Standing perfectly still in the blistering afternoon sun for three hours is not a biologically sound survival strategy.
It was the year 847.
We had officially joined the 104th Training Corps, and my entire body was deeply, profoundly regretting the decision.
The barren dirt field of the training grounds was completely silent, save for the terrifying, echoing screams of Commandant Keith Shadis.
He was currently marching down the rows of fresh, terrified recruits, aggressively screaming in their faces, trying to break their civilian spirits.
‘This is incredibly inefficient,’ my Peter Parker intellect calculated, analyzing the psychological toll on the recruits.
‘Screaming induces panic, which severely decreases cognitive retention and physical coordination.’
‘Hostile superior officer.
Avoid direct eye contact.
Conserve stamina,’ my Leon S.
Kennedy template advised coldly, locking my posture into a flawless, energy-saving military stance.
Meanwhile, my everyday-guy brain was just praying for a gust of wind so I wouldn’t pass out from heat exhaustion.
I was standing directly between Eren and a tall, horse-faced kid named Jean.
Shadis stopped in front of Armin, leaning down so his bald head was mere inches from Armin’s nose.
“And who the hell are you?!”
“Armin Arlert, from Shiganshina District, sir!” Armin shrieked, executing a flawless, trembling salute.
“Is that right?!
You look like a stiff breeze could snap you in half, Arlert!” Shadis roared, completely unfazed by Armin’s tragic backstory.
He moved down the line, terrifying Jean, severely traumatizing Marco, and generally acting like a rabid dog unleashed in a butcher shop.
Then, he stopped right in front of Eren.
“And who are you?!” Shadis bellowed.
“Eren Yeager, from Shiganshina District, sir!” Eren yelled back, his green eyes burning with an intense, unyielding fire that absolutely refused to be intimidated.
Shadis paused, recognizing the name.
“And why are you here, Yeager?!”
“To slaughter the Titans, sir!
Every last one of them!” Eren declared, his voice echoing across the silent dirt field.
A murmur rippled through the recruits.
Most of them thought Eren was insane.
I just sighed internally.
He hadn’t changed his script in two years.
Shadis stared at Eren for a long moment, completely ignoring the boy’s dramatic declaration, before violently pivoting on his heel and stepping directly in front of me.
“And what about you, recruit?!” Shadis screamed, spraying a fine mist of spit onto my forehead.
“Are you going to slaughter the Titans too?!”
I didn’t flinch.
I didn’t blink.
I didn’t even raise my voice.
Thanks to my Leon template, the concept of psychological intimidation simply did not compute in my brain anymore.
When you possess the combat instincts of a man who survived biological horrors in absolute isolation, an angry bald man yelling in a dusty field barely registers as a mild annoyance.
“Kai Yeager, sir,” I replied, my voice completely flat, deadpan, and terrifyingly calm.
“And no, sir.
I am strictly here for the guaranteed three meals a day and a dry mattress.”
The entire field went completely, utterly silent.
Even Eren stopped breathing for a second, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye in sheer panic.
Shadis’s eyes widened slightly, a vein throbbing dangerously in his forehead.
He leaned in closer, trying to force me to break eye contact, trying to summon the fear that every other recruit was radiating.
My Ultra Rare template reacted automatically.
My posture didn’t change, but my eyes went completely dead.
It was the thousand-yard stare of a hardened, traumatized veteran.
It was the look of a man who had seen the end of the world and was profoundly bored by it.
Shadis stared into my eyes for three agonizing seconds.
For the briefest, most imperceptible moment, the terrifying Commandant of the 104th Training Corps actually flinched.
He felt the sheer, unnatural coldness radiating from a twelve-year-old boy, and his own survival instincts politely suggested he back away.
“You think this is a hotel, Yeager?!” Shadis barked, though his volume was noticeably lower than before.
“We’ll see how much you like the accommodations when you’re scrubbing latrines!”
He rapidly moved on to the next recruit, completely avoiding looking at Mikasa, who was radiating her own aura of quiet, homicidal intent just a few feet away.
I let out a slow, quiet breath, relaxing my shoulders exactly one millimeter.
‘Mission accomplished,’ I thought lazily.
‘I established myself as a non-threat with zero ambition.
