W$ (World Dollars)

Behind the door, Lucas found that he stood in a long hallway with many other doors that looked exactly like his.

Looking on his right was a dead end, and on his left was another path that led to another hallway, so he walked there and followed the path.

Soon, Lucas found himself in another room very similar to the lobby of a hotel.

And just like hotel lobbies, there was a receptionist desk with a person tending it.

So he walked there and tried to ask the receptionist about his whereabouts.

But before he could even speak, the receptionist greeted him first with a smile.

"Welcome back to Earth. I assume this is your first time coming back from Gula?"

Lucas was surprised by the revelation that he was already back on Earth and he didn't find himself standing back on the road where he met Maya and was transported to Gula.

But adding his confusion to the pile of unanswered questions that he got, Lucas just accepted the matter of fact and started his Q&A session with the receptionist.

He already got a promise from Maya to answer all his questions about Gula after he got out of the place.

How Gula was able to bring so many people there, why the other people seemed to be even more clueless than him, Maya's mysterious background and goal, and most importantly, what the hell was happening and what would happen in the future.

So he didn't ask the receptionist about such things and instead talked about the place that he had just found himself in.

"This is the teleportation Hub.

This is the place that you have to go to if you ever want to go back to Gula. And this will also be the place that you will find yourself in after returning from there.

Aside from being the gateway between Earth and Gula, you will also be able to store your things here, travel to any other branches of the teleportation hub on Earth, and also, exchange Gula's currency with Earth's currency."

Keeping her smile, the receptionist eyed Lucas' pouch for a second before asking,

"Is there anything I can help you with for today?"

Out of the four uses of the teleportation hub, Lucas only wanted to use one of them right now.

Lucas didn't have anything he wanted to store here yet.

And he certainly didn't want to return to Gula anytime soon without getting answers and explanations from Maya first.

Lucas noticed the receptionist's eyes and was about to hand her the whole pouch to exchange all the gold coins he got for Earth's currency.

But before he could turn all 10 gold coins into Wdollars, Maya stopped him.

'Don't exchange all of your gold coins. They will be very useful for you back in Gula.

Although a few gold coins wouldn't get you any heaven-defying treasures, it will assure your livelihood there, especially for someone dirt poor like you.'

Lucas' eyebrows twitched several times when he heard Maya's last sentence, but he knew that she was anything but wrong about him being dirt poor and decided to only pull out 5 gold coins to exchange for Wdollars.

After receiving the 5 gold coins, the receptionist then stored them under her table and gave Lucas a card in exchange.

"Please put your index finger here," She said as she pointed at the bronze atm card.

After his fingers touched the card and it glowed for a second, the receptionist gestured to him to take the card.

"To avoid unnecessary troubles with the Indigenous authority, please use the bank account we provided for any Gula-related transactions."

Lucas then received the bronze card given by the receptionist and asked her for the place where he could use the card.

"You may use the ATM inside this building or any other ATMs inside the branches of the teleport hub.

We have plans for integration with the local ATMs, but it would still need more time, so I beg your patience for this inconvenience."

She then pointed at the ATMs placed right in front of the side walls of the lobby and Lucas quickly headed there.

One of the most important questions he got in his mind was how much his effort was worth.

He had to kill people to get the 5 gold coins.

Even though he eventually found out that those people somehow didn't actually die, his mind still remembered vividly how it felt like to take the lives of others.

Lucas would never be able to forget it even if he wanted to.

And according to Maya, this would not be the last time that he would be doing that kind of thing. 

So he wanted to know, if it was worth it, to keep continuing what he had just done and probably even do something much worse than just killing a couple of scums.

Arriving in front of one of the ATMs, Lucas inserted the bronze card and he was prompted to place his finger on the ATM screen for his identification.

After it was confirmed that it was really him, the ATM screen displayed the ordinary option that any ordinary ATM would provide.

So Lucas quickly clicked on the option "Balance" to see how much money he got.

Lucas' body tensed up as he stared hard at the ATM screen.

And all that tension disappeared into disbelief when he saw the number shown on the screen.

"W$ 5000"

All his hard work, his part-time jobs, even the midnight shift one, only paid him around 3-5 W$ an hour because he was only a student.

It was decent considering the place where he lived was in a third-world country and a proper meal only cost about 1 W$.

But for the amount he was aiming for, the cost of the surgery needed for his grandma, it was only a single drop of water in a large bucket.

However, if he earned this much money each time he went to Gula, then he would only need to do it tens more times to get the money he needed.

'With this… I will definitely be able to do it…'

'I will be able to cure grandma and give her the happy life she deserves.'

So with a new conviction in mind after finding out that it was really possible to cure his grandma, Lucas quickly headed out of the building and found the familiar road around his neighborhood.

He walked away from the building and quickly headed somewhere else.

A place where he could freely talk with Maya and ask her about everything he needed to know about Gula and how he could earn even more gold coins.

He had decided to do it. Lucas had decided to return to Gula and do whatever he had to do to get the money he needed for himself and his grandma.

To do that, he needed all the information he could get about Gula, where his hard work actually paid off, and it paid off big.

The place where he could finally change his miserable life.