Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

There was a reason that people came by the shop. Maybe it was a familiarity. Maybe it was because they were dicks.

Maybe now, after it felt like the world had ended, they all thought that they would have the time to read the comic books that they had been putting off for so long. All that coalesced into about the best morning of sales that midtown comics East had ever received.

It got to where Ashley was considering that she might start going to get a cut of this based just off of the hauls that she was ringing up. One after the other, men would come by with a stack of comic books, the size of his torso, and then pay without even batting an eye.

What else was he going to use the money for? It seemed like everybody was trying to pay in credits now and she was kind of at a loss what to do about that. The system recognized credits, but she didn't have a terminal to take them and neither did her boss.

She supposed that in time she could build one using her Forge. But then the store would have to go through her for payments and she barely wanted to let people know she was a deck bearer. The only reason that they could tell was the small swarm of mobs that were guarding her for most of her shift.

"They're all fine, just don't pet them. Yes, that is a Gentrifier crab. And no, I don't have the card for that. It's just a card effect. My card lets me make tokens, yes," she chanted.

It seemed like some people were coming in with cards that she hadn't heard of, either leading her to believe that she was right on a dividing line between zones where different mobs would spawn. So as she went through her time, whenever she realized somebody had a deck which was readily available and easily accessible just by asking them, she would ask them if they'd seen anything besides pizza rats, and many of them, to her surprise had.

One guy had even walked there from Central Park East and showed her a squirrel summon card, which she bought off of him for twenty bucks, buying the card and sticking it into her short shorts. Let her make one using the forge. She surprised herself with how easily she had done that. It wasn't like she was going to scavenge stuff, but if some cars that were parked outside remained, she was considering that she might have to go through with her forage and scavenge it.

Like who leaves the car parks during the apocalypse, anyway? They were supposed to drive away to a safe spot somewhere upstate or in New Jersey. And what? Wait this all out?

She didn't see any other options.

That was what happened when they were none. Ashley. Couldn't see any others.

"Hey boss, what's going to happen when we run out of all of our thick novels and Marvel stopped sending us comics?"

Her boss lowered his newspaper, The Village Voice, and rolled his eyes. "Now why would they stop sending these comic books?" he said

"I was thinking that perhaps because there was this whole system integration thing and these mobs spawning everywhere…" she trailed off.

Above him, the television was blaring NBC and showing the afternoon news and it was so surreal how this was still happening and she could also see her stats.

Like, what were they all doing? It felt like covid all over again.

In this, she was stunned to see that reporters were getting up close to all these different kinds of mobs and some were explaining where to find these beard drops, including how people were beginning to buy up locations so that no spawns would be permitted during that.

Apparently, this was the thing that the big city guys were doing. There was a small minority of people that had gotten decks inside the city, only about one in a hundred. Meaning that 800,000 people had it that was not so much, given that some were too old or too young to do much with them.

But there were some cards to let people enter so they could buy a land in a way that both the state and the city would recognize it.

"I'm standing here in front of City Hall where one police chief has valiantly agreed to buy the entire place so that we can not have to deal with monster spawns inside of the building. Monsters spawn outdoors most of the time, and there are certain times when they will spawn indoors. That is when locations are large enough to accommodate that. By buying up the entire block that this was on, thanks to so many donations, they could prevent that. We bought the entire block, thus making City Hall a safe place, free from attacks reestablishing City Hall as a safe place for people that won't be attacked. It will be open now 24 hours a day and the next big target is going to be one NYPD Plaza."

The reporter behind the camera dropped off as the TV showed various views of the building and people outside lining up to fight off monsters. After a little of that, they tuned into a reporter who was interviewing people.

"Well sir, thank you for doing your part," the reporter said as she flicked her hair back. "Do you mind telling us what you think you're going to get out of this?"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Hopefully, I'll get a fat cat card."

"Is that the mob that spawns down here?"

He nodded. "It's a rare card, and it's something that I wanted since the day of integration. I have a cat themed deck and it would just fit in so well."

"Fascinating," she said. "And I suppose you are doing the thing where you optimize your deck?"

"If you want to be in the big leagues, you got to. We've only had cards and mobs for three days and already people are treating these rare creatures like Pokemon drops."

Somebody yelled, "Hey, I'm fighting here!"

The camera switched to a man absolutely demolishing a cat with some sort of metal pole. Ashley had to look away. At least it didn't look like Bagel. For all his flaws and eccentricities, the cat was definitely not down there. He would take nobody's shit. The camera flicked back to the interviewer and the interviewee.

Kate rolled her eyes.

