Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

A man in the blue uniform stood at the door. Bagel had seen many police officers in his time. He might have even recognized the man with the brown skin. He couldn't tell from where, but it felt like somehow this man was treading on old common ground.

Raul brightened up. He instantly went into customer service mode. "Hello sir, may I offer you in some of our exquisite cards for your personal deck. Why, for the low cost of $550, you too can have a deck of just pizza rat cards even if you didn't get the system cards to begin with!"

The shop had an inexcusable amount of pizza rat cards in reserve. Everyone had them and with the amount that was being slaughtered regularly, it was feeling more and more like a rat factory.

The police officer stood and looked at the options. "Do you buy cards also?"

"We will trade or buy cards and the values on that deck builder website."

Raul, Janet and Bagel had a tacit agreement that they were going to stick to the market price when possible. There was a gold rush of people trying to get these cards and get decks so they could access the system. That meant that they were getting in on the ground floor.

"Are you? Do you have a deck already?" Raul said, leaning in. "If so, we have a couple of cards from the other boroughs where they have different mobs to fight. We both got a few utility cards. It's about a five percent chance a pizza rat drops a utility card instead of a creature card."

The man behind the counter knew how to work what he had. The instant rapport that he had with the man in blue was enough for Bagel to consider being nice for once.

Raul knew the city. He knew where he was.

That confidence felt comfortable to Bagel.

He could make this work.

The bodega manager was confident that he could now step away from the place if he wanted. If he wanted, he could go run dungeons whenever.

He could leave Janet or a worker to help. He could work something out.

The police officer mulled up his options for a bit while Bagel stalked around. He was spending a lot of time holding one turtle card. They looked attractive, with the shell pattern glinting a bit as he turned them. It drew his eyes briefly.

Behind him, a few people entered to the shop, looked around, grabbed a bunch of snacks and then went to get rung up as if it was just another day at the bodega. Bodega. For all things considered, this was very close to the truth.

Raul waved his hand in the air. "How are you guys doing with oh... everything outside?"

The two gave non-committal grunts before paying for their chips and drinks with a credit card. Not everybody was going to chat up the cashier.

Weighing his options, the police officer had a card in each hand and he was looking at the text and his eyes were darting between the two of them. "It's just tough to decide, you know? He said, as the door closed. And it's not like they raised my income. Income. So what do I get to kill rats for my off hours? You have a lot of pizza rats though, so..."

Janet beeped twice. "Sir, do you know that if you buy ten cards that you can form your own deck and you get the system? You won't get the mantle card that people that have gotten that deck randomly have gotten, but you will level up and you can then swap in cards from your deck and out whenever you feel like it."

Resolve flickered across the police officer's face before he placed the cards back on the counter. "Look, my wife might kill me if I do this, but fuck it. I need to have a deck. Give me seven pizza rats. Two of those turtles and utility cards."

"Excellent choice, sir," Raul said. "Only the finest of cards for New York's finest."

The police officer handed over a wad of cash. "And look, I'm not code enforcement, but maybe if I send some more guys here, you can offer us a discount?"

He pointed to the little emblem on his collar. The number seventeen had to show something, Bagel. This wasn't entirely sure what that was. It seemed to have some significance to Raul. "We'll give anyone from the seventeenth precinct the friends and family discount."

Raul dutifully handed the cards over.

The door once again swung open and this time a great bearded man walked in.

His eyes were open wide as he saw the police officer buying a stack of cards.

"I hope you didn't buy them all, old chap. I was counting on getting a few myself." Once again, the accent felt very off to Bagel.

"The shop drone here is telling me I can get the system if I take all ten of these cards together. So I'm going to do that."

The police officer held out the cards for a moment, as if the mere act of holding them would activate something, or as if he would instantly transform into whatever he desired. When nothing happened. He kind of glanced at the cat and then the drone.

"What am I supposed to do here?"

Raul shrugged. The Scottish man pulled out his phone and scrolled for a second before speaking. "I'm on that deck builder website and it says that you just have to... Will the cards into your self? Does that sound familiar? I can't even try to do that myself."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The police officer just held the cards out, and in a flash, they disappeared. Then he was all smiles. Not only all smiles, the man was hooting!

"YESSSSSS!"

Bagel was pleased with this result because he did not know the last time a police officer had hooted and hollered like a little kid in his Bodega.

This would also make it easier to sell people a pack of ten cards if they would get the system.

---

Not having the system had to be akin to having a disability. Ashley knew that had to be it. People that would normally be a part of the zeitgeist would have to catch up. The fear of missing out was going to be strong.

That had to explain the crowd in on the corner.

How the line around the shop was, Ashley wasn't exactly certain if they were there for cards or not, but it looked like after being closed for a day or two, most of the shops on forty-fifth street were back open again except for the ones that the owners were not going to pay anybody to return to.

She passed by the Amish Market, three doors from second avenue, she was not surprised to see a line of people to get into that shop as well.

