Kobe Bridge, New Port Town, Chuo Ward, Kobe City.
"Beep, beep, beep!"
Several local police cars sped past, their sirens blaring.
"Why are there police again? This is the third bunch today."
"Didn't the community notice say there might be a murderer on the loose around here? They told us to avoid going out at night."
On their way home from the convenience store, housewives carrying grocery baskets and holding children whispered to one another, worry on their faces:
"A high school classmate of mine who works at the police station said there have been several disappearances over the last two months. Could the murderer be behind those too?"
"How frightening! Last week, a mansion in Kitanocho had a gas pipe leak, and the whole house burned down."
Housewives had the best grapevine, and Kobe City had indeed been far from peaceful over the past few months.
"Do you think monsters could be causing trouble? Like that Night Parade of a Hundred Demons in Kyoto a few days ago..."
A middle-aged woman walking a Shiba Inu abruptly spoke up, bringing the conversation to a standstill.
"Oh, Rika, don't say such frightening things."
"Kobe City is actually very peaceful already. We're probably worrying over nothing."
The other housewives hurriedly spoke over one another in a fluster.
Happiness was relative. Compared with Kyoto City, which had suffered the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, what had happened recently in Kobe City could only be called trivial.
Kobe City and Kyoto both belonged to the Keihanshin Metropolitan Area, one of Japan's three major metropolitan areas, and were not far apart. When Kyoto's 2.6 million residents were evacuated, quite a few had been accommodated in Kobe City.
Perhaps some of these housewives even had relatives from Kyoto staying with them.
Fortunately, the government had