There was something going on with them and she tried to break down some strategy, but all he had was that he was basically just going to hold the guy with the other cats from his deck. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough time to wait them actually get into battle, though they promised that this tree team would get the footage on the late edition that evening.

Ashley was not going to wait around for that. At lunch, she went to the Boba shop downstairs.

She got herself a sandwich from the taco place around the corner. Both shops were still open and still had people working there. Half of the other stores around were closing down or boarded up.

Everywhere she went, her little swarm of minions followed. She really considered riding on her gentrifier crab construct and then thought against it. Clearly they were not mobs as they followed her around or let her go to where she was going, following her intent.

But just as clearly, she had a lot going on.

In fact, if anything, the street was more busy than it had been for years as people streamed by in both directions, every so often dipping into the road to fight a mob.

Forty-fifth Street was the only exception to the new business. Although more cars were parked, fewer cars drove by.

Maybe what she needed to do was find a terminal monster that she could kill so that she could make something with her forge. She then had the bright idea that took over her day.

She didn't have to destroy things or scavenge them to recreate them with a forge. All she had to do was experience them. If she went back to the Bodega to talk to the strange cat that ran the store, she might pick out how his drone formed the terminal. It was clearly a Mantle power of his.

Her own mantle of power, the Forge, let her create things.

Perhaps what she needed to do was analyze things. Then if she could create a new cash register that could access the system, would that be something that people would actually pay her for? Or was she going to be stuck coming back here to work for cash and credits when she had a job and then going through dungeon runs when she wasn't. It was a most ridiculous situation that she found herself in.

The Apocalypse had arrived, but then they were all still alive, so what were they going to do about it?

It was when she was in her lunch bag that she saw her Nemesis walking down the street, holding a clipboard. The blonde girl, head taller than her, would stop every twenty feet and turn in a direction as if the places you wanted to be was going to be that one.

She didn't know what the heck Kate was doing, and she definitely didn't want Kate to come into her store. But why the hell was she casing every single building on the avenue? Didn't she know that?

But rather than shrink away, Ashley took that exact opportunity to stand out. She sat in front of the boba shop, sipping the last remnants of that sweet tea. She just gave Kate a look of disappointment.

"Okay, what the hell are you doing?" She said, finishing her Boba and tossing it from hand to hand.

Trash cans were full. Trash bags? Also full, everywhere out on the street. Without garbage trucks regularly coming through, this situation was going to be bad. She wondered how long the city would work without the garbage trucks intervening. It couldn't be that long, could it?

Not even a week ago, the trash had been regularly cleaned. It just so happened that today was trash day. Today was trash day, and no one had come for any of the trash. Indeed, she was now thinking that she would need to employ some of her swarm to scavenge through all the trash. So it would be an interesting use for her card Powers, she held off for now. She knew that she was going to need to use her swarm to do that. If she did, maybe they could scavenge through and destroy the trash. While she was back at her job.

She stared at Kate, who had stopped herself.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Did you just answer a question with a question? You can clearly see that I'm in my work uniform. I have to have a day job because somebody locked me out of the audition that I was supposed to win my role from."

"The cream rises to the top," Kate said, taking a long, hard look at her. "Do better."

Ashley threw up her hands. "I could have come into this knowing that I had a contract, but no, someone had to be an asshole and crushed my dreams right before the system came in, and wouldn't you know it? She keeps running into me to pour salt in the wound."

"Oh, do the does the shop here take credits or cash?" Kate pointed to the boba shop. The large signs showed a discount for people that showed a pizza rat card, evidence that they had been cleaning up the streets.

Ashley shrugged. "Oh, they take cash only. The vendor who services their credit card stopped working today."

"Well, thanks for that. Cat and I are going to be going through some dungeons, so up your game if you want to be competitive."

"His name is Bagel, and he is a handsome boy." Ashley crossed her arms.

"Right. Well, excuse me, I'm going to go inside here and get myself some Boba. If you want to do some dungeons, we need a fall gu-er, heavy attacker." Kate turned away from her.

"Is that what you want?" Ashley whispered.

Kate looked back, holding the door in her hand. "Huh? Did you say something?"

Ashley stomped up to the second floor shop. There had been a brief lull in customers during her lunch break. As soon as she returned, they were back in the force.

She was going to need to figure out why this girl kept popping into her business. Before long, Kate had entered that most sacred of Sanctums, her special place that not even her friends could go to.

Unfortunately, Kate stepped into her shop. That was tantamount to a declaration of war. Girls? In her shop? Well, maybe some other ones. Maybe not this one. It galled her to think that she was contractually obligated to be nice to customers. Maybe she could...

Kate spent her time walking around Ashley's domain, letting it happen.