Solm’s face was dirty with soot and dust, but he didn’t seem to be injured. His sharp gaze was focused straight ahead as he walked his horse, skillfully controlling its reins in his hands.
“I guess he wouldn’t die off that easily.”
“Of course not. He can’t leave me as a widow before we’re even married.”
“You should really get him to request a change of assignment soon. We might not be laughing about this for long.”
“Maybe if he was the kind of person who listened to others…”
“True,” Angel laughed bitterly. “For now, then, let’s just be happy that he made a safe return.”
Though Angel and Maria were celebrating Solm’s return, the families of the soldiers who didn’t make it back were overwhelmed with grief. There was always the possibility that a soldier would never return from an expedition. Soldiers knew this when they chose to go on one, as well as their families.
Still, they must not have thought that they would really die.
That much was clear from their confusion and panic. In particular, a woman wearing maternity clothes drew Angel’s attention. She looked to be around twenty years old. She was fair-skinned and delicate, and seemed so wan that she might fall over without any support.
Maria looked on with concern at the woman who wandered from place to place like a ghost.
“Someone you know?”
“Yes. That’s Elena Mansell. Her husband is Team Leader Heath.”
“Solm’s superior, then.”
Angel had never met the man before, so the name brought no face to mind. Nevertheless, if he was a team leader, he had to have been a talented soldier even among the Survey Corps.
“So Team Leader Heath didn’t make it back. Poor thing, they just got married…” Maria said with a pained look.
I see, could be you tomorrow…
Elena was approaching soldiers with her faltering steps to ask each of them if her now-departed husband was “safe.” Her eyes were blank and unfocused.
“The royal government’s going to take care of her, right?”
“She shouldn’t have any trouble making ends meet.”
“You can’t replace a husband with money alone, though.”
“I just wish there was something I could do.”
“Yeah…”
Anything they could do, though, would be of little importance.
Never mind the money, all she’d want is her husband back.
No matter what they did, they wouldn’t be able to help Elena.
I guess time is the only cure…
As Angel was thinking, an explosion roared out above his head like a clap of thunder. The air shook slightly from the impact. Instinctively, Angel flinched, but he saw no signs of lightning around him.
“What just happened?!”
As if to answer, the faint smell of chemicals wafted in the air, carried by the south wind.
“That’s…”
As Angel’s nose twitched, it picked up the traces of the chemical ingredients that tinged the air around him.
Saltpeter, charcoal, sulfur, aluminum…
In other words, gunpowder.
“Did they fire off a cannon?”
He couldn’t see from his position on the street, but he was certain, and for a simple reason.
So that’s where they put the cannons I made, up there on the wall.
Angel had created ten cannons after receiving an order from the military corps, but he was never told how they would be used. After hearing the explosion overhead, though, he knew that they had been put atop Wall Maria.
“What was that bombardment?”
“Probably a warning shot.”
“So those Titans we’ve heard so much about have decided to pay us a visit.”
“Titan” was the generic name given to the monsters that preyed upon humans. Mankind had been forced to construct giant walls and to live inside of them in order to escape the threat posed by the Titans. It must have been the Titans that inflicted the massive losses on the Survey Corps during its expedition.
I wish I could see them once, though. Just for future reference.
While it was easy to imagine the Titans as terrible monstrosities, Angel was not particularly scared of them. He couldn’t be frightened by something that he only knew of conceptually. To Angel, Titans were like formless ghosts.
“But what an awful sound…”
Angel scowled at the echoes of the cannons firing in succession as he covered both ears with his hands.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they ordered suppressors next.
The sound of a tenth cannon shot ripped through the air right as Angel smiled wryly, but that was the end of the bombardment.
“Did they kill them?”
Angel timidly took his hands off his ears as he looked at Maria.
“It’d be nice if they did, but I doubt it.”
“You do, huh…” Angel mumbled as he focused his sight on Wall Maria. If they had fired ten whole shots, it wouldn’t matter if they had landed a direct hit on any of the Titans. There would be a sea of fire around them. No living creature could survive in it.
Anything that was alive down there is sure to have died instantly.
No matter how unexpectedly monstrous the Titans were, the cannons still had enough firepower to take them out.
One roasted Titan, hot and ready.
But then, as if to crush Angel’s pride, footfalls began to close in from the other side of the Wall.
“You can’t be serious…”
“The Titans probably got too close to the Wall,” Maria coolly explained to Angel while his mouth hung agape.
“So that’s why they stopped firing.”
Wall Maria, sometimes called indestructible, had yet to allow the Titans in. It was thick enough to deflect any of the Titans’ strikes, and tall enough to be too high to scale.
“The way you’re talking, it sounds like you knew that this would happen.”
“Better that than to mess up and accidentally damage the Wall.”
“As the person who made those cannons, though, I’m a little conflicted…”