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

"Why didn't you bring it up while we were back at the valley, then?"

Leinei's question was pretty important… because it forced me to reveal the calculative reason behind my decision to hold this discussion back.

"Once again, that's because I was still trying to figure it all out myself," I spoke with a sigh, preparing myself to drop the stinky bomb. "And well…"

In the end, Leinei proved not to be as stupid as I was starting to believe she was.

"Is it because if you spoke of it back then, it would be more convenient for Madam to test this theory out? Is that why you've waited until we came all this way back, just to make sure I would be the one risking my life by testing it out?"

While Leinei squinted her eyes and looked at me with a clear lack of sympathy… There was also a hint of acknowledgment and even… respect?

'She's not as angry as I thought she would be,' I thought, genuinely taken aback by how mild the dryad's reaction was.

"If I revealed this thought back there, Fay, as the youngest, would likely be chosen to try it out," I revealed the real intention I had for so obstinately refusing to bring this topic out before. Not the only reason, just the most important one.

And this confession earned me a nod of hesitant acknowledgment from Leinei and approval from Madam.

"Anyway," I brushed the topic off, moving back to the main course. "According to your own worlds, Celestial protectors came to be as a hybrid between mighty beasts and some kind of great darkness," I turned to Madam, paraphrasing what I'd learned from her before. "In other words, celestial protectors possess the might of two beings, at the cost of their soul somehow handling double the burden."

Now, I turned my eyes to Leinei.

"On the other hand, the divine protectors," I made sure to follow Madam's request and keep to just a single form of referring to them, "the divine protectors were blessed with divine, sourcing their power from their blessed souls. But again," I took a short break before spreading my arms out wide and shaking them. "It comes at a cost."

"And what does that have to do with the plains and the valley?" Leinei shrugged, somehow only growing more confused as I continued my explanations. And from the small movements on her face, she was extremely annoyed by that very fact.

'She really isn't all that smart,' I thought, pressing my lips into a thin line while looking slightly away, as if ashamed to look into the dryad's eyes.

For some reason, she managed to be both extremely intelligent but also so blind to the obvious that she could have a brain as smooth as the skin of Fay's ass.

I sighed.

'Then, again, not one of them noticed it either, so it goes all the possible ways,' I thought, shaking my head.

But this discussion was way too absorbing and important for me to allow myself to be distracted by useless thoughts for a long.

"The plains tempered my soul by subjecting them to powerful, mental attacks. And since I grew a lot tougher since my first encounter with the light of the stairs, I can now enter the plain while hardly paying any prize for doing so," I revealed something that I wasn't quite sure how the others would take.

Fay didn't seem to care at all, simply enjoying the fact that I now brought my arms back, once again enclosing her waist within my embrace. Thankfully, neither Madam nor Leinei appeared to be particularly interested in how I grew that much tougher so quickly.

"Do you know, though, what I felt when stepping into the mists, besides learning that it was still a part of the same, starlight plain that extended just due north from here?" I asked, leaning my head to the side and gently resting it on Fay's shoulder.

This time, both Madam and Dryad remained silent, reading how it was only a rhetorical question. A clue that would finally give them the same picture that I had.

"I felt no mental pressure whatsoever. But walking around suddenly became tricky. As if something made my body heavier, throwing me off my balance."

Once again, Leinei didn't react to the revelation. But Madam did, with how her eyes started to narrow down.

She could hear the bells, but she couldn't tell which direction the sound was coming from yet.

And out of all of them, Fay tightened her hands on my shoulders.

I looked slightly down, once again surprised by how Fay, by all intents and purposes, managed to figure it out.

'Is she really that smart, or am I just thinking way too much because of how much I've fallen for her?' I had to question my own judgment for a moment…

Only to see Fay roll her eyes as she looked at the dryad.

"He means to say, that the misty valley is designed to stop the divine who lack physical power but have strong souls. The starlight plain, on the other hand, tests the strength of one's core, which is the main weakness of the celestials."

Fay took a breath before shifting slightly on my lap so that she could rest her back against my chest while looking in the same direction that I did, towards our audience.

"Both the celestial plain and the misty valleys are perfect to hold back those who live near them," Fay finally gave it out straight, the observation that I made pretty much all the way back at the forest's southern border.

"But what does that even mean?!" Leinei cried out, clearly bothered by how she still couldn't catch on to the stuff that even Madam was now showing signs of understanding. But as I looked into her face…

There was a deep dread seeded at the very bottom of her soul, dread born out of the realizations drawn by my theory. And refusing to accept those realizations made the dryad refuse the entire theory altogether.

But I had no other choice but to shatter this fragile defense mechanism of the poor dryad.

"It could mean a lot of things," I admitted, once again spreading my arms out to shrug them. "Were the barriers designed to keep you all in this forest forever?" I asked, pausing for a moment to let the tension build-up.

"Is it a test of the creator of those two areas, aimed to keep you in the forest for as long as you won't find the common ground and unite, leaving through the barriers you were never designed to reach on your own?"

I threw out a few possible meanings behind my discovery, all of them as likely to be on the point as likely they were to be total bullshit.

Who I was to say that whoever was behind this entire arrangement even had any plans related to it? Maybe it was all just a coincidence? A natural evolution of circumstances that ended up trapping both the celestial and divine protectors in this forest, without a higher plan for it all?

I shook my head again, finally ready to deliver the most lethal of the bombs to those who hoped to get some answers from me.

"It's up to you to decide the right interpretation of what I've just made you aware of," I pointed out before spreading my arms out again… Only to bring them right back and wrap them around Fay's waist, as if worried she would suddenly run off.

"Not me," I added, raising my eyes and looking at the Madam while holding Fay tightly to my chest. "An outsider."