Now I can safely aim for the middle of the pack and avoid all leadership responsibilities.’
My brilliant plan for total mediocrity lasted exactly three days.
It completely unraveled during our very first session of Close Quarters Combat training.
The afternoon sun was beating down on the dirt yard.
Shadis had paired us up with wooden combat knives, ordering us to practice disarming hostiles.
Most of the cadets were just awkwardly rolling around in the dirt, treating it like a glorified wrestling match.
Eren was currently getting absolutely dismantled by a short, blonde girl named Annie Leonhart.
She was tossing him into the dirt with terrifying, flawless technique, looking entirely bored while doing it.
“Alright, Yeager.
Let’s see what you’ve got,” a deep voice rumbled behind me.
I turned around to face Reiner Braun.
He was easily the largest, most muscular recruit in our class.
He was built like a brick outhouse, radiating golden-boy confidence and sheer physical power.
“I have exactly nothing, Reiner,” I sighed, loosely holding my wooden knife by my side.
“I am deeply fatigued.
Can we just sit in the shade and tell Shadis we practiced?”
Reiner laughed, a booming, good-natured sound.
He clearly thought I was just a lazy, weak kid trying to get out of training.
“Come on, Kai.
You have to learn how to defend yourself,” Reiner grinned, raising his wooden knife and dropping into a textbook military fighting stance.
“I’ll go easy on you.”
My everyday-guy brain wanted to immediately drop the knife and surrender.
But as Reiner shifted his weight, preparing to lunge, my templates violently seized control of my nervous system.
‘Hostile combatant initiating attack sequence,’ my Leon S.
Kennedy instincts flagged instantly, painting Reiner in a glowing, tactical red outline in my mind’s eye.
‘Mass: approximately one hundred and eighty pounds.
Velocity: increasing.
Center of gravity: heavily leaning forward on the lead leg,’ my Peter Parker intellect calculated in a fraction of a second, overlaying structural physics onto Reiner’s body.
Reiner lunged forward, thrusting the wooden knife toward my chest with significant, bruising force.
He was holding back, but it was still a strike that would have easily knocked any normal twelve-year-old flat on their back.
I didn’t even think.
My body moved entirely on its own.
I didn’t block the strike.
Blocking requires brute strength, and I was severely lacking in muscle mass.
Instead, I used his own kinetic energy against him.
I pivoted smoothly on my heel, stepping exactly three inches to the left, slipping perfectly off his center line.
Reiner’s eyes widened in surprise as his knife thrust hit empty air, his momentum carrying him forward.
Before he could correct his balance, my left hand snapped up like a viper.
I grabbed his extended wrist, applying a perfectly calculated, agonizing pressure to his radial nerve.
Reiner gasped in sudden pain, his grip on the wooden knife instantly failing.
Simultaneously, my right hand shot forward, gripping the fabric of his jacket at the shoulder.
I dropped my center of gravity, planting my right foot directly behind his lead leg.
‘Applying leverage.
Executing kinetic redirection,’ my brain calculated coldly.
With a fluid, brutal twist of my hips, I utilized a flawless CQC hip throw, amplifying his own forward momentum with my mechanical knowledge of leverage.
Reiner Braun—the massive, muscular, golden-boy of the 104th—flew through the air like he weighed absolutely nothing.
He slammed into the packed dirt with a deafening, bone-rattling THUD.
A cloud of dust exploded around us, momentarily blinding the cadets nearby.
But my Leon template wasn’t finished.
Before Reiner could even gasp for the air that had been violently knocked out of his lungs, I had already dropped to one knee.
I pinned his trapped arm against the dirt with my shin, dislocating nothing but applying enough pressure to completely immobilize him.
In the same fluid motion, I snatched his falling wooden knife out of the air.
I reversed my grip, bringing the wooden blade down and stopping it exactly one millimeter from his right eye.
The entire sparring yard went completely, utterly silent.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Even Annie Leonhart had stopped tossing Eren into the dirt, turning her head to stare at me with slightly widened blue eyes.
Reiner was staring up at the wooden blade hovering over his eye, his face completely pale, his broad chest heaving as he tried to process what had just happened.
