“Aaaaahhhh!!”
Kuklo snapped awake, surprised by his own scream. His clothes were drenched with night sweat after his utterly realistic, vivid nightmare. As though he’d been running at a full sprint, his breathing was wild and out of control. His heart rang like an alarm bell to the point of pain.
A dream…
While Kuklo let out a sigh of relief, a hand to his aching chest, the monster he saw in his nightmare did exist in reality. His body had overreacted to a mere dream, a sign that his fear had worked its way to his very core. If he closed his eyes, he could recall the image of a savage Titan in detail.
Not only did the Titans have size on their side, they defied common sense by reviving any number of times unless their single weakness was destroyed. Kuklo had nearly been eaten by one of these ghouls not once but twice, so forgetting them was something he’d never be able to do even if he wished. They had left an immeasurable impact on him and pressed their figures deep into his psyche as with a brand.
“Did you have a scary dream?” a young man in prison clothes asked casually.
Cardina Baumeister. Though a patrician’s scion, luck had not been on his side, and he’d been imprisoned after getting wrapped up in political strife. He had been Kuklo’s comrade-in-chains, and they’d been banished from the country together as well.
Kuklo finally began to find his bearings. That’s right. We came back from out there…
His foolish choice to face a Titan, if only in a dream, owed to his earlier escape from the outer lands, which crawled with the monsters. He’d challenged a Titan in order to save Cardina and just barely survived. No wonder he dreamt about it. It didn’t take much thought to realize how insane an act it had been─and what a miracle it was that he’d returned alive.
I never want to do that again. Kuklo had been forced to relive his terror. Yet, he might confront a Titan again in the same situation. His temperament did him no good, but he didn’t need a reason to save someone’s life. My facing off against those things is like fate, anyway.
He’d been slapped with the dishonorable name of “Titan’s son” at birth and been treated as though his life meant nothing. He was prepared to challenge the Titans because it was his destiny.
As his breathing settled, Kuklo looked around him. Instead of a bed, he was spread out in a horse-drawn carriage with nothing but the clothes on his back, next to Cardina.
I feel like I’ve slept for a while…
His miraculous return from outside the walls courtesy of Jorge Piquer had only taken place earlier that morning. Since the sun was almost perfectly overhead, he’d slept for a few hours. The carriage was headed north along an artery road that connected various towns, but it would be some time before they reached Wall Rose, let alone their destination, the factory city.
“Want me to guess what you were dreaming about?” Cardina asked in a humming tone. He cheerfully continued before Kuklo had the chance to answer. “I won’t beat around the bush. You dreamt that Titans were chasing you.”
Cardina’s white teeth were visible as he beamed, and Kuklo could only shrug his shoulders in resignation.
“Hm? Was I off?”
“I was being chased by Titans. What else would I dream about?”
“You said it.” Considering his own frivolous bent, though, it was hard to imagine Cardina dreaming of Titans.
“To begin with, I had that dream because we had a weird discussion before going to sleep.”
“Weird?”
“Something about having me use the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.”
Cardina seemed to take his point. “Ah…”
The Vertical Maneuvering Equipment was an anti-Titan piece of gear based on the “Equipment,” the machine used to defeat a Titan for the first time. The original Equipment, however, had the fatal flaw of only allowing for movement along a single axis. Improvement after improvement had been made in order to remove this flaw, and the completed Vertical Maneuvering Equipment enabled free movement in all directions. According to Jorge, it was the definitive anti-Titan armament.
Yet it, too, faced a significant issue.
“No one has ever been able to master it, right?” Kuklo recalled. In other words, the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment lacked competent users.
“If it’s just the Equipment, I can handle it… It only goes in one direction, after all,” Cardina said. Indeed, the original limited movement to a single axis. Since the wielder entrusted his or her body to the machine, which did the rest, Kuklo could easily learn how to pilot it, too. “Unlike the Equipment,” Cardina went on, “the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment lets you move in all directions. You need superhuman balance and reflexes to maneuver freely in space like that. One little mistake and you’re sure to come crashing down to the ground.”
“Have you used it before?”
“Yeah, and I fell out of the sky every time…” Cardina trembled a bit as he spoke. The experience must have been terrifying.
“I’m convinced that you’d be able to master it,” broke in the driver of the carriage, a soldier in his early fifties.
This was Jorge Piquer, who cut a dashing figure in his unicorn-emblazoned jacket. Now a soldier belonging to the Military Police Brigade, he had once commanded the Survey Corps and was moreover the national hero who’d proven that Titans could be defeated. Having ceded the post of commander to Carlo Piquer, his son, Jorge now trained soldiers of the next generation as a member of the Military Police Brigade. Cardina had been a student, but he’d withdrawn from the Training Corps before he could be assigned to duty.
“We have to master the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment if we want to get rid of the Titans,” Jorge declared with some passion. “No matter how high its quality, the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment is nothing more than junk if no one can use it.”
“Speaking of which, it had no development budget, right?” Cardina said. Then he whispered into Kuklo’s ear, “Rumor’s that the instructor paid for it out of his own pocket.”
“Vertical Maneuvering Equipment training is not a part of the Training Corps curriculum. That’s why the Survey Corps uses the same primitive tactics against the Titans that it always has.” As the former Survey Corps commander, and as a Training Corps instructor, Jorge didn’t seem to be content with the current state of the military. His voice was tinged with irritation.
“I would be able to master that thing?”
“I can’t say for sure, but the possibility is there.”
“I get the feeling you can do it, too,” Cardina chimed in.
“Based on what?”
“Well, you’ve never even been trained, but look at how you’re able to move.”
“My son wouldn’t have recommended you if you didn’t have the potential,” Jorge concurred.