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

"We still have a prideful princess and half of her army left to deal with!"

That was all I could say. The limit of what the mix of my wisdom and intelligence could produce. And while, on its own, it was far from enough…

I had no other choice but to help it would somehow suffice.

Thump.

Suppressing the horror and overwhelming fear settling well within my soul, I was about to take a step forward to go about all the things we still had to do in Fay's world… Only to turn my eyes to the side right in time to see Fay falling down on her knees.

For a second, the world around me has stopped.

All that remained was Fay on her knees, with her hands by her throat and her eyes widened to the limits.

If her face were to tense even a tiny bit further, it would start to rip itself apart.

'Fuck!'

All the thoughts in my mind vanished.

What was a thought, after all, if not just an obstruction of my desire to keep Fay safe, protected, and happy?

Before I could even notice, I was already down on my knees grabbing Fay by her shoulders while my despaired mind turned empty.

'How do I help? What's wrong? What's happening? Is it her doing? God, what do I even do?!'

In my bid to erase the presence I saw when crossing the gate, I suppressed all my feelings, refused to think about what I saw, and ignored the terror it brought upon me.

The years of living at the bottom of the world taught me well how to perform all of those. Without the ability to, at least temporarily, kill my inner self and turn myself into a void, how else could I cope with all the cruelty of my life thus far?

But while I could perform this kind of trick, I was used to all sorts of emotions by now, both due to my life and thanks to the conditioning of the starlight plains…

Fay wasn't the same. But because of our bond and how it continued to reach new and new peaks of intensity the stronger we grew… She was forced to bear the burden of all of those thoughts, all of those feelings, all of this fear, terror… and the endless, overwhelming sense of powerlessness in the face of a truly mighty being.

And all of that, without even a shred of conditioning would help her cope with it.

"Fay!"

Shouting from the bottom of my heart, I reached through the abyss of terror that filled Fay's soul.

Having no better idea of how to help, I simply wrapped my hands around Fay's feeble frame and brought her into a deep yet gentle hug. As one of my hands started to slowly pat her back while the other grasped at the back of her head, I closed my eyes and focused on my inner state instead.

Through the sea of this overwhelming and suppressing terror, I reached out.

The feelings that I could only suppress before now turned into mere smoke for me to chase away with a single wave of my hand.

I was doing my best for Fay's sake, after all.

"It's okay, nothing is going to happen. We will be okay. I'm here, I'm here with you," slowly uttering words of reassurance, I continued to gently cradle Fay's body while still clearing my soul from all of the feelings that Fay couldn't handle on her own.

And bit by bit, as painful as it was to endure the process, I could feel Fay slowly coming back to her senses.

"Hon…" Struggling to utter more than just a single syllable, Fay finally produced a small, fragile voice.

"It's okay, just stay with me, mkay?"

Pulling my head back, I pushed Fay away half an inch away, just to get a sneaky look at her frozen face.

Fay's mind was still taken over by the terror of the realization that came with what I saw when crossing the gate… not. That discovery, as disturbing as it was, only served to fill the holes in the greater picture and finally answer some questions that I couldn't make sense of before.

But what led to this mind-boggling terror, was the single instant when I peered into the near-endless abyss of the power of the being that I formerly thought to be a human. And that being…

"Wake the fuck up!"

Makary's desperate shout finally reached my ears, right as the entire world suddenly came back, filling the picture of only me and Fay with all the details of an actual world.

"Fay! Peter!"

Madam's shouts joined just a little bit later, all due to her stepping through the gate a mere second after the three of us. And the first thing she saw, was Fay collapsing powerlessly on the ground and me rushing to join her.

"It's okay, she just felt sick."

Unable to dedicate a single part of my mind to come up with an actual and sensible response, I just used and then voiced the first thought that came to my mind.

"Did she?" Judging by how both Makary and Madam voiced the same response at the same time, my lackluster answer clearly didn't change their mind.

"I will be okay…" Fay whispered in the faintest voice I've ever heard her utter. She then raised her eyes and moved her chin up just a bit, just enough to let her eyes peer into mine. "But are we…"

Fay didn't finish her answer.

