After leaving Mordecai’s guild room, Carl chooses a small, shabby pub so the party can avoid attention and get some sleep. Mongo tests his new electric fang caps, and the group settles into The One-Eyed Narwhal, where the human barkeep Fitz rents them rooms. While they eat, the recap show highlights other crawlers, including a goat-keeper whose pet biscuit created a terrifying hellspawn familiar, and it briefly shows Mongo’s defense of Donut. During the meal, an older orc NPC named GumGum approaches asking for help, but Mordecai immediately rejects the obvious quest and tells everyone they are done taking floor-four quests.

That night, Carl cannot stop thinking about GumGum crying in the pub, so he tries to sneak back out. He is too late to find her, and Mordecai catches on immediately. Mordecai warns Carl that he cannot save everyone and that the people running the dungeon will keep using that instinct against him, so the smartest way to help anyone is to survive, grow stronger, and go deeper. Carl says nothing, returns to the room, and Donut correctly guesses he had tried to get the quest.

The next morning, Mordecai lays out a strict plan: shop, grind experience, kill only a neighborhood boss, return before dark, and visit the Desperado Club only with an escort. At Lucky’s General Goods and several other stores, Mordecai explains that shop descriptions can be exaggerated and that Donut’s Charisma makes her the best negotiator. Donut proves him right by charming multiple merchants and selling off much of their useless loot. Although the town lacks the magical gear they really want, Mordecai has Carl buy a large supply of alchemical ingredients, and the party spends heavily on a magical pet carrier so Mongo can finally rest properly and be safely stored when needed.

Once outside town, the party has a relatively smooth day of fighting. They farm floating psionic monsters called brain boilers, but Carl, Donut, and Mongo handle them easily because the creatures’ mental attacks do not affect them much. Carl raises Iron Punch to level ten and gains the Breadbasket effect, which can stun enemies on a solid hit. Later, Donut’s new Acute Ears skill warns the team about a neighborhood boss called the Dispenser, allowing them to counter its ambush. Donut uses summoned brain boilers and a clockwork duplicate of Mongo carrying dynamite, and the team kills the boss quickly, levels up, and adds the explosive tactic to their playbook as “The Boomy Boy.”

On the way back, Carl notices suspicious map markers and investigates despite the bad smell. He finds GumGum outside the town gates stacking a pile of female corpses, which the system bluntly identifies as dead hookers. GumGum explains that unknown women keep appearing murdered in town’s alleys each morning, often twisted apart and partially drained of blood, while the skyfowl authorities only care about removing the bodies. Because Carl cannot ignore what he sees, he listens as the system offers a new silver-box quest, The Sex Workers Who Fell from the Heavens. Even though he knows Mordecai will be angry and Donut doubts this will stay simple, Carl agrees to help GumGum investigate.