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You have the gates of Hell. Beyond them are the fields of punishment where you are taken when you arrive here as a mortal. That lies behind the castle, which is to the north west in the only city in here called Satanica. But no one calls it that. I mean, there is only one town in Hell, so you can just say “the town” and everyone will know which one you are talking about. In the southern end of Hell, close by the gates in the darkest part of town, you will find a small dark building that hardly anyone enters unless they need something. That’s where I reside. Guards will come by from time to time to ask where a new mortal is supposed to be taken for their punishment, but that’s the only company I have… usually.
Then there was that day when the blue-haired mortal appeared before me. Yes, I’m talking about the one who isn’t in my records.
“Excuse me,” he said, and only then I lifted my nose from the archives and noticed him there.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Are you Hazama-san?” he asked politely.
“I am,” I said.
“I’m Shiota Nagisa,” he introduced. I knew that already. News travel fast down here. I’d say it’s almost too fast, considering where we are. But apparently gossip is popular no matter which realm you are in.
“And what are you doing here?” I repeated my initial question. I was in the middle of reading the life story of a particularly awful mortal.
“I’m sorry,” he said, apparently realizing that he had neglected to answer that the first time. “Since I will be staying down here for a long time, I figured I should learn as much about this place as possible. Nakamura-san directed me to this place. She said you were the one to ask.”
I’m not talkative at all, Nakamura should very well know that, but it is true that I probably know more about this place than most and how it works.
“Sit,” I told him.
He sat on a small stool and looked at me expectedly. I wasn’t sure if I liked that look on me or not.
“What do you want to know?” I asked him.
He gave the matter some thought. “Tell me what devils do normally,” he said.
Easy. “They execute mortals, or that’s at least the main purpose,” I explained. “Then there are the guards who prevent the mortals from escaping their punishment until their debt has been repaid. The rest just make the world go round.”
“So they aren’t eternally punished?” he asked.
“If they were, we would be overflowing with mortals,” I said, feeling myself go tired from the thought alone, so many more new punishments to make, so many more lives to keep tabs on. I would need to expand this place as it would be 10 times bigger than it is. “It’s all about karma. Once you have taken your punishment, your karma is in balance and you are ready for rebirth. Of course, there are those who have such bad karma that they will never be eligible for rebirth.”
“What kind of people are those?” he asked.
“People who try to play God,” I said. “If someone tried to set up a scene to force others to kill each other, they would have tried to take the role of God into their own hands. They will be forced to wonder the void for all eternity.”
“The void?” he asked.
“The area outside of Hell. There is only one usable path through it. You walked that path yourself. The void is infinite and with no light. The people who are sent there gradually lose their sanity and with their sanity they also lose their human form, turning into monsters. We have a reseach team who investigates what kinds of monsters there are out there.”
“Kurahashi-san?” he asked.
Shivers ran down my spine. I don’t mind her, but she is way too bright for my taste. In some way, she reminds me of my mother. Although, I would pick Kurahashi over my mother any day. Maybe that’s because she’s a demon.
“Like her, yeah,” I agreed.
“Could you tell me a bit about life down here?” he asked.
“Well, the main difference down here is how we age,” I explained. “The first 15 years we age like humans, but aging slows down around our 15th year. Rather than aging once a year, you begin to age once a decade instead.”
“Once a decade?” he asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Our king was born around 30 human years ago.”
That evidently surprised him. It’s not like I didn’t understand. I mean, the king and I were born around the same time. Neither of us look 30.”
“So… demons die too?” he asked.
“We do, but our lifespan is nearly 10 times longer than a human’s,” I told him.
“And me?” he asked then.
How would I know that? “Well, either your age is frozen in time, like all mortals who come here, or you age like a demon. I would ask Death about that.”
“Death is a person?” he asked.
“Sort of. He has an unusual appearance,” to say the least, “but he is a shapeshifter. He can appear human whenever he needs to. His role, aside from what you would expect is acting as a mentor and teacher for our current king in place of our former king and queen.”
I expected that he would ask what had happened to the king and queen next, and his mouth opened for a moment and then closed again, as if he thought better of it. I would have told him, but he didn’t ask after all.
“I think I’m almost done,” he said after a few minutes of wasteful silence. “I just have one more question. What do you do?”
That was surprising. People who don’t know usually don’t take any interest in my job if they don’t need to. Well, I do, and a handful others, but they already know what I do. No one has ever asked this before.
“I look through people’s lives and decide their punishments. The king or Nakamura-san will read my estimates. They have the final say, but usually we agree.”
“Why do this job?” Nagisa asked.
“It’s the most entertaining thing to do down here,” I told him. “Besides, all other jobs I can apply for are in the shops around town.” The idea of me working down there is worth throwing up over. I know my mom tried to have me apply for several jobs, like the flowershop, the clothes shop and the hairdresser. Who wants to work there?
“Couldn’t you become and explorer or a guard, or in charge of watching over the punishments?” Nagisa asked, tilting his head a little.
“The only one I would apply for would be as an overseer,” I said. “But only fully bread demons are entrusted with that, the other two duties too. They are too important for us half-breeds.”
“You’re only half-demon?” Nagisa asked. This seemed to surprise him just as much as the age thing. Well, I suppose you won’t suspect the being in the darkest corner of Hell to be anything other than a fully bread demon. My predecessor was a fully bread demon after all.
“Yes,” I said. I’m hoping he won’t ask the next question, but I’m not so lucky this time.
“Can I ask, what’s your other half?” he asked.
I sighed. Unlike the thing about the late king and queen, I did mind talking about this.
“My mom is an angel,” I told him. Just saying it makes me want to throw up. I can only barely tolerate the thought.
“There are angels down here?” Nagisa asked.
“Only very few. They aren’t exactly popular,” I said. “It’s the result of the great war lasting from 32 years ago and until 13 years ago.”
“A war between Heaven and Hell,” Nagisa guessed, cleverly.
“Just because we exist in the same realm doesn’t mean we can’t have wars,” I said. “To top it all off, my mother was the fool who got the war started. Apparently she was the daughter of some high ranking angel upstairs, but she ran away and met a man in the void, one of our scouts. He brought her here and Heaven began searching for her. No one knew she was hiding here for the first little while, but when the angels found out, all Heaven broke loose. War broke out, but some soldiers on both sides became incapable of fighting. After some time, my mom got the bright idea to try and stop the chaos by having a baby. That would be me. The dead mortals began piling up outside and many began to wander the void without being deserving of that punishment. Then the heads of Heaven and Hell tried to put a stop to it, but somehow, the king and queen of Hell got killed and it was the king of Heaven, together with Death and the soul guiders who stopped the war. Many of the angels who had found love in Hell were executed on the grounds of betrayal, but somehow my mom got spared,” I explained.
“You don’t think it’s fair,” Nagisa guessed.
“It’s not like I wish her dead,” I said. “But yeah, either kill all of the traitors or spare all of them,” I stated. “Well, some ended up fighting on Hell’s side, so that I understand.”
Nagisa nodded, but seemed to be too deep in thoughts to talk.
“If that’s all you have to ask, I have a job to do,” I said, lifting my interesting read back up to my nose. Checking the mailbox, a few more life stories had come in. I was falling behind.
“Okay,” Nagisa stood from his seat. “Thank you for telling me all this,” he said, bowing to me, as was his custom from life.
I didn’t say it, but I definitely wouldn’t mind if he came again. Talking about all these dark things relating to this dark place had been more interesting than I had anticipated.