Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

Sometimes in action movies, there were times when the humans gasped and just took a moment to take it in.

Sometimes it made sense for floors to collapse.

Bagel liked a superhero who just decided to land in a bad way, or a super powerful character just destroying half of a building. Or maybe there was a large terrible lizard, acting out like his litter box hadn't been cleaned. It was, unfortunately, a common problem in this day and age.

It was with a bit of a shock that this was not cool. First off, the dust was everywhere in his fur and in the air, like a brown cloud. But the thing that Ashley was staring at was neither of those things. They were facing three large sized floating balloons.

It was a cross between a balloon and a squid. The balloons had tentacles, or the squids floated.

They were floating right towards her, and one girl let out a little scream.

Bagel needed Ashley to send her swarm towards it. "You're up!"

The brown-haired short girl was shrinking back. The larger blonde was standing in front of her as if to stop the tentacles from attacking her. Were they finally working together? It almost seemed like it.

"Aaargh!" Ashley screeched.

Bagel flattened his ears.

The swarm moved forward. Now that her swarm had helped to destroy something new, she could create a turtle and send it out. It looked entirely like another rideable summon. Testing would be necessary.

This one was a little larger than the rest of it and the five rats that were swarming around them off-road, fortunately, on the ground. This meant that they had to think about how they were going to attack it. If the omega rats couldn't hit their foes, they were worthless.

Janet was circling around them, trying to draw attention.

With the help of Bagels' cook, they could stand and get one in between it and use the totem turtle to take them down.

"Based on how much space there is, I would say that these are the final bosses. Is anyone else feeling that?" Kate began circling, holding onto Ashley. Her circling caused the mobs to change direction.

"What is a final boss?" Bagel said, dodging a tentacle. Two of the floating balloons turned towards him. He poured on the speed.

"Do you mean the last boss in a dungeon?" Ashley yelled, keeping one hand on the girl she was using as a shield. "Is that a thing?"

"What are you two talking about?" Bagel yowled.

"I'm just saying-" Kate's speech was cut off by a tentacle that hit her arm hard. "-fuck!"

"Stop saying fuck!" Ashley said. "Do something!"

Bagel put his focus on Janet. "Defend these humans."

The drone circled around, pouring lasers into the mobs, leaving a visible scorch mark.

He could use another energy or mount. Whatever leveling up was, he was going to need to do that. Bagel now had a sense of what he needed to do to be more viable in a fight.

Bagel and the girls passed each other as they circled around the rubble in the center of the room. Then the two that were chasing him changed directions.

There must be some reason that they were targeting her.

Then it hit him.

Kate caused the area effect spell, so they were probably trying to take her down first. She alone was doing damage.

If only he thought about that before asking her to go all the way in. But she was an adult, right? They made moral decisions from time to time.

She could make her own decisions.

At least, that's what he thought she would do. She might not do her own decisions based on how smart she seemed to be around the other girl. They both seemed to make each other dumber by association. It might be dumbness by proximity. The one was still trying to use the other as a shield.

His cook stabbed one of them, and then Ashley summoned a smaller version of the balloon creature. She added the tentacles of the floating squid thing to her inventory and bagels. Hoping that he would get some answers out of this after this battle was done.

It didn't seem like it was the same type of animal as the pizza rat or the turtle, which meant that he might believe an additional card to sell. This one was going to be with way more based on how much damage it was soaking up as he and his mouth circled around one of them, keeping the other two focused on the omega rats and the totem turtle.

This time, the mobs had taken an interest in the totem turtle. It moved backwards as they turned to it.

They didn't even clear the rubble, let alone remove it. It was just like two floors of wood had fallen from the floors. Most of the interior was visible in a cylinder to what had to be the top of the dungeon. Although barely attached, the stairwells still hung on. They were stubborn, like Staten Islanders, insisting that they belonged as a borough.

The first one went down after being stabbed by the cook, then Janet finished the other two shortly thereafter. Each one dropped a card. Bagel had his cook and Janet scoop them up.

