Mmm...
I suppose this is a good moment.
I would have liked to gather a bit more information before acting, but unfortunately, collecting information in this world forces me to rely far more on pure anticipation.
Something I would normally have abandoned in favor of a safer route.
It's not as if I can complain.
I'm certain the average IQ of this world is far lower than that of the Tokyo Metropolitan Advanced Nurturing High School.
Setting that aside, according to the White Room's classifications, I possess the ability to visualize all possible paths and always choose the optimal one.
If only it were that simple.
Always choosing the best option.
That is precisely why this world is incredibly difficult... and interesting.
Before, choosing the optimal path simply meant selecting the one that led me to first place in a special exam.
Now, my abilities merely distinguish between bad and worse.
There is no "best option," at least not from the perspective of someone living on the ground.
In the grand scheme of things, nothing has changed.
It's still one massive chessboard, with millions of pieces in motion.
The difference is that I can only use a handful of my own pieces—
and I can barely see even fewer of the enemy's.
It's not as if I'm trying to win this game.
Not yet.
There are still too many unknowns.
For now, I simply want the path that allows me to live as comfortably as possible...
and, if possible, the one that helps me continue my plan of experiencing human emotions.
Or at least, that's what I'd like to say.
Do I truly want to experience love at this point?
If asked, I would answer yes—
but I'm not completely certain.
For now, I'll settle for believing that I do.
The paper passes from hand to hand, some of them trembling slightly, burdened with a weight none of them are prepared to bear.
I remain silent as Levi's gaze falls on me.
If there's one thing I would change about this room, it's the amount of information Erwin shares with Levi.
Even after my recent actions, the trust between them appears nearly absolute.
He clearly knows this letter wasn't written by Erwin himself. Erwin likely informed him during their last meeting that communications would be reduced to zero while leaving all decisions in my hands.
Or at least, that's what I'd like to believe.
More realistically, Erwin probably sent a letter saying roughly the same thing—but only to Levi—clarifying that he wanted to see whether I could anticipate this.
Either way, it's a victory for me, regardless of what Levi is thinking now.
Was it pure deduction on my part?
Or do I have connections within the Military Police?
Either interpretation works in my favor.
It's not as if I need it anyway.
At this point, Levi has made it clear he'll follow my decisions no matter what.
I've already proven my importance to humanity.
Even to civilians, I must look like a symbol of hope—on the same level as Levi himself.
Fourteen years old, officially holding the rank of Captain.
Even if I haven't formed a squad yet.
The silence in the room is suffocating.
A silence filled with unsteady breathing and thoughts piling up without order.
Armin is the first to break internally.
It's obvious as he peeks over Eren's shoulder, his expression one of total confusion—his mind racing faster than his breath.
Jean looks over the others' shoulders, forcing himself to remain steady as sweat visibly forms on his face.
Eren's breathing turns short. Irritated. Desperate.
His eyes widen in shock.
Mikasa doesn't react immediately.
She maintains a perfect poker face, though a thin trail of sweat slides down her temple as she carefully rereads each line.
"Did everyone read it?" Levi finally breaks the silence, his voice unnervingly calm.
"Y-yes..." they answer.
Some firmly.
Others as if saying it aloud costs them something.
Levi steps forward, his shadow stretching across the wooden floor.
Armin barely manages to speak.
"C-Captain Levi... this is...?"
With absolute calm, Levi takes the letter and throws it into the fire.
"Erwin's orders."
He makes a strange face.
"Do you believe in him?"
His gaze shifts almost imperceptibly toward me as he clicks his tongue.
"Idiotic believers. Come on. We're leaving."
Cold.
I keep my gaze low as I adjust the scarf around my neck. The air cuts into my skin with uncomfortable honesty, as if it refuses to allow lies.
You could have made it a bit thicker, Petra...
though it would be unfair to complain about something handmade.
Those kinds of details are still difficult for me to evaluate properly.
We leave.
The door hinges creak faintly, yet the sound echoes more than it should.
Within seconds, we're far enough away, watching our former base from a hill. Each of us holds a rifle with near-awkwardness, except for a few standouts.
At my side, Historia moves uncomfortably. Her cloak barely keeps the cold away, and unconsciously she drifts closer to me.
A few minutes later, several people surround our base, torches in hand.
"If we had slept there tonight..."
"What would've happened to us...?" Connie murmurs.
It's hard to say.
I don't think they would have killed all of us.
Only the problematic and the useless ones.
So you probably would've died, Connie.
"And to think they'd come here so directly..." Levi says with disgust.
"They underestimated us."
"Let's head to the rendezvous point. There's moonlight tonight."
"A point in our favor."
