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

Chapter 459 Life without excitement?

"What a calm evening, isn't it?"

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A gentle smile decorated my lips as I laid down with Fay atop the open ramp of our maglev while it hovered a safe distance away from the battle, the fortress, and all the immediate dangers of the area.

Leaving Claudy behind at the fortress after giving him one of our spare radios was what allowed us this small retreat, a short moment of respite before everything would pick up the pace again.

Now that the situation at the fortress improved by leaps and bounds and there was no immediate risk of the enemy breaking through, we had to start thinking about the opportune time to go back home.

That was the most fundamental rule of our excursion past the barrier, to come back often enough to maintain the stability of the stable gates. But...

We still had to return to our negotiations with the locals, figure out some basic framework of cooperation that we could expand upon once we talked it through with Makary and Etaria, and then ensure this place wouldn't fall to the invaders while we were away...

The things that we still had to do didn't seem to end but continued to multiply instead, while the time that we had before we would have to return continued to shrink.

And yet, rather than rushing to get everything done, the very moment the imperial invaders started to retreat, I grabbed Fay, talked with Claudy, and organized our own escape.

'I cannot lose focus of what's really important,' I thought while slowly driving my fingers through Fay's hair.

Like a purring of a cat, Fay continued to make small, satisfied noises, perfectly satisfied with her head on my lap and her deeply blue eyes zeroed in on my face.

"I wonder for how much longer do we need to rush everything before we will be able to just enjoy ourselves the way we do right now?" Fay muttered.

Hearing those words, my face contorted a bit.

"I'm sorry..."

Yet, even when our eyes met, Fay didn't seem to be happy with the arrangement. And so, she moved her hand over to my shoulder before using it to pull herself up all the way to the point where she sat sideways on my lap. Then, with her face riding all the way up to my chest, she took a moment to think about something before finally relaxing and resting the side of her head against my shoulder.

"You have this picture of a perfect, peaceful life in your mind. The kind of life you wish upon me and yourself," Fay whispered, having no need to use a voice any louder than a whisper when her mouth was a mere inch away from my ear. "But have you ever asked yourself if that kind of life wouldn't bore you to the death?"

Somehow, Fay's whisper easily paralyzed my upper body.

Was it a spell? A curse? Maybe some sort of a technique?

Or maybe it was the same kind of compulsion that prevented people from standing up if their cat were to sit down on their lap and go to sleep?

"Between safe but boring and risky yet exciting..." I muttered, struggling to move my lips with Fay's face so close to mine yet perfectly hidden outside of my current range of view. "You see," I sighed, "I'm not the gambling type. So, if there's even the slightest risk that something would happen to you..."

Finally, I managed to free myself from Fay's spell and turn my head far enough to look her in the face once again.

"Isn't normal life fraught with dangers, though?" Fay countered while putting a small smirk on her lips.

"Would those dangers even apply to us, given how we went above and beyond the rank of a supreme already?" I countered while matching Fay's smile with a grin of my own.

This time, though, Fay didn't bounce the ball back but opted to just stare into my eyes with her mischievous smile growing with each passing second.

Ultimately, it took me a moment to realize that by bouncing the ball back like that, I pretty much put myself in the position Fay wanted me to be in from the very beginning.

"At this point, there are hardly any dangers for us even if we were to go and make love right in the middle of an ongoing battle," Fay chuckled before bringing her hand back to her stomach to give it yet another portion of caresses. "I'm not trying to imply I would ever want to do that, especially when I have to care for more than just my life alone now, but..."

Fay leaned out of my shoulder to get a better look at my face, only for her smile to widen before she fell right back to the spot she found rather comfortable. And then, once she nestled herself back in, she whispered,

"And do you really want to live a life free of excitement?"