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

"Where are my weapons?"

I looked around the room as if trying to find where Makary hid the guns I requested over the phone a mere fewteen hours ago.

"Weapons, right…" the man muttered, his eyes dancing around for a second before regaining their usual, cold focus. "Not here. Even I'm not that influential to keep proper guns out in the open. "

Makary stood up from his usual spot behind the mahogany desk and got closer. Yet, rather than offering a handshake, he simply passed by and left the room while waving at us to follow him.

Having no better option but to silently follow the man, I grabbed Fay's hand and threw a sweeping glance as if to warn all the men nearby to stop looking at her before letting Makary guide my steps.

Soon, we dived deep into the underbelly of the club. And when we started to go down the stairs, move all the way down the corridor only to then move down again…

I started to suspect that whatever sat below the club was nothing like anyone could expect just by looking at it from the outside. And when the massive, bunker gates took place of the doors, my budging suspicions found their confirmation.

"Do I need to stress out how the truth of this place is not to leave this room?" Makary asked in a low, guttural voice once we reached the bottommost floor of the club, or rather, the uppermost floor of the massive, underground nuclear shelter.

One of the kind that the existence of wasn't announced to the public, given the quality of the finishing touches inside. If not for some of the pre-war marks made with already decaying paint, the actual purpose of this underground area could have eluded me for a little bit longer.

And it was because…

'It doesn't look like a bunker at all. More like one of those secret bases that those so-called freaky preppers loved to splurge on,' I thought, answering Makary's rhetorical question with a simple nod.

Still, there was no real reason to bring us all the way down to the bunker if it was only about giving me the weapons I asked for. I had no doubt that he was ever found out to possess the proper ones, even his current, lofty position wouldn't keep him from serious trouble…

But what was the difference between keeping those weapons on one of the underground floors and all the way down in the bunker? Either way, the police were extremely unlikely to get there!

No.

'He didn't bring me here because he was worried about moving those weapons. I will need a way to move them to my house anyway and he won't let me just happily and naively carry them and take a stroll through the city's streets.' freeweɓnovel.cøm

I took a deep breath.

'He brought me here as a show of trust.'

It was hard to tell whether this reasoning was so obvious even someone like me, lacking the social experience to see through this kind of ploy, could notice it… Or if it was my now-raised intelligence allowing me to quickly process much more information.

Just like in computers, even if a personal one was designed for gaming, with a processor powerful enough, it could very well serve as a workstation for other purposes. Similarly, even though I lacked quite a lot when it came to interacting with others, now that my intelligence had grown beyond a certain level, I could still process certain hints and clues to figure out the meaning behind them.

"Here they are," Makary forced me out of my line of thought when he finally stopped in front of a massive, armored cabinet and grabbed its handle before pulling its thick, fully metal doors open.

'Oh…'

For a moment, my brain ceased to operate.

When I asked for guns, that's exactly what I meant. A rifle for some medium-distance shots, maybe an assault rifle if the fight were to start at a closer distance. Worst case scenario, a shotgun or an automatic pistol to spray and pray the enemies at a range I hoped never to let them into.

Or, in other, simpler words, the guns from the era before most of the world went to shit.

But that wasn't the content of the cabin whatsoever.

"Are those…?" I slowly raised my eyes and looked at Makary's still, calm face. At the same time, my hand tightened over Fay's fingers, right as she, sensing my shock, pulled closer to my side and squinted her eyes.

"The void war equipment, yes," Makary confirmed my guess in a faint voice. "The upper-tier weapons developed for the war to end all wars that lost their purpose when such war never came to be."

Even though I wasn't really into the recent history stuff, I wasn't that far removed from the general flow of information not to know about this disastrous void war… Or a war that happened only in the heads of those tasked with preparing weapons for it.

It was pretty much a Cold War two-point-zero… but one that spanned a much shorter time and became a concept during the rise of the relatively small-scale conflicts.

From the undeclared war in eastern Europe, through the double genocide of the Near East, all the way through the boiling pot of Balkans and settling the score in the far-east. All those conflicts gave rise to the worry that they were but the prelude, the opening act of the third world war.

And with the perspective of another conflict that would shake and then shape the whole world, technology, especially the military one, went on the rise. Yet, when the collapse of the global market resulted in the biggest economic meltdown in human history, everyone suddenly found themselves too poor to endorse the idea of any external conflict.

Then, the wave of pretty much worldwide internal conflicts sealed the deal, pushing everyone's wallets even further down the path of oblivion, turning all the wonder weapons created in preparation for the Third World War into a bunch of obsolete and unnecessary junk. Garbage is too expensive for anyone to upkeep.

And also wonder weapons, the pinnacle of personal armament operating just below the principle of going nuclear on everyone and everything around.

"Just how much are those worth today?" I muttered under my nose, shocked beyond belief.

Because as unlikely as it was, I had a full cabinet choke-full of those right before my eyes, and all ripe for taking.

So, I shook my head and chased away my shocked amazement.

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"Are they even usable?"

Raising my eyes on Makary, I saw what had to be the first, open hint of a smile.

"Still fabrically sealed. We've discovered quite a few…" he hung his voice in the air to dry for a moment. "Quite a few other artifacts of the past…"

Just like showing me this bunker was a gesture of trust, this right now, was a bid in the new round of negotiations that started when he opened up this locker.

"What about ammo?" I asked, trying my best not to reveal just how impressed I was by this power move.

"I have enough," Makary replied shortly, only to grab the edge of the cabinet doors and turn to directly face me.

He didn't close it… but once again, for how small a hint it was, its meaning was obvious.

No matter how valuable my miracle herb was… It paled in comparison to the worth of those weapons. And the implications of finding them in this particular bunker, which brought along the promise of what other wonders could be inconspicuously hidden at the outskirts of the town.

"The first time we negotiated, I suggested for you to invest in my case," I spoke out, a wide smile growing on my face. "And I believe this investment paid out nicely thus far, didn't it?"