Chapter 80: The Truth of the World
"That's great, Armin—" Mikasa leaned in, her voice also choked with emotion.
"Eren— Mikasa— Am I… not dead?"
"Yeah! You're okay!" Eren nodded emphatically, then pointed to himself. "It was— uh, I made a wish—"
He began to explain, somewhat incoherently, everything about Kyubey and the Magical Girls, and how he had made a contract to save Armin.
Armin listened in stunned silence, his green eyes wide with disbelief. A magical contract… Eren became a Magical Girl? And he saved me? Magical Girl… what even is that? He subconsciously raised a hand, touching his own cheek, then his chest. His skin was warm, and his heart was beating strongly. The painful memory of being burned to a crisp felt like a terrible nightmare.
"You're finally awake, Armin. It's good that you and the Commander are both okay—" Jean's voice came from the side, filled with a mixture of post-traumatic fear and relief. "How are you two feeling? Can you walk on your own? If not, we can keep carrying you. Don't push yourselves, we heard you were both hurt really bad."
"Thank you, I feel alright," Armin said.
"I'm fine too," Erwin added. Though their minds were reeling, the most important task at hand was still to discover the truth hidden in the basement.
Finally, they arrived and forced open the old wooden door. A musty smell, of mold, old paper, and chemicals, hit them. The basement was not large, and the furnishings were simple: a wooden desk covered in a thick layer of dust, a few overturned chairs, and an empty bookshelf. It was nothing like the repository of secret documents they had imagined; it seemed rather ordinary. So ordinary it was unsettling, as if something had been deliberately hidden.
They began to search, hoping to find a useful clue. Eren's eyes scanned the desk and stopped on one of the drawers. It had a small, inconspicuous keyhole. He took out the key he had been clutching in his hand. This is it. The only clue my father left me.
He inserted the key into the lock. Click. With a soft sound, the lock opened.
Eren pulled open the drawer. It was empty, save for a few scattered old papers and miscellaneous items that seemed to hold no special meaning. The spark of hope that had just been kindled was instantly extinguished.
But Levi didn't move. He stared at the bottom of the empty drawer, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Tch." He reached out and tapped a spot on the bottom of the drawer. The sound was slightly different. He pressed down with his fingertip and slid it to the side. Click. With another soft sound, a section of the drawer bottom flipped up, revealing a hidden compartment.
A secret drawer.
Everyone held their breath. Inside, three books lay quietly. Or rather, they looked more like diaries. The leather covers and unfamiliar binding style had an air that was completely alien to the world within the Walls.
Finally… we found it.
Levi reached in and took out the three thick diaries. The others gathered around as they opened them. The only sounds in the basement were their suppressed breaths and the soft rustle of turning pages.
Time seemed to stretch on infinitely.
What was revealed within these pages was a world far vaster, and far crueler, than they had ever imagined.
Outside the Walls, there weren't just Titans. There were… humans. Humans just like them, who possessed technology far beyond the imagination of those within the Walls. Airplanes, steamships, firearms… and nations. A powerful nation called "Marley," and enslaved by them—the "Eldians."
The author of the diary, Grisha Jaeger, was from the outside world. He was an Eldian. The diary recorded the brutal history he knew.
The ancestor of the Eldians, the first King Fritz, had his children consume the flesh and blood of Ymir, the "Devil of All Earth," and thereby gained the power of the Titans. The Eldian Empire had once used this immense power to rule the entire continent. But eventually, the 145th King Fritz suddenly came to believe the world was full of suffering and initiated a great civil war among the Titans. He believed with a fanatical conviction that the Eldian people were sinful, and so he led most of his people to the island of Paradis. There, they built three great Walls, and he used the power of the Founding Titan to erase the memories of all the Eldians within them.
The Eldians who were left behind on the mainland were enslaved by the Marleyan Empire. They were seen as the "descendants of the devil," stripped of their freedom, and confined to internment zones, where they suffered inhuman treatment.
In order to seize the rich resources of Paradis Island, such as the iceburst stone, and the legendary power of the Founding Titan, the Marleyans turned some of the Eldians into mindless Pure Titans and sent them to the island. This was both a punishment for the Eldians and a weapon.
Yet, King Fritz did nothing. He simply huddled within his island, continuing to enjoy his so-called privileges. He established the families who were loyal to him as the nobility within the Walls, letting them rule and govern. The families who would not submit, like the Ackerman and Asian clans, were mercilessly hunted and persecuted. He also established a strict system of control to prevent the people within the Walls from learning the truth of the outside world or their own true history.
Day after day, year after year, he watched as his own people oppressed and fought each other. He watched as the Survey Corps returned from their expeditions in failure time and time again, as countless families were torn apart. He simply waited for the outside world to come and destroy his nation and his race, enjoying his final, pathetic moments. Because he, and the outside world, both believed that they, the Eldians of Paradis Island, were the world's… "devils." "Monsters." An existence that had to be completely erased from the world.
A deathly silence fell over the basement. The faint spark of hope that had been kindled by magic was instantly and ruthlessly extinguished by this bone-chilling truth.
The enemy wasn't just the mindless Pure Titans outside the Walls. The enemy was… the entire world. And they themselves… the "freedom of humanity" they had been dedicating their hearts to… was nothing more than the desperate, last gasps of what the rest of the world considered "devils."
And their king had been watching it all happen from the very beginning. He and his ancestors had lit the very flame of this madness, only to abandon their own people in the end. Step by step, he had persecuted the families within the Walls who refused to submit. He had watched as the upper class exploited the lower class, as the common people fought amongst themselves. He had watched as those who sought the truth were driven to despair and death.
Was he just enjoying this nauseating sense of guilt that he called "atonement"?
How could this be possible?
The basement was silent. The heavy truth weighed on everyone's hearts, making it almost impossible to breathe. The miracle of magic they had just witnessed now seemed so small, almost… ironic.
Hope? But their own king had wished for their deaths. He wasn't even willing to show them a sliver of pity, not even willing to let his people live slightly better lives before their inevitable extinction. He had just let them continue to live this rotten existence.
Perhaps, from the very beginning, they had never truly had any hope at all.
Where did the path ahead lead?
No one knew the answer.