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

"Meaning, if you really managed to tap into your domain before learning how to manipulate the world's aura…"

Madam raised her eyes and stared blankly into my face.

"Then…"

Madam hesitated and ultimately turned silent, opting not to divulge the thought that made her face turn slightly still.

"No, this isn't the time or place for this talk," Madam shook her head as she openly reflected on herself…

And the very reflection she voiced lacked exactly the same two elements that Madam just brought up.

Right now, in the car, with only Makary and his wife beyond me, Madam and Fay… This was the definition of the wrong time and wrong place to mention how it wasn't the time or place to discuss something!

A quick glance at the front, central mirror of the car confirmed that Makary noticed this point too. Thankfully, though, he opted not to comment on it.

"That much is a fact," I tuned in to Madam's words, hoping with all my soul to steer the conversation towards the safer waters. "Right now, we should focus on the meeting ahead… And on that point," I raised my eyes and looked directly into the car's front mirror, "how hard would it be to organize a bunch of shovels and simple uniforms?"

"Huh?" Makary jumped a little, not ready to be called out right as he pretended not to notice the inherent rudeness of Madam's remark. "Stuff like that… I can have it done with a single call."

"Good," I nodded my head, "then make the call."

Makary looked up and caught my stare in the mirror.

He clearly had no idea what I had in mind, and yet, he obediently pulled out the phone and made the call.

The call itself lasted only a few moments. My request wasn't something hard to make happen, given how I myself could manage it given some time and money. And even though, just like Makary himself, the man he called showed some signs of curiosity and interest in my need for those shovels and uniforms… again, just like Makary, he opted not to ask too many questions.

"So, are you going to tell me what sort of plan are you hatching in that head of yours?" This time, rather than just staring in the car's mirror, Makary turned over the backseat of his spot and looked at me directly.

"We are already late to the meeting, are we not?" I mentioned with a smile contrasting with our unpleasant situation.

This was our first time dealing with a powerful noble and handling several tens of thousands of war prisoners. So, once we dropped the lingo we adopted to talk about the matters of the other world more or less freely… What we were late was actually much, much more important than just some meeting.

'Well, we can only hope that the men Makary left behind will somehow smooth things over. Or at the very least,' I took a deep breath, 'have everything prepared by the time we arrive.'

"Yeah," Makary only nodded his head before stealing a quick glance at the watch on his wrist. "We are fifteen minutes late for the time we were supposed to make the contact."

Just like one would expect, the simple radios that we brought over couldn't penetrate the barrier between the world. And even with the gate still standing, if we wanted to talk with Etaria, we had no other choice but to be in the same words as her. And while there were plans to engineer a cable connection between two relay stations on both ends of the gate…

For now, we don't have such convenience yet.

"Fifteen minutes…" I shook my head and heaved a long sigh. "And how long until…"

"Five minutes before we get to the compound," Selene reported, either guessing or somehow figuring out the general meaning behind this short exchange.

"So we will be about half an hour late," I summarized the makeshift calculations by rounding them up. "Given the stakes of this contact and everything else, we are going to need some reason for that, don't we?"

I smiled and sat back while I allowed mostly Makary to try to figure out what I was planning.

"I could understand if you ordered as many shovels and uniforms as possible to equip them all… but just a handful?" Makary shook his head. "This sort of thing would be merely a symbol…"

Makary's face turned stiff when the realization struck him.

He lowered his eyes, processing his thoughts for the next few, silent moments, only to ultimately bring them up and look at my face again.

"You see, I've been thinking," seeing how the man pretty much arrived at the same conclusions that I did, I couldn't help but smile. "If we want to have a cooperative relationship with the empire, can we really start it by serving them a humiliating defeat?"

This was something I've wondered in some of the off-moments I've had ever since the recent rush began. Even if it was going to be just lip service, wasn't this the very best moment for us to do the princess a favor, especially if it came at nearly no cost?

"How do you plan to frame it?" Makary asked, figuring out most of the details of my idea just from logically building up on it.

"How about, you are not prisoners. We just gave you a chance to build instead of destroying? Or how in three years, people will sell their daughters just to live in a place you are going to build?"

I rubbed my chin while pretending not to see the weirded-out gaze of Selene reflected in the car's front mirror.

"What the hell are you talking about, guys?" she then asked, proving that contrary to Makary or me, she would much rather ask about things she was curious about rather than keep the bottled up in hopes one day, the answers would just fall into her hands.

Makary gave me the look… and I looked right back at him. Still, the silent plea in his eyes… I just couldn't ignore it! And so, in a rare moment of the solidarity of the balls, I've decided to help out.

"It will be much easier to show than to tell you. And since we are pretty much here," I spoke, slowing down my words when I saw the scenery turn familiar. "How about you wait for just a few more minutes? Trust me, you will understand more from a single second of seeing what we talk about than what you would get from me spending hours trying to explain it."