"Ugggghhh. I'm so bored…" Jeanne cried out as she sprawled dramatically across a large boulder embedded into the ground. Her arms made clinking sounds when she shifted around some more, complaining, "When can we go? I'm so bored just staying here like this!"

I let out a sigh. Jeanne held the soul of the Joan of Arc, though you could never guess that from her personality alone.

Dealing with Jeanne's antics was never my specialty. That was Siegfried's job. Those two butt heads with each other at every opportunity, and often the argument devolves into building-shaking duels as swords are drawn and the song of metal singed.

"Come now, Jeanne," Siegfried started, his arms tracing one of the many swords that were strapped to his waist, "Our dear leader's never one to waste our time. Surely she's asking for us to be here must mean it's important. And if it isn't? Well, our leader always compensates us for our time."

Siegfried licked his lips as a dangerous glint crossed his eyes. Ever the fighter.

I looked around at the group some more. Aside from Jeanne and Siegfried, the other members of the Alpha Team were here; Georg and Arthur. Though our uniforms all varied drastically, we all had the symbol of a triangle with an eye in the middle as a pin somewhere around our chest.

Turning to look around me, my eyes once more gazed upon the tall mountain that we were on the sides of. The Paringul Mare looked majestic in spring.

Geographically, we were currently situated near the edge of the vampire's territory, a large piece of land that stretched from the small city of Poiana Marului to the Defileul Jiului National Park to the Cioclovina Natural Park.

It was a land that was the size of Luxembourg.

"As powerful as our leader is," I began, approaching Jeanne, "I'm sure he can't eliminate the entirety of the Tepes Faction by his lonesome. I'm positive he would call for our help eventually."

To get a sense of how powerful the vampires were, a certain historical fact comes to mind. In the 1960s, the father of the current dictator of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, once tried to reclaim the lands that had been the vampires for generations using the newly formed People's Army of Romania under the disguise of a 'military drill'.

The army was slaughtered and Ceausescu had to use the excuse of a landslide to explain the deaths. Even when they used the newest military technology made by Soviet science, from tanks to bombs, 5,000 soldiers had scarcely been able to claim more than half a dozen confirmed kills.

"Hmm," Jeanne tilted her head as she flipped her body around so that her stomach was now facing the boulder, "Being in the Hero Faction for a year now and I still don't know much about our leader."

There, Jeanne got up and jaunted over closer to me, her mouth formed into a teasing smile, "Come on now, tell me more about our dear leader. As the deputy leader, surely you must know more about her than the rest of us, such as her gender. I say our leader's a female but you seem to say she's a he."

I stepped back a bit away from Jeanne. Georg stopped writing inside his notebook and turned his attention towards me.

He's also interested to know more about our enigmatic leader.

I thought about it for some time before replying to Jeanne's question.

"To be frank, I don't know much either," I said, much to Jeanne's instantly disappointed face. Before she could say anything else, I resumed, "I first met him over a decade ago, in rural China. Just as my gene donors— never parents— were about to sell me to some strange men from the government. They were hungry. Even though I could've hunted some ducks with my summoned spear, the offers given by those strange men were too enticing."

My nose twitched as I recalled the horrible stench that filled the house, that which heralded his arrival.

"To be honest, Solitaire has never answered any of my questions regarding his true identity, so it's mostly just personal preferences. I don't think he cares."

A voice that sounded more like the coalescing of a dozen different voices said something that I will always remember:

'Close your eyes and cover your ears.'

Those were the first words he spoke to me, most likely with a voice changer. I obeyed, even if I felt instinctively put off by him.

In less than a second, I felt a pair of hands on my shoulder, pushing me to go in a single direction. I obeyed, even as I felt my bruised feet full of blisters touching a shallow pool of warm liquid and occasionally stepping on what felt like warm, broken-up pieces of jello.

'It's safe now.'

I opened my eyes and uncovered my ears. I could feel the window blowing through my dirty hair, and the horrible stench coming from my savior.

I took a deep breath for the first time as a free man. Free from my gene donors— never were my parents.

I joined him as we founded the Hero Faction with the express purpose of throwing off the Gods and establishing humanity as the true dominant lifeform on the planet.

To start an Age of Man.

On a more personal level, I wanted to be like Solitaire. So incredibly skilled and strong.

Jeanne's face cringed in annoyance at my lack of an answer. She turned to Georg, "Come on nerd, you're the most knowledgeable one of the entire Hero Faction, surely you must know something, right?"

Georg pushed in his glasses.

"I am ashamed to admit I don't know either. My best guess is that our leader is the inheritor of the spirit of Hasan-i Sabbah, the first assassin, given how talented they are at assassination and subterfuge, as well as in areas of management."

Scrunching up in frustration, Jeanne stomped, denting the ground and causing a small fountain of dirt to erupt around her feet.

"Well, can someone at least tell me why she smells so bad sometimes? Like, whenever Solitaire spars against someone, she always smells so bad!"

"Most likely the side effect of an unknown Sacred Gear." Georg replied, "Our leader has the ability to reduce the powers of anything that falls outside of the natural laws. They express this ability with that stench. If you can smell it, that means your supernatural ability is reduced."

"Almost correct."

"AIEEEEEE!" Jeanne jumped like a surprised cat as the leader's voice came from behind her a few meters away. Fumbling to the ground, the blonde girl turned around to glare at the figure garbed in a jester outfit. In his arms was a naked woman of unparalleled beauty.

