Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

It took less than a minute for the police officers to clear and hold the stairwell up to the third floor. They signaled to the guild team

The guilders ran up and out trying to make sure that every single commercial asset and business that had occupied the third floor was now thoroughly empty. No stone was unturned.

Having pizza rats that would fight for them against any enemies meant that if they found an enemy they would it key on to it. Summons scampered ahead, leading the way.

In the five agonizing minutes it took them to work through the third floor properly, none of the mobs that were summoned found anything. Bagel, Kate and Ashley took the stairwell up to the fourth floor and held that waiting for a response of some kind. When none came, they started preparing to clear that floor as well.

This repeated several times, each time they found nothing for the next couple of floors until they got to the tenth floor.

The stench made Bagel gag. "Something is very wrong."

Kate whispered. "Have you thought about what their actual serial killers would be like? You know and those serial killer podcasts?"

"Hey team, let the police head up. The mobs aren't finding anything."

It was obvious that something of it set up here after the system hadn't been integrated to the copious amount of blood and sheets lying the wall. What it was exactly Bagel wasn't sure of, but his stomach turned as more and more police officers walked in and started gagging.

A line of police officers stopped to put masks over their noses and mouths.

"All right. Guild guys, this is now crime scene and we are going to have to investigate this. I would appreciate it if you guys stuck around for a minute. I know that the roof above us is clear according to our surveillance person, but give us a minute to make sure there's no mobs here and I think we're going to have to get some detectives up here." He brought up eye radio and called in for something else where Bagel couldn't hear. It didn't take long.

A couple men and plain clothes arrived. After answering questions, Bagel was on his way back with the humans in tow.

"I don't know how I feel about this. But that's definitely not my problem. If they want to make it a crime scene if they want to do that after what we just saw and that's on them. I think that means that you're good to buy that building now if we had the credits," Ashley said back in the safety of the Bodega.

"I feel like I need to wait for them to exit it and then I will purchase it. And they want to do something and I feel like... Can I do that?"

Janet beeped once. "Now that it's not contested, you can buy it.."

"Alright. I need more credits! Argh!"

"How much do you need?" Ashley said. "I think we got enough credits to really help you out this time. I haven't been saved much but whatever I got... It's going into those bonds right?"

"That's correct. I'm four hundred credits short of the six thousand for this building. If you have anything like that let me know. I know that a lot of people in the guild owe me money but they don't come in with any regularity."

Some of the guilders never came in despite having a tab with his Bodega. He was only able to extend so much grace to them. The cards cost nothing for him to make. He could charge money and not have to immediately pay a supplier or a vendor. At the same time, things were cheaper now than they had been.

It was all due to the supply and demand. There was a lot of supply of pizza rat cards and not much demand. In fact, the only people that wanted cards couldn't pay for them because they couldn't get credits.

He took money on behalf of the TSA in order to buy buildings. On paper the city was paying him to do this thing and he was eventually supposed to return their money with interest. Or rather their credits. In reality, the poor humans should be constantly battling just to get more cards to give to the man and woman next to them but then there was no profit in that. Humans loved talking about a profit margin or whatever it was that they did.

Ashley handed over two hundred credits. "This will get you halfway."

Kate was busy checking her screen. "Janet can you check and see if the police are done there?"

It hadn't been too long. He was itching to do something about it but he didn't know if he could make them move any faster than he were and even if they could, they probably wouldn't. It was one thing being friends with them but then it was a far different thing to interrupt them during their actual work time.

It wasn't really him doing anything. He didn't want to be seen as checking up on them or trying to keep tabs and the police officers because that might raise questions. All he wanted was to know was if he could buy the damn building or not.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Janet came back. "It will be some time, boss. We should be able to get the 200 credits in short order."

"Very well," Bagel said, putting his head on his paws.

By this time, Ashley and Katie got comfortable in the shop and had begun drinking Blue Ox straight off the shelves.

What was a little bit of free food between friends, especially when it cost to nothing more than the usage of one of his cards?

It wasn't that difficult for him to just swipe past his current hand of cards and restock the drinks.

Dozens of drinks appeared, taking the spots that had been once occupied by other bottles and cans. They were the same ones and they followed a pattern that had been established by the old owner. There was no variation, just the same stuff that had been there before. In fact, when he tried to change it, it didn't change. It wasn't lucky. He was going to find a new supplier for a brand new Ox drink in the apocalypse but he did like the option of being able to change his stock up.

That was neither here nor there.

He'd been through enough drinks now and enough refreshes to know that the humans didn't really care. They would just buy whatever it was. But it took them awhile to buy some of the more niche drinks like his kombucha never sold out no matter what.

