The first thing Khan learned about the afterlife was that it had terrible customer service.
The second was that, apparently, being stabbed in a filthy alley behind a convenience store was enough to qualify for reincarnation.
Three days earlier, Earth had been considerably less magical.
It had also been raining.
Khan remembered that part with particular irritation.
Not the knife.
Not the blood.
The rain.
Cold water had been running down the back of his collar while he stood beneath the flickering light behind a convenience store, staring at a man who was very obviously holding a knife.
In retrospect, there had been several excellent opportunities to leave.
The first was when he'd heard shouting from the alley.
The second was when he'd noticed three men surrounding someone near the dumpsters.
The third was when one of them looked directly at him and said,
"Keep walking."
Khan had stopped.
That had probably been the mistake.
His phone was still in his hand.
On the screen, a currency chart was moving violently downward.
Khan looked at the knife.
Then at the men.
Then, inexplicably, at the wallet lying near their feet.
His brain, trained by twenty years of markets, supplied an observation nobody had requested.
Something doesn't add up.
The sensible part of him immediately replied:
Not our problem.
Unfortunately, curiosity had always been Khan's worst investment strategy.
"What happened here?"
One of the men stared at him.
"…What?"
Khan nodded toward the man slumped against the wall.
"You're robbing him?"
Silence.
Rain tapped against the dumpsters.
Somewhere nearby, the convenience store door chimed cheerfully as another customer entered.
The man with the knife frowned.
"Are you stupid?"
Khan considered that.
"Historically? Occasionally."
Then the knife moved.
There was no dramatic duel.
No heroic last stand.
No convenient burst of hidden strength.
Just one wet step backward.
A flash of pain beneath his ribs.
And the sudden realization that dying felt significantly less cinematic than fiction had advertised.
Khan hit the wall.
His phone slipped from his hand and landed screen-up in a puddle.
The chart was still moving.
He watched another red candle form.
"…Of course."
The man who had stabbed him fled.
Footsteps disappeared into the rain.
Khan slowly slid down the brick wall, one hand pressed against his side.
Warm blood slipped between his fingers.
His phone continued glowing beside him.
Down another twelve pips.
Khan stared at it.
Twenty years of trading.
Thousands of hours studying risk.
Position sizing.
Stop losses.
Capital preservation.
And somehow he had managed to die because he couldn't resist investigating something that looked suspicious.
Khan laughed once.
It hurt.
"That," he whispered, "was a terrible trade."
The screen went dark.
So did everything else.
And apparently, somewhere between bleeding out beside a dumpster and waking up in another world, the universe had decided that eighteen years old would be an appropriate refund.
The third was that the gods, or whoever handled these things, had an exceptionally poor sense of humor.
He was eighteen again.
Eighteen.
Khan stared at his reflection in the darkened window of a closed apothecary and touched his face with both hands.
Smooth skin. No stubble. No crow's feet. No faint scar beneath his left eyebrow. Even the permanent crick in his neck from twenty years of hunching over candlestick charts was gone.
He looked like the version of himself who had once believed hard work and rational decision-making could beat the world.
What a stupid kid.
Khan sighed.
"At least I got the youth back."
[Correction: You got murdered.]
"I know."
[Violently.]
"I was there."
[You were the victim.]
"I was also there for that."
[Your conversational skills remain disappointing.]
Khan closed his eyes.
There it was again.
The System.
It had introduced itself three days ago with all the grandeur of a divine revelation.
No inventory.
No skill tree.
No fireball.
No infinite storage.
No legendary sword.
It couldn't even tell him where he was.
It could, however, scan people.
Apparently, if Khan looked at someone long enough, the System would display information about them as though it were reading a particularly invasive identification card.
And it had opinions.
Mostly about him.
Khan had spent twenty years learning to keep his emotions out of his currency trades.
Three days with the System had nearly undone all of it.
He was beginning to suspect that getting stabbed had been the less irritating experience.
He stepped away from the window.
The city around him was unfamiliar, but undeniably alive.
The apothecary stood on a narrow street of uneven gray stones, its wooden sign creaking overhead in the evening breeze. A painted mortar and pestle swung above the door, flanked by bunches of dried lavender, red sage, and pale mushrooms strung beneath the eaves. Even with the shop closed, the air carried the scent of crushed herbs, lamp oil, and rain-soaked earth.
Across the street, a baker was pulling the last loaves from a brick oven. Steam curled off the crusts as a boy hauled them inside, nearly tripping over a sleepy orange cat sprawled across the doorway. Above them, a woman leaned out of an upper window to shake out a rug, raining dust onto a pair of arguing pigeons.
The city was built of stone and timber rather than glass and steel. Narrow houses stood shoulder to shoulder beneath steep roofs, their chimneys breathing thin threads of smoke into the twilight. Copper gutters gleamed along the eaves. One by one, small crystal lamps woke as the daylight faded, each orb humming softly with captured blue light.
People filled the streets.
A fishmonger bellowed the day's final prices while haggling with a dwarf whose beard was braided with silver rings. Two children chased each other around a public fountain, their wooden practice swords clacking, until a tired-looking guard told them to stop before they knocked over an old man's basket of turnips. A young woman with translucent wings hurried past beneath a stack of books, muttering about an overdue library fee.
