Deal With The Devil

The journey didn't take long, only around half an hour before the group found themselves before the wooden building that was old man Rom's shack.

"Okay then, Felt. Do your thing, I don't think your gramps will have as much of an hard time believing my story if it comes from you." Julian gestured for Felt to take the lead.

"Yeah yeah, you better be grateful this time." Grumbling, Felt opened the door and entered.

"Old Man! I'm back!! And I brought some friends!"

"Eh? Who's this guy?"

Tuning out Felt, Julian stayed a bit longer outside in a bit of a daze. Remembering last time he had comes here multiple weeks ago in real time. The intense fight, the blood and Subaru's death all coming at once.

"Is everything alright?"

Coming out his daze and seeing the worried expression on Emilia's face. Julian sighed bitterly. "Yeah, just remembering about something."

Letting it at that, Julian finally followed after Felt under the sharp eyes of Puck and the curious eyes of the half-elf.

—————

"Julian?" Subaru, bewildered. Immediatly stood up as the blond entered the house.

Rapidly bolting to his side, Subaru rapid fired questions while whispering. "I thought I would never see you again! Do you know what happened? Why are we back? Is that Emilia behind you?"

Placing his hands on Subaru's shoulders, Julian lead him to a corner of the room. "Subaru, I know this a fucked up situation. We're in the same boat here. So calm down will you. But if you want answers to your questions, then it's yes, it's complicated and yes again."

Wetting his lips in neevousness. Subaru shakingly asked. "So, what happened? Did I really die? It wasn't some made up hallucination?"

"Yeah, you died. I survived long enough to know why, but I died too in the end. And it was pretty bad." Julian replied simply.

...

"How can you be so calm? We fuckin died and somehow we're not well, dead." After staying silent, Subaru took a deep breath in and asked.

"What do you wants me to do? Panic? Have an existensial crisis? The important is that we're not dead, we have another chance to live. Subaru, do you understand what that means?"

"We're immortal?"

"Well, mmmh. If this is permanent, kinda. At the very least, there's too much we don't know and don't have control on to worry about. That's like nuclear war in our old world, it's hanging over our head. But there's nothing we can do about it." Julian thought for a bit and said to Subaru.

"You're right, but it still suck. Having your throat slit open fucking hurt man, and drowning in your own blood isn't the best experience in the world." Subaru relented and force himself to give a small smile.

"Tell me about it, I had holes everywhere in my body and not a single drop of blood in me." Slapping Subaru's shoulder, Julian laughed.

"H-Holes everywhere? How were you still alive?" Wincing, Subaru wondered out loud.

"Nano- I have my ways." Julian caught himself before shrugging.

"Now, if you want to know the why and how of your death. We better join with the others and listen to that girl story."

"Story who was told to her by who?"

"You guessed it, I'm just too lazy to tell it again myself."

"That's something I can respect." Nodding to himself a few times, Subaru followed Julian to the table.

—————

"So, the bowel hunter uh?" Chugging his giant mug of beer, Rom frowned.

"Yeah, we're out of our little streets for this one old man." Felt sighed.

"And you're telling me this lad barely tall enough to reeach my chest can beats her?" Throwing a thumb toward Julian, Rom asked for confirmation.

"Nobody is taller than your chest! You drunken giant!" Felt suddenly came back to life at her father figure dumb comment.

"I think that's enough for booze for you, old man. This is a serious matter." Subaru, more familiar with Rom. Rudely stole and put away his mug, but not before taking a snif from the brevage and grimacing.

"Okay, I'll think I'll be taking things in my own hands from now on." Julian said, bringing the attention of those around the table to him.

"To clarify things, she will comes here not matter what. And no matter what, she will kill evryone in this place, deal successful or not. Even if you pack up your things and run, she will think you crossed her and will eventually track you and kill you. The only way to stop her is to fight her off or pay her off with an overwhelming amount of money. We don't have the money, so that's we're using the fist method." Julian explained that there was no other possibility for felt and Rom.

"Of course, I'm not just here to fight her off. I'm here to either kill her or make a deal with her. You can rest assured, as the two are mutally exclusive."

"You wants to make a deal with an assassin?" Rom asked with a frown.

"Not really a deal when I think about it, but I want her expertise to sharpen my own, like her mastery over daggers." Julian precised, he didn't forget that Puck was here and would know if he said the truth or not.

"You want the bowel hunter to teach you!? You can't possibly be serious lad, she will kill you at the first opportunity." Rom appeared totally unbelieving of Julian's casual attitude on the subject.

"She cannot kill me, she already tried. She failed." After adding a confusing lie at the end just to mess with Puck, Julian smirked.

"I know her strengths, her weaknesses, and I have a counter for her. So really, there's no real danger for me in this fight. For all of you, though..." Sending a meaningful glance at Puck and receiving a nods from the reluctant mascot, Julian nodded back.

