Blurb：
Claire Rivers just wanted to win prize money, but ended up as the NPC cashier running a supermarket in a horror game. On her third day, players led by Liam storm in, destroy her carefully stocked inventory, and mock her weakness. Little do they know—today is NPC Employee Discount Day, and the supermarket’s real customers are about to arrive. Items like the Kraken’s abs jerky sticks and the Ghost Bride’s gummy ears reveal their true forms as the game’s Bosses draw near. When the clock chimes, the players learn too late: some discounts come with deadly fine print.
Content：
My third day as the NPC cashier in a horror game ended with the supermarket getting robbed.
Players stormed in, smashing the supermarket triumphantly.
Told you the owner was useless. She has zero combat skills.
Grab whatever you want, guys. Just kill the owner after.
My mouth was gagged. I shook my head in terror.
Players sneered, “Begging? It won’t help.”
I was not begging!
I was trying to tell them today was NPC Employee Discount Day!
In three minutes, all the game’s Bosses were coming here for the sale!
My name is Claire Rivers.
I wanted to win prize money in a horror game.
But I accidentally signed up as an employee running a supermarket for NPC.
Luckily, the employee benefits weren’t bad. So I mustered my courage and showed up for work.
On my first day, I realized that the customers were incredibly friendly and enthusiastic though… “creatively shaped”.
I learned that no one had run the supermarket for ages; my coming thrilled them.
Some NPC even helped me clean up and stock the shelves.
I spent three hours jotting down everything they wanted, then another whole day sourcing the inventory.
On my third day, I had meticulously organized everything and was waiting for my first batch of customers.
But I never expected a dozen players to come to my place first.
Armed with various weapons, they punched through my brand-new glass door, trampling my freshly mopped floor with blood-stained boots.
Before I could react, they rushed the counter and tied me up.
The leader Liam planted his boot on my shoulder, laughing,
“I knew this was a safe house.”
“All these supplies are ours now!”
His followers piled on the praise,
“Liam’s the man!”
Liam delivered a contemptuous kick to my gut,
“Id staked this place out for a whole day, fearing that the owners some new BOSS. It turns out to be just trash.”
The pain made me curl up, which made the other players smug,
“Never seen such a weak NPC before.”
“Let’s stab him a bunch of times later! Well film it and upload it!”
Liam barked, “Do whatever, just grab the supplies first!”
I frantically shook my head.
They couldnt touch anything! I got all the stock for the NPCs!
Every single item was something they’d begged me for, and Id promised them to bring back the stuff!
Liam just sneered,
“Begging? Pointless.”
“We kill players too, let alone a worthless NPC like you.”
They started ransacking the place.
They grabbed as much as they could and trampled the rest of things.
An entire day’s worth of sourcing had been destroyed underfoot.
“Hey, this place has good stuff! Spicy jerky sticks!”
A player ripped open a pack of jerky and stuffed it in his mouth.
Those weren’t ordinary jerky sticks.
Those were the “abs jerky sticks” the Kraken specifically ordered.
Another player exclaimed,
“Whoa, gummy bears! Though these shapes are weird…”
Of course they looked weird!
Those were the “gummy ears” the Ghost Bride ordered.
“Yo, guys! Check this out!”
“This seaweed salad goes perfect with the chips!”
They greedily shoveled food, eating half while throwing half away.
I glanced up at the clock. Time was up.
A strange, metallic scent of blood began to permeate the air.
The supermarket lights dimmed.
The battle-hardened players froze simultaneously.
Right then, the clock CHIMED.
The stores broadcast crackled to life.
A mechanical female voice announced,
“Customers arriving in one minute. Prepare for service.”
“Customers? What customers?” The players were confused.
Suddenly, one player pointed at the soda he’d just spilled on the floor.
“It… it turned red! Id poured out blue soda!”
Another player stood up in horror, pointing at his snack bag,
“I was eating popping candy… ugh!”
It was popping candy, made of eyeballs though — the kind that popped juicy with every bite.
More players realized what they’d been eating.
The jerky sticks became abs jerky sticks.
