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

"This thing is…"

Etaria stared at the strangely plain bag that she received from those equally strange humans.

She intended to stay silent as she contemplated the situation… Yet in the moment of carelessness, she couldn't help but let a few words slip.

'What if it's all a trap?' Etaria thought, gritting her teeth as she took a step back from the bag, wary of what other secrets it could hide.

But after merely a moment…

'Yeah, perish the thought,' she thought, shaking her head over her the stupidity of this worry. 'They have enough strength to slaughter us all, so for what reason would they go so much out of their way just to sneakily take me out?'

Etaria was a prideful person, just like anyone who was talented and hard-working enough to reach the rank of supreme. Still, the years she spent on the battlefield, the countless instances when she only had luck and fate to thank for surviving the battles, all the other experiences she gained ever since joining the legion at the pristine age of fourteen…

All of the things Etaria went through allowed her to refine her pride and enrich it with a healthy dose of pragmatic realism.

Etaria was long used to encountering situations that not even her power of a supreme could allow her to easily handle. No matter how powerful she was, she couldn't hunt enough food to supply an entire army if the supply lines were to stretch too far.

No matter how powerful she was, she couldn't stop the conquered from rising up in rebellion once the imperial presence started to fade in favor of the new governing force.

Today, though, was the first time when Etaria's strength, the very source of her pride, would be something that would prove to be insufficient.

Not impossible to apply all the kinds of troubles she learned to overcome with means other than her personal strength.

This time, her power was simply insufficient to deal with the enemy.

With Etaria's pride crumbles, the one thing that remained was the same cold, calculated pragmatic attitude that allowed her to stomach the emperor's plan of securing the fate of their lineage. The same pragmatic approach that allowed her to lead thousands of people straight into slaughter while perfectly aware of the fate that awaited them.

And now, it was the same pragmaticism that forced her to accept the fact that the power of those strange humans was far more than she could handle.

'I wouldn't be surprised if not even the empire as a whole could stop them,' she thought, giving the side of her tent facing the forest a long look, even though she couldn't actually see past the layer of the cloth.

It's been only a few moments since Etaria returned from the meeting with those strange humans, a bag with some precious devices richer than when she set out to sit down at the negotiating table. And while Etaria's preconceived mission turned out to be a total failure as there were no peace talks to begin with…

The consolidation price in the form of those wondrous tools stopped the princess from minding the development too much.

"Princess, I have to stress this out again. We don't know what this is. Not even our greatest mages can decipher what kind of artifact it is."

Carlo, the highest-ranking subordinate of hers now that Zanba failed to return from the engagement at the forest, spoke out.

"That's why, I believe we should retreat here, cut our losses, and get the most out of this opportunity. Who knows, if we leave those devices in the hands of the masters of the tower…"

"Then we shall never hear from them about this topic again," Oppie, the second of the two high-ranking officers also serving as the princess's aides, spoke out against Carlo's suggestion. "I don't want to deny their usefulness, but at the rate things are going, those guys will roll through the entire empire by the time they discover what this thing…"

DING!

The strange, piercing noise came out from the bag… or rather the compartment of the bag where Etaria remembered the officer from the forest stuffing the smaller device in.

'That sound…'

With a single thought, the princess recalled the explanation before taking a breath… and approaching the bag.

Following her guts more than her cold-hearted logic and pragmatism, Etaria reached out and pulled the small, nearly cubic device out.

And just like during the lecture, it continued to madly vibrate as if it was some sort of clever tool that the masters of the tower recently introduced to the market in a bid to raise some more gold for their scientific endeavors.

'Since it's apparently used to communicate… wishing someone to stuff it up their bum in case of heated argument would work, wouldn't it?'

With a silly thought at the top of her mind, Etaria smirked before following the lecture from before and pressing down the biggest out of all the buttons located on the device.

"One, two, three, can you hear me?"

The princess twitched when the annoyingly cheeky, familiar voice came out from the device in her hand.

