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

Chapter 151: Towering desire (Namidia's PoV)

"And that flower went extinct seven hundred years ago, with the death of the last god."

Namidia froze.

The sight of the flower everyone in the camp was told to look out for was… stunning to say the least. The fact that it grew out of the hand of a beautiful woman proving that she was indeed a legendary dryad… was stunning.

But the dryad's words managed to top even that.

On the other hand, quite surprisingly, the human who took the reins so far… appeared to be as baffled as Namidia herself.

He was stunned in a different way than the girl but stunned nonetheless.

And that gave birth to an itching suspicion, a guess that Namidia couldn't help but consider.

She never really chose her path in life. Poverty back home and Namidia's selfish desire to help her siblings left no other option but to become a mercenary. And the last three years she spent in the unit proved to be tough but rewarding.

The girl saw a fair share of the ugly side of the world and life, growing increasingly numb to all the shit she had to face.

But her choosing this path didn't mean she lacked the smarts to do something else. She simply never had the window of opportunity to do so.

As such, when faced with the rapidly growing feeling of certain unease, Namidia got to thinking.

'He doesn't look like he…' Namida gulped down. 'Like he knows them all that well.'

The man before the girl was too different. His manners, the annoyingly confident manner of speech and act…

Just by turning her eyes to any of the forest monsters Nam could tell how different they were. Certainly dignified, confident as only an old master could be, looking at her with a hint of disregard…

"Well, shit."

As if to confirm her doubts, the young man cursed out loud and dropped his head down low.

'Why is he concerned with something that is strictly related to our objective…' Namidia asked herself, her eyes opening a bit wider.

'He clearly heard the name of the flower for the first time right now!' She argued in her thoughts while doing her absolute best to keep a shocked look on her face. 'So why…'

"That means they either won't give up easily," the young man sighed and… seemingly dropped on his shoulder.

As if unable to hold the weight of the situation on his back alone.

And right this moment, the immensely beautiful woman that stood just a step behind, made her move.

Her arms wrapped around the man's chest, allowing her to bring him back up and then make the young man's chest lean slightly to the back. Resting his head on her bosom, she moved her hands up and locked the man in her hug… only to send Nam an extremely hostile and wary look.

'Wait, are you for real?' Nam asked herself, struggling to swallow her breath.

"That, or this entire story is just a casus beli," the young man sighed heavily.

'Yeah, there's no hiding the fact,' Nam gulped her saliva down. Her eyes twitched before her expression froze in the girl's desperate attempt to hide her feelings from the outside world.

'They act like all the other sickeningly sweet newlyweds!'

Nam gritted her jaws.

This… human nature of the man before her, the affectionate way in which he accepted his girl's care, the slight, barely noticeable gestures he used to let the girl know of his gratitude…

Nam saw it all, more times than she could count. One of the perks… or rather, curses of living in a world where one could lose their life randomly, during every moment of their service. And the cold feeling of the death's knife on one's throat brought quite the aphrodisiac-like effects.

'But damn,' Nam gritted her teeth even further. 'They don't fit here!'

This was the one thing that upset Namidia's mind so much, she couldn't focus on anything else.

Just what was this monstrous human doing in the forest that half of the continent haphazardly decided to go all out and conquer?

And why did this man act as if he just gained some enormous insight from what little she spoke?

"Well, that cuts some options," the young man spoke after taking a long while to actually respond. But quite visibly, after just a few moments in his woman's arms, he appeared to be considerably revitalized.

'I guess that also explains this harsh look,' Namidia thought, bringing her eyes down while feeling her cheeks starting to burn.

All out of nowhere, she felt the other aspect of her situation.

Not the fear of ending up as a prisoner of monsters about to be harshly interrogated. Not even the constant curiosity and shocks the situation presented her with.

But the sudden desire to…

"It's up," a new voice appeared on the scene, right in the corner of Namidia's vision.

Desperately looking to the side, she saw a small, green-haired beauty. And according to the elaborate golden markings all over her long, slender hands…

'A nymph…' Nam thought, no longer capable of even gulping down her saliva. 'They have a nymph… and we basically drowned this entire place…'

Once again, the fear filled the girl's soul. Her shoulders started to shake as the stories she heard as a kid started to materialize before her eyes.

And if those stories ended up with any kind of profound lesson to ingrain in the kids since young… Then serving as a mercenary in the siege of the forest where those mythical creatures resided meant going against all that the old stories and legends taught every kid on the continent.

And yet…

"Now then," the young man blinked his eyes a few times, snapping from some sort of a line of thought. He then leaned forward, pulling the beautiful, silver-haired woman along, causing her long, white streaks to coat his face.

For a moment, the beauty's hair appeared to merge with the man, becoming his own.

Then, the illusion broke, as if it was never meant to exist in the first place.

"What are your numbers? When will the next army arrive? How many armies in total are scheduled to arrive and when?" the young man suddenly started to speak fast, and with a weirdly unsettling, foreign accent. "What do you estimate your total number to be once everyone gathers? What's the leading force of this war?"

Bit by bit, the question changes from general to much more specific.

"How long can you keep those barriers up? What's the main type of soldiers you have? What's your most used battle formation? How do you set up guards for your camps?"

So many questions, that Nam couldn't recall the first after listening to the fourth, hardly catching up on a total of the last four questions.

And as her desire suddenly grew stronger, more… compulsory, her body started to shake a little.

Sweat trickled down the girl's forehead as the thin air started to tower over her, pressing her down with its suddenly massive weight and pressure.

Struggling to resist, Nam opened her mouth to take a breath. And as soon as she did, words started to flow out of her mouth, all on their own.