In a world where humanity cowers behind three great walls, the Survey Corps stands as the last, desperate hope against the man-eating Titans beyond. Among them is Captain Rivai Akkaman—a short-tempered, obsessive neat freak from the underground slums, rumored to be humanity's strongest soldier. Three years ago, Commander Eruvin Sumisu descended into the darkness to offer him a hand, and Rivai has fought by his side ever since. But on the eve of the 57th expedition—the largest and most dangerous
The Vow Beyond the Walls - The Night Before the 57th Exterior Scouting Mission — Three Years I Couldn't Say It —
The silence of night pressed down on the air inside the walls, heavy and still.
The Survey Corps headquarters' strategy room had gone cold, as if the day's heat had never been. On the long table, a map lay spread open, and the candlelight flickered restlessly across it. The flames cast deep shadows over the faces of the soldiers gathered around.
By the window stood Rivai Akkaman.
He was short. But there was not an ounce of wasted flesh on his frame. His black hair was cropped close, with only the back left slightly longer. His sharp, pale gray-blue eyes—three-quarters visible beneath heavy lids—stared fixedly into the darkness beyond the glass. His mouth was twisted into its usual scowl. A black jacket over a white shirt, dark trousers below—he looked less like a soldier and more like some thug off the streets.
And yet this man was the Survey Corps' captain, the soldier they called humanity's strongest.
"...That concludes tomorrow's operation. Everyone, see to your equipment. Final checks are not optional."
The low, carrying voice resonated through the room. At the far end of the long table stood the man himself—Commander Eruvin Sumisu. Tall, broad-shouldered, his blond hair neatly combed back, his sharp gaze sweeping across the assembled soldiers.
Rivai didn't turn around. He kept his eyes on the window, catching Eruvin's reflection in the glass at the edge of his vision.
(Tomorrow, then.)
The fifty-seventh expedition beyond the walls. A large-scale operation with humanity's survival at stake. For the Survey Corps, there had never been a bigger gamble. Since the fall of Wall Maria, humanity had been slowly squeezed inward. Outside the walls, Titans swarmed. Inside, there was less land, dwindling food, and growing discontent.
The Survey Corps—officially the Wall Exploration Corps—existed to venture beyond the walls, probe the Titans' weaknesses, and carve a path for humanity to live outside again. Its membership numbered around three hundred. The probability of dying within five years of enlistment exceeded ninety percent.
"If you don't want to die, join the Military Police."
In a world where those words passed for common sense, the ones who still volunteered for the Survey Corps all carried something on their backs.
Rivai was no exception.
The soldiers rose from their seats and filed out of the room. Their footsteps faded down the corridor, and soon only Rivai and Eruvin remained.
"Rivai."
The voice drew closer. Rivai finally turned. Eruvin was watching him from across the long table, the candlelight illuminating half his face.
"Tomorrow, I'm counting on you."
It was a short phrase. But packed into that voice—tight as a fist—were the weight of command and the trust he placed in Rivai.
Rivai met Eruvin's eyes. Blue. Deep. Bottomless. Every time he looked into this man's eyes, Rivai thought the same thing: *He sees something I can't.*
"...Yeah."
That was all he said.
Eruvin gave a small nod and left the room. Rivai watched his back for a while.
Something sat lodged in his chest.
He'd felt it for three years now. Ever since the day he'd taken Eruvin's outstretched hand in the darkness of the underground.
Rivai turned back to the window.
Night had swallowed the Survey Corps grounds. The headquarters sat inside Wall Rose, roughly a hundred and eighty kilometers north of the capital, Mitras, and about fifteen kilometers southwest of the Utopia District. Forest stretched in every direction, and after dark the rustle of branches never ceased.
In this world, three concentric walls—Maria, Rose, and Sina—protected humanity. Fifty meters tall. Humanity's last fortress, built to keep the Titans out. But beyond those walls, countless man-eating Titans roamed.
The Survey Corps went out there. On horseback, with vertical maneuvering gear strapped to their bodies, superhard steel blades in hand. To sever the nape of a Titan's neck—that ten-centimeter-wide weak point—with a single cut.
Rivai looked at his right hand. A small scar marked one finger. A cleaning injury. The man was a pathological neat freak; he couldn't rest until his own room—and every corner of the training grounds—was cleaned to his satisfaction.
Tomorrow, he might die.
That was nothing new. Every expedition beyond the walls, someone died. Rivai had watched more comrades die than he could count.
But tomorrow was different.
(Eruvin... what are you thinking?)
Rivai clenched his fist.
Three years ago, Rivai had lived beneath the capital, Mitras.
The underground district of Kirsche. Population around fifty thousand. A slum sprawling directly beneath the capital, where sunlight never reached. People without citizenship papers lived lives the surface dwellers couldn't imagine. Rivai had been a notorious thug down there.
Stealing, threatening, brawling. Whatever it took to survive, he did it. The underground's air was stagnant and damp, reeking of mold. Everyone's eyes were clouded. Hope was something that had never existed there to begin with.
And then Eruvin appeared before him.
He remembered that day clearly, even now.
Rivai had been drinking alone in an underground tavern. A man he'd never seen before walked in. Tall, blond, well-dressed. A man who didn't belong in the underground—a man who smelled of the surface.
He came straight to Rivai and sat down across from him.
"You're Rivai, aren't you."
"...Huh? Who the hell are you?"
Rivai glared at him. The man didn't flinch.
"I'm Eruvin Sumisu. Squad leader of the Survey Corps."
The Survey Corps. That pack of idiots who went outside the walls and fought Titans. To underground folk, they were nothing but a rumor.
"So what?"
"I want your strength."
