Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

"So are we serious about this alliance with the pigeons? Or do we want to consider getting in bed with the squirrels. La Noche doesn't seem like it's as developed as they probably should be but it's probably due to them not having a mantle car to let somebody up land."

Gladys had made several good points. "I don't want to make any enemies. I don't have any enemies except for the mobs. We just..."

He didn't want to put into words. Bagel felt reserved about this entire thing.

"You want a space for cats."

"I do."

"It's okay to admit that. We want you around. And not just because of your skills. I think that it's going to be one of the most interesting things having new sapient species around. I don't know if everyone else is going to embrace this kind of change but I'm all for it."

Gladys was given one of those thick sandwiches that was nearly the size of a fully grown cat. It was one of those things that he didn't really take into account but she could definitely eat him if she wanted to. For sure, some humans have thought about eating cats before the way that you thought about eating pigeons.

He just wanted to try it once. Did that make him a bad cat? No.

"How much real trouble do you think we would be and if I ate one of the pigeons?"

Gladys frowned as she unhinged her jaw. "Don't even think about it."

The door jingle less it opened. Gladys put the entirety of the sandwich into her mouth and what had to be an attempt to eat all of it at once. He'd seen it done before. Kate, Ashley, some of the adventurers guilders had all come in super hungry after a dungeon and gone all the way with one of the sandwiches. There was a small part of him that was jealous that he couldn't do that. He had finely sliced chicken whenever he wanted. He didn't really want for much anymore. Save a few more blocks would hit the spot.

"Bagel how are you doing?" Khaleesi said. " I came by for lunch but I wanted to see about what you were doing with these squirrels. I think I figured out where La Noche has their hideout or clubhouse or whatever they're going to call it."

Bagel made a motion of her to continue with his tail. Khaleesi followed his gaze. They were both looking as Gladys deepthroated a large Italian sub.

"Is she going to be all right?"

Bagel nodded. "She learned from the best."

Gladys chewed on the sandwich and continue eating it.

"You know what she's making me hungry for? I think I'll have one of those Italian subs also."

Bagel shrugged. "What's going on with you?"

"So we think that La Noche does business around the Central Park zoo. It makes sense in a way. If any of these zoo animals had decks that would be incredible in a fight."

Bagel had not considered anything except a pet or a normal species that you might find in the city to be awakened. For sure there were places where other creatures could be awakened, but he just wasn't tracking any of those. The fact that they could awaken two animals potentially just by making them deck bearers gave him pause.

"You don't think that they... I don't even know what animals were at that zoo?"

Khaleesi brought out a tablet which definitely had a listing of all the relevant animals. Bagel definitely took a second to familiarize himself with it. He was surprised that there wasn't a lion in the list. There were a lot of penguins.

Those at least sounded delicious. But it was going to be very unlikely for him to actually find any of those.

Maybe he would be able to special order a penguin for his lunch?

---

"What do you mean, we need to figure out how to grill penguins. I can only hope that you're joking. Meatball please tell me that he's joking."

Raul and Meatball were resting in between one of their dungeon runs.

"He is definitely not joking. And that does sound delicious. They're from Antarctica right? Which means that they've got a lot of fat on them so they can stay warm right?" Meatball licked her lips.

"They're from South America, these ones but I am certain that they have the fat needed."

Raul was rudely staring. Bagel allowed it as it was his employee after all but really, why did he expect anything different. All cats wanted to eat birds, especially American falcons, pigeons and penguins.

"Raul, are you going to help us this endeavor? I'll pay you extra."

That snapped the tall Brazilian man out of it. "I really don't want anything to do with that. Tell you what. You can only steal so many penguins before you get a really weird nickname."

Bagel so far had been immune to nicknames and he meant to keep it that way. That was unless nicknames were delicious and he could fry one up on his grill.

"And don't you guys have to talk about your meeting with the pigeons or squirrels or something like that?"

Meatball strutted across the counter. " They're called La Noche. They like to eat nuts. Squirrel is such a funny word."

"They represent a very big threat and that they have organized so many of their own kind inside of Central Park. I'm pretty sure the drone confirmed over hundred squirrels. I don't think that we have one hundred cats with decks."

