Reborn As A Ghost: Time To Build My Undead Army!

-----

We started by disguising ourselves with some magic, the kids were rather unrecognizable anyways, but some Illusion Magic I have been practicing for a little while did wonders, changing their hair color and clothes made meld better with the crowd.

And as for us, well, most of us possessed shapeshifting abilities, so we simply changed some parts of us, became taller, or smaller, and were mostly done with it. I doubt they'll recognize us by appearance alone, because the only ones that know how we look like are some of the citizens, but they didn't know our names either.

Oh, and the Paladins that knew more about us… well, they're now big sea monsters I turned into Undead and adopted, so there's little worry about that as well!

Oh right, while we wandered about, I created a dozen Phantom Clones and filled my Inventory with barrels filled with water, courtesy of Emeraldine for the wood and Tear for the water, and I decided to place them inside every home in the city. My plan was to cause havoc by giving every citizen a barrel of water and see what reaction we get.

Anyways, leaving that aside, we decided to visit an area of the city known as the "Commerce District" where many merchants would put their wares on sale. Nia said this was the perfect place to find equipment and even rare materials if we were crafters, which we wouldn't find anywhere else in the world.

"The best wares of the Goldsand Desert can be found here, milady! Are you interested in something we're offering?"

"The tastiest and sweetest of cactus pulp is in here! Cactus Juice available! Cheaper than water!"

"Grilled Desert Crickets with extra spicy sauce! It's tasty and affordable!"

"We're selling all sorts of jewels and ores, extracted from the Mines at Emerald Fountain!"

It was very lively compared to other districts in cities where they sold products, the merchants were also very pushy! Whenever you made eye contact with them, they would immediately try to grab your attention and sometimes would get in front of you, showing you what they had.

"No thanks, I am not interested in cactus pulp…" Lucifer groaned.

"And what about you?" Asked the merchant, offering me it.

"I… Fine." I sighed, paying up and grabbing some. Lucifer looked at me with a disappointed look. "What? We're here to enjoy the place too! Ain't no way I'll just dedicate to research and stuff! Think of this as our vacations too! Hmm! Oh this is so sweet!"

I drank some of the cactus juice; it was incredibly sweet and made you thirstier in fact. Too much sugar would usually make people crave liquid.

"Hey it's really good, try it out!" I said.

"Oway!" Nyx quickly drank her cactus juice, her eyes glowed brightly the moment she realized how sweet it was and drank it all in one shot. "Waah! It's so sweet! Celes, try it out! You too Silva!"

"Ooh, sweet…" Celes was licking his lips like a puppy.

"Hmm, I've never tasted such a sweet drink before…" Silva said slightly timidly.

"Let me see some of that." Catarina said, as Silva gave her the drink. "Oh?! Oh wow, since I became a zombie and all that tastes have been pretty mild but this sweetness… I can taste it right away!"

Emeraldine and Partner also tried it out, both being surprised by the taste too.

"Hmm, so refreshing. Back in the village, we would sometimes make a very tasty fruit punch, with our favorite fruit juices." Emeraldine smiled gently. "This sweetness brings back memories."

"Ah, so sweet! As sweet as blood I think." Partner commented.

"Hahh…" Lucifer sighed, as Nyx offered him some of the juice. "Fine- Guh?! Agh, too sweet! My tongue is burning!"

"Heheh, for being a dragon, you seem rather weak to sweet things, Sir Lucifer." Nia giggled.

"Right? Hahaha, he's grumpy for dumbest of things." Tear laughed.

"Ugh…" Lucifer sighed.

"I wonder if I should try something out of this city's cuisine…" Jonathan wondered, drinking the cactus. "One… cricket, please."

"On it!" One of the men selling food quickly gave Jonathan a huge stick with three big desert crickets covered on spicy sauce…

"Gulp…" Jonathan was beginning to doubt his decision now.

"Oi, oi, are you sure you're trying that, blondie?" Partner teased him.

"He's beginning to doubt it now, I bet he won't dare eat it." Catarina laughed.

"W-What? I will never back down from my words!" Jonathan quickly bit through the crickets; they were incredibly crunchy.

CRUNCH!

"Guh… Ugh…" He slowly munched on it and swallowed. "Hmm, it's not so bad… Try it out!"

"Eh?! Me?" I asked in surprise. "W-Well, I'm a ghost so it shouldn't be bad for my stomach…"

I grabbed his offering and gave it a small bite… It was dry, crunchy, a bit hard in some areas, it got stuck in my mouth a bit, but it tasted kind of like… I don't know, spicy jerky? Kind of.

"Hmm…" I drank some of the juice and realized they made a great combination. "Not bad, not bad at all…" I nodded, rubbing my chin. "They make a good combination!"

"Eugh, you ate a bug!" Celes seemed disgusted.

"I've eaten cockroaches before when I was too hungry…" Silva said.

"Eeeh?! Silva too?" Celes was shocked.

"I want bugs too!" Nyx said. "I remember eating those big scarabs back in mommy's big farm! Or the occasional rat, they were crunchy and fresh."

"Eeeeh?!" Celes was panicking after hearing the two cute girls that became his friends ate gross things.

"Come on now, Celes, we've eaten bugs before too, you just didn't realize it because I triturated them into the stew." Her mother admitted.

"W-What?! Mom, how could you?!" Celes was about to die out of horror. "Uuggh… Buaagh…"

And there goes the juice I gave to him…

"A-Ah, Celes! Are you okay?!" Nia cried, helping her son.

We decided to take a little break because Celes felt a bit dizzy, sitting inside a small restaurant, we wanted to try out some of the exotic things they sold in here.

"So? What are you guys ordering?" Asked a girl with brown cat ears and sharp golden eyes.

Beast-kin were rather common in here, and so were the Desert Elves too, so it wasn't just dark-skinned humans.

"I want the whole menu!" 

"EH?!"

-----