Of course, none of that had much to do with Rod. What he cared about was whether he could trigger a few new missions here.
Walburga didn't chat with Rod for long.
After all, the two of them had only crossed paths by chance, and with Jeanne openly radiating hostility beside him, Walburga tactfully left on her own.
"I really didn't expect Ophis, the Infinite Dragon God, to actually be here. That's a being even the gods don't dare provoke. I wonder what kind of promise they made to convince her to stay."
"After all, a name like Khaos Brigade sounds way too much like some terrorist organization."
The strongest being in the world, serving as the nominal boss of a terrorist group?
"Huh? Isn't our Hero Faction basically one too?"
Rod looked genuinely surprised when he said that.
"Of course not! Most of us in the Hero Faction are descendants of heroes. How could we possibly have anything to do with a terrorist organization?!"
As if she had just heard something outrageous, Jeanne reacted strongly and immediately shot back.
"We're a righteous faction with a just cause! Terrorist organizations are exactly the kind of thing we should be wiping out!"
"In that case, let's just start shooting this place up first."
As he spoke, Rod pulled two Desert Eagles out from his pants.
"Whoa, whoa, calm down."
Seeing that Rod had actually drawn his guns, Jeanne hurriedly pushed his hands back down.
Although she hadn't known him for very long, she already understood that Rod had very strong opinions of his own.
"And besides, I only said the name sounds like one. It doesn't necessarily mean it actually is."
"Oh."
Rod calmly put the guns away.
He had really just been testing whether he could trigger a mission to destroy Khaos Brigade.
Unfortunately, it didn't work.
"By the way, you still haven't told me why the Hero Faction wants to join Khaos Brigade."
"Well, obviously it's because… uh…"
Jeanne got stuck halfway through her sentence.
The truth was, she didn't really know either. The Hero Faction was already its own organization, so why did it need to join another one?
Looking at Jeanne as she fell into thought, Rod gave a faint laugh and said, "I remember you once told me that the Hero Faction's goal is to achieve great deeds and make gods and Buddhas witness the strength of humanity. If that's the case, then I don't think the Hero Faction should join or attach itself to any other organization."
"And you know about the devils currently negotiating with Ophis, right?"
"Yeah. I heard they're from the Underworld, though they're not stray devils. They're part of a faction loyal to the Old Maous."
Jeanne nodded.
"I also heard that the Three Factions are planning a high-level meeting soon. Since the Old Maou faction is negotiating with Ophis at a time like this, they're obviously trying to use her power against the current Maous."
The rest was Jeanne's own speculation.
After all, anyone with eyes could see what the Old Maou faction was planning.
They had existed for a long time already, living near the borders of the Underworld, resenting the current Maou government and dreaming day and night of returning to Lilith's capital.
If they could gain the Infinite Dragon God's power now, they might really be able to overthrow the current order and restore the old one.
"But what does that have to do with the Hero Faction?"
Jeanne asked in return.
"You're right. What does it have to do with the Hero Faction?"
Rod let out a light laugh.
"If I were Cao Cao, I wouldn't let the Hero Faction wade into this mess."
"You think you're Cao Cao?"
At those words, Siegfried, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly let out a mocking snort.
"What a ridiculous delusion."
"No one can replace Cao Cao. Without him, there would be no Hero Faction."
After saying that, apparently too lazy to keep listening to Rod talk, he turned and walked off.
"Sorry. That's just how Siegfried is. But what he said isn't wrong. Cao Cao is the backbone of the Hero Faction. No one can replace him."
Jeanne shook her head with a smile.
She did think highly of Rod, but more out of a kind of fondness for a younger brother, along with a bit of personal affection toward a good looking guy.
Back when Cao Cao first found her, the grand speech he gave had stirred the blood of Jeanne, who had been living a dull, unremarkable life in the Church. That was what made her join the Hero Faction in the first place, hoping to achieve something meaningful.
Rod didn't get angry after hearing all that.
"Heroes have never existed for the sake of accomplishing great deeds."
"Then what do they exist for?"
Jeanne was a little stunned.
Why did this sound so different from what Cao Cao and the others had said?
They were all descendants of heroes. Their ancestors had achieved great deeds and been remembered by the world, yet in their own generation, they could only live ordinary, uneventful lives.
The blood of heroes inside them rejected that fate every second.
That was why they wanted to prove that neither gods nor Maous had the right to look down on them.
If all you did was drift through life in mediocrity, what kind of hero were you?
Just as Jeanne was about to argue back, Rod stood up.
Warm sunlight happened to pour in through the window and fell across his body. The glow along his profile made him look almost like some kind of saint.
"Only those who fight to protect others can be called heroes."
"..."
Seeing that scene, combined with those words, Jeanne couldn't help parting her lips slightly.
At that moment, she felt that Rod was giving off a very special kind of presence.
And after carefully savoring what he had just said, Jeanne felt her whole body tremble.
A hero wasn't someone who existed to build a name for themselves, but… someone who existed to protect others?
She looked down at her own hands and remembered fighting beside Rod in Italy, killing those vampires, and the way those humans had looked at her afterward, as if she were their savior.
"That's all I'll say. The rest, you can figure out for yourself."
Rod patted Jeanne on the shoulder.
To be honest, he had originally thought the fanatics in the Hero Faction would be a pain to deal with.
But then he thought about it again. If Cao Cao could talk them half-crazy, then there was no reason he couldn't do the same.
Most of the Hero Faction members were under twenty. As descendants of heroes, what they craved most was recognition from others.
To put it bluntly, most of them were just chuuni teenagers stuck in adolescence, easy to stir up and easy to use.
So the moment Rod saw Jeanne again, he adjusted his wording a little.
There was obviously no way he could convince her to turn over a new leaf outright, but since she was so obsessed with playing the "hero" game, he decided to drench her in a little pre-transmigration soul soup first.
After all, he hadn't watched all those episodes of Ultraman and Kamen Rider for nothing.
And to make it more convincing, he had even cast a lighting spell on himself for dramatic effect. Maxing out the light pollution definitely made him look a lot more divine.
Against someone like Jeanne, it worked absurdly well.
To be fair, Jeanne also noticed that Rod had deliberately used a lighting spell to show off, but she still had to admit that compared to Cao Cao, what Rod had just said made a great deal of sense too.
Especially since her own ancestor had fought to liberate France and protect its people.
At that moment, even the ancestral spirit within her seemed to tremble slightly.
Oh, my God.
Between Cao Cao and Rod, who was she supposed to believe?
Just as Jeanne was about to keep discussing the topic of heroes with Rod, she suddenly noticed that he had already started walking toward the deeper part of the building.
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