A draft whistled through, stirring up a few withered yellow leaves that swirled around the wreckage of the wooden door, now broken into three pieces and Reiner stood amidst the sawdust covering the ground, one foot still suspended in mid-air, as if even he wasn’t sure whether he should put it down or pretend none of this had happened.
The expression on his face was quite fascinating.
“I…
I…”
Annie crossed her arms and glared coldly at him.
“Reiner, look at the mess you’ve made!
Why are you always at war with doors?”
Reiner: “…”
“Ahem!
It was an accident.
Definitely an accident!”
Reiner’s face flushed slightly.
“It’s just a door!
I can fix it right away.
Leave it to me!”
He hurriedly fetched a few pieces of scrap wood, a rusty hammer, and several crooked iron nails from the yard before squatting down and getting to work.
“Clang!
Clang!
Clang!”
Ten minutes later.
Ellie and Annie stared expressionlessly at Reiner’s “masterpiece.”
The door, which had originally only fallen off its hinges, was now not only crooked beyond recognition, but also looked as though it had been attacked by a particularly vindictive carpenter, and the stupidest part was that Reiner had driven a thick iron nail directly through the hinge of the doorframe, completely jamming the door’s axis and rendering it permanently immobile.
Annie silently raised a hand to her forehead.
“Idiot.”
Cold sweat covered Reiner’s forehead.
He clearly realized what he’d done but after a brief silence, he suddenly dropped the hammer and raised his head with a solemn expression.
“A great person once said, ‘Those who cannot abandon anything can change nothing.'”
“In order to ensure that this door never falls off again, I have sacrificed its ability to be opened.”
“At least…
it will definitely never fall off the doorframe again.
This is truly a joyous occasion!”
Ellie: “???”
If you can’t fix it, you can’t fix it!
Why are you suddenly making the face of Commander Erwin leading his soldiers on a suicide charge?!
And besides, the most important function of a door is to open!
You nailed the door shut!
How are we supposed to get outside now, hey?!
“Move aside, idiot.”
Ellie really couldn’t bear to watch any longer and shoved Reiner to the side.
She pulled out the iron nail jamming the hinge, replaced it with proper screws, filled the gaps with wooden wedges, and carefully recalibrated the door’s center of gravity.
Less than three minutes later, the wooden door closed with a light “creak.”
Watching this scene, Reiner silently retreated to a corner of the wall and began drawing circles on the ground.
If one listened closely, they could still hear his distraught muttering.
“I’m really sorry for only knowing how to take doors apart…”
After the farce surrounding the door finally came to an end, Ellie carried all the rations distributed by the church into the house.
“Alright, this is all the food we have.”
Ellie patted the dust from her hands and dumped all the supplies onto the table.
A small bag of flour, five withered potatoes, a pinch of coarse salt, and a piece of cured meat so hard it could probably be used as a brick to murder someone.
Looking at the pitiful ingredients, Ellie scratched her head anxiously.
“By the way…
can either of you cook?
Let me make one thing clear first: I definitely can’t cook!”
Hearing this, Reiner walked over and, reached out and patted Ellie on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry.
You’re both girls.
As for cooking, I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it soon enough.”
Ellie shuddered violently and clutched her chest.
She had been hit.
That statement had dealt critical damage.
Half an hour later.
The kitchen of the abandoned farm was permeated by a bizarre odor resembling burnt plastic mixed with some sort of unspeakable fermented substance.
Ellie had been reduced to a grey-white outline, lying face-down beside the table and radiating an aura of utter despair.
Beside her, Reiner’s voice trembled with genuine terror.
“What…
what is this?!
Σ(っ°Д°;)っ”
The stuff in the pot…
If one had to describe it, it looked like a Titan had suffered the world’s worst stomachache and then thrown up directly into the cooking pot.
A black, viscous liquid bubbled ominously, purple bubbles bursting across its surface as wisps of sinister smoke drifted upward.
The finished product itself was almost completely hidden by the smoke, but from somewhere within came the faint, mournful wailing of what sounded suspiciously like several hundred angry ghosts.
Reiner sat rigidly at the table, his normally peaceful face filled with terror as bean-sized beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.
Even when facing the tens of thousands of soldiers of Wall Maria, he had never looked this horrified.
Across from him, Annie’s expression was equally solemn.