The gummy bears became gummy ears.
Some spit out the seaweed salad, which turned out to be squirming hair.
The sound and smell of vomiting filled the air.
One player was holding an “Monster Detector”.
As the bloody scent thickened, the detector shrieked,
“BOSS APPROACHING! EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY! EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!”
The player’s voice trembled,
“Its at least S-Class…”
“No! SSS-Class BOSS.”
“And not just one!”
Liam ripped the gag from my mouth and pressed his knife to my throat,
“Did you tip them off secretly?”
I frowned, “I didn’t!”
“I was trying to tell you they were coming to shop.”
“You wouldn’t let me talk.”
“What do we do now?!” Liam grabbed my hair, “This is your fault for not speaking up sooner! If you can’t figure a way out, I’ll kill you first!”
No! I couldnt die in this game. I needed the job.
I gritted through the pain, “I can help you.”
“How?”
I pulled a box of blind boxes from under the counter,
“Each of you, open one.”
“‘Bob Mart’? … What good is this?”
I said calmly, “Why not try and see?”
Time was almost up. Each of them desperately grabbed a blind box and tore it open.
They all clutched the figurines tightly as talismans.
Next second, the first real customers arrived.
The Ghost Bride chirped sweetly,
“Claire! I got new shoes just for this visit~”
“Is the eyeball popping candy I ordered in stock?”
“I’ve been dying to… DAMN IT! Who threw my eyeball popping candy on the floor?!” Her voice suddenly turned into a shriek. Black blood weeping from her sockets where eyes were supposed to be.
The players SAN plummeted.
“Who ate my eyeball popping candy?!”
“An eye for an eye!”
The Ghost Bride activated her ability.
A player in front of her watched in horror as his hand uncontrollably rose towards his own eyes.
Meanwhile, another anguished howl echoed in the supermarket,
“My abs jerky sticks!”
The Kraken was carrying a chest of deep-sea salvaged jewels at the entrance.
He saw the abs jerky sticks trampled like garbage on the floor.
A cloud of dark energy billowed from his back. He unleashed a soul-rending shriek.
“Cover your ears!” Liam yelled.
Players clamped their hands over their ears.
But the resistance turned out useless. Blood streamed from their noses and ears; most of them collapsed.
More Bosses arrived at the supermarket.
Seeing their ordered stock destroyed, despair washed over their features.
The Hundred-eyed Raven noticed me curled up at the corner,
“Holy crap! Claire is tied up!”
“It must be these damned players!”
“They kidnapped her and ruined the stock… utterly despicable! I’ll slaughter them all!”
“Don’t fight me for this, you have no idea how many years I’ve waited for this supermarket to open!”
The Bosses cursed and argued over who got to claim the kills.
The players were already petrified.
Usually, they encountered one BOSS a month of restricted level.
An S-Class could wipe out a 500-player squad easily.
Now, with so many SSS-Class Bosses together, those players’ SAN was nosediving.
Liam forced himself up and threatened me with his dagger,
“Quick! Save us!”
I cleared my throat and addressed the Bosses,
“Everyone, hold on.”
“You’ve forgotten the rules there.”
“NPC can’t kill anyone inside the supermarket.”
The Ghost Bride shrieked, “I don’t care! I’m killing them today!”
Other Bosses pulled her back, “Let it go, let it go. The punishments tough.”
“Think about your underling NPCs.”
“If you get suspended, they lose their jobs too.”
The Raven plucked an eye from its body,
“I’ve got spares. Snack on this for now.”
Liam and the other players exchanged relieved glances.
If the shop had restrictions, staying in it would be safe.
Plus, player sessions had time limits. They would be forced logging off after half an hour. When they logged back in, these Bosses would surely be gone.
Without these overpowered Bosses, they could escape this A-class instance with some effort then.
Now they put all their efforts on stabilizing their plummeting SAN with healing items.
Though the Bosses were restricted from killing them, if their SAN hit zero, their real brains would get severely damaged, leaving them in vegetable state.
The Bosses argued. They were definitely unwilling to let the players get away; but they couldn’t risk breaking the rules.
