Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

"So I have to pay a tax on what I sell?" Bagel said, definitely not addressing either of the two police officers that were looking at the newest haul.

"Unfortunately, the state has a sales tax and the city. You can count on Albany to take her cut," Janet said, attempting and failing to take a reassuring tone. Bagel wasn't surprised for the first time today by how many systems humans layered on top of each other like a teenager's approximation of lasagna.

The system had given him the approximate knowledge of lasagna. He had seen it made before. Heck Raul had made it. It was just another little thing that had only been an idea before and now had a name and a recipe.

Approximate knowledge of lasagna wasn't gonna help him with the problem in front of him. He'd heard he needed to read documents from the city. This was all before sunrise.

Paper bothered him.

Wasn't paper for litter boxes? He knew that the receipt paper that came out of the teller but other than that; he didn't really care for it.

"Boss, everything looks official," Janet said. "So I guess we're going to spend some of our credits to put into this bond system for this new authority?"

"If that's the best way and then let's not know what happens every day and if we need to do it to secure our future, then… that is the way."

This being the only card shop in the neighborhood, it had gotten to be a profitable business.

Another police officer came in and tried to see about purchasing more cards for their deck. One of many, the officer also fell to the weakness of the working man since time immemorial.

Snacks.

They held a power over the working class that Bagel found himself honestly surprised at.

"Nobody has powers like yours. The refresh power that is a useful card. To this just must recognize that you own the place or that you're the logical owner for you too on a business there on top of what the city recognizes. To be honest, it doesn't really matter to the system whether the city recognizes you are not so long as the system is unique as the rightful owner."

"Why would the city management…think about us at all?"

"The trick is not to make any noise."

"Oh, you're dealing with the city?" the police officer said, butting in. "I've got some friends who work there. What's going on?"

"There was an owner of this building before all of this happened," Janet said. "They passed and Bagel could buy the building from the system with his abilities. The system then…"

"Forced the city government to recognize the ownership," the man said. "Yeah, it's uncommon, but I've heard about it happening. Shame that they passed away. It wasn't here, was it?"

Janet beeped twice. "According to the obituary, the owner was on Long Island. But it's unclear."

"Oh shoot. You guys have the grill running?"

Bagel smiled for the first time that morning.

"If you can make a phone call on our behalf, I'd love to offer you a complimentary breakfast officer…?"

"Officer Cruz, but you can call me Randy."

"Well Randy," Bagel said, in his bestest customer service voice. "We have the full menu available. You just stepped in when the cooks were in between orders."

---

That day made Bagel feel like maybe things are going to be a little better. Because they'd always felt better when he was around. Some of the other workers were also large and fuzzy in his memory and he welcomed that. They had been there most of his life. It just felt like he was returning home.

Bagel had never actually left his building for that long, though. The girls talked about him finishing more dungeons, saying he could do that after they rested and worked. Ashley had some job at a shop down the street that did not compete with him but remained open despite all was going on. He should probably investigate that in time.

She told him she sold dead trees bound people would stare at the hallucinate. It made sense to him, but another use of paper was another use for paper.

This whole deal with taxes and having to pay a cut of what he was making, although he was spending his credits on buying up stuff because nobody else really could. It really got to him a little.

Ashley had her own AI set up at the laundromat across the play so that she could buy that building and that had gone pretty well. Now he had to go at least half a block to find a spot where the mob would spawn. And it was good for him. That meant that where he was safe and more foot traffic was returning with more hungry people.

He'd received another shipment that morning. Bagel wasn't surprised to find that a deck bearer with a bear-type summons was the driver. That was some card and would have made an offer, but Janet told him it was not worth his time. He tipped the man a cement lizard card for his trouble.

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Another one neighborhood was apparently spewing out these cement lizards and his were no longer so unique that he could not part without. Though they came from a dungeon so they were slightly off color what the regular concrete lizards were.

The pedestrians walking by had eyed suspiciously many of the things that they'd unloaded that morning. Already, he didn't have any flowers they had. Ben way that the shop had displayed its wares to passerby.

It was a little hard to keep flowers up when pizza rats kept getting slammed into them repeatedly.

No one was going to lament his loss. It was lonely as the handsomest boy around.

The transit authority that the city was setting up was now just issuing bonds and with credits.

"You know we can buy some of these bonds with our credits, right?" Janet said.

"I don't see how this is going to help us. But I guess if we're using the…How are they using this again?"

It took her a minute to explain how the credits that they were giving to the city to the transit authority were then going to be returned so that he could buy more land. He would save and they would just keep a specific area where mobs could spawn and don't just respond, so it was a place intentionally kept that way. They called it wild or a mob playground. He called it crazy, but it wasn't up to him.

"Okay, so we pay the city... taxes."

"Right."

"We're also paying this Transit authority for bonds."

"Correct."

"And then they use those bonds to buy up blocks of land?"

"Keep them safe from mobs, correct?"

"None of this makes any sense."

"You are absolutely right, boss. But that is your bureaucracy for you."

