Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

All of a sudden, Bagel had to deal with people. Not just people but the things that they came with which was apparently personalities.

Humans were fine. People? People wanted things.

"Do you have any fire type decks?" A younger human asked. There was no way that that child was any more than fifteen years old by Bagels reckoning. He didn't have a sense of how long that actually was, but knew that the teen years were significant.

Behind to his side, there was a flurry of movement.

Kate and Raul were busy making as many decks as possible in as short of a time as they could. So of course, it fell to him to actually talk to people, though there wasn't much in the way of variety.

People wanted variety.

"Look kid. Half of these decks are pizza rats because that's what we have around here and that's what usually spawns if you have but a deck which doesn't have any pizza rats, you're wrong." He held up a cars. "They're basic. They're ubiquitous. They're everywhere. This is the thing that spawns here. It just so happens that we got a lot of new things spawning here that you can take advantage of because that's just how it is."

"But I really want a fire deck. Or some fire monsters," the teenager said.

"And I want some bak lava but you don't see me complaining about that. Do you? The best I can do for you is a deck with two fire monsters and that's about it. You have even odds of drawing it in your first two hands."

The kids stared them down as if Bagel would ever give up any sSecrets.

He never would.

He didn't have any secrets to give up. There was no secret back room with cards in it. He had money and he had the system authority papers that were making him even more money. What did they call them? Bonds?

"Look if you want to come back here later I understand and I'll trade you any far cards that I have for whatever you have. But right now what I need for you to do is to take these cards and go dungeon diving so that we don't get overwhelmed with monsters like what just happened down the street. Do you understand?"

The door swung open.

Out front, Ashley was yelling something into a microphone or a bullhorn or whatever she called it. "People! We're forming parties of five here and Sandy went to dungeons with a guide. There's a maximal amount of people that can go to dungeon. We need to clear these Dungeon people! You five! Are you good? Okay follow that officer!"

The door closed shut, the man holding it open done with his job. and she kept speaking but it was muted.

"I guess I'll take what you have now," the teenager said.

"Hold on," Kate said, putting a card into her deck and then pulling out another. "Take this."

The teens eyes widened. "Thank you so much! I'll clear all the dungeons for you, mommy... I mean uh ma'am!"

The kid was out the door before Bagel could even bother to look.

Kate growled. "They've got to have hope. I say hope in his eyes."

It had to be a human thing.

As they were putting together cards, what Kate and Raul would do would be to place stacks of prepared decks.

Janet and Janet too and the two drone AIS would scan the cards, catalog them, have the person sign for the cards and then note the amount that they were going to request from the person.

Next to Bagel, a little holographic screen put the approximate value of all the cards that they had sold through it at about 40,000 credits.

He smiled at that.

Money was not a real thing.

Sure, for the physical stuff, you could touch it like a baklava. Humans valued it anyway, meaning he could use them their credit system to affect the changes that he wanted to see on the real world.

Once some of them came back with actual credits and traded them in, they will be able to buy their decks off of him or so the agreement was.

Janet had made A lot of strange decisions, some of which he resonated with. But the biggest one was keeping track of all these decks and cards and telling people to come back with their credits to trade in the credits so that they could pay more people or buy more buildings.

His dream of owning the entire block or buying the land around so that it was safe would only work if people came back from their dungeons with credits that they could actually pay the system to buy the land from.

It was something that he kept explaining to people. "You have to come back with credits so we can buy up safe zones."

"Understood," a man in a tropical shirt said. "Honestly, this is very organized. I'm surprised you guys haven't formed a guild or something."

"A guild?" Bagel said.

"Like an adventurers guild? You're basically doing that thing that uh... You know what never mind," he said sheepishly.

"No, talk to me," Kate said, putting the cards down. "What did you mean by that?"

"I just mean that you're literally giving out quests here and selling supplies and... This hasn't dawned upon you?"

"I have to admit that this was a bit slap dash."

"The girl in the maid costume was a nice touch."

