Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

The man in front of Bagel probably needed therapy.

"So you need more money. I can't just... Give you a ninety percent discount," Bagel said.

"And if I wanted to take that who is going to stop me?"

Bagel shrugged. "Did you miss the giant police trailer set up outside? Or did the system take your brain when I gave you a deck?"

"In fact you know what get out."

"What?" the man asked.

"Get out. I don't need to sell anything to you. You can buy a starter deck somewhere else. I have no need for someone's going to come in here and threaten me."

The man threw his hands up and walked out. The grumbling was loud enough to be heard from the inside.

Bagel was more than happy to play a party to anybody who was rude or inconsiderate, but he did not have an allowance for people who were going to just start right try to steal from him. That was not something he would be allowing anyone to do to him at any point in time in the near future.

If his Bodega was going to be known for selling starter decks then he was going to have to figure out a way to get people to not try to steal an entire deck. There was power in getting an entire deck at one go. It was the reason that his cards were in stacks just aligned for starter decks. These were generally for new guild members who had to sign on to repay them.

If people could just come in and grab them from behind the counter? It would be chaos.

They were behind glass.

If not? All they would have to do would be to put them into an arrangement of ten, put them on top of their chest and then the cards would be absorbed into them and they would become a deck bearer. He was not interested in that at all. People had to pay for their decks.

All he wanted to do was sell cards to people for a markup that ensured that he would stay in business.

With other people bringing credits just to use to buy other buildings, eventually he might be able to get his foothold into the realm of power.

That was of course, Manhattan real estate, a game that only the truly powerful used to be able to play.

Somebody had to build these buildings and someone had to maintain them and he might as well be the one to make a profit off of them.

Bagel didn't know who he would talk to about this. On one hand, the man was an adventurer. He had tried to pay with cash.

It had been a while since the system came. This far into it, most people paid with credits. He wasn't against the idea of taking money in the form of cash, but the system wasn't going to give him credits for cash. It was simply a human thing to think that their paper money was worth something, when it was all digital now.

In fact he really thought about it. How much it would take for him to convert money into credits as he had at the beginning and now, it didn't seem like a kindness that he extended but...

"Janet, I don't think we're going to be accepting cash for cards anymore."

"Understood boss," the AI drone said. "We had a betting pool as to how long you would take to make that decision and I am pleased to say that meatball won that."

Bagel looked around. Besides his summoned mobs, there wasn't anyone in the store. In fact, had the man actually attacked, he would have been able to attack with two cooks and a worker easily.

"What if they do that again?" Janet said.

" If they do that again? I don't know. It does mean that we're going to need to make sure they can't just swipe cards."

There was so many cards in the shop by this point that he had several bins with an image of each of the cards inside of it. The largest bin, of course being the pizza rack hard and the second largest being the mascot one is that one wasn't heavy demand and even though it was empty at this moment. The girls had gone out earlier that day in order to just get more to sell to him.

Then there were utility cards in their own bucket and several of the neighborhoods that were close by each had their own. The one that the man wanted was a weee-house card.

The police said said that they would buy it but he wanted to sell at least to somebody.

"Do we still have a line on somebody who's going to go down to where they can just farm Warehouse cards?"

"It was McTavish, Boss. The scotsman took the note about heading over to West Virginia. Last we checked, he went figuring out some way to drive there and drive back on his own."

He even had a name for his activities that he had been circulating.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Ah. The Great American road trip. Hard pass."

"Noted."

Even though it sounded nice, Bagel had never wanted to go on such a thing. Why leave the comforts of second avenue for any reason ever?

Leaving the city was for suckers. Leaving the block was overrated.

"Boss, I have the build department guy on external camera now. You want me to pretend to know nothing this time?"

Bagel didn't need to check the camera feeds. He knew the man by smell. The utter depravity of the man smelled like peanut butter and hot ass. He didn't like either smell but peanut butter was the worse one. Or it could have been the baked ass.

"No I can handle this. However, please give me option sixty five."

The door swung open and the man was fully enveloped in sweat. The effects of summer were still in swing, if the wet marks around his collar were to be believed.

"Good day to you," he said, then began shivering. "Has it always been this cold?"

Something that Bagel had found out early on was that he could change the air conditioning temperature of the bodega at well with Janet's help. There was a thermostat on the wall that he could affect and he kept and set to a cool even temperature usually. But when he wanted to change to a absolute fridge temperature he told Janet how he wanted it and since he wanted to freeze the guy out, the best way would be to make him come in and feel a total drop of temperature. It was about 80° outside so the fact that it was a nearly 20° drop for the man meant that he was instantly shivering.

He probably shouldn't have worn such thin clothing if you wanted to go into the Bodega, but that was how things were.

