"Glug, glug, glug."
Tilting his head back, Lillian finished the water in one go and casually tossed the empty canteen off the platform. His gaze followed it in a parabolic arc as it fell onto the sand, then he withdrew his eyes and lay back on the stone platform, staring at the clear sky and drifting clouds.
Three days had already passed.
At this moment, only he remained on the ship. All the other corpses had been thrown down by him and had become food for the Titans.
It was not simply for revenge. Leaving corpses on the ship risked causing an outbreak of disease, and in the end, the unlucky one would still be Lillian himself.
"What am I supposed to do now…"
Propping his head up with one hand, he turned to look toward the interior of the island. As far as his eyes could see, there were no Titans. That was because Titans always moved toward humans. At the edge of the island, naturally, none would remain for long.
Even so, he did not dare climb down from the high platform. If he happened to run into an abnormal Titan, then with his current combat ability… forget combat ability — he had no combat ability at all.
So for now, he could only stay on the ship and think of a solution.
In the short term, there was no need to worry about supplies. The ship's food and water had been stocked for dozens of people — the Marleyan soldiers plus the Eldian prisoners. There were more than twenty barrels of bread alone, each containing seventy or eighty loaves. Together with several barrels of canned meat, even if Lillian ate by himself for three months, he would not finish them.
But although starvation was not a problem… how was he supposed to break this deadlock?
Moreover, the danger from Marley had not ended yet. Once the port discovered that this ship had not returned for a long time, they would definitely send another ship to investigate. When that time came, how was he supposed to resist?
So he still had to find a way to get inside the walls as soon as possible. Only then could he be safe — at least temporarily.
"If I had a horse… wait, do I even know how to ride a horse...!"
Crossing the plain on foot would be nothing but suicide. Even the four Warriors who possessed the Intelligent Titans (the Colossal Titan, Armored Titan, Female Titan, and Jaw Titan) had nearly been wiped out while crossing the plain, and the Jaw Titan had even been eaten by Ymir.
If even Intelligent Titans found it that difficult to reach the walls, let alone Lillian, an ordinary human.
In fact, he was increasingly feeling that his ability was utterly useless. When facing Titans, he was completely helpless. Although he could revive, could he use it now? The condition for revival was that someone had to remember him — and he did not know whether anyone still did.
Maybe Uncle Martin still remembered? But he could not be sure, so he could not risk it.
Even if someone still remembered him, there was another problem — if he were eaten by a Titan and then revived, what if he revived right beside the Titan that had eaten him?
After all, even though he had gained one-third of a Titan's physique, it was still only one-third. He definitely could not beat the original. And if he were eaten a second time, that would be true death. So this kind of risk absolutely could not be taken.
"Sigh… coming to a world like this is really unlucky. Could it be that the transmigrator slots in slice-of-life anime worlds are already full?"
With a bitter smile, Lillian climbed down from the platform and returned to the ship.
He went to the washroom and rinsed his hands, then raised his head to look in the mirror. The boy reflected inside looked haggard. Long hair drooped down, partly covering his lifeless eyes, but it could not hide the heavy dark circles beneath them. He looked no different from a refugee.
There was no helping it. He had stayed in that dark storage room for so many days without washing at all. Even now, this was after bathing several times. When he had first come out, he had looked no different from a savage.
"Martin, Martin, when you wake up every morning.
Martin, Martin, a character is waiting for you.
Turning into a dragon is so cute, so cute,
Turning into a caveman is not very handsome, not very handsome…"
Lillian hummed to himself. He also wished that tomorrow morning, when he woke up, he could turn directly into a dragon, fly across the plain, and fly into the walls — how much trouble that would save.
"Face reality."
He slapped his cheeks with wet hands, wiped his face with a towel, left the washroom, and began wandering around the entire ship.
During these three days, he had already gathered all the supplies on the ship into one place. But honestly speaking, there was nothing that could help him escape this predicament. Most of it was daily necessities — soap, razor blades, dried fish, spicy strips, and the like…
None of these things could help with traveling. If only there were a motorcycle — but then again, who would keep a motorcycle on a ship?
And even if there were one, Lillian would not know how to ride it. A hardcore shut-in like him barely rode electric scooters — riding a motorcycle would probably crush his legs.
Moreover… in this world, overall technology was not very advanced. Even the most developed country was only about equal to the technological level of late nineteenth-century Earth, around the time of World War I, and perhaps even worse.
As for Paradis Island, there was even less to say. It was basically still an agricultural civilization. Most of the people were not yet "enlightened" in thought and had not the slightest desire to understand the world. And the desire for knowledge had always been something that a great civilization and a great people must possess.
But speaking of which, this entire ship was actually an enormous treasure, containing many crystallizations of technology. If Hange from the Survey Corps were to discover it, she would probably faint from happiness and never bother playing with the two Titans she had captured again.
But that was almost impossible…
"After all, what year is it now? How far has the plot progressed?"
Lillian had no idea. But seeing that there were still Titans on the island, he knew the story had not yet reached the later stages. Because later on, after the Survey Corps gained power, they had successfully driven all the Titans off the island and had begun building defenses along the coast to resist Marley.
But from the current situation, the plot was still far from reaching that point.
In this case, the Survey Corps could not even get close to this place, let alone study this ship.
He glanced at the pile of firearms nearby and thought that if he had automatic rifles, maybe they could provide some help when crossing the plain.
Right now, the firearms on the island were all old-fashioned flintlocks. Their power did not even need to be mentioned. A single gun was basically useless — only volley fire could achieve some killing power. Compared to automatic rifles, they could only play the role of a supporter.
But…
If guns alone could take down Titans, then so many countries on the mainland would not have been conquered by Marley using Titans.
"Forget it… whatever. First, fill my stomach!"
Lillian went down to the storage room, brought up two loaves of bread and a can of meat, and started eating.
Although the bread in this world tasted terrible — far worse than the cream bread, chocolate bread, and fruit bread on Earth — at least it was refined grain, much better than coarse rice cakes. As for the canned food, although it was not tasty, it was still meat. This body needed more nourishment — otherwise, if he stayed this short forever, that would be painful.
Lillian did not want to end up shorter than Levi in the future. If that happened, wouldn't that give that guy someone to look down on? That would not do — that guy absolutely had to be the shortest one.