StarGate

Unlocking the shop's door as it was time, he turned towards the first podium, the one selected to host the gate to Proteus, opening the gate once more.

"Finally boss, we've waited for a while!" Complained one of the customers who, despite his words, honestly lined up to pay for his day's exploration in the otherworld.

Keeping a straight face, the customers didn't mind as they were now used to his character.

"Hey boss, are you going to open up another celestial body soon? This one's already completely explored and except for some monsters and resources to collect, there aren't many ways to make a profit anymore." Asked another one with a grin on his face, hoping to hear about a new portal as it meant new exploration possibilities.

Shaking his head at his mention, knowing that this customer in particular was an adrenaline junkie and always hoped to encounter new scenarios where he put his skills against the unknown.

"I still haven't found another planet out there. However, it shouldn't take long, I've greatly improved my skills since the first I found." He replied as while they were sad of his answer, they were pretty thrilled at the hint that he may find another one soon.

Just as they were talking, a man ran out of the portal with slight panic.

"Boss!" He shouted. "Another portal opened and we were attacked." He exclaimed as everyone fell silent at his words, the reality of the situation hammering in.

"Do you have any more information?" Lux asked, serious as the situation could quickly degenerate depending on the will of the enemy.

"They come from the level 2 gate on the other side of the planet. The gate of Chra Tea." He said, this time a bit calmer as he took his breath. "We lost twelve people during the night as they attacked us while we were harvesting ressources. They took everything there." He explained.

With a frown on his face which was mirrored by the other customers, Lux couldn't help but feel a bit pained. While it was true that the job they took, the job of entering gates and making money out of it, wasn't entirely safe, no one was expecting to fight against other humans.

"Boss, here's my money, I'm heading in." Said the same adrenaline junkie with an angry scowl on his face. Despite his rash attitude, he was one of the more powerful of his customers, standing at a level six demon hunter.

With his words many others quickly chimed in, throwing their money in the desk as they rushed inside the portal one after another, heading out to support their friends or colleagues, or simply go and fight others.

As the shop slowly grew deserted as they customers could now extract their resources from the newly opened entrance next to their portals, Lux entered his thoughts.

'Had I my own team, I wouldn't be stuck in such a situation. Now, I can only hope that the enemies aren't too strong and that I can pay enough incentives for the customers to go and kill the enemies.' He started before turning to another point.

'This time, the level two gate opened. But nothing is stopping the level four gate from opening either. If I want to keep this celestial body, I need to destroy the two other portals.' He concluded as he saw no other options. Perhaps he could hope that the level four gate didn't open but the moment it opened, he and his customers would be in danger.

Getting up from his desk, he started to write up various quests for his customers. After all, the quest board he had bought a while back was now empty with the exploration of this planet completed.

[Kill an enemy explorer. Reward: 10k per head.]

[Capture an enemy explorer. Reward: 15k per person.]

[Destroy the lv.2 portal of Chra Tea. Reward: 1M.]

With those three new tasks posted, he went back to his desk as Nellya, the leader of the Hatch's family where she is the head, Orelo, the leader of the Desrub guild and John who had greatly recruited and was now leading 45 people.

"Boss, what's the plan for this situation?" Asked Nellya who was the de facto leader of the three as the strongest group and the most experimented of the three. It also helped that the three had a pretty good relationship together.

"Well, I set up three different types of tasks. If any explorer wants to make extra money. At the same time, I will be keeping the portal open at all times until the end of the conflict and I will bring any logistic support necessary should the people who wish to stay and fight need it." He explained directly as the three's heads went straight to the job's board where the previous exploration-type quests were released.

With a whistle from Orelo as he saw the high amount of money they could receive from the kills, he couldn't help but lift an eyebrow as he seemingly reevaluated Lux.

"To be able to spend so much upfront, you really are different from the two other gate shop owners." He offhandedly mentioned that while he was truly giving more compensation, it was also true that he was weaker since he couldn't take care of this situation by himself. However, it was understandable and also the reason why they liked using this gate shop despite the lower amount of planet choices. After all, from this shop, they got what they put on the table and even more.

"It's alright if you keep the portal open but are you keeping the shop open as well?" Asked John who knew that some of his guys needed to leave as well as they had families outside.

"Yeah. Until the situation is solved, the gate and the shop are going to both stay open. Tonight, I'll try and master a new spell which will help me investigate the situation on the other side." He finished as the three nodded their heads.

Originally, they were wondering if they were to bring back their resources and have the gate owner simply close it due to danger but seeing that he was willing to invest so much, they felt a lot more confident.

On the other side of the gate, the news of the release of the three quests were shared amongst all explorers, greatly boosting their slightly waning enthusiasm after the danger of the current situation and the slowly rising amount of deaths.

With small groups forming as they didn't dare to explore alone anymore, dozens of small groups of five or six spread out around, looking for any enemies in their surroundings. They knew the shop owner's reputation and were willing to believe that he would indeed pay them once they brought back a head or living enemy.

Lux on the other hand was currently browsing the professional mall of his system, looking for a spell he remembered having glimpsed at in the past.

"That's it. The Cosmic Insight Spell." Grinned Lux as he knew that this was exactly what he needed.

The cosmic insight spell was a spell of the divination/detection category as it allowed the user to follow the energy from any gates to find the rough strength of the opposing space wanderer all the while finding the threads which linked a gate to its explorers.

With this spell, he would be able, in a limited range, to find out the location of any enemies related to that gate and the total number of enemies depending on the number of threads that was linked to the portal.

Looking at the price of 2000 credits or 2M Bym, Lux grinned as he felt that in the end everything would work out. Perhaps he wasn't the strongest or the one with the best background. However, he had customers who were willing to fight for the gate, mostly thanks to his reputation and the reward offered. In the end, it was all that mattered.

Closing the professional mall of the system, he slowly waited in the shop, keeping the portal activated and not daring to train as he needed to be able to act should anything happen.

With reports coming in from time to time, mostly from skirmishes, he unfortunately received the news of his customers dying as some of their friends brought out their bodies before heading back inside to continue fighting. Despite everything, none felt bad for those who died as they knew that in this world, dying was all too normal and compared to the wild, it was already safe.