Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

Each person who brought in a pizza rat card was another chunk of change that he had to give out. Sure, even the delivery guy wanted to buy a pizza rat card because it was safe to do so. But he had finally gotten enough to where he could figure out the ratio of cards that were not pizza rat cards to the ones that were. Every twentieth card approximately that dropped was different.

It was enough for him to take note.

He went out late that night to test out his theory on the underground parking deck, it only took him three hours to figure out the pattern. With two spawn points down there, Bagel was eager to buy out the land and prevent any more spawning. Or at least that's what Janet had been telling him about what would happen.

He killed twenty pizza rats himself, using a combination of his cards and Janet. Perhaps he should have done more, but it was what it was.

He learned a lot. For one, his summons only lasted a maximum of five minutes before they returned to his hand, giving him the energy back. The other thing he learned was how tedious it was to wait, and how much fun it was to have a big open space to run around in. He enjoyed that part of it until he got tired and then just waited.

The card that dropped turned out to be an equipment card. It wasn't a telekinesis card or something that would let him solve his thumb issue, but he could see the value of it. The card itself was called Rocky Exterior, and it made whoever was attacking his cards that he placed equipment on take extra damage when they did it. It was like armor for his mobs.

He came to realize that with the addition of these equipment cards, he could sell more. "Janet, what do you think I should price these at?"

Janet gave him her full attention.

"Well, they are rarer than the pizza rats," she said. "If we charge ten credits for the pizza rat card, then we should charge fifteen or twenty credits for this one. And this is, of course, assuming that we can get more of these equipment cards. It doesn't mean that we're going to and if we had to come back here every night to harvest these from the parking garage, then well, at least we'll be spending our time well."

As they had left the parking garage, someone had written up on the wall a list of times and frequencies for the pizza rats. They had written that in black ink, either a painting or some sort of marker. Janet used her laser ability to make it look pretty on the wall.

"Every half hour overnight, two rats will spawn here. We can either kill them and get the experience ourselves, or we can let them overrun the city. I believe we are all dedicated to keeping the city safe."

Every time they killed the pizza rat, they got one credit. Every time they sold a pizza rat card, they got more credits. They use those credits to buy more pizza rat cards as cash was becoming more difficult to keep control of. Perhaps that was the point. The system wanted to take over and make things difficult.

He made a plan to go through and clear out the parking deck every night until he could reliably get more equipment cards. Those at least people were interested in if only because of the rarity.

He rested. His slumber was awoken by someone asking to see the manager. He smelled her and grumbled, but he got up.

Kate had showed up. "Good to see you. I'm guessing that the cards that we asked you to sell have sold?"

"Morning," he said, more grumble than anything else.

She broke off moving to the grill, where the cook was busy preparing a variety of eggs. One thing that the truck had dropped off was enough eggs for him to be good for half a week. The number of people looking for food did not surprise him. The city relied on so many shipments in such regularity that people were beginning to feel the pinch. Kate was his twentieth customer just for the omelette she was ordering alone.

"I went to the market and you know the Amish market next door? They're out of almost everything. But I saw a big old truck unloading. There was a man guarding it with a pizza rat card. So at least he was trying to stop them. As soon as they were unloading, it looks like people were just buying whatever it was."

"So what you're saying is people aren't keeping enough in their homes for them to live a few days?" Bagel asked.

Kate nodded.

Bagel was standing on a display. In the Bodega were two large display cases full of dry goods. The one that he was standing on had, until recently, held chips and cereal. With him being about six feet off the ground, he was in the spot that a box of cereal had once been.

She was giving him just under the daily quota of the side eye.

"You can see that what I still have for sale is out there pretty easily. I don't think anyone is ready to buy that gentrifier crab, so I might need to split the cost with you unless either of you guys wants to do it."

The little sign was succinct.

*Gentrifier Crab, Boss Monster. Three mana. 900 credits.*

He hadn't left the price in dollars, though. There was an easy, simple calculation right there next to him. The store wasn't exchanging cash for credits, but it was accepting both and accepting partial denominations of either many times.

As long as he could buy from suppliers that would still do work with him, he would have to abide by what they wanted. They wanted cash, which meant that he needed to get cash. He didn't have the normal expenses of a bodega, which were the people that work there. His people worked for free because they were card summons that did his bidding.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

He didn't know how long this would last.

Because Bagel wasn't paying for any salaries; he had carte blanche to make money off of the place. Within a few weeks, he might have enough money to buy the place outright from the system so that pizza rats wouldn't spawn there, or at least the system would recognize his ownership. The city would recognize his legal claim as Janet had explained that the city's databases were too old and too defunct for the great system to even interact with. She'd also said something about how it was so old that the system scoffed at it. He was going to have to do some sort of paperwork in time with the city government. Taxes.

That did not sound good to him.

Bagel swished his tail. "So answering your question in a long roundabout way. No, I haven't sold it yet. I'm going to need to make more credits up somewhere. The amount is a little high for me and most people are coming to me to buy or trade lower denomination stuff. I don't know how many boss monsters I'm going to get or buy, but if I have something like that out there and no one wants to use in their deck, then it makes other people more likely to sell me things. I hope so, at least."

