Khan remained in the river longer than strictly necessary.
Not because washing the evidence required that much time.
Because the river was cold, the caravan was behind him, and humiliation had apparently become a renewable resource.
By the time he climbed back onto the bank, his shirt clung to his skin and his trousers had improved from soaked in urine to soaked in river water, which was technically progress.
Marginal progress.
The kind of progress corporations bragged about in quarterly reports.
Miriel stood a careful distance away.
Lillia was nowhere in sight, which Khan interpreted as either mercy or ongoing respiratory failure from laughing too hard.
He looked down at himself.
"This is unacceptable."
"The healing worked," Miriel pointed out.
"I am not discussing the healing."
"Your back no longer hurts."
"And several minutes ago, I requested that nobody speak to me. Somehow, that instruction had a shorter lifespan than my dignity."
[Temporal accuracy detected.]
"Internet Explorer."
[Present.]
"Die."
[Request unsupported.]
He reached into his pouch.
His fingers searched once. Then again. Then stopped.
Khan went still.
He emptied the contents into his palm.
Two copper coins.
Three silver.
And one gold coin.
His last gold coin.
He stared at it for several seconds. It felt heavier than any coin had a right to be.
Three days in another world.
No income.
No job.
No documents.
No property.
No bank account.
No idea what the local tax system looked like.
And now he was about to spend his remaining meaningful capital because a demon princess had accidentally weaponized basic healthcare.
Khan held the coin out.
Miriel eyed his hand uncertainly.
"Take it. Find me trousers. New ones. Preferably made of cloth that is not currently marinating in my own shame."
Her lips twitched.
Khan pointed at her.
"Do not."
"I said nothing."
"You were about to."
[Assessment: She was.]
Traitors.
Again.
Miriel accepted the coin. "How much should I spend?"
Khan paused.
This was an important question.
A critical question.
The correct answer was obvious.
"As little as possible. I want cheap, plain, dark and forgettable. No decoration, no expensive fabric, nothing a merchant describes as 'exclusive.' When I walk past someone in them, I want their eyes to slide right off me out of sheer boredom."
Miriel nodded with great seriousness.
Khan immediately felt less reassured.
"Repeat the important part."
"Cheap and plain."
"And?"
"Dark and forgettable."
"Good."
He pointed at the small cluster of traveling merchants accompanying the caravan.
"Go."
She took two steps, stopped and glanced back. "I need your size."
"Human."
Miriel stared at him.
Khan sighed and gave her the approximate measurement.
She walked away.
The System appeared.
[Delegation risk detected.]
You think?
[Previous evidence suggests Miriel has limited understanding of market value.]
Khan slowly turned his head.
"You waited until now?"
[You did not ask.]
"Internet Explorer, I need you to understand that one day I will find a way to uninstall you."
[Threat noted.]
Khan found a flat stone near the river and sat.
For the next ten minutes, he contemplated his life choices.
All of them.
Every single one.
The career.
The money.
The years staring at charts.
The alley and the knife.
Reincarnation.
The demon princess.
The prophecy.
His artifact researcher lie.
The Corrupt Storm.
Lillia.
The biting grimoire.
The healing spell.
The bladder incident.
Each decision seemed perfectly survivable in isolation.
Together, they formed a convincing argument that fate hated him personally.
He rubbed his face.
"I was rich once."
[Past tense confirmed.]
"I had investments, property, cash reserves. An actual financial plan."
[All statements remain past tense.]
Khan slowly lowered his hands.
"You're enjoying this."
[Yes.]
"At least you're honest."
[Unlike the artifact researcher.]
Khan closed his eyes.
A few Goldleaf workers passed nearby, carrying water barrels. One glanced at him, immediately looked away, and developed a suspicious tremor in his shoulders.
Khan watched him leave.
[Reputation propagation ongoing.]
"If you show me another title, I'll walk into the storm."
[Threat assessed as noncredible.]
Khan frowned. "On what basis?"
[You dislike losing money.]
He considered that.
Fair.
Then Miriel returned.
She was carrying something pink.
Khan saw the color before he saw the shape.
His brain refused to process it.
For one optimistic second, he assumed she had purchased flowers.
Then she unfolded the garment.
Khan stopped breathing.
The trousers were pink.
Not soft pink.
Not pale pink.
Not rose.
Aggressive pink.
Violent pink.
The kind of pink that looked like it had fought a losing battle against a strawberry basket and then been blessed by a particularly unstable flower spirit.
A small embroidered flower decorated the right back pocket.
Khan stared.
Miriel smiled proudly.
"I found them."
Silence.
Khan rose very slowly.
He studied the garment, then Miriel, then the garment again as though repetition might produce a different reality.
"You purchased those for me."
"I did."
His gaze settled on the embroidered flower.
A terrible suspicion surfaced.
"How much survived the transaction?"
Miriel brightened.
"None. They cost exactly one gold."
Something inside Khan cracked.
Not loudly.
Quietly.
The way old bridges cracked before collapsing.
He looked at the trousers.
Then at Miriel.
Then at the empty space where his net worth had once, metaphorically, lived.
The System appeared.
[Transaction complete.]
[Remaining gold reserves: Zero.]
Khan did not respond.
He had transcended anger.
There existed a place beyond anger where the human mind simply observed disaster with historical interest.
He looked like an old man watching his retirement fund get traded for limited-edition Gucci trousers while the apocalypse was actively on his arse.
Miriel's smile gradually faded.
"I thought you'd like them."
Khan took the trousers between two fingers, as though handling contaminated evidence.
"I gave you one gold and specifically asked you to spend as little of it as possible."
"I did. The seller wanted three."
