Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

Taxis were now able to move freely down second avenue from the top of the neighborhood to the bottom. After that it was anyone's guess. There was no spot in Turtle Bay that he hadn't considered buying up.

The roads were the first big hurdle though. Because most mobs spawned out on the roads instead of in the buildings. And each building that had mobs was now well known. Wear the mobs spawned easy to find them. Easy to kill them. Predictably they were on account on timer.

This let humans in the adventurers guild camp out for kills which gave them experience points and credits. It was a win-win because the adventurers guild had a vested interest in paying them to do this and making sure that these people had a ongoing incentive to continue to kill monsters. Apart from their ongoing recruitment effort, the guild was one of the most respected New York City institutions.

Most of humanity that was still alive wanted to help out in some way.

When Bagel walked into the guild building he was greeted by just about everyone. He was of course the most handsome boy on the block. He deserves the attention.

His attention however was not on either the tall brunette or the tall blonde woman next to her.

Instead he was faced with one of the worst things he could imagine. A gray squirrel was on top of the counter talking animatedly to the head of the local adventurers guild.

"So what I'm saying is that we need to consider the nut situation. Man we need to get more of them. Now. I don't know how I can do that but I feel like the guild can help me out in that regard."

The gray squirrel twitched as he sniffed the air. Then he turned to lock eyes with Bagel.

"There's a cat here. Can we... Do something about that? I don't want to ruffle my fur."

If looks could maim, Bagel would have caught a court case. "Pardon?"

The squirrel's eyes widened. "Oh another awakened creature. I must apologize."

Bagels whiskers twitched. He prepared to launch himself at the tiny intruder.

Ashley, head of the adventurers guild, stepped between the two of them. "I feel like we might need to separate the two of you before we continue our discussion."

She clearly wanted to protect her interests as well as prevent Bagel from having a delicious mid-afternoon snack.

"I've always thought that squirrel would be a gamey meat but I am open to having my mind changed."

There was a small amount of drool coming out of the side of his mouth. He did nothing to stop it from continuing. Who is he to stop his tray from coming straight to him and delivering themselves to him? He just needs to do the last part and get one of his chefs to butcher it up and prepared for his eventual lunch or dinner.

"I understand that we have a professional relationship here, so let me just put put this straight immediately. You're not allowed to kill and eat this squirrel."

Bagel sneered. "But... But..."

"No ifs ands or buts. We do not kill all the deck bearers. Not even if they are delicious or if we think they could possibly be delicious." Ashley flashed a look back at Kate, her girlfriend.

Kate, for her part, blushed with her whole body. It was like purring but for cats. Bagel could appreciate that. The girls were in some sort of relationship. He'd been on multiple missions with both of them.

They trusted him.

Unfortunately, it didn't look like they were going to trust him to cook up that squirrel for their lunch. It was the worst thing he could possibly imagine.

"What would be the crime exactly? Eating a nice succulent squirrel? Who does that hurt?"

The squirrel appeared to have come out of its time out. "Well, me for one."

"Bagel, this is Melpo. Melpo, Bagel. Melpo is here on behalf of her parent organization."

Bagel narrowed his eyes.n when someone said parent organization his original thought would be that they were trying to adopt somebody. But he knew in this new world what it really meant. This squirrel was probably part of a different private equity firm that wanted to make moves on jelly side layer. "Do you require an audience?"

"I am seeking to speak to a representative of Jellyside Layer Private Equity holdings on behalf of my organization. We're an interested party."

There were only so many trees in New York City where a squirrel could live. Most of them were in the 1,000 acre Central Park if they were in Manhattan at all. Or they were on the far north or far south side. This meant that his best guess was that the squirrel represented interest from the city park.

"We can have a discussion. Did you bring any humans?" Bagel looked around the room.

He saw Gladys and she indicated that she was listening as she went through the latest late fall fashions at the tiny adventuring equipment shop. She was standing next to Liza, Khaleesis mother. Both women were middle aged, somewhere in their late thirties or forties though Bagel would never ask.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

That has been one thing that the system was adamant about. Human culture was weird. He would never ask woman her age, her height or her body count. Though he wondered why he would need to know how many people that a woman had killed.

"Alright. Assume that we're going to want to hear what you have to say."

Gladys began to approach them. She took slow careful steps across the way. The guild Hall wasn't even that large on the first floor. It's just that she was apparently listening in.

"If you're a representative then I want to set up a meeting. That's it plain and simple. We can talk time if you want," Melpo said.

"I believe that my assistant here can help us with that. Gladys?"

Gladys stepped next to Bagel. Shannon appeared out of nowhere but it was the next best thing, in his opinion.

Melpo was nonplussed.

Bagel did not care for the opinions of squirrels. But he would take their money if he needed.

"Allow me," she said. "I have Mister Bagel's schedule."

"I was just discussing the adventurers guild here. I can speak with you in say, half an hour?"

Bagel had never seen a smug squirrel. There was a first time for everything. "Half an hour should be sufficient. We'll be on the drones and scones area. Second floor."