Milk always went away immediately as well as some of the cola drinks. It was like they had trained themselves to drink only certain things.

Humans were odd.

---

"I think he needs some space," Kate said, patting the cat one last time. "We'll be back."

The purring didn't stop when Ashley got up, but the cat did move. Meatball wasn't around, and for some reason, Ashley now wanted to look for her but... It was probably nothing. She had opted out of the mission to the most recent building.

"Meatballs really been doing well for herself, huh?"

"She's been hitting the dungeons like she's trying to get some sort of award for it," Kate said. She dodged one of the omega rats electric attack as her mob took it down. Further down the street, Ashley's gentrifier crab smashed another into paste with one hit.

"It's really satisfying to see that thing take something down especially... Well, even after all this time," Ashley said.

They had range all the way down to forty second street where somebody had to take up the spot. There were now sign up sheets next to the spawn points and lots of painted lines showing exactly what would spawn.

Below them the stats for the Omega rats were pasted.

---

Omega rat (upgrade to Pizza rat) HP 120, two electric energy

30 damage per enemy

Weakness ground
Scavenger: Omega Rat can use any energy type

---

"Someone went through the trouble of making a entire thing to spray on here. Then they went and tagged every single one of these. Or at least if once I can see," Ashley said. "This is like those no honking signs. You never expect to see him but you also wonder if they are going to do anything."

Kate put her backpack down, then sheepishly pulled out a spray paint can with one hand from her adventurers bag of holding.

"You didn't...."

With her other hand she pulled up the same description made of a sheet of plastic with specific cutouts for her to spray through. The sheet itself was the size of a piece of paper, but the blocky letters were the same. It showed wear. Or at least it showed consistent usage if the paint meant anything.

"You did! Holy shit I didn't think that anyone was actually doing this. Did you get this paint when you went back to your apartment?"

"I mean yeah. I figured we might want to to spruce up the place and what better thing to do than to leave markings? Where the mobs spawn..." Kate put the pieces back into her pack. "I don't even know why I am holding these. I mean I wanted to- it's stupid but-"

Ashley came up to her, made the motion for Kate to bend down and kissed her. "It's adorable."

Kate held her up. Or more like it, Kate wouldn't let her go. And it was tempting to break the embrace, but no more omega rats were around.

Enough humans had had shown up to defeat them. Someone had to take the job seriously and when all you had to do was defeat a few of them to get a full deck that mattered.

There was incentive to actually finish the little guys off even if it meant beating them with a frying pan or something. Although she hadn't seen that in particular, if she's seen a lot of ingenious ways for people to destroy a mob or two.

Kate released her slowly, as if this was going to change something between them. "So you're not mad about this. Because I got a lot more cans of paint."

"I am not mad about this and if this is the way that I get to go see your apartment for the first time then I will take that as an opportunity."

Ashley had been figuring out so many little pieces of information about her new girlfriend.

They went on short controlled exploratory trips here and there, but she never actually stood it in the women's apartment. The fact that she lived on the other side of Manhattan meant that it wasn't going to be easy getting there and back.

It was eight blocks or so away. Close enough to take a bike but far enough that they would get inundated with mobs if they weren't careful. Going that far itself was impressive enough without a bus, but most New Yorkers had no issues walking all over.

It was the mobs.

The mobs and the lack of a certain cross town bus happened to stop on forty second street all the way down.

To Ashley's great surprise, the bus was running. She didn't say anything to the police officer standing by the door but he looked unhappy to be there to say the least. The driver was not wearing a normal bus driver uniform.

"We're doing a loop around midtown. The bus is free but we do take donations," the haggard police officer said.

They got on taking it towards midtown. Ashley was vibing. She hadn't gone that far recently.

This felt safe and was actually going to above even though the bus was accompanied by two deck bearers that weren't them meant that at least the city was taking something seriously.

"I swear that I saw more cars to it than I did yesterday. I know it's about out. Probably everyone's giving up on their cars unless they're electric because gas usually not going to lift fuel up. The city bus might be early transportation for a while."

Actually squeezed her hand. " Do you think that the buses actually go back to New Jersey? I wonder if Mom spawn into the Lincoln tunnel. Could you imagine that? Monsters spawning and then destroying these man-made tunnels. How the hell are we going to get off of Manhattan if we don't do that. I mean we don't have to but we should be able to right?"

There were only a few other people on the bus and thankfully, the driver had some music playing that at least Joanne if nothing else.

This was a rhythm and blues bus and both women were vibing to it. It was almost like the city was back up and it's two or three map stations were still working. They weren't but they could be... Still back in the world in the time before.