N.B : If you'd like to get early access to the next chapter of Universal hope (Chapter 31) why not consider supporting me at Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom. Your donations will be very much appreciated. On my Patreon, supporters get the complete, uninterrupted chapters in full.
After Erwin and Levi's meeting and long ride from Stohess; the iron bars to their headquarters was quite the welcoming sight. The sun had fully set now, leaving only the faintest glow on the horizon, and the torches lining the walls cast flickering shadows across the courtyard.
They dismounted in the main courtyard, handing their reins to waiting stable hands. Erwin's empty sleeve swung with the motion, a constant reminder of what he'd lost; and what he'd survived.
"Commander! Captain!"
The voice came from the main building's entrance. Moblit was there, his face pale but his eyes bright with something that looked almost like excitement. His ribs were still bound beneath his shirt, visible as a slight bulge under his uniform, though that didn't deter him.
"You're back," he said, hurrying toward them. "Squad Leader Hange has been waiting. She found something—something important."
Levi's eyebrow arched. "Found something? In the middle of a burned-down training ground with MPs crawling everywhere?"
"She... may have acquired it before the MPs arrived. Just before."
Erwin felt something that might have been the ghost of a smile tug at his lips. "Lead the way."
They followed Moblit through the corridors, past the mess hall where a few night-owl soldiers were picking at cold rations, and into Hange's domain.
The makeshift laboratory was, as you did expect from someone like Hange who just had this place, a disaster zone of organized chaos. Shelves lined the walls, crammed with what Titan specimens she was able to replenish from her former destroyed lab, research notes stacked in precarious towers, and a chalkboard in the corner was covered in diagrams and equations that made Erwin's head hurt to look at. And by the tableside was the darkened sand gotten from their prison kept in a capsule.
And in the center of it all, hunched over a table like a predator over its prey, was Hange Zoe.
Her hair was even wilder than usual, escaping from its tie in frantic directions. Her glasses were still cracked; she hadn't had time to replace them, or more likely, hadn't bothered. One lens caught the lamplight and threw it back in a distorted gleam that made her look slightly unhinged.
Which, Erwin reflected, was probably accurate.
"Oi shitty glasses." Levi's voice cut through the room like a blade. "Are you so damn busy you can't fix those lens of yours?"
Hange's head snapped up. Her eyes, magnified by the cracked lens, went wide with recognition, and then even wider with excitement.
"LEVI! ERWIN! You're back! You won't believe what Moblit found!" She gestured frantically at the table. "Look! LOOK!"
Erwin and Levi approached the table. Resting on its surface, surrounded by Hange's careful notes and sketches, was a device unlike anything they had ever seen.
It was roughly the size of a large book if not larger, its casing a strange metal that seemed to shift color in the light; now silver, now bronze, now something in between. One side was badly damaged, cracked and blackened as if by an explosion from within. Through the fissures, they could see the remnants of what looked like the power source that was crystalline in nature, now shattered and dark.
But even damaged, even broken, the device hummed with a faint energy. Symbols etched into its surface; not words, not any language Erwin recognized, but intricate patterns that seemed almost organic; pulsed with a weak, dying light.
"What is it?" Erwin asked, his voice quiet.
Hange's grin threatened to split her face. "That, my dear Commander, is a machine. A genuine, honest-to-goodness, definitely-not-from-this-world machine." She patted it with the kind of reverence most people reserved for religious relics. "Moblit grabbed it during the evacuation at the 103rd. Before the MPs showed up with their 'this is our jurisdiction now' nonsense."
She slapped Moblit on the back with enough force to make him stagger, his injured ribs protesting with an audible wince.
"BIG BRAIN THINKING!" Hange declared. "While everyone else was panicking about the fire and the bodies and the MPs, Moblit here had the presence of mind to grab the only piece of physical evidence that those fanatical bastards left behind!"
Moblit's face had gone slightly red. "I just—I saw it in the rubble and thought—"
"You thought correctly!" Hange grabbed his shoulders, shaking him gently. "This is the key, Moblit! The lockpick to the entire mystery!"
Levi stared at the device, his expression unreadable. "It's damaged."
"Obviously it's damaged!" Hange waved off the objection. "But damaged is not useless. Look at this casing—I've never seen metal like this. It's not forged, not cast, not any technique I recognize. It's like it was grown, like a crystal or a shell. And these symbols—" She pointed at the faintly pulsing patterns. "They're not decorative. They're functional. Circuits, maybe, or something like them. The damage is mostly here, around the core." She indicated the cracked, blackened section. "Something overloaded from inside. A power surge, maybe, or—" She looked up, eyes gleaming. "—or deliberate sabotage."
Erwin leaned closer, studying the device. "Sabotage?"
"It can't be the knights' doing, they need the device." Hange's voice dropped to something almost reverent. "Could be the crystal titan, but there would have been those crystal spikes around. Or could it be…The ones with the Garrison soldier. The blonde one; Armin, they called him. I swear I saw him stuffing something that looked strange into his pocket. A piece of this, I think?" She straightened, her expression thoughtful. "I may be jumping into conclusion, but if he did that; or Obsidian did that intentionally. Then he knew what it was. Which means there's a lot more those kids aren't spilling out."
The room fell silent.
Levi's voice, when it came, was flat and cold. "Which is exactly why we shouldn't have let them go."
Erwin closed his eyes briefly. He'd known this conversation was coming.
"Levi—"
"No." Levi stepped forward, his grey eyes fixed on Erwin with an intensity that could have cut glass. "I let it go at the camp because you said to. I trusted your judgment, like I always do. But I want you to explain to me; right now; why we let three civilians and a soldier with clear connections to these things just ride away."
He gestured at the device, at Hange, at everything.
