get plenty of free food samples.”
That sure was a perk.
And then I suddenly realized something. “Oh yeah, what is your house like, Beelzebub?”
Beelzebub was always popping in to the house in the highlands, but we’d never visited her house once.
“’Tis a resplendent abode. I am a high-ranking demon, you know! The outer facade alone is imposing enough to take your breath away!”
Beelzebub was clearly proud of it. Not many people would boast about their own home so candidly.
But she was an important person for the demons, so it wasn’t surprising that she would live in an amazing place. Actually, I’d really hate to see her living in a tiny broom closet.
“Then could we come over sometime for a peek?”
For a second, Beelzebub was nonplussed.
“Oh, Falfa wants to go to Miss Beelzebub’s house!”
“Shalsha is very interested, too. I would love to have a look.”
The girls were into it. They had a more voracious curiosity than normal children—or maybe it was better to call it enthusiasm for study.
She had been to our house in the highlands a lot, so we had the right to go to hers.
“O-of course… But my two leviathan secretaries have been quite busy as of late, so it may take some time to arrange transportation…”
“We can fly ourselves, since we have two dragons here. They move faster than leviathans, at least.”
“Blue dragons are super-fast!” Flatorte called from another room. I’d like to request safety over speed, please.
“Oh yes… Then tell me your dates, and I can snag good lodgings for you ahead of time…”
“What? Don’t you have a magnificent manor? Why not just use some of the extra rooms inside?”
Rosalie could stay somewhere for free because she was a ghost, but paying for everyone else in the family would get rather expensive.
And then there were Beelzebub’s attempts to avoid this whole thing.
“Beelzebub, don’t tell me your house is way smaller than we think?”
I was getting reminded of that trope in Japanese comedies where a character who looks filthy rich is actually dirt-poor. Even if she didn’t live in a broom closet and actually had a little two-bed, one-bath place, she would have a tough time inviting us over after acting so high and mighty.
“Of course not! My manor is enormous! Famous within the neighborhood! There is no doubt about that! Do you think I would spin lies that could be so easily found out?!”
She started feverishly denying it!
But it was true; if she had a small house, then she wouldn’t have been so openly bragging about living in a big one.
“However, if a whole group of you was coming and you needed rooms for everyone, then I would have to attend to those needs. That is why I just thought about arranging outside lodgings for you. Th-that’s it…”
“Oh, right, sorry for doubting you…”
She wasn’t a university student letting a friend stay the night in her dorm.
But still, I was getting a strong vibe that she didn’t want us to come.
“All right! Falfa is going to ready her sleepover bag!”
“I may not be able to sleep if I change my pillow. I require my pillow. And I can’t forget a book to read during my free time.”
The girls were very excited for this, so we couldn’t pull back now.
“Then the whole family will go. Do you mind Nutri-Spirits as your thank-you gift?”
“I do not mind either way. Come empty-handed,” Beelzebub responded, clearly anxious. “I need to start as soon as I get home. I need to start making preparations…”
We asked when Halkara would be off from work at her company, then officially picked our dates.
We made our way there, taking breaks and staying the night at places along the way. The demon lands were still pretty far, even at the speed of a dragon.
Beelzebub could come all the way to the house in the highlands so often because she was using teleportation magic.
I did try to learn it once out of convenience, but not only was it more of a hassle than I thought it would be, the pronunciation contained unique sounds only demons could make, so I just couldn’t really pull it off.
Being a high level didn’t mean I’d get good at pronunciation, so demon magic was hard for me to use.
Or maybe demons were just tougher and didn’t get tired. Or maybe all the demons I knew were just weird.
Along the way, Laika and Flatorte started to race, but I stopped them immediately.
“You need to drive carefully! You have people on your backs! Halkara is crying!”
“I’m losing consciousness… Actually, I think I’d prefer it if I passed out and woke up when we got there…”
We didn’t want our ditzy Halkara to fall, worst case, so she was being held in place with a rope tied around dragon-Laika’s stomach. That was her literal lifeline.
“Big Sis Halkara is weak when it comes to this stuff.”
Rosalie was a ghost, but she was staying right on Laika’s back because of inertia, I guess?