Suddenly, the Raven pointed at the figurines in the players’ hands.
“Are those… Bob Mart’s latest blind box figures?”
“It seems that theyre…”
“Perfect! If they’ve even taken the blind boxes, we don’t need to worry that they will escape.”
“When she arrives, these players are toast…”
The players didn’t understand. They saw the Bosses glance at their figurines and stop arguing. Even the bloody scent lessened.
Liam was ecstatic. The blind boxes did work!
However, minutes later, the Monster Detector exploded, which terrified all the players.
“What the hell! The detector maxes out at 4S-Class.”
“A BOSS above 4S-Class is approaching?!”
Before the words faded, the sharp click of high heels echoed in the distance.
Each step synced perfectly with everyone’s heartbeat.
A silvery laugh rang out, yet chilling everyone to the bone.
“It… it can’t be… the Final Instance BOSS?”
“What?! They say even the lowest NPC in that instance is S-Class!”
“We’re dead!”
Liam glared at the other players,
“Impossible! That instance runs almost 24/7! The BOSS would never just leave!”
The Ghost Bride burst into manic laughter,
“You have no idea how obsessed Boss Lady is with new collectibles.”
“LOL! You’re screwed now!”
Hearing “Boss Lady,” Liam collapsed, “N-no… it can’t really be her…”
Honestly, I didn’t really know who Boss Lady was.
Two days ago, she sent a minion to order blind boxes.
The minion practically begged me to secure them and said Boss Lady would be mad otherwise.
The minion was already an SSS-Class boss. I couldnt imagine how powerful Boss Lady was.
So, I deliberately let these players open the blind boxes to get them punished.
Boss Lady appeared in the doorway with curly hair and crimson lips.
Her smile vanished the instant she saw the trashed store.
Loving the drama, the Raven pointed at the players,
“Boss Lady, look over there.”
Boss Lady spun her head 280 degrees and discovered the figurines held by those players.
Veins visibly bulged on her forehead. The entire building began to shake violently.
“My. Blind. Boxes!”
I presented the empty blind box case on the counter and sighed,
“Theyre the latest Bob Mart blind boxes. It took me three hours to snag a set.”
“I told them it was reserved.”
“They wouldn’t listen and ripped them all open.”
Hearing this, Boss Lady lunged and grabbed the player holding the hidden variant by the throat,
“You son of a…”
The Ghost Bride shouted from behind,
“Boss Lady! Shop rules! No killing!”
Boss Lady sneered,
“Oh? Then I’ll lift the restriction.”
She eyed the players contemptuously,
“Dare to place a bet with me?”
Liam’s face turned ashen. He knew the drill: the moment she uttered “Dare to place a bet with me?”, all players were already in the game.
Win, they lived; lose, they died.
No one had ever walked away from her table.
Boss Lady smiled sweetly, tapping a finger against her lips,
“Dice roll.”
“You win, we leave the shop. You walk free.”
“If I win… the restriction lifts.”
“Claire, could you fetch us some dice cups?”
I quickly produced two dice cups.
Liam frantically urged his crew,
“Quick! All Luck-boosting gear! Stack it on me! NOW!”
Liam soon glowed with dozens of Luck-buffing effects.
Boss Lady rested her chin on her hand,
“You pick first.”
Liam eyed the two cups in my hands. I subtly tilted my head towards the left one. He sneered, “Trying to trick me? No way!”
He snatched the cup from my right hand.
Under the collective gaze, Liam shook the cup, slammed it down, and slowly lifted it…
“Three sixes!”
“It’s three sixes! I won!”
Tears of relief streamed down Liams face. Players hugged, celebrating their miraculous escape.
Boss Lady remained calm, “Don’t celebrate yet. Its my turn.”
She gave her cup a light shake and lifted it —
“…Four sixes?”
“How does she have four dice?!”
Liam glared at me with pure hatred.
I shrugged, “You picked the cup yourself.”
“And I did suggest the left one.”
His suspicion backfired.
