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

"Shit!"

If not for the lack of a standard steering wheel inside of the maglev, I would surely slam my hands hard into it.

"I…"

Fay stopped her answer to the question I asked just a moment ago.

"Ah," I twitched on my chair, "sorry, continue."

"I don't really know…" Fay's voice trembled, pushing my chin to the side as I hurriedly looked over.

In the heat of the moment, Fay apparently failed to relax our bond to the point she could sense each of my emotions while we were both stunned by our discovery.

And in this fraction of a moment, she appeared to misunderstand the reason for my energetic reaction.

To her, she barely tried to give me the answer only to see me getting all agitated, seemingly, in response to what should be pretty good news.

"Ah, sorry," reflecting upon how I accidentally made the entire situation turn weird, I quickly shook my head before bowing it in Fay's direction. "I was disturbed by how crossing this damn barrier won't be anywhere as easy as I already expected it to be."

I took a deep breath before leaning as far back as my chair allowed.

"But as you can see, we can't cross on this side of this hole and there's no way in hell we will be able to reach its other end."

In the end, the very moment I came to believe things were going to get a bit easier than usual, the world struck back, proving just how much I underestimated its depth.

There was an entity capable of creating city-sized and skytower-high holes right in the middle of massive mountains. Going even further with this line of thought enriched by our recent observation, either the same or yet another entity was capable of creating a barrier not even hundreds of supremes could tackle.

With that perspective in mind, my desire to simply circumvent the barrier by going around it was a display of biased arrogance rather than a stroke of genius.

"Thinking about it now, I wonder just how many supremes got the same idea before us," I muttered, leaning my head to the back and closing my eyes.

For just a moment, things were going well. And that made me grow conceited enough to believe this state of things would last just a little bit longer, maybe allowing me to even finally complete one of the paths of my main quest?

Enjoy new adventures from empire

In the end, though, once again I had to find a way to face an obstacle that fate seemed to design to put on my path and decisively stop me from advancing any further.

The worst part of it all, though, was that right now - I was at my wit's end.

"Didn't we talk about possible ways of avoiding the issue of the bending space?" Moving past the former topic and misunderstanding, Fay quickly fell into the right, introspective mindset. "Can't we just get some tranquilizer pills and let the autopilot take the long way around for us?"

It went without saying that crossing over to the other side of this barrier was an absolute priority, the main task that was important enough to warrant this entire adventure. An adventure that put my life at risk, restrained me from actively participating in the growth of a new camp, and even convinced Makary to let me borrow one of his prized hovercraft.

All for that sweet, sweet ability to cross the plains and the only sure-fire method of completing any path of my main quest in anticipation of some great reward.

Oh, and to make this mission even more important, it was a part of our end of the deal to find a way to cross this damned plain over to where Etaria could get her hands on some more of that prized chai herb… And where our side could find vast swaths of lands controlled by someone we didn't really have any dealings with yet.

'In other words, we have to get across,' I thought, taking a moment to consider Fay's suggestion.

"I'm sorry, but there's no way," I shook my head a short while later. "The risk is too big. I just can't put all of our lives in the hands of a damn AI!"

Maybe it was my bias, but the onboard control tool simply felt too lackluster, too… lacking to be a good fit for the job.

Just like the ship's sensors couldn't detect any anomaly and the reason we would get cut from all means of wireless communication the moment we stepped into the plain, what was there for me to believe that the onboard pathing system and scanners would be enough to do what, time and time again, the plain proved not to be possible?

"Using the onboard steering software can work when it comes to bringing us out of the plain once we cross the barrier. But this chasm…" I looked out of the window and stared at the perfectly circular emptiness. "This chasm, we need to find a way to cross ourselves.

We could build a bridge. It would be a long and tiring process, but with enough technology, materials, and work-hours put into it, as crude as it might end up being, a bridge was possible.

Not a bridge that would last centuries if not ages, but a bridge that could very well collapse the moment we used it once.

But that wouldn't help us at all, given how we not only needed to cross over to the other side ourselves… But do so while still keeping the maglev in a working order! After all, it was our only possible tool to cheat the pull of the barrier and actually leave this accursed land!

"Frankly, I'm out of ideas," I admitted with a sigh, lowering my eyes to the control panel as if in search of inspiration.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

And against all odds and…. No, against all reason and all odds, an idea came to my mind.

An idea as obvious as it was ridiculous.

"Fay, dearest, do you think you could take care of angling the ship?"