The bar was packed. The air smelled of stale beer, sweat, and lost bets. The Duke’s Great Race was about to begin, and everyone jostled to secure a good spot, a favorable wager, or, in Hans’s case, the chance to get a decent meal without paying for it.

  —"Come on, hurry up!"— bellowed the bartender, trying to clear some space at the chaotic counter.

  Hans was waiting in line, lost in thought, when suddenly he saw her: a dark-haired woman with sharp eyes, standing with an elegant yet defiant posture, sipping from her mug without paying any attention to the commotion around her. Her gaze stirred a strange fascination in Hans—was she a disguised noblewoman, a cunning thief, or simply someone whose presence far surpassed that of the other patrons?

  —"Pretty, huh?"— murmured a man beside him, nudging his elbow.

  Hans barely reacted, lost in his own daydream.

  —"They say she can gut a man in under five seconds,"— added his companion with a mocking tone. —"Are you even listening?"

  But Hans wasn’t paying attention. The only thing that managed to snap him back to reality was the agonized scream of a man, followed by a loud crash. Without realizing it, Hans had stepped forward, putting all his weight onto someone else’s foot.

  The problem was that Hans, with his sturdy build, carried the weight of a well-fed bull; and to make matters worse, that foot belonged to none other than Viktor "The Swift," one of the most infamous and devious illegal racers.

  Hans felt something shift beneath his boot, and when he looked up in horror, he discovered a crushed foot.

  —"Huh?"— he muttered as reality dawned on him.

  Viktor, his face red with pain and fury, had bloodshot eyes and veins bulging in his neck like the taut ropes of a ship at sea.

  —"AAAAAAAAAH!"— he screamed, while Hans immediately lifted his foot.

  —"Sorry! Sorry! It was an accident!"— Hans blurted out.

  Seeing the severity of the injury, Dorian took charge. Quickly, he helped Hans carry Viktor to a back room in the bar, a small space where healers applied the usual remedies of the time: setting his foot in a splint and ordering strict rest, while the atmosphere remained heavy with tense silence, broken only by the crackling of torches.

  It was in that room, among murmurs of remedies and the dull sound of dripping water, that Viktor, still in pain, broke the silence:

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  —"Do you… know… who I am?"— he growled through gritted teeth, trying to maintain his composure.

  Hans, guilt and confusion etched on his face, barely managed to respond:

  —"Uh… a guy with a really sore foot?"

  The murmurs in the room grew. Dorian, now leaning casually against an improvised counter, smirked and spoke in a deep, amused voice:

  —"Viktor, my friend, tell me you’re not going to let a big oaf like this humiliate you…"

  With his eyes still locked onto Hans and pain flickering across his face, Viktor, between gasps and groans, muttered:

  —"I’m… going to break his face."

  Hans raised his hands in surrender.

  —"Whoa, whoa, whoa! It was an accident. I don’t want trouble, really."

  It was then that Dorian, grinning slyly but with an unmistakable tone of menace, proposed:

  —"Let’s make this interesting. Viktor needs to get even, and you, big guy, owe him."

  —"What?"— Hans exclaimed. —"I don’t owe him anything!"

  —"Actually, it’s about the entry fee for tonight’s illegal race,"— Dorian said, his voice hardening. —"The entry costs two hundred coins, and if you don’t have the cash, you’ll have to work for me. Trust me, big guy, if you resist, I won’t hesitate to take justice into my own hands."

  Hans swallowed hard, realizing the predicament he was in. He had two clear choices:

  

  
1. 
   
     Work as a thug for Dorian, which would probably lead to his grave within the week.
   
     


  
2. 
   
     Pay the two hundred coin entry fee for the illegal race—an amount he couldn’t even dream of possessing.
   
     


  

  Before he could articulate a response, Viktor, still wincing in pain, raised a hand to halt them.

  —"Wait."

  Dorian raised an eyebrow, intrigued, while Viktor took a deep breath, his gaze fixed on Hans, whose eyes reflected both fear and defiance.

  —"There may be another way to settle this,"— Viktor said, a spark of cunning in his voice.

  Hans frowned.

  —"Another way?"

  Viktor nodded, and with a confident tone, he declared:

  —"I’m going to make you a deal."

  Dorian crossed his arms, intrigued.

  —"And what are you offering, Viktor?"

  With pride, the racer replied:

  —"We both know you can’t pay me right now. But what if you race in my place?"

  Hans froze for a moment.

  —"What!?"

  Viktor, leaning against the table despite the pain, continued:

  —"Listen carefully, big guy. Tonight’s race has a prize of four hundred gold coins. If you participate and win, we split it, and we’re even."

  Hans felt the world spin around him.

  —"You want me to race… in an illegal high-stakes competition, against riders who will probably try to kill me?"

  Viktor shrugged.

  —"Would you rather work as Dorian’s enforcer?"

  Hans looked at Dorian, whose smug smile said, Either way, you lose. Then, with some hesitation, he turned back to Viktor.

  —"I don’t know how to ride a horse."

  Viktor grinned confidently.

  —"You just need to stay on the saddle and avoid breaking your neck."

  Although Hans wasn’t sure it would be that simple, the thought of four hundred gold coins filled his mind with visions of food, new clothes, and the possibility of sleeping in a decent inn without fearing someone would steal his shoes. His eyes gleamed, and despite the evident madness of the plan, an audacious idea formed in his mind.

  —"… I’m going to die,"— he muttered under his breath.

  Viktor smirked in satisfaction.

  —"Welcome to the underground races, Hans."

  And so, with the pact sealed in the dim light of that room, Hans’s fate was set. The night was closing in, but on the horizon, a contest loomed that would unleash even greater challenges—the prelude to a race that would test his courage and transform the clumsy rider into a legend as unpredictable and comedic as his own journey.