None of this made sense to him whatsoever. But he was nothing if not committed to the bit.

Raul came in as the truck was finally unloaded and leaving.

It felt like he'd been there before experiencing it, how he watched it leave.

"Did you see that bear?" Raul said, continuing to stare.

"It was unavoidable. Was that common before or am I just now awake to the possibilities?" Bagel, let that hang there for a minute.

The humans were doing this thing, pausing after a sentence, as if it was a revelation. He could pretend to be dramatic, too.

"What? I almost never went outside and that was mostly to go to the veterinarian."

"Oh, that's... Rough," Raul said. " So wait! I know it makes sense but you've never been on any of the bridges out here or have you? Have you seen the United Nations building? It's pretty nice. It used to be a tourist destination."

Bagel knew all those words before he heard them in a sentence before, but he'd never been asked to respond to a sentence containing those words and he found himself puzzled up the idea, but intrigued.

He flicked his tail. "How far away is it?"

It was closer than the Walgreens that they'd gone to. Because of course they picked a great location to raise Bagel up in. Several dozen statues dotted the landscape one that didn't have a skyscrap save for the large building next next door. Being able to see the sky. Unobstructed felt like the strangest thing to Bagel as they passed onto 1st avenue.

"What is that?"

"Oh you mean the sky? That is wait. Did you think that the buildings went on forever in every direction?"

Bagel had actually thought that they had gone on in every direction forever. There had to be something like the wilderness somewhere. He'd seen wilderness in TV shows but it never looked up. It's a bass open space above. Him just seems so empty and unused. He could see it now that there was no way that every place could be like that. And even beyond it, there was a river.

Raul took him to see something called the East River and he marveled at the body of water. That would have been a perfect place to piss.

Pissing in the East River would have required him to cross two lanes of traffic on either side of the valet so he put that out of his mind for now and on to his to-do list. But on his way they passed by a tiny little Park and bagel was enraptured by it. We're all even left and let him down and the ground felt soft and springy. Bagel almost curled up right there but they were going to have to go back to the shop at some point in time. But it was so soft.

"How is it like this?"

"It's just dirt. It's... Just not concrete?" Raul looked perplexed.

Bagel had walked next to the human, leaving his mounts in the shop to tend it.

The grind was so hard. He had an account for how hard it was. His mouths were all so soft and he'd expected that but this? He hadn't expected the ground to actually have some sort of give to it. It was so fresh and new.

"Most of the world is not like this," Raul said, gesturing at the sidewalk and the road. "That's something you would have learned if you'd ever really left the city or the block..."

He stopped.

Bro had been pacing there back and forth as Bagel enjoyed the soft lummy soil. Beyond the little patch of dirt, there was a set of stairs leading up. He looked at it, cocking his head to the side inviting Raul to go up there with him. Him. Raul shrugged and they began to do a little climb.

The new strength you had from the abilities the deck had given him made him feel like he could go two at a time easily if you wanted to. He'd seen humans did that before but they had long legs and he had handsome hind legs and gentle four legs to let him get up and down places. And additionally, the steps themselves were concrete.

"Is this what humans do whenever they conquer a place?" He said."You guys pave it over with concrete?"

Raul was not keeping up with him. Bagel would have expected him to keep Pace but he also expected a lot of humans. His knots would have had no problem; Raul was huffing and puffing.

Just because you look like somebody who would win best prize at a dog show doesn't mean that you should be running me ragged. Pearl had to stop at the top of the steps to breathe. He bent over his breath. Misting bagel. It was warm and refreshing and also made Bagel wonder about his fitness as a shop tender.

"Was that a joke at my expense?" Bagel said. "You're really coming into yourself now."

"Thanks. I realized that I spent too much time trying to please other people and now I'm trying to get out of survival mode. But then again, it looks like the entire city is trying to get out of survival mode in front of them, a pizza rat appeared at a very well-lit location and it was immediately eviscerated by a man wielding a battle cane.

"What is that man in the..."

"Top hat."

"..Top hat doing?"

Bagel had a certain concept of how he expected his morning to play out. But nothing had adhered to that. And this particular man wearing a three-piece suit with a top hat, a bow tie and a long cane with a sword on attachment on the end was just one of many things that he couldn't just say nothing about.

"I mean really. Looks really ridiculous

That's the word? With that tie?"

The man retracted his cane and the implement receded. In one moment, the cane was half the size it was and he put it back on the ground.

He tried to look at Bagel and Raul and that was when Bagel saw the little frills below his jacket and how dark it really was. Aside from the curls in his hair and the white of his undershirt, there was little to separate the man from any other gentleman. And the cane itself was unremarkable without a sword attached to it.

The man leaned towards them carefully lifting the hat. Ever so slightly, the brim rose above his widow's peak.

Bagel lowered his head, attempting to meet the man 's posture if not the same effect. Effect. All, he didn't have a hat and he didn't know any cats that would wear hats. That would be quite an interesting thing for him to wear.

"That guy looks familiar."