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

"This…"

Both Banjay and Salicious leaned over, one with an intrigued while the other with a slighted look on their faces.

In the end, despite the seniority from the ranks, Isera introduced those two, the older of the two men looked at Banjay sitting in the middle of their group before leaning back.

"This is quite the way to put it. What I really need to know, though, is what do you intend to buy us with?"

Now, the negotiations finally proceeded from the measuring our cocks phase to an actual discussion pertaining to the details of how we could each benefit from the other.

"First thing first, I would like to congratulate you on holding this magnificent fortress against the onslaught of the enemies," I spoke out, putting on a genuine, courtly smile and bowing my head a bit. "Our conversation would look a lot different if you didn't, but I cannot say I'm disappointed."

This time, my smile once again shed all the emotion and its innate warmth.

There were many ways in which one could interpret those words.

How would Banjay understand what I just said?

I stopped the corner of my mouth from twitching.

For some reason, playing with words like that was far more amusing than I expected.

'Or maybe it's because of how different it is to what we went through back on that damned plain?' I thought, once again resisting my desire to roll my eyes, this time not to give the other party any further insights into what was going on in my head.

"Because you cannot really make a deal with someone who cannot deal with their own issues?" Banjay spoke out, the small, ironic smile lingering on his lips as he presented his interpretation of my words.

"Among many other things, yes," I nodded my head. "So, the first benefit we can provide you, beyond what we already did to make this discussion possible in the first place," I once again increased the warmth of my smile, "is a weapon that can slaughter up to thirty, forty thousand men."

Up until this moment, the tense air of this debacle continued to somewhat relax. In one way or another, our small talk allowed us to build some basic rapport.

But now?

Now that I've dropped a solid number?

Now, all the jokes and polite conversation had to move aside, to give way to what we were here to do - business.

"Forty thousand souls, you say…" Banjay squinted his eyes as he looked straight into my face.

"Even the greatest weapon will be useless if one doesn't know how to masterfully wield it," Isera interjected, finally proving she was here to serve as more than just a nice distraction for the eye.

"And that's the beauty of what we are offering," I grinned a little, "the simplicity…"

I cut my explanation short when I noticed a single soldier rushing in our direction. Only a small distance away did he put on the brakes, barely managing to come to a complete stop mere meters behind Banjay's seat.

"General, it's…" the soldier hesitated as he raised his eyes and noticed the three of us, only to then lean over the middle-aged man's ear and whisper a few, short words.

Banjay's face tensed up a tiny little bit. In fact, the change was so little that if not for the sudden tremble of the man's aura, I wouldn't have noticed it.

Still, by the time the soldier retreated a few steps and then stood down a bit of a distance away to await further orders, by the time Banjay turned his face back towards the rest of our small, little group…

"I'm sorry, but it seems that we will have to schedule our conversation for a little bit later," Banjay stated, turning his face towards the wall below the level of the basin we were at right as all sorts of cries and shouts appeared from the very same direction the man looked at.

"An attack?" I guessed, taking a look as the soldiers of the fortress defense rushed about.

And while I wouldn't say that upon a closer inspection, the situation we saw upon our approach was organized… When compared to the mess that started right this very moment, I finally realized that the modern world got me used to standards that simply wouldn't apply anywhere or anytime else.

"…ack…"

"…ttack…"

"Enemy attack!"

The shouts filled the entirety of the fortress, only serving to put the defending troops into disarray even greater than before.

'Did they lose all the veterans before this or something?' I thought, only to turn my head when Banjay stood up and bowed his head.

"How about we return to this conversation once we are…"

"I don't think it's a good idea," I said only to quickly follow it up with a long, defeated sigh. "I thought I would get to act all mysterious and interesting for a little bit longer, but it is what it is."

I stood up and shrugged my shoulders before pushing my arms out and stretching my joints.

"Now then, for you, this is a disastrous attack. Whatever plans you had in place are now all gone with our appearance. The trap you prepared will no longer work, not with the level of organization that I can see," I turned my eyes down and over the basin's edge, where the chaos only continued to grow bigger.

Even from so far, I could see that those selected few who knew what they were supposed to be doing were struggling to free themselves from the pull of the panicked crowd. That led to the people manning the walls at a much slower rate than what was necessary, which only further made the situation grow messier and messier.

"What are you trying to say?"

Already turning to head towards the center of the whole mess and trying to do whatever he could to tame it, Banjay stopped in the middle of his step.

He didn't bother turning fully around to face me, though, opting to spare me just a short glance over his shoulder.

And from this glance alone I could tell the time for playing around or acting hooky was now over.

