Chapter 864 Visiting The Commerce District
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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. Trace the roots of this material to novelb!n•
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.
"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?!"
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