Chapter 24: Tunnels

'Yay, that was lucky' thought