"I'm here from the building department and we need to talk about all these extensive modifications you got. And now I tried to pull your permit from the city and I see it's been mislabeled. Joe, we're going to need you to get that into compliance as soon as possible. I understand that there is some sort of existential threat going on, but that doesn't take a backseat to safety and the need for a safe New York City."

Bagel sat there and observed the man tried quote the entire book of building codes to him as if he were at poetry slam.

Bagel did not want to be a sailor on the treacherous tides of bureaucracy. He didn't even want to be a paddler on a canoe of paperwork. He barely wanted to be located near the East River but he was.

"Meow."

"Look Mr. Bagel. I understand that you you know what I'm saying. Because you have someone mobs behind you and your AI shop assistant is right there. And she followed the paperwork but she was missing form F. So I'm going to have to have you refile and we'll have you reinspected and if anything is out order then it's going to be on you. Do you understand?"

Bagel purred.

"The outside is not up to code and if this was free system then I wouldn't even be blinking an eye at how you got so much done in so fast. But apparently this is the thing you can do now with construction mobs so good for you." He was doing his best to appear unruffled, Bagel was now sure of it.

He was failing. "Mr. City inspector, it would appear that you look very thirsty. Perhaps you would like one of my fine beverages."

The man looked at the drinks, looked at the cat and sighed. He raised a hand to say something as if he was about to uncover one of the mysteries of the universe and then instead had a brain fart. Bagel held back a chuckle. It wasn't nice to make fun of people in front of them.

But he sure wanted to.

He let the impulse go. He already was on thin ice with the cities building department. He didn't want to stretch that out any further.

"I think I'll take something."

"Excellent. This one is on the house because we love to support our strong city workers."

The man shrugged. "Just get your papers filed correctly this time and we won't be on about this."

Bagel purred.

The man took his time deciding what to take as a free beverage. Big boys. I was curious of the people that decided that they wanted one of the esoteric blends and when the man took a specific pineapple coconut water.

Some people had no taste.

Not Bagel, because he wasn't a person, but some of them did.

That made him think about getting some more baklava. It had been a little bit since he'd gone and over there and gotten something but now I was thinking about it and wouldn't that be just the right thing for such a hot day when nothing was going right?

The only problem he had was that Raul wasn't there or Khaleesi. Janet could hold on the fort but then he needs someone to ferry him across the street.

He just needed a sucker.

Kate wandered in and he locked eyes with her. "Oh hey, you look like you want something."

Kate was definitely the right person to ask for this. Before he knew it. They were across the street and into the Middle Eastern Cafe where unsurprisingly, the two men were still working and they still looked like their mother was working in the back making sure they were fed everyday.

"Gentlemen," Kate said. " I believe that Mr. Bagel here is interested in your wares."

The slightly larger brother smiled and prepared a box for Bagel. "Thanks for this."

Kate wouldn't sit still. Usually they required his mounts stay in one spot. But this one was wiggly. She didn't want to stay put and she was checking every single thing that they sold on the menu. All of the pastries were behind a undeserved glass pane.

Those pastries deserved to breathe and be in his mouth.

"Holy fuck you guys have everything. It's like the Apocalypse ever happened here. Do you guys have assistant power or something that is letting you do this? Did you get a card?" Kate was practically jumping up and down.

The two men looked at each other and then back at Kate and both shrugged.

"No special powers, just mom's cooking that's really all we got."

"Moms cooking huh? Can I have one of those?"

Kate held her hands out for a scrumptious piece of baklava. Bagel could taste it, his mouth opening to receive the bounty but then she popped it into her mouth instead. It was rude but then again they were making him a box of them to go so he wasn't going to complain too much.

"I would have enjoyed that," he said, matter of factly.

"Ohana means family," Kate said.

"What?"

"You're getting all of that goodness and I'm just trying to say," she smacked her lips. "Guys I am part of the adventurers guild that's over on second avenue and yeah we would like to put in an order. Do you take credits?"

"Credits we can do. A box like the one that we're giving him? Two credits?"

It felt like highway robbery. He would have had to kill two pizza rats to make so many credits.

"Wait that means one of you has a deck," Kate said. "Which means...?"

"I paid them in cards once," Bagel said. "There's nothing against paying people with cards when they don't have credits. Now they can take credits."

Kate flinched. "Did you both get decks of just pizza rat cards and omega rats?"

They nodded.

"Bagel. What are you doing? I haven't seen these guys out there killing mobs. Real people need these cards to keep New York safe."

"Hey!" The taller one said. "We have to keep our mom safe. We're the only ones she has. Shits fucked out there. Our dad got killed by a mob on the first day."

That took the wind out of Bagels sails. He wanted to say something. He needed to make an apology on her behalf. The humans had been on edge for so long that he didn't know where they would go back to or even if they should.

So he listened.