"You want me to do what? Say that again?" Bagel didn't believe it.

"Your cans."

Bagel rolled his eyes.

"Is this some human euphemism that I'm too cat to understand?"

"No. Apparently we need casing for what we're doing and aluminum will work instead of brass when we can't get that."

Ashley wasn't standing over him but her glare was a bit more intense than he was used to.

"So you want me to tell people to... Recycle?"

She handed over the sign.

---

Cans? Recycle them for the war efforts at the adventurers guild

---

"I guess I have no problems with that. I don't... So the cans are going to become things that you fire from a gun?"

Ashley showed him the prototype shell. More than anything it looked like a tiny shot glass.

"Is that supposed to look like something?" Bagel sniffed at it several times. It was just a cylinder. Humans were so odd.

If only they would just take more naps they would be great.

But time and time again they had all decided not to do that to his detriment. "You know in some countries before the integration they would just have naps during the day? You ever think of that?"

"That would be exactly the idea. Once we have this sorted out, I'll be right on that."

"I heard that they make you more handsome."

"I'm not worried about that."

Bagel gave her a look. "You should be. Only the handsomest boys get Lizas chicken."

"I'm pretty sure that they just give the chicken to whoever shows up to dinner but sure if that's what you need to believe then stick with that."

Bagel was pretty sure that only the handsomest boys got that but he was going to have to confirm with Liza later. This was the kind of disturbing change that he was not going to be a party to. In his new world order, chicken is only for the best boys, the handsmith ones. And even though Ashley had been great to him, she was not the handsomest boy.

In fact he even doubted she was a boy at all. She had never smelled like one.

"So put the sign up and then direct people to where to recycle it? Easy."

"That's really all I needed except for I think I'll have a chicken parm."

His cook got up from the bench and began to prep a sandwich.

"This one's on the house."

"Aren't they all? We do bring you a lot of business. In fact do you have any new cards in stock?"

Bagel moves over to the display. No longer was it a cardboard sign next to a stack of pizza rat cards. He still had the stacks but he only displayed one of each of the ones that he had a lot of stock in. They now kept hundreds of cards under the counter in large locked boxes that the humans called safes.

"We just got a new shipment from someone that went upstate? The artwork for this one is ridiculous but apparently the mob is summons is a giant bear covered in rocks so pretty formidable."

"That actually sounds great. Shoot where are those from?"

"Upstate."

"Upstate like the Bronx?"

Bagel looked at his AI. The sphere took a second to process.

"According to the seller this was found by Bear Mountain. They had a bunch of them and we bought them all."

Ashley grunted. "Fuck I would have loved to go up there. I wonder if it's safe to traveles up there now."

"You should probably talk to the NYPD. They're talking about trying to open up buses again or something."

Ashley nodded. "We got a mission to escort a bus so I was tracking that things were looking a little bit better, but I think that they need to clear the route every time they want to use it, which means not everyone's going to want to use it."

"It would be pretty devastating if they got rolled immediately," Bagel said. "I can't imagine why, and I definitely need to buy up more of the streets if that's going on."

"When you buy up the streets do the mobs that would have spawned there go someplace else? Is that how it works? I never really understood that."

Bagel was once again at a loss. He looked to Janet for some sort of guidance.

"The amount of bonds is directly tied to the amount of people in an area according to several studies that people have put on the internet. As in, there's a limited number of mobs based on how many humans there are that will appear."

"That sounds both reassuring and also terrifying. There's millions of people here. So if you buy out the land no way if you buy up the roads then the buildings might start getting spawn points. We've seen buildings with spawn points inside of them..."

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Ashley watched as the cook flipped something on the grill over. It was probably some sort of breaded chicken. That was what she'd ordered, right? Bagel was sure that he had already forgotten.

His stomach rumbled.

It would have been too easy for him to order something from his own grill but he didn't really want much and at that exact moment, all he was thinking about was how things would change if the mobs spawn inside of buildings instead of on the street.

Two men walked into the Bodega accompanied by a butler mob. It was almost certainly Copernicus companion card. Bagel gritted his teeth.

The Copernicus had tried to settle in but he was also trying to recruit.

"Mr. Bagel, Sir," one of the men said addressing him with a flourish. "The Jellyside Layer private equity firm would love to set up shop in the newest acquisition. Please let us know if we are able to begin offering services out of that location... 816 second avenue."

The two men and companion mob waited for his words. Bagel knew that he should have an answer but he was expecting Copernicus to actually talk to him. Up to now, they hadn't really had any issues with that. But if Copernicus was feeling paranoid, this is how I would show it. Bagel resolved to let this one pass but perhaps in a few days when they had their meetings he might bring it up. He didn't want to concern the other cat but this felt like an undue layer of protection.

"You guys work for Copernicus?" Bagel said.

"I'm Levi," the tall man in front said. "That's Mikey."

Mikey nodded. He had brown skin, dark black hair and a bushy moustache that only a gay man could love. Levi was just tall and gangly. Because of course Copernicus was going to hire the tallest guys that he could.

