Surely there were easily a few dozen figures there. They covered the whole field of vision, a large number of Noints, if you will. It was very weird seeing the same face, clothing, the same twin greatsword, same silver hair and other characteristics on these winged figures.
Their positioning while floating showed a clear hierarchy of eight leading figures and the rest behind watching in silence.
At this point in their journey, our protagonists knew little to nothing about Ehit's elite force that he personally created-- the 10 True Apostles and the hundreds after them. So to them they were all a clone or some shit of Noint; the only name they knew from her self-introduction.
Koari who was inhabiting Noint's body felt very strange seeing these apostles. She could feel certain emotions... ego or will from the body which filled her with dread like never before.
As a human like any other, she desired to... she felt special, unique. She was sure of her secured and stable identity but the opposite was what sipped into her consciousness from the host body. The reason why she was able to feel such emotions from the body that used to contain a robot-like consciousness was because she is human, the eerieness of their appearance is more apparent to her.
She felt like she had no identity of her own; no name, no defining characteristic in both appearance and thoughts, and this caused her to shiver visibly.
Hagime who immediately noticed Koari's state, pointed Donner and Schlagen to the first Noint in his sight with a dangerous glint in his eyes. He misunderstood Koari's state as an attack of sorts since they appeared to be the same in everything and might have unknowingly attacked the host body.
Previously, a mortal combat unfolded when Hajime faced one Noint, but in the present, the spec of his body and weapons were raised using Evolution magic, so if it was one on one he should be able to finish Noint without even using [Limit Break] or it's derivatives. He didn't feel like he'd lose even if he had to take on a large number of them at the same time.
But before he attacked, the Noint who invited them spoke and at the same time Koari was able to break free from the ego of the host and stopped shaking.
"Don't be so rash. Right now, we don't have the intention of indulging ourselves in killing or fighting. We've been given a task and it will be great if you'd hear us out. Let's be civilized first, shall we?"
"Indulge? Civilized? where was that when you tried to kidnap a child and her mother, hm?.
And now have you switched allegiance to the 'god' of the Demons, Alva?.
Angelic Mercenaries for hire, are we?"
Kenshiro scoffed as he switched Khaos for Vahn and Helsing.
There wasn't any noticable expression on either of their faces but their eyes showed unpleasantness, especially the one who seemed to be the head was forced to reminisce on the troublesome work she and her younger sisters did before now.
The death of Noint, her ninth sister, and the provocation of using her body to spoil their plans made Ehit very angry even though there were some gains. It hurt his godly pride to see the weak fellow whom he without a care gave the job of a stone mason basically, kill his most priced creation which trumps even the esteemed Dragonkin race.
This was the second time they had lost a True Apostle and to people they underestimated to boot. The first was her eighth sister, Ahat, who was killed by Miledi Reisen– a weakling at the time– through what could only be described as sheer luck during the rise of the Liberators.
She for one had witnessed the fight, analyzed all of Hagime's battle tactics, artifacts, and created a counter with her sisters; but there was still a factor they had noticed only because he was around Ehit's Pinterest.
From the battle that killed Noint, they knew Hagime who had the potential to topple their chessboard could be a problem but then the Problem wasn't even the leading figure in the group of irregularities.
Kiyama Kenshiro, a guy who was neither a mob nor famous before and after the heroes were summoned. Given the job of an Alchemist but was somehow able to break the limitations of the Job and affinity unknowingly, and gain sword wielding skills which went unnoticed until the Demon invasion on the Holy Kingdom. He was supposed to die along with the weakest in the labyrinth but they survived and became a hybrid with an identical set of monster skills.
And as the leading figure, they didn't know much when anyone who had witnessed his battles beyond the use of his guns was either dead or missing, which bothered Ehit very much. So Ehit sent them out to get something of use.
She has the first sister led hundreds of them and started from the beginning– Brook Town. But why so excessive, one might think Ehit has become afraid of Hagime and paranoid of Kenshiro but it was because of Tio.
The Dragonkin race... the very appearance of Tio, a member of such a cockroach race, could mean that the irregulars had the numbers and power of the Dragons who had been waiting eons for a comeback since the massacre.
A war could be on the horizon, so they had to be on alert while they gather information.
Nothing much was gained from Brook Town when they used their [Charm] skill. They didn't care about what happened in the Canyon near the town when they found out the irregulars were there for some time, since they already knew Miledi's Labyrinth was stationed there.
Fuhuren City was their next stop which finally gave them something to use. Kenshiro had gone out of his way to basically extinct a major underworld organization for a little Seafolk and proceeded to personally take her home.
With this good lead, they decided to take a detour to Ur Town, as that's where they became known. From their survey of the battle field, to using [Charm] on the townfolk who were part of the, defend-our-home group; the Apostles were able agree on the danger level Ken posed when taking into account he has an illusion or hypnosis type skill like their [Charm] and also a very destructive AOE skill from the traces Aiko-sensei couldn't cover up.
From there, they skipped the Heiligh Kingdom and went straight to Ankaji. There they learnt of Kenshiro's exploits of purifying their oasis after our protagonists killed the monster that poisoned their only water source. To them this sounded more like a powerful alchemy skill than anything, since the idea of Science was non-existent in Tortus.
They then left for Erisen, where they demanded for the child the irregulars were clearly fond of inorder to gain a psychological advantage. Unexpectedly, they were attacked by a powerful black golem that proceeded in cutting their numbers down with self-destruction when the True Apostles managed to overwhelm it.
After the explosion cleared the mother and child where nowhere to be found and they had to set their sights on other horse tails for their plans.
....