Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

The worst kinds of problems were the ones where they forced a cat to wake up. This was what Bagel, the formerly normal cat, discovered when the man from the city building department arrived.

"Sir, we've been trying to contact you about your magically constructed building. Bring it up to code."

A man coming into his shop, bothering him from his cap nap?

It was inexcusable.

Bagel stretched out every single muscle at the same time as only cats could. Really, humans having to do multiple stretches was just another of their issues. He would have to show them the clear supremacy of the one size fits all cat stretch.

That said, their physiology might not allow them the pleasure of completely lengthening one's self out. Still, there was a way to get humans to not wake one's self up from a nap. The first and best method was to use a decoy.

Indeed, the man from the building department was currently working himself up talking to a cat sized holographic projection.

It was the latest of many such specialized applications of Bagel's card powers. The man would have immediately seen through the illusion if he were a deck bearer. The decks, a randomly assigned magical ability, were given to roughly one in a thousand humans, and if statistics were to be believed, the same amount of cats and birds.

Their powers let humans fight back against the constantly spawning monsters. Each monster spawned by the system dropped one card and then cards were needed bare minimum to give someone the system. But then people still felt the need to go back to their normal jobs amid all of this and pay their landlords rent.

And to top it all off, people had been stingy with their petting as of late. This man with his white collar and tie looked like he would not be doing any heavy petting either on or off duty.

When Bagel was in charge, things would change, beginning with the petting.

The whole system, in Bagels eyes, was just like the old one, but with extra steps. The extra steps didn't make it any better, but it sure made life more complicated for his new friend Ashley, who was working her best to do both her jobs at the comic shop down the street and run the guild. The humans had yet to explain to Bagel what a comic shop was.

"Sir, you're going to have to make an appointment," Khaleesi, the Brazilian teenager, said to the man.

Bagels' hologram flickered out. The Bodega could only keep it up for so long.

Her long hair went all the way past her shoulders and looked almost climbable. "Bagel is busy. You know how it is. He has had to save so many lives that you should thank him... not trying to have him fill out paperwork."

Bagel could rely upon teenagers to help, but this might have been his problem. Or at the very least, this teenager.

He was, after all, the manager.

"Do you work here, miss?" the inspector said.

"No, but Bagel is like my brother."

"Then can you tell me where he is?"

"Do you have a brother? Can you find them?"

"I'm not the one that's here on-"

"Exactly. So you can either wait for the manager or make an appointment."

A spherical drone buzzed down to the counter.

"Unfortunately, the boss has a packed calendar. The first time we can get you in is about twelve days from now," Janet the AI said. "You'll understand how busy he is with his specific powers. High demand and all. He is literally making the city safer."

"Look, I'm not here to cast any judgment or his surgeons upon Mr. Bagel. All I'm here to do is make sure the structure that they're building outside doesn't fall because of some code issue. We might be in some sort of nuclear, apocalyptic wasteland or whatever you call this, but we live in a society. Damn it. If I have to come back here again, then I will issue a stoppage of work notice and that would be a problem."

Khaleesi flicked her hair back. "Look, mister, we don't want any problems. But Mr. Bagel does what he wants. He will not be coerced into any action, which he does not think is important for him to do."

Bagel took that moment to carefully land upon the counter.. He had many times remarked about how humans were very oblivious to things around them, but not so much as the man's too deeply avoiding him because of the decoy cat. He expected the humans to not give him his due, being a cat and all, but they had given him something. They had given him pride.

"Welcome to my fine establishments," Bagel said mock bowing towards the man. "Why are you harassing my employee?"

The man looked at him with shock and horror, probably upon seeing the most handsome boy in the entire block. Or perhaps it was awe.

He was aware of the effect he had on humans.

He needed them to take him seriously.

"Mr. Bagel, you have submitted no architectural or engineering plans or blueprints to the housing authority. Before you can be construction. You are supposed to get a permit to do construction. Now I understand we are under emergency is here, but the city wants to make sure that you stay within the bounds of the law."

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"If there is even a city," Khaleesi said, snickering.

You did not let the city get involved in anything that you did whatsoever ever.

"Janet? Can you file those plans somehow?"

"Yes Boss, the plan's been filed as of... Now." She paused for effect, an altogether human gesture that meant that she'd been spending too much time with the smelly bipeds.

"See, that's all taken care of now. Would you care to buy a card or perhaps a Blue Ox? We've also got beer in the back, if you are feeling under the weather. You know how the world is right now. Maybe it's time for a drink?"

Khaleesi was really selling the store in a way that Bagel never could. She was personable and up in people's faces. She can probably sell him something and if it weren't for her parents dating her to go to school or help them with the apartment. They were now staying in above the Bodega.

He would work, would work her as hard as he could. Which was to say, behind the counter was a summoned worker and a summon cook that was taking short orders for the lunch rush. About twenty people had ordered food in the last ten minutes and as fast as they could make it, they were being shuffled in and out.

She had just wandered over for fun.

Most of the people that came in looked like they were headed to a workout class of some sort or a dance competition. Save for the bell-bottom jeans. Nearly every single person look like they were going to boxing class and had their own personal definition of what that meant.