Horse-drawn carriages rolled over the cobbles, wheels hissing through shallow puddles. Beside them, squat iron wagons rattled along under their own power, driven by glowing stones set into their engines. Their drivers cursed at one another with the same universal enthusiasm Khan remembered from traffic jams back on Earth.
A pair of robed mages were arguing beneath a broken streetlamp.
"That's the third time this month," one complained.
"You overloaded the rune."
"I did not."
"You absolutely did."
Near the corner, a city guard was trying to convince a broad-shouldered adventurer that carrying a battle-axe into a pastry shop was "not technically illegal, but still deeply inconsiderate."
Khan watched it all in silence.
It was strange.
Not because it was fantastical.
Because it was ordinary.
People were buying dinner, closing shops, gossiping, arguing, hurrying home before the rain came back. Magic had not erased the small irritations of daily life. It had merely given people more interesting tools with which to cause trouble.
Khan had read enough fantasy novels in his previous life to understand the broad strokes.
Magic.
Monsters.
Demons.
Humans.
Probably elves somewhere.
The whole package.
But this city did not feel like a backdrop waiting for a hero.
It felt lived in.
Old walls had been patched with newer stone. Shrines were tucked into corners. Laundry hung between the buildings, and the shopkeepers knew exactly which customers would pay on time. Somewhere beyond the crowded streets, bells rang from a distant temple. A dog barked back at them. Someone laughed through an open tavern window.
Khan had been wandering the city for nearly an hour when he found himself back near the apothecary, at the edge of the market square. Something caught his attention.
A girl stood beneath the striped awning of a fruit merchant.
The stall occupied a busy corner near the market square, where the street widened around a circular fountain carved in the shape of three kneeling knights. Water spilled from their raised shields into a basin glittering with copper coins. Behind the merchant, wooden crates were stacked beneath a painted sign that read:
SUNFRUITS — SWEET, BRIGHT, AND GUARANTEED NOT TO BITE.
A little girl was pointing at the sign while her mother tried to tow her away from a basket of blue pears.
The hooded girl stood apart from the bustle, as though she had stepped into the market from another world and had not yet worked out how to move with it.
She wore a dark traveling cloak, plain but well made, fastened at the throat with a silver clasp. The hood hid most of her face. When a pair of city guards passed within a few steps of her, she turned toward the fruit stall at once and kept her back to them.
Nothing remarkable about that.
What was remarkable was the fruit in her hands.
They looked like apples.
If apples had been dropped from a three-story building, exposed to magical radiation, and then told to grow anyway.
Their skins were golden-red, studded with small protrusions like miniature horns. Thin veins of orange light pulsed beneath the surface. One of them gave a faint, irritated twitch in the girl's hand.
Khan stared.
"Those are ugly."
[Incorrect.]
"You're defending the fruit?"
[No.]
[I'm defending ugliness as a concept.]
"You're getting awfully philosophical for something that can't even give me a map."
[Maps are complicated.]
"Scanning people isn't."
[Correct.]
Khan looked at the hooded girl again.
She was negotiating with the merchant.
Or trying to.
The merchant was a round, red-faced man with juice-stained sleeves and a wooden tally board tucked under one arm. He shook his head so hard that his mustache trembled.
The girl reached into a small pouch and produced several coins.
The merchant pushed them back.
She produced more.
He pushed those back too.
A few nearby customers began to watch. The baker's boy paused on his way across the square with a basket of bread balanced on his hip. An elderly woman whispered something to her companion. The orange cat from the bakery had settled beneath the stall and now opened one eye.
Something about the exchange made Khan suspicious.
Not because of the price.
Because the girl was haggling like someone who had absolutely no idea how money worked.
Khan had spent enough of his previous life watching markets to recognize one universal truth:
People who understood value rarely had trouble negotiating.
People who didn't got eaten alive.
He looked at her properly.
The System activated.
[Target detected.]
[Name: Miriel.]
[Race: Demon.]
[Status: Princess.]
[Age: 18.]
[Current disguise: Human.]
[Threat Level: Extremely High.]
[Mana Capacity: SSS.]
[Combat Potential: SSS.]
[Known Titles: Princess of the Ashen Dominion, Heir of the Crimson Throne.]
[Current objective: Purchase Sunfruits.]
Khan's expression went blank.
He looked at the girl.
Then at the merchant.
Then back at the girl.
"…Demon princess?"
[Correct.]
"In the middle of a human city?"
[Correct.]
"Trying to buy mutant apples?"
[They are Sunfruits.]
"That doesn't make them less ugly."
[You are remarkably committed to this.]
Khan rubbed his forehead.
He should walk away.
That was the sensible thing.
The smart thing.
The profitable thing.
Unfortunately, Khan had always had one fatal flaw.
Curiosity.
It had made him a successful trader.
It had also gotten him killed.
Apparently, reincarnation had not patched that.
The merchant leaned toward Miriel.
"I've already told you, miss. Twenty silver."
Miriel hesitated.
"I have twelve."
