The next day.
Before dawn.
Isabet dragged her weary body out through the back alley after locking up the bar.
Suddenly, a dark figure appeared before her.
"Ah..."
Isabet cried out, then quickly recognized him. "William, you gave me such a fright!"
Suspicion filled her face as she asked, "You haven't gone home yet?"
"Home? I don't have a home in Plymouth, only a rented room..." William smiled. "I was a little worried about you, and I happened to be on the way, so I thought I'd walk you back."
"Isn't that too much trouble for you?" Isabet hesitated.
"No trouble at all, no trouble at all!" William recalled what he had seen that evening. "But this bar... it makes me feel like I've walked into a gang hideout. The work is exhausting too. If I weren't so desperately short on tuition, I'd have quit ages ago."
"I think it's all right..."
Isabet lowered her voice. "William... you probably haven't lived in Plymouth's Lower District or Ruined District... Compared to those places, this is already very good..."
After walking for a while, the two parted in silence.
William returned to his cramped lodgings, lit the gas lamp on the table, and grimaced as he kneaded his muscles to ease the exhaustion.
Under the gaslight, his eyes suddenly grew somewhat heated. He muttered to himself, "Plymouth really is no place for a person to live. Housing and prices are both far too high... During the day, I have to curry favor with Professor Suboni so he'll teach me Old Runic, and at night I have to work... If the pay weren't high enough, I definitely wouldn't do it."
After grumbling for a while, William took a key from his pocket and opened the brass lock on a drawer.
Inside the opened