A NEET Can Only Take One Action a Day

[Tier-Group 3 Rooftop Observation Deck]

All at once a great mass of information floods in from the World Tree, and Marie's stomach turns, as before.

(Eh? What is this? The dungeon proper has grown enormously, and the sphere of influence has spread, too. Have I been asleep a year, or maybe two?)

She couldn't quite remember whether the number of villages had increased; but if it were two years on, the taking-in of the surplus population of the Eight Provinces of Kantō should be complete, with the population standing at around a million. After that… for a Malthusian-Darwinist, it becomes a vexing problem. The productive capacity of a million chōbu comes to about fifteen million koku, but since humans breed faster than oxen and horses, it would all too quickly run to surplus.

Enduring the fierce headache and nausea, Marie goes on confirming the dungeon's information.

(Receiving information is possible. So then, is operating the dungeon possible too? Something where a slip in handling can be tolerated, and which will be needed in the future as well… that would be, what, the planned site for the "Saitama Sea" in the low ground on the dungeon's southeast side, I should think.)

Marie tries fashioning a dungeon structure out of desert sand. It comes out far more misshapen than if she had used the management system, but for something on the order of an embankment it seems to pose no problem. A road or a waterway, naturally, is beyond her. Of course, for an engineered structure, even an embankment must not be of such slapdash precision; but a high-strength dungeon structure presents no difficulty.

(Next, let's confirm whether the present edge of the dungeon's sphere of influence is a constraint of the management system, or a constraint of the dungeon itself. Can I extend it on the Tanzawa Hills side and the Nasu-Shiobara side?)

The dungeon's sphere of influence spreads out beyond a hundred leagues (three hundred miles, 482 km), but where it meets a town, a village, or another dungeon, it can be spread no further.

(So it's the doing of the management system after all. Just how far does the limit go, I wonder. Folding another country's territory into the sphere of influence without leave would cause trouble, so let me test it to the east, where there's no country, or rather, where the country isn't functioning… I'll do it tomorrow. I really am tired.)

There are problems with the precision, but operating the dungeon itself seems to pose no difficulty. As for monsters, since there's no point in summoning anything useless, she holds off.

But, as is so often the case, a NEET can only take one action a day. Having done two whole tasks (creating a dungeon structure and extending the dungeon's sphere of influence), Marie was worn out.

"goin to sleeep now firtlizer pls"

"It's still only evening, though."

The Dungeon Master, supporting Marie's body, gives her Asura liquid fertilizer to drink. The color is a filthy green, the taste that of ditchwater grown thick with summer algae; but since to an Asura everything tastes of nothing but muddy water, the flavor is no concern.

"Right, let me get some bedding ready."

The Master and Anne laid Marie down on a futon spread on the ground, leaving only her hands in contact with the World Tree as on the previous night.

(Ahh, but that means that when I wake, it'll be a matter of calling for the Master again, which is far too much bother.)

Even when she tries to stop them, without the gaze-input device she cannot make her intentions understood.