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

We returned to the camp merely an hour or so after leaving it to give Makary some room.

And from the very moment we stepped back into the perimeter controlled by his men, the changes to the situation all around were pretty much obvious.

By now, the gate lost its mystical vibe, turning into what it was in reality - the most crucial and important choke-point for the transfer of tools, men, and resources between the worlds. And even now, merely a few hours into our expedition, the gate already gained an artificial division going through its middle, splitting it into the ingoing and outgoing lanes.

'To think they would be so quick to exploit this place…' I thought while looking at the soldiers currently busying themselves with setting a fuel-powered generator up so that they could power up the two conveyor belts already present at the gate.

Judging by an ever-growing pile of various items stacked near one of them and an orderly pile of boxes stacked on the other side of the gate…

Using conveyor belts to pass the items through the gate was, by no means, an overkill.

"Just what do they want to take from here?" I muttered to myself, straining my eyes to get a better look at the items within the pile… Only to realize that it contained absolutely rudimentary stuff.

From small bits of earth secured in simple boxes, through broken pieces of wood, stones, various freshly picked plants and herbs…

Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that rather than importing a huge number of something in particular, Makary's men were simply gathering samples of everything they could find.

After all, what I stepped on just now wasn't just a rock but a rock from another world! And when taking that detail into account, the simple rock that I've already left behind was equally as valuable if not much more than the few moon rocks that NASA failed to clear off the markets, legal and illegal ones, before the entire world went to shit.

"Are they really that interesting in our earth?" Fay asked, snuggling up to my shoulder with a perfectly satisfied expression on her face.

After going wild for nearly an hour back in the deeper part of the forest, she turned even more cuddly and affectionate than before. And while I could tell there was no intimate undertone behind her closeness and skinship, even after bursting out my load a few times…

"They are interested in everything in this world," I corrected Fay's assumption. "While I doubt any of them, in particular, is capable of doing so, there are some smart guys back on earth who can learn impossible things just by studying those," I mentioned, running down the list of my memories to recall the small tidbits of information I learned about the process from some documentaries.

"Learn impossible things? Like what?" With our bond working mostly on the basis of our feelings rather than direct thoughts, Fay opted to ask rather than trying to scan my soul in search of the answer.

A task that would only grow all the harder with my own struggle to recall those details in the first place.

"Stuff like history reaching millions of years back? Whether or not this world is similar on a very deep level to mine?" I suggested the first two things that came to my mind before shaking my head. "I only know they can figure out quite a lot from things any sane person would just ignore. As for what exactly they can figure out?" I shook my head again.

"It's better to ask someone better qualified to answer."

With this small talk occupying our minds, we moved past the changing camp of Makary's forces. As it turned out, it wasn't just the gate that changed with the presence of the conveyor belts and an entire engineering unit working hard to modernize the location.

Just a few steps away from the gate, we encountered a line of reinforced positions with heavier guns mounted and small squads keeping a keen eye on their surroundings, both with their own two eyes and with the help of the swarm technology that has long since saturated the air of the forest.

Directly beyond the thick perimeter line that protected the gate from anyone wishing to do it harm, most of the human activity ceased.

And there were various reasons for that, ranging from how hard it was to do anything smack-dab in the middle of a thick, ancient forest to how any mass-sized construction or operation within the area would only serve to strain the relationship between Makary's forces, or humans in general, and all of the celestials and divines of the forest.

This was their home in which we were nothing more but a bunch of rowdy and noisy guests. The fact that we helped them survive the battle with the empire and were now in the process of further securing them from any follow-up of the attack didn't change the situation or the unvoiced agreement we had with them.

Only upon reaching the area where the trees started to thin out did we encounter the activity of Makary's men again. That is, only if we were to ignore the hustle and bustle of Makary's second team of engineers already hard at work to create a comfortable passage from the gate to where the man deployed most of his forces.

'And from the looks of things, they plan to extend this road all the way out to the plain, maybe even to that devastated camp…' I thought, taking a look at the direction the builders of the road cut the vegetation in.

This only made sense.

We didn't want to interfere with the forest, but it was pretty damn hard to say when I would be able to open another gate, this time in a much better location. Thus, in order to minimize how our operation would affect those in the forest, a path from the gate that led outside of the forest was a damn must.

But it was only upon reaching the very edge of the forest that I fully realized the scale of work Makary's men did in the short time we were away from where they were concentrated.

"Damn…" I muttered as I gazed upon two massive piles of resources and supplies that were being converted into nearby lines of smaller stacks that a different group of soldiers busied themselves packaging into crates.

"Looking at this, I'm lowkey impressed," I admitted, as my eyes turned over to where yet another engineering unit was busy clearing up the still-swampy ground at the forest's edge, marking areas suitable for construction and those that were not, while yet another unit already moved on to cover the possible areas with simple housing units.

"What are those?" Fay asked as she pointed her hand towards a pile of strange pieces of wood, thin metal rods, and a huge stack of tarp.

"Houses to be, I believe," I replied, easily imagining how the wooden poles would be used as the main pillar of the tent, the thin metal rods turning into the ribs of the simple shelter while the tarp would cover it all and make the shelter both wind and rainproof.

"As long as they add a simple heater or manage to isolate the insides with something, each of those houses-to-be should be able to house twenty-to-thirty men in manageable conditions," I muttered before taking a much closer look at the

With one tent like that sufficient for that many people, it would take four to five of them to house a hundred men. Forty to fifty to house a thousand. And in order to house a total of around forty thousand that we were about to accept as war captives…

"I don't think we should cover this entire plain in tents," I muttered, more to myself than to Fay.

To house everyone, we would need a total of about two thousand tents. Adding up the storage for resources, logistic units, offices… And that number would easily grow to three thousand.

And given how much space each of those tents needed and how there had to be some room between each tent to prevent a random spark from turning into an unstoppable firestorm… And the majority of the relatively huge plain would end up occupied with nothing but housing.

"Is that a problem?" Fay asked, leaning forth all so she could tilt her head to the left and give me a curious look.

"We are not here to take care of those people," I muttered in response. "And if we use all the land we can just to house them… Where will we build a proper city? Where will we place all the facilities we will need to start turning this empty place into a vibrant town?"

I shook my head for a while before taking a long yet shallow breath. And as I breathed out, I finally took a long look around to locate just where the hell Makary had moved.

"Let's deal with this matter right away," I suggested, turning round as soon as I noticed what appeared to be Makary's commanding truck. "And then talk a bit about the things that princess asked of us."

With those words on my mouth, I freed my arm from Fay's hold and took a step aside... Only to stretch the very arm out as I offered my hand to the girl.

"Shall we?" I asked, putting a small, cheeky smile on my face in my attempt to hide a fresh wave of adoration born from just a simple, short glance at her adorable face.

"We shall," Fay replied while brimming with a smile. "Seeing how hard everyone else is working, it would be unbecoming of us to just slack off!"