You could manage just as well with learning magic... but like everyone, I start with the perspective of the world I came from. There, we only had science to contextualize what we had and lived through. Here, there's more to it; anyone can see that.

[He blinks at the offer, because... tatty and shabby as he is, and more so now after most of his clothes were ruined by nearly a body's worth of blood, clothes are something he absolutely needs.]

I could be paid in clothes, and not complain.