Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

There was just something about how people coming in would avoid the main counter and go to the far counter where they had the display with all the adventuring gear and look over it as if there was a. This was a boutique clothing shop and not an adventuring guild. To be fair, they were expensive ass leggings that someone had made with their card power, so they were American made and they were probably the best thing that they got because on the back of the butts it said adventurers' guild.

Then there were the men that came straight to Ashley wearing torn basketball shorts with clear heart boxers underneath them.

"The modern woman needs to dress for combat and in the outfit that would actually let her stab her enemies," Ashley said without looking up. "Now I'm all for a battle skirt. Don't get me wrong, but a cape? There's a reason that we don't actually see police officers walking around with capes."

"So I don't have to wear the uniform? Because I don't think I would do well with tight black leggings." The man had to be well into his fifties. "Look kid. My glory days are past, but I will still do what is necessary to keep this neighborhood safe.

"And that's why we gave you a deck. Mr...."

"Todd."

Todd looked like every uncle Ashley had known from the South Dakota branch of her family. A stout man, he definitely had his glory days behind him but he could probably win a fight, once.

Janet Two floated above Ashley, displaying his guild card. "Mr. Todd. You told us you were a correctors officer? At least that's what your file here says? Then we appreciate what you did at Rikers. Just wear comfortable pants."

"Thanks. I just want to do my part." He rolled his shoulders back, clearly wearing a back brace.

Ashley sighed. "We all do. Just this time, no basketball shorts, okay?"

"Understood. Do you have any work for me?"

Ashley scanned the list of live updated open jobs. "I've got a party looking for... Oh, ranged damage."

He smiled. "It's what I'm known for."

"That's wonderful. Anyway, please buy a good pair of pants. They'll do you well," Ashley said.

"Thank you." Todd had a sing-song voice that made her think he was adorable and it was a kind of cute. How he walked away, but Grandma wasn't there to remark about how cute he was.

Kate slid up next to her. Kate was a taller blonde woman who had been spending extra time at Ashley's apartment for the last three days. Things had started that really lovely, but then they got more and more complicated. The more the system decided to mess with them and create Dungeons basically every single place that they were.

One of the more important cards that Kate had been one that allowed her to find any nearby dungeons as they popped of giving her a live map of the local area. She could then interact with Janet and Janet too, the scrap AI salvage token that was in the approximation of a card mob. Mob. That link permitted the police department to rely on her powers and the adventurous Guild to figure out where every dungeon was within a 5-mile radius easily. But the humans had done it after this system had arrived. Was to band together to stop all these encourages into their urban environment.

It hadn't started off so rough. In fact, it was almost manageable until the 6th day when dungeon started spawning way faster than they had the day before and they had to update all they were doing in response to it.

"Are you ready to run another dungeon?" Kate said. "It's been three days."

"I don't think we need the ones that do that. I'm going to take advantage of the people that are using the cards that we keep selling them and loaning them to be the heroes that they want to be."

"I love it when you say that we're not going to do the dungeons. That just gives me more time with you."

Kate bent over the table, clearly edging in for a kiss, and Ashley embraced her. It wasn't a big counter. Counter. In fact, it mirrored the counter directly behind them inside of the bodega that had been so welcoming with its new owner.

"But really, I'm super happy that the guild is off its feet and... Do we think that the city's going to give us the accreditation that we want?" Kate asked.

"They would be stupid not to."

There really was no predicting what the city would do. They could easily go off of previous knowledge about the topic, but that just didn't give them a full picture.

But then again, someone had to justify their job in the city that never sleeps. It was just one of those things that made Ashley's head spin. Where she had grown up, there were maybe a dozen people that worked in the government to include the sanitation department, the most important thing that someone from Wisconsin could ask from the government.

But here? There were enough sanitation workers to form a very large Union. There were enough police officers, they were more NYPD officers than sailors in to coast guard.

"Do you think the Coast guard is still a thing right now?" Ashley asked, once Kate released her from the best hug.

Kate snorted, flipping her hair back.

"You think that they're going to be fighting? What? Monsters on the sea or something? Nobody in the right mind is out there on a pleasure boat preparing to get lost at sea."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The image of somebody out there on EOT trying to escape the system and the mobs was hilarious to her. There had been enough reports of flying mobs and flying monsters she was wary of. Anybody trying to do something like that? Though they had met a peregrine falcon before, it had been one of the most surreal experiences just fighting alongside a cat and a bird in a dungeon. She wondered where the peregrine falcon was, but then again, it could be anywhere.

Ashley stuck to the avenues and the streets that she was used to. She most definitely did not go chasing waterfalls ever. Kate didn't count just because she was as tall as a mountain.

"Are we set up for Gossip Girl tonight?" Ashley said.

"Oh, I thought we were going to do Gilmore Girls tonight, but we can do that."

"Not Golden Girls?" Ashley said, grinning. "The original adventuring party?"

They both chuckled.

"Okay, but really, you've done great work here."

Kate gestured to the quest board on the wall, the open bar in the back, the benches and tables that were being served food from the Bodega next door and delivered by card mobs. At that moment, a worker mob, the idealized image of an average man, walked through with several boxes, placing each down in front of a customer before departing.