She stared anxiously at the charred monstrosity in the pot before slowly raising her right hand toward her mouth.
“Sizzle——”
A faint flash of yellow lightning flickered across her hand.
“Wait!
Annie!
Stop!”
Reiner was scared out of his mind.
He lunged forward and grabbed Annie’s wrist, desperately forcing her hand back down.
“Even if this thing tastes terrible, turning into the Female Titan is…
is a little excessive!”
“???!”
Ellie stared dumbfounded at the two of them.
Wait!
Annie, you were seriously about to turn into the Female Titan just now, weren’t you?!
You’re telling me that when faced with nothing more than a pot of cursed potatoes, your first instinct is to transform and run away?!
Just how fragile are you Marley Warriors, anyway?!
And Reiner, keep your voice down!
I heard everything!
Stop snitching on yourselves!
“Reiner…
let go.”
Annie spoke coldly, her peripheral vision still fixed warily on the pot of forbidden knowledge.
Food was extremely precious now and even this small pot of potatoes had consumed most of their rations for the day.
“If no one is willing to eat it, then all the food we worked so hard to obtain will have to be thrown away.”
She paused, her expression growing grim.
“However, even if I starve to death out there, I am not eating this thing!”
Think about it.
She had finally survived Marley’s brutal Warrior training, crossed the ocean to Paradis Island, and somehow survived among the Titans of Wall Maria.
If she ended up not dying at the hands of the enemy, but instead got assassinated by a pot of stewed potatoes…
That would simply be too absurd.
“Wait!”
Reiner suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist, his eyes becoming suspiciously moist.
“Annie, things have come to this.
I must confess something to you…”
“You…
are smarter than me, and your abilities are much stronger than mine!”
“Therefore, you cannot die yet!!!”
“If…
between the two of us, someone has to eat this potato…”
“Then let me, the weakest link, bear the burden!”
“At least, before I die, please make sure you live well!”
With the solemnity of a soldier marching to his final battlefield, Reiner released Annie’s wrist and reached for the plate.
Hearing this, Annie quickly stopped him.
“Wait, Reiner.
Aren’t you taking this a little too seriously?
It’s just a pot of overcooked potatoes——”
Unfortunately, Reiner didn’t give Annie the chance to finish.
“Those who cannot abandon anything…
can change nothing!”
“WAAAAAAAHHHHH!
I’LL FIGHT YOU TO THE DEATH!”
Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, he fiercely shoved an entire potato into his mouth.
Then Reiner’s complexion changed from pale to ashen at a speed visible to the naked eye.
“Uh…
hoh…”
His body toppled backward and slammed onto the floor with a heavy “thud.” His limbs twitched violently, white foam bubbled from the corners of his mouth, and his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
“Ah…
where is this…?”
“Such a big tree…”
“And there’s a strange little girl waving at me…”
Ellie was so frightened that she practically launched herself out of her chair.
“Hey!
Reiner!
Pull yourself together!
Don’t kick the bucket this early!”
That’s not right!
Why did eating one bite of her food send him straight into the Paths?!
Could this thing be the Eldian equivalent of the River Styx?!
Ellie snatched up the iron pot with lightning speed, rushed into the backyard, and dumped the censored abomination, making its first appearance in this book, straight into the garbage pit.
“Forget it.
We’re eating noodles tonight.”
Another half hour passed.
Reiner leaned against the corner of the wall, hugging a bowl of plain water and looking as though he had just returned from the very edge of hell.
At the center of the table sat a small pot.
Ellie carefully mixed the remaining flour with water, scraped away the burnt residue stuck to the bottom of the pot, and reluctantly boiled a thin pot of noodle paste soup.
“Sluuurp…”
The taste was…
alright.
Although the noodle paste soup was bland enough to make someone question the meaning of life, at least it didn’t seem capable of sending anyone to meet the Founding Ymir.
Annie held her wooden bowl, swallowing the noodle soup in small sips before speaking indifferently.
“Ellie.”
“…Here.”
Ellie guiltily shrank her neck.
“From now on, leave the kitchen to me or Reiner.”
She paused.
“We still want to return to our hometown alive.”
“…Oh.”
Ellie silently lowered her head and buried her face in her bowl.
Damn it.
I’m really sorry for not knowing how to cook!