Chương 31: Chapter 31: How did we forget?

Three days passed while the two who were assigned on a mortal mission passed their days without working or doing anything particularly meaningful.

Klemens restarted his hobby of climbing big things with his own hands while Liesl started searching for something new, as she had long since discarded baking pies as an option, unfortunately she didn't find anything she had a passion for.

"Listen soldiers, your mission is only to scout, engage only if you can absolutely not do otherwise, your lives are the most important, understand?" spoke commander Erwin with his usual great charisma, but his audience didn't have great reactions.

"Yes, sir" replied the two sixteen year olds unenthusiastically, they had a sleepless night that night and were dead tired.

They had spoken to their friends, told them what they were going to do, but they didn't say goodbye as even if the possibility of them dying existed, to them there was no point in thinking about it, if that happened they would be dead after all.

At least that's how Klemens thought, Liesl on the other hand just didn't acknowledge the possibility of either of them dying in the first place, it could be confidence, or it could be that she was scared to even think about it, or maybe even a mix of the two.

Erwin looked at them weirdly, usually someone going to such a mission would be fidgety, scared, solemn or anything in between, but it was the first time he sent off someone that looked so bored on what was basically a suicide mission for anybody else.

He wouldn't even have accepted sending them if they didn't give him ample achievements that could give him the confidence of them eventually managing to somehow come back.

Like the day of the fall of Trost and the fact that they survived in Wall Maria as children without weapons or real military training.

He was still skeptical, but this was only going to be a scouting operation, not an attack operation, so he hoped that everything would go for the best and if they indeed managed to find useful information then it was all to be gained.

"I won't tell you to dedicate your hearts, what I will tell you is that for the sake of Humanity, come back alive, you're more useful alive than dead" he had an extremely solemn expression on his face, he had almost as much faith in them as he had in Eren.

He was astonished with what happened with this years recruits, two were the most talented and able recruits he had ever seen, one rivaled Levi at his age and three turned out to be titan shifters, all these things happening in a single year seemed weird.

"Yes, sir!" replied the two once again, this time with far more life behind their words.

"Good, now go and come back alive" were the last words the commander spoke to them as they were lowered down to the ground via a wooden scaffolding.

They reached the ground and started discussing their future modus operandi.

"First of all, we have enough gas for a lot of fights, we have eight cylinders each, next we have twenty blades each, with this much we should be all set for the entire trip" started Liesl.

"Indeed, let's rehearse the plan, first we kill every single titan that we come across" continued Klemens, but, unfortunately, he was interrupted by an "Yeah, screw what Erwin says" by his companion.

But he replies "Indeed, the more titans we kill in this mission the less our comrades will have to suffer in the future, not like normal titans are something we really have to worry about either way"

"I guess that's true" said the girl.

"Second of all, we act as stealthily as possible, killing titans is good and I know you have fun in cutting a limb after the other, but for the duration of this mission I ask you to do it as fast and quietly as possible"

"Obviously, if we were to catch too much unwanted attention then we will probably be found out by our enemies and we still don't know if they have reunited with their Marleyans allies, not knowing that, getting the least possible attention is the best possibility"

But Klemens didn't let himself stay dumbfounded for longer than a few seconds "Perfect, we should think of a way to get our resources to last as long as possible, this things weigh a lot, but they are our lifeline.

The blades are fine as we have a lot of them, but the gas is too little if we use it every time we kill a titan, we should try to use the least amount possible, any idea?"

She replied after a little bit of thought "I distract them and you jump kill them? They're big but they have to lower themselves to grab us, for the bigger ones we should use the gas"

"Seems good, but if you risk being captured don't hesitate to use the gas" he didn't argue, he also thought that this was the best option as he had the best jumping ability among the two.

After triple checking everything once again they departed.

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In an office of the Scout corps.

"It's been three days, you think that they're still alive?" asked a brown haired woman to her subordinate.

"You mean the two monsters, captain?" replied Moblit to his captain's words.

"Who else? And you shouldn't call them monsters, they are people too"

"I'm sorry captain, the new recruits refer to them like that, it was a slip of the tongue, I think that they'll survive this mission"

"Why do you think so? I also think the same, but I'd like your answer too, wait why do they call them monsters?" asked Hange with a curious expression.

"From what I've heard, they are the best in everything, even in stealth, the difference between them and the third place is big, their only competitor is the each other and they've been like that since the beginning, they've probably had previous training" answered the man.

"Previous training, huh, are there other recruits like this or is it only the two of them?"

"I have no idea, but if you want me to I'll ask some recruit about it"

"Yeah, do that and then report back to me"

She just made a conjecture in her head, and if such a conjecture really were true then they might have a bigger problem in their hands than they originally thought.

