82 F Subaru
"Now, now. I would normally thank you for teaching me this. But insulting me, let alone my parents, without any prompting. Isn't something you should have done." Julian smiled at the kneeling woman, before lifting her by the throat.
"I doubt a little messenger like you know much at all, so interrogating is more a bother than anything else. But we never know. And it's not like I actually need to ask you anything." Saying that, Julian peered into her mind.
The angel protested, trying to pry his hand off uselessly while fighting his intrusion into her mind at the same time.
But her struggle didn't matter, his hand was a vice. And she was too weak to stop him from entering her mind, at least, not when he used brute force to do so.
Destroying her defence, he shifted through her memories. Learning of the empire she came from, their strength, culture, and custom.
The Holy Empire, as much as their name was generic. Was massively powerful.
Reigning over an entire multiverse, they were based on a very strict caste system orbiting around Bloodline related everything holy or light related. Angels, light-elves and holy dragons consisted the bloodlines which occuped the top brass of the empire. And as such were considered 'noble'.
They had access to interdimensional travel, and their society was magically extremelly advanced. So much that their common citizen had access to space travel and intersolar system teleportation.
But all of that wasn't what caught his attention.
No, it was the fact that the emperor, an angel was widely recognised to be at the universal level.
Currently way out of his league.
Another thing, was that they not only worshiped. But literally obeyed a being they simply called: 'Light'.
Exiting the mindscape, Julian looked at the woman's vacant eyes for a second before restauring her to before his little forceful incursion.
Immediatly, light came back to her and she froze. Fear in her eyes as she met his and realised that her mind had been compromised, and that he could have fone any number of things to it.
Releasing her, Julian stepped back as he fell in thought, frowning. Ignoring the intense fit of coughing his guest entered upon freeing her from his grasp.
His wings twitching once, Julian turned back his attention to the woman after arriving to the conclusion that he should thread this case carefully.
"So, Lira. From what've I've seen from your memories. You were picked for this mission by the empire because you were pretty and disposable. In an attempt to appeal to my more unholy side I would think." Julian shrugged in answer to Lira incredulous look.
"It don't matter for them what I do to you, as long as the message is passed. If you don't come back today. They'll send someone else to finalize everything."
"Basically, your fate is in my hands."
"Y-you're lying..." Lira stuttered out.
"I'm not. You don't matter. Right then, I could have killed you. Who would've stopped me?"
"The empire... The Emperor, he would've-"
"Sent someone to kill me? For you?" Julian rolled his eyes.
"Anyway, Lira. Since I've learn everything I need to know from your mind. So off with you."
...
"You're letting me go?" Lira said, unbelieving.
"Why? Do you want to stay? I can always come back on my decision, you know?" Julian squinted.
Shaking her head frantically. Lira quickly got up to her feet, a portal opening before her.
The angel almost threw herself inside in panic before stopping herself and remembering something.
"Wh-What about the offer?"
Already back to doing his own things, mostly thinking. Julian teared his gaze away from the portal. "Tell your empire that I'm interested, but not now. And tell them that I took a liking to you and don't mentiin our little conflict. Quick advice, you better do it if you want your head."
Meeting the angel's gaze with nonchalance, Julian waited until she left to shake his head.
It was better to deal with Lira than someone more powerful and less easy to manipulate. And from what he understood, the holy empire had plenty of those.
Sighing, Julian slouched on his bed.
He knew those Kass warned him about would be coming eventually. But he didn't expect them so soon.
Still, at least the new faction he had to deal with was not outright hostile. And could in fact prove itself quite beneficial.
He needed to become stronger.
Speaking of that...
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EMBODIMENTS
VIRTUES:
–Kindness (Minor): You are a weak personification of the virtue of kindness.
Abilities:
~No good deed go unrewarded: Facing your kindness, people are both less likely to betray you and more driven to reciprocate. (Integral, at will)
–Patience (minor): You are a weak personification of the virtue of patience.
