The store's PA system crackled to life.

A mechanical female voice spoke slowly, word by word. "Our customers will arrive in one minute. Staff, please get ready."

"Customers? What customers?"

The players looked completely lost.

Suddenly, one of them pointed at the soda he just poured out onto the floor.

"Why? Why did it turn red? I swear it was blue when I poured it!"

Another player jolted to his feet, staring at the snack bag in his hand in horror.

"I was eating popping candy. Ugh!"

It was popping candy, alright, except they were made of eyeballs, the kind that bursts with juice in your mouth.

More and more players realized something was wrong.

The fish jerky turned into tiny humanoid jerky, and the fruit roll-ups turned into tiny tongues.

To top it off, the shredded kelp tangled up in their mouths, only to be spat out as wriggling strands of living hair.

Gagging and vomiting erupted everywhere.

One of the players pulled out an Anomaly Detector.

As the stench of blood thickened, the device began to shriek.

"Warning! Boss approaching! Evacuate immediately! Evacuate immediately!"

A player's voice trembled.

"That's at least S-rank!"

"No! It's SSS-rank!" someone shouted. "And there's more than one of them!"

Gavin rushed straight to me, yanked the cloth from my mouth, and pressed a knife against my throat.

"Did you secretly tip them off?"

I frowned. "I didn't. I've been trying to tell you from the start! They were coming to shop. You just wouldn't let me talk."

"Then what are we supposed to do now? It's your fault for not saying anything earlier! If you can't come up with a solution, I'll kill you right now!"

Gavin grabbed my hair violently, his eyes wild, waving the knife like a madman. It seemed as if he'd stab me the very next second.

I needed this job, which meant I absolutely could not afford to die in the game.

Enduring the pain, I suddenly said, "I can help you."

He froze, then loosened his grip.

The players immediately crowded around me and asked, "How?"

I stood up and pulled out a carton of mystery boxes from under the counter.

"Each of you, open one."

They eyed it suspiciously, reading the label out loud.

"Pop Forge? What's this supposed to do?"

Calmly, I replied, "Why don't you try it and find out?"

The timer was almost up. They did not dare hesitate any longer.

Each of them tore open a mystery box.

They clutched the figurines they got as if their lives depended on them.

The very next second, the first wave of real customers arrived.

A hanged vengeful spirit boss in embroidered shoes floated in. She had two bloody holes where her eyes should be. However, her voice was oddly sweet.

"Ms. Thrushwood, I even changed into a new pair of shoes before coming, you know. Did the eyeball-popping candy I ordered arrive? I really wanted to."

She paused for a moment, then exploded. "What the hell? Who threw my eyeball-popping candies on the floor?"

She let out a piercing shriek as black blood streamed from her empty sockets.

The players squeezed their eyes shut, but still got hit by her sudden close-range stun effect.

Staring straight into those two bloody holes, their sanity plummeted.

"Who ate my eyeball-popping candy? I'm taking an eye for an eye!"

She slowly extended her hand.

The player in front of her lost control, watching in terror as his own hand reached toward his eyes.

The next instant, furious howling echoed again from behind.

"My spicy human jerky!"

The siren boss appeared at the entrance, carrying a crate of deep-sea treasure.

When she saw her carefully ordered jerky trampled like trash, black mist erupted from behind her as she let out a soul-rending screech.

"Cover your ears!" Gavin screamed.

The players who just broke free from the vengeful spirit's stun clamped their hands over their ears, struggling desperately to hold on.

The next second, blood poured from their orifices as they collapsed in agony.

More and more bosses appeared at the entrance.

When they saw the devastation inside the supermarket, despair spread across their faces.

The crow boss, its body covered in over a hundred eyes, completely lost it.

"Where's my shaved ice? Is that gone too?"

That was when someone finally noticed me.

"Oh my god! Ms. Thrushwood is tied up! It has to be these damn players!"

"Wasting food and kidnapping the shopkeeper? This is unforgivable! I'm killing all of them!" one of them chimed in.

"Don't fight me for it! Do you have any idea how many years I've waited for this store to reopen?"

The bosses cursed at each other and somehow even started arguing over who would get the kills.

Meanwhile, the players around me were scared stiff.

Normally, they would run into maybe one boss a month, and even then, there were level restrictions.

An S-rank boss alone could wipe out a 500-person team without breaking a sweat. Yet now, there were this many SSS-rank bosses gathered in one place.

Just standing there was enough to make the players' sanity plummet.

Gavin barely held himself together and threatened me with his dagger.

"Hurry! Save us!"

I shot him a glance, stood up, and addressed the bosses.

"Everyone, calm down for a second. Have you forgotten? This supermarket is governed by rules. As long as we're inside, NPCs are not allowed to kill."

Otherwise, they would be punished by the system.

The bosses fell silent for a beat.

The next second, the vengeful spirit let out a furious scream. "I don't care! I'm killing them today!"

The other bosses hurried to grab her and talk her down.

"Hey, hey, easy now. Nobody's got it easy. If not for yourself, think about the other NPCs under you. If you get suspended, they lose their jobs too."

The crow plucked an eyeball off its own body and handed it over.

"I've got plenty. Have one to calm down."

Seeing this, Gavin exchanged looks with the other players and quietly let out a breath of relief.

If the supermarket had restrictions, then all they had to do was not leave.

Players had time limits when logged in.

As long as they could hold out another thirty minutes, they would be forced to log off.

By the time they logged back in, these bosses would definitely be gone.

And this was only an A-rank instance.

Once these overpowered bosses were gone, if they tried hard enough, escaping should not be a problem.

They started using whatever items they had to stabilize their sanity.

As long as they did not die, they could just heal their physical injuries.

But if their sanity dropped to zero, their real-world brains would suffer damage, leaving them broken, deranged, or even worse.

The bosses kept arguing, unwilling to let the players slip away unpunished.

But none of them dared risk their lives by breaking the rules.

Suddenly, the crow pointed at the figurines in the players' hands.

"Wait, those aren't Pop Forge's newest mystery boxes, are they?" the crow asked.

"Looks like it," one of the bosses replied.

"That's great. They even looted the mystery boxes. Then we don't need to worry. When she arrives, every last one of these players is dead."

The players had no idea what was going on.

They only knew that after the bosses glanced at the figurines in their hands, the arguing stopped.

Even the blood-heavy stench in the air seemed to fade.

Gavin was ecstatic.

So the mystery boxes really did work!

But a few minutes later, the players' Anomaly Detector exploded.

They froze in shock.

"The detector caps out at SSSS-rank," one of them muttered.

"Which means, there's a boss above SSSS-rank approaching," someone added.