She and Ree Shil, each carrying a large plastic bag, were walking toward them.
"Little Apricot! I knew you would be here!"
"You little devil, do you have any idea how worried we've been?!"
"As long as you're safe, that's all that matters."
The Ghostfire Brothers were overjoyed on the spot.
"Cute Mushroom?"
The turn of events had Mossy Mushroom utterly flabbergasted.
However, before it had a chance to speak, the ground began to rumble slightly.
It was as if... a large crowd was rushing their way.
Next came the cacophonous roars.
[Aooo! xN]
[Aoo Aoo Aoo! xN]
[Aoo Aoo! xN]
Clusters of red-eyed Zombie Beasts were pouring in from the market entrance.
Ghostfire Eldest Brother: "This isn't good, it's a Zombie Beast flood!"
Ghostfire Second Brother: "They seem to be charging right at us!"
Ghostfire Third Brother: "Quick! Find a place to hide!"
"Something isn't right, there weren't that many Zombie Beasts on the street when we drove in."
Ree Shil put the bag down and, gripping Little Apricot, started to dash deeper into the supermarket.
"That's because they usually hide inside buildings!"
"They only come out in hordes during their rampage periods!"
"Plus, during their rampage periods, their awareness becomes exceedingly sharp!"
The Ghostfire Brothers explained as they ran.
In the blink of an eye, the fire truck blocking the supermarket entrance was jostling from the Beasts forcing their bodies through.
Some slithered underneath, others clambered onto the top, a sizable amount had already infiltrated.
The sight was enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
Even if the strawman combat power was formidable, there's no way it could fend off this many Zombie Beasts.
If you looked around, you could clearly see there were hundreds of them.
"Run, Grass!"
"We're screwed. We shouldn't have taken the hidden mission!"
The Straw Man and Mossy Mushroom were fleeing for their lives as well.
"I know there's a backdoor to the supermarket, maybe we can escape that way!"
The Ghostfire Eldest Brother suggested as he ran.
But as soon as he finished speaking, the whole space around them seemed to freeze instantly.
Ree Shil could see the shocked expressions on Ghostfire Brothers and Little Apricot's faces solidify.
Their movements had completely stilled, as if someone had pressed the pause button in a movie. Even the Ghostfire Second Brother seemed to be hanging in mid-air.
A swarm of Zombie Beasts, a few dozen meters behind them, were also stuck in place.
Even their dribbling saliva was hanging in mid-air.
He reached out to pick up a package of jelly from the shelf beside him, but it wouldn't budge - as if it was firmly stuck to the shelf.
Besides him, the Straw Man and the Mossy Mushroom were also unaffected by the Time-space Freeze.
"..."x3
The clueless man, straw and mushroom stared at each other in silence.
"This... appears to be a PVE scene."
Eventually, Mossy Mushroom was the one to identify it correctly.
Whoosh!
Sure enough, a few seconds later, a blue light pillar as thin as a finger fell from the sky.
It hit the ground right in the middle of the three of them and the Zombie Beast flood.
Humming...
Accompanied by the sound of space distortion, the light column began to rapidly expand.
Soon, the blue light had enveloped both the three of them and the swarm of Zombie Beasts.
A large blue light card table was forming.
"I heard that in some instances, when facing certain plots, a PVE scene will appear."
"We're supposed to battle the enemies by playing cards."
"It seems that taking the hidden mission might have triggered this scene."
Mossy Mushroom explained.
...
...