-------------------------
"—Keep your head down... and cross your legs a little more."
I say it without stopping, without turning my head.
I don't need to look to know she heard me.
Historia—no, Armin, I correct myself mentally—obeys awkwardly at my side, adjusting her steps unnaturally.
She's not a good actress.
She doesn't need to be.
That's not where her value lies.
I sigh quietly as I continue walking at the front of the group.
My gaze drifts from face to face, evaluating without haste.
The crowd in Trost is exactly what I expected: exhausted people, dirty, too awake to be calm and too desperate to be rational.
Some stand out.
Not because of charisma.
Because of coincidence.
Faces I vaguely recognize from old records: petty theft, fraud, unpaid debts, domestic violence.
Individuals who are never dangerous on their own...
but become unpredictable in groups.
Nothing particularly interesting.
I keep walking.
Behind me:
Eren.
Historia.
Mikasa.
Connie.
A strikingly weak group, especially considering the absence of the most intimidating figure in the entire Survey Corps.
Levi isn't here.
And it shows.
"Hey... you."
A body blocks my path. Large. Soft. Poorly fed and poorly rested.
Another man, thinner, stands beside him with a crooked smile—not quite a threat yet.
"Hey—aren't you Kiyotaka?!"
Ah.
Faster than expected.
I suppose Erwin's "publicity work" was more effective than I thought.
When you turn someone into a symbol, sooner or later someone will try to break it.
"It really is him!"
"I've seen him before!"
"It's Kiyotaka—the genius kid!"
"Look at him, ha! He's barely a child."
"I'd only seen him on horseback..."
The voices overlap.
They move closer.
They surround me.
I don't step back.
I don't speed up.
"This is truly unpleasant..."
My eyebrow twitches slightly—just enough for Mikasa to notice.
She tenses.
So does Eren.
Connie looks around nervously.
I allow myself to be surrounded.
With complete calm.
"Captain, please listen!"
One of the men in front adopts a tone of false politeness—the kind that only exists before a demand.
"As miserable as we are, please, listen to us. We lost our jobs because of your sudden evacuation plan."
I sigh.
Genuinely.
This is starting to irritate me.
I wasn't even the one who proposed the evacuation system.
I was the one who planned the recovery of Trost.
Idiot.
"It's not just us," he continues, gesturing around.
"With the growing loss of trust, no one comes to this city anymore. No one buys anything. No one invests. If we don't make money, we don't eat."
"The Garrison ran off somewhere," another adds.
"And thieves took their place."
"And yet the taxes are as high as ever," a third says.
"What are we supposed to do?"
Their eyes harden.
Their voices drop.
"I know why all of this happened."
A pause.
"It's because of you."
"The Survey Corps."
"You're not working hard enough."
He steps closer.
Too close.
"My business works like this," he continues.
"If I don't earn money, that's my fault. Putting in effort and getting no reward is normal."
He leans in.
"But you're different."
I can feel his breath.
"You can eat even if you do nothing."
"Walking down the street... so superior... so powerful... on a little shopping trip."
He clenches his teeth.
"And on top of that... giving so much power to a shitty little kid."
His hand suddenly grips my collar, lifting me slightly.
"You must earn a great salary, huh?"
"They pay you to look at me like I'm trash?"
"That's how you see us?!"
The world goes still.
Mikasa takes a step.
I don't allow it.
"If you have even a shred of conscience," he spits,
"leave us your money... and then get the hell out."
...
!!!!!
"Move."
"WHY SHOULD I MOVE, YOU SHITTY LITTLE KID?!"
His grip tightens. Fingers dig into the fabric, searching for my neck, searching for control. At the same time, I feel a rough pull from behind—his companion grabs my shoulders, trying to immobilize me.
Too late.
From the corner of my vision, I perceive exactly what I was waiting for.
A change in the ambient noise.
An irregular rhythm.
Wheels scraping against stone.
A carriage.
It's coming fast.
I say nothing.
I don't look back.
My body has already decided.
First, I relax my neck.
A common mistake is to tense up. That only fixes the grip point. I do the opposite: I let my weight drop, take a half step forward—just enough to break the angle of force.
The man's hand loses pressure for a fraction of a second.
That's all I need.
My right arm rises in a straight line, not to strike, but to lock. My forearm wedges under his wrist as I rotate my hips, using his own weight against him. A short, clean turn.
The sound he makes isn't a scream.
It's air escaping.
Without stopping the motion, my left foot slides back. Firm ground. Low center. The man behind me pulls harder—exactly as anticipated.
I take his wrist.
Not with strength.
With direction.
One lateral step. One sharp pull. And his balance vanishes.
His body passes over mine like a poorly tied sack and crashes into the first man, both colliding with a hollow, clumsy, almost comical sound.
