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

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

This question was as stupid as it sounded.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

It took me four days of intense training to learn how to control the hovercraft in what was basically a tutorial mode for new pilots. With an entire set of planar movements out of the calculations I had to make to keep control, the technical difficulty of steering the maglev decreased by an entire dimension.

Your journey continues with empire

And here I was now, asking Fay who only ever got some limited experience piloting a buggy, if she wanted to take care of movements that easily confused the heck out of me when I got a glimpse of their complexity.

"In essence, it's not really all that complicated," I started on an encouraging note. "You will basically control the pitch, yaw, and roll of the ship in tandem with me keeping up the same controls I was at thus far."

Or, in much simpler words, I just requested her to fill in the spot of a secondary pilot of the ship. And while sure, her job would be easier than mine given how the secondary was expected to also take care of the ship's weapons and auxiliary functions…

I was still asking her to just sit down, strap in, and then precisely control an extremely complicated vehicle the details of which not even my maxed-out intelligence and wisdom allowed me to properly understand.

"No way."

Fay denied it without even a second thought.

'Figures,' I thought to myself but opted not to give up just yet.

"Right now, this is the only option I can think of," I raised my chin and looked out of the window, taking one more moment to stare right at the edge of the chasm just ahead. "That, or we could just take a running start, go as fast as we can, and hope we can reach the other side before falling to our deaths."

Summing up the other alternative with a lousy shrug of my shoulders I opted not to shake my head, judging just the movement of my shoulders was enough of a giveaway of my real thoughts of the matter.

"What do you think?" Fay, in a moment of uncertainty, looked over at Claudy. "It's your life that's at stake too."

Listening in to our conversation from the side, Claudy raised his eyes when Fay called out to him.

"Please, don't count on me to support either option or opinion," Claudy raised his hands as if to separate himself from the argument. "I don't know first thing about this ship. And while it may look simple to control…'

The man gave me a short yet meaningful glance before looking back at Fay.

"I saw enough people who mastered a skill to know steering this blob of metal isn't anywhere as simple as it looks to an outsider like me."

Upon revealing his inner thoughts, Claudy took a deep breath before relaxing back in his chair.

"Running star and great hopes, then?" I asked, not really expecting a real answer.

"Or we could just return and give me some time to learn how to co-pilot with you?" Fay then changed her approach, moving on from completely denying my idea to now finding a reasonable way to deny it instead.

"Time that we don't have," I sighed back. "You saw how well things are going back at the camp. And with Etaria eagerly inspecting the site every single damn day, her anxiety is only going to grow."

As much as I didn't want to put any female other than Fay into consideration…

I wasn't arrogant enough to outright ignore the princess's ability to mess up my plans.

She was already getting all anxious when the number of supremes on the side of the forest matched the generous evaluation of the supremes within her ranks. With me and Fay advancing to this legendary stage, we greatly upset the princess position that, thus far, has the monopoly on the show of force within the whole empire.

Sure, we had a deal… but in Etaria's eyes, I wouldn't appear as someone willing to honor their oath indefinitely.

To top it all off, the chai shortage of the empire only served to escalate the situation. And right now, it appeared as if my promise to take care of it was the only reason why Etaria even bothered to prolong her stay.

'It would be for the best if she left. And for that, she needs to see the first shipment of the chai from beyond the starlight plain,' I thought, steeling my resolve before actually unlocking my strap and moving over to Fay's seat.

"Tilting the ship around will be your one and only responsibility. And we will steer it while sharing through our bond so that we can easily read each other intentions," I explained before standing back up and moving to the back of the maglev's insides.

Stuffed at the very back were the crates of supplies of all sorts we scavenged from the logistic vehicles we kind of abandoned. Yet, in one of the many small and big cupboards hidden to the left of the back of the hovercrafts' insides, there was a book that, at this precise moment, was worth more than its weight in gold.

"Depending on how you angle the ship's magnets, the upwards thrust, direction, or even angle of approach, they all change."

As if my words and thoughts weren't enough, I brought my hand up and held it out in the air.

"Right now, we are flat above the average width of the surface below us," I explained before tilting my shift over to the left as if it was some seafaring vessel when hit by a powerful wave to its side. "In this configuration, the hypermagnets on the left get closer to the ground and thus produce more trust.

And while it's up to me to set their angle… it is going to be up to you to decide on the ship's angle," I concluded my explanation with just a light gesture of shaking my extended hand around….

Before pulling the tips of my fingers up while bending my hand right at a wrist as if I wanted to make it perpendicular to my arm.

"And if we happen to fall towards the chasm, I will need you to pull the ship like this," I added while pointing with my eyes at my bent hand. "In this way, even if we plummet straight to our deaths, as long as we get near enough to the other side of this damned hole, not even a perfectly vertical wall will be able to stop the hovercraft from moving."