Bagel looked at the cereal box next to where he was sitting. It would be so easy to just push it off. And would be so satisfying to watch fall. But that was the old him. They knew he could wait a minute until Kate was out of his way.

"All right. Good. Good to know." Kate forcibly sat down in the same chair that many of his customers did when they were waiting for food. It was next to the ATM.

Bagel eyed her lap as if it was the newest luxury resort he wanted to test out. He would have satisfaction if not now then someday soon.

She could have come to any shop in the city. True, he owed her some money for a trade, but he was also happiest to see a familiar face, even one that was a new familiar face. Aside from the Maine Coon, he didn't have any friends. Sure, there are regulars, but now with everything turned upside down on his head, he didn't even know how regular they were going to be.

"Do you have any cards to sell to me?" He might as well get the big questions out in the open. After all, she had showed that she was trying to get more good ones. So she might rage at Fire Fields. It might be a bit too much of an ask to have her reveal anything about her dungeon finding skill. He just hope that he could take advantage of it in time.

"I would be prepared to pay you some money to activate your dungeon finding skill."

She gave him a look. She didn't think he was serious. But he was serious. He just didn't know all the little intricacies of human behavior. He cared about what, but now that he had to speak to people about things; he found it tiring.

People really did this all day, every day. They would talk to each other and make plans and talk about the weather. Bagel just wanted to feel something. Without the people that he had considered his co workers around, life just felt different.

In fact, he was going to let his feelings impede the luxury retreat that he'd been thinking about. The last lap he sat on was so indescribably soft and welcoming. He definitely made his way down as the cook flipped her eggs over, merely completing the woman's breakfast order.

"Oh, okay, you're just going to come and lay on my lap? I mean, that's fine."

Bagel's aim was true. He occupied her lap, manifesting his destiny.

Kate was soft, just like the other one. This would be the way to get her to admit that things were better with a cat on your lap.

After all, she was about to get a meal and he was going to offer her a deal and he would probably play third wheel.

"Do you want to do another dungeon run, Bagel?" She said, petting him ever so gently. Bagel demanded her subservience and, through petting him, he assumed she was giving in.

He didn't know what she felt about him, but he knew how he felt about the now.

This was glorious.

That the two women were at odds did not bother him. They both gave him the warm and fuzzy feeling of people who would be nice to him, at least.

"I was thinking of doing another dungeon today." She let that hang in the air.

He didn't respond. Her fingers were still working her magic and he would milk this for as long as he could. Bagel didn't remember his mother, but he remembered feeling at home in her presence. They took him here a few weeks after he was born; it must have been at least two months.

Was he born here?

He wasn't sure. He just remembered having brothers and sisters and then nothing. They socialized him. That's what they called it. Then he was dropped off all on his own in this place.

He snuggled in deeper. But this right here? This was bliss.

He could do this. "Do you need help with the dungeon?" He finally asked.

Bagel could see that the cook was now finishing her meal and putting it into a box. The cardboard boxes were another thing that he had to restock. In time, the humans were going to have too much trash piling up, and he was wondering what was going to happen. In the past, big trucks used to pick up the trash. But he didn't know when that was going to be and there was no human around to guide him.

Maybe when the other places put trash bags out, he would do the same thing. But then he would have to restock those. The restock cards had been fantastic at replacing the dry goods and drinks. The delivery truck had provided the eggs and meat that his grill had needed.

He wasn't sure if he could restock eggs and meat, but he was willing to give it a go.

Garbage bags, on the other hand, were an uncommon thing. For how many things that he created or had to buy from a delivery truck, there was always something that the workers would need to throw out. He had them clean the bag twice after the smell reached his nose. It was fine, and he was working through it, but he would really rather have preferred for it not to be that way.

If he began doing these dungeon dives, were they with the girls or not, he was going to need to figure out a way to still run his Bodega. It wasn't like he could just close it up. And it made money whether he was there. However, there was no limit to the distance from his summons, given that he had to dedicate one of his four energies to his mantle.

He could have one enormous creature, use the Gentrifier crab into his card deck or he could have one worker back at the shop and one worker a cook with him. The cooks were good at fighting because they came with a knife.

Maybe it was that he was now three days awakened, but he was thinking about the future and what that actually meant. If he kept running the shop rather than doing what the cats were doing, could he make something of himself? And if so, what did he even want to do with it?

"Funny thing you say that, because I was looking to do a dungeon nearby here. What I've been doing is pointing out the dungeons to people, but there are a lot of dungeons opening up. Most of them show up in places where humans are not, though. Usually it's outside of a building. There was this one in the courtyard by that one hotel around the block and I didn't expect it at all. But it was there, and people prepared to enter, so I hope someone addressed it. But this other one? I think there's one in one of the parking decks around here, probably the one across the street next to the Thai place."

It was one of those things, but you feel like the city was trying to tell him what to do. Didn't want him to keep the store open? The people that kept coming through were grateful that he was still selling things.

He for his part was happy to serve them. Loved taking their money. Other peoples money was like catnip.

But he hadn't really chosen to work the bodega or to manage it. He had become the manager. But what else was out there for him? The world was a scary place, and he didn't want to go out. He would begrudgingly go out especially to clear a dungeon and get some new cars to sell, but that wasn't exactly his only motivation.

"I think I might be interested. At the very least, I'll have a look."