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

When setting out for this journey, I myself grew quite excited. And yet…

The only exciting part about it was the beginning.

Throughout the first day of carefully traversing the plains and avoiding any spots that I judged to be even slightly more intense than the rest, we didn't really feel the boredom.

There was simply so much novelty all around, from the great sense of adventure as we were likely the first ones to step that far into this open yet deadly plain. Then there was the excitement of living pretty much a van's life for a while, even if we only had our open buggy and the sleeping capsules welded to it in place of a van.

Still, with all the amenities present within the buggy's frame, as long as we didn't make our massive vehicle roll over, we could continue to use not only the kitchen and some basic toilet but also a damn refrigerator and a shower! Albeit they relied on some clever tricks and were a far cry from the real thing…

The ability to take a slightly uncomfortable shower, even if only with cold water, was still a luxury no other traveler could enjoy, especially not on a path that dangerous, where one wrong step could easily spell one's doom.

But again, as much fun as we had spending time in the open frame of the buggy, enjoying the whistling of the air as it passed over our faces… This novelty quickly turned into the same, boring, everyday aspect of our changed life.

There was still some enthusiasm in the three of us when we made breakfast, but by the time of the dinner, the boredom took its toll, turning all silent and pretty lethargic.

"Did we skip sleep too much?" I asked myself, struggling to push my mouth to move just to utter this pointless complaint.

As tired as I was in the middle of the second day… I still had a job to do. And given how all our lives relied on me doing my job well, I couldn't welcome any random ideas that would make me fall down in a state of deep thought.

And so, our journey continued.

'Thank God for Fay,' I thought, snuggling myself up to Fay's back, hiding my face in the storm of her white hair for but a moment. Regaining some mental energy from this short cuddle, I brought my head over her shoulder before resting my chin on it as I swept our surroundings with my eyes again.

'It's been a while since I last saw one of the spots,' I thought a bit later, upon noticing the thin yet perfectly straight strand of silvery light falling into the ground at a steep angle some miles ahead.

Yet, the distance that would take us hours to cover on foot, we managed to cross in mere minutes, and all of that while keeping the buggy at the most fuel-efficient speed, which was a far cry from how fast it could really go.

There was no need for us to waste fuel just to move faster. There was nothing chasing us and I had no plans of decreasing the reach of our expedition just for the mental comfort of moving faster.

Still, mere minutes after spotting the light out in the distance, I've already pressed my hand a bit tighter on the right side of Fay's waist.

My lap wasn't the most stable place she could seat herself in. Yet, just like her presence kept me both awake and focused, I could tell my proximity was working pretty much the same way on her.

And so, wasting no words, I asked Fay to turn slightly to the right, changing our direction just in time to avoid crossing the boundary of the massive, circular spot of silvery air.

If those spots back near the forest were just big enough for a man to reach both of its ends with the tips of his fingers if he chose to and survived not only standing in the middle but then spreading his arms out as far as his joints allowed.

Yet, as we gradually went deeper and deeper into the starlight plain, those spots grew both much more rare… and also much bigger.

Strangely enough, no matter how closely I looked and how much I wanted to remember the intensity of the light of the spots I saw to compare them to the spots I would see in the future… The magnitude of the light's power remained constant throughout all the spots of starlight we encountered.

Big or small, it was all equally lethal.

It wasn't until the spots grew so large we had to spend an entire hour just to drive around them that I realized that focusing on those spots made me blind so an effect much more sinister.

'It was just yesterday when he claimed to feel all good,' I thought, taking a look to the side, where Claudy sat in silence and stared off into a distance with an empty look on his face.

He didn't seem sad, depressed, or… agitated?

The man looked as if he was so tired, all he could think of was going back to sleep.

But how could a supreme of a kind I've never seen before grow so tired so quickly when all we did was drive around the plain, doing nothing but sitting, chatting, and eating?n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

'This no longer feels like just boredom,' I thought grimly to myself while throwing a long, focused look all over our surroundings…

All to afford me a moment of respite by hugging myself against Fay's back as hard as I could without actively hampering her ability to drive the buggy.

"Is it starting to affect you too?" Fay asked in a rare, monotone voice, devoid of its usual liveness and luster.

But she was still warm, soft, and just perfect to cuddle. Just like she was able to figure out what I suddenly became worried about.

"This place is really damn terrifying," I admitted before pulling myself into Fay's back just a bit tighter. "Are you really sure you are okay, though?"

After an entire day's worth of travel and then the whole night, my worries regarding Fay's constitution and how the starlight plains would affect it have started to die down. But…

That was all while I still operated under the assumption that the passive pressure of those plains wouldn't grow so quickly.

I knew it grew from my very first trip into this strange, empty field. Even back then, when I used this pressure to refine my own flesh and bones I actively moved around, seeing greater challenge when my growth rate started to slow down.

I knew that traveling by buggy, we would cover much more ground than anyone could ever hope to do so on foot.

I knew this plain liked to mess with the sense of space if not outright bend its nature and shape.

I knew it all, and it never occurred to me that with all of those things appearing simultaneously within a single equation, the passive pressure of the starlight within the plain would grow many, many levels faster than how I experienced its growth during my first trip.

And now that I finally took all of those things into account, I had to physically reach down and hold my knee down from reaching out and slamming in on the brakes.

'Fay was fine right at the edge, but none of us are fine now. And with how susceptible she is to the damage the starlight brings…'

Gritting my teeth, I once again found myself blaming my own greed for adventure, power, and money for putting Fay in an uncomfortable if not outright dangerous place.

And yet…

"Dear, I've told you already," Fay sighed, only to press on the brakes herself and waste the fuel by grinding the buggy down to a complete halt.

To the side, Claudy raised his face and spared us a glance, likely startled by the sudden stop, only to then lower his head back, fix the position of his simple cap, and relax back in his chair.

"When I reached beyond the limits specified by my trial, I've fixed the issue you mentioned all that time in the past," Fay repeated the very same thing that she kept telling me over and over again, even when knowing I could, pretty much, see that for myself just by glancing upon her aura. "And now this strange force doesn't affect me any more than it does you.

Or, should I say, I believe it affects you much more than me or Claudy."

Ensuring the car was safely sitting atop the short grass of the plain, Fay swiveled over on my lap, brushing her left knee against my stomach as she threw it to the other side of my hips. With her knees then pushing far beyond my belt as she slid up my lap, Fay wrapped her hands behind my back before pulling me into a tight, affectionate hug.

"I don't know why it is, dear," Fay whispered into my ear, only to then pull her head to the back just far enough to take a proper look into my eyes. "But I can tell the pressure of this place affects you much more than it does the two of us."

Fay sighed, letting her warm breath wash over my face, sending yet another, pleasant wave down my spine.

"Maybe it's because you are the only one that can see it? As in, the effects of the starlight might grow the easier it is for one to see it? Just like staring into the sun would blind anyone capable of seeing its light?" Fay suggested a random explanation, only to relax her arms and bring them back… only to then shrug them before reaching out and grabbing my face between her gentle hands.

"I don't know why this light that we cannot even see affects you to such a degree. But I know it does affect you. And if you want us to proceed even a single step further," Fay pulled back, letting go of my face only to drop the forefinger of her right hand right atop my solar plexus. "You will have to figure out a way how to deal with this issue first."