High Dimensional Corpses

(A/N: Thick chapter for you. Hope you like it. Also it's the true 69 chapter. Just saying. Also, if you want to refresh your memory, which would be perfectly understandable. You can go and reread the Flexing is an art chapter in volume 1 and the one after that to remember what happened at the end of the re-zero mini arc.)

"You're here for a mission, right? I can let you stay here, to the condition that you don't go sneaking around in the basement and that you listen to certain of my requests. I can even give you food and such if you so need it. Honest work, honest pay. How does that sound?" Julian proposed simply as he sat in the air using his wings to fly.

"Why would we even trust someone who doesn't show us his face?" Reluctantly, Xenovia acknowledged that it didn't sound so bad. But she still was wary of this random devil who came out of nowhere to beat them up for a bit only to offer a deal afterward. The fact he knew an awful lot about them didn't help too.

"Listen, you don't trust me. I don't thrust you either with my identity. So It should be fine of we keep it purely business like right?" Julian had still his hood on, and it was a dark rainy night. So they still couldn't see his face. Though the rest of his robe was in pretty poor health because of Xenovia.

"This..." Xenovia was still hesitating. Frankly, she was unwilling to work with a not believer and a devil to boot.

"I'm not against it! Think Xenovia, we would get food! We don't have any money." Whispering the last part, Irina tried to appeal to her partner.

"Because you spent it all on a painting." Sighing, Xenovia was annoyed that Irina was right. They couldn't really accomplish their mission to their upmost ability if they were famished and without a place to stay. Could they?

"So I conclude that's a yes? Good, I swear there's no funny business involved. I mostly want you to teach me and a couple of others swordmanship.

"Funny business?" With a question mark above her head, Irina tilted her head.

"Church girls, right." Was Julian only reply with a smile they couldn't see.

"Swordmanship... These people, are they devils?" Frowning, Xenovia totally skipped the bit about funny business and asked.

Smirking, Julian replied. "No, they aren't. So all's good?"

Not caring as much if the only devil she taught was someone who easily beat her, Xenovia shrugged. "I guess. But we will not teach you church techniques."

"I don't care about your church techniques, so I'm okay with that. Now don't forget, basement off limit. At this point it's more for your sake than mine." Leaving them with some parting words, Julian waved at them and summoned a teleportation circle which he promptly stepped on. Vanishing as a result.

"What about our food? I'm already hungry." Rubbing her flat midriff, Irina said.

"You said you had friends in this city right? We can visit them tomorow." Xenovia proposed, ignoring her own growling stomach.

"Great idea! And you made me remember. Julian's father's cooking is heavenly! I wonder if he got any better after all these years." Her eyes shining, Irina lept to her feet and diriged herself toward the exit.

"Irina, it's late in the evening. Hence, the 'tomorrow'." Xenovia ruthlessly pour some ice on her partner enthousiast.

"Ah right..." Just as she was about to let herself fall to the ground in disappointement, she caught wiff of something divine.

Turning her head toward where the scent was coming, Irina saw two bowls of steaming hot food lying innocently on the ground. Right beneath where Julian had teleported away.

...

—————

Back in his room, Julian stayed silent in contemplation. For the people of this world, it would be but a blink. But for him, it would be much longer.

His mental state was much better than before. So he probably wouldn't abort his dimensional trip because of utterly losing his shits again. He would be gone for a good amount of time, and he was determined to not only get more sparks of impossibility but also every benefits he could get from this otherworldy visit.

He had multiple plans for that, some relying purely on strength and others on persuasion and leverage.

But before that, he needed to have a chat with someone.

[Want to talk face to face? Sure, I'm always happy to have you as a guest.]

In a scene that was now familiar to him, the world faded to gray and he appeared somewhere else.

Unless his last meeting with the goddess of death, he wasn't in a sureal field of flowers surrounded by a plethora of beautiful colored clouds. Right now, he was somewhere...

Far somber, yet far grander.

"I thought I would show you this rare scene. Gives you a bit of early perspective."

What he stood on wasn't anything special, some simple barren island made out of rock. But that wasn't the important bit. No, the important bit what was AROUND that island.

Three silhouetes of soft and different colored light, filled with an uncountable number of little multicolored swirls like the stars upon the void of the night sky. The humanoid light forms were impossibly huge, yet they appeared so close he could almost touch them at the same time. They just stood there, floating into the emptiness of this realm like lifeless husks paradoxally filled with life.

"I'm modifying what you see so that you aren't overwhelmed. And yes, these are exactly what you are thinking. These are the 'corpse' of the 5Th dimensional beings that attacked me. Their color represent the 'divinity' they had and each swirls inside them is an Omniverse of their own creation."

Working his jaw for a bit, Julian smiled wrily and reluctantly averted his eyes from the sight and sat at the stone table to which Kass was already seating.

Despite his wants to focus on what he came here for, he just couldn't not asks some questions after seeing that.

"What's the difference between Omniverses if by definition, they already contain everything?"

