By the side of the trunk of a tree, Ymir, who was hiding her presence, looked at the trio in front of her.
When she saw the two girls meeting with Eren, she thought she had stumbled upon some huge gossip. Although she is not the kind of person who likes to pry into others' business, if the gossip comes her way on its own, she is not the type of person to shy away from it, either. But looking at them just sitting and gazing at the scene in front, she, for some reason, felt a little disappointed.
She watched them chat, then Eren started to say something. Although she couldn't hear clearly from this distance what he was saying, she could guess he was telling a story or something. When the story was over, Eren said something to Sasha and Krista, and standing up, they started to walk toward her.
Did I get discovered? The first thought came to her mind when she looked at the girls coming toward her, but soon she realized that they hadn't noticed her at all. She was hiding on the way down the hill, so shifting her feet, she hid her body on the other side of the trunk. When the footsteps of Sasha and Krista passed away, she took a breath of relief. Although they could do nothing to her even if she got discovered, the title of Peeping Tom was not something she liked to take.
Eren, who was sitting on the edge of the cliff, started to look back at the moon. He had noticed that someone must be following him; by the rhythm of the footsteps, he could tell there were four different sets, but the fourth one was trying hard to match their steps. In mud paths and straight roads, that is not difficult to do, but doing it on this kind of path full of rocks and grass is not something that even the most practiced, united soldier can manage.
Seeing the moon, which almost looks same as the earth's, In the past two years, he had come to understand that this world is as real as Earth, and the people living there are also the same kind of living and breathing beings as him.
So, living without vigilance, thinking of himself as a protagonist and doing things without much thought, could lead to dire consequences.
Like on Earth, things in this world are also dynamic; every day, anything can happen. Even if he is Eren, there is no guarantee that plot armor or something like that is looking after him.
Even a weak Pure Titan could kill him if he became arrogant and careless without any substance to back himself up.
While living with the merchant and his family, he understood that no matter where you are, people can't be divided simply into good and bad. That family was the ideal dream of any man from Earth—a small family of four, with two daughters, a loving wife, and a caring husband who works hard daily for their sake.
And rumbling had must destroyed many other families like this, And there must be many other families outside of these walls too. What evil have many other families like this committed to deserve getting destroyed? he thought.
No matter how noble or grand the reasons given, the people who always died in wars were always the ones who would had gained nothing if the war were won, but would lose everything if the war were lost. like the Eldians and Merlayians, there leaders the people on top wanted the world domination, Wars were never the last resort for peace; it is the last resort of greed. Because of the greed of one king or minister, millions of people die. And Eren, no matter what his reasons were, was just like that minister; his greed to give freedom to his friends was the same as the greed of the merchants to sell gunpowder.
Now he can point the reason he felt a little upset when his friends didn't even hesitate to attack him before was because of the "justice" they were fighting him for. Didn't they kill many Yeagerists and Marleyans—just youths who had just joined the military? Didn't they kill their own comrades? Didn't they kill many Marleyans? And now, they have the audacity to talk about justice for the dead. Eren is not the only one who deserved retribution; they all did.
In that story everyone was a Villain for some one, and the one who losed was considered the main villain.
From the starts wars were never about justice and crape, who ever wins becomes the justice, just think why all time the people who won wars why all of them was the good guys and who ever lost became the bad guy, even when history is corrected it only the postions of history which would feed the ego of new rulers, had being corrected, many nations and countries' don't even teach history in their schools.
Well no leader wants that their populous know the reason they killed all the other people like them, was just because they wanted to sell their old weapon which were getting expired next year.
when ever a war happened every exploiter had a reason to exploit the people on the name of nation, most people joins the army to protect their families, protecting the nation, a town or a house is just a way that a normal person wants to protect the things which are really precious, and are alive in that house.
on purpose hat is spread in masses, right education is the only way that a person can learn about the world and himself, but on purpose masses are prevented and dieverted from high, eduation.
the easiest mind are not those which no nothing and neither those who knows everything a human needs to know, but the half baked people ruler produced, these type of people are the easiest type of people to manipulate.
