Isekai'd, My Posterior!
I understand that being in a pandemic means that stuff like movies, anime, books, and the next Olympics will be delayed significantly due to a lot of people dying and the like. That being said, what did Miyazaki-san expect would happen when you team up with a person as chronologically late with deadlines as George R. R. Martin for the creation of Elden Ring? Seriously, that guy puts Kakashi to shame.
Oh, right, I was meant to say something funny in this author's note.
Ehrm… Kanye West is vying for Presidency.
Sorry, that's all I've got. Wait, was it even Kanye West, or am I confusing him with Akon? Meh, who cares?
The dead silence – again, no pun intended – that obscured the dry clearing surrounding William, Nito and the Bed of Chaos was akin to a dusty vaginal queef in the face, as the undead attempted to get his head around the fact that Bone Daddy had just called the walking love hotel in front of them his bitch.
"Just bitch, actually." The Gravelord corrected and pecked his shoulder. "I never felt attracted to her, even before I was a walking statue of boners. She was just too… what was the word your kind use again? Fugly? Overweight with an immense superiority problem? The worst Yandere since Erina Nakiri? I'm not entirely sure, really."
William cocked his head at Nito, aghast. What in the Fresno had happened since the last time they met for the skeleton to do a complete 180 on his ass?
"I assume riffling through your memories is the cause of my odd disposition." William blinked blankly at the bird. So he was to blame for this out of character, yet surprisingly badass switch in personality?
"Precisely. After you left to go and proclaim that blond-haired bigot the new Chosen Undead, my thoughts had taken a curious turn and observed the reserves of your past experiences a few hours too long. Indeed, your original homeland is quite intriguing, which availed me quite some time to immerse myself in the varying cultures you've learnt about. However, the degenerating practice of communication you seemed to share with others within your miniscule circle possessed… negative additions to my psyche."
The undead deadpanned. It wasn't his damn fault the common tongue was going to shit after the next generation became fixated on abbreviations. Goddamn millennials, he hated them with a passion – despite the fact that William was one such millennial.
"Either way, it seems that as long as I don't allow my mind to wander, I won't appear to sound as dim-witted as you normally do." Nito finished with a proud nod of his much smaller head.
"Well that's reassuring," William replied dryly before carefully observing the Bed of Chaos blindly seeking him out with its obvious lack of vision. If he had to be specific, it seemed as if the great treehouse was attempting to suss out his aura or life energy – something directly related to the Lord Soul it carried from what the undead could tell.
That being said, it didn't seem like it was doing so well. Really, it was lackluster. How much more pathetic could a failed creation of Dark Souls be? William decided not to grace that answer with a question, or did he mean grace that question with an answer? He didn't know. Honestly, at this point, he was just looking forward to being motorboated in between Quelaag's wondrous peaks. That was if he would be able to leave this ass-crack of a dry crevice with his soul still intact and not mutated by a molting Dryad, or possessed by the Lord of the Dead so that Nito could experience what shagging felt like after an eternity without skin. Knowing the transforming amalgamation of bones, he would probably do so just because he was bored. At least, that was the vibe William was getting from him most of the time anyway.
"But you missed out on something important." The undead said as he jogged out of range of a massive AoE spell pooling beneath his feet. It wouldn't do for him to fall prey to a time-consuming incantation when it was plainly obvious square meters of land was being lit amber like twinkling rays of sundown.
"And that would be?" the Lord of Death inquired with a cocking of his avian head.
"You sound less imperial than you did in your coffin. And a lot more… friendly, at least with me." William admitted, shielding himself from the pillars of flame flaring up like upstanding pricks in society as their unwelcome warmth permeated against the undeads bare skin like the pasty touch of a forty-year-old sex offender in a children's park.
"Oh. Well you are the first person to converse with me in eons. Additionally, my temperament is half of your original persona."
"When the hell did that happen?" William questioned with a frown.
"Most likely when I gleaned your head for information. It seems your base emotions and perceptions bonded to my existence in some ways. I knew I should have spent more time refining that form of necromancy, but the temptation of absorbing the memories of an actual living being was just too great."
"So, you're saying you're like, a second, overpowered version of me?"
"Please refrain from thinking of it like that. I already detest possessing a shred of your essence within me. I only wished to acquire the recollections an 'Isekai'd' human would no doubt possess in spades. Implying that I have become a form of you, however; makes me fear for my own insanity."
"You really like emphasizing the fact that I'm not that smart, don't you?" William said tiredly.
"In truth, you do possess certain bursts of imagination that could be deemed as shrewd. But in plain sight, you appear as someone most disconnected with the stream of knowledge."
"Whoopty-do, screw you." The Thief replied, flipping the skeletal fowl the bird. "why are you even here in the first place?"
"You expected me to do nothing but tend graves when I was finally reunited with my stolen powers?"
