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

"Slowly, slowly…" I chanted just like my trainer did for me, keeping my hand close to grab the steering stick in case Fay, somehow, managed to make a mistake big enough to warrant such reaction.

"Yeah, just like that, keep going…"

Leaving the maglev in Fay's hands didn't seem to be an issue.

After some initial awkwardness, she quickly caught the feel of the vehicle, now moving it in two different planes by changing both pitch and the yaw at the same time.

"Now, set it up for hasty retreat," I ordered, moving my hands over to the power lever and my own stick.

In theory, when the hovercraft was controlled by two pilots and had its full utility unlocked, the power lever would grow obsolete, becoming just a redundant piece of technology. With both control schemes engaged, I would manipulate the power output just by moving the ship, while Fay would make sure the hypermagnets were aimed correctly to make the most out of the juice the hovercraft expended.

Fay followed through on my order, pulling the front of the ship up while lowering its rear. As if this wasn't enough, she swung the craft to the side while rolling it to minimize the exposed part of the bulletproof window.

"Attack from the left, going low!"

This was supposed to be static training, and yet, seeing how well Fay was doing so far, I deemed it appropriate to ramp up the difficulty a bit.

And so, the very moment Fay spun the vessel around to respond to the changing scenario, I pushed my own stick far to the right, throwing the vehicle into a stumbled escape.

"Chasm from below!"

Before Fay could react to the first movement, I already complicated the situation even further.

Not sparing a single second for thought, Fay swung the ship over, making its bottom paint a small, low arc, only for the ship to counterintuitively twist its left side down.

First, by turning the bottom of the vessel in the direction it was going, Fay brought the hypermagnets just a little bit closer to the ground, raising the coefficient of their power leverage over the lift.

Then, using the very same momentum that slowed our side slide down, she pushed the right side of the ship up, so that the side further to the left, where she imagined the chasm to be, would have an easier time pushing against the descending terrain. Your adventure continues at empire

"Damn…" I calmed my control sticks down and lowered the power to the bare minimum before slowly moving my head over and giving Fay a long, stunned stare.

"It took me an entire day just to get the feel of the controls and you are already flying as if you were born doing so…"

My praise was as genuine as it could get. And I wasn't trying to put myself down to elevate her either!

It really took me an entire day to properly synchronize my perception of the ship's movement with the pushes and pulls on my hand on the stick.

If I were to be petty, I could claim that learning how to move a perfectly static ship through space was harder than just changing its direction and managing the propelling power… But I wasn't going to make that kind of logical leap just to feel better about myself.

"Thank you."

That's all.

Instead of pretending not to accept my praise to get more of it, Fay simply acknowledged and then accepted it instead, offering me a lovely smile in return.

And just like that, all the useless thoughts vanished from my head, leaving me in a blissful state of inner peace.

'Am I that simple?' I asked myself, fighting off the desire to roll my eyes. 'Well, as long as it won't make my life problematic, I can be as easy for her as Fay could ever want.'

I shook my head and gathered my focus again.

If I gave myself into the thoughts about Fay, there would be nothing left in the world that could stop me from claiming her as we were. After all, contrary to the buggy, there were no separate rooms or capsules attached to the vehicle, making any sort of privacy a song of the past.

And sure, after all the times that we did it, it didn't really take much for me to restrain myself… But as the days and our exhaustion continued to mount, coupled with the stress and anticipation of what lay in the future and the anxiety of not reaching the conclusion before our time would run out…

"Claudy," feeling my thoughts already gravitate towards Fay's everyday allure, I turned my head and called out, eager to change the current status quo between my sanity and my desires.

"Why do I feel like crying when all you did was call for me?" the elegant man replied from the passenger's seat in the back of the craft.

"No idea," I refuted while rolling my eyes before regathering my thoughts. "I want you to narrate a scenario for us," I requested before freeing the power level from the hold of my hand and using it to scratch my chin instead. "Let's say, both me and Fay took a hit to our faces so we cannot see anything.

You are the only one left with your eyes intact, and now you have to guide us through a dangerous, rocky path to safety."

Claudy took a moment staring at my face in silence.

"What are the chances of you both…" the elegant soldier attempted to protest for a second, only to cut his whine short and shake his head. "You want the scenario that you won't know about, right?"

When training Fay, I alone was enough. But the moment I tried to train to cooperate with her, my knowing what I was about to shout would spoil half of the difficulty and likely make me biased to obtaining, processing, and then sharing information while in a moment that would actually test our skill.

"That's right," I nodded my head, "just give me a short moment first," I then requested before reaching out to the buttons I wasn't supposed to touch at all.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

With a flick of a sum total of three switches, I turned off most of the safety settings for the onboard AI, turning it pretty much into battle-ready responsiveness while maintaining only the most barebone safety clauses that would stop us from rolling the craft over or crashing it into the ground at a high speed.

"Okay," I muttered, leaning back into my chair and taking a second to boil my focus down to its crystalline form before snorting it up and dedicating all of my attention to the control stick on my right, the power lever in my left and the silence in my ears. "I'm ready."

"I'm ready too," Fay quickly mirrored my words and actions, relaxing as she sat down in a way she found most comfortable.

Then, for a few moments, Claudy kept up the suspense, staying silent as I relaxed my hold over my bond with Fay just enough for the streams of our consciousnesses to not intertwine.

"Flying monster from up and to the left!"