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

The difference between me on the day my life changed and I right now was simply too massive for me to fully even comprehend its scale, its magnitude.

In a sense, it was hard to say if I was still, in any part, human.

What kind of human could literally smash the rock with their bare first? What kind of human could pretty much ignore normal caliber, assuming they weren't unlucky enough to get shot in the eye or right in the middle of their ass?

Or, preceding all of the questions already asked, what kind of human could manipulate elemental darkness to invoke effects that were no different from magic in ordinary human eyes?

If not for my mindset, knowledge, and character, there would be nothing left for me to use as a basis for a claim I was still a human. And while I couldn't quantify it, my strength as a mortal and my strength right now were hard to compare…

No, that was a gross understatement.

Those two levels of power simply couldn't be compared. The greatest proof of it was how the system simply stopped showing me my stats as if to imply they no longer applied to my case.

Those two levels of strength were incomparable. They were in different leagues, different realms. One simply had no longer anything to do with the other.

And yet, despite how near infinitely stronger I was now than I was when I first stepped into this land… The pressure of the starlight weaved into the very air of the plain itself somehow grew strong enough to actively affect me.

"How is it going?"

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't Fay that approached me in the corner where I hid to cultivate but Claudy Moreto, the supposed leader of the mercenary guild and the first supreme that I've met that didn't brag to high heaven about their level.

"It's really damn hard to figure it out," I admitted, gritting my teeth as I dispersed my focus and blinked my eyes a few times.

Given how deep down my own aura arrangement I was looking, I actually needed some time to get my eyes used to normal vision again.

Such were the downsides of trying to adjust my vision to the extremely tiny particles of the elemental darkness hiding at the very bottom of the infinitely deep well of darkness created with the weave of my mana.

This was actually my third dive into that miniature world. A dive that finally brought me closer to finding out the right answer, given how I finally noticed the influence of the starlight…

But no.

Its influence was the absolute limit of what I could perceive. Just like scientists could reason the existence of massive objects that were simply too far or too dim for their light to reach the scopes of the moon telescopes, so they had to rely on calculating how the gravity of those unseen, celestial objects affected the very light from even more distant stars that they could actually register.

"Any idea why you might be having that much of a harder time dealing with it?" Claudy asked with a look of a poorly hidden concern on his face.

My relationship with this man was… strange.

It all started when I went ahead and slaughtered many of his companions before orchestrating attacks that brought a definitive end to even more of them. Yet, once the round of violence was over, I was also the one to extend a charitable hand by offering insanely good terms in our negotiations, terms they were unlikely to get from anyone else in this world.

Ever since then, I've hardly met the man even though how much I ended up dealing with the empire or its golden princess. And yet, when it came to picking out members for the expedition into the starlight plain, Etaria herself brought the man's name up, revealing that he was actually a supreme in his own right.

'Wasn't he just an officer when I first encountered him, though?' I asked myself, taking a moment to scan the man's stoic, perfectly calm face. 'Did he advance somewhat recently, or is his personal strength unrelated to his position within the mercenary guild?'

With the inclusion of Claudy into the realm of things I somewhat cared about, the number of unanswered questions I had only continued to grow.

"Maybe it's because you have more training? Or maybe my aura weave is superior but it comes at a cost of being more susceptible to whatever this starlight is?" I shook my head to indicate I was doing nothing more but throwing random guesses unsupported by anything beyond my gut feeling.

"That doesn't really make sense," Claudy pointed out before turning his head and looking over to where Fay relaxed on a simple sofa while keeping the rim of her straw lowered over her face.

This was another reason why just being on this plain made it so easy for anyone to lose their nerves.

In this accursed place, both day and night lost their meaning.

During the hours that would indicate the day, the world was illuminated with just slightly more intensity than during the hours of the night. Just by looking up to the sky, I could see the local sun of the system… but somehow, it appeared that its light simply couldn't penetrate the layer of starlight covering the plain.

'Just thinking about how the hell this happens is enough to make me feel like throwing up,' I thought, turning my eyes away and looking over at Fay.

"Actually, I think I can understand why she can relax here like that," I revealed with a sigh. "In short words, this plain was designed to stop her clan from leaving the forest through it. On the other hand, the misty valley to the south of the forest is perfectly capable of stopping any of the celestials from crossing it."

Claudy gave me a long glance, but ultimately opted not to comment, waiting for me to elaborate on the point instead.

"If it was before our advancement to the rank of a supreme, I would never allow her to step anywhere near this damned plain. But now…"

I hesitated a little as I shook my head.

In all honesty, I still couldn't really agree with Fay risking her health, both mental and physical, by being here with me. Yet, it was merely an emotion, a sense of worry for the one thing I treasured the most in my life.

But if I looked at the topic objectively…n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Then I've got everything wrong, or rather, in reverse.

It was nothing more but a guess for now, but I was starting to believe that the starlight plain was never designed to be a barrier stopping the divines from crossing it, just like the misty valley to the bottom wasn't a barrier no celestial could cross.

They were merely trails set up by whoever was behind the birth of those two races. A trail that only those who reached the rank of a supreme could even hope to overcome, and only if they broke past their limits in their supreme trail, just like Fay did.

And right now, even though I could only sense the influence of the light of the stairs instead of sensing it directly, I could tell that the very same force that kept putting my mood down, forcing me down the melancholy and lethargic way…

Was actually a blessing for Fay, actively refining the weave of her aura, reinforcing it, and purifying it from all the leftover imperfections left behind by the trail.

'It's like she's actively advancing to a new level just by breathing the local air,' I thought, perfectly aware of how the very same thing, the silvery light of the stars, had an entirely different effect on supreme like Fay and a supreme like me.

'Maybe it has something to do with how both this trail and the form of Fay's aura weave were designed by the same creator while this very same light of the stars clashes with the intent behind my system and thus the entirety of my aura weave?'

One by one, I continued to come up with various possible explanations… But no matter how many of them I produced in my mind, usually, the very next thought that would follow would point out the inconsistencies, the fatal errors in the logic that pretty much disproved all the ideas that I've got so far.

All of the ideas that I've got so far… save for the few that were too general, too unspecified for there to exist a definitive proof of them being right or wrong.

And also the ideas that would make the trip over this plain much more than what any of the three of us signed up for.