Abilities:
~ Coiling mountain: You have an instinctive sense of seizing the right timing and when to just let things flow. (Integral, at will)
SINS:
–Greed (Minor): You are a weak personification of the sin of greed.
Abilities:
~One of mind and Desires: Your wants become needs, motivation fill you and make you hunger for more. (Passive, Core)
~Treasury (Minor): Grant a small personal space to hide ones valuables. (Active)
~Don't even try (Minor): Make people feel subtly ominous if they were to ever yearn for what is yours. (Passive)
–Wrath (Minor): You are a weak personification of the sin of wrath.
Abilities:
~Anger empowerment (Minor): You find strength in anger to a small degree, your own or the one of those in your immediate surrounding.(Passive)
~Anger inducement (Minor): You can induce supernatural anger to a weak degree and provoke anger more easily if you so wish. (Active)
~Controled Wrath (Minor): Less chance of losing control when angry. (Passive)
–Lust (Minor): You are a weak personification of the sin of lust.
Abilities:
~Veiled Mind: Allow the masking of one's intentions. (Passive)
~Lust manipulation (Minor): Allow the manipulation of Lust to a small degree. (Passive)
~Lust Reading (Minor): Make possible to read the Lustful thoughts of weaker beings. (Active)
–Two spark Impossibility (minor): Paradoxically, you shouldn't exist even more.
Abilities:
~Lucky time: Allow the manipulation of causality to an almost non-existent extent. Shifting the odds of a situation in one's favor. (Active)
~ Mind: It's impossible for you to be unable to learn anything related to the mind. (Passive, Set)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Julian whistled, his brows raising to the sky. It seemed saving Rem proved to be well worth it. Not only did he unlock two Virtues and thus now knew how to unlock other ones, but he also gained a whole spark of impossibility.
If he had to guess, he unlocked Kindness because he selflessly requested nothing in exchange to Rem's life. Simply because he could. And Patience because he took his time pandering to the sisters' questions while he had no need to?
He was less sure about that one, but it was the most logical conclusion.
As for the spark, well. Roswaal, Beatrice, Ram and perhaps Emilia and Puck witnessed him bring back Rem from the dead, just like that. There was no question about if these people qualified as powerful enough for the factor too, as Roswaal, Beatrice and Puck were powerhouse in this world.
But even then, that would make one tier '1' factor. And that should give him only one fragment of a spark. So he could only think that Roswaal was aware of Od Laguna and that wrenching a soul from it was supposed to be impossible qnd the archmage knew of it, hence where the other fragment came from.
The ability that came from the new spark was simply incredible, since it meant that if given the opportunity, he could learn anything related to the mind. Mindscape and palace included, and how to thoroughly fuck other's brain up.
Overall, he was pretty satisfied.
Now was time to go back to bitter business.
Just to be sure, he dispelled his arm before leaving his room.
—————
Julian dug a pit, on the top of a cliff overlooking the manor and and the beautiful landscape surounding it.
Since he was the one who had been closest to Subaru, the residents of the manor — mainly the sisters, Emilia and Puck, since Beatrice acted like she didn't care and Roswaal really didn't — had decided to wait until he woke up to make some sort of funeral for Subaru.
It was mostly done out of compassion, to have him burrowed by someone from his own homeland.
As for Julian, his self-loathing had already ran out and only a numb resignation remained for the circumstances. Frankly, he felt uncomfortable. It was the first time he had ever assisted to something like this. He didn't want to do this himself either. But he did out of respect, for his memories in this timeline if anything.
Never again did he wanted to do something like this. He sweared to himself that he wouldn't have to. Re-Zero world or not.
After burying the coffer generously bought by Roswaal, Julian turned to the rest of the people present and said some simple, blunt words.
"He was a good guy. He was just too good for this world."
—————
Knocking on the door and announcing himself, he waited for the green light from the resident of the room before entering.
