Royo, a scar-faced hired bruiser in Umbria, collects a pouch of gold mun from a trembling merchant who has paid him to break another man’s nose and leg. Royo refuses to finish the job, reminding himself the payment was for injury, not murder, and leaves the victim whimpering in the alley despite a nagging impulse to help.

In the bitter winter cold, Royo heads to his regular tavern, Butcher & Ale, where he has done business for years and where the staff tolerate him because he keeps trouble down. Yuri, the taciturn bartender, serves him a beer and says someone has been asking for Royo.

When Yuri reveals the visitor was a young woman—pretty, mid-twenties, short black hair, big brown eyes, wearing a red velvet cloak—Royo’s reaction turns wary and tightly controlled. Yuri adds she is staying at the Black Shoe Inn, an expensive place, which makes Royo suspect a trap or unwanted complications. Royo insists he is not interested, but he cannot fully shake the news.

Royo abruptly leaves after only one beer, feeling oddly off, even imagining a blur of red and finding nothing when he checks. Outside, he passes the Black Shoe Inn and slows, tempted by curiosity, then forces himself to move on, trusting hard-won instincts and remembering how ignoring his gut once “cost [him] everything.”

Walking along the filthy Sol River toward his shack in the poorer end of town, Royo broods on Umbria’s decay under King Joon and on the cruel pain of hope. The chapter ends with a blunt revelation driving his fear and fixation: Royo believes the woman he is hoping for cannot be the one Yuri described, because Royo killed her.