Yorikof Town had not been as lively at night as it once was for a long time.
After saying good night to her parents, the young Philia returned to her second-floor bedroom. She removed the jeweled necklace from her fair neck, changed out of her heavy dress, and put on a pale yellow nightgown.
She wasn't very sleepy, so instead of getting into bed, she sat quietly before her dressing table, staring at the kerosene lamp.
The warm, dim glow reminded her of the glittering glasses in the ballroom. Those lavish parties had gone on until the small hours. The guests' chatter and laughter still rang in her ears; the sweet scent of delicate pastries had filled her nostrils, and handsome young men's admiring gazes had seemed almost tangible.
This should have been her ordinary life—the only daughter of Yorikof Town's leading banker.
But after all sorts of strange incidents began occurring, people stopped going out at night, and socializing became far less frequent. She hadn't seen the sons of those prominent families in ages, and the arranged marriage everyone had discussed was nowhere in sight.
It wasn't that Philia was in a hurry to get married.
Her parents treated her well, and her family was wealthy. She didn't need marriage to escape anything. She only found herself brooding at night and missing all those eager suitors because she had always loved a lively crowd and having people to play with. She had reached the limit of her patience with these boring nights.
That was right—she wasn't a proper young lady, but that didn't stop her from being the most popular girl in town. Everyone said she was full of life, like a bright, showy sunflower.
Ah—she'd heard that the investigators who had come to town went out at night