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

"I know it's like the fourth or the fifth time that I'm saying this, but let's get ready, and let's go."

After teasing Claudy a bit with the topic of his breakfast, I didn't actually push for us to move out before the man would get the chance to eat properly.

"I'm, burp, more or less ready to go," Claudy reported.

'What is he, an opposite to us?'

He couldn't sleep well while both I and Fay had a really good time getting our share of rest. And the food that was no better than a tasteless slurry, when judged by just his expressive reactions to it, apparently was amidst the top ranks of all the food the man ate in his life.

"Same here," forcing my thoughts back on the track, Fay called out from my left.

In the end, despite initiating the roll call, I was the only one left unready.

"I guess I better shut up," I muttered as I walked over to my seat before lowering my ass onto the soft cushions and strapping myself in with the security belts.

Today more than any time in the past, those belts were likely to come in handy.

"Okay, diagnostics are up…" I whispered, more to myself than to anyone else, as I flicked several switches and waited for the diagnostics results to pop out on the main display.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

For a moment, part of the energy went from the hypermagnets to the center brain of the vehicle, feeding it with just enough juice to run through all the necessary procedures.

"Okay, I don't see anything alarming," I continued to mutter under my nose as I scanned through the list of all the systems while taking my time to properly check every single point of failure.

"How is it?" Fay asked, turning her eyes away from the display.

In theory, the names were obvious enough for her to figure it out. In reality, though, I couldn't expect Fay to know what "Secondary Cooling for the Hydraulics" was supposed to mean or "conversion rate through the catalyst is within the upper limits of the norm".

"All good, we are all set to go."

From there on, there wasn't much left for us to do. And with the diagnostic complete, I could now tell more or less for sure that the maglev was still in perfect working order.

'The chances of something bugging out in a manner precise enough to perfectly cheat the AI and make itself appear to be working correctly…' I thought, considering the option for a second, only to quickly come to discard it.

The odds of something like that happening were nowhere near the realm of possibility, thus making them but another redundant worry that my mind produced to stop me from getting out of my comfort zone.

A worry that I could use as an excuse not to go through with the plan hatched in half on guessing and in half on hopes.

So, in order not to let my worries sway my thinking, I reached out and grabbed the power output lever while already grasping the control stick on my right.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, focusing on the sensations that I started to feel when I relaxed my bond with Fay.

On the other end of said bond, Fay did exactly the same, allowing both of us to plunge into a limited degree of perfect union. Union where our flesh became nothing more but a mundane obstacle we had to take care of in order for our mental union to continue.

We both held back quite a bit, only ever allowing the surfacemost thoughts to pass through our bond.

'It would do us no good if we were to get drunk in each other's presence while driving the maglev around,' I thought, gritting my teeth to overcome the allure of the sensation and focus on the task at hand.

This time, I didn't ask if Fay was ready. Instead, I simply looked over and waited for her to notice.

Upon doing so, Fay turned her head and looked at me… only to then slowly nod her chin and squint her eyes right as she turned them towards the front of the vehicle.

'Here goes nothing,' I thought, pulling the power lever up while also pushing my control stick forth to give us some initial momentum.

And so, at a tiny angle, we rushed towards the mountain in the distance, the very same mountain that we climbed just the day before.

'It looks like we are going to use the very same path too,' I noticed once we got much closer to the mountain, slowly forcing both me and Fay to ramp our focus up.

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"Hey," just before we would have to fully dedicate our attention to steering the ship, Fay called out to me. "You figured something out, right?" Fay asked, turning her head only to reveal one hell of a complex expression.

She was curious, saddened, baffled, and thoughtful at the same time, along with many other aspects of her current mood that I couldn't read off her face and eyes.

"Yeah, it seems like I did," I didn't bother lying. Even if I did lie out loud, Fay could easily tell so through our bond, especially now that we allowed our consciousnesses to mingle.

But from the very fact that I didn't elaborate on the point, Fay appeared to realize I had to have some sort of goal in keeping silent about my findings.

"I will leave everything to you and just support you from the side, then" Fay offered me a short yet bright smile before turning her eyes towards the see-through display.

'It's time for us to work, huh?' I thought, taking in a deep breath and switching myself over to a pilot's mindset.

The three days of constant drilling by my trainer were far from enough to teach me how to fly this miracle of science and engineering. They were just enough to let me grasp the basics and know what problems and situations to avoid.

And the chasm that we were now rushing ahead to conquer was exactly the kind of situation my trainer advised me to give up on.

Plus, as if that wasn't enough, I already went against his wishes and put a talented yet fully inexperienced pilot in the seat of my co-pilot, overriding the lock on the second plane of maglev's movements.

I was heading straight to a place my trainer advised me to avoid, while actively partaking in breaking the taboo of not only lifting the restrictions on the maglev's movements but also entrusting part of its fate into the hands of a complete newbie.

'But what is life without a trill?' I thought, shoving all the doubts aside as I continued to push the lever higher and higher, all the way to where the hovercraft reached its maximal average output.

The terrain has already switched from a flat plain to a hilly foot of the mountain. And yet, rather than slowing down to adjust for the less-than-perfect ground below the maglev's bottom…

I've continued to speed up instead, pushing my control stick further and further away from me, openly trying to squeeze out every last bit of juice from the craft before we have no other choice but to slow down and take our approach easy.

'Here we go,' I thought moments before the angle at which the mountain grew up turned sharper and sharper, finally marking the moment when Fay would show just how useful she could make herself be in that co-pilot seat of hers.

And before I could even notice, Fay brought the first change to our angle of approach, starting our second and hopefully last climb up the steep mountain's side.