---

The second floor of the Turtle Bay adventurers guild was dedicated to the drones and scones operation. It was part coffee shop and part drone monitor station. Ten people were watching it with one drone controlling several.

Behind them was the adventurers guild pantry, made up mostly of food that he made with his restock card.

Khaleesi was there as she usually was watching for any mobs that had grown to be too much for any of the local neighborhoods to take town. They weren't dangerous individually unless someone didn't have a deck.

"Oh hey, handsome boy!" Khaleesi was always cheerful. Perhaps it was just him being around. He could only hope so. He briefly scanned the screens. Looking for anything that looked familiar to him.

One of the drones was flying over the East River, a Manhattan staple. It ran from the north tip of Manhattan all the way down to the estuary where it exited to the Atlantic Ocean. They were setting up on Roosevelt Island. The tiny island to the east of where they were in between forty fifth street and forty forth street on second avenue wasn't visible but it was a approximate ten-minute walk to where one could see it. There was a large piece of new machinery that several dozen men and women were installing into the East River on his orders to create a temporary water source in the event that something happened to the aquifers that fed into New York City.

For whatever reason, the powers that be behind the system had decided that they would allow humans to keep their electricity and water. This meant that people still had the internet and cell phones, but that supply lines were very strained and in most cases non-existent. If a truck driver had to stop every thirty seconds to take down a mob then not many deliveries where going to be made. This was why Bagel welcomed back taxi cabs into his neighborhood.

It was a sign that nature was healing. Or at least the city was in a better place.

"Anything going on that I should know about?" Bagel said.

"I'm flying over Central Park North to give you an idea of what's going on, but I'm not seeing much. I heard about the squirrel incident."

Bagel looked back to the stairwell to see if he'd been followed. Gladys was with him but that was about it.

"What squirrel incident?"

Khaleesi feigned looking shocked. "I heard that you had an encounter with a squirrel."

Gladys crossed her arms. "Mr. Bagel cannot confirm or deny any such incidents or allegations. However, in about 20 minutes we will be entertaining one. Mrs. Melpo of a faction that we've not yet had any dealings with. And yes, she just happens to be a squirrel. No squirrels were harmed in the meeting invites."

Khaleesi grinned. "Do you both often find yourself hurting squirrels when you have a meeting invite you send out? This seems like a problem that you've dealt with before."

Bagel could admit that she had some truth or words. But only to himself.

"I've never had a squirrel problem before. And if my associate will allow me, I won't have one after lunch. Unless the problem is that I need more squirrels meat."

"We don't need a repeat of meatball and the pigeons," Gladys said. "If they've got money for us then they can be our client."

Bagel could accept it. He saw a lot of greenery in one of the drone feeds as Khaleesi switched to that one. They were all quiet for a moment as the drone buzzed past the Central Park North area.

She was obviously looking for something. Bagel had to think about what the potential mobs would be for the Central Park. He was reasonably certain that it was some sort of squirrel variant.

Was it a squirrel with a mounted gun? He would have to check.

It might be.

The drum can go a little bit closer but then I would risk being attacked by any squirrels. It kept a good one hundred feet above the ground because of how many tall buildings they were.

There was enough flashes akin to gunfire that Bailey could draw some conclusions. And then he saw humans summoning squirrel mobs with mounted shoulder turrets. Some of them had guns in their hands and some some had turrets in weird places but they all had something.

"The mobs have some variance here. It's like the midtown mascot mobs. Except that they just have different guns," Khaleesi said. "I've been trying to figure it out myself. Don't worry. We're going to give you as much intelligence as possible."

For a few minutes they flew drones around and they looked at the local mobs in Central Park North. Then they drove the drone down around the western side of the park. Looking for anything else unusual. Despite the fact that there were no cars out, the roads were still full of people trying to fight mobs or moving from place to place. That made If they were not looking for food or going home then where were they going? There wasn't much to do if they were outside.

Well there was but it wasn't exactly safe to just walk around. There had to be a reason that they were going someplace otherwise they wouldn't risk death.

"They look like they're all going someplace. Can we follow some of them?" Gladys asked.

"That might be a good time."

Khaleesi took over direct control of the drone once again and moved it to follow. Several people that were moving towards a large shopping center. There were a large number of signs pointing to way people could get food or water.

That made a lot of sense. Not everyone's going to be able to get that restock card meaning that they would have to worry about if they were going to get food or not. And humans like to do the thing where they they told the humans where things were. What was it called? Marketing? Advertising? He did need to do that. Because they just showed up to him.

There was a lot of value in having something that people wanted. Hungry people would do terrible things. And for the most part, that meant paying him money for things. And he was really happy to be able to provide as much as they could. He just need to figure out what the pigeons were doing and what the squirrels were doing with their people.

He couldn't be staring that these squirrels were running all of this. But he was reasonably certain that they might at least know of it.

If not, the amount of squirrel graffiti around was catching his eye.