All the women wore combat tights and had t-shirts and, sometimes, vests as if they were going to Pilates and then to raid a tomb.

Which, most times, most times, what was about to happen?

The building next to the Bodega on second avenue was a bustling adventures Guild. It had not existed a mere two weeks prior to that. The foot traffic alone from these supposed adventurers kept Bagel working.

It had been a boon for the Bodega though it meant that he'd had to put his pips into energy for that purpose rather than any other reason.

The bodega sold cards for credits, to include whole starter decks. People who slayed mobs would get one or more credit for kill and then a card. If they had decks, they could easily slot that card in as an additional card or swap take one out.

What Bagel did was buy and sell cards for credits or trade them for other cards.

Because he had a specific card-based ability to purchase land around and make it so mobs wouldn't spawn, he had slowly been increasing the amount of land that he had owned to include buildings down, forty-fifth street going west and one building going south on the second avenue.

Half of the streets belonged to him, creating safe zones. He bought up land as he could.

The sidewalks and road gave him a buffer of twenty feet so that no mobs would show up randomly, spawning on the roads. The more the people bought, the more that he could to take those credits and turn them into safe zones for the humans. It was just as important as it was to clear out the mobs everywhere.

The humans were finding out that they need to have safe zones to retreat to. He was going to corner the market in his neighborhood.

He could buy a large seven-story building from the system that existed, letting him create even more of a safe zone between along a second avenue between forty fifth and forty-fourth Street. It wasn't a lot, but that last building was going to cost him 5,000 credits.

It had enough housing for several hundred people. People already lived there and, for the most part, they could handle the other problem.

Instance dungeons spawned regularly throughout the day at random locations in the neighborhood.

That was the problem the guild had been trying to figure out.

The thing was finding somebody with a power to find dungeons as they open up as large apertures similar to doors. A person could then open the door or step through the portal to run into the dungeon. Once again was cleared, the guild would send some paperwork for the completion.

Statistics were important

he guild lives or died on information.

Bagel had done four dungeons and had about enough with that. He had a unique ability that made him less suited for combat. They called him a DPS anyway. His real talents lay in the Bodega. Customers came in and out and all hours of the day buying and selling cards. That increasing the amount of credits he had on hand, which in turn let him buy up more land and cards..

The Transitional Service Authority, a new City Institution, managed all credits and determined how the city spent them. The city and the bank jointly controlled the authority, from which people bought bonds using credits. They had made him the board president in name, though with no official duties... he only made decisions in the case of a tie.

It was probably because he was a cat.

They prefer their own kind in many things, though many had had before. They didn't mean that they wanted other sentient beings to come rain on their parade. They had been the top predator for years. And now is many animals awakened and given Dex, humans were not the only dominance species of the planet. They were just the most well organized because it had the biggest head start.

That was one of the many things that big was trying to see about changing. He wanted to be with other cats, bring them together and really just have a fellowship with his other cat for the sisters. Unfortunately for him, most of the cats the contenders were in the financial district. Because they'd invested in city bonds, they contacted him repeatedly.

They directly channeled the bond money to Bagel, who then bought land with it. His power was that you had to buy land that was directly based on adjacency.

Dungeons needed to be cleared. It has to been 9 days since the start of the system apocalypse and the game once. It finally became clear that the dungeons would overflow in 3 days without meeting other conditions. This gave them roughly that entire time to find new dungeons and have a party of six run to them. So far, despite the deaths and losses getting to that point, humans were hopeful. Not only was there a guild next to his Bodega, and other neighborhoods.

Abilities like his Bogeda card were not that rare, but they were inside of his domain.

His card gave him a persistent floating drone AI. She was not only persistent, she was annoying and necessary.

The building man left it in a huff.

"He didn't even stop to buy anything," Khaleesi said.

"Maybe he wanted to face turned down some of our local pizza rats and see how they go?"

"It makes sense that he would do that. I didn't know that he was a deck bearer, otherwise that would have tried harder to sell them so cards."

"Khaleesi, you don't even work here," Bagel said.

She flipped her hair. "And look at how much value I'm providing! Don't you want to hire me and pay me a ridiculous amount of money and give me a deck so I can work here for you? You can do that, that can't you?"

The last thing that Bagel needed was another employee demanding things from him. Her case had merit, though. "I would have to run it by your parents first. You know that."

"But my mom and dad want me to still keep studying. What good is school if I'm going to be a dungeon runner? There're no careers. What's the point of me studying if there're no careers available?"

For how independently minded she was, he couldn't let her work without her parents' permission. At least, that was what Raul had said. He had confirmed with Liza and Paolo, their parents.

"Why don't you volunteer at the guild or something? Don't you have more important things to do?"

"The world is crumbling around us and you're telling me to go volunteer at the guild. I could just be sitting here heckling your customers instead of making you more money. You know that these New York City men they like being negged."

"You keep saying that's a thing, but I don't think that's what they want. I really don't understand what you think. You can get out of this. Except for the free food."