I could swear there's a smile on Solitaire's face whenever he does this.

As Solitaire approaches, a feeling of dread settles in the back of my mind, accompanied by the smell. That constant, near-persistent smell that's always near the leader. While Solitaire has the ability to rein it in, for some reason, he's not for now.

Jeanne instantly bounced back, teasing, "So, you finally found your soulmate?"

She gestured at the naked girl inside Solitaire's arms.

The leader didn't bother answering and faced me. With the mask always on his face, I couldn't ever figure out what he was thinking. I don't even know what he looks like.

"Our newest recruit. Head back to base. Dress her. Feed her. Teach her. She will become a valuable asset."

Solitaire walked towards me, his steps silent as always.

He really does intend to just hand me a naked woman. Oh, Jeanne is going to have a field day with this teasing me, I bemoaned internally.

"Wait," Arthur called out, a hand on his sheathed sword, causing me to be a bit tense, "Did you call us all out here to escort this dhampir?"

I had no problem handling the female dhampir's weight. I just had to be careful and make sure my hands weren't touching any special areas.

Solitaire turned to leave, ignoring Arthur's question entirely. This caused the latter to narrow his eyes and take a firm stance.

Oh boy.

I don't bother taking out True Longinus. It's pointless. In the sense that it's pointless for me to defend Solitaire since I haven't defeated him once in a spar.

Nonetheless, I wrapped my cloak around the naked dhampir in my hands and placed her leaning her back on a rock.

"Listen, Arthur—" I moved to get between Arthur and Solitaire, only to be pushed away by the British man. Harshly at that.

"Enough. I had thought that you sent out a Level 5 alert for something actually important, not this… Though I am grateful for your sheltering us after we left the House of Pendragons, I cannot trust you with the lack of communication. I, Le Fay, and Elaine are leaving."

I looked at Arthur with a sympathetic gaze. The lack of communication with Solitaire really is the most frustrating part about working under him.

"Listen, Arthur, I know how you feel," I said to him, my hands raised in a pacifying gesture, "I know that it's frustrating, but just trust Solitaire."

"How can I trust our great and glorious leader if I don't even know what they look like? Are you even human?"

"Listen, Arthur, I get you. I really, really do, but Solitaire's plans will always result in the best for humanity. If you go now, who do you think is left that can protect you from the wrath of the Pendragon House? Especially when you've stolen Caliburn."

Arthur glared at me. Using the Sword of Damocles in the form of Pendragon— the ruler of Britain's supernatural scene— as a stick to keep him in line.

Then Solitaire provided the carrot.

"The dhampir is the wielder of the Sephiroth Graal."

Now that caught everyone's attention. Siegfried whistled while Jeanne posed a rhetorical question.

"Damn, how'd you keep finding these extraordinary people? It's like you have a sixth sense or something, oh Great Leader."

"I see. So it was important." Arthur took a bow, "I apologize for my actions."

Even from the barest of glances, one could tell that Arthur was far from sorry.

Despite knowing this, Solitaire turned to leave once more, heading east.

"Where are you going, oh great leader?" Siegfried mimicked Jeanne and asked with mock respect.

"Japan."

Without a second word, Solitaire's outline began to fuse with his surroundings. The outline of his colorful jester-like clothing blurred, making it difficult to figure out where Solitaire begins and the surroundings end.

A burst of near-impossible speed later, Solitaire disappeared as this shapeless storm of prismatic colors.

"So how fast was that?" Jeanne called out to Georg.

"From what little I could track, at minimum Mach 0.92."

"Nooo!"

Siegfried chuckled, "I won, now pay up Jeanne!"

"Grrr, Georg said that it's at a minimum! Our leader could easily be moving faster than sound!"

Siegfried raised a finger and said, "Oh but he didn't, now did he? What was our bet again? Wasn't it to see whether Solitaire's movement is faster than sound, as determined by Georg? You tainted saint, are you really backing out of this?"

Jeanne growled, "You shut up! You inbred mutt! Siegfailure!"

"Tainted saint! Tainted saint!"

"Siegfailure! Siegfailure!"

I thumbed the bridge of my nose, massaging it as a wave of migraine assaulted my senses. God damn it.

Before this could devolve into another of their usual spat, I blitzed forward faster than either of them could react and chopped their heads.

"Owwiee!"

"Argh!"

"Literal childrens," I huffed.

Was this why Solitaire left most of the day-to-day operations to me? So he doesn't have to deal with these man-childs?

"Let's head back."

My arms snaked underneath the sleeping dhampir as I brought her up into a carry. Turning to face Georg, I nodded. In turn, the man released a cloud of purple mist that then solidified into a gate of sorts.

More than just being able to deposit things into the Dimensional Gap, after coming into contact with Solitaire, Georg displayed a new ability in the form of being able to access an entirely sealed-off separate adjacent dimension of winding tunnels that connects to many points across the world and other realms like the Underworld or even Heaven.

Solitaire calls it the Webway, and it was primarily this candy that lured the scholar away from the Magician Association.

Walking through the gate, I found myself in the middle of a long sterile hallway with a single line of neon lights hanging on the ceiling. Sheets of metal covered everything.

"Nurse! We need a nurse!" I called out to the few people that walked this corridor.

Our base, hidden away from the rest of the world inside its own dimension.

AN: Hmm, I wonder why is there something called a Webway inside DxD. I wonder if this is setting up something in the future?