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

'How the hell do I deal with it?'

Banjay sank deep into his thoughts as he walked up the palace's wide corridor, heading straight past the minister-reserved area and towards the main royal quarters.

As opposed to the throne hall where the ruler would display his majesty in all of its grandeur, the main royal quarters were a place where one could arrange for an audience in more private, often more cordial terms.

Still, living without all of the luxury and riches of the official appearance, to access it, one still had to go through a sizeable group of veteran soldiers guarding the doorstep of the royal quarters.

"Who comes?!" the leader of the guards stepped forth and shouted upon taking notice of Banjay down the long corridor leading up to the main crown quarters.

Being the veteran that he was, his eyesight had to be far better than just enough to spot who Banjay was from all the way across the corridor. Still, just like most of the things that had a "royal" prefix to them, this was all but a part of the silly ceremony that Banjay, regardless of what he thought about it, had no other choice but to participate.

"Minister of the interior heeds royal summons!"

Banjay cupped his hands together before pushing them ahead and bending his spine forth, creating a gentle arc with his entire body from feet all the way up to his cupped hands.

He didn't introduce himself by his name, not because he arrogantly assumed the guards would know who he was but to signify that in the presence of the royal, he no longer was a man but merely a tool for the crown to rule over its subject.

"You shall be granted entry," the royal guard replied, surprising absolutely no one in the corridor, be it his subordinates or Banjay himself.

How could a mere guard bar the way for someone hurrying to show up as summoned by the king himself?

And even if in today's royal quarters the situation was a bit more complicated than a common folk would ever be allowed to know… Banjay still followed the king's call, so after the ceremonial verification, the authority of the guards met its end.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"May those who serve the crown forever be blessed with the insight," Banjay worded out the boring, ceremonial response before finally making it past the guards and into the royal quarters.

There, despite all the pretense of the relaxed atmosphere, the entirety of the room was sneakily projected after the throne hall, with the king's designated seat at the head of the entire room, sofas for important quests directly to his left, sofas for the royal advisors to the man's left and then room for those answering the king's call to his private chambers, right in front of the royal seat.

That's how things were supposed to be according to the royal protocol, at the very least. But the reality was quite different.

Sitting atop the royal seat wasn't the young kind, but rather his mother still occasionally making use of her old powers as a regent for when the king wasn't of age yet to support the young, recently crowned monarch.

When it came to the king himself, he was relaxing on the sofa designed for the guests, quite willingly taking the spot reserved for those who weren't as lowly as to summon them in front of the king's seat. The only one following the royal codex was Elea, the king's younger sister, and Banjay's adorable ward. Seated upon the sofa for the crown advisers, she was also the first to notice his arrival.

"Uncle!" Nelea called out, a slightly forced but still bright smile appearing on her face as she rose up from her seat.

'So she still holds it against me,' Banjay thought, forcing his eyes to stay still as opposed to his instinctive desire to roll them around.

The stakes in the game Banjay played were simply too great for him to share the truth willy-nilly. And especially if the person in question was a kid maybe late in her teens… but still a damn teenager!

Nelea knew why Banjay never told her anything. The freshly appointed minister made sure to give her a proper explanation once the massacre at the steps came to an end and he got some time to clean all the blood and guts off his clothes. And yet…

While she clearly tried not to show it, Nelea still couldn't get over the recent events, something that showed through her much colder attitude than usual.

'When was the last time she called me an uncle?'

As the heir to a lesser royal line, Banjay was always close to the palace yet never had his sights on the ultimate seat within. Still, as the royal servant to the court he grew up on, when looking upon this naive princess… He couldn't help but feel the spur of fresh determination to find a way to deal with the new legion heading their way.

"Your majesty," slightly troubled by how to follow the protocol when the king himself didn't, Banjay opted to fall down on one knee before the monarch-occupied sofa only to then raise and look over at the queen regent. "Your Highness," he gave the former queen a quick nod of his head before turning to Nelea and giving her an awkward smile, "my princess…"

For a moment, the insides of the royal chambers turned silent.

Nelea, who usually served as the one to break the ice for moments like this has retreated to her inner shell, looking away and even crossing her arms over her chest, showcasing her pout to the world as if to send a message.

The king couldn't be bothered to pay Banjay even the remotest attention… While the queen regent observed how he would deal with the issue with undying interest.

'This stupid dance is what I hate about the court the most,' Banjay complained in his thoughts before fully raising up… Only to then fall down on one knee again and perform a full, knight's bow even though his morals and methods couldn't be any further removed from the ideal knight that common folk depicted in their heads when hearing the word.

"I'm here to answer your summons, patriarch," Banjay called out, using the king's alternate title, all according to the palace protocol.

This finally succeeded at pulling the young king's attention from a scroll of ancient poetry he had been studying all this time.