Liam lunged at me but froze mid-air. An invisible force tightened around his neck. SQUELCH.
Liam dissolved into a pool of flesh.
As the restriction vanished, all the Bosses attacked. The supermarket became a slaughterhouse.
Boss Lady kindly pulled me behind the counter,
“Claire, best not look. Nasty business.”
I nodded and pulled out one last blind box from beneath the counter,
“I saved this one for you.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, “Claire… you’re so kind…”
She then handed me a card, “You know, when I saw you earlier… you looked familiar. Like family.”
“Take this card. You’ll need it later.”
After the carnage subsided, the Bosses helped me clean up and restock the shelves.
At last, they asked me nervously,
“Claire… will you keep running the shop?”
I nodded, “I’ll go source more stock. You’ll get what you want tomorrow.”
The Bosses cheered.
Boss Lady, pressed for time, happily took her blind box back to her instance.
“Why is her instance open 24/7?” I asked curiously.
The Kraken explained between gasps munching on a surviving human jerky stick,
“She’s waiting.”
“For who?”
“The previous BOSS of her instance. The only 5S-Class BOSS in the whole game.”
The Raven flapped its wings,
“I know! I know!”
“Saw her once when I was little! She gave me a bottle of super glue!”
“I hardly lose any eyes since then!”
“I heard that BOSS was sent out… to pioneer new game territory.”
“Shes been gone decades. No word.”
“So, after Boss Lady took over, she kept the instance open 24/7, waiting for her to come back.”
Life settled back into routine — I sourced stock and ran the shop every day.
Players occasionally wandered near but always avoided getting in.
They didn’t know what happened inside, but Liam had been a top-ranked player on the prize board for ages. His entire team dying here was warning enough.
My customers were infinitely more polite than players.
Even if a drop of blood hit the floor, they’d apologize and wipe it instantly. And they were always courteous when requesting specific items.
I tried my best to satisfy their requests. Business thrived.
A few days later, I got a promotion form.
Strangely, the “Promotion Title” field was blacked out. I didn’t know what I was becoming, but higher pay was good enough.
A month later, my first paycheck arrived. I rushed to East City Hospital to pay for my comatose mom’s care.
My dad died before I was born; Mom fell into a coma when I was six and had been kept alive by machines.
The money she left me had run out as I was fresh out of school.
So I took a risk on the globally popular “Horror Game” to win the prize money.
However, I accidentally signed up as an employee. Luckily, the job was stable and well-paying job.
Mom was safe now.
But the peace didn’t last. One day, a group of players walked in the supermarket,
“You’re Claire, right?”
“Your mom’s Anna? Shes in East City Hospital, ICU Room 309, isnt she?”
My head snapped up.
How did they know it?!
The leader smirked,
“Think you’re the only one who can cozy up to NPCs? We cant buy them off?”
“Heard you killed Liam. You must have claimed his 5 million prize.”
I stayed guarded,
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liam was killed by Bosses. I never laid a hand on him.”
He laughed scornfully,
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Killing Liam meant a huge payday. You wouldnt let the Bosses have it.”
“Especially with your mom on life support.”
“Let’s cut the crap. My guys are already by your mom’s bedside.”
“Hand over the prize money, or… we pull the plug.”
I logged out instantly. Having withdrawn every cent, I raced to the hospital.
Three men stood by Mom’s bed. Their fingers hovered near her breathing tube.
Trembling, I offered the cash,
“This is all I have.”
“I’m just an employee in the game. Liam’s prize money never came to me!”
The leader snarled, “5 grand? You think we’re beggars?”
Two of them grabbed the breathing tube and yanked it out. Another pulled the ventilator plug.
I lunged, screaming, but they held me back.
“That’s what you get for lying!”
I struggled wildly. Then, I saw Mom’s eyelashes flutter.
Outside, the sky turned blood red. A strange “drip… drip…” sound filled the air.
The three men exchanged confused glances. One of them ran to the window and looked up.
Next second, he collapsed. His eyes had gone hollow, as if his soul was sucked out.
Download the NovelGo app, Search 【 197794 】reads the whole book.