Khan closed his eyes.
[Negotiation performance: 66.7% discount.]
Do not validate her.
[Objectively strong percentage reduction.]
"He said they were rare," Miriel added.
Khan opened his eyes and regarded the garment with exhausted disbelief.
"They are pink, Miriel. They have a flower embroidered directly over my future ass."
"It's quite detailed."
"That is not helping."
She rubbed the fabric between her fingers. "The cloth is excellent, and it was heavily discounted."
"I asked for cheap cloth, plain design and a dark color."
Miriel hesitated, then examined the trousers again.
"This is... relatively dark pink."
Khan's expression emptied.
[Semantic defense unsuccessful.]
"The merchant said they were made in Lumeria," she added quickly. "It's very far away, nobles apparently wear them, and the flower is supposed to bring good fortune."
Khan looked down at his wet trousers, then at the replacement.
"Clearly."
Lillia appeared from behind one of the wagons.
She took one look at the trousers and stopped.
Then she looked at Khan.
Her mouth opened.
Khan raised a hand.
"Whatever is about to leave your mouth, bury it."
Lillia obeyed.
Her face turned red.
Then she made the catastrophic mistake of looking at the flower.
A sound escaped her.
Khan's finger rose again.
"I'm trying," she managed.
"Try harder."
"I'm aware."
Miriel looked between them. "I genuinely thought they were practical."
Khan slowly turned toward her.
"Your definition of practical appears to be 'physically capable of covering the body.'"
"They can be worn."
"Thank you for proving my point."
[Garment meets minimum functional definition.]
Internet Explorer, I swear to God.
Lillia finally lost control.
She turned away and started laughing into her sleeve.
Miriel looked offended.
"They were the best quality available."
Khan held the trousers up.
The fabric caught the lantern light.
Somehow, the pink got brighter.
Even the horses seemed judgmental.
One of the caravan guards walked past, saw the trousers, and immediately became very interested in checking his sword belt.
Khan noticed.
"I hate everyone here."
[Generalization detected.]
"Accurate generalization."
Miriel crossed her arms. "You asked me to buy trousers. I found good ones and negotiated the price down."
"You also spent every meaningful coin I had."
Her annoyance faltered.
"That was your last gold?"
The humor drained out of the moment.
Khan looked at her.
"Yes."
Miriel lowered her eyes. "I didn't know."
"I know."
The guilt on her face somehow annoyed him more than the trousers.
Khan sighed.
"Stop looking like you accidentally destroyed a village."
"But I spent your last gold."
"And I gave it to you. Not with the expectation that you'd launch the entire thing into a pink financial crater, admittedly, but I gave it to you."
Her expression didn't improve.
Khan looked at the trousers again.
The embroidered flower appeared to be smiling at him.
Probably maliciously.
"Consider it tuition."
Miriel frowned.
"Your first lesson in ordinary money."
[Tuition fee: One gold.]
"Don't make it worse."
[Educational outcome uncertain.]
Lillia, still recovering, glanced over.
"One gold actually isn't terrible for Lumerian silk."
Khan turned on her so sharply that his wet shirt slapped against his side.
"Explain."
She pointed at the trousers. "That's genuine Lumerian thread. Retail price would probably be around two and a half gold."
Miriel immediately straightened.
Khan slowly looked at her.
She smiled with extreme caution.
"I negotiated."
[Miriel profit relative to market value: Approximately 1.5 gold.]
Khan looked at the trousers. Then at Miriel. Then, finally, at Lillia.
A terrible realization dawned.
"She made a good trade."
"Technically," Lillia said.
Khan's face aged twenty years.
"That makes this worse."
Miriel seemed baffled by that conclusion.
"Because now," Khan explained, "I can't even call you incompetent. You efficiently acquired something I desperately did not want."
[Correction: Competence remains domain-specific.]
Khan exhaled through his nose.
There was no winning.
Only positions with differing levels of loss.
He took the trousers and headed toward the bushes.
Miriel called after him, "Where are you going?"
"To erase the last physical evidence of your healing spell."
"The flower goes on the back," Lillia added.
Khan stopped.
His shoulders rose, then fell.
"Thank you, Lillia."
"You're welcome."
"I wasn't sincere."
"I know."
He disappeared behind the bushes.
For a minute, silence settled over the riverbank.
Then Khan emerged.
The trousers fit perfectly.
Of course they did.
The pink was catastrophic.
The flower sat proudly on his right back pocket.
Miriel stared.
Lillia stared.
Three nearby caravan workers stared.
A guard coughed into his fist.
Khan stood before them with the dignity of a defeated emperor.
Nobody spoke.
[Appearance assessment complete.]
Khan looked into empty air.
Don't.
[Visibility: Extremely High.]
Don't.
[Stealth compatibility: Catastrophic.]
Khan's jaw tightened. "If the Corrupt Storm finds us because it can see my trousers from twelve miles away, I'm blaming you."
[Incorrect causal attribution.]
He looked toward the dark horizon, where the storm still churned in the distance, then down at the pink fabric.
No gold.
No job.
No legal identity.
No stable income.
And now he looked like a flower-themed aristocrat fleeing financial ruin.
Khan sighed.
"Three days."
Miriel tilted her head, waiting.
"I've been alive again for three days," he said, starting back toward the caravan, "and somehow I'm already bankrupt and wearing pink."
Lillia followed.
"You forgot the flower."
Khan didn't break stride.
"I did not forget the flower."
[Current financial status: Insolvent.]
[Current fashion status: Memorable.]
Khan stared straight ahead.
"Internet Explorer."
[Yes?]
"Clear my browsing history."