It came as it had to he got to finally fire a spell, standing outside of the range of a bomb thrower, slowly he collected scraps excrement of his very own souls, thoughts and emotions long gone, and channelled them in the most clumsy way possible, the most ineffective way to cast a spell but also the most numerous.
It was enlightening, as slowly the process came to fruition, a single blue dot, the size of a head with a tail at its end came and flew to his
designated target, it collapsed with its strings cut as its very own soul was hammered and quite possible limited for ages to come.
A weak soul collapses far too easily into itself, but if the flesh lives, for the undead ones are immortal, the soul will follow and be revived sometime in the future. He wasn't going to make any excuses for what kind of war crimes he was going to commit against what was once civilized people who now just wanted what was inside of him, but he would help and he in part knew how to it was but a matter of not dying and getting stronger and better with his magic.
The girls were far too unimpressed, with minds in their heads their souls were sturdy, not to the extent he couldn't kill them even while keeping a lot in reserve but he needed them and they maybe needed his directions. He shouldn't think about ending them when they have been nothing but helpful no matter their affliction, not as if he wasn't one, but he is starting to see the horror of suddenly your loved ones being mindless husks just wishing to nourish themselves on your intestines. Civilisations collapsed in the wake of this curse, empires fell and now all lay in waste as the main church still goes around and makes more, should he tell them, even while spied on or just leave it decisions decisions.
Into the waterway, well the entrance was now nothing but a gaping hole, a way to the right and left both ending with bared ways, he decided to go to the left first, Oskara immediately repositioned herself to follow in front of the now also armoured Elekta.
Eating a corpse was a little rat girl, well not quite a rat or mouse or even a complete rodent anymore, must have eaten so many humans she became one, partially at least. Well, when the only steady supply of food is corpses what else are you supposed to eat? In a world where you are what you eat becoming an immortal monster girl because you ate an immortal's meat must certainly have some sort of tale to it.
Not like they could ask it, she seemed a bit well feral and uneducated, quite young at least by human standards, killing her and looting the corpse would be the better options for now, but neither of the girls waited for his internal thoughts and simply killed her.
As they obtained a bit of humanity from the intestines of the animal, he knew they would remember it and come back to see if the one who ate corpses would have more undigested pieces of divinity inside of her poor thing but too usefully. Neither Oskara nor Elekta wanted it, but he had not yet shown signs of going hollow so he needed it the least compared to one who he used to see the signs of the fire keeper right plastered onto her body, well he could see it for as long as she wasn't wearing something on her torso and was hallowed.
Well, he would be dammed a nearly intact soul of undead just detached from the body, simply floating around it, easy picking for undead, it wasn't what they call 'souls' those were the final digestible parts of a broken thing ready to be integrated, this was a soul the soul of a once living thing still living but at the same time dead, the flesh perished before it what does this say about the living. He couldn't tell too little information but he would take and store it as intact as he could.
Now they turned around in the narrow corridor and would continue marching to the undead burg.
The dark wet tunnel was easy to escape, for the group because besides one almost harmless rat girl that stood in the opposite of their way no enemy combatants were present.
A steep pair of stairs up into the light and they had the sun back over their little heads, and enemies were already expecting them.
A few hit here and there and nothing spectacularly, besides the extra soul income, from when some of those shambling undead started to climb over walls from down below to reach them, they were easily shot down.
Over a weak wooden plank to advance to the next building, this whole place was a magical example of stratified architecture, not unlike Rome of his old world, where old buildings aren't torn down but new ones are simply built atop of them anyway. Three houses down were the streets, oh he had to wonder how the people that once lived here and built this place actually lived. It was about twelve floors down to the next water source a beautiful little stream or maybe a river, left and right of it stood buildings or was it a pound he couldn't tell if the water was moving or not.
While he was busy sightseeing, Elekta was assessing the threat from a plank of wood as soon as she stepped on top of it, undead burst forth from the nearest building barely a meter away to shove her off it. Light work, for them, a few hits and they practically crumble as lightly armoured as they were.
And to the right a fog gate, to the left nothing of worth, into the fog.
A House left and right, but no more open paths, where ambushes could be kept to a minimum. Oh well, into the houses, Elekta would have to swing her weapon a bit carefully around, unless she either wanted to take out the foundation of the place or have it stuck everywhere incapable of ever hitting her target.
Oskara would main the frontline, well the actual house was tiny, only a single corpse with a soul to be found would keep it safe. And the stairs up a bit tiny or maybe parts fell off it, he couldn't tell.
What was a lot more alarming were rows of undead archers, with infantry shielded and well equipped, as well as hundreds of years of wear and tear to keep supernatural enchanted weapons together.
