Hmm, Found a Promising Recruit

Several days later...

Xiate began her training with this year's Cadets, taking her first steps toward catching up to Bai Yu.

Meanwhile, Bai Yu was sleeping...

On the first day.

Levi looked at Bai Yu sleeping on the roof, then turned to Erwin.

"Hey, Erwin, aren't you going to do something about him?"

Erwin looked up at Bai Yu sleeping above them and gently shook his head.

"Leave him be."

At noon, they found Bai Yu arriving at the mess hall right on time and quickly digging into his meal.

Then...

The moment Levi walked out of the mess hall, he saw Bai Yu back on the roof, sleeping.

Bai Yu arrived at the mess hall on time for dinner that evening, then lay down on the roof to sleep again afterward.

He slept all the way until breakfast the next morning, ate right on schedule, then went back up to the roof to sleep...

This...

The cycle kept repeating. He really did nothing but eat and sleep, sleep and eat. Everyone was getting a little fed up with watching him, but remembering that he was only ten, they simply ignored him and wrote him off as having no combat value.

Bai Yu was perfectly happy to be left in peace.

A few days later, Bai Yu disappeared from the roof. Well, he had found somewhere else to sleep.

Bai Yu sat on a rock at the edge of a valley not far away, watching the Cadets below run to build their stamina. Xiate stood out among them. She looked a little smaller than everyone around her, yet she was running at the very front.

Her expression was calm, giving no hint of what she was thinking, and her eyes were as still as a quiet lake. As Bai Yu watched Xiate, a gentle smile tugged at his lips.

But watching Xiate work so hard, he found himself unable to sleep... Perhaps he was afraid she would get hurt.

The instructor was a stern-faced man. Yes, it was Keith Shadis, the former commander of the Survey Corps. He still had hair at this point, unlike the gleaming bald head he would have three years later.

As for why he was the former commander, Erwin had taken command of the Survey Corps over the past few days.

Speaking of which, Wall Maria's destruction had rendered all the Survey Corps' previous preparations outside the walls useless. They had to start from scratch, and the frequency of expeditions beyond the walls had increased as well.

Another expedition beyond the walls was scheduled in about twenty days.

Bai Yu knew the Survey Corps would be sent out first to clear the way. Then, under that so-called Wall Maria Retake Plan, more than a hundred thousand people would be sent along the designated route toward the breach in Shiganshina District.

Success was impossible, but the higher-ups never expected this so-called Retake Plan to succeed.

Were they clearing a road to death for those refugees?

Bai Yu thought bitterly, but there was nothing to be done. He had no solution either, unless he could kill every Titan inside Wall Maria single-handedly. That was unrealistic.

Especially on open ground. In an urban area, killing around twenty Titans before running out of gas and blades would already be an achievement. But on open ground, unless there was some other bait, if a dozen or so Titans set their sights on him, he was better off running while he could.

Bai Yu was human, damn it, not Ultraman.

Still, it would be nice if one of those random system rewards gave him something like Tiga's transformation device.

He indulged in a little daydreaming.

So far, he had only gotten a small pile of gold fragments, a cup, a ballpoint pen that never ran out of ink, an ordinary sheet of paper, and things like that. In any case, Bai Yu's favorite reward at the moment was the Wireless Earphones, which had unlimited battery life and could play random music and save tracks.

While training the recruits, Keith also noticed Bai Yu in the distance and could just make out the Wings of Freedom on his clothes, marking him as a member of the Survey Corps.

His eyes dimmed slightly. He turned back and continued training the recruits.

The afternoon brought the balance test. Xiate was very gifted. The first time she got onto the apparatus, she mastered her balance remarkably quickly. She seemed to have considerable talent.

Bai Yu rubbed his chin.

Why hadn't I seen Xiate in the story in my previous life? Because she never became a Cadet? Hmm, it must be because of me. I've changed a few things.

But besides Xiate, there was another boy who caught Bai Yu's attention.

He was a boy with lustrous white hair, and there was something about his presence that even Bai Yu liked. It was very conducive to sleep. He also had wine-red eyes and was around twelve years old, but he picked up both the physical training and balance exercises very quickly. He was exceptionally talented.

And yes, he was very good-looking too.

But he was rather quiet and rarely spoke to the people around him, much like Xiate. Although people approached Xiate from time to time, their conversations never lasted long either.

That white-haired boy-no, actually, Bai Yu wasn't sure whether he was a boy or a girl. He was a little far away and looked somewhat androgynous, so Bai Yu couldn't really tell.

But Bai Yu was already planning to bring him into the Survey Corps when the time came and make him one of his subordinates.

When the recruits were dismissed, Bai Yu waved to Xiate in the distance. As for Keith, he merely glanced at him and said nothing more. Before coming here, Bai Yu had already asked Commander Erwin to put in a word with him.

Keith also knew that this ten-year-old girl would join the Survey Corps after three years of Cadet training, while that ten-year-old boy had already joined. He and Erwin had even argued over it, because Bai Yu and Xiate were simply too young.

But none of that concerned Bai Yu anymore. The atmosphere in the Survey Corps was actually pretty good. There was work to do, but plenty of free time too. The only slight downside was that his life was in a little danger.

After chatting with Bai Yu for a while, Xiate returned to the other Cadets. Quite a few of them were curious about such a young Survey Corps soldier, but being curious didn't mean they wanted to join the Survey Corps.

As night fell, Bai Yu was about to head back to sleep when he spotted someone sitting on a rock nearby, staring blankly up at the sky.

It was the white-haired boy.

Bai Yu stopped, then went over to greet him.

"Hello there."

The other person turned toward him, looking at him with wine-red eyes so clear that they seemed able to see straight into his heart.

So beautiful.

Bai Yu couldn't help thinking.

But he soon came back to his senses. Just as he was about to say something, the other person suddenly leaned closer and sniffed him. His eyes brightened slightly, and he pounced on the ten-year-old Bai Yu, knocking him flat on the ground.

Unsure what the other person was trying to do, Bai Yu was about to push him away when he pulled back again. The bottle of liquor that had been hanging at Bai Yu's waist was now in his hand.