"What else would you call a weirdo?" the braided girl asked in puzzlement.
Xu Huo hadn't really expected to get an answer out of them. The whole situation simply felt unreal.
According to the locals and what Dimension Below had found out, the "hidden friend" had been around for quite some time. Perhaps the Mutated Plants had made people who entered the Safe Zone give up on the undeveloped area and ignore what was happening there. But what about the ordinary people who had lived here all that time?
They were afraid of the "hidden friend," but at the same time, they didn't seem all that afraid.
The story of the "hidden friend" had few details. It even avoided mentioning what happened to the people who disappeared, obscuring the horror of the strange tale as much as possible. But in reality, it was an uncontrollable horror story for ordinary people. Imagine living somewhere with a thing hiding in the shadows, one that could take you away at any moment, and not knowing what would happen to you afterward. How could that not be terrifying?
Yet the people here seemed to have adopted a laissez-faire attitude. They hadn't even banded together to defend themselves against the "hidden friend." According to them, as long as someone blocked and interrupted it, the "hidden friend" couldn't take its "friend" away. If people wanted to avoid danger, then living together was the obvious thing to do.
When people feared an invisible, ghostly presence, their imaginations could run wild. If the "hidden friend" was gentle enough and didn't take someone from the village every time, then over time, people might develop positive feelings toward it. They might imagine it as some kind of symbol, or seek it out, make offerings to it, or even worship it.