The girls stopped and panted there for a minute. Bagel composed himself. He was covered in dust and wood splinters.

"So, what the heck is a final boss?" Bagel asked again.

The pile of rubble shifted next to them. Hands formed out of the wood, moving skyward.

"That's a final boss!" Kate said. "Girl, more creatures!"

The slow hands reached for them. Kate cast a spell that Bagel didn't catch as he pawed through his cards. He wished he could just cleanse himself right now, but he couldn't spare the energy.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Better to be dirty and alive than dead and clean.

"Janet!"

"On it boss!"

Ashley's swarm, Janet and the cook all wailed on the pile of rubble as it turned into a giant crab shaped creature. Bagel stepped out of the range of its wooden claws.

Ashley didn't want to think about how much those tentacles looked like something out of an anime. She was going to need a damn shower after all of this. She was really hoping that the city didn't shut off her water.

Was Ashley pleased about the battle? No. In fact, she felt a little traumatized at the thought of the balloon monster trying to eat her with its tentacles and potentially giant spikes. But she got a balloon card out of it and once they were done destroying the crab the system identified as a gentrifier crab. She gladly gave up that one for the offer of a split of the money earned on it.

"Are you sure you're okay with this? Because this is going to be one of the more expensive items if we don't use it." The cat was giving her a look that she felt was dishonorable at best. He clearly wanted to make a profit off of that, by the way, was talking.

"Boss, I think that's going to be worth 2000 credits."

"But it's so cumbersome. It takes three energy to use and..." the little cat was sighing.

It came with the theme of the dungeon, which was New York City, after they finished killing the gentrifier crab. Then three trash cans populated, which opened up at an angle to reveal that they were actually treasure chests. His chest had three cards in it.

The first chest had three of the same copy of a hat that gave creatures and players extra hit points over time in the same way that the totem turtle did. The second chest contained three copies of the heal card, which proved so useful at the beginning and was quite a find. The third chest contained a baby gentrifier crab card.

Ashley hadn't seen an upgrade card, although she had her own card that over time could make more and more swarm creatures, because she didn't have to dedicate energy to them. Any of these would be good to just do a deck. She also considered selling and keeping them, but chose instead to expand her deck for better balance, addressing her over-reliance on scavenging. She scavenged the gentrifier crab, and she could produce a crab with her ability that joined her swarm.

"I guess thanks for the opportunity to run this dungeon with you," she said as they walked down to the exit. They received a notification that the dungeon was clear. Ashley had no reason to doubt it. Their only question now was if it would close upon their exit.

"You're welcome," Kate said.

"I was talking to the cat."

"Of course you were talking to the cat."

Bagel saw a system message urging him to exit within two minutes or be forcibly teleported outside. Not wanting to be told what to do or be pushed around, Bagel made his own way out as the girls bickered behind him.

He was now by the shop was worried about what might have happened in the short time he left it.

Out front there was a crowd of people who were looking expectantly as the whole crew came down. Or rather, there was a crowd of five people watching as Ashley, Kate and Bagel stepped out of the portal into the building next to the Bodega. The door was slightly ajar to the outside world and behind them, the dungeon entrance closed up.

"Well, that's convenient," Kate said. "I guess it needed to be. There's going to be some rules about how these things appear."

"You have a card that gives you information about dungeons?" Bagel said.

"I do. It gives me a sign of where they are and how far they are from me. It doesn't tell me exactly where, but it's a good radius and I can easily figure it out by using this rangefinder card I have."

She didn't bring it out, but he wasn't going to ask for that kind of thing. Already he was thinking that sometimes he might need to keep his cards a secret unless it was one he had for sale.

He tallied up what he had and made sure that the girls would come back to receive their portion of the sales. Then he stepped over to his shop. Ashley and Kate looked a bit dumbfounded before splitting in opposite directions. Ashley was a block away, almost down to forty-fourth street, before she realized she was going the wrong direction and turned around. Life would have been so much simpler without Kate showing up.