Across the street, she looked for the spot where the pizza rats consistently spawned. Though she'd seen more spawn than on forty-fifth street, there was definitely a spot for it. The one next to the bodega was on the bus lane going southwards on second avenue. A crack in the paint that denoted the lane and some scorch marks clearly showed where many pizza rats had been sacrificed for the good of the cause.

She checked her watch. It was 3:30 in the afternoon and at that exact moment, a pizza rat spawned in the center of the crosswalk, and the place where it normally spawned. It was about thirty meters away from the bus lane spawn, and the incongruity of seeing only one rat spawn raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

Indeed, just stepping across the street and crossing forty fifth. She realized that there was something subtly different about the space directly next to Bodega. The line that was normally there to fight the pizza rat directly next to the store. It was gone instead, there was a slightly longer line to fight the one that spawned further down this the block in the road and the one at the crossroads.

Honestly, if she hadn't been right there when a spawn was supposed to happen, she wouldn't have noticed it. So odd that a mob wouldn't spawn where one had always spawned for the last two days.

She wasn't exactly sure. She'd heard some rumors about people buying up land so that it was protected from spawns, but she hadn't really looked into that. She spent too much time looking at that deck builder website and thinking about what you could do to prepare yourself.

If Kate was going to come back around and offer her to go to a dungeon delve, she would take her up on that. She hadn't come back around after she made her rounds through Ashley's store. And it was because Ashley was off work but didn't have Kate's number that she did not go to find the girl.

Of course, she would try to recruit somebody to go on dungeon raids with her.

Getting closer to the spot, she just stood there and observed it for a minute. Maybe of all the mob spawns on the damn island she lived on. This one had decided that if it had enough. Maybe they'd reach some counter somewhere.

Ashley's stomach gurgled. She tried to remember why she was looking at a piece of asphalt. She felt like such a tourist suddenly.

Would it be worse if she just looked up at the building to see which all they were.? She'd done that the first day she was there until someone pointed it out to her and she took that shame away. It had taken some time to dig deep underneath her imposter syndrome and her feelings of failure. It took a special person to get to her now, after so many auditions that had gone nowhere. Nothing stung like an official rejection.

But she wanted to put herself out there. If this pizza rat was not willing to return and put itself out there, she wouldn't care that much. But she would head back to her favorite Middle Eastern patisserie and get a little special. Something for her new favorite four-legged friend.

When she got inside, she was irked that they didn't have enough baba ghanoush for her to take to Bagel. "We're so sorry ma'am, we ran out, and it's going to be awhile till we restock. Can we make it up to you?"

"The cat next door is going to be not so pleased about that. But sure I'll take a tea and I guess a scone," she said.

The man with the beautiful hair smiled. "Right away. You're a deck bearer, aren't you?"

"I mean, I guess that's a term, isn't it? I got one during that system integration thing."

The weight of her forged backpack was not really that much, but her swarm around her was definitely noticeable. She did the responsible thing and let them sit outside like a bunch of pets. Her second favorite set of favorite four-legged friends was right outside. They waited for her patiently, looking for any danger that might threaten their master.

Their sound was like having a small dog around, if it was just a little. Eager to please. When she stepped out back onto the road, they all looked at her. She looked back at them and smiled. At that, every one of their little tiny faces broke out and she really wished it. At that point in time, she had some like a dog treat to give them. All little pizza rats and the one mechanical crab. I'll look at home together with that balloon thing.

It still gave her a bit of a fright, but she was warming to the idea that it was just another mob and the only difference was that she needed one that could attack other mobs in the air and this was the easiest way to do it. Until she got some sort of flying. Drake bird that could attack other mobs. This was her best option. What she didn't know was if there would be any other options like that. But she knew how to find out. The deck builder website guys were updating the card index regularly with new card finds as people updated the wiki page.

It was looking like the Infinity of people who, to help, would be enough to overcome anything that the system threw with them. So, why did she feel so strange when she walked in to see two men inside the bodega yelling like they had just run won the lottery?

Janet was there. Bagel was there. Then there was a Scottish guy with a long and luscious beard and a police officer that she could have sworn she'd seen before, and they were both dancing around giddily in the center of the bodega. There was only about eight feet of room to maneuver and she couldn't pass by them, so she just stood in the doorway waiting for them to slow down.

"Am I interrupting something?" Apparently, she wasn't. No one turned her way.

The hooting and hollering continued.

Ashley took stock of the situation.

There was a worker there that she recognized. She had seen him before. She knew him! He had taken her credit card many times before!

They were familiar enough that she could imagine what he sounded like, but she didn't know his name. They'd probably interacted dozens of times, if not hundreds.

She was staring at the two jubilant men. How long had it been since she'd seen two men just happily dancing around like nothing mattered? It felt like ages. It had to have been months, if not a few years. She found her mood improving.