The soap water was cold. Keylerea woke before dawn. In the small inn called the Sunken Copper Coin Tavern, she stood over a floor plan spread across a modest table, slowly closing and opening her right palm. The sensation lingered—the touch of the angular outline carved into the stone pavement of the "Floor of Judgment" last night. A coldness that should have long since faded clung to her skin like a memory held in flesh. She traced her finger along the outline of the building drawn at the center of the floor plan. The Ash Washing Facility—a stone structure in the southern district of Valguren, officially designated as a labor facility for the "rehabilitation" of those subject to the Purification Decree. In reality, it was a place where those marked as "defiled"—beginning with the Gehert people—were forcibly confined and made to perform the exhausting labor of sorting and transporting iron ore. Legalized oppression under the laws of the Lascadia Kingdom, crystallized as an institution within walls of stone. Two reasons to infiltrate this place. First: a cover for concealment. If she obtained work as a cleaning attendant under the false name "Luve Dashken," she would be less subject to identity tracking. The high turnover of lower-class laborers meant records were sparse and easily lost. Second: internal information to locate a contact route to the Ash Survivors' League—an underground society organized by those who survived the Purification Decree. The facility held many Gehert prisoners. Among them, there might be those with connections to the League. The calculation was sound. Keylerea stopped her finger. At the southern edge of the floor plan, above the blank section marked "Scorched Territory," her fingertip stilled for just a moment. Noticing this, she moved it again immediately. Sentiment does not function. Tonight was calculation. The next morning, in the cold air, Keylerea stood at the rear gate of the facility. A gray linen jacket, worn cloth shoes. The cleaning attendant's outfit she had assembled at a secondhand shop the night before was so drab it seemed almost unnatural against her frame. The thin burn scar on her left cheek she left uncovered. There was no reason for a cleaning attendant to hide such a mark. The junior clerk standing before the rear gate glanced at the forged identification Keylerea offered and carelessly thrust a complete set of cleaning tools into her hands. "Don't be late next time." That was all. He didn't even bother to verify her name. The facility's logic of disposable labor seeped through that indifferent procedure. Keylerea nodded and took the mop and metal bucket. The interior of the facility was composed of low stone ceilings and narrow corridors. An old iron smell seeped from the walls. Sweat mixed with something else—something deeper rooted. Dried blood, perhaps, or the residue of fear accumulated over years. Keylerea began to identify the source, then stopped. Identifying it would change nothing. As she walked the corridor toward the stone work building, Keylerea kept her peripheral vision moving. The number and position of exits, the spacing of guards, the style of locked doors. The spatial awareness she had cultivated during her years governing territories in the southern continent inscribed information into her mind without expression. When she pushed open the door to the stone work building, the first thing that caught her eye was a chain. A thin chain was attached to a ring along the wall near the floor. Beyond it sat an elderly Gehert man. The base of his horns had turned white—a sign of age. Without even leather gloves, he sorted rough iron ore with his bare hands. The skin on his fingertips bore the marks of repeated cuts from the stone's edges. In the back of the room, a young Gehert was carrying bundles of stone. His back was bent. From fatigue, or from years of habit—either way, the outline of his horns, which should have been carried with pride from birth, appeared small above his hunched shoulders. Keylerea began to move the mop. She pushed the dust scattered across the stone floor forward in silence. Then her vision caught a moving shadow in the corner of the building. A small girl with long, pale blue hair tied back. --- Keylerea initially recognized her as an "anomalous value." The other prisoners moved with their eyes lowered. They completed their assigned tasks within their assigned scope. This was how those who had learned survival through their bodies moved—those who understood that excess observation invited danger, that standing out invited punishment. So everyone kept their gaze fixed to the floor. But this girl alone was different. She moved slowly through the building, observing, and when she found someone struggling, she approached without sound. She sat beside the elderly Gehert man Keylerea had seen earlier and silently took the bundle of stones from his shoulders. The man said nothing. The girl said nothing. They simply stood there together, carrying stone. At the midday distribution, the girl pressed half of her black bread into the hands of a small child sitting beside her. The child looked at the girl's face for just a moment, then gripped the bread. The girl did not turn her gaze that way. Keylerea observed and began to calculate coldly. She had influence among the prisoners. She had observational skill. She had earned the trust of the confined—this would function as a circuit for obtaining internal information. If she wanted to find a contact route to the Ash Survivors' League, passing through this girl would be most efficient. It was a correct judgment. And it should have been only that. But as Keylerea moved the mop across the stone floor, something deep within her body began to catch quietly. The girl's back as she took the old Gehert's burden. The outline of her horns—still young, still colored—overlapped with another image each time it entered her field of vision. A