Time went on slowly until he was once again interrupted by Viola who arrived with grave news.
"Boss, the monsters have broken into the town. The orphanages and the explorers hope for the children and their families to be allowed into the gate while they fight." She said as they knew that the safest place was actually at the most dangerous place, the inside of the gate.
Taking a moment to consider, he finally nodded his head. "Sure, they can come in. However, they are not to leave the camp, they are not to explore this world and they must bring their own supplies with them, we don't have any extra for them." He replied as saving lives was the most important thing. If he went by a buddhist saying in his past life: Saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda.
"Alright." She nodded with a small smile on her face as she rapidly headed back out of the portal, allowing people in after giving the conditions, a few explorers coming along to guarantee the safety of the gate. In reality however, no one would be dumb enough to either attack the portal or the space wanderer unless they wanted to be exiled to this world forever.
In this way, days slowly passed, people going around in the same small camp which was the limit he had allowed them to go to all the while some explorers were setting up small businesses by heading out of the gate and bringing back necessary supplies and lending small houses that they had previously built.
Looking at the crowd who, even after many days, were calmer but still on edge, except for a few who were now clamoring to have supplies given to them for free and asking for more rights such as exploring the world, Lux frowned his brows. While he didn't mind the restlessness of the few as he knew the explorers would deal with the problems swiftly. After all, their families were in the gate and allowing anyone to cause problems would guarantee a swift expulsion of the gate or a permanent exile. Whether the civilians understood or not, their lives were effectively in the space wanderer's hands. It would only take a few thoughts to close the gate and forever strand them in this land. As such, the explorers wouldn't grant a reason for the shop's boss to close the gate.
"It has been seven days, isn't it about time that the reinforcement arrives?" Asked the shop owner who knew that he could only keep the gate activated for another few days.
While he had another gate to evacuate to if necessary, he currently had no idea of what lived behind the gate's opening and he knew nothing of the dangers. He was certain that if he did such an evacuation, many of them would lose their lives in the process.
"The city lord has indeed sent a request of assistance to the nearby towns and to the baron of Nielty. However, as of this moment, no one has reached the town." Replied Jack who relayed information between the Earth and their current safe zone in the gate.
Seeing Lux lift an eyebrow, surprised that it took them so long, he continued to explain. "The news has spread that the stronger professionals of the baron are currently clearing a tower and shouldn't be interrupted for anything unless the situation becomes dire. As for the surrounding towns, they professionals are weaker and they are currently hitting the side of the town. Unless there is a change, the battle should end in the next few days but with a lot of casualties.
From the released news, the baron's tower clearing team should soon come to an end and they will be immediately coming to aid us pass this attack." He finished as Lux nodded his head. As long as they managed to repel the troops, the shop owner didn't really care who took care of it.
With this new information, Lux looked back at the current celestial body. As it was getting further and further away constantly, the cost of keeping the gate open was getting more and more costly.
Thanks to his recent improvement in strength, he had managed to push the ultimate closure by two days, leaving them with a bit more than five days before everyone had to be evacuated.
With some people deciding to spend a bit more money to explore the world behind the gate while they were there, collecting some common resources such as the iron ore, the gate's value was constantly decreasing. All that remained were a few ressources, monsters and the tower itself.
It was worth noting that since the fifth professional school was near his gate shop, the students and their families had come to take refuge in the gate and in order to distract the youngs, the school's headmaster had decided to use the time to allow them to explore the gate properly, doing the school trip they had planned but had yet to implement.
Days went by slowly and as he had nothing to do anyway, Lux directly continued training.
Two days later, perhaps he was just that good but realistically thanks to luck, Lux was currently faced with yet another celestial body in front of his eyes. Additionally, compared to the previous one, this one seemed to be quite larger, bringing Lux hope that this wasn't just some tier one celestial body but perhaps a tier two or three if he was lucky.
Engraving the coordinates to prevent himself from losing this small planet, Lux immediately went to the Star Map part of the system once more, hoping to get good news.
"Nice! Tier 3 size, three star ressources, two star monster danger and one star environmental danger." Said Lux to himself, relief evident in his voice as he now could open a gate that would allow the weaker explorers to continue doing what they loved best and grant them the chance of making loads of money. After all, just the resources on such a huge planet were bound to be quite remarkable.
"Boss, a group of explorers are coming this way." Said Miranda who came closer and informed him just as he was about to look at the price of unlocking this planet in his system.
"A group of explorers? Is it the Hatch's family group?" He wondered aloud as he looked at the status of Proteus and noticed that the panel had once again changed for the better.
Not only had the two floors tower been cleared and it had disappeared, but the remaining monsters had been sent in the wild in the previous tower's location surroundings and the remaining resources had also been sent around greatly replenishing the limited amount of ressources the asteroid previously offered.
'Well, it's not going to exist for very long with the explorers heading there right at this moment to make some quick cash. While the Hatch family took most of the loot, there is still quite a bit for them to collect.' Thought Lux as he had officially become the sole force on this asteroid.
"Boss, we would like to head back out, we need some medicine and some of my guild members' families are still outside." Said Nellya as she arrived, some anxiousness in her voice, the previous happiness in completing a tower raid completely gone as the very background of her group was perhaps getting destroyed at this very moment.
"No problem, if your family needs a palace to stay, feel free to bring them here." He said, offering as much help as he could as he knew full well that this strongest explorer's group was important to his customers as they lowered the difficulty of gates.
"Thank you." She said, nodding her head as she brought along all of her subordinates, a few extra explorers going along with them, offering to help escort the wounded back out of the gate, mostly in order to improve their chances of joining. After all, a group that could and a group that could not raid a tower were completely different.
As for Lux, he looked at all the money he had collected and decisively exchanged everything for credits.
[Do you wish to exchange Bym for Credits?]
"Yes, exchange for all of my money except one hundred thousand." Directly said Lux who knew that money was made almost at every moment and he wouldn't be lacking in it for the foreseeable future.
[Exchange completed. Remaining balance: 10,666]
"Unlock the information on the Poria celestial body." Decided Lux as his newly increased credits went all the way down to 4416.
'To unlock Aeyama, the tier three celestial body, I'll have to pay 87,000 credits.' He thought with a shake of his head as while it wasn't too much, it did indeed cost quite a lot simply to have the information.
'For the moment, I won't open Aeyama, the new one Poria will have to do for a while.' He decided as he wasn't surprised if his explorers cleaned that asteroid sooner rather than later.
Name: Poria
Size: Tier 1
Gate level: Lv.1 (0/1000)
Activated Cost: 14
Time Remaining: 2M, 17D, 14H, 23 min, 12 sec.
Environment level: 2 stars
Monster danger level: 3 stars
Ressources level: 2 stars
Map: 0%
Gates: 5
Towers: 3
Cost per hour: 143