Lianye was too, Hoover was too, Reiner was too, Annie was too, Krista was too, Ymir was too...
So why not have a little less scheming and a little more sincerity?
Of course not.
Since they were all concealing their true identities like this, Lianye would perversely offer "a little less sincerity, a little more scheming" and play along with their improvised performance.
"Then for the time ahead, we'll be comrades on the same side. Please take care of me."
Lianye smiled lightly and extended his hand, bumping fists with the two tall, burly men.
Then again, Reiner was over 1.8 meters tall, and Hoover was over 1.9 meters tall. Yet they were supposedly both under fourteen? That sounded like a deliberate joke. At the very least, they should have been fourteen—plus three years overloaded.
(PS: "Overloaded" meant using something ahead of schedule, a joke from Hearthstone.)
The days that followed were spent on ODM Gear adaptation training. The training grounds were no longer limited to a flat drill field, but shifted into the towering forest.
This was one of the best environments for putting ODM Gear's three-dimensional maneuvering techniques to use in killing Titans. The other was a town filled with tall buildings, but if Titans had already invaded a town, it meant humanity had nowhere left to retreat.
Moreover, the forest was also the home ground of the Pride Stalker. The dense branches of the trees provided the perfect footholds for a hunter's overwhelming bursts of speed. With Lianye's physical abilities, he could nimbly flip and dart through the woods even without relying on ODM Gear.
But for long-distance movement, using ODM Gear's cable rebound was still better. It saved Lianye a considerable amount of stamina and reduced the cost of explosive movements, allowing him to concentrate all his strength into the force of his attacks.
However, ODM Gear was ultimately just a mechanical tool. Throwing out and retracting its steel cables took a considerable amount of time, and during that time, soldiers could only rely on their own hands and feet.
That brief interval of lost mobility was precisely when human soldiers, attacked by Titans, had no ability to fight back. The monster-level physical explosiveness of the Pride Stalker could reveal itself at that very moment, making up for that weakness.
What Lianye achieved was—perfectly seamless mobility transitions that no other soldier could accomplish, a realm that could only be called flawless.
End of Chapter
The Burning Crusade
In the year 848, one year had passed since the new recruits of the 104th Training Corps began their training.
A soldier's training was naturally not limited to physical conditioning and combat training on the drill field, nor to trial exercises with ODM Gear. After a year of basic training, their training began to enter the stage of practical drills.
Of course, so-called practical drills did not mean throwing the recruits outside the walls to fight the Titans beyond them. Instead, they were medium- to long-distance expedition exercises conducted through the wilderness of the central region.
They only needed to depart from the training grounds, pass through difficult terrain such as dense forests and valleys, reach a marker forty kilometers away to retrieve a token, then return by the same route to complete the mission.
Although they could ride horses during the expedition, it was still far from the easy journey it appeared to be.
Leaving aside inconvenient terrain such as forests and rugged valleys, this three-day expedition required them to sleep rough and eat whatever they could find. They could only camp along the way, and the living conditions were already far worse than those of the harsh Training Corps.
On top of that, the wilderness of the central region was unlike towns or military garrisons. Bands of bandits roamed the route, making it practically a lawless zone beyond even the Royal Government's control. Any sort of accident could happen there.
Of course, it was precisely because this expedition carried a certain level of difficulty and unpredictability that it could effectively train soldiers.
After all, in this world where Titans ran rampant and could breach the walls at any moment to prey upon humanity, the soldiers of the Training Corps were very likely to one day replace the taxpaying producers and confront the Titans in battle.
At that time, what they needed was not merely basic physical qualities such as the stamina, leg strength, and balance needed to operate ODM Gear skillfully. They also needed the composure to remain calm in the face of sudden changes, as well as the mental fortitude not to waver even when facing Titans many times larger than themselves.
And that was not something simple aptitude training could cultivate. Only drills approaching real combat could temper a soldier's spirit.
The expedition force was divided into two groups, using Midgar Valley along the route as the dividing point, each taking a different path past the valley.
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