When Evan Cross and Mikasa Ackerman returned home, dinner had already ended.
Armin and his grandfather were at the door, preparing to leave.
Before they stepped out, Evan grabbed one of the two remaining fish and handed it along with a newly made fishing rod to them.
Fishing rods could always be remade.
Fish could always be caught again.
Armin's grandfather, however, was overjoyed. His wrinkled hands held the rod like a priceless treasure.
"Thank you, Evan.
Come to my house tomorrow I'll cook you a proper grilled fish."
"You don't need to trouble yourself," Evan replied seriously. "Just… keep it hidden. Don't let other people see. Some things shouldn't be flaunted."
That stern little-adult tone coming from a ten-year-old's body was so endearing that both Carla and the old man couldn't help but laugh.
Armin's grandfather ruffled Evan's cheek.
"You're steadier than this old man. I'll remember your warning."
Carla bent down and lightly tapped Evan's nose.
"Evan, sweetheart, children are supposed to be lively. Don't spend every day looking so serious like a grown-up."
Evan sighed inwardly…
But he still nodded obediently.
"I know…"
The Year of Scarcity
Days turned into weeks, and weeks eventually slipped into months.
Just as Evan had predicted, the grain warehouses eventually collapsed under the pressure of feeding hundreds of thousands of refugees.
The Royal Government issued an order:
Every refugee capable of work was to be sent out to clear wild land and begin emergency crop cultivation.
After all, refugees had mainly been farmers before the fall.
Planting crops was their only skill.
Eren's family, Mikasa, Armin, and Evan were all included.
But the land around Wall Rose was nothing like fertile Wall Maria.
Abandoned for decades, some soil had hardened into stone-like wastelands where even a cactus would struggle to survive.
The results were inevitable.
A whole year of backbreaking cultivation.
A whole year of hope crushed by barren earth.
The harvest wasn't even enough to feed the original Rose population
let alone the refugees.
"To Reclaim Wall Maria!" A Lie Dressed as a Speech
Then, in the year 846, the government finally made its decision.
A man stood on a high platform.
His voice boomed across the refugee camps:
"Citizens! Brothers and sisters!
To reclaim Wall Maria
to retake our homeland from the Titans the government hereby orders a grand military operation!
All volunteers will receive full food rations!
For your land, for your families
forward, and take back what is ours!"
The words stirred the crowd.
But everyone knew the truth.
This wasn't a crusade. It was a purge.
A culling.
A sacrifice of bodies to reduce the mouth count.
No one dared oppose it.
Because the hunger was real.
Because the warehouses were empty.
Because starvation was already crawling at their throats.
If the choices were:
starve in Wall Rose,
or die quickly outside the walls
Most chose the latter.
That was how desperation worked.
Tragically, Armin's grandfather was among those forcibly drafted.
Did they truly need a man past fifty on the battlefield?
Evan's thoughts were cold:
They aren't even pretending anymore.
They're just sending all the "excess" men and elderly to die, to save food.
He himself wanted to volunteer
to kill Titans and grow stronger sooner.
But he was too young.
And Eren's family stood in his way, refusing to let him risk himself.
And truthfully…
The government wasn't completely stupid.
Teenagers and women were the foundation of the future
future workers, future mothers, future soldiers.
They wouldn't be thrown away so casually.
Thus
The sacrificial army marched.
Twenty-Five Thousand Lives for One Winter
The "operation" mobilized 250,000 people
20% of the entire human population.
All of them refugees.
All of them untrained.
All of them, essentially, civilians.
And everyone knew what civilians were worth in battle:
Nothing.
The result was exactly what the government wanted:
Out of 250,000, only about one hundred returned.
A river of corpses bought a few months of food.
And after that…
Armin received the news.
His grandfather had perished.
Just another silent name among the thousands.