distant memory: Gehert children seen from above the castle walls. The habit of swaying their tails when they laughed. The younger version of herself, watching them with wonder. Two memories overlapped on the stone floor. Keylerea did not stop moving the mop. She did not change her expression. Only a small pain took residence in her chest—she recognized immediately what it was, but she knew where to push it down. By afternoon, her hands had begun to chafe from the soap water. The friction of the mop's wooden handle had worn the skin of her palms thin. The hands of a former ruler, worn away as consumable goods of a cleaning attendant. Keylerea accepted that quiet irony without expression. Supervisor Boltz Hagen entered the stone work building in the late afternoon. --- Hagen was a man in his early forties with broad shoulders, oil from yesterday's lunch staining the sleeves of his leather jacket. His patrol gait was slow, as if he owned the entire facility. He proceeded through the corridors, confirming that the prisoners averted their faces—this was the source of his satisfaction, and Keylerea read it at a glance. Hagen stopped in the center of the building. And his eyes fixed on the pale blue-haired girl sitting beside the elderly Gehert man in the corner. "You." His voice was low, stained like oil. "Yesterday and today, you've been carrying stone for that old man too. That's falsification of work assignments." The girl stood. She lowered her face. She knew this was the correct protocol. "Your rations are suspended for tomorrow." Hagen raised his right fist, encased in a heavy leather glove, casually. The angle at which he would strike her temple was already decided. A blow to a place that would leave no visible mark—Keylerea recognized this as a repeated gesture, one that had been performed many times before. The girl did not turn her face away. She stiffened her body and took the posture to receive the blow. This was her survival protocol. Receive it, endure it, carry stone again the next day. Whether she had learned this in this facility or long before—her body's stance told the story. From the corner of the corridor, mop in hand, Keylerea calculated. One second. Intervention was risk. If a junior cleaning attendant interrupted a supervisor's action, it would draw attention. Her cover would blur. Everything could collapse before she took a single step forward. This was only the first day of concealment. To use this facility fully, she had to remain transparent. The calculation completed in one second. She should not intervene. The moment that second ended, Keylerea's body was already moving. She "accidentally" knocked over the bucket. The metal sound rang across the stone floor. Soap water spread across the corridor, flowing to Hagen's feet. "I'm sorry, I apologize." Keylerea bowed deeply. Her voice was small, the very picture of a flustered new cleaning attendant. The moment Hagen's gaze turned toward Keylerea, she positioned herself to be aware of the girl's location, and in the motion of moving the mop, she naturally pushed the girl deeper into the corridor—standing close enough that their shoulders nearly touched for just a few seconds, her arm blocking the girl's path. That was enough. "What are you doing?" Hagen's anger turned toward Keylerea. Keylerea returned only obedient apologies. Head bowed, she continued wiping the soap water. Having lost interest in spending time on a worthless cleaning attendant, Hagen clicked his tongue and resumed his patrol. Keylerea confirmed his back disappearing toward the building's exit while keeping her eyes on the floor. Silence returned to the building. Keylerea stood and picked up the bucket. As she wiped the wet floor, she recognized for the first time, retrospectively, the meaning of her own action. The calculation had completed in one second. The conclusion had been reached: she should not intervene. Yet her body had moved. A reflex to protect subordinates. Something she thought she had abandoned in ten years of wandering still lived in this body. The ten years she had spent reconstructing herself as a machine of vengeance, and the memories of herself as ruler and protector, collided head-on for the first time on the stone floor. The sensation of that collision spread quietly through her chest. --- Night came. In the washing area at the back of the facility, as Keylerea was putting away her cleaning tools, she sensed a presence. The pale blue-haired girl stood near the entrance. Keylerea had not asked her name. The girl had not introduced herself. Gray eyes were directed toward Keylerea—or more precisely, toward her hands. Both hands, reddened and chafed from soap water, the skin worn thin. The traces of a day spent as a cleaning attendant. The girl watched them in silence, as if confirming something, for several seconds. Keylerea became aware of where the girl's gaze was directed and stopped moving her hands. She said nothing. The girl said nothing. Then the girl placed a single leaf of a small plant on the edge of the work table. And left without saying anything. Keylerea looked at the leaf. It was thin and elongated, pale green. A type of medicinal herb that occasionally mixed into rations, with disinfectant properties—Keylerea knew this. The girl had set it aside from her own rations. A response without words. From the piece she had been observing as a game piece, an unexpected form of reciprocal gesture had come. Keylerea could not immediately organize the meaning of this fact. It was a variable that had not entered the calculation. After a long silence, Keylerea took the leaf in her hand and pressed it against her chafed skin. A cool sensation seeped into the places worn by friction. It was not quite pain that seeped in, but something else. --- The communal sleeping quarters given to cleaning attendants had a low ceiling and stagnant air. A dimly lit space where several human cleaning a