Where did she go? It wasn't like the girl was from the same neighborhood as her.

More importantly, why couldn't she find any turtle cards or mobs to kill for turtle cards in Turtle Bay? Why had the first turtle card she had seen been one of Kate's and then the second one had been from inside? Regardless of what happened next, she had her swarm of hangers on and she didn't need to summon them.

Thanks to Ashleys card powers, she could forge them one at a time and they would exist out in the world. They weren't as powerful as other cards, but now that she had gotten several kills on several mobs, she could make more than just pizza rats.

It wasn't difficult for her to tell that the pizza rats were going to be a thing from here on out. Perhaps she was going to have to connect with Kate again and figure out a way for the two of them to go on more missions. In the end, she got the shower she needed and collapsed into her bed. She still had to go figure out what's going on with the comic book shop, but she didn't have a shift till tomorrow.

She had no problem delaying that discussion.

Bagel sashayed into the shop, the very image of a triumphant handsome boy ready to sell some wares. Two of the people that had been watching them come out, followed them in and began pestering him with questions.

"What's going on with that dungeon? Did you get anything good?" It was the man who had the Scottish accent from before.

"Janet?"

"Yes, boss."

"Janet, I need a nap, or rather, I need to get clean. Can you tell these boys what we just found out, I guess?"

"On it boss."

"So what we found here was a five level inner city dungeon with a gentrifier crab as the top boss. We have a special product for sale in a brief minute. If you two gentlemen would be so glad as to stand by. It's not that he's going to save anything for anybody, but feels like a drop event when already. Now that we've got cards that are not pizza rat cards..."

"What was inside of the dungeon?" the man with the beard said.

"Well, it was a Firefly dungeon, though that's only in terms of space. The dungeon's layout reflected that of the adjacent building, if that's any comfort."

"It was like a negative version of the apartment building?" he said, whipping out a notepad and beginning to take notes.

Bagel settled into his corner, the one where he had food. The other corner that was his or had traditionally been his held his litter box. His food bowl was full thanks to his refresh skill, and his fur was now clean thanks to his cleaning skill, though he had to dismiss his cook to do it. He'd waited until he got inside to dismiss the cook using the creature to place the cards they'd grabbed on to the wall.

Thinking long-term, Bagel was going to have to figure out how to carry things. As a cat, he had no pockets and even if he could? He didn't have thumbs to use them. He had a tail and a mouth.

He could try to shove the cards into his deck using one of his paws, but it was simpler for him to use one of his creatures to do it.

Without a way to grab things, life is going to be difficult for him. Maybe there was a card that would give him telekinesis or an upgrade for his Bodega that he could add on and make that work better.

He was going to have to ask a bunch of questions. And the other thing was if people were going to come in here and buy and sell cards, then he might have to consider if they were going to rob him. He might need to invest in some sort of glass between the counter and the people. There was already a bit of glass between the register so that the cashier and the customer couldn't sneeze on each other directly.

Oh, people went around it to sneeze maliciously, complying with the unwritten rules of society where you didn't do that. But that was the exception, not the rule.

But now, with several healing cards available, he might offer a secondary service. He took a second to think about what he would offer to heal. He needed healing, so maybe he could hire…what? A human to use the cards to heal people?

This is all getting kind of complicated. He couldn't stick more cards into his deck and use them at the same time without taking one out, but he liked the cards he had right now. He was going to have to give that a fair bit of thought. The girls seemed convinced they would immediately use the card they received.

He didn't blame them.

He kind of wanted to sell the gentrifier crab, which, at its expensive cost, would have had him close the shop in order to go to a dungeon. If he had four energies and the gentrifier crab cost three and he dedicated one to Janet and the bodega, he had nothing to spare to waste. He just didn't know yet what he didn't know, and that was proving to be a long-term problem he didn't have a solution for.

That was a problem for a different Bagel. A kinder, nicer one who had woken up after a nice cat nap and hopefully to some record profits.