Speaking out loud right now wouldn't be the greatest of the ideas. Didn't that damned piece of shit walk throughout the entire length of the hangar unnoticed by a single man or a single piece of technology?

'Wait, we removed all of the cameras out not to risk anyone hacking them…'

A single idea appeared in my head. And with it, came the solution to the one and only problem, besides Fay's wellbeing, that mattered right now. The main problem with the seed of a plan that I came up with…

Was how every step of it required an entire, separate strategy to accomplish.

"Don't do everything at once. If a project seems too great to handle, split it up and tackle it one step at a time."

Struggling to maintain the operation of my mind at its peak between my worry for Fay, the terror I'd witnessed just before, and the struggle of finding a way out of one big trap we were all in…

I've managed to recall the one piece of information that I could, at least remotely, assume the real enemy might not be aware of.

A piece of information that I've learned from a random commentary of a movie I've watched in the past. And a piece of information that would allow me to pass the message to Makary without actually bringing it up out loud.

"Fay, dearest…" to the side, unaware of the mental struggle I was in, Madam dropped down on her knees and reached out with her hand for Fay's cheek.

"She will be okay," I decisively said only to randomly swat Madam's hand away, to both Fay's and Madam's surprise. Ignoring their weirded out looks, I raised my eyes to Makary.

"Enemy, enemy, enemy," I repeated a single word thrice before grabbing Fay a little tighter and then raising the two of us off the ground and back to our feet. "Enemy is still at our gates. We need to deal with that pesky princess and her army first, otherwise, we risk them figuring something out."

Makary's face twitched a little.

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

Between her surprise of having her hand slapped… and even greater surprise of Fay quickly calming down and not reacting to my actions at all, Madam struggled to find the right words to put her words through. And so, not knowing what to say, she simply lashed out at me.

"I will be fine, Mom, really," Fay spoke out, her voice slowly returning back to normal as my desperate attempts to clear the fog of terror from my soul, her soul, and our bond finally started to bear fruit. "And we really need to deal with that golden whore before she finds out how to press her own advantages!"

By the time Fay finished her short speech, her voice finally returned to normal. Or rather, by her last word, it actually grew stronger and more intense than her usual voice.

That was the one advantage that we could bank on. The very same advantage that put Fay in her sorry state. Our ability to communicate through our bond, with our souls.

And so, Fay, save for Makary, was the only one in the camp who understood the military meaning of repeating a word three times.

An emergency.

And by the time she uttered 'advantages' with such passion, she not only gave her own two cents on how to reach the goals I created for my grand plan of cornering that damned source of dark aura but also, somewhat casually, passed on this information to everyone around.

"That's right," quick to hide whatever impression Fay's ingenuity could have on anyone present, I started to speak just to make everyone focus on me instead. "This world has magic…" I hesitated for a little, doing my absolute best to properly play my part in this farce.

"Magic of sorts, that is," I added, perfectly aware that whatever power the aura was, it wasn't the omnipotent power with no restrictions or rules that so often appeared in fantasy books.

"I'm aware," Makary commented, his voice going all the way back to the Makary I knew from our very first meeting. "But what about it? He then asked, unknowingly picking up a role in my small play with those words of doubt. "Didn't my men prove we can roll over them anytime we want?" Makary asked while locking his hands on his chest and shaking his head.

"And we didn't even use Maglevs or any of the heavier equipment…"

This small whisper of disappointment… suddenly made Makary the living and walking proof that men instead of growing up, would simply make their toys bigger and more dangerous.

For his voice was just that, a voice of a child dissatisfied over being unable to play with their toys!

"That's right, that's what we are going to do," I replied, shaking my head to get rid of all the last traces of the terror brought upon by the sight of a girl I was somewhat familiar with shrouded in the nearly endless sea of darkness. "But first, just to be sure, let's stop that bitch from cooking up any surprises for us. Tell me," I raised my eyes and locked stares with Makary.

"Do we have any equipment to map this entire area and update it on the go?"