The young patriarch was a picture-perfect, younger version of the late king. Yet, save for his handsome, rugged looks that gave off the vibes of a reliable leader, he lacked all the other qualities that led to his father receiving the title of 'great' even before his death.

What the patriarch didn't lack, however, was the one redeeming quality that proved he still had the chance to, at least in history books, match the achievements of his legendary father.

He was aware of his own shortcomings.

And right now, after taking a moment to scan Banjay's face, the patriarch simply rolled his eyes.

"Do you seriously want me to meddle in whatever you are here for?"

The king's piercing glance lasted for a little longer, only for the man to roll his eyes and move them back to the decorative scroll in his hands.

"If not, then stop bothering me and go do whatever job you have scheduled for now."

Caring not for the royal protocol, the requested manner of speech, or even any sort of most minor appearances, the king simply waved at Banjay with his hand, as if chasing him away.

"I think I've bullied you enough," the queen regent sighed, finally revealing herself as the one actually in charge not only of the royal quarters but also the kingdom as a whole.

'To the best of my knowledge, all of her attempts to ditch her work and push it on patriarch have failed,' Banjay thought, recalling the recent reports from the palace and following with a quick glance at the king's face. 'If there's anything this simpleton is good at, it's steering clear from anything even remotely important or tiring. And for once, I can commend him for that.'

Pushing his thoughts about the patriarch aside, Banjay raised his face to look up at the former queen.

"I've heard there's a completely fresh imperial legion heading our way," the queen announced, dropping a bomb heavy enough to not only get Nelea's attention but also a quick glance up from the king himself. "That makes your great victory at the fortress quite…" the look in queen's eyes sharpened, "pointless, wouldn't you say?"

Already expecting this kind of light scolding, Banjay didn't allow his face to as much as twitch.

"Without that victory, the capital's perimeter would be long overrun, and we would be planning for the escape of the royal family rather than possible ways of stopping their advance as usual," Banjay countered, thankful that while high, the queen regent wasn't high enough to bar him from speaking out in a straightforward, direct manner.

His words struck true, and the former queen knew it. The miracle at the Basal fortress, even if useless in hindsight, still served to buy the crown for some time. And while with a fresh legion putting up a siege, the fall of the fortress would be pretty much guaranteed…

The last two weeks and the days that the imperial legion still needed to reach the fortress at the end of the labyrinth of the Haela mountains gave Salicious and other generals ample time to restore the embankments, reset the traps, and reinforce the garrison.

Even if the fall of the fortress was nigh certain, it would be a fool's errand to try to guess for how many years would the fortress hold now that all the siege progress made by the recently defeated legion ended up lost.

"That's certainly true," the queen ultimately agreed, even going as far as to nod her weathered head, the imperfections in her make-up momentarily showcasing just how tired she was.

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"Still, I hoped you would appear bearing great news of some new miracle that you've pulled off when I wasn't looking," the queen added, squinting her eyes while putting on a mask of an emotionless face that Banjay, even with all of his expertise, couldn't pierce.

'I hate to be the bearer of the bad news…' the middle-aged man thought, before taking in a deep breath and raising his eyes to Nelea for a short moment before turning them over to the queen regent.

"I'm afraid that I'm here for the very same reason," Banjay replied, raising up from his knee and standing up straight only to look down into the queen's face with a look of clear anger, "do you have any news, even just one report, from nearly the entirety of the cadre of supremes of the crown that you committed to your maddening cause?"

The air in the room grew just a little bit colder.

Still, while it was a conflict… it was something that the two argued over quite a lot in the recent past, making it a near-constant element of any of their meetings.

And just like all the times when Banjay tried before, the queen's answer remained the same.

Or rather, there was no answer at all, as the queen merely lowered her head before lightly shaking it to the sides.

"It seems that I'm not the only one lacking good news to share," Banjay summed up only to turn around, done wasting time with this farce.

'If she wanted me to have an easier time protecting this rotten kingdom, she should've spared nearly all of our supremes from a one-way trip down south, damn it!'

"Wait!" the queen called in a slightly panicked voice, even going as far as to move up from the king's seat a bit.

"What?!" Turning his head around, Banjay barked, no longer hiding his hostility towards the queen.

"Is there…" the queen bit down on his lips before falling back into her seat and sighing out. "Is there any chance Basal will hold?" she asked in a much feebler voice, revealing just a tiny little bit of her true face of a simply tired woman, worn down by all the duties and responsibility she held for the last three decades.

"That's what I'm busy trying to make happen," Banjay threw, before turning around and falling down to one knee, as per palace rules.

"My Patriarch, Your Highness, my Princess…" he called out to the royal family before turning around and leaving for the doors. 'Now, how do I stop an army twice as well-equipped, thrice as motivated, and quadruple the number of the forces I have at my disposal?'