As soon as they came back to the manor, Julian immediatly went to seek Emilia and as he had expected. She had isolated herself in her room.
As he stepped inside, he was greeted by a lilac sent and the sight of a sad looking Puck and a lidless Emilia that nonetheless shook her head and smiled at him wrily as a welcome.
"Julian-Kun, I'm sorry." Her voice cracked.
"You think it's your fault?"
...
Emilia looked confused as she looked at him, yet at the same time her eyes teared up.
"He died because of the royal selection, of me. So why wouldn't it be my fault?"
Julian sighed, passing a hand through his hair. He wasn't built for this.
Dealing with other's shits that is. Koneko was an exception, since it was something he knew all the in and out about. This was different.
Idly, he threw a look at puck who only answered with crossing his arms and an impassive face. Looked like recent development made the old cat reconsider his position toward him.
Probably because he had proven that he could ressucitate people.
Carefully sitting on her bed, he did what he did best. Being blunt. "Listen, Emi. Your rivals or whatever faction sent the assassin to hurt the villagers was the one responsible. Not anyone else. It was a low blow. When I and Subaru accepted to follow you, we knew this could happen."
"I'm not a very good friend, I choose to save Rem instead of Subaru because of Ram's immediate anguish. I don't know if you're aware of what happened the night before this all. But that night, I went into the village. Saved a bunch of kids and destroyed the curse afflicting, at the same time capturing the assassin."
He looked deeply into her eyes. "I could destroy the curse, I was aware of it. I knew its method of operation and I knew Subaru and Rem went into the village earlier that day...
"Yet, I didn't check on them."
...
Silence stretched as he let Emilia process the information.
Saying it like that, even if it wasn't exactly the truth. Made him realize something that made him chuckle.
"Now that I think about it, Ram wasn't the sole reason I gave up an arm to save Rem. It's a bit ugly, but at the time. Knowing my failure, I think I wanted to punish myself. So I saved Rem and sacrificed my arm."
"It's hard to rationalize, and even harder to feel but really. What happened is neither of our fault, not truly. Yes, Subaru would've have survived this if he didn't follow you. But then I wouldn't have followed you too. And then Rem, or someone else, and the villager's kids would've died. As for me well... I'm not perfect, far from it, I admit."
...
"You know what would have made all the differences?" He asked after a while.
Emilia looked down at the floor. "If there had not been any assassin in the first place."
Julian nodded. "Now, I'm not your dad, nor your teacher, nor your advisor. I'm just your friend. But you have to realise that one of your adversary is responsible for this, and that he is the type that don't care about using violence and killing innocents to achieve their goals."
"I'll be backing you no matter what you choose, but I'm going to get the answers about the culprit from the assassin. What you do with those answers is your call. After all, the royal candidates meeting is coming."
Standing up, Julian yawned and smiled. "Off with those heavy topics for now, if you want to talk. Hit me up, I'm gonna slack a bit on my training from now on. Bringing someone back from the dead is pretty heavy mentally, who would have thought?"
Not bothering to react to Puck, whose eyes were trying to stare right through him and whose face was the picture of puzzled and doubt. Julian closed in on the door, just stop and turn back as Emilia spoke up.
"Wait!"
"Yeah?" He rose an eyebrow.
Emilia seemed confused and then unsure as she formulated what she wanted to say. "You comes from the same place as Subaru right? That mean you probably know stories from there. Could you tell me some of them? After I finish my studies. It would help with them, and I think I would like that?"
As if she wasn't sure about the answer herself, she tilted her head for a moment before finally nodding once.
"Lia..." Puck began, a complicated look on his face.
"What?"
"Nothing." Sighing deeply, Puck said before thoughtfully looking at Julian.
"I don't see why not. You finish in the evening right? I'll comes knocking." Shrugging, Julian accepted and smiled innocently at Puck before leaving the room.