"For you, it's a disaster. For us, though, this attack is the best way possible to demonstrate why, from this day forth, we are hereby indispensable to your country."

Already back on my feet, I gave Fay a short, knowing look before turning around and marching right back towards the hovercraft.

"I know it sounds wrong given the situation…" Claudy opted to stay behind instead of following us back to the ship and now tried his best to placate this weird development. "But as someone who once stood in the face of the might he wields…"

Even as I was walking away, I could hear the tremble in this relatively silent - as long as he's not on the maglev's or plane's deck - supreme's voice.

While waiting to hear Banjay's response, I continued with Fay towards our ship. Only by the time we reached the ramp, did that middle-aged general respond.

"How long will that take you?"

And this time, for the very first time, Claudy couldn't really provide an answer.

"Between finding all the parts, assembling it, carrying it over to the spot, and then someone carrying the ammunition… Ten to fifteen minutes?" I shouted over, already from the insides of the hovercraft's tiny warehouse.

This place was a treasure trove of all sorts of quirky or simply useful items. And even though the level of my personal power made guns pretty much worthless in fights that would require me to exert my full strength…

That rule didn't apply to battles on a great scale.

And while I could say with a huge dose of certainty that even supremes had some means of dealing with a lot of opponents at the same time - not to speak about whatever rank me and Fay were currently at - because of the unnatural way we advanced both to the rank of a supreme and then beyond it, I didn't really have battle skills necessary to engage in that kind of a fight directly.

And, what was even more important even if it appeared to be merely an excuse…

I wasn't the one that was going to do the fighting.

For now, it was the Patriarchate that was at war with the local empire. Not my faction nor the empire to the south had anything to do with this war. And while supplying either side with weapons that we were willing to spare wouldn't cross the line, directly engaging the troops of one side would be akin to personally joining that conflict.

And with my role as a quasi-emissary to the nations on the other side of the barrier, I couldn't really allow myself to do so.

"What are you going to present them?" Fay asked, already moving in as she started to gather parts that would be needed regardless of my choice of weapon. "Area of effect attacks? Or just bullet spam?"

I looked over and stared at Fay's casually curious face.

To me, the slaughter that was about to soon ensue... It was at most a test of whether or not I could still grow at my current level of power through the means that gave me the experience boost before. To her though… It meant even less.

"Mortars would be a bit too much. And they are too damn perfect for this kind of a battle," I explained my reasoning right as I finally found and then pulled out the body of a standard-issue heavy machine gun.

Soon, I moved on from searching for the parts to actually adding them up to the body. Yet, regardless of how steady my hands were and how perfectly calculated each and every movement of mine was… I didn't really have the training to be able to assemble a gun when woken up in the darkest hour of the night while reciting the unit's pledge.

In the end, what I thought to be a task that could take a minute or two at most ended up consuming over five minutes, heavily cutting into the time we had to set the weapon out.

Yet, even after leaving the maglev, I didn't rush into the heat of the battle right away. Instead, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, bringing my mind down to a perfectly calm level before prying my eyes open and taking in all the information about the ongoing situation I could gather.

Only a fraction of the patriarchate's troops managed to get on the wall, leading to a huge number of gaps in their defenses.

Still, due to its layout, this fortress pretty much defended itself.

With all of their progress over the outer ramp that led up to the second gate now gone, the imperial legions had no other choice but to restart their slow and unsteady advance under the constant hail of projectiles shot or tossed over from the top of the Lunagar's second wall.

For me, though, the time the imperials were taking to advance was exactly what I needed. And by the time they started to assault the walls again, I had my machine gun set and ready, with two additional cases of factory-packed ammunition awaiting their fate.

"Now then, allow me to just test whether it works correctly," I muttered, perfectly aware it was already a while since Banjay got closer to observe whatever the heck we were doing.

I pulled on the gun's bolt, reloading it as the mechanism within the gun's body pushed the first bullet out of the mag and injected it into the firing chamber.

'Aimed, locked, and ready,' I thought, looking down at the gun's scope just to confirm everything aligned perfectly well.

Lastly, with a flick of my thumb, I switched the safety from the secure mode to a single-fire. And then, as if I was breathing out, I simply pulled back my forefinger, sending my first high-powered shot through the air.

Boom!

The sound of the discharge was massive, far greater than whatever most of the neuweapons could ever produce. It wasn't a good thing, but rather a way in which part of the wasted energy of the gunpowder found its release. But now that I've confirmed everything was in order, I pulled back and stood back up only to turn towards Banjay and point at the prepared gun.

"Would you like to give it a try?"