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

The humming of the hypermagnets broke past the level of mild noise and entered the stage of a painful experience.

The high-pitched, grinding noise went right past all of my defenses, penetrating right into my brain and drilling into it as if the maglev's designer was actually an unfulfilled lobotomists.

It lasted for but a second, though, for the very moment we suddenly sped up upwards off the cliff, the distance between the magnets and the ground below spiked.

The noise of the electricity flowing through the machinery at a rate that brought it to its manufacturer-specified limits was still there, but the piercing, high-pitched sound of some sort of resistance decreased down to a bearable level.

Quite interestingly, though, even though we went right off a damn cliff… The hovercraft continued to rise even higher up.

Part of it was the momentum gained when I raised the power right before leaving the ground behind… But despite how ridiculous it might seem, I could somehow tell through my hand on the stick and how it reacted that even now, in the first moments of our leap into the unknown… the hypermagnets continued to press down with so much force, it somehow went past all the newly gained distance and provided lifting force for the vehicle.

This fragile status quo between the rapidly increasing free space below the maglev's deck and the maximum output of the hypermagnets allowed by its manufacturer soon broke when the mountain's side below rushed to match the level of the plain below.

The control stick grew stiff in my hand before starting to vibrate.

Whatever force it was that held it steady before has now vanished or grown too insignificant to keep fulfilling its purpose.

And between its stiffness and the constant vibrating, the stick grew largely unresponsive.

'Now.'

I allowed my guts to steer my hand and timing.

For just a little longer, the acceleration from the run-up and the power spike right before the leap continued to carry the hovercraft on an upward trajectory.

The moment the vehicle stalled for but a moment with the lines on the artificial horizon ball matching the standard mark engraved into the console's face, I pressed the trigger on the power lever before dragging it all the way back.

Or at least, attempting to do so, as reversing hypermagnets like that couldn't happen as quickly as me pulling the leaver down in one, decisive motion.

Deprived of what little lift maxed-out hypermagnets provided to the equation of our movement's vector, the vehicle promptly plummeted down into the abyss of nothingness below.

'Did it work?'

We were still moving forward… Or rather, rapidly tracking our long and arduous climb up the mountain back.

The rougher spots that took us hours to cross now became as insignificant as any other part of the mountain as our momentum carried us away from the mountain much faster than the gravity and the mountain's steepness could bring us crashing into the ground.

I could feel it, it only made sense…

But I still spared a second to ignore the virtual mirrors and look over, not trusting fake perspectives in this vital moment.

The face of the mountain grew smaller and smaller, quickly proving my calculations were on point.

And it was also at this moment when both Fay and Claudy finally lost their wits.

"WHAT THE HELL?!"

With a look of terror, Claudy grabbed at his straps, not sure if to hold on to them or if to tear them open and find a way to jump out.

In his eyes, there existed only the fear of us crashing down at some ungodly speed into the hard ground, a good two kilometers down the mountain's side.

"P-Pete…?"

Fay, on the other hand, turned all stiff, struggling to turn her head and give me a look intense enough to force some sort of explanation… or, at the very least, an excuse.

"Yes?"

Turning my head back, I glanced past Fay's face and focused my eyes on the visuals in front.

And as our maglev started to tilt forward, my perspective on the remaining room for error continued to improve.

"Are you… are we crashing down?" Fay's voice trembled again.

She appeared outwardly stoic, calmly holding onto her straps and seat while maintaining a relatively calm, maybe slightly tense look on her face.

But one glance into her eyes and one could see just how chaotic her soul was.

"For the moment, yeah," I replied with nothing but truth, sole truth, and holy truth before allowing a small smirk to my lips. "There's nothing to worry. Going back this way is actually much safer than doing it slowly."

Removing Fay from my attention, I compared the distance I could see through the bulletproof glass and the rapidly decreasing numbers on the display.

Out in the starlight field, I didn't dare to trust the sensors enough to rely on just the numbers.

Still, for the most part, all the different sets of information that I could derive from the remaining space below the maglev's bottom remained more or less consistent.

'Just a little bit more…' I thought, suddenly eager to implement one of the testing methods humanity developed back when first dealing with more advanced technology.

A stress test where one would intentionally overload a tested part with more stress than it was supposed to handle.

In this kind of test, by patiently repeating them over and over again, one could derive a likely durability of the part that went beyond the producer-allowed limits.

"Breathe all the air out!" I called out in a loud, sharp voice, while still maintaining enough space and time for some delay.

Fay only cast a quick glance at my face before turning all limp as she banished all the air she could out of her lungs.

With how focused I was on the process, I couldn't really afford to look over and see whether Claudy maintained his head cool enough to follow up on my order.

In fact, he wasn't likely to die if he refused to breathe out… Just much more likely to go through a hell of pain he never knew a human would be subjected to, as kindly explained by my maglev driving teacher of a few days.

"Here we go," shouting, this time purely to hype myself up, I drove the power lever as high up as possible, pressing the safety trigger button way before the lever reached the safety point around half of the max output.

The speed of our fall rapidly declined, as if the air around us suddenly turned much thicker and denser, requiring much more force for the flattened sphere of our vehicle to push aside to make room for its fall.

The resistance rose in a rapid yet perfectly gradual manner, directly relating to the spiking curve of the inertia suddenly pressing our bodies into a pancake.

For Fay and me, it was simply an unpleasant experience at most, lasting for just the few moments necessary for the hovercraft to lose all of its downward momentum, now prompted by the lifting force of the maxed-out hyper-magnets.

"There we go," I cheered for myself, hurriedly yet steadily pulling the power output lever down, all the way to the position of its safe maximum and then some.

I took a deep breath as the vehicle settled, seemingly unaffected by the daring trip down the mountain that I completed in a manner seconds over an entire day this descent would take us otherwise.

"Give me a quick diagnostic," I pressed the button to call for the ship's onboard AI before giving out the command.

Contrary to my system at times and quite a lot of tools of the modern world, no artificial voice responded to my request. Instead, one of the displays flashed before running a few hundred lines of code up its height and then flashing again, all to print out a set of mostly green checks. Your adventure continues at empiren/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

'Toilet maintenance failed?' My eyes quickly drew to one of the few red marks on the diagnostic list. 'This thing actually has a damned toilet?!'

Shaking off the silly surprise, I looked for further problems…

Only to quickly end the list, finding nothing beyond some standard procedures being behind on their scheduled maintenance, procedures even an amateur like me could point out as excessive and unimportant one.

"What the…"

Sitting deeply in his chair, Claudy struggled to get even a short sentence out.

"Just… just like that?" Fay asked, equally as challenged to voice her thoughts.

I glanced over at the two passengers before turning my head around and looking back, eager to confirm one last thing. One last set of visual data that would either make or break my theory of the usefulness of stress testing in this world.

"It worked…" I muttered, quickly turning my head back and smiling at the other two.

"I'm sorry for not bringing it up," I apologized before allowing my smile to grow wider. "I just couldn't help myself."