When it started to get a little chilly, we spotted the demon lands off in the distance.
“Lady Azusa, where shall I land?” asked dragon-Laika.
“Let’s see. Land to the north of Vanzeld Castle. Beelzebub’s manor is apparently close to the north side.”
Now then, how was Beelzebub living?
We walked down through the demon castle, following the address we’d been given earlier.
I’d gotten used to the sights of a demon city. I was actually visiting the demon castle town way more than the human realm’s castle town. Probably because I had too many demon acquaintances.
Our destination came into view way before we arrived in front of it.
There stood an enormous three-story European-style manor with a large front garden. There was even a high wall and a golden gate around it right in the middle of the road.
“Big Sis, she’s a bona fide rich person…” Rosalie, who was born a commoner, stared in awe at the scale of it all.
“Yeah… I almost feel guilty for doubting her for even a second…”
But how were we supposed to get in? The manor itself was set way back. Any children shouting, “Come out and play!” would go unheard by the people inside.
The gates were practically ten feet tall. We could fly over and get in that way, but that would be rude. That’s how thieves get in.
—Then we heard a wild dingalingaling.
Flatorte was ringing the large bell to the side of the gates.
“Hey! That’s too loud; you’re disturbing the neighbors!”
“But I think this bell is for people to announce that they have business here.”
It did look like an alternative to an intercom. We couldn’t announce the purpose of our visit without a doorman.
Flatorte’s insight was correct. After a little while, Beelzebub emerged from the manor.
The place looked big enough to house a whole staff of maids and butlers, but maybe it was the rule that the host herself entertain the guests.
She undid the gate lock from the inside. “You made it! My apologies for entertaining you in such a humble abode, but please do come in.”
“Come on. I know that’s what you’re expected to say, but it’s too much now… You were just bragging about how splendiferous your house was not too long ago.”
We were first led to the dining hall on the first floor. I was already thirsty, so her hospitality was spot-on.
“I have many types of tea, so please drink whichever one you please.”
“Oh, thanks,” I replied. “When in Rome, I’ll do as the Romans do—can I have a spicy tea from the demon lands?”
“The demon nobility sure is prosperous. These sorts of manors are not often found in the human world.” Laika gazed around the room, genuinely impressed.
“I have been the minister of agriculture for a long time, you know! ’Tis a given! Heh!”
Beelzebub seemed relieved to be able to show that she was genuinely rich. Any doubts anyone would’ve had flew out the window once she showed them all this.
Afterward, we rambled on in conversation.
We always saw each other, so it wasn’t like we were constantly waiting to catch up, but we still had plenty to talk about.
Beelzebub occasionally went to fetch demon sweets, so I never felt the need to go out of my way to ask for more.
“Try this one. It’s rather salty, but it’s delicious once you begin chewing.”
Beelzebub recommended to me something that looked like a subspecies of pickled plum. I took it, and then I stumbled on a thought.
Beelzebub had been the one retrieving the candy this whole time. I mean, we were the guests here, and we didn’t know where she kept it, but it was usually a maid or something who did all that, right?
Meaning she didn’t have any maids.
Was she living all alone in such a big house?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that; I lived alone for a really long time myself. But it wouldn’t be strange to have one or two maids for a house this big. Even a high-ranking demon would have trouble keeping the house running alone. Some people get mentally fatigued from being around strangers, so maybe she decided to live on her own?
I thought seeing Beelzebub’s house had solved the mystery, but now there were even more mysteries.
Anyway, us adults could sit around chatting for ages, but there were children here who weren’t satisfied with that.
“Miss Beelzebub, Falfa wants to explore the house!”
“Shalsha agrees. We will stay within a range that won’t trouble you.”
Indeed—Falfa and Shalsha were excited to be in such a big house. They probably wanted to look at everything and race down the hallways.
“Very well. I shall show you around.”
And so we began the obligatory tour from the lady of the house.
“First, this is the kitchen.”
Yeah, this kitchen wasn’t your average kitchen—it was huge. I almost wanted to cut it out and paste it in my house to use for medicine making. Laika seemed jealous; she loved cooking.
“Next, this is the bathroom.”
Ooh, the bath is big enough to fit ten people at the same time.