"But… you're the Gravelord."
"And so?"
"Isn't it your job to tend graves?"
"I think you're confusing me with a Grave Tender."
William shrugged his shoulders. "Semantics."
Their conversation drew to a steep halt when a roar from the mouthless Bed of Chaos rattled around in their skulls, causing both Chosen Undead and Master of Death to turn their gazes and stare at the living tree waving its hairy arms around like some B-grade version of the Sasquatch.
"So, why are you here, anyway?" William asked finally, sticking to the wall to avoid getting swatted by an oversized tree. "And why are you in the form of a decayed sparrow?"
"I've found that I could take many different forms after recovering my lost magic. The insight from the following sequels of the game you and I are both trapped in also had a hand in my unorthodox experimentation."
William raised a pale eyebrow at that. He had almost forgotten that out of everyone he had met thus far, Nito was the only one with full knowledge of the end of Lordran, as well as the fact that he was nothing more than a character in a video game. It was massively disconcerting to speak to such an entity so casually when you knew that they knew the truth, but Bone Daddy was somewhat different in that regard. The Great Lord acted so chill it was sometimes shocking to remember he was a sentient conglomerate of skeletons.
Either way, it was also kinda exciting to speak to someone in Nito's lack of shoes – or socks for that matter. William slapped a grin onto his face as he remembered something regarding the alpha skeleton.
"From that disgusting look on your face, I assume you have an entirely pointless question to ask me."
"Aw, don't be like that. I know you secretly enjoyed the fact that you gained followers that were more… fleshly."
"Are you referring to the Milfanito?"
"Sexy, aren't they? And here I was thinking you were eternally celibate." William laughed in glee.
"Not that's any of your business, but I did have a wife before I gained the power to turn corpses into cavalry."
"You're shitting me, what was her name?!"
"In any case," Nito let out a deep sigh as the undead he unfortunately acknowledged as the Chosen Undead badgered him about his life story. Perhaps this was why Gwyn left delegating to his children, the constant idiocy of certain subordinates was unbearable. Then again, the Lord of Death didn't exactly dislike William and his stupidity all that much. It was way better than sticking around with pompous pricks like the Sunbringer and Izalith Witch. Really, it was astounding at how a meagre flash of power gave them such inflated egos. He was partly grateful that he was canonically set to die in the first Dark Souls. Existing for another few millennia only to see this world crumble at the hands of some douchebag named Lothric whilst one of the previous Lords of Cinder decided to go ahead and become a Devourer of Gods due to flatulence and gluttony was… not something he would have been comfortable watching, even if he would still be in his coffin the entire time.
"Whether or not I create a fanbase of young and well-endowed maidens in the future is still as uncertain as you taking up the mantle you were meant to inherit. What matters now is getting you out of the rut you've fallen into." He said, motioning to the Bed of Chaos before them.
William scoffed in reply. "Yeah, well I suppose you're right. Still though, if and when you do happen to meet that group of singing minstrels, can you do me a solid?"
"And that solid would be…?" Nito asked wearily.
"That you at least name them Naomi, Carina and Chris. Not specifically in that order."
The Gravelord turned to stare at him through eyeless sockets before clearing his throat and asking a question he knew he would only receive a stupid answer for.
"The first two, I can understand. But why the name Chris for the third one? And what about the fourth Milfanito?"
"One, out of the four of them, the injured one never utters a word. Second, if you want to know why Chris, ask the people that voiced them in the game."
"Ah." Nito remarked.
"Now, how the hell are you going to get me out of this mess when you're just a bird?"
"A Bird with the powers of Death at my disposal."
"Yeah, that still doesn't help us in beating a walking patch of snatch hairs."
Nito sighed in exasperation before pushing off William's shoulder and flapping his boney wings.
"Just watch me and shut up, please."
"That reminds me, why did you call it Quemera? I thought the Witch of Izalith's name was Quela or some dumb shit like that."
"Because Quemera is her actual name. Quela is just the generic name everyone knew her by due to her ancient ancestor. The tradition of naming the next of kin with 'Que' as the first three letters is something she decided to uphold."
"Is that why you named the Milfanito after you?"
"Again, I haven't met them yet, so I have no answers to appease your stupidity. Besides, I'm not as vain so as to name my underlings after me." The Gravelord shook his beak before flapping off toward the Bed of Chaos. "Now be still and watch me destroy a demon womb."
William watched him fly away, intrigued by the way Nito used his cloak to support his featherless wings as her glided effortlessly over the air and into the mass of tangled roots that hid Quemera's G-spot away for the Winter.
He didn't doubt that the Lord of Death could do it, really. He was just cautious as to why Nito seemed so keen to aide him all of a sudden. It wasn't like he had done much to gain the Great Lord's trust. Honestly, all he had done was piss himself and tell Nito he was going to pass his duty onto Oscar before going back to Firelink in order to bang whichever lucky lass was up for a good time. With that in mind, he certainly didn't expect Bone Daddy to outright tell him he would help him in his quest to screw up the Undead Prophecy – even if said prophecy was already piledriven into the soil by the largest bore-hole drill ever created.
