“So um...why are we here?” said Margot. Wrinkling her nose to deal with the smell of burning trash.

“Because I need a few things from here, M.” I said. Reaching out with my mind and shutting down every security camera and security spell within the entire facility.

Our shopping trip didn’t start as you might have expected it to. When Margot finally woke me up and told me she was ready to go buy the things we needed for our new apartment I didn’t just teleport us to the mall. Instead, I teleported us to a garbage dump. A landfill. One that happened to be owned by a certain group by the name of the Schachbrett Group.

The Schachbrett Group was a recycling and waste disposal firm that had never been proven to have any real ties with the mafia. As far as the public was concerned, they were a perfectly legitimate organization.

Nevermind that they’d had a number of their employees get put in prison. With most of those members being arrested after stepping afoul of current RICO law and the US’ efforts to deal with the many criminal organizations that rose up during the great collapse. They were still a perfectly honest business.

Or maybe they weren’t. That didn’t really matter to me in either case. My main interest in them was that they were a small group that would be less worrisome to risk provoking than any of the larger groups, or the megacorporations that dealt in the waste management industry.

It also helped that the group had so many literal and figurative skeletons buried in this landfill that they’d never even think to call the cops.

“We’re just picking up this and that.” I said. Answering Margot’s question as I set up a mass transfer array around the entire landfill.

“Yes, b-, but...what are we picking up? There’s only garbage here” asked Margot.

I smiled. My teeth glinting in the sun.

“That’s exactly what we’re picking up.”

“H-, Huh?”

We teleported away. Taking all of the garbage and a fair amount of concrete, soil, and stone with us.

Now, Margot and I were in the mall. I cast a cleansing spell because to get rid of the smell of the landfill. Then I turned to Margot and said,

“Okay, my shopping was done. You lead the way from here.”

“Sh-, Shopping? Wasn’t that just stealing?” said Margot. Her eyes wide. Her face even paler than usual.

I just kept smiling. Patting the young woman on the shoulder.

“Listen to an old treasure hunter...Some things in life you buy with effort or guile instead of money. It’s all fine so long as you’re the one not getting ripped off.”

“I...I’m pretty sure you just said something an 18th-century pirate would say.”

“Meh, this is the wrong setting for high seas adventure. Ask me again if we end up visiting one of the more fantasy-oriented worlds or one of the alternate realities where the world is mostly ocean.” I said. Shrugging. Possibly missing whatever point she’d been trying to get across.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“...?!?!” said Margot. Almost certainly having missed whatever point ‘I’ had been trying to get across.

“Hey, isn’t that the game you’ve been eyeing?” I said. Looking past Margot’s shoulder and seeing a poster with a familiar spikey-haired teen on it.

“Where?!” said Margot. Turning around fast enough that I actually heard a few of the bones in her neck clicking together.

She saw the poster and she saw that it was pinned up in the window of a gaming and electronics store. Her eyes went wide and hungry in a way that I hadn’t ever seen before. I had an unsettling feeling that I’d just seen Margot’s ‘lewd’ face.

Margot turned back to me and her expression became a little sheepish and a lot more hesitant. She seemed to shrink into herself. Drawing small circles in the ground with her toe.

“Uh, I...I know we said we were just going out to buy stuff we need for the apartment but…”

I pretended to be stern for a moment then I just rolled my eyes and said,

“The money is in ‘your’ account, kiddo. No need to ask me. So long as you don’t touch the five thousand we’ve set aside for rent and utilities and leave at least two thousand for food. I don’t really care what you do.” I said.

“Thank you. Thank you! Thank you!” said Margot. Looking excited and downright jubilant. Showing me yet another new expression I’d never seen before.

Margot then dragged me inside the gaming store. We didn’t leave the shop till about five hours later. I used to be a bit of a gamer myself but maybe I’ve gone rusty, because I can’t for the life of me tell you what we spent those five hours doing.

All I knew was that by the time we finally emerged from the store, it was already almost eight and Margot was holding two thousand dollars worth of stuff.

“Do...Do you want me to store that in my inventory for you?”

“Huh? Oh, do you still have room? I mean you technically have an entire landfill inside your subspace.” said Margot. Giving me a look of concern.

I rubbed the back of my neck. Looking at the crowd of shoppers that had started thinning a bit, now that we were getting into the beginning of the evening.

“Eh, it’ll be fine...Back when I was a ship they used to store entire solar systems in my warehouse area. I think I can handle a few shopping bags. ”

“That’s...that’s great then. Um, but your gross garbage won’t get on my stuff right?” said Margot. Hesitating just as she’d been about to hand me her things.

“It’ll be fine. Most of the material from the landfill is already being processed by my fabricators. Besides, my subspace pretty much works just like the inventories in those games you play. All the items are completely isolated unless I decide otherwise.”

“Oh, in that case...here. Thanks again.”

“Not at all. Now let’s head over to the grocery store.” I said. Turning and leading Margot to one of the mall exits.

“Okie-doke. Wait, why are we walking though?” asked Margot. As we passed through the glass doors of the mall’s southern-exit.

“Because I’ve already used two long-range teleports today, thus using up two of my limited actions, and it makes more sense for us to go to take the bus to the grocery store and then teleport home than for us to teleport to the grocery store and then have to take the bus home with all those bags.”

“Ah, right. I guess that makes sense. Wait, what about furniture and clothes and things? I thought we still needed stuff for the apartment.”

I tossed my shoulders.

“It’s fine. Once I’ve run all the trash through my fabricators it won’t be a problem for me to use my alchemical-printers to make the things we need. We can just use a shopping catalog or online store for design ideas or something.”

“Y-, You can do that?!”

“Sure, I can. In fact, I’m already online searching for items to extrapolate into actual products once I’ve got enough material ready.” I answered.

“Really?” said Margot.

“Yeah, here...I just sent you some pics of some rough designs my software's already drawn up.” I said.

Margot brought out her phone and opened its messaging app. I saw her orange-brown eyebrows jump as she looked through the images I’d sent her.

“Wow, they’re actually kind of pretty.”

“Don’t sound so surprised. Yours truly has been doing this kind of design work for eons and it gets even easier when you can cheat using other products on the market for ‘inspiration’ like I do.” I said.

“Neat.” said Margot. Still looking through the photos.

Margot and I walked through the mall parking lot over to a nearby bus stop. We waited for fifteen minutes for a bus to come. While we waited, Margot pointed out which of the beds, and sofas, and tables she liked and which she found tacky.

Then we got on the bus and continued doing the same. Expanding on the subject when I sent her phone an app I whipped up that basically worked like a three modeler and online catalog in one.

“Cool beans...It reminds me of this digital dollhouse game I used to play. The people all spoke something that sounded like gibberish and I’d always use the money cheat and drown them by removing the ladders from their pools.”

“Hm...I think I know the game you’re talking about. This world must be closer to mine on the axis of worlds than I thought.” I said.

I explained how I could expand the amount of space and rooms we had in the apartment using space-folding tech and top-level enchantments. Then I let Margot decide on what our domicile would look like after the modifications.

This ate up most of the forty-five-minute bus ride to the grocery shop. After which we arrived at our destination, got down from the bus and purchased roughly three thousand dollars of food, toiletries, and toilet paper.