“And this is the toilet.”
Well! That’s a real flush toilet that uses water magic.
“And if you look out the window from that hallway, you can see a proper garden.”
We wouldn’t be able to see the whole thing unless we went outside, but it sure was big. I could even see a pond. It was more of a forest than a garden.
“And that concludes our tour!”
Ohhh, wow, I see, I see— Hey, wait a second.
“Hold on, hold on. Beelzebub?”
“What? I can tell you more about the garden once we reach the hallway.”
“You showed us, like, nothing. This house should have way more rooms, even just on the first floor. And we still have the second and third floors.”
“Urgh… Very well. Then I suppose we’ll go around a little more…”
The next place Beelzebub led us to was—
“This is my room.”
There was a large bed, a dresser, and a vanity in the room. It definitely felt like a private bedroom, but…it was a little too cozy for how big the house was.
It sort of felt like these rooms were all there was…
“Hey, do you not usually use any of the other rooms, then, Beelzebub? This feels like a studio apartment for a single woman.”
“I—I am free to live as I please! And I have private spaces I do not wish to show the public…”
—Then, all of a sudden, Falfa darted out of the room.
“Falfa wants to see the second floor, too!” She ran down the hall and headed straight for the stairs!
“As her little sister, I must follow her.”
She didn’t run with as much enthusiasm as Falfa, but Shalsha could keep pace with a jog.
“Hey! The second floor is off-limits!”
Beelzebub tried to stop them, but the mischievous duo wasn’t going to listen to her.
They tromped right up the stairs to the second floor as Beelzebub and I chased after them.
But what would await us upstairs?
“Yaaay! Exploring, exploring!”
Falfa was already all the way up, and Shalsha reached the top a moment afterward.
Falfa threw open the door nearest to the landing, and—
She fell to her rear right on the spot.
“Ahhh…ahhh…waaaaah…!”
Shalsha, on the other hand, stood stock-still with tears brimming in her eyes.
“Wh-what is it?! Did you see something you shouldn’t have?!” I called.
I doubted it, but it was still the manor of a demon, so I hoped it wasn’t anything violent…like a row of skewered humans, or anything else too graphic…
I hurried up to them.
And what I saw was—
A room that was practically abandoned, almost pure white from all the cobwebs and dust.
This wasn’t an environment for someone to live in. No, I bet not a single person had even stepped inside for at least fifty years.
“Is this not your manor…? What is happening here…?”
Now that I looked, I could see the floor on the second story was covered in a thick layer of dust. There were clear footprints where the two had gone, as if they’d run down a street with a fresh blanket of snow…
“You saw…” Beelzebub caught up to us with a look of resignation.
“There’s a lot I want you to explain. You will tell us, right?”
Beelzebub nodded slightly. “First, I’m telling you the truth when I say this manor is mine.”
So she wasn’t lying. The problem was the miserable state of the second floor.
“But it is much too big for me to manage, so I live only in a portion of the space on the first floor… I do not go anywhere on the second floor and up!”
The mystery was solved. Now I understood why she made that face when we said we wanted to come over, despite her magnificent manor. There was no place for guests to stay, and she couldn’t show people how white these rooms were…
And by the way, even the rooms on the first floor that she hadn’t shown us were in the same state. I heard a noise coming from one of them, opened the door, and—
“Ooooh, this dust is too strong… I’ve had enough already…”
“It’s almost time for a break, Vania, so please just power through… This is tough for me, too…”
The leviathan sisters Fatla and Vania wore respiratory masks, fighting desperately against the dusty room!
I peeked into another room to find Fighsly scrubbing away at the walls and floor.
“Compared to the days when I get all worn out from training, I feel like a normie just being out of the rain and wind!”
She sure was working hard. The martial arts were a kind of manual labor, so she wasn’t entirely unsuited to the work.
Afterward, after pressing Beelzebub for more details, I learned that this manor hadn’t been passed down in her family for generations but instead had been given to her once she reached the position of minister of agriculture.
“You’re not from nobility at all.”
“No, I just automatically became a noble after I entered society as a government official… My parents are both commoners… It embarrassed me, so I never mentioned it. Apologies…”
“But Beelzebub is your real name, right? You sound plenty strong.”
