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

51  Missing piece

"Haaa… Haaa… Haaa…" Fay's breath caressed the skin of my chest. I could feel every single movement of her body, every last twitch of her muscles dancing under her delicate skin. Her heartbeat was slow and steady, shaken only by the occasional aftershocks of the pleasure moving up Fay's spine. Those two outbursts of passion exhausted all of my strength. I couldn't even sway my upper body to remove the sharp stones that painfully prickled my back. Or maybe it was because I had a damned fox-girl beauty peacefully resting on top of my chest?

"Bliss…" Fay breathed out, a smile of perfect satisfaction resting on her red, full lips. Breathing out, I released some of the pressure that started to build up in my chest. This was truly a blissful moment. But we were still out in the open of the forest's edge, with nothing to shield our naked and sweaty bodies from the chill of the colder winds. And as pleasant as just resting with Fay on my chest could be, I couldn't afford to enjoy it if it came at the risk of a cold!

"We should get ourselves fixed up," I whispered, moving my hand to gently brush it through Fay's long, straight hair. The sense of fluffiness was out of the world, making me wonder who was actually caressing who as I carefully threaded my fingers through the white storm of Fay's long hair. "Mhmmm…" Fay couldn't be bothered to utter more than just a simple something between exhausted moan and tired groan. "Staying like that is like asking for a cold!" I tried to reason with the girl… even though I could damn well feel the lack of any intent whatsoever in Fay's relaxed body. She was hugging me like a pillow as she dozed off, melting in the lasting aftershocks of peaking. With no other choice, I gathered all my strength… and moved to the side. But rather than removing the stones from below me, I pulled the two of us a bit before my fingers hooked at Fay's discarded haori. 'There it is,' I thought to myself, pulling the cloth and quickly moving it to cover Fay's sweaty back with it. Despite how relatively skimpy the outfit was when worn properly, now that it was all disheveled and unkempt, it could pretty well serve the role of a blanket. 'There's no way she will be able to move for some time,' I had no other option but to accept this realization. How could I forcefully move Fay now that she was still reliving the last echoes of the pleasure we shared?

Unable to move if I didn't want to disturb Fay's rest, I decided to take this moment to look inward. Yes, to ignore the beauty peacefully nodding away in my arms and directing my thoughts away.

As idiotic as it sounded, that's exactly what I did. Because I just noticed two things. First, there were some alerts in my system that I've somehow missed up until now. Sure, my mind was busy with Fay and all… but since when did those alerts pop out? Was it related to events of the past or…

Well, it wouldn't take a genius to figure it out. The most likely culprit of the change was located just nearby, where the battle recently took place. But that was merely an added curiosity, something to check out later. Because what I discovered about myself was far more important than some changes to my system, regardless of what they were. In the end, as great as it was, my system was nothing more than a tool. A tool that allowed me to exploit my advantages far further than I would normally be supposed to… but a mere tool nevertheless. It was up to me to use this tool in a proper way. As such, all things that affected me directly were of even greater importance than my system. Looking back, it wasn't the appearance of the portal and system that led to the change in how I understood my mom's last words. It was the change to how I perceived my mom's last advice that unlocked my access to the gifts allegedly left behind by my father for me to use. And right now, with Fay's peacefully breathing in and out from the top of my chest, something changed deep at the bottom of my soul. I felt as if I finally found the last missing piece of the puzzle of my courage and confidence. As cringe as it might sound, just by having sex… I managed to overcome a considerable portion of the self-worth trauma that my life with my dearest aunt brought to bear on me. And now that my self-importance started to resurface, I can finally look at a huge number of things… from a different standpoint. 'To think that I was such a loser,' I thought, looking back to my relationship with Cassie. She wanted to have little to nothing to do with me, something I should've seen through her reluctance to go on dates or spend quality time with me. Or rather, it was something I've seen… but decided not to act upon. After all, what was the worth of my pride if it would only serve to deprive me of the relationship that brought some light back to my life?

Only now, with Fay granting me the confidence I always lacked, I saw that broken relationship for the toxic cesspool it really was. We might not argue or clash all that much… but the disproportion in how each party cared about the relationship was the one element that forever barred it from working. 'I guess I was too stupid, clingy… No,' I shook my head to my own thoughts. 'I was too damn desperate!'

In a sense, right now I was far more desperate than ever before, desperate to provide all the good in the world for Fay, make sure she was safe, and bring her as much happiness as I could. And I could focus on all of that because from the bottom of my heart, I knew, she planned to fill my life with happiness too. It was a different, healthier type of desperation… or rather, mutual and reciprocated obsession. A feeling that put me and Fay on the same footing when it came to our relationship. 'Me and Cassie, I guess we were never meant to work out,' I thought, finally finding the mental strength and leeway to fully and properly move on, leaving all the regrets where they belonged: in the past. 'I guess that's how it feels to become a man,' I thought, continuing my self-inspection from before while slowly running my hand up and down Fay's spine. Having her on top of me turned the instinct to pet her irresistible. But becoming a man… came with a whole set of consequences on its own. The most important one of them was how it was now up to me to take responsibility. And that meant…

"Hey, I think we both would like nothing more but to lay down and relax," I spoke softly while gently shaking Fay's body to bring her back from the world of her lazy dreams. "But I believe we should start getting back."

It was stupid to remain out in the open while covered with a lot of sweat and just a single piece of cloth, barely protected from the colder winds that liked to course from between the trees. As we happened to lay down right at the edge of the forest, our bodies also served as the windbreaker for all the currents that came storming from the clearing and crashed with all their might into the wall of trees.

But in all honesty, this wasn't even my greatest consideration, the worry of getting Fay sick. No. The fight from just before proved that I still underestimated just how dangerous this world was. And just by recalling the time when I saw Fay nearly get impaled by some bastard's blade…

My body tensed up, determination fanning the flames of my inner engines, allowing me to break free from the shackles of comfort, grab Fay by her waist secure her on my chest, and then raise up with the girl in my arms. 'I still don't know anywhere near enough about this world,' I thought, hugging Fay close while continuing to lightly shake her, hoping to slowly pull her out of her relaxed daze. 'And for me to learn more about it…' I thought, my eyes drawn to where I expected Fay's mom to be.  Nôv(el)B\\jnn