2 more people drove in at once. As I started to explain to them how things work another guy pulled in as well. That was the pace that we set for the rest of the morning. Chopper apparently gets word around pretty fast. That's great for a quick growth, but terrible when you need a chance to work out the kinks in your operation.

The first issue of the day started with our 3rd and 4th customers who arrived at the same time. Just because Nola could purposely and perfectly separate their loads even if they dumped them in to the pit at the same time, doesn't mean they have any way of trusting her, me, or each other. We almost came to blows over that one. We ended up having to run every load completely separately.

Which lead us into the next problem we discovered. Time. It worked out for Nola, she could keep farming energy with mosquitos and flies. But I'm sure more than one person turned away seeing the line. The loading of materials in the pit one at a time, collecting of the bins before the next batch could start, and maneuvering around the cramped driveway to finally leave all caused issues with speed.

And then there was the real bottleneck. Me. Or more specifically, how much 'waste' material I could move from the collection site and where to put it. Pretty early on I had Nola start discretely absorbing 10% of the material designated as waste. By the end of the morning I had upped that number to half and we still had barrels and boxes overflowing at the back of the property. Every time I had to move a full collection barrel that was more 'down time' for the machine Nola was pretending to be.

We were also running out of bins. Printing more would be easy, if there weren't so many eyes. As it stands the pile of bins I thought would last a week had dwindled down to a 3rd of its former self. The phrase 'Suffering from success' almost began to cover my feelings on that development.

But the most unexpected problem came just before lunch. A tourist. Well that's not exactly correct. He started his day as just another junk man, but one of the hippy true believer types. After he saw Nola grind up an entire kitchen worth of cabinets and appliances he just... didn't leave. He moved the truck out, that was considerate of him, but he just came in and stared open mouthed at the process until we closed up. Nola actually had a fly go right in and that barely even fazed him. Great for farming xp, but he was in the way. More than that, the whole magic trick is hidden behind the thinnest veneer of credibility. Looking at it too closely represented an existential risk to the operation.

Tonight after close we could move the driveway, signs, even the machine and the pit to solve the other issues, but I don't know what we are gonna do about our developing fan club.

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"We will re open in an hour people, go get lunch or something. I know I'm gonna" I shouted to the people waiting at the gate as I forced those inside the plant out.

My tourist was the last one out. I had to practically drag him out the door by his ponytail. He kept throwing questions at me that I ignored. Not the most adult way to handle that, but if I start talking in the same material science terms he started using he'd figure out pretty quick I barely finished high school.

"Listen, I just want to know a few things about the processer unit. Is it using.." I held up my hand to stop the questions.

"Everything is proprietary and a trade secret that I am unwilling And unable to discuss with you right now. More information will be made available after the testing phase" There that should hold him.

"I get that. I won't talk to anyone I just..." I looked him in the eye as I started to struggle with the old door again. He knew he wasn't gonna get a real answer from me. Didn't stop him from trying again, persistent bugger.

"At least tell me who your backers are, I'll bug them instead. No one has to know how I know" One last hail marry. Appeal to 'someone else's problem'. Honestly if I was some low man on the totem pole that would probably be a pretty good play.

"Not gonna happen man. But when they give me the go to start telling, I'll let you know." I got the door closed and started to lock it so I could take a break. Unfortunately, there was a small gap in the old gate door.

"I am gonna hold you to that. Here, take this" I could hear him rustling around on the other side as he reached for something. Shortly after a bright green business card with a smiling sun in the corner poked through the gap. "I am gonna hold you to that phone call. I want to know everything about this"

I took the card and then, stupidly, went on customer service auto pilot. And I proceeded to say what may be the dumbest possible thing I could say to this particular person. Well, with the exception of the truth.

"Make sure you tell all your friends!"

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If I face palmed any harder Nola was going to tell me I was losing hit points.

I walked away from the gate and back into the dungeon proper and felt the dungeon master's awareness come back again. It was getting easier to operate normally with all that information after half a day's worth of practice. I still wasn't exactly comfortable with it, but I didn't trip over my own feet when walking too fast anymore.

I opened the door to Buddy's shed. Still in a coma.

"Nola, another healing potion please and some water"

Coming right up!

Both of the requested items popped up out of the ground next to me. How did I ever live without a dungeon before, so convenient.

Aw, Thanks. I know I am the best.

"Don't get too cocky." I said playfully, "We still have some stuff we can do better"

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

I started watering Buddy. "Do you have any other potions that might help him? Did his people feed you anything else useful before you came here?"

They didn't feed me much. Unlike you they were very selective with their choices.

"Are you complaining?" I legitimately wonder if she minds my method of... unusual... dungeon management. No kills, no traps. No walls even for the most part.

