"As a currency?" Well that's several tiers of horrible worse than what Kuai had imagined. He can try and think up worst case scenarios but his optimistic nature means that his worst case scenario is someone else's mediocre scenario.

"Why is this funny?" The laughing is starting to grate on Kuai's nerves. "Do you not care that some who have died never returned?"

Because he seemed to care a lot more when they were trudging through the woods to the armory, so this is rather an abrupt change.