He felt the floor tremble and turned to see bricks give way to the endless fall that lay below the sad excuse for a boss room he stood in. It seemed like the mutated Witch was struggling with every thorn on her body to remove Nito from her being – going as far as to self-immolate every three minutes as if she was one horny succubus mounting a scared shitless teenager from Japan.
The undead didn't fret, however. He knew that Nito would be alright. He had his miasma as the perfect defense, after all. Not much could really penetrate a cloud of nether magic like that unless their name was Dante. And thankfully this world wasn't overdosed with so much biblical pseudo-factions that industries were killing people in the name of God.
William chuckled. Yeah, this wasn't the Hellsing Universe.
A loud groaning of roots and an extra hot flare of Chaos fire and the undead felt the intense contractions of a powerful spell being woven. Or at least it felt like a spell, he didn't really know much besides the fact that the walls and ceiling was beginning to cave in as the Bed of Chaos curled into itself.
It was only until he saw Nito hurriedly flying toward him that he realized what the sudden pressure really meant, causing his eyes to widen in despair as the bird-like Gravelord touched a claw to his forehead as everything went still for a split-second. The Bed of Chaos was about to die in an almighty explosion.
And they were in the blast radius.
The silver-haired undead opened his mouth to utter a blood curdling scream as if to ask fate why did it always place him in such inescapable danger, when his muscles spasmed and he choked on the air in his lungs.
"Time to go." Nito remarked as time was turned up to eleven and Quemera rapidly expanded before going off like loaded gun.
Pain, a lapse of white noise before utter darkness, three agonizing body spasms that made William feel like he was being force-fed his own intestines and the fleeting sound of Rocket Man playing at the back of his mind, and William found himself in the fetal position drooling a mix of blood and bile as his eyes rolled forward from behind his sockets.
Lost Izalith was now Gone Izalith from what he could properly make out. The beautiful architecture and carved stone had been erased from the intense explosion caused after destroying Quemera's core, leaving nothing but rubble and smooth hallways that still partly resembling the runes of a by-gone empire.
"Uggh," William gagged. His body was still spasming, as a result he couldn't pass air through his lungs. A side-glance at the retreating wave of obsidian around him reaffirmed how he had even managed to survive: Nito's void teleportation.
"Well that was disappointing." The Gravelord huffed and the undead blinked in front of him to see Nito's bird-form absently preening through his lack of feathers. "That was hardly worth any effort."
"-eeesch." William replied.
"Hm? I didn't quite catch that." The Gravelord said, mild confusion in his voice.
"- eeeesch!" William said again only to receive a tilt of the Gravelord's beak.
"…What?"
The Thief grunted as the final spasm passed him by, allowing him to shakily get to his feet.
"I shed… that urr a beeesch…"
Nito hopped twice before lifting a wing and digging his beak into it, like a lawyer casually retrieving a letter of eviction from his inner coat pocket.
"Oh," he said plainly, "in any case, you're still alive and I've been entertained by your lackadaisical intonation of anything that possesses a shred of importance, if only a little."
"Fuchks ouo."
"That would be so much more insulting if you didn't look so pitiful right now." Nito replied, amused, before finally pulling his head out of his wing to garnish a large burning orb William just knew would be more trouble than it was worth.
"Ngooo." The undead attempted to stop the Lord of Death, but his tongue felt as if he had just been eating out an Amazonian with Stanley knives for pubes.
"Now, now. You can argue your reluctance to be the Chosen Undead all you want. I've already accepted that sad sliver of information… however unsatisfied I am that the title is to be passed onto that twat. Even so, since you have my Lord Soul, I figured I might as well just give you Quemera's." Nito hopped forward and placed the blazing Life Soul into his palm. The reaction was instant. William's Darksign reacted to being fed such a powerful mass of power and the orb seeped into his skin like water through an open hole. The undeads skin brightened for a moment before fading to its original pale hue.
"Now the only trouble you'll have to face is explaining to that brainless imp how you happened to acquire two of the allotted four souls of power. I doubt it'll be difficult to hoodwink someone so uselessly incoherent, but if I didn't give you some trouble then I couldn't call myself the Gravelord… now could I?"
He didn't wait for a reply from a semi-cripple William before he unfurled his wings, took a stance that better resembled a proud fowl and took off from Izalith's debris.
"Farewell William."
It took the undead another hour to regain possession of his limbs again, but after he was able to move his tongue inside of his mouth like he used to and the semi-hard tent he was pitching due to absorbing a Lord Soul had subsided; he offered a single word of reply that Nito would never end up hearing.
" Beeech."