“There are commoners who name their children after saints among humans as well, aren’t there?”
Oh, now that she mentioned it, she was right. There were plenty of women in the world named Maria.
Beelzebub was an upstart. She probably had a hard time revealing that to us after spending all this time acting so arrogantly.
And now that she had a manor, she didn’t know how to live the high life and apparently chose to do what she could on her own, without hiring a single maid or butler.
I’d wanted to live in a big house when I was a corporate slave back in Japan, but there were limits. Even if I got myself a house too big for my place in life, I wouldn’t know how to deal with it.
But as I listened to Beelzebub explain, I started feeling strangely and unpleasantly hot.
When I turned to the source of the heat, I found Laika. “Lady Azusa, don’t you think it’s a waste to have such a grand house without effectively using all of it?”
Well, it sounds like she’s opened her eyes to something…
“Let us clean this manor!”
I knew she’d say something like that! She was such a straightforward girl!
But I felt a little uncomfortable. This wasn’t just helping with cleaning for a normal house. It was a whole manor, and there would be an unimaginable number of rooms. If we simply poked at it here and there, it’d be a mere drop in the bucket…
“Hey, Laika? Why don’t we just do what we can with the empty rooms on the first floor…? If we did a thorough cleaning, I could easily see it taking a week…”
Beelzebub wasn’t having any problems with her present living space, so that was probably good enough.
“Lady Azusa, I have a secret plan. I can improve the state of this manor in a very short period of time.”
Was that possible? Well, Laika sure seemed to think so.
She pointed a finger straight at Flatorte. “I place our dignity as dragons on the line and challenge you to see which of us can clean the fastest!”
I see. She’s stirring up Flatorte and turning the cleaning itself into a competition.
But Flatorte was more the sloppy type if anything, and I highly doubted she would agree to join a cleaning race—
“I’ll win every competition against you! That is my pride as the great Flatorte!”
She hopped right on board!
For a brief moment, I thought I saw darkness in Laika’s smile. I could almost hear what she was thinking: This girl’s an idiot.
I think she’s learned how to manipulate Flatorte. I wanted Laika to stay pure and innocent for as long as possible, but I guess anyone would learn how to make their way in the world after living for such a long time. You could call it a kind of growth. Please grow even stronger, Laika.
“Then first, let’s set dinnertime as our deadline. The one who cleans the most within that time period wins.”
“All right! I’ve got this! I, Flatorte, will blast all the dust and cobwebs and furniture in this house to smithereens!”
“Wait, please don’t destroy the furniture, okay…? This is Miss Beelzebub’s house, you know…? Please be careful with the furniture…”
Flustered, Laika marked their limits. Flatorte might’ve had the spirit, but with how roughly she tended to handle things, it was possible the manor might be destroyed.
At any rate, Operation Race to Quickly Clean the House was starting to form.
When the leviathan sisters heard that the dragons were doing a cleaning race, they were overjoyed. They probably knew that meant less work for them. In fact, they seemed happier than Beelzebub herself.
“Well, cleaning isn’t a bad thing, so they can clean all they like.”
At its core, it was a good thing to do. There was no reason for me to stop them so long as they didn’t overwork themselves.
“All right, our judge will be—”
I looked upward. Floating there was Rosalie.
“—Rosalie, would you do the honors? I don’t really want to go to the second and third floor…”
“Roger that!”
It was times like these that Rosalie was a big help.
And so, the dragons’ cleaning race began. Laika started her cleaning on the second floor and Flatorte on the third. Everyone else waited in the first-floor dining hall.
“Oh, and to be honest, the garden is overgrown with weeds, or mostly trees and shrubbery, rather. I haven’t tended to it much…”
“This manor is way out of control!”
It was almost useless to her…
Maybe she didn’t need a grand mansion if she was going to live on her own…
“But I feel bad leaving all the cleaning to them, so I suppose we could at least help clear up the garden,” I offered.
“I am rather knowledgeable when it comes to plants.” Halkara pounded her chest, as though telling us we were in good hands. And her chest jiggled. Show-off!
“Indeed. I suppose ’twould not be bad for me to get some exercise.”
My daughters were fidgeting, apparently excited just to go out into the garden.
