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

And with the stable gate now up and kicking, there was nothing stopping all those blessed with the ability to see it to watch the performance that ensued.

The first of the three magnetic gunships was quick to rise high off the ground, several meters above the level it was in while within the hangar. As it raised, the pilots opened up the side shuts of their vessel, dropping artillery-grade smoke shells all over the messy battleground.

"Smoke is up, go!" Makary shouted, beckoning with his hand at the second Maglev in line.

Whatever effect the pilots had to be wary of when it came to getting near another ship of the same kind, didn\'t seem to occur with a dimensional gate separating them. Still, the pilot more or less ignored Makary\'s order, waiting a few more seconds for the first gunship to ascend to its desired attitude before moving away from the gate\'s entrance.

"We are going in," the voice came out from the headset in Makary\'s hand right as the second ship produced a slightly more intense hum before leaning its nose down a tiny little bit and… sliding through the air right into the gate.

\'I wonder how it looks to those who have yet to receive my approval to see the gate,\' I thought, turning my head over my shoulder to take a look at the distant entrance to the hangar, currently crowded with all the soldiers trying to squeeze into the space vacated by the two ships that went over by now.

The second ship followed through the gate right as the smoke on the other side grew so thick, that not even the people directly by the gate could see it. The gunship crossed the boundary between the two worlds and then sank deep into the thick smoke, quickly vanishing from my eyes while bringing no noticeable change to the battlefield on the other side.

"Can we go boss?" the pilots of the last of the ships asked while moving as close to the earth\'s side of the gate as they could, opening up a lot of space for the infantry to cram into.

"Wait half a minute and go. I would rather avoid you crashing into the guys ahead," Makary replied before turning his head and giving me an alert look. "Get yourself ready. We will be going over in just a moment."

The half of a minute passed… well, as quickly as one could expect. The time didn\'t bother to slow down to artificially build tension. The infantry within the hangar didn\'t seem to be bothered by the perspective of an intense, life-and-death battle waiting ahead either.

For me, what was about to ensue in a mere moment and what had been happening on the other side for quite a while now, was a devastating battle where death was as common as a heart attack as a cause of death among the body-positivity movement of the not-so-distant past. For the soldiers around me, though, it was just a Thursday.

"Go!" Makary gave the pilots a green light while also waving at the infantry and the vehicles hidden at the back of the hangar. "Men, get ready!" he shouted right as the second gunship made its way past the gate and dove into the cloud of thick smoke on the other side.

Seconds trickled by while Makary\'s soldiers organized themselves into neat groups while opening up a path for both heavy and light IFVs to pass through.

"We are stepping right into the battlefield with hardly any friend-or-foe recognition method. So…" Makary took a short pause before lowering his voice a tiny little bit, mere theatrics given how he spoke to the headset directly connected to the speakers within the hangar. "So tread carefully."

Makary turned around and faced the gate while pushing his thumbs between his belt and the pants said belt held up.

The soldiers moved up to the very gate, only to stand right before it in a very specific formation.

A team of shooters at the flanks, accompanied by a predator, an all-terrain personal vehicle… Or in simpler words, a light buggy with a heavy machine gun mounted at the support frame on its back. Further to the middle, there was another company of shooters and right at the center - a heavily armored forward command center.

"From the center, forward!" Makary gave the order through his microphone.

Seeing the massive and obviously weighty truck in the middle shake a little as its driver started the engine, I leaned forward to start walking and join the rank and file…

Only to be stopped by Makary\'s arm that he shot to the side the very moment I attempted to make my first step.

"Where do you think you are going?" Makary asked, turning his eyes to my face, blatantly ignoring the sight of the first ground units making their way through the gate.

"To join the first wave and guide them around?" I suggested the obvious answer.

Right now, the only but also the main problem was how Makary\'s men had no sure way of determining who would be their enemy and who would be their ally on the other side of the gate. And as someone who could easily make that distinction, I was the most important addition to the first wave.

"It\'s not the leader\'s job to lead the frontal attack," Makary said as if he was stating the obvious.

"But…"

"Listen, kid," Makary sighed as he fully turned his back to the gate, missing how the entire front row of the units and vehicles made their way to the other side. "Did you know that there used to be a set of cards as an obligatory piece of equipment within all the commanding units back while we were still in the military?"

Hearing Makary\'s strange tangent, I squinted my eyes, struggling to figure out how it connected to the greater picture at hand.

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"I had no idea. Why?"

"Those cards were for the commanders to play poker or solitaire."

Expecting a further explanation, I pretended not to see more and more of Makary\'s men walk through the gate to join the battle they were clueless about.

"Doubts, hesitations, worries…" Makary shook his head. "It\'s one thing to send men over to battle. But there\'s nothing worse than a commander who gives in to those feelings and tries to change things around once they are in motion. So, to stop the leaders from messing everything up, they were all supposed to play damned cards while their men were dying out in the field."

Makary took a short pause, closing his eyes as he took a few deep breaths.

"Why were the cards an obligatory piece of equipment for the commanders, Peter?" he asked the very same question he already answered just now.

"To stop them from giving new orders conflicting with the old ones and thus throwing all semblance of battle order away," I answered, drawing my own conclusions from Makary\'s words before reformatting them into a fitting answer.

"All plans survive only until the contact with the enemy," Makary stated the obvious, "but our goals, precautions, and tricks remain the same."

Makary took a look over his shoulder and watched in silence while the second wave of his soldiers started to advance through the gate. The heavily armored core of their formation first, followed by the two biggest units of infantry, the two predators, and then the last two units initially positioned at the wave\'s flanks.

Once half of the second wave went through, Makary finally brought his arm down and actually turned towards the gate before starting to walk ahead.

"Once we get there, I want you to stay back with me. Not only do I need someone to help me move our people around…" Makary hesitated, turning silent for a second before looking over his shoulder right as we were about to cross the gate back to Fay\'s world.

"You are the only one who can open this gate," Makary mentioned right as we crossed the stable portal and found ourselves surrounded by a thick cloud of smoke.

"You are too important. If you die, none of those guys will be able to go back home. None of what we do in this world will matter."

"I won\'t let any harm come his way," Fay, silently hanging off my arm up until this point, raised her head and stated with utmost confidence.

Out in the distance, Makary\'s men started to open fire once they emerged from the smoke and identified the likely enemy.

"You are too important for us to let you die either," Makary countered with a small smile. "Just like you would go crazy if anything happened to Peter, I doubt there\'s a man alive who could stop him from going insane if anything were to happen to you."

Makary\'s words… were somewhat romantic.

If only he spoke them without the backdrop of the smoke starting to dissolve, only to reveal the bloody carnage created by just a few trigger-happy soldiers within the first wave of Makary\'s army. And as the barrels of the heavy machine guns mounted atop the predators started to turn, the last semblance of the battle\'s order was all but ready to go to hell.