"A week ago, we had rumors. Whispers. A demon dog in Wall Sina. Then it's in Wall Rose. Then it attacked our base, and then a military training ground. Then we have impostors in our own ranks, wearing faces that aren't theirs, feeding us false information while they set up a massacre. Then an anonymous lady that killed our captives for unknown reasons while we were away. And now we have this." He jabbed a finger at the machine.
"Technology that shouldn't exist. That can't exist, not in this world. And the only people who might know anything about it are a drunk Garrison soldier and two children who just happened to be in the middle of all of it."
Erwin fell silent. Around the room, some of the other scouts that had arrived in Hange's lab due to the strange technology returned. Nanaba stood in the doorway, her arms crossed with a grim expression on her face. Beside her, Gelgar nursed a flask that was probably not filled with water, his eyes fixed on the device with a mixture of suspicion and dread ever since he saw it earlier.
"He's right, Commander," Nanaba said quietly. "Those kids knew something. That other she looked at Captain Levi like she wanted to kill him. That's not normal. That's not 'scared civilian.' That's someone with something to protect."
Gelgar nodded, taking a long pull from his flask. "And the old man who came for them? The timing was too perfect. He showed up right when things got tense, right when questions were being asked, and just... whisked them away." He shook his head. "That's not coincidence. That's planning."
Erwin absorbed their words in silence. He had known this was coming; had known that letting the children go would cost him credibility with his own soldiers. But he had also known, with the cold certainty of a man who had learned to read the currents of power, that keeping them would have cost something far greater.
"You're right," he said quietly.
The room went still.
"You're all right." Erwin met Levi's eyes, then Nanaba's, then each of the scouts in the room in turn. "Those children know more than they told us. The old man, the supposed 'Uncle' that Garrison called him; is connected to this in ways we don't understand. And we should have kept them. Questioned them. Found out what they know. Should have followed through with the interrogation."
Levi's eyes narrowed. "But?"
Erwin allowed himself a small, tired smile. "But we couldn't. Not then, not there, not with the MPs watching and the government already sharpening their knives." He moved to the window, looking out at the courtyard. "If I had ordered those children detained, the MPs would have demanded custody. They would have been taken to Stohess, questioned by people who are more interested in burying the truth than finding it. And we would have lost them anyway, along with any chance of learning what they really know."
He turned back to face them.
"I made a choice. Not the right choice, perhaps, but the only choice that kept our options open." He looked at Levi. "You asked why we let them go. That's why. Because sometimes, the best way to keep something safe is to let it run free."
Levi was silent for a long moment. Then he gave a short, sharp nod; not agreement, exactly, but acknowledgment. He understood, though he didn't have to like it.
"Fine," he said. "So we lost the kids. What do we have instead?"
Hange stepped forward, her earlier excitement tempered by the gravity of the conversation. "We have this." She tapped the damaged device. "And we have the fact that most likely those kids knew enough to damage it. That's a connection. A thread we can follow."
"A thread that leads nowhere if we can't find them," Gelgar muttered.
"Maybe not nowhere." Mike's voice rumbled from the doorway, where he'd appeared without anyone noticing. His massive frame filled the space, his sharp eyes missing nothing. "The Garrison soldier. Hannes. He's still in the system. We can find him."
Erwin nodded slowly. "Yes. That's our next move."
Levi's eyebrows rose. "We're going after a Garrison soldier based on a hunch?"
"We're going after a Garrison soldier who was in the middle of a supernatural incident with two children who clearly know more than they should, who had witnessed these fanatics that tried to massacre a cadet corps, and who surely has enough alliance with one of those strange creatures to be comfortable around with." Erwin's voice was calm, measured. "That's not a hunch. That's an investigation."
He moved to the table, studying the damaged device.
"Hange, how long to learn anything useful from this?"
Hange's expression flickered with a hint of embarrassment. "Hard to say. It's badly damaged. The power source is shattered, most of the internal structures are fried. But the casing; the symbols; there's information there. Patterns. If I can figure out how to read them..." She trailed off, already lost in thought.
"Do what you can. Report anything you find." Erwin turned to the others. "Nanaba, Gelgar—I want you to start gathering information on Hannes. His posting, his history, his known associates. Find out where he's stationed, where he lives, who he talks to."
They nodded, exchanging glances. It wasn't a glamorous assignment, but it was necessary.
"Mike, you're with me. We'll need to coordinate with the Garrison; officially, this time. No more sneaking around."
Mike grunted his acknowledgment.
Levi crossed his arms. "And me?"
Erwin met his eyes. "You're going to do what you do best. And be ready to move when we find something."
Levi's expression didn't change much, only a tsk escaped his lips. "Fine. But next time we find those kids, we don't let them go."
"Next time," Erwin agreed, "we won't have to."
The scouts dispersed, each to their assigned tasks. The room slowly emptied, leaving only Hange hunched over her prize, muttering to herself as she examined every inch of the alien device.
Levi paused at the door, looking back at Erwin.
"You really think this will lead somewhere?" he asked quietly.
Erwin followed his gaze to the damaged machine, to the strange symbols that pulsed with dying light, to the mystery that had already cost so much.
"I think," he said slowly, "that we're standing at the edge of something much larger than we understand. Those children; that device; the supernatural disasters that have been occurring for the past weeks, the creatures we've seen. They're connected. And connections, once found, can be followed."
He looked at Levi, and for just a moment, the weight of command seemed to lift from his shoulders.
"Besides," he added, a hint of dark humor in his voice, "what else do we have to do? Sit here and wait for the next disaster?"
Levi snorted. "Knowing our luck, it'll find us anyway."
"Probably." Erwin moved toward the door. "But when it does, I'd rather be ready."
They walked out together, leaving Hange to her research and the night to its secrets.
Chapter 31 is already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.