I don't let go.
I use the momentum.
I turn.
I throw.
Both bodies are flung to the side of the street, rolling across the ground just as—
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
The carriage bursts through the space we'd occupied a second earlier. Wheels kick up dust and stones, wind slams into my face, wood creaks as it passes dangerously close.
I step just barely out of its path, staying close enough—
Just close enough to see Eren and Historia being seized from the carriage.
At the same time, several arms grab me from behind—back, arms, shoulders—lifting me off the ground.
Oh... me too?
That, I didn't expect.
Truly disappointing.
"Oh— we're being kidnapped!!!"
I force my tone into what I think passes for desperation.
I believe I'm getting better at this.
Maybe I should try expressing emotions more often.
I might even say it was... fun.
"..."
"..."
Was it that bad...?
Better not try again.
Let's continue the mission.
-------------------------
What the hell is going on?
Does he even realize it's a man?
No.
He doesn't.
And honestly, I don't think he cares.
The man is perverse. The kind who doesn't need a real excuse—only a poorly interpreted opportunity. Still, I suppose Armin passes as a woman far too easily. His face is delicate, his structure soft, his gestures gentle even when he tries to appear firm.
Too easy.
I vaguely recall Yamauchi and Sotomura whispering over manga, laughing like idiots while talking about what they called traps.
"Tastes are tastes," they used to say.
I can't judge.
It's not like I've ever developed a clear attraction to anyone in particular.
In fact... I don't recall anything in this world ever sparking genuine sexual interest in me. I've had sex with Kei a few times. I was competent. Quite good, if I have to evaluate it objectively.
But never meaningful.
More mechanical than impulsive.
More execution than desire.
So... why am I thinking about this now?
I don't even know what expression I'm supposed to have at this moment.
Look away?
Jean doesn't.
So I keep watching.
Not out of curiosity.
Out of record-keeping.
"So... what do you think?"
The fat man's voice oozes something viscous. He licks his lips openly. Literally. I can see saliva stretching and dripping as his hand slides across Armin's chest with nauseating familiarity.
Armin freezes. Doesn't move. Can't breathe properly.
"Come on... let me hear your voice," he insists. "I want to hear it."
The other hand moves higher.
"What do you think? Pretty good, right?"
"I just want to hear the voice of a cute girl."
My exhale is slow.
Exasperated.
Zimbardo.
The name surfaces on its own.
The Lucifer Effect.
The ease with which an ordinary person crosses the line when the context grants implicit permission: anonymity, numerical superiority, a victim perceived as inferior or dehumanized.
The man doesn't need to be "evil."
He only needs to feel that he can.
There are no prison uniforms or cells here, but the principle is identical.
A damaged street.
Absent authority.
Hunger, resentment, fear.
And in front of him... someone who doesn't fit his mental model of a threat.
Small.
Quiet.
Ambiguous.
Prey.
Zimbardo explained that power doesn't always manifest as direct violence. Sometimes it begins as curiosity. Then as a joke. Then as an assumed right.
"I just want to hear your voice."
If he speaks, the man advances.
If he doesn't, the pressure increases.
Milgram would have nodded as well.
Obedience doesn't always require an authority figure to be present; sometimes the absence of consequences is enough. When punishment doesn't arrive, the brain interprets it as approval.
Armin isn't being touched because the man specifically desires him.
He's being touched because the man needs to reaffirm control over something—over someone—in a world that has stopped obeying him.
It's frustration redirected.
Humiliation recycled.
And the most interesting part...
It's predictable.
The man's breathing accelerates slightly. His posture leans forward. He invades personal space without realizing it—or pretending not to realize. He's testing boundaries like a child pushing a glass to the edge of a table, curious to see if it will fall.
If no one intervenes, the next step won't be verbal.
It never is.
Not because all humans are the same.
But because patterns are.
The difference between a monster and an average citizen is often just a series of small decisions no one said "no" to in time.
That aside, this is the second time I've thought of Milgram in a moment like this.
The first was when I decided Kei would be useful.
Interesting.
It changes nothing—but it remains interesting.
It's about time to begin, isn't it?
---------------------
So... how is everyone doing?
I honestly wonder how many people are still keeping up with this story. I think I've officially been writing it for almost a full year now—uff, way too much work and time put into this. Sometimes it almost makes me want to become a real writer, at least then I'd earn money for the amount of effort I put in (just kidding... I literally disappeared for months).
Anyway... if you have any questions or doubts about the story so far, or any questions about me, I'd be happy to answer them if I can.
"Here's your favorite Wattpad writer — Kiyokasu loves you all very much."
(I need a new cover for this book)