Kassmorra, still as peerlessly beautiful as she ever was. Gave him a slight smile. "The ultimate force ruling them. The all powerful creator, a pantheon or a civilisation. Those sitting at the top differ in strength, nature and origin. This is the same for multiverses."

"So you can inform me of that, but not other things? Weren't you were supposed to be weakened?" Julian lifted an eyebrows in askance.

Kass waved her hand in dismissal. "You would have arrived at this conclusion if you had continued to read fictions In your new life. Primordial this, the omniverse's will that, Akashic records, 9th tier being... The Ultimate One. They are all the same. How is it that there's an ultimate force of the Omniverse in every fictional work where dimensions of such scale are aboarded if there is supposed to be only one Omniverse?" She asked out loud as if she was in his place.

"Simple, there's an infnity of them." She curtly answered the question herself.

"There's another factor at play to differentiate them, but I can't tell you for now..."

"I see..." It wasn't a hard concept to grasp, it was just of such a huge magnitude that truly comprehending it was quite literally, outside mortal boundaries.

"That's infinity for you." Kass quiped in at his thought.

"Well, this sure was informative. But can I benefit from these corpses in any way?" Julian asked the important question.

"No, that would count as direct help from me. They're my kills, after all. Go kill your owns." Smirking, the goddess of death teased.

"At least I tried." Julian smirked in return, easily dismissing the talk of earlier from his mind. He was way past having an existential crisis at this point.

"Knowing is better than not knowing eh? Quite the dangerous way of thinking Julian."

Julian understood what she meant by that. As some being would know if you were to simply think about them. Like Mikan, or Kass by simple logic.

"As for why you came here, I would have informed you when you arrived at that point so I could recover some. But I understand that making preparation beforehand is important." Having already read his mind about his intentions. Kass stated.

"Because of the information hazard tightening around me and because of everything else. I really only tell you this because it is essential for you." Kass warned Julian gravely.

"To gather sparks of impossibility, there are 'factors' that can get you some. Firstly, there is the factor of 'powerful belief': If one or multiple beings truly powerful in their respective world genuinely believe you did the impossible. You can get a spark fragment, of which take two to make one. You get one fragment for each believed impossible feats."

"Secondly, there is the factor of 'Law breaking': If you break something set in stone by the world by your own means. You get a spark. For exemple, if you somehow resist a witch authority completely in Re-Zero."

"Thirdly and the final one, the 'Reality shattering' factor. Using the world own power system, do an impossible feat. Like completely elimimating the witch factor using magic from Re-Zero. Do that, and you get three sparks." Kass finished.

"The first looks feasable, but the second and third one is basically doing the impossible to get the impossible. Seems totally reasonable." Julian sarcastically remarked.

Staying silent and thinking for a bit, Julian meaningfully glanced at the goddess after a moment and mused to himself out loud. "This look like a complete paradox at first glance. But it's really more of a case by case puzzle isn't it?"

Seeing her do nothing other than smiling at him. Julian chuckled. "I'm playing with fire aren't I? Whatever, I'll stop trying to kill myself... At least for now."

His expression becoming serious, he continued. "Please send me back in Re-Zero, I better exploit every boons you gave me in that world before setting my sight on another. And I still have to keep my promise with Emilia the first anyway. Okay, that sounded way less morbid and funnier in my head."

Rolling her eyes, Kassmorra leaned forward and sending him a kiss with her hand. Her head held aloft atop her palm.

The last he heard of her before his world went dark was her mouthing off to him a soft. "Safe trip, darling."

—————

Like last time, Julian consciousness passed through a sort of film of water in total darkness before he regained clarity. Yet it wasn't all, as the world abmormally stayed grey for a bit longer and he felt his body going through certain rapid changes.

Only after the changes ended that time resumed and Julian found himself disoriented.

He was currently on a paved road, in a position looking ready to bolt away.

It had been some weeks after all, so such a reaction as the memories of his current situation truly sinked in was natural.

He had been on the verge of running away as the chaos of the moment and his supressed emotions suddenly surging back had induced a sort of spontaneous frustrated madness in him.

His last bit of self control made him decide to run away to an isolated place before he did something he would regret.

It was then that Kass had offered him a respite and a way to quench this state by quite literally, letting him engage in a one sided bloodbath. Afterward sending him back to DxD to 'relax'. Which lead to him to meeting Mikan shortly afterward, the rest was history.

Slowly turning away, Julian met gazes with an hostile Puck. Deactivating his veiled mind ability that made his intentions unreadable. He calmly told him. "I can understand the reaction, I lost control. It's my fault, but I'm okay now. It will not happen again."

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–Lust (Minor): You are a weak personification of the sin of lust.

Abilities:

~Veiled Mind: Allow the masking of one's intentions. (Passive)

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"You believe you are saying the truth. But what if you believed wrong? I sensed your intention for her just then, and they were real. I can't trust you to be around Emilia." Pausing in surprise at the very sudden change of emotions in Julian. Puck replied, but he still didn't let go of his aggressivity.

"You want the truth? I was not myself, that's why I was on the verge of escaping. I would have NEVER done anything. If thinking is doing, then you should just kill everyone and be done with it." Not caring anymore, Julian glared at Puck and spat out in disgust, both for his accusation and his way of thinking. If he didn't want to believe his words, then what was even the point.

The crowd of people around and the two girls with Julian finally reacting to Puck throwing a icicle at the blond and his subsequent deflection of the attack. The former panicked and left in a hurry while the later stopped their silly acts and became wary, Emilia more so than Felt.

"If you don't even trust my words, then why let you read me?" Reactivating veiled mind, Julian crossed his arms as Puck's eyes widened in disbelief.

"Puck, why did you attack him all of a sudden?" Emilia asked, her brows furrowed.

"It's because we can't trust him. Lia" Keeping his eyes on Julian, Puck warned.

"But-"

"I know what I said. But we can't count on my empathy for him." Unbelieving of his own words, Puck shook his head.

"So what, I gave back Emilia's emblem. And you're gonna keep her from coming with me because of some fleeting bad phase? Is that how it is?" Julian frowned in dissatisfaction, pressing Puck for an answer.

Taken aback by the conflict, Felt frowned in contemplation and looked at Puck. " I don't get what's happening. Yeah, aniki's pretty rude. But he never hurted me. Only thing bad was forcing me to come with him, but we're going to old man Rom anyway. So it's more like he's escorting me home?"

Asking herself unsurely, she shook her head. Afterward looking at the whole group and the weird mood, she crossed her arms and huffed. "I don't get what's your fluffyself fuss is about. But trust is not something you're simply given in the streets, you have to earn it the hard way. So why should you decide to trust aniki or not on a whim? Or whatever happened just now?"

Throwing a subtle look at Julian before refocusing her gaze on Puck. "And if my opinion's asked, then besides from coming out of nowhere. He looks like a good enough bloke, thief guts speaking."

Puck hearing all of this, kept mum. He evaluated his course of action. Since his his mind reading didn't work. He would have to rely on simple logic...

Firstly, what the boy said was true in all the senses of the word. For a brief moment, the boy had bad thoughts about Emilia. But then, he had indeed looked ready to run away after parrying with surprising ease his icebolt. He hadn't looked in any way willing to act upon his, for a lack of better words, very intense impulse. So an unnatural factor could really be at play.

But the real question was: could he afford to give the benefits of the doubt to that youngling?

Despite the blond affirmation, who knew if such a state would come again. At that time, would he be able to hold himself back again — to get back to his senses as fast as before?

The risk definitely wasn't worth it. Even less with the strength he displayed.

Yet...

Throwing a look at the uneasy Emilia, Puck sighed.

It was still early, so he could keep an eye on him.

If he tried anything. Or if he wasn't satisfied before his materializing cycle ended. He could still discard him.

More importantly, if what the boy said found itself to be true. He could make for a good ally.

Only he knew how his daughter sorely needed some.

Making his decision, Puck squinted coldly. "Lead us. I'll watch from the back."

"Thank you." His face softening, Julian ignored the threat and nodded simply.

Turning his back on them, a grins they couldn't see rose on his face.

His only genuine reaction was when he was accused of eventually acting on his thoughts about the girls. Aside from that, his words were calculated.

His face back to normal, he said at the intention of Puck. "I know it doesn't really mean anything, but I'll allow you to read me again. As a show of good faith, and If only for your peace of mind."

Not receiving a reply, Julian shrugged and deactivated veiled mind again.

"We're pretty close, so I don't think there's any need to hurry up." Falling into a steady pace, Julian headed toward where he thought Subaru was.

"You know about old man Rom place?" Falling to his side, Felt asked doubtfully.

"Of course I know, I've already been there after all." Julian admitted, not a lie.

Throwing a looks at felt, Julian mimicked a girly voice. "He look like a good enough bloke, thief guts speaking. What was that about?"

Blushing slightly, Felt shrugged cooly. "What. It looks like you were both in a dead end. So I just gave my opinion. And see? It worked!"

Chuckling, Julian patted her head. "Certainly looks like it, thanks. Still, I don't remember asking."

Slapping his hand away, she protested. "You bastard, is that how your repay people who helped you!? And I'm 15!"

"Your point?"

"Be more grateful! And don't patt my head!"

"Stop shouting, and maybe I'll consider both."

"You!..." Gritting her teeth. Felt turned her head away and put her hands in her pockets, grumbling curses under her breath about bullying and some unmensionable things.

"Is that how it's like to have friends? Seems nice..." A bit farther back, Emilia mused to herself.

On her shoulder, Puck facepalmed.

(A/N: People who read to here went through to the Re-Zero Miniarc. But for those who skipped it, what I'm basically saying is... Cope. Kidding, I'll try to make it a whole lot more interesting this time around. For those not familiar with the universe I'll also try to explain more about it. Only question I have is if I should put elements that needs explaining in a author note or not? Also, maybe I'll do a bookmark for the different worlds so people can skips the ones they don't like. But only if I have the energy to. So yeah...)