Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

Walking up to the gate proved much more troublesome than Cassie would think… If she spared the task of doing so a single thought beforehand, that is.

Yet, thinking about it or not, she had no other choice but to squeeze through the very same crowd that she organized to reach anywhere near the gate.

"Excuse me," "Yeah, sorry," "I'm sorry," "Passing through…"

Bit by bit, Cassie squeezed between people. At first, this task nearly proved to be too much for a feeble-framed girl like her, making her question whether or not she could really do it.

Yet, maybe out of his desire to get to the gate first, or maybe after noticing Cassie's struggles, Lorren moved a bit more decisively, squeezing past the girl and taking upon himself the brunt of creating the path ahead.

'Now we are getting somewhere,' Cassie thought when instead of carving a path through the crowd, she could move by simply exploiting the gaps created by Lorren squeezing through ahead of her.

Still, the guard's shouting wasn't getting any louder. In fact, by the time Cassie managed to reach more or less the middle of the crowd, those very guards were already looking as if they were about to give up on whatever they needed Peter's real-life friends for.

"I'm here!" Cassie shouted after crossing a few more steps, shooting her hand out in hopes that by waving it above the heads of the crowd she could stop the guards from leaving.

"We are here!" Once again making use of big bigger frame and, in this particular scenario, the greater volume of his lungs, Lorren shouted.

Contrary to Cassie's pitiful attempts at making herself heard, Lorren's voice managed to cut through all the noise and reach the guards. What's more, even the people around them finally started to notice the pair, making them move to the sides and open up a path for them to cross through.

"We are here…" Cassia muttered upon reaching the very front of the crowd where only the gate was left to stand in her path. She leaned forward while resting her hands on her knees, taking her time to calm her breath after the relatively strenuous exercise.

"And you guys are…?"

Before Cassie could even regain her breath, the very same guard who called out for Peter's friends approached the gate from its other side only to give the two an intense look.

"I'm Peter's former classmate, and she is his girl…"

"I'm his ex-girlfriend," Cassie spoke out for herself before Lorren incorrectly introduced her.

Judging by the sharp look he gave her upon first hearing of the update was quite the something.

"Good," not giving the two any time to think and communicate, the guard spoke out… before pulling out his phone. "It would be one hell of a pain to bring Peter all the way here, so we are going to call him instead," the guard spoke while already selecting the number on his cell and switching on the loudspeaker function. "And of course, it will be out for everyone…"

The guard looked over the two and at the crowd gathered behind their backs. The crowd was far bigger than the area a simple phone's loudspeaker could cover alone.

The man dialed the number and started the call only to turn his head around and look over his colleagues.

"Patric, pass me the speaker," the guard requested, only to receive the loudspeaker from his fellow guard, flip its switch on, and bring the mouthpiece towards the phone's speaker.

Tick.

The sound of the call connecting, amplified through the loudspeaker filled the entire area.

"What the fuck do you want?!"

***

"What the fuck do you want?!"

With my phone held right to my mouth by Fay, I cursed out the caller.

Even though I knew this call was going to come, even though I could somewhat estimate its timing…

It was still annoying to be so focused on a simple yet extremely precise task, only for the phone's call to disturb me.

And it was of no importance that all I was busy with was knitting a simple scarf.

Still, for a mere beginner who took up the knitting tools for the first time merely a few minutes ago, just keeping the scarf's prototype from falling apart right in my hands was taking a huge chunk of my focus.

"Don't you know…"

I got ready to berate the people on the other end of the call, only to cut my curses short.

"Fay, dear, hold this thread for me, could you?" I requested while looking up and directing Fay's attention to the one, pesky thread that felt like it gained consciousness just for the sake of fucking with me.

"This one?" Fay asked, reaching out and pointing her finger at the annoying, loose thread before casting a quick glance to confirm the answer off my face.

"Yeah, if you would…"

With Fay grabbing the end of the annoying thread and pulling it to tense it up, I finally managed to weave the thread I was focusing on into the tapestry that made up the scarf's prototype.

"There…" I muttered, satisfied with the result. Then and only then I turned my eyes and attention back to the call, but not before ensuring I held all the necessary threads of my project properly tensed up, keeping the prototype from unveiling itself and turning back into just a bunch of fluffy threads.

