"Hey, Arthur, look at the doll I made. I made it to look like you!"
A very pretty, adorable girl pulled a doll from behind her back and spoke to the boy reading in front of her.
"You did a great job, Mikasa. It really looks like me."
The boy put down his book, took the doll Mikasa had made in his likeness, and studied it for a moment before gently praising her.
"Hehe."
Mikasa was delighted by his praise, her heart as sweet as if she had eaten honey.
"Mikasa, don't disturb your brother while he's studying," Yumiko admonished her as she did the housework.
"Okay, Mom!" Mikasa put her hands behind her back and stuck out her little tongue to admit her mistake. She looked so adorable that anyone would feel a rush of affection for her.
"It's all right, Auntie. I was just about done studying anyway." The boy called Arthur waved a hand to show that it was no trouble.
And this boy called Arthur was none other than Gu Shun, whom Mikasa's family had taken in.
As for why his name had suddenly become Arthur...
The main reason was that Gu Shun felt his name was somewhat out of place in this world.
So when Kane took him to register his residency, he changed his name to Arthur. As for his surname, he took the family name Ackerman. (His original dad: What a hilariously filial son.)
Three months had passed since Mikasa's family had taken him in.
During those three months, he had grown closer and closer to Mikasa's family.
Although he might have seemed like an outsider on the surface, in the eyes of Mikasa's family, Arthur was already one of them.
Over those three months, Mikasa had gone from being rather shy around him to clinging to him every day, calling out, "Brother, Brother!"
At the same time, he had learned the basics of this world through books.
He had never imagined that the world he had come to would contain Titans, creatures that seemed like something found only in fairy tales.
And according to Uncle Kane and Aunt Yumiko, these Titans were nothing like the giants in fairy tales.
The Titans in this world actually fed on humans.
Humanity had nearly gone extinct because of them.
A hundred years ago, the surviving humans had fled here and built three fifty-meter-high walls-Wall Maria, Wall Rose, and Wall Sina-to fend off the man-eating Titans.
Only under the protection of those walls had they survived, then spent several decades in peace.
Arthur also discovered that this world's technology was not particularly advanced.
Most ordinary people lived at what seemed to be a medieval standard, and even the buildings reflected that.
This world also operated under something like a feudal system. Although a council existed, most of the power lay in the hands of the so-called King of the Walls.
Yet, to Arthur's surprise, when he accompanied Kane to Shiganshina District, the outlying fortified district of Wall Maria, he saw suits and top hats.
This thoroughly baffled him. After all, those were products of the modern era in his own world.
When it came to weapons, Arthur discovered that humans still used flintlock guns and cannons like those of the Napoleonic era.
This world had armies as well.
To protect humanity, humans had established three military branches: the Military Police Brigade-the King's Unicorn; the Garrison Regiment-the Rose of Defense; and the Survey Corps-the Wings of Freedom.
Of these, the Military Police Brigade answered directly to the king and operated under his command.
The Garrison Regiment was responsible for maintaining the walls and handling all sorts of miscellaneous affairs within them.
As for the Survey Corps, it was responsible for exploring beyond the walls, uncovering the secret behind the Titans' appearance, and determining whether humanity could venture outside the walls again. Its efforts, however, had yielded little.
But Arthur had also discovered something extraordinary: the human soldiers in this world all wore a weapon called Omni-Directional Mobility Gear.
It was one of humanity's most important tools for fighting Titans. By firing grappling hooks in conjunction with jets of gas, it propelled its wearer through the air at high speed.
That had truly opened his eyes.
It also made him increasingly interested in this world.
At the same time, Arthur was astonished to discover that something extraordinary seemed to have happened to his body.
Ever since he had started living with Mikasa's family, his physical abilities seemed to have begun improving.
His appetite had also started to grow. Two bowls of food used to fill him up, but now he could eat four or five, and sometimes even six or seven.
Because of this, Uncle Kane had even brought in a doctor from Shiganshina District named Grisha Yeager to examine Arthur, fearing that he might have some underlying illness.
But Doctor Yeager found nothing wrong. He merely believed that Arthur had an unusual constitution, which made him digest food quickly and gave him a large appetite.
Arthur had breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing Doctor Yeager's explanation. He had been afraid he was ill.
Once he was certain that this would not harm his body, Arthur relaxed.
He also began exploring the secrets within his body.
After three months, Arthur could clearly tell that his current strength was nothing like that of other children his age. Instead, it was more like the strength a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy would have.