"Don't even think about stopping me, Falco. I'm absolutely not going to be soft-hearted like you."
"Then why didn't you do it just now?" Falco shot back.
That question left Gabi momentarily speechless, but she immediately snapped back, "What's it to you? What does it have to do with you? You don't even think about the Eldians—you only think about yourself! Selfish jerk!"
With a scornful look at Falco, Gabi put away the switchblade in her hand.
She didn't feel like killing anyone today, so she decided she'd come back tomorrow. Those people would still be here tomorrow anyway.
They were a bunch of stubborn fools—this wasn't something you could settle in one go.
Seeing that Gabi was no longer so blindly obstinate, Falco didn't try to stop her anymore and simply followed her back to the street where they lived.
All along the way, Falco trailed behind her without saying a word.
But Gabi's irritation only kept boiling over.
"What's wrong with you?! Why do you keep following me?!"
Finally unable to take it, Gabi spun around and cursed at Falco.
But Falco seemed mentally prepared, like he'd already decided what he needed to say.
This whole walk, he'd been weighing whether he should say it. Now it was clear—he had to.
"Do you know? Roger Eikam—the one who escaped from here a few years ago—has swallowed the Founding Titan and started the Rumbling. He's already marching toward Marley."
"Of course I know!" Gabi said. "That Eldian traitor—he doesn't understand at all why Eldians are discriminated against. He understands nothing. He's an idiot!"
Hearing that, Falco didn't refute her right away, because just like Gabi, he didn't truly understand anything either.
But from the very beginning, he'd never fully trusted the military. He had personally seen soldiers take their own selfish desires and hatred and pour them onto friends he knew.
Yes—because of his personality, he'd never been that forceful since he was little. He preferred to quietly stay by other people's side.
And because of that, he had more friends than Gabi did.
Because he had more friends, it was only natural that, through spending time with them, he would end up seeing what the military did.
Listening to them talk about the atrocities the military had inflicted on them, he found it hard to believe—because to him, those things seemed impossible, or at least nowhere near that severe.
But reality was reality. Some things get buried, but sooner or later, someone with intent will dig them back up.
Gabi wasn't that kind of person.
Falco was.
So he kept watching everything the military did with doubt in his heart.
There was an Eldian who had escaped the Eldian internment zone years ago—someone who, like them, had once been a Warrior candidate. Yet the explanation the military gave was that he hadn't inherited the Jaw Titan, flew into a rage out of humiliation, wreaked havoc at the inheritance site, and then fled like some madman.
Because of that incident, their instructor had repeatedly warned them, even put them through all kinds of tests to see whether they would betray Marley.
Knowing the Marleyan military's nature, they'd understood since childhood exactly what to do to win the military's approval, so they all scored fairly well in those trainings.
But the more they did that, the more suspicious Marley became.
After filtering and selecting again and again, they still ended up transferring certain people far away from them—until, in the end, only Gabi and Falco were left.
Falco was moderate.
But Gabi was fanatical to the core.
Even the Marleyan military had once been wary of Gabi's fervor, suspecting it might be an act—but when they saw that she would even strike at her own relatives, that she possessed a brand of Marleyan loyalty that was hard to reject, and a background so simple it couldn't be simpler…
They truly had no way to say no to her.
And now it just so happened to prove they'd been right. Gabi really was a devoted supporter of Marley—there was no way she would betray the Marleyan military.
Falco talking to Gabi about Roger Eikam, about the Rumbling coming to trample Marley, wasn't to "enlighten" her, and it wasn't to make her understand what she had done or what she had done wrong.
He only wanted Gabi to live.
Because…
He liked her.
Even though Gabi was a war fanatic—everything she said and did made it hard to imagine she was the same innocent-looking, cute child she appeared to be—she had also cared for Falco in painstaking detail.
She did care about her comrades. That was why, in what happened just now, she hadn't been able to harden her heart enough to strike her own people with such lethal cruelty.
"Hey… come with me, Gabi."
In a small voice, Falco finally confessed what he felt, tugging at the corner of Gabi's clothes.
Gabi turned back, looking at Falco in confusion.
"Where to?" she asked.
"Anywhere," Falco said. "As long as it's not here. Once Roger Eikam arrives, the Marleyans will definitely be the first to flee by ship. When that happens, the only ones left in Marley will be us Eldians—and the first person Roger Eikam tramples to death will only be us."
"Then that just proves how stupid Roger Eikam is!" Gabi said. "If, after the Rumbling passes, we kind-hearted Eldians are still alive, then the people of the world will support us—we'll become heroes! That's right, Falco, you don't need to worry about me. I know what you're thinking. Don't worry, I won't die. I'll live just fine under those Titans' feet, and I'll prove to the world that we are kind Eldians! And Roger Eikam is the source of the demon—Paradis Island is the demon's home. No matter who goes there, they'll be stained black. It has nothing to do with whether someone is Eldian or not!"
"But why do we have to take that risk?!" Falco shouted. "Isn't living well enough? We can run right now—no one can catch up to us. Marley right now…"
"Run, run, run, Falco. Sometimes I really want to hear some new words come out of your mouth," Gabi said disdainfully. "When are you going to tell me you want to fight?"
Hearing that, Falco fell silent for a moment.
"I am fighting right now. Protecting my comrades is a kind of battle in itself!"
All of a sudden, he sounded righteous and resolute.
Gabi stared at her companion in astonishment. She had never heard words like that from him before.
"Then let's stay here together, Falco."
"What?!"
Falco was bewildered.
"Let's stay together—and stop the Rumbling!"
Gabi said fervently, reaching out to seize Falco's hand, a flush climbing onto her face.
But Falco's skin broke out in goosebumps.
"Y-you… you're not joking, are you?" he said, horrified.
And right at that moment, the cannons at the harbor suddenly began to roar. Everyone turned in unison toward the sea.
Sure enough—out on the vast ocean, a towering wall of giants was bursting through the smoke and surging toward them, grinding everything down as it came, bringing boundless darkness.
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