"Ahhhhhhhhh!"
Lillian cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted toward the sea, venting the resentment in his heart.
Another ten days had passed. Ten lonely days.
He still had not come up with a way to cross the plain by himself. The things on the ship simply could not guarantee his safety. And worth mentioning was that, according to normal travel time, this ship should have already returned to the Marleyan port by now.
But it had not returned.
Even allowing for delays, it definitely would not exceed one or two days. So in these past few days, Marley might already have sent a new warship to investigate. If that happened, Lillian would have no more peaceful days.
If he still could not figure out a way to cross the plain before the warship arrived, then he was dead for sure.
Even so, he still felt this was better than the internment camp. That kind of life, worse than death, he never wanted to experience again.
"Stay optimistic. Stay optimistic."
Lillian rubbed his temples, trying his best to calm his mind.
After all, being alone for too long could really cause mental problems. This was not Earth — there was no internet, nothing to pass the time. The only two newspapers on the ship had already been read word by word. The only other entertainment was playing cards.
But since you could not play cards with yourself, he had spent the entire half month feeling miserable every day — no matter how beautiful the sea was, you would get tired of it after looking at it for too long.
Thump.
Jumping down from the deckhouse, Lillian climbed back up onto the high platform built around the island. He sat down, pressed his eyes to the mounted military telescope, and gazed into the distance.
This was something he did every day. He had moved the ship's high-powered telescope to this platform to look far away. Of course, no matter how powerful it was, he could not see the walls from here. But he could vaguely see a forest towering into the clouds.
Lillian knew that was the Forest of Giant Trees, a special area on the island. The trees there were generally over eighty meters tall — extremely eye-catching. In the plot, it was also the place where the Survey Corps designed their plan to capture the Female Titan, although the plan eventually failed.
Gurgle, gurgle.
His stomach growled. Lillian rubbed it and stood up, twisting his body to go eat. But after taking only a few steps, he suddenly stopped. His expression changed several times, and his body stiffened slightly.
Just now, it seemed that—
He suddenly turned back and crouched down, pressing his eyes to the telescope again and searching anxiously.
In the instant he had withdrawn his gaze earlier, he seemed to have caught sight of some tiny black dots that were moving…
Found them!
Through the magnification of the high-powered telescope, his gaze finally caught sight of that group of tiny black dots faintly wriggling at the extreme limit of visibility.
With ten-times magnification, the human eye could see as far as ten kilometers away. And at such a distant place, those "wriggling" little black dots were clearly not Titans… they were humans!
"Humans?"
Lillian felt puzzled. He looked more carefully. The black dots were not moving very fast, but they were approaching in this direction, growing clearer and clearer in the lens.
Although he could not make out their clothing, Lillian could be certain of one thing — they were not riding horses! And that proved that this group was not made up of soldiers from the Survey Corps. There was only one possible explanation!
His heart tightened, and he suddenly remembered.
"The official Titan storyline begins in the year 845. That year, the intelligent Titans appeared for the first time. The Colossal Titan and the Armored Titan destroyed Wall Maria together. A massive number of Titans invaded, countless people were killed or injured, and a huge population flooded into Wall Rose…"
Lillian thought to himself: the massive influx of people caused an extreme shortage of food. So the government, in order to relieve the pressure, launched the 'Operation to Reclaim Wall Maria' the following year — that is, in 846.
This operation committed twenty percent of the total population, about 250,000 people in total. But in the end, only a few hundred survivors returned alive to the walls…
"If I'm not mistaken, this group must be the refugees sent out to die… that's the only explanation. There was only this one time in the plot when humans came outside the walls on such a large scale. That means… right now it's the year 846!"
Lillian reached his conclusion. He clenched his teeth, his hand tightening and loosening, tightening and loosening again. After hesitating back and forth for more than ten seconds, he suddenly stood up!
This was an opportunity!
As long as he could join those people, maybe he could make it alive into the walls!
Even though in the story, out of 250,000 people only a few hundred survived and returned to the walls, at least some people had survived.
But if he stayed here, then even if Marley did not send a warship, once the food ran out, Lillian would starve to death anyway.
So even though danger was everywhere, he had to seize this one and only chance!
Da-da-da-da!
He ran quickly back to the ship and took out a backpack he had prepared long ago. Inside were some canned food and bread, along with some medicine and bandages. He slung it on his back, took two automatic rifles and hung them over his shoulders, put two pistols into his pockets, and hung a portable telescope around his neck. Everything else, he abandoned.
There was no choice. With only two legs to walk on, how much could he carry? Even a single backpack was already a heavy burden for his frail body.
So in order to reduce his load as much as possible, he brought nothing unnecessary.
After packing, he immediately left the ship. Taking a rope with a grappling hook that he had made in advance, he went up to the platform. He hooked the claw onto the edge of the platform and turned his head to look at the ship, feeling a little reluctant — of course, what he was reluctant to leave behind was the more than half of the remaining food. But… there was no helping it.
He tugged the rope to make sure the hook was firmly wedged in place. Then, after carefully checking with the telescope to confirm there were no Titans nearby, he grabbed the rope and began climbing down little by little.
Even though there was a pile of sand below, Lillian did not dare to risk jumping straight down. If he twisted an ankle, that would truly be the end.
When he slid down the rope and his feet touched the sand, his heart leaped violently twice.
This was — the Titan territory.
It was now the year 846, still four years before Eren's awakening. At this time, humanity still lived completely under the terror ruled by Titans. Even the Survey Corps' strategy toward Titans was simply: avoid frontal confrontation at all costs.
In such circumstances, how could Lillian not be terrified?
"It's fine… I checked carefully up there. There are no Titans within several kilometers!"
He comforted himself, then quickly ran toward the direction of that large group of humans.
To be honest, these past half month he had not simply been living the life of boringness — eating when full, sleeping when full. He had also deliberately been exercising.
Of course, the exercise was nothing professional — just doing push-ups, sit-ups, jogging and the like. In such a short time, there could not be any major change, but at least his endurance had improved a little.
"Run!" Lillian shouted — for the sake of survival!