It looked like their trauma from seeing the dusty white room was gone now.
“All riiight! Let’s begin our project to make this manor nice!”
—And the sun started setting.
“It’s too big. Or maybe I should say it’s too deep…”
Those of us in the garden cleanup crew stood in frustration at the entrance to the garden.
Everything growing there was some kind of tree with thorns in it, and they were all deeply rooted. Some of them were over thirty feet tall, which made it less like a garden and more like an actual forest.
Not only that, but the trees and grass carpeted every inch of the garden, which made it difficult to find a spot to step into in the first place. You could even call it a forest wall.
“An elf can do nothing here… This is a much different type of forest. Any elf who approaches would only be done in themselves…”
“I’ve not stepped into this garden once since becoming the minister of agriculture… And I heard it’d been mostly left untouched since before then, so I suppose it’s been this way for at least five hundred years…,” said Beelzebub, the garden’s owner, with an exasperated sigh.
“You can’t call this a garden. It’s just a wildwood…”
It was growing rapidly without any outside influence.
I squeezed between two of the trees and went inside. There was even grass growing in the gap, too.
“It would take weeks just to pull all this grass out…”
Since this was the demon lands, I wouldn’t be surprised if the roots went down for miles.
I grabbed a handful of grass nearby and gave it a good tug just to see. The roots were a normal length but very fat.
“As a witch, I find these very interesting.”
They looked perfect for medicine. I knew the demon lands wouldn’t let me down.
It wouldn’t be an awful idea to come all the way out here every so often to collect ingredients for potion making. All right, how about this grass?
“D-don’t pick that!”
I suddenly heard a strange voice, and my hands froze.
“Wait, did you yell something, Halkara…?” I turned to face where everyone else was.
“I’ve just been sitting here exhausted…,” she said.
Then who was that? It almost sounded like it came from the ground…
I looked down, and for some reason, there were traces of a mole crawling just beneath the surface.
“Did I bother a demon beneath the ground…? I don’t really know.”
More importantly, we had to see the results of the dragons’ contest.
First, the second floor.
“This is the result of my hard work!”
Two of the rooms on Laika’s second floor were spotless, ready for immediate use. It was easy to see her everyday approach in her results.
And then, on the other hand, we had the third floor.
“The great Flatorte clinches an overwhelming victory! Anyone can see the clear difference between the two!”
Yep, the difference sure was clear, all right…
Flatorte had cleaned most of the third floor, but it barely counted. She had swept in a circle in every room, leaving dust in every single corner. I could see white lines along the edges of the hallways, which meant she’d paid attention only to the middle and ignored everything near the walls…
But in terms of surface area, it was true that Flatorte had won by a landslide.
“I’m the judge here, but who am I supposed to announce as the winner in the end…?” Rosalie seemed distressed by the difference in quality.
“Yeah… It’s all up to you, Judge…”
The two in question both seemed confident in their own victory.
“There is no doubt that this is my win. Look how clean it is.”
“I, Flatorte, have a tripled score in surface area! Even a bribed judge could only say that this is my victory!”
Crap… Maybe we should have set more detailed win conditions…
“Erm, then…the winner is…no one! It’s a tie! No one wins!”
Taking advantage of her status as a ghost, Rosalie dashed through the wall and escaped. Just vanishing was a very ghostlike way of handling things.
Afterward, Laika and Flatorte quarreled for a long time, like I thought they would, but Beelzebub’s manor ended up just a touch cleaner than it was before. No harm, no foul.
“It really is manageable with a bit of cleaning,” Beelzebub commented.
“You make it sound like it’s not your problem, but you own this house—you manage it.”
“Indeed. I shall tackle the maintenance from now on…”
I didn’t know when the manor would take back its brilliance from yesteryear, but we’d come to stay over when it did.
“I shall work to make it clean enough for Falfa and Shalsha to stay over next time!”
“That sure is a wicked way to get motivated!”
My daughters were happy, too:
“Yaaay! A sleepover sounds like fun!”
“Staying overnight somewhere would contribute to my growth as a person.”
Beelzebub would go all out for Falfa’s and Shalsha’s sake, so maybe her house really would come out spotless before long…
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