A few steps out of the house and the wind was already threatening to blast him, nature shouldn't be so heretical to live.
The ground was shaking, and Oskara practically jumped on him, with her shield raised, hiding his view for most of it, Elekta still in the house didn't have to fight the mere beatings of giant wyvern girl wings, she was naked as the day she was born, a nice view from his side at least.
She landed in reach of his spells and they barely go 30 feet, 10 meters, from his staff, a brush of her tail or wing could have destroyed them as they were, of her fire breath was not to be spoken, damn beasts were practically bread to lay waste with it.
Oh what joy it would be to fight, he was going to give himself a lot of time until then, a flying semi-intelligent creature with a flyby weapon nope, not until he can one-shot her.
Her feet alone spanned the entire path all three of the group could walk side by side on without touching, she was enormous and could rush them easily enough, but she was just on the way through it seemed, as she wasn't staying for long nor talking.
Maybe being a dragon's lesser cousin made flying exhausting, nobody knew besides the dragon riders of old.
As soon as Oskara recovered from that encounter, mentally, they could start fighting threw 10 times their numbers in hallows, several of them constantly aiming to take their lives with an arrow. Live wasn't going to get better the only real positive was he had magic to spare to take the entire group out, and there were improvised wooden shields placed everywhere, perfect for cover for both sides.
He took out those simply standing by the sides and those realizing they were under attack and started slowly moving towards them, Elekta and Oskara had taken cover left and right of him, while he stood in the open waiting if the archers would show any sign of recognition and start doing something already. But no he was free for the time to blast the lesser soldier's souls into pieces.
Baiting a few enemies taking aim and then slowly whittling the enemies down, was a reasonable strategy right until the enemy tried to pull it on you, the archer awakened temporally from their madness-induced hallucinations and started taking actual aim, nothing the barracks weren't capable of fixing. But the arrows are almost threatening to go through the old wood.
But only a few soldiers were left anyway, Noel was blasting left and right his mind melting into nothing but Soul Arrows ready to strike where those armoured and strong in body were vulnerable.
They all collapsed with their strings cut it never was a fair fight they had too many numbers and they had working heads atop their shoulders.
The archers were practical rotating around after Elekta rushed up to them, shattering one after the other into pieces hiding behind her club for protection when projectiles went flying.
No real challenge here if they keep their heads atop their shoulders, and in the worst case they still had a bunch of firebombs.
He was just about ready to use them, yes they could go to the bonfire, or fight two elite soldiers and go have a talk with the merchant, something was telling him it would be a woman.
His magical tank wasn't empty but maybe not enough to take out two spearmen, that could rush him, he would support the girls there. Oskara was always at his side and Elekta sometimes out of sight but never far, would definitely support him, a shot at the first and it was already disoriented a second and it collapsed, the other was starting to notice that something happened.
Hah he could have soloed almost everything until now, well if he himself would have fought his mana would have been empty twice over since the bonfire but he would have most likely died the second he fought more than five opponents at once, given those hallows the chance to rush you and they rip you apart.
A few hits here and there and the secret entrance to the house on which roof the spearmen have been stationed was revealed.
Pocketing their stuff he went ahead against, the wishes of the rest of the group, but he had to introduce them or get horrifically mauled to death before they could intervene one or the other.
Well, nothing the like happened and he knew where he would get his most useful tool yet, well besides his partners in a battle for survival.
Flanking him they advanced out into the open a cute little balcony, on it sat a single hallow, still having most of its wits about and for as long as it loved the sword by its side very very much a purpose and along with that time.
"Well, now... You seem to have your wits about you, hmm? Then you are a welcome customer! I trade for souls. Everything's for sale! Nee hee hee hee hee!", she said as her teeth clattered.
"I take the bottomless box and the key",
"I-I haven't even shown you my wares yet?", more than a bit confused
"So what is the price?"
"2000 souls all together"
"Here you go."
"Thank you kindly. Nee hee hee hee!"
He had bottomless power at his disposal now.
The girls let him free for the moment considering most threats were dead, their mistake.
They themselves would go over the inventor and buy what they thought would be necessary for future travels.
The merchant lost it long ago maybe she could be healed but for now it wasn't something he would take his time with, he had just gotten his newest and most important tool of the millennium.
A bottomless box, a truly bottomless box, there was no bottom, it was infinity, truly and he wouldn't stop using, from the scrappes of the barrels around to some old wood planks to old almost useless weapons to actual fighters.
He would take it all, and then there was the fact that at how it could change its size with but a thought, so that everything would fit in, and its weight wasn't increasing, he was a lucky man today, not tonight it was never night in Lordran.
