Kael woke early.
The room was still dark, the kind of dark that meant an hour before dawn at least.
He lay still for a moment running his standard check location, threat level, body status and then sat up and looked at what he had, he never gets tired of this routine.
One dead man’s sword leaning against the wall. A hunting knife on the floor beside it.
The clothes on his back were a grey office shirt that had survived two days in a fantasy world through sheer stubbornness and was beginning to show the cost of it. Dark slacks with a tear along the left knee from the Gate beast attack. Shoes that had no business existing in a world with unpaved roads.
He counted his coins.
After all his expenses and three days of eating cheaply at the tavern down the street, he had eleven copper left. Not silver. Copper. One silver was equal to ten copper — which meant he had barely over one silver worth standing between him and broke in a world he’d been in for less than a week.
He held the coins in his palm for a moment.
’Eleven copper,’ he thought. ’Brilliant.’
"You are staring at eleven copper, how poor can one be," Seradhiel said, "with the expression of a man conducting a military inventory."
"Nice Word’s coming from someone trapped in a ring lmao," Kael chuckled.
A pause.
"...Nice one, mortal," she said.
He closed his fist around the coins and stood up. "I’m leaving for a three day escort job tomorrow morning. I can’t do it in office clothes."
"Your attire has been a source of considerable confusion since you arrived,"
she said. "I am in agreement that it requires addressing."
"High praise," Kael said, reaching for his shirt.
"It is a tactical assessment," she said. "In the field, clothing that marks you as an outsider is a liability. You have been fortunate that the people of this town are more curious than hostile. That will not always be the case."
Kael pulled the shirt on and looked at the tear in his slacks. "Any suggestions on eleven copper?"
"I have been sealed in a ring for three thousand years," she said. "I am not familiar with current market pricing. Are you indeed toying with me?."
"Fair enough no no no...," he said, and headed for the door.
_ _
The market was already opening when he stepped outside, vendors dragging crates and unwrapping stalls in the grey pre-dawn light. He moved through it slowly, looking without stopping, getting a sense of what was available before he spent anything.
The used goods stall was at the far end of the market — a long table covered in secondhand equipment, clothing piled at one end, worn tools at the other. A heavyset woman with grey-streaked hair sat behind it on a low stool, arms folded, watching the market wake up with the patience of someone who had been doing this for a long time.
Kael stopped at the clothing end.
Hunter’s gear was out of the question — even secondhand, the cheapest leather reinforced jacket had a price tag of three silver. He didn’t have three silver. He moved past it and looked at what was left.
Plain roughspun shirts in two colors — brown and a dark grey that wasn’t far off from what he was already wearing. Sturdy canvas trousers, the kind that hunters wore under their gear. A pair of worn but intact boots that looked closer to his size than what he had on.
He picked up the dark grey shirt. Turned it over. No tears, no staining he couldn’t live with.
"How much?" he said.
The woman looked at the shirt. "Two copper."
’Two copper for a shirt,’ Kael thought. ’In any other context that would be laughable.
Right now it’s half my budget.’ He kept his expression neutral. ’Not exactly in a position to have opinions about pricing.’
He picked up the canvas trousers.
"These?"
"Three copper."
"The boots?"
She looked at his current shoes — really looked at them, the way someone looks at something they genuinely cannot categorize — and then looked back up at him with an expression that had a question in it she’d decided not to ask.
"Four copper," she said.
Nine copper total. He had eleven.
He put them on the table. "I’ll take all three."
She swept the coins up and handed him the clothes without ceremony. He tucked them under his arm and turned to leave.
"You’re the one Mira vouched for," the woman said behind him.
He stopped. Turned back.
She was looking at him with the same assessing expression half the town seemed to wear around him. "Word travels in a town this size," she said. "Unranked foreigner. Strange clothes. Threw a rock at a Gate beast." Her eyes moved to the ring briefly. "That ring."
"Yes," Kael said.
"You’re taking the Crestfall escort job with her tomorrow."
It wasn’t a question. He answered it anyway. "Yes."
She nodded slowly, as if confirming something she’d already decided. "Dorin’s a good merchant. Honest, which is rarer than it should be on that road." She paused. "The Gate disturbances on the Crestfall stretch have been getting worse.
"Guild board has them listed as Class E Gates," the woman said, her voice dropping slightly. "The hunters who’ve come back from that road this past week say they’re reading closer to Class C."
Kael held her gaze. "So two tiers off?."
"Two tiers off," she confirmed.
"Why are you telling me this?"
She shrugged one shoulder. "Mira’s good people. She vouched for you. That means something." A beat. "Thought you should know what you’re actually walking into."She shrugged one shoulder. "Mira’s a good person. She vouched for you. That means something to me." A beat.
"Thought you should know what you’re actually walking into."
Kael looked at her for a moment. "Thank you," he said.
She was already looking back at the market.
_ _
He changed in the room.
The roughspun shirt fit well enough looser than he preferred but not impractical. The canvas trousers were close to his size, a little short in the leg but nothing that would affect movement. The boots were the best of the three worn smooth inside from previous use, which meant broken in already, which was better than new leather that would take his feet apart on a three day road.
He looked down at what he was wearing.
Not hunter’s gear. Not anything that would make anyone in this world look twice at his rank status. But functional. Unremarkable.
The kind of clothes that let a person move through a space without announcing themselves.
At least it was better than what he had previously.
He picked up the old shirt and slacks and set them on the windowsill. Held the shirt up for a moment — wrinkled grey office fabric, the kind of thing he’d put on a hundred mornings without thinking about it.
He set it down.
"Improved but poor," Seradhiel said.
"By your standards or theirs?" Kael said.
"By the only standard that matters in a field context," she said. "You no longer look like something that fell through a dimensional rift.
"I did fall through a dimensional rift," Kael said.
"Yes," she said. "But now you look like you meant to."
He picked up the sword and the hunting knife and checked both edges. The sword needed sharpening — he’d find a whetstone before the sixth bell tomorrow. The knife was fine.
Then —
[DING].
Text bloomed in the air in front of him, visible only to his eyes:
『 Investment Quest Available: Purchase one Iron rank cultivation resource and place it in contact with the ring before departing for Crestfall Pass. Investment target: Sealed Entity. Reward: ???. Pathway expansion: first branch unlocked. Failure Penalty: Loss of cultivation ability for 72 hours. Timer: 18 hours. 』
At the bottom a final line appeared:
『 Host — she endured three thousand years of silence. The least you can do is invest. 』
Then it was gone.
Kael stared at the empty air for a moment.
’Two copper,’ he thought. ’An Iron rank cultivation resource. Eighteen hours.’
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
’And if I fail I lose the ability to cultivate for seventy two hours. Right before a three day road job.’ He looked at the two copper on the bed. ’What is wrong with this system?’
He picked up his knife, tucked it into his belt, and headed for the door.
He had eighteen hours and two copper coin. He needed to fix that before tomorrow morning.