"So, let me ask again," I spoke out in the direction of my phone in a calm voice, only to turn it up the moment I opened my mouth again. "Don't you know I'm fucking busy? What the hell do you want?!"

***

"Don't you know I'm fucking busy? What the hell do you want?!"

The voice came out of the guard's phone only to get amplified by the loudspeaker he held close by, thus turning a simple, relatively silent curse into a massive announcement the entire crowd of protesters could easily hear.

"We tried not to bother you with it, but there's a whole slew of people who came, acting as if we kidnap…"

"Oh for fucks sake!"

Despite the curses and clearly unsavory mood of the man on the other end of the phone, the guard's hand holding the loudspeaker didn't even twitch, keeping it firmly pressed against the cell's speaker.

"Those damn threads are too damn small to handle! Fuck!"

A series of new, fresh curses followed, stopping the guard from finalizing the explanation.

"You were saying…?"

Finally, Peter, or whoever acted like him, turned his attention away from whatever he was busying himself with back to the ongoing call.

"People think we kidnapped you. They even came up with a protest trying to make us release you…"

The guard with the phone managed to keep up an empty expression so far… only to start failing as he brought up the topic of the protest.

"Wait, what? Who in their right mind… No, who?" Peter posed several questions in quick succession. The surprise was all over his voice and manner of speech, only further reinforcing the point that he wasn't, indeed, a kidnapped person.

"You guys are…?" The guard raised his eyes and lowered his voice as he looked at the pair, pretending not to notice the first signs of unrest rippling through the crowd.

Those people came to genuinely support the initiative of putting pressure on an unruly gang to force them to release a kidnapped citizen before the city itself would take notice. And now that the situation was turning out not to be as simple as they were told…

It was only a matter of time before some of them would start to leave, assuming they wouldn't stick around to see how things would end up playing out.

Either way, once the first few would drop the protest, be it to leave or to just watch from the sideline, more of them would follow.

And now that the first seeds of doubt were sown in their heads, it was only a matter of time before the cohesiveness that kept the protest together would dry out, turning them from an organized and thus potentially dangerous force into just a scattered mob of onlookers and troublemakers.

"I'm Lorren, I'm Peter's classmate."

"I'm…" Cassie hesitated when inevitably faced with the issue of confronting Peter.

'We didn't exchange a single word since the day he called me…' she thought, only to remember the one instance when they chanced upon each other out in the street, only for Peter to fully ignore her.

"You are…?" The guard drilled his eyes into Cassie's face.

"I'm Cassie…" Cassie averted her eyes right as deep blush covered her cheeks, "Peter's ex."

This time, no curse came from the phone. Only… silence.

"Osman…" Peter's voice, when it came again, turned extremely weary. "Just to be sure. Tell me, are you seriously distracting me while I'm on the job with those two?"

The silence returned as Osman's expression grew ugly.

"But they are…"

"Chase them away, shoot them, sell them, I don't care. Anything else?"

Osman clenched his jaws before forcing a fake smile on his lips.

"No, that will be all, sorry for taking your time man."

Osman cut the call and brought the loudspeaker away before passing both items over to the hands of his colleague to the side. He then turned his eyes back to the duo at the gate only to drill his eyes into them while they struggled to figure out what kind of face to make.

By now, there was hardly anyone within the crowd who believed in the kidnapping claims. But to claim this matter was settled would mean getting ahead of oneself.

"Now that we've established we did not, in fact, kidnap Peter," Osman spoke out after taking his sweet time torturing the two young adults with his stare. "How about you share what made you believe we did?"

Faced with the reality that Peter was actually safe and sound, Cassie felt as if a massive weight had dropped off her shoulders.

Even with how they parted ways, even with all of the misunderstandings that happened before and since then, even with how she nearly gave up on their relationship…

A wave of relief washed down Cassie's soul.

Peter was safe.

But now was the time for her to face the reality and the consequence of organizing a pretty intense protest.

"It was Irene…" Cassie muttered before turning her head all around as she tried to peer through the crowd to locate her friend. "I mean, my friend Irene showed me the photos and claimed she tracked the car that took him all the way here…" Cassie replied, only for her voice to grow less and less confident as the ugly reality started to settle in.

The reality… in which Irene was actually nowhere to be seen!