I blinked, the red tactical overlay suddenly fading from my vision.
My lazy, normal-guy persona violently crashed back into the driver’s seat of my brain, looking down at the massive teenager I had just effortlessly dismantled.
‘Oh no,’ I panicked internally.
‘Oh, this is bad.
This is really, really bad.’
I had just neutralized the strongest guy in the class in under two seconds.
My plan to remain an invisible, mediocre background character had just exploded spectacularly in my face.
“Uh,” I stammered, frantically trying to salvage the situation.
I quickly pulled the knife away and stood up, brushing the dirt off my knees and avoiding eye contact with the dozens of staring cadets.
“You…
you slipped, Reiner,” I lied terribly, my voice cracking slightly.
“The dirt here is very uneven.
You should watch your footing.”
Reiner slowly sat up, rubbing his wrist where I had hit the nerve, staring at me like I was a terrifying, undiscovered species of Titan.
“I…
slipped?” Reiner repeated, his voice filled with profound disbelief.
“Yeah.
Tragic loss of traction,” I nodded aggressively, tossing his wooden knife back onto the dirt.
“Anyway, I think I pulled a hamstring during your fall, so I’m going to go sit by that tree for the rest of the afternoon.”
I turned around and practically speed-walked toward the shade of a large oak tree at the edge of the training yard, desperately trying to ignore the heavy, calculating stares drilling into my back.
I collapsed against the bark of the tree, pulling my knees to my chest and burying my face in my hands.
‘[Leon Template Integration increased to 20%.
Tactical CQC dominance established over alpha hostile.]’
‘You ruined my life,’ I thought miserably to the glowing blue system screen.
‘They’re going to expect me to actually try now.
They might even put me in the top ten.
Do you know how much extra paperwork the top ten have to do?!’
Suddenly, I heard the soft crunch of boots on the dirt approaching my tree.
I peeked through my fingers, expecting to see Shadis coming to yell at me, or Reiner demanding a highly physical rematch.
Instead, it was Annie Leonhart.
She stood a few feet away, her arms crossed casually, her blonde hair falling over her cold, incredibly sharp blue eyes.
She wasn’t glaring at me, but she was analyzing me with an intensity that made my Leon paranoia spike dangerously.
“You didn’t slip,” Annie stated quietly, her voice devoid of any inflection.
“I am a very clumsy person,” I deflected immediately, leaning my head back against the tree and closing my eyes.
“I trip over my own boots daily.”
“Your center of gravity was perfect,” Annie continued, completely ignoring my lie.
“Your nerve strike was precise.
You didn’t use strength.
You used his momentum.”
I kept my eyes closed, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.
“Annie, please.
I am twelve years old.
I just want to take a nap.”
“Who taught you how to fight like that?” she asked, stepping slightly closer, her shadow falling over me.
“A heavily traumatized government agent in a video game,” I mumbled truthfully, knowing she would never understand the reference.
Annie stared at me in silence for a long moment.
I could feel her calculating, dissecting my lazy posture and comparing it to the lethal burst of violence she had just witnessed.
“You’re hiding your skills,” she finally said, her voice dropping to a low, quiet murmur meant only for my ears.
“Why?”
I opened one eye, looking up at her cold, impassive face.
For a brief second, I saw a flicker of genuine curiosity in her eyes.
It was the look of someone who recognized a fellow liar, someone who was also desperately hiding their true capabilities from the world.
“Because competence is a trap, Annie,” I answered honestly, offering her a tired, cynical smile.
“The moment people realize you’re useful, they start expecting you to save them.
And I am entirely too lazy to be a savior.”
Annie didn’t reply.
She just held my gaze for a few seconds longer, a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.
Then, she turned and walked away, heading back to where Eren was groaning in the dirt.
I pulled my hat down over my face, activating my [Nap Anywhere] passive skill before anyone else could come bother me.
‘Tomorrow,’ I promised myself as the world faded to black.
‘Tomorrow, I am going to fail the ODM balance test on purpose.
I will aggressively prove how completely average I am.’
‘[System Note: Host lacks the physical coordination to fake failure convincingly.
Prepar
e for elevated expectations.]’
“I hate you,” I whispered to the algorithm, falling fast asleep in the shade.