Hell no. Quality over quantity can happen later. For now I want to grow

"That's good. Give me a quick rundown of what they gave you. I can figure out if any of it is worth pursuing as a helper for Buddy"

Here is a complete list of everything they gave me - some of it is incompatible with your current understanding, but I can use metaphors to help if you want

-Minor healing potion

-Medium healing potion

-Major healing potion

-Stamina potion

-Well rested potion

-a̴̹͆s̷̱͠d̸̢̲̀͛ŷ̵̮o̷̺̗̔̒f̶̨̝͊z̶̡̐͘͜x̸̙͇̒̾c̶̩̳̕͘g̶̥̑f̸̯̗͛h̷̢̏̆p̷̖̈͘a̴̰̓̕ś̵̞̩d̵̰̃l̶͍͖͝ķ̷̙͆͆s̸̗͗̇ď̵̹̭̅f̷́́͜k̶̟͊̕j̸͚́v̷̧̑f̸̫̚͘

-c̵̭̫͂͝v̶̻̎͊n̸͉̎͛ṛ̵͉͛e̴̠̔͗p̶̪̽a̶̦͓͘ṣ̵̄d̶͚͝l̶̥̯̎̍k̴̼̯͒s̷̹̠͐̽d̸̡̈f̶͚̆k̸̪͑ǰ̸̦̂v̷͍̉f̵̬͌

-Strength booster potion

-p̵̘̝͙̀a̷̠̗͇̎́̆s̸̤̬̒́̃d̶̙̭͛l̷̝̂ḵ̷͂s̷̡̖̀̕ḑ̷̞͓̌f̶̖̈́̐s̸̮̓͝ę̷͚̜̒̄̕d̷͔̰̤͆̎d̶̜͖̟̃k̸͓̻̼͊̿j̷͚̯̈́̎v̸̢̘̆͘f̸͎̊͛̕

- Personal forcefield

- A gold staff of unknown use

- o̷̳͠e̷͍̽̉ͅě̴̢̟͒e̷͚̬͑ỵ̴̨̎̈́ḍ̶͑́f̷̨̝̏̌s̷̨̛e̶̕ͅď̶̠͙d̶̺̺͑k̷̻̋͝j̴̩̅v̷̦̑̌f̵̛̼͚

"They only gave you 12 items the whole time they had you?" Also, ow, some of those hurt my head.

"The whole time they had me" was less than 3 hours. I think. I only ate a clock after I got to this world. It felt like 3 hours after I woke up. I wasn't as 'aware' at the beginning.

"Alright, fair enough." Still I think I gave her a greater variety of, admittedly garbage, stuff in the first 5 minuets after we met. Considering the transmutation abilities, I am amazed they didn't. I will have to ask Buddy about that. "Are any of the weird ones something that will wake Buddy up or could help us in our current position?"

No, most of them are weapons of some kind. One of them is ... well its like a magic mana potion from Skyrim, but not for humans, and not the same magic you are used to. Kinda. Again, there is nothing in your memories that's a good match.

"Got it, so not exactly a high priority item for our party" I pulled out my phone. Nola probably hadn't gotten over the separation anxiety since last night

I have not, thank you for remembering

Please stop doing that. Anyway. Thanks to the modern age I can make the food come to me "Nola, do you want to try some food made be actually competent people? I can get basically anything we can think of, and since we are linked you know what that list has on it."

I want to try a taco. And pudding. And pizza. And beef wellington. Fish and chips. Grapes. Gas station sushi. Turkey stuffing. French toast. And a potato. Pasta. Green beans. And....

"And I am gonna cut you off there. So what I heard, was you are up for anything and can't make up your mind?"

I can so make up my mind. I want it all. Is that so hard to believe?

"Not at all, one might even say its on brand." I laughed a little at that one "But for now, we are only gonna order from one place. But, we can order one of everything. Fair?"

I'll print the money!

"I am using a credit card. There's no way to use cash on the app." I am gonna need to get to the bank to deposit some ill gotten gains before the end of the month, or I am gonna have a problem.

I figured we would try all the restaurants eventually, so I decided to just go in order. The great American burger chain it is.

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The delivery driver was confused when he saw just me. Not surprising as he was carrying 50 thousand calories of fast food and soda.

"The others are coming in a bit. Thanks for coming so fast" I handed him a few 20s from Nola. And suddenly he didn't care any more.

I took the extra burger and coke I had ordered for me out of the bag and dumped the rest into the pit. This time when they fell through the concrete it rippled like water. What?

You said you wanted that.

"No, I said I expected that, not the same thing. When it comes to magic I am not an expert. Neither option makes sense. You should probably just absorb it the regular way, just in case"

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After our lunch I had Nola absorb a few more bins of 'waste' trash and print me some ramps. The absorption was not strictly necessary with everything she had already taken in, but I wanted to get a jump on clean up. With the new ramp I could just have all the waste trash piled at the back of the property and we could deal with it later at night. No more stopping to remove the bin from the waste chute slowing us down.

We also added a second ramp on the intake side. I had Nola make the wall erected between them look like it was salvaged from the shack that used to be on the property. More believable that we were able to set it up over a lunch break. Now we technically had 2 dumping zones. That should speed us up a bit.

I also made a tourist zone. Right next to the supposed biogas digestor. Really it was just an excuse for extra smells and flies. If they are gonna stay here, they're gonna have to suffer through being my energy farm.

Almost ready to get started again.

"Alright Nola, I want you to focus on expansion. Always leave enough in the tank for us to keep operating here, but otherwise keep growing. Get to the edges of the property first and then onto the road. I want you to expand towards my house. You can take shoulders of the roads to grow plants as long as they aren't too big or messing with cars. Don't expand into anyone else's property but mine." That should give her something to shoot for for a while, during lunch I was starting to get the signal that she was itching to spend some of our accumulated energy/matter collection. multiple miles of dungeon should be a pretty good goal. At least a year based on how much it took to make the first bit.

Task for her and a task for me. Now lets get this thing started.

Open the door and begin again

Just gotta make it a few more hours.