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"Do you think they'll be alright?" asked a blond haired boy to his best friend since childhood.

"Obviously, they stupidly able and this mission is just a recon, you were there that day, don't you remember how they mowed down the titans like grass?" replied the green eyed young man.

"Yeah, that was a stupid question, but what if they face Reiner and Bertholdt, even if its them, they can't do anything against the colossal, they are human too"

"Then they'll escape, it shouldn't be a problem for the two of them"

"In a city it might be so, but they might fight them in an open area where they'll be overrun by a titan like the armored"

Eren didn't reply, that was indeed a possibility, but it was one he didn't want to think about.

"Let's get back to cleaning, I don't want to be punished by the captain again" said Eren awkwardly.

They swiftly finished their break and went back to cleaning.

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"Hey, now that I think about it, we forgot about something again" said Liesl breaking the silence between them.

They had run a great distance from the wall and were currently hiding between a forests trees, they had decided that they would stop moving during the day and start doing so at night.

That way the normal titans will not even be a factor while their movements would be hidden by the darkness.

Two people moving in the darkness of the night were very difficult to spot after all.

"What?" asked Klemens curiously, he was mostly sure that he had prepared everything, but the possibility that it was something important existed.

"Ymir"

An uncomfortable silence spread in the air.

"Fuck" Liesl broke the silence.

"Fuck indeed, why do we keep forgetting her anyway?"

"I don't know, maybe she's too insignificant or something"

"She's not insignificant, she's a strong one among our years recruits and also, you know, a probable titan shifter" replied Klemens with a wry smile on his face.

"Oh no, she probably has a weak titan anyway" she tried to diminish the threat the titan shifter posed, failing miserably in her intent.

"Moron, up to this point we have Eren's weird titan, Annie titan that's about as good as Eren's in combat ability, Reiner's armored that's a massive threat with his armor and I don't even have to talk about Bertholdt, that guy is big" replied Klemens.

"In the best case scenario she's a big weaker than Eren and Annie's, in the worst she has some weird ability like Reiner" continued Liesl.

"Nah, I don't think so, Annie said that there are nine of them right? Two are ours, Eren's and the so called Founder and we still don't know who has that, the other's are with Marley, except for Annie's that is now ours"

Liesl thought a bit about the possibilities and came to a conclusion "Given that Annie would have recognized her if she was from Marley, then it's either the founder or the Jaw titan"

"Why the jaw one?" asked Klemens, he did remember about it, but failed to see the connection.

"Well, they can transform by eating someone with the power, and their Jaw titan had been eaten before they could come here, maybe it was Ymir who ate him"

"Maybe, anyway, we'll discover that later, but if she shows any sign of being a potential threat, let's kill her" said Klemens resolutely, stunning his friend.

"Why would we do that? Can't we imprison her or something?"

"We could, but she could escape, but the real reason is that such a power is too dangerous"

"What do you mean, dangerous?" Liesl didn't like where this conversation was going, she was in the army and was ready to kill if necessary, but killing one of their comrades seemed a bit much.

"The power to turn into titans is dangerous, Annie said that our people are ostracized outside of here, many fear us because there is a possibility of us becoming titans and they are right, even we fear titans, why shouldn't they.

Titans are a plague, as long as a single titan or titan shifter exists the rest of the world will remain afraid of us, nobody will be able to give up this fear"

"So what? You want to kill them all? And then what, someone could eat the corpse" asked Liesl with a furrowed brow.

He looked at her as if she were incredibly stupid "We'll burn the corpse moron, and no, I don't want to kill them all, the ones under Marley have to go and Ymir too depending how she acts, but Eren and Annie are cool, we'll wait the end of their normal lifespan and then burn them"

She looked at him disconcerted "When have you thought of this? We still haven't reconquered Wall Maria and you're already thinking about after"

"I'll obviously think about after, I did it after learning the details from Annie, as long as the rest of the worlds fears us and treats us like monsters we'll never truly be free"

Liesl was touched by those words "Since when do you care about freedom? You've always said that I was stupid"

"I changed my mind, can't I?" replied the young man with a cocky smile, being tackled in a hug immediately after by his happy friend.

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Once again in a Scout's office.

"So?" asked the captain still keeping her conjecture to herself, truly hoping that it was wrong.

"There are a few other recruits that seemed to have received previous military training in the 104th cadet corp, they are Reiner Braun, Bertholdt Hoover and Annie Leonhart"

'Fuck' panicked Hange inside a bit "Get ready Moblit, we need to meet with Erwin"

She didn't wait a minute more as she left the office, leaving behind a her Vice that was only now beginning to understand what his captain was worrying about.