When Elliot walked on the familiar forest that led to the lake where the breach was it was very early in the morning and still dark, a small number of sun rays could be seen peeking through the horizon and gently brushed Elliot's skin. It was already starting to feel chilly during the nights and Elliot realized it would be winter very soon and wondered if there were seasons in the other world too.
A minute later he arrived in front of the bridge on top of the lake and he was surprised by the big crowd, it was normal to have crowds here but at this time of the day ? Most of them should be sleeping and so he got curious about what they were gathered for and he walked forward.
He pushed his way to the front and all he could see were tens of asian guys crouching around something and talking amongst themselves, they all wore black suits and from the small pieces of skin they exposed he could see that they all had colored tattoos on a big part of their bodies.
'Yakuzas ? Yeah it's normal to have criminal associations in this place, instead it would be weird that they didn't come.'
"Why is everyone gathered here ?"
Elliot didn't like talking to strangers but he was too curious about the reason why such a big crowd had grouped to watch this group and so he asked the girl next to him, she was also dressed in typical adventurer's clothes and so he guessed she must know more than the old man on his left.
"These guys, they captured a monster and forcefully pulled out of the breach !"
'I never thought about it !'
Elliot realized he had never thought about it, if creatures from the other world could also come in this world wouldn't that be a huge source of money ?
Although he had started thinking about a new plan to start selling these, he still watched the group of yakuzas to see what kind of monster they had caught and suddenly one of them stood up and and started yelling at everyone.
"何を見ていますか ?! 立ち去る !"
When that guy stood up Elliot looked through the gap that he had left as he moved and saw his friends who were crouching pinning a big rabbit on the ground, the rabbit was fighting them off really hard and everyone did his best to stay as far away as they could from the sharp horn on its forehead.
'It looks quite weak, I wonder how much they will sell it for.'
As he thought about that, a man came over to them and tried talking to them in English, the first guy who had stood up and yelled at them in Japanese exchanged his place with one of his friends and that friend started talking in English, although he had an accent he had obviously a very decent level of English.
"What do you want ?"
"Nice to meet you sir, I'm from a French company called CG Corp and I'm really interested in this monster you brought, do you sell it ?"
"Yes it's for sale, 800 000$ no less."
The yakuza looked determined to make a huge deal out of the first monster that left the breach.
"Isn't that too much sir ? How about 500 ?"
"I said no less, this is the first monster ever to leave the breach and I'm sure I might even get more than 800k from some people ?"
'I'm 80 to 90% certain the military brought out monsters from inside during the four years when they had the monopoly of the breach but yeah, technically this is the first one to be made public.'
Elliot looked at the French man's conflicted face and finally the man's eyes became determined and he said
"Alright I'll take it, can you help me move it down the mountain ?"
"Hahahahah very good deal !"
The men all left while carrying the beast that was fighting as hard as it could to get its freedom back and Elliot didn't need to see more, he realized beasts might be worth more than treasures but there was an issue with it. He doubted he could put living beasts inside his inventory and so he would be able to carry one at most while he could bring out tons of treasures at once even if he didn't have the inventory yet.
He walked through the breach once again and decided that he would keep hunting treasures as it was more valuable, for now at least.
"The prices of everything that comes from behind the breach are really inflated at the moment, in the near future the prices will go down and the value of each thing will change. I don't know if a living monster will be more valuable than an item then since it will depend on the demand for each. Monsters will give experience points and have a chance of giving my an item while an item will be a sure chance of getting it but you won't get experience, well each one have it's advantages.'
Now Elliot was still going to sell items as it was a very good money making method but he had to think about how the market would evolve in the future to adapt to it, if items lost their value then he would switch to something else.
/
A few minutes later Elliot arrived in the usual grotto, he had kind of made it his base since nobody came here and it would allow him to guard the gate at the same time. He walked to the gate that was still perfectly locked and tried pushing.
GRUUUMBLE
A huge cloud of dust rose with the push and Elliot got so surprised that the door moved that he stopped pushing and suddenly the doors that had barely moved came flying back to their original position.
BOOOOOM
Another cloud of dust rose, Elliot flew a few meters back and fell flat on his back. Although he felt some pain he didn't have the time to focus on it at all, he stood up with a bright smile and walked towards the door once again. This time he pushed as strong as he could without stopping midway but the door didn't move more than the first time and once again...
BOOOOM
Elliot laid on his back and looked at the ceiling for awhile with confusion plastered all over his face.
'I used way more strength in the second push than the first one but it didn't get pushed further ? What does that mean ?'
He though about it for awhile and came to a realization, it was more like a hypothesis but he believed he must have been correct.
'Is it depending on my strength stat only ? So it won't matter how hard I push it won't change anything...?'
To test his hypothesis Elliot once again had to level up and upgrade his strength stat. It was a very similar situation to the first time he had left this place.