"Hey, that's my girlfriend and we got caught in the middle of something so I would appreciate it if you didn't ogle her."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The man stepped back and put his hands up. "Apologies. But if you do want to do what I'm talking about uhhh the building next door is totally unoccupied and we could make this a more formalized thing."

"Come back with some dungeons under you belt, and then we can talk," Kate said.

"Will do."

---

The first of the group to return back came back with credits and cards just as they were running out.

The word had gotten out and the Bodega felt like peak season. Dozens of normal New Yorkers brought in even more pizza rat cards and credits to help the TSA bond effort.

Ashley has long since curled up on the chair as Kate and Raul drank their way through the supply of sugar free blue ox.

Bagel had picked their stock of drinks for his refresh cards, ignoring the pile of cans in their recycling. He was going to use another refresh later that day when they ran out of deli meat, as those were still moving at lightning speed.

People had wandered in trying to get a deck and then stuck around to talk with Raul and Kate as his cook made them food.

---

Once again they ran out of cards. Bagel realized that it was parched and looked around for a drink. The drink cooler was once again functionally empty. The open air refrigerator across from the register was once again in need of a restock. He flipped his cards away and used restock once again. Thankfully it all worked out and hundreds of cans and bottles. Reappeared. The one thing that I remained was of course a bottle of soy milk.

Nearly every single person had gotten a free bottle of something, mostly water before they went to Dungeon crawl. Ashley had been in and out several times, parched herself before returning to her recruitment efforts. If Kate's abilities were to be believed then they were finally getting a part of the day rather than increasing and as he looked up at the ceiling, the clock read ten. It was late but the rush of customers and people trading in cards hadn't ceased.

The assistant might even given the option to create loans in collateral so that people would be able to spend credits and he owed people money. But for the most part people owed him money and something called a balance sheet. Told him that 40,000 credits was not much compared to the 80,000 that he was due. And for the most part, except for a few people that didn't make it back, he had been making credits hand over fist and in a lot of cases helping people trade up their cards. When they traded in old cards he put them aside for others.

When others came in for their for do decks they would sign up to do dungeon runs with the rapidly growing Guild that Janet was helping Kate form. It felt like the humans were finally working together. Bagel could finally relax about the whole situation, maybe in a few days.

"What will you get me for this card?" A man was holding up a possum dragon card. It looked like the cross between a western dragon and an opossum carrying a kit of three baby possum dragons. It was adorable and also unsettling in equal measure. And he wanted it, if he was still committed to fighting intelligence himself, then he would have definitely taken it. But seeing as how he could do a lot more good refreshing and restocking for other people at that moment he wasn't convinced that he was going to need any of that.

---

Bagel wanted to pick up and close his shop. Well it was enough to leave it to his mobs.

Humans were going to have to make rules about these dungeon surges.

That was the thing that they did. They made rules to try and understand a world that didn't need it. He could feel it coming. Bagel checked the line of followers and they were definitely still coming in and out. Raul had volunteered to work until late. It has been so busy that neither of them had wanted to stop.

Janet has to order both of them to rest.

"Now I know you're the boss but the boss needs rest. We don't know how these are going to go in the future but for now? We are locked in. The guild that's forming next door wants our help and we'll need to help them."

The AI made him rest. He would get his retribution.

---

"Hi Kate," Ashley said.

"Hi." They had been so engrossed in what they were doing all day that neither one had really revisited the activities from earlier that day. She was adorable and strong in equal measure for being so much taller than Ashley.

"So I don't know how to do this. Or how any of this works... usually I would ask a friend but," she gestured vaguely.at the universe.

"The situation," Kate said, pulling her in close. "Is not ideal. But that... We've got to figure out this guild thing. You were great by the way."

The two women were back in Ashleys apartment. It was across the street. It was easy. It was easier to cross the street than to remove the maid costume. "Are you almost done?"

"Who would have thought eight buttons would be such a problem but... Okay we are done now."

Ashley let the costume drop, and turned to face Kate. "So that was a rough day but you know what I've been looking forward to the whole time?"

Kate smiled. "No, what?"

"The only good thing about this apartment is the full size shower. Get in with me."

"With pleasure."