Yuusha no Segare

Volume 4, Interlude – 2

Khalija was absentmindedly listening to the voices on television while thinking about having dinner. The time was five o’clock in the evening.

She was wearing a tracksuit and lazing around in the apartment that she was supposed to be sharing with Diana. If not for the sling on her broken arm, she would have looked exactly like a company employee who had no plans for their weekend.

Ever since Yasuo and Hideo had gone to Ante Lande, Khalija had been working in shifts along with Madoka to stand guard over Nodoka. However, Nodoka had an event called a parent-teacher conference that day and had plans for shopping and dinner with her mother after that, leaving Khalija completely free.

Despite that, she was still on a mission to guard the Kenzaki family, she had no Japanese currency to speak of, and on top of everything else, she was injured. For the above reasons, a day off for Khalija involved nothing more than lazing around at home.

There were no signs of the Carnelian of the Coal Mine or the Shii attempting to take advantage of Hideo’s absence to launch an attack. Nodoka’s surroundings were completely peaceful. Khalija and Madoka had not let down their guard, but they were not so tense that they would have an adverse effect on Nodoka’s life either.

“Oh well, it might not be so bad for the two of them to have some quality time together once in a while as parent and child.”

Since the two of them were spending time together, it would have been boorish for Khalija to butt in.

“Let us start with an emergency announcement.”

“Hmm?”

When it was time for the evening news to start, the newscaster said that with a tense expression.

“Earlier this afternoon, at just past four o’clock, there was an accident in which a passenger vehicle collided with a bus on highway number 16 at Iruma City in the Saitama Prefecture. The accident occurred on the two-lane road near the outlet mall, and we have received reports that many people were injured. We’re now switching to our correspondent on the scene……”

“How dangerous… Things like this happen because there are always people who go way over the speed limit. There are surprisingly a lot of things to watch out for other than the Shii.”

In order to sate the pangs of hunger in her stomach, Khalija walked into the kitchen to check the contents of the refrigerator while leaving the television on. Because of that…

“This information hasn’t been confirmed yet, but there are reports that a large number of passengers who were supposed to be on the bus have disappeared from the scene of the accident. Due to that, the police and the fire department are having difficulty estimating the actual level of damage…”

Khalija did not see the reporter on TV who was at the scene of the accident, or the heavily damaged bus that was on fire in the background.