In the AOT world things changed so fast, that people believed it was some what connected to the human nature from the real world.
But the thing was, that was a story, so all the logic and nature served the purpose of going with the casts.
In reality, things don't happen like that. Did they not know the consequences of stopping Eren at that stage? Well, no matter how dumb one can be, they can't be that dumb. By doing what they did, they were just putting all the lives of the remaining Eldians at the mercy of others, just like the first King of the Walls had done years ago.
If they just wanted to save lives and don't want anyone else to die, then the coldness mikasa had with louise, what that was she didn't had any empathy of life for her even in her death bed.
So they had empathy for life can be cut it out, what could be the reason, there a simple answer to that they just had enough of it, like the king from hundred years ago they had enough of the things that eren did.
And the interesting thing is that this time, If rumbling succeed they will be the friends of great Eldian hero eren, who saved the paradise from the evil world and if he failed and world decided to add sanctions on paradise, to stop their growth.
modernization even with help of developed nations is a heavy task, let alone with world sanctions, they government who tries to form any friendly connections with the Eldians would be over thrown by their opponents, new govenment at the name of destroying the hanging death on their heads name Eldians.
Governments who had failed by the global economic crises, will do anything to swift the public panic and anger in a single direction to stabilize their rule.
And even if people works on emotions, leaders not, they will do anything to extract any bit of last value from Paradise, Maraleyia the world power is weekend then ever.
New global powers would rose, and they didn't want to have any hidden danger to be there, the titans power had gone but who was sure that they won't be back in the future, the best thing that could happened was their resources had being taken from them, they had to sign unequal treaties with other nation.
And in the worst case a total mascara had taken place, beside the second great titan war heroes most of the people would be enslaved or be killed.
In the end the Eldian people who would had paid for Eren's crimes, while his friends likely became the next Tybur family—the heroes of the Second Great Titan War.
When he watched the original story, he didn't care much about any of these things because, in the end, it was just a story, a fantasy, and its core will always be fantasy.
Like the fantacy, all the remaining people let go the hatred in there hearts for the death of their families and peace talk gone smoothly.
Even if Eren killed the entire population or the world retaliated after his death, it was entirely unknown and wasn't that important for anyone to think about.
Now, when he thinks about this from the perspective of another common man living this life—not someone on the protagonist's side or the opposition—things have started to become clearer and clearer.
In the military, he always heard grand thoughts and ideals about how glorious it is to die in war and come back wrapped in the flag. Then why don't the minister and his son try to get the flag first, if it's that glorious? But he also knows that not initiating a war and not having the capacity to do so are completely different things.
As the saying goes, a person who doesn't know how to fight and doesn't want to fight will always be driven into conflicts, whereas a person who knows how to fight and just chooses not to will not be. And he wants to become a person who knows how to fight and just doesn't want to.
Coming out of his thoughts, he heard the noise of a leaf crackling to the side.
"Why don't you come out now?" Eren said, still looking at the lake.
Ymir, who had just retracted her foot from the leaf to avoid making any further noise, froze in her tracks and pressed her foot back down, making another distinct crackling sound. Finding out she had been caught, there was no point in continuing to hide. Anyway, they were in the same boat, so complaining about sneaking out was out of the question from the start.
"You are quite vigilant for your age, Eren," Ymir said and walked forward. Her face, coming out of the shadows of the shade, became completely visible under the moonlight. Standing there, Ymir took another step forward.
"Why are you standing? Have a seat," Eren said, patting the empty space beside him.
She didn't say much either and sat down, dangling her legs over the edge of the cliff just like Eren.
"You... my name is Ymir," she said.
"I am Eren Yeager," Eren replied.
When she first saw Eren helping Sasha, she understood that he was acting. Naive girls like Sasha and Krista would believe in his facade, but she had endured enough of her own suffering to tell certain things apart from others.
That was also the reason she didn't give him a good face when they met on the training grounds. So, in her eyes, the image of Eren as a hypocritical playboy was formed. Although he is just twelve and had suffered a tragedy, so what? People like him can be seen in every age and background.
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