Elekta decided to go with the classic of a restoring toolbox, and some better armour, while Oskara decided for the smithing box to be capable of independently upgrading her weapons, maybe she didn't like the smith girl they just met but oh well.
It wasn't as if they all didn't have to share he got to transport the stuff for them, they kept him safe he gave them purpose jada jada.
Now to the important part, could he put corpses inside, calmly he went over to the slain elite hollows of before, making sure no reinforcement came and was ready to snipe him, and he got himself a test subject, a girl no less, almost all enemies were women here, hmm strange.
But Noel couldn't be bothered by the realisation that hollowing drastically shrinks a woman three sizes, and makes them horrendous to look at, it just added to the number of reasons why he had to help this world.
She was dead, a husk of something that she once was, would the box take it, stripping her out of her armour and taking her spear from her all went into the box before her, now for the final moments, he started to slowly lower the hand into it and there was no rejection, the arm the shoulder the head and then the rest.
He did it he perfectly contained a hallow to his knowledge, did she need oxygen was air in the box, would it take some in how would he add it, or would it suck some in the second the Hallow would receive, would it spit the then living creature out or was it a perfect containment for the undead?
No matter maybe he was stupid, in doing so but then her friend followed, and her stuff too, then all the other hallows that they defeated before, would at reviving immediately die, the box was capable of holding souls, would he have to check on its count to see what would happen, should he store his humanity inside of it?
So many questions but for now, the girls were still checking the wars of the merchant out looking for better wares and guess who gets to carry it then, this Noel is right here.
Although it was a bit strange for those that most of the time shadowed him, constantly to just let him roam around freely, well more into the box. Could he use it as a sort of trap, as its owner he could adjust the box size, could he extend it and then flatten it and just collect every hollow that ran up to him, could he himself be collected in it?
Too many questions and too little info, well he knew one could collect emotions itself primarily greed with them, greed directed at the item inside and it would over time make the box evolve into a fully fletched mimic, oh found memories of being mauled his first time and all the precious time he lost.
Considering how much this world seemed to be showered in lewdness until now, well closet comparison would be demonic mana from the monster girl encyclopaedia, could he direct lust at the box until it turned into a girl or would maybe something more direct be necessary?
Considering he was holding a box so ancient it made most of the civilisations still around look prepubescent, what would he get out of it?
For now nothing, so he had to fatten her up even if she could swallow endlessly, everything from dust to corpses to firebombs and so much more.
He had to go look after the girls now.
"So you done?"
"Yes my lord we are almost done"
"You are good customers but you won't get my girl! hehehe!"
The merchant still misbelieving that her sword was once her girlfriend, showed all the signs of going hollow, but had just enough wit to hang in there a bit longer, as long as she gave herself the purpose of looking after the sword, what the actual girlfriend in the sewers harvesting medicine, thinks about this, well it the sword was named after her so who was he to judge.
Some of that medicine could be useful, should he learn 'undead rapport' and send his own trained combat gimps around to collect stuff for him.
No need he already has Oskara and Elekta for now that would be enough.
Onwards with the journey, they could be here all day talking with the merchant but he made a note to come back here anyway.
The archers were already taken out, courtesy of his spells, so the bonfire awaited.
Place inside of a tower, with broken stairs but thankfully some ladder smith or decorator already place a way around it inside.
Now the usual way in the game would have been to fight the Taurus demon, now hopefully a demoness and then go to the bridge with the wyvern and sprint underground and activate the shortcut, but there were three people they could just climb over the bit of the broken section and from there activate the ladder, skipping both the sun bro girl and a boss.
Live could be too easy, hmm he could go around and collect so many undead and treat them to an existence possibly worse than death, trapped in an infinite expansion of space, eternally falling, without ever capable of grasping something until they are held by an outside force.
"Hey Oskara do you want to destroy another demonic slave?", both girls peeked up at him, just sitting there while he was crawling over rubble to lower the ladder.
Neither really liked the demons, their torturers their wardens even if they were but slaves.
"Why do you ask?"
"Well with the ladder here we could just go around her, as a Taurus demon is most likely guarding the next big bridge and the wyvern against before the one after, but we can just go immediately to the wyvern girl if you want.", part of him left out that it going by statistics the chances of it being a Taurus demoness or in more derogatory terms a cowgirl.
Oskara did take the worst beating out of all of them so maybe she still has some beef with the general race, making her racist towards demons by definition, due to trauma-induced PTSD, but that could be explained by emotional instability due to early signs of going completely hollow.
"Is it wise to face the wyvern" Directly letting out the girl part, she did not wish to face its might.