Raul shrugged. "It makes a lot of sense if you think that they don't have their own shop or they're just feeding each other cards or if they obviously just started really early. Think of it this way. La Noche is a bunch of nepotism hires."

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Meatball gasped. "Wait am I nepotism higher? I thought I was hired for my personality. I clearly remember you saying I was a personality hire."

Bale gave her a looked and said that he would have never have said anything like that. If anything he himself was the personality hire. The system had chosen him to become a deck bearer. It also chose to give him a very specific mantle card that let him own the shop.

"You're not a nepotism hire. In fact I didn't even ask to hire you. You just decide you wanted to hang out with me and then never left. Which I have honored that you did. But once again I didn't pick you. You picked me."

"You're damn right I did."

Raul grabbed a soda from the wall of drinks and returned, opening it as they talked.

"What do you think the squirrels are going to be like? Do you think they're going to be good neighbors? We would have to get a lot more, wouldn't we... And the pigeons would have to buy up so much."

They debated for a little bit about how much money it was going to cost. Bagel thought it would cost over a million credits by the time they were done. As things were getting more expensive to buy the more they were paying for it and adjacent buildings would now be slightly more expensive.

They got expensive linearly. If there was some sort of exponential growth going on? They would have been screwed.

There was limit to how much that he would put into buying up new blocks. He had to pretend that he was actually not getting a discount he got when he got his level 50 perk.

He hadn't yet told Meatball about the park. But he knew that she was going to take it at level seventy five if she had figured it out. It was just too good. The amount of credits that they saved was enough for them to buy extra blocks. The government didn't really need to know why they were going to be buying up land so fast.

It was in the interest Of the city for them to buy up as much as possible as fast as possible. It didn't mean that they had to declare anything. It just meant that they wanted to dedicate as many resources as they could to making the city safe from mob spawns. The more mobs they could stop from spawning, the easier of a time they had. However, on the other side of it that meant that there was less credits coming in and they would have to go further afield to find things to kill. Bagel did not want to travel. He wanted to support people that traveled and he wanted to let them in know that he was there to restock them.

He did not want to have to worry about where his credits are coming from. He was going to get paid no matter what happened. It was on everybody else to pay him.

He was not going to be responsible for what happened if he didn't get paid. Bagel had people for that.

"I'm worried that we're going to have to start traveling in order to make credits. That's going to make things difficult," Bagel said. "The pigeons can do that easily. But it's much more difficult for us."

"The squirrels can't move fast but if they turn Central Park into some sort of arena or something then maybe that can just be the place where people go to make money. Have you thought about the proposal for us to turn the culling zone into an arena?"

The only undeveloped block within walking distance was east of first avenue and south of forty second street. What the guild had done was create a place where people could drive a large horde of monsters too. Groups of adventurers got onto skateboards bikes or rollerblades and they ran monsters from other places around the city into that area. Where dozens of guild members stood by with murder in their eyes.

It was a place where people could easily make a lot of experience in a little bit of time and had Bagel decide if you wanted to get to the next threshold at level seventy-five than he would have stuck around there more.

Bagel stretched. "I think that if the guild wants it then we can do whatever they want with it. I just haven't enabled spawns anywhere that we've paid out for. It is next to Tudor City."

Raul finished his drink. "You know what I think I should probably take a walk down there and check it out. It's been awhile since I've been there and maybe Meatball? Would like to go with me?"

"I'll report it on what I see, boss. If you have the credits now then I think they would appreciate it if you bought it up. But we understand that there's a lot going on."

There would be a lot going on no matter what he did. The guild knew what they wanted and they had settled in there for the long haul. Now all he had to do was figure out a way to make a profit off of it and keep the humans happy.

"Let me know how it goes."

They moved on without him and he scratched himself along the scratching post that he'd gotten installed. If he didn't get any more customers and he might let Janet take over and go take a nap. That was sounding more and more like the best idea. He'd had all day. The best part about napping? He could pretend that he wasn't in the store. He could also just have Janet say that wasn't even if he was hiding out up above them all in one of the little nooks that he had.

He settled into a nap for a little bit. He might as well take one while I could. Too many people had tried to start something recently and he felt and settled about the whole thing. He hadn't even talked to Copernicus as much as they wanted to despite his boss's new intentions regarding his coffee business.