"Twelve isn't twenty."
"I can give you this."
She drew something from beneath her cloak.
A dagger.
Khan's eyes narrowed.
Not because of the weapon.
Because the System had immediately started screaming in his head.
[WARNING.]
[SSS-RANK ARTIFACT DETECTED.]
[Artifact Name: Nightfall.]
[Classification: Conceptual Armament.]
[Known Properties: Unknown.]
[Estimated Market Value: Impossible to calculate.]
Khan stared at the dagger.
The merchant stared at the dagger.
Miriel stared at the merchant.
"I will exchange this," she said.
The color drained from the merchant's face.
"Put that away."
"But you said—"
"I said twenty silver!"
"This is worth more than twenty silver."
"Miss, that thing is worth more than my entire shop!"
The merchant's wife appeared in the doorway behind him, took one look at the dagger, and quietly steered their youngest child out of sight.
A man buying onions muttered, "By the Saints," and began edging toward the far side of the street.
Miriel looked genuinely confused.
Khan nearly laughed.
She was either the most powerful idiot he had ever seen or the most dangerous one.
Possibly both.
He stepped forward.
"Excuse me."
Three heads turned.
The merchant looked deeply relieved that someone else was about to become responsible for the situation.
Khan pointed at the Sunfruits.
"How much for all of them?"
The merchant blinked.
"All?"
"All."
"Two gold."
Khan handed him two gold coins.
The merchant stared at the money.
Then at Khan.
Then he hurriedly packed the fruit into a wooden crate, muttering a prayer under his breath and taking great care not to touch the dagger.
The little girl by the blue pears tugged at her mother's sleeve.
"Is he a hero?"
"No," her mother whispered. "Heroes usually have better timing."
Miriel eyed Khan suspiciously.
"Why?"
"Because you were about to trade an SSS-rank artifact for fruit."
Her eyes widened.
"You can see it?"
Khan nodded.
"Unfortunately."
The System appeared again.
[Correction: Fortunately.]
Khan ignored it.
Miriel lowered her voice.
"Who are you?"
"Khan."
"Human?"
"Currently."
Her expression tightened.
Khan sighed.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to expose you."
"Why?"
He considered the question.
Because she looked lost.
Because she was carrying an artifact that could probably erase half the city.
Because the expression beneath her hood reminded him of a young trader watching a market crash, not understanding why everyone else was panicking.
And because, despite everything, Khan had never been particularly good at walking away from a disaster.
He picked up the crate.
"Because you're obviously terrible at this."
"At what?"
"Being inconspicuous."
Miriel looked offended.
"I have concealed my identity perfectly."
Khan glanced at the dagger.
Then at the horns barely hidden beneath her hood.
Then at the demon tail she was desperately trying to keep behind her cloak.
Then at the merchant, who still looked like he was praying.
Then at the growing audience around the stall.
A passing guard had stopped to watch. The baker's boy was openly staring. The orange cat had climbed onto a crate for a better view.
"Yes," Khan said. "Absolutely flawless."
The System chimed.
[Assessment: She is indeed terrible at this.]
Khan almost smiled.
Miriel narrowed her eyes.
"You are mocking me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because if I don't laugh, I'll probably start screaming."
She stared at him for several seconds.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
It was quiet.
Almost embarrassed, as if it had slipped out before she could stop it.
The sound startled a pair of pigeons off the fountain. One of them landed on the merchant's sign, setting it swinging and creaking overhead.
Khan looked away.
He had forgotten that sound.
Not hers.
The feeling behind it.
The feeling of being alive.
Three days ago, he had been bleeding out in an alley.
Now he was standing in another world, holding a crate of mutated apples for a demon princess whose dagger could probably kill him before he finished blinking.
Around him, the market carried on with its evening rhythm. The baker shouted for his boy to come inside. The guards resumed their patrol. Someone began plucking a three-stringed instrument near the fountain, and a few children danced badly in the street while their parents pretended not to be embarrassed.
His life had become absurd.
Khan found that he didn't entirely hate it.
"Come on," he said.
"Where?"
"Somewhere private."
Miriel stiffened.
Khan immediately raised a hand.
"Not like that. We need to talk."
"About what?"
"Why a demon princess is wandering around a human city with an SSS-rank artifact and twelve silver coins."
She hesitated.
Then followed him.
They slipped into a side street between a candlemaker's shop and a tavern whose sign showed a dragon drinking from a barrel. The noise of the market softened behind them, giving way to the clatter of dishes, the murmur of tavern patrons, and the distant ringing of temple bells.
Overhead, the last of the evening sun broke through the clouds and turned the wet rooftops copper.
The System quietly displayed one final message.
[New Objective Detected.]
[Prevent Miriel from accidentally starting an international incident.]
Khan stopped walking.
He stared at the notification.
Then, slowly, he turned toward the hooded princess beside him.
"…You have got to be kidding me."
[Negative.]
[This is your life now.]
For the first time since arriving in this world, Khan laughed.
It wasn't a happy laugh.
Not exactly.
But it was real.
And somewhere beneath the ruins of the cynical man who had died on Earth, something eighteen years old was beginning to wake up again.