The annoying noise stopped, just like the vibrations, leaving nothing but the slightly distorted voice of the young man she dealt with twice thus far.

"I can hear you," throwing away her pride as a princess, Etaria replied back to the device, opting to just enjoy the moment of tinkering with a curious piece over over-thinking everything as was her habit for when things came to politics and diplomacy.

"Then, allow me to apologize for the disrespect of contacting you in this way, but after what you saw in the forest…"

The young man's voice stopped. That's it. There was no further hint of anything happening, and yet…

And yet, Etaria could picture him closing his eyes, putting on a small, troubled yet still cheeky smile, and shaking his head.

'I bet he would open his arms out and shrug his shoulders with an expression screaming: *I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do about it!*'

"I judged it to be too reckless, even for my standards, to meet you in person. But I had a feeling that things could easily devolve into a brutal battle if we didn't talk, thus warranting all that I did to make this conversation happen."

Hearing the young man's voice again, Etaria couldn't help herself but smile a little.

'Thank God this thing only transmits voice,' she thought when she realized a man's voice alone was sufficient to put a smile on her face.

Then, recalling the presence of her two officers in the tent, Etaria steeled her face before turning around and throwing them a furious look.

Both Carlo and Oppie struggled to keep a straight face but followed the princess's order nonetheless. And only once Etaria was left all alone in the tent she turned her attention back to the device in her hand.

"That sounds an awful lot as if you already decided how things will go," Etaria threw towards the device, but not before making sure she was squeezing the button the old officer told her to.

"Yeah, you are right on the money," Peter admitted without even a second of hesitation. "Don't overestimate my influence, though. While it is up to me whether or not your army will be annihilated… It will take your cooperation to stop it from happening."

In spite of her instinctive desire to have her reply be as swift and witty as Peter's… Etaria ended up responding with nothing but silence to Peter's words.

'Wait, so it's not a distant possibility… but something he actively considers?'

In her opinion, the only question regarding the near future was about how long the imperial forces would manage to hold against those wondrous weapons of the enemy before shattering. Then, a slightly more distant question, how long it would take those people to organize everything they needed here before marching on to claim the rest of the empire's vast lands?

And yet, after exchanging just a few words with this young man, despite how she believed her case to be long and surely doomed… Peter's words managed to take Etaria by surprise, showing her the path that she never, not even in her most arrogant hopes, considered possible.

"I was right. You really think everything is up for you to decide…" Etaria kind of repeated her own words from just before. This time, however, rather than doing so in an accusatory tone, she spoke as if simply admitting the fact she was powerless to influence.

"Once again, I do not wield enough influence, not even amidst my own, to steer things exactly as I wish they would go. But before I go any further, I need to ask one question first."

The voice stopped once again, turning the device in Etaria's hand into a piece of useless junk.

Still, even after waiting for a second, Peter refused to continue, forcing Etaria to keep waiting…

"And that question is?"

Unable to bear the pressure, Etaria asked only to press her lips together in a look of dissatisfaction as she imagined a victorious smirk appearing on that young bastard's face.

"Are you alone? For I believe the things I need to mention are not the things you want others to know about."

Etaria instinctively scanned her tent, searching for a hint, a clue that something wasn't right. That a single shadow didn't fit the greater picture, suggesting someone was eavesdropping from beyond the tent's walls.

But no such thing was possible, not right in the middle of the damn legion's camp!

The only two men who could hear what was happening inside Etaria's private tent were her two highest-ranking officers whom she chased out of the tent herself just a few moments prior!

"I'm all alone," Etartia gulped her saliva down when speaking those words out loud, weirded by how indecent they sounded once they escaped from her lips. "So you can speak freely."

Once again, a period of silence came to verify Etaria's words. And when Peter spoke again, he proved once again that his thoughts moved in ways no sane man in the empire could anticipate.

"Then, would you care to elaborate on why you've been trying to put your own army to a sword?"