Bodega Cat (System Apocalypse, Deck Builder, Litrpg)

Jellyside layer was finally making an effort to contact him in earnest. He was ready to say no to wherever they had to offer unless they offed him something good. It was tempting for him to say that he would turn them down but he was willing to entertain them.

When a business cat came to you, it couldn't hurt to turn them down or at least asked him a question. And that was all he was going to do. He was going to ask him a question or two. He didn't need them anymore. They needed him and wanted him.

So when Copernicus showed up himself, Bagel wasn't surprised. He knew it was up. He expected them to all show up.

But in the end it was just Copernicus, Bagel and Meatball.

"Are you sure he's going to show up?" Meatball said. The calico cat looked like she was seeing a ghost.

"He'll show up," Bagel said. "We just made things complicated for him."

The cat himself instead of sitting on top of his valet. It was a mob the shape of a human who it would take a minute of cognitive dissonance to verify.

Copernicus looked to be in a foul mood. "I had to go through a checkpoint to come here? I didn't know how much power you had."

"Would you believe me if I told you that the checkpoint had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the adventurers guild wanting to hold this land?"

"But still. I didn't want anyone to notice that I was here and now there's an official record of me passing through. I guess there's nothing to be done about it."

Meatball stretched out on second avenue.

They had chosen the meeting place on purpose, they were in the middle of the road. 2nd avenue had once been a very fast moving road. Now, it was virtually shut off to traffic by chain link, fencing and concrete walls. These were the first on defense against the mobs that would spawn outside and then work their way in if they could. Inside, people are safe. People are so safe that he saw somebody wearing no shoes and walking around. Bagel, never want to judge. Would have one shoes if he was a human. He wasn't which meant that he could only grin a little bit. He would grin and perhaps talk to Meatball about it later.

"If there was some way for us to work together on this it would be most appreciated. I will not take this as a slight as this was not your fault, but I am seriously considering moving to be inside of the safe zone."

Bagel raised one eyebrow. It was no secret that the cat who ran jelly side private equity lived in the financial district. It wasn't something that the city wasn't interested in. They hadn't really done anything that was actually a crime. And Bagel kept finding himself that crimes really only mattered. When someone could take the time to punish you. They would have to catch you as well.

There was no way for them to figure out what he was doing with his credits and because so many things were locked behind the system, there was no transparency either. He could do whatever he wanted with the money he got. Jana kept a ledger. A ledger was just a series of numbers and a certain order. Who was he to say that the numbers are right or wrong. He just took with the stuff that people gave him and the stuff that the adventures gave him and he used it for what it was supposed to be used for. All the rest of the money that he made from selling cards and food and a shop, that was his problem. He was not going to let somebody else tell him what to do with his money. Especially when he had done so much good for the city

Copernicus still looked uneasy.

"Maybe you could accelerate your plans to come here and live in the negative space, apartment and building?" Meatballs towing made it sound like she actually wanted the the other cat to show up. He wasn't sure why, but he was pretty certain that he that Copernicus would turn that down. Was great for managing the privacy firm, but he was not the best interpersonal communications.

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It wasn't like a cat too to study up on how to talk to other cats. If you want to talk to a cat, he just did it. He didn't ask them for permission. And in this way, big I could see that if he offered it, Copernicus would take it. But he felt that well. He knew how Copernicus felt.

"Copernicus. You can come here with us if you don't feel safe. We understand how things may have evolved over the last 2 months but we are a family before all else."

With those words the cat kind of slumped. Bagel had not expected that.

It wasn't some Epiphany that the cat was having. It was the existential crisis of not knowing if he was going to live. Just like Bagel didn't know if he was going to live, it was probably the same thing for Copernicus. Behind all the bluster and all the pride and joy and everything there was the same rugged fear that itched underneath Bagels fur.

"I should be making my way up here to safety but-I don't know what I'm doing," Copernicus said.

Bagel purred. Here in the street, with no cars around and no honking, his life felt peaceful. For the first time in so many weeks, mobs were not able to spawn anywhere near him. Buying a up land also suppressed dungeons from being created there. It was something that he had been doing for them but now he knew it really helped him as well.

"You're safe here. You don't have to leave if you don't want to."

Relief flooded the older cat's eyes. Bagel knew that he had the cat eating out of his food bowl.

Meatball cuddled up next to Copernicus. Was it odd that meatball cuddled up next to what was in effect her grand boss? Bagel decided he wouldn't dwell on that. He didn't want to ascribe to human issues with how they set up themselves. If they were going to be like that then he was not going to have any part of it. It wasn't his problem, what they did. They did what they did and the cats were going to do what the cats did.

And what they had done so far was survive.

"Did you know we made a new cat?" Meatball said. "Well Bagel did he didn't introduce me until recently."

Copernicus stopped purring. "That's another thing. None of the cats that we've awakened want any part of this. They're all trying to do their own thing."

"They didn't have a strong mantle card to tie everything together in their decks, did they?"

"We lost so many..."

Bagels blood went cold. He knew that they were going to start recruiting and training other cats to be deck bearers. Or at least they were going to attempt to have those cats join them. Being able to know what happened. Every awakened animal that he had encountered had his own agenda and none of them had the same focus at the humans did.

"If we're going to survive this as a species then we need to work together to carve out something for our kittens."

"Carve out something for our kittens?" Copernicus finally looked like he was ready to resume their talk. A brief cuddle with me. Ball was always nice. He would have done it himself but she beat him to it and Bagel felt hesitant to cuddle up to Copernicus. He looked up to the older cat.

"We say we're going to do it for the kittens but how many of us are going to actually have kittens?" Meatball said. " Both the male and female cat have to be willing. I couldn't do it."

Bagel hadn't even broached the topic before. He didn't know if he wanted to have children. And even if he did, what would he have?

It was sounded more and more like he was going to be raising somebody else's child. Anyway, with the amount of time that Khaleesi spent at his shop. He was very happy that she was able to use her deck bearer powers to build things, including his negative space apartment building.

He was going to need more than that. If every cat in Manhattan came by and tried to live in his apartment, he putting people to house them. But if he added cats over time one by one and expanded the apartment suitably and perhaps even added a floating ferry for the cats to live in, then he would be doing really well.

He just needed the money. He just needed private equity to come in and do something. He needed Copernicus and his expertise.

"I think that we need to talk about Staten Island," Bagel said.

Copernicus composed himself. He had clearly been read up on the details and bagel talked to Copernicus for a while about his idea of using the ferry and paying for the ferry with funds that he's gotten by killing mobs and from adventurers guild pay him fees for his food and services. He got even to the point where he was telling him where he would suggest Khaleesi to start building and that was when Copernicus realized the breath of how much work they were going to be putting in.

"It sounds like a large undertaking. Are you sure you are up for it?"

As much as Bagel know the answer, he could admit that he's been tired and distant since the last dungeon surge. The way the humans calculated it they would have a third one soon within a month. And if so, there would be one if we month until they got us under control. Beta was ready for everything to be under control.

Unfortunately, it took meeting the diverse cast of people from other boroughs and had been bought up in the eyes of the system. If you can get the whole neighborhood covered then they would move on to other less important places. However, if they got attacked by poisonous flying mobs, they were going to prioritize that over all those other things.

It was just what you did. He killed the flying poisonous monkey as fast as he could.