"The only bad thing is that we don't have a liquor license, but then again, we should sell that anyway." Ashley groaned.

"It's basically the end of the world and people are worried about following some state laws."

"State laws are real, Kate. Dungeons are temporary. The system integration? Who knows how long that will take? You know how long Tammany Hall..."

"It's adorable how invested you are in party politics from an older age. But I do not think that the system will sit down and shut it."

Kate bit her lip. "Unless we make it. Think about it, girl. War with the system. Take our planet back."

"Is it that the system is the mobs, or the system makes the mobs?" Ashley said, coyly.

She was expecting to win that argument at any day now. Was the system responsible for the monsters? Yes, but did it upload the amount of monsters just to cause drama? Also, probably yes.

Ashley glanced at the door. Two new people were standing there, and they looked like every single new person had for the last 2 days. They both were fish out of the water. Wanted to help but also not wanting to go to the right counter. She waved them over.

"Thanks for dropping by, but let me talk to these two people for a minute," Ashley said. "But then I'm all yours."

Kate gave her a high five and then stepped aside. By the time the family was through her spiel and explanation, Kate had already tried on two sets of the adventure legs. The urge to simply watch Kate's little fashion show as she tried on the various items tempted Ashley. But she could dress as easily. Have her done in a private fashion show back at her apartment next door. Does you have a little thrill thinking about taking Kate back to her own place and then in time they would move into a larger apartment?

It was so much easier for Kate to be nearby the little temporary emergency services set up in the bus lane that the NYPD had set up on 2nd avenue. It was entirely covering the bike lane and the bus lane so that the NYPD could get good tactical data for the dungeons. The only PD kept taking the most difficult dungeons and leaving the rest for the dungeoners.

"Those pants really look good on you. I think they would also look good on my floor."

"Oh stop. But do go on."

"I'm hungry. Go go go hungry. The usual?"

"A girl's got to eat. This is only 10 credits. Okay, I'm going to take this and maybe another one."

Kate definitely plays the two leggings onto the counter and then opened her system interface to transfer the credits to the waiting cashier.

"Thank you both," the older Brazilian man said. "We should have some more options tomorrow when our dressmaker finally gets those to us."

Kate held up a ha hungrily. Arend but Ashley stopped her. "She's not making dresses now. She just used to be a dressmaker."

The Vietnamese woman making dresses behind the man wave them off as they left. Ashley was absolutely certain that she knew how to speak English but was pretending she couldn't or wouldn't for whatever reason just to get the hot tea or maybe for drama.

But it didn't really matter much because they had a next stop and that was going to be Kelly next door to check in with the city's favorite Bodega manager. Satisfied that the man with a neck beard was going to take his shift at the front desk of the adventurous guilds, Ashley followed Kate outside. In her mind she was already calling Kate her girlfriend, though no such words had ever been under allowed between the two of them. Just the moving of all of her stuff that she needed for a few days into Kate's apartment. That was all. There was nothing deeper than that besides all the time they spent together in bed and talking and watching movies and sometimes it's running dungeons.

They were just roommates.

Roommates that sometimes I had it bad for each other. Who needed labels?

The belt dinged on the four five deli next door as they walked in.

Who was the daughter of the guy in charge of the adventuring gear shop? Next door smiled at the two of them. Ladies, may interest you in our newest find? It's a special car that can only be found in Brooklyn.

She held up a card. On it they could see the outline of a mashup between a possum and an oriental style dragon. It was like someone had stretched out the possum several feet and kept the fur, but also made it look badass as fuck.

Kate immediately swiped the card and looked at it before passing it to Ashley.

---

Dragon possum

120 HP

Dragon type

60 damage

Weak against water

---

"This looks great! How much for it?" Ashley said, prepared to give the market price. The deck builder website helper her comparison shop.

"But the low, low price of 100 credits..." Khaleesi began.

"Absolutely not. The market value was five credits. The Bronx is just flushed with them. This is definitely an upstate common spawn card."

Khaleesi huffed. "But he can fly. How many flying possum dragons have you even seen in your entire life? This is definitely worth at least 10 credits."

"Seven credits final offer and I'm only giving I know your brother." Kate held out seven fingers. Although she had gotten a deck herself when the system it started, Kate had not really done much with it except to link up with a city system and identify all the dungeons. Her powers revolved around attacked attacks that were area effect based. Her strongest card did ten damage every fives seconds to enemy deck bearers or mobs.

Getting the specific help she needed to fix her biggest weakness, which they had so far identified as being fighting against flying mobs, had been a problem and Ashley knew that Khaleesi would have talked to Raul and Raul would have identified this. So this wholesale was then trying to fix her deck and also make a bit of a profit for the bodega. She could not blame them for doing that. She would have done the same thing herself.

"Now I understand that. But what did Bagel say about this card?"

"He wants to use it as a mount. But the problem is that it's not affected by his mantle."

For the people that were given a deck during the system integration, all of them had a special car that tied the theme of their decks. They were giving together. Bagels card, the bodega, gave him access to the shop they were in. Created an AI system and allowed him to use his worker and cook mobs inside of the place to actually work. Persistently. Most summoned mobs would only last for about 3 minutes unless there was a specific card effect on them or a specific artifact by another card affecting that card, causing people to have to cycle through their decks.