Some time later, "The Owl" sent a special person to the base of the Eldian Restoration Movement.
"Hello, it's a pleasure to meet everyone. It is an honor to meet so many compatriots with shared aspirations."
She was a gentle girl with short-cut blonde hair.
"My name is Dina Fritz, a descendant of the Royal Family."
A branch of the Royal Family had refused to flee to Paradise Island and remained on the continent. Dina was the last surviving descendant of that branch. Like the Eldian Restoration Movement, her family had always hoped for a day when Eldia would rise again, although they had to live discreetly within the Internment Zone to avoid capture by the Marleyan government.
Now, the two sides joined the same faction, with the shared goal of overthrowing Marley and restoring Eldia to its former glory.
Along with the valuable information related to Titans that Dina Fritz brought, it was like charting a path to victory for the Restoration Movement.
The Eldian Restorationists, based on the information provided by "The Owl" combined with Dina's account, mapped out a concrete plan.
In terms of manpower and firepower, Eldia had no chance against a Marley that had developed over many years, possessing a large and elite military system. However, they had one advantage that the Eldian bloodline offered.
Titans.
The Founding Titan, the first Titan transformed by Ymir, was the key. The Founding Titan had the power to control and command all other Titans. The Eldian Restorationists wanted to use the Founding Titan to command a Titan army to destroy Marley.
But there was one problem: King Fritz had taken the Founding Titan to Paradise Island, or The Promised Land, building three Walls to isolate themselves from the world.
As for why King Fritz, who possessed such immense power, retreated inside the Walls, Dina explained it this way:
"The Great Titan War broke out when the 145th King inherited the Founding Titan's power. But before that, there had been centuries of conflict between the eight families possessing Titan power."
"Order was maintained thanks to the Founding Titan's power in the hands of the Royal Family. However, the 145th King abandoned all responsibility and moved the capital to a distant, secluded island."
In simple terms, the 145th King Fritz did not want to fight, so he took a portion of his Subjects and fled to Paradise Island. In other words, his actions indirectly caused all the suffering of the Eldians who were left behind.
In a meeting, after summarizing their next objective, the spiritual leader Grisha Yeager declared:
"It's time to fight. This is clearly what we must do. We will retrieve the Founding Titan from the King who abandoned us and hid behind the Walls. Then, we will return it to the true Royal Family, those who stayed here with us, the Subjects of Eldia!"
"My brethren! Let us rise up against Marley! Against this false history! Let us reclaim the pride of the Eldian people!"
"My brethren! Let us fight until the day Eldia is restored!"
Grisha shouted amidst the passionate cheers of the Eldian Restoration Movement members. Dina wept emotionally, embracing Grisha. Their relationship blossomed from there.
A year later, the two married. They bore a son named Zeke, an Eldian child carrying royal blood.
At the same time, the key to their plan to seize the Founding Titan appeared.
The Marleyan government announced that King Fritz might return and wage war again. Therefore, they decided to launch a recruitment campaign for Eldian children aged five to seven, training them into elite soldiers and having them inherit the seven Titans under the control of the Marleyan government.
The families of these Titan Warriors would be granted the title "Honorary Marleyans," enjoying lifelong freedom.
Of course, anyone intelligent understood that these were just the surface reasons.
King Fritz abandoned the game many years ago to end the war. But ironically, the war had never truly ended; it continued perpetually, only the target of the conflict had shifted from the Eldians to the Marleyans.
Since then, Marley had always relied on the terrifying power of the seven Titans to maintain its military dominance in the world. But due to the lack of the Founding Titan, Marley could not achieve a complete subjugation.
Other nations and peoples naturally refused to be perpetually bullied. Many superior military inventions were created and realized elsewhere. Human weapons were becoming increasingly powerful, and soon, the power of the Titans would no longer be absolute.
The world would soon enter an era where creations of steel, powered by fossil fuels, would become the overlords. Marley knew this well, so they could no longer ignore Paradise Island.
Marley's goal was twofold. First, seize the Founding Titan from the Royal Family inside the Walls, using the Founding Titan to maximize the Titan advantage before the transition era arrived, securing as many benefits as possible. Second, and most important, Paradise Island itself was a treasure trove with abundant fossil fuels and gas, which Marley had coveted for a very long time.
However, they hadn't touched Paradise Island, at least the walled area, for nearly a century because before leaving, King Fritz had left a warning:
"If you dare to violate our land, the hundreds of thousands of sleeping Titans within the Walls will awaken and flatten this world."
Whether it was true or not, no faction dared to gamble. Therefore, both Marley and the Eldian Restoration Movement shared a common plan: silently infiltrate the Walls without alerting King Fritz, and seize the Founding Titan. Marley's chances of success were much higher than the Restorationists'.
While everyone was worried, Grisha devised a plan. It was to have his son, Zeke, participate in the Marleyan military training to gain the right to inherit one of the seven Titans. Following the Marleyan government's plan to seize the Founding Titan, he would then secretly bring it back to the Eldian Restorationists.
This was killing two birds with one stone, and the feasibility was extremely high.
At that time, everyone was still unaware of the consequences of inheriting the Titan power. They were still rejoicing over a feasible plan. Even Grisha and Dina were the same. Both knew that this meant taking away the childhood the boy should have enjoyed, but they reluctantly overlooked it for the greater cause.
Grisha, who placed the hope of Eldia's revival in his son, did not realize, or perhaps realized but deliberately ignored, that what he was doing was no different from how Mr. Yeager had once forced the content of the anti-Ymir history book into his head.
In fact, it was worse. He still hadn't learned anything from the ignorance that had led to his sister's death in the past. Now, that same ignorance would lead to the ruin of his wife, himself, and the entire Restoration faction.
When Zeke turned seven, two years after being trained by Marley, the boy betrayed his parents, reporting both Grisha and Dina to the government, resulting in the complete collapse of the Restoration Society.