The man's eyes were direct. They held a fierce light that no one from the underground ever possessed.
"Ha. Screw off. I hate your type the most—the kind who spout pretty words."
Rivai spat the words out.
"These aren't pretty words. For humanity's future, I need your strength."
"Humanity's future? Don't make me laugh. The people down here don't even count as humanity. While you lot fight Titans outside the walls, we're down here scrabbling around like rats. I don't give a damn about that world's future."
At Rivai's words, the man fell silent for a moment. Then he spoke quietly.
"...You're right. This world is wrong. But that's exactly why it has to change. With your strength, it might be possible."
He extended his right hand.
"Come with me."
In the dim underground light, that hand looked strangely white.
Rivai stared at it.
(This guy is serious.)
Underground folk could tell right away. Who was lying, who was genuine. Looking into this man's eyes, Rivai felt that he truly believed in something.
It pissed him off.
At the same time, something stirred deep in his chest.
(If I stay with this man, something might change.)
The thought flashed through his mind for just an instant.
Rivai took the offered hand.
It was warm.
A warmth that existed nowhere in the underground.
—Three years since then.
Rivai walked the night corridor, leaving the strategy room behind. His footsteps echoed through the quiet hall.
(I took his hand that day.)
(And ever since, I've fought for him.)
Not for Eruvin. Not for humanity. He'd simply believed in the warmth of that hand.
But somewhere along the way, that feeling had changed into something else.
"...Tch."
He clicked his tongue.
(What am I thinking? Tomorrow's a crucial operation.)
He headed for the training grounds. At night, they were empty. Moonlight washed the dirt in pale blue.
Rivai picked up a wooden sword leaning against the wall.
He started with practice swings.
One. Two. Three.
Each swing cut a whistling path through the night air. Rivai's frame was small, but every strike carried force no ordinary person could muster. Dense bones, sixty-five kilos of weight—a body heavier than it looked, and the ground shook with each step he drove into it.
Four. Five.
Sweat beaded on his forehead. He didn't stop.
(More.)
(Stronger.)
(Or tomorrow, someone dies.)
Six. Seven.
His arms grew heavy. His breath came short. But his mind only grew colder.
In battle, Rivai was always calm. He killed his emotions and saw only the Titan in front of him. That was one reason he was called humanity's strongest.
Eight. Nine.
His sword hand stopped.
(Eruvin.)
Again. That face surfaced again.
Rivai lowered the wooden blade and looked up at the sky. The moon was slipping behind a thin cloud.
"...Guess I'll clean."
He muttered it to no one.
He picked up a broom from the corner of the training grounds.
His neat freak tendencies were famous among the soldiers. If so much as a speck of trash lay on the training ground floor, he'd chew out whoever was responsible, rank be damned. His own room, the barracks corridors, the latrines, even the stables—he cleaned them all until he was satisfied.
"Filthy..."
Under the moonlight, he swept pebbles and dead leaves from the training ground with meticulous care.
Cleaning calmed him.
It was a habit from his underground days. The underground was filthy everywhere. But Rivai had always kept his own territory spotless. Filth drove him half mad.
The sound of the broom was the only thing that echoed through the night.
He'd swept about half the grounds when he looked up.
A light was on in a second-floor window of the headquarters building.
Eruvin's room.
Rivai set down the broom and stared at the light.
(Still awake?)
The hour was well past midnight. Tomorrow's departure was at dawn. Why would the commander of all people be up at this hour?
His feet carried him toward the building without his deciding to.
He moved down the corridor, keeping his footsteps silent.
When he reached Eruvin's door, he noticed it was slightly ajar.
(...?)
Rivai held his breath and peered through the gap.
Inside, Eruvin sat at his desk. His back was hunched, his gaze fixed on something.
In his hand was an old photograph.
Faded, its corners bent. Eruvin held it in his palm as though it were something fragile.
And his face—
Rivai's breath caught.
Eruvin wore an expression Rivai had never seen before.
Not the usual calm, all-seeing face.
It was frail. Lonely. The face of a lost child.
(He... makes a face like that?)
Something tightened in Rivai's chest.
The photograph showed a man. A gentle-faced man who resembled Eruvin closely.
(Is that his old man?)
Rivai didn't know much about Eruvin's past. He'd only heard that Eruvin had lost his father young.
Before that photograph, Eruvin laid bare a weakness he showed no one.
Rivai couldn't move from the spot.
(I don't know a damn thing about him.)
Three years fighting side by side. But Rivai had never once touched what lay at the bottom of Eruvin's heart.
He hadn't had the courage.
No—that wasn't it.
He'd felt that if he touched it, something would break.
Rivai quietly stepped away.
He returned to his own room.
It was spotless, every corner attended to. Not a speck of dust on the floor. Only the necessary items arranged in perfect order on the desk. The bedsheets were pulled taut as a freshly strung bowstring.
Rivai stripped off his jacket and lay down.
He stared at the ceiling.
(Tomorrow, can I protect him?)
Eruvin was a strong man. But before a Titan, any human was helpless. With vertical maneuvering gear, you could fight. But one wrong step and you'd be devoured in an instant.
Rivai had watched comrades get eaten more times than he could count.
That sight never got easier.
(I can't let him die. Not ever.)
Rivai clenched his fist hard.
At some point, sleep took him.
—Darkness.
The dream of the underground.
Damp air. The smell of mold. The drip of water from the ceiling.
Rivai was in the underground tavern.
Across from him sat that man.
Blond, tall, well-dressed.
"I want your strength."
The man extended his right hand.
Rivai stared at it.
(This dream again.)
In the dream, Rivai knew he was dreaming.
But still, he couldn
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