Both men were the standard adventurers guilt card. This was probably two men that he had picked up off the street to test them out before he hired them. Long-term. That would explain why the companion mob was with them.

Plus they looked like they were ready for business if that business was going to a modern-day dungeon and delving it for its secrets and loot.

Even though neither one looked like that, they were very intimidating, there was something about having them there with Copernicus' companion mob that gave them an air of legitimacy.

Legitimacy even in a somewhat scooting the rules type of organization. It wasn't out. Not criminal, but it was very unlikely that the city was going to approve of anything that Jellyside Layer did.

"I have no issues renting out the appropriate offices. You guys there. Just go through and pick out something you want. I assume that copernicus is going to be sleeping there as well. That's really on him to decide what he wants to do with that. He is of course, welcome to stay above. This building. Will be securing the rest of that block as soon as we can."

"Do you have any particular timeline for that?" Levi said.

"I don't have a particular timeline but as soon as I can clear out the next two set of buildings on that block, we will be buying it. Janet is just waiting for them to be cleared so that she can buy them up. You are more than welcome to help in the building clearing efforts. There wasn't a lot of resistance in that first building, despite how large it was. People were very interested in not having mobs nearby them."

Both men visibly relaxed.

There were a few people with mob detection skills. Those were able to pinpoint any hiding mobs inside of a larger area. It hadn't really come into play in turtle Bay and now Bagel was really wondering why that was. Not only why it was like that, but how other areas used that knowledge and then found the holdouts.

Mobs were generally not smart. Some humans had openly speculated in his shop that there might be smarter mobs somewhere. Bagel had not seen any evidence thus far of this. He could only hope. There was always a possibility that at some point in time they would see newer or more advanced mobs showing up. Based on the mobs that they've seen so far, Bagel had no idea where that was heading.

"Do you want something on the first floor?" Bagel said. "I feel like I'm going to be getting asked for the first floor lots. There was some sort of learning store there but I think that you might want an office on the second floor? Something out of the way?"

Levi and Mikey both look at each other and shrugged. Neither one of them was very invested in where it was. This meant that Copernicus had not given them a particular instructions. So bagel was able to just dictate where they're going to go and let them know that they could change to a different one later.

They left for the promise to let him know which one they chose and once they were done.

Ashley walked back over, deepthroating a chicken sandwich. Her bite was legendary.

She chewed for a bit. "You look like you want more minions. You can always hire some more people from the adventurers guild. Not everyone can delve dungeon the whole time and now they're going to be pushed out further and further the more that you buy of lots of land."

Bagel perked up.

He hadn't consider hiring people on a more long until that point, but it made sense. Raul already came in based into the bodega as part of the deal. Khaleesi was somebody he couldn't say no to because of Raul. 'S. Their parents worked at the guild next door because they were not that many jobs and they wanted to do something. But there had to be other humans that could do lesser tasks for him.

Heck he could just hire Meatball. But she was too valuable to use on these kinds of things. He knew the human that was a bit apathetic to to the larger going us on of the world and who would stay focused on whatever inane task that Bagel put in front of them. There were definitely things that would benefit from having a human touch on them instead of his own touch. Humans could have their own deck cards and bagel could even outfit actual human workers with full decks if they came to work for him.

He had the perks. He had the options. Now he just needed to figure out who to trust.

There were only so many options. "Ashley, can you do me a huge favor and find some people that would be willing to work for me?"

"When you say for me are you talking about the Bodega? Or are you talking about something else?"

She wasn't right on a lot of silly side layers, private equity acquisitions. She definitely wasn't a party. How much more he would be buying for the new perk he'd gotten. But if he wants to do things long-term, he was going to need some sort of base of people working for him. Copernicus hired people. He needed to get his own crew going.

"I want them to work for me, not the store. I guess I kind of want some assistance but I'm not sure what I want them to do. Just seeing Copernicus with his own people. Made me think that I could hire somebody to do stuff to make my day easier."

"It sounds like you're trying to diversify what you're doing. I admire that. I will screen some people and send them over. Do you want an official quest for this or is this going to be off the books?"

"Strictly off the books? That sounds like I'm going to pick that one. I don't know what's going to come out of this but..."

"You don't have to tell me. I get it. You want them here for a what; four hours at a time or something? If they're in the guild then I need them to actually clear monsters for a part of their day. Unless they're going to be working with you on reducing the amount of spawns in the area, I kind of need them to also do their four hour shift for us."

Working for eight hours a day sounded ridiculously busy. Bagel could not imagine the kind of place that would make people wait for that long. It had to be some sort of hellish landscape that provided the opportunity for this kind of thing to happen.

What even could somebody do in eight hours if they weren't cooking constantly. There were tons of ebbs and flows in the times that his cook would would make things. Most notably, there was a breakfast, fresh and lunch rush and a dinner rush. But outside of that, there weren't that many times that grill was fully occupied.

It didn't make sense for him to hire somebody for that, especially when he had a mob doing that. He had two cooks in his deck that he would use as much as possible. He had workers but he could only have three of those total out at the same time. Unless he took a perk when he got to level seventy five to allo him to have a fifth summon on the board, he wouldn't

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