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

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Today classes were going to end early but were completely suspended after the Nightmare Realm incident, so once we were done eating, we finally departed. Using the information they learned and what was in their phones, Jonathan and Emeraldine moved to their rich family houses, I used my Egos to accompany them, and I also left others monitoring Emily, Alma, and Sofia who were sleeping.

If they wake up I can use that Ego to be with them and perhaps help them out if they need anything! I think the only one with a family here is Sofia with her grumpy father and I don't know if she would ever want to go see him after what she went through. At most they'll be hungry, so I'll save what we ordered for lunch so they can have a feast of junk food.

"Don't you think our group is still super big anyways?" wondered Lucifer. "I'm beginning to have second thoughts about this…"

Even with Partner and Arachne within my Shadow Realm, we were still six people in total, that's a whole lot of people, dammit.

"I guess it can't be helped, I hope the sister understands," I said. "If she doesn't like it then we'll have to… Uh, well you'll simply move to my Shadow Realm then!"

"Hm, I hope she's nice!" said Nyx. "Do you know how she looks like, mama?"

"Hmm, there's this phone with her photos… Huh?"

I glanced at the phone that came with me, the pictures, however, every old picture of my character…

Her face- no, her entire body seemed blackened, blurred and distorted, as if glitched… No, replaced or maybe even deleted.

"This is weird… Look at all the pictures of this character, they're all simply blurred or black? It is as if any vestige of her original appearance is completely gone," I explained.

"I-I see…" muttered Lucifer. "Hm, this phone thingy… I think I have one too?" Lucifer took it off his pocket. "Right, this is… Oh? It's the same."

He showed me the three pictures his character had saved, a selfie, one with a friend, then another of him with his black cat when he was younger.

All the same, blurred, blackened, as if he had been eaten away from reality.

"What about you, Nia?"

"Hmm, how do I use this?"

"Ah, let me help you dear."

I quickly helped her using the phone, unblocked it, then we checked and…

Yeah, the same again!

"H-How creepy! It is as if the people we're replacing stopped existing because of us… Did we kill them?" Nia was worried.

"Mommy what about me? Do I appear in the photos as well?" Celes asked.

"Yes but you're also blurred dear," Nia sighed, caressing her son's head.

"That's weird!" said Celes. "I don't think we deleted them ourselves, why would a trial do that? Maybe… m-maybe these people were already gone?"

"But what happened to them that they all just disappeared?" I wondered.

"And wouldn't it be too easy that we just got all of the spots when we joined?" wondered Lucifer. "Maybe… perhaps there's even more people that disappeared than just the ones we're replacing. But they simply aren't present right now because there aren't people suitable to replace them."

"Maybe that's it? But then again… I guess we can't ever tell unless we investigate further, but with just seven days left, that's hard," I said. "Simply solving the quests given to us… might not do it either. Eventually we can't just let the story move us around. We'll have to start moving ourselves. I've discovered that every Nightmare Realm is connected to the Nightmare Void. If we could go there and then travel through it, we might eventually find where the origin of this curse might be located… but dammit we need more information."

"The Nightmare Demons that we've been fighting so far must have something to do with the secret of this world as the only "race" of intelligent nightmares," said Lucifer. "Maybe Nightmare Lords themselves are intelligent too based in what you said, but I strongly believe Nightmare Demons got to have something to do with it. Is Beatriz with you? Can she tell us more?"

"Come on cat, tell us," I looked at the black cat walking by our side.

"Eeehh… well, I am one of the youngest of my kind," she said. "But there's a… well, papa."

"Papa?!"

We all asked in unison.

"Yes, the King you know? The strongest Nightmare Demon, he lives… I think at the center of the Nightmare Void somewhere… I don't know the complete coordinates," she said. "I just pop up there when I'm called… but now I've lost all connection to him now that I've made a contract with Maria. Argh, and there's the other guys… there are the strongest Nightmare Demons that are like his generals, my siblings. The strongest of them, each one represents one of the greatest negative emotions of humanity."

"Kind of like sins?" asked Nyx.

"Maybe…" said Beatriz. "A-And that's all I know; I swear on my name!"

"Hmm, that's interesting but still too little," I said. "Do you really not know what he is up to or something like that?"

"I don't know! I missed a meeting we were having yesterday," she sighed. "So I have no idea but their aim is to eat Dream Hearts and… multiply. I think they want to replace humanity with Nightmares as we are clearly the superior race! So it's pretty much that, I totally agree with papa about that. I hope you can find him though, so he can kill you guys heheh."

"I doubt we're as weak as to die to your father," I said. "But sure, I would also like to meet him, a pity we can't… Well, once he's dead I hope you can stick around with us, Beatriz."

"Papa's super strong he is not going to die to the likes of you!" Beatriz complained.

"I wonder though, have you even interacted with him like children and parents actually do?" asked Nia. "Nightmare Demon relationships might be different… right?"

"A-Ah…" Beatriz fell silent. "I have only talked to him briefly a couple of times through my life…"

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