"Just stay close to Emilia and far from me and you should be fine. Of course, that's just a precotion, since I sweared to protect those two with my life for the duration of this ordeal." Gesturing with his head to the two girls present, Julian stood up.

Cracking his knuckles, Julian secretely prepared a stronger version of the scarlet tomb Rias had used on Riser during her match.

The spell needed complex manipulation that anchered and covered the opponent in a dense and persistent layer of PoD. It was perfect to offset the regenerative property of people like Riser or in this case Elsa.

If before coming back to this world he had some worry about being able of entirely crushing Elsa before she could take an hostage or kill someone. Now with his ascension to a Second Order Nephalem, he was totally confident.

Indeed, earlier when he was just coming back to the world. His current body had gone through some changes. The immediate ones were a tripling of his EC reserve and an immediate boost in his strength.

While his power from DxD wasn't transferable to another world. A thing like his race seemed to follow him no matter what. The sublimation of his Order thus engendering a direct boost to his base strength across worlds.

That's what he thought was happening at least.

It was also another reason to seeks a higher Order.

"I know this is an unusual and nervewrecking situation, but there's really nothing else we can do but wait for her." Julian calmly stated seeing uneasy expressions all around.

And so, they waited. The mood slowly easing naturally as time passed, everyone began chatting with each others.

"Hold up, I think she's here. It's hard to tell, she doesn't have a scent nor does she makes any sound." Julian suddenly warned as the sun began to set. Ignoring Subaru's confused gaze. He placed himself before the door and not knowing how to supress the visual effect, began to radiate blue mana from his pores as he filled himself with the magical energy from this world. Thus enhancing his physical prowess.

Despite knowing that the bowel hunter, or Elsa, was standing behind the door. He had to wait for a bit before she decided to open the door.

"Well, hello there, Handsome boy. I'm honored someone of your... stature is here to welcome a little assassin like me." Lifting her head a bit to take in his glowing eyes, Elsa smiled coquishetly.

"It's good that you're not rash, but since I don't have any money right now to forward the deal I had in mind. I think it's better I show you that against me, you're as mortal as anyone else." Contrary to his pleased smile, Julian words didn't sound very pleasant to Elsa.

"Wait, surely, there's no need for vio-" Suddenly aiming to open his belly with a lightning fast dagger strike, Elsa cut herself mid sentence.

Simply catching her wrist before it could even connect, Julian grinned. "Ah, now you've done it."

Catching her second wrist which was already armed with a dagger and keeping her in place with his superior strength, Julian opened his mouth and spat an orb of red darkness at her.

In a eerily burst of silent magic, Elsa entire form was instantly totally covered in black and red flames.

Certainly, Elsa's regenerative ability was extremely powerful. But even then, it couldn't fight off the empowered scarlet tomb that kept being fuelled by him.

She wasn't idle either during that time, kicking otherwise impossibly devastating blow at his vital regions. But while she was doing some damage, it was far from enough for him to release her.

Even when she tried to rip his grip on her by sacrifying her arms and kicking away from his torso. Julian didn't react much and simply let her do so.

"Congrats, you freed yourself. What are you gonna do now? Run and come back later to have your revenge? Fight me? Oh wait." Julian appeared behind her.

"You can't." Whispering behind where her ear would be, Julian lifted her by the throat and smashed her into the ground. Rising a cloud of dust as a result of the strength of the impact.

"Not fast enough to run!" Lifting her again, Julian sucker punched her in the stomach. Unlike his last fight with her, her flesh didn't fell as hard as stone. But soft like clay.

"S-Stop, I understand!"

Knowing she certainly wouldn't, Julian ignored her and threw her into the air like a ragdoll. Making the Destructive energy coating her leave a trail of dark red behind her.

"Not strong enough to fight back!"

On her descent, he kicked her in the head. cabing her face in and leaving her rotating at an insane speed for in place for a moment as if gravity had suddenly disappeared.

*Thud*

"Just like all of your victims." Stopping his assault as most of her body had disintegrated by now. Julian waved his hand, canceling scarlet tomb on the assassin.

Throwing a random blanket he found in the house on her as she regenerated. Julian placed himself just above her face and gazed down on her.

"Now that my point has been made. The deal." Putting a barrier distorting time around them. Julian smiled softly.

"Not now, but in the sure future. Everything you'd ever want, I could give. Be it money, power or even fame. And If it's what your twisted heart desire, even plenty of strong people to kill and prey on would be on the table." Julian stated what he could offer to the dazed cold blooded and crazy killer.

"Of course, my deals are always fair. So what I would require in exchange is quite fair for what I offer you."

"The cost is truly simple. I want your everything." His tone was casual, yet his words were nothing but.

"Oh yeah, just a disclaimer, if you refuse. I will be forced to end your meaningless life. Though knowing you're not afraid of death, I will not do it immediatly. Because you see, you don't just refuse my deal and have it easy by dying." Julian looked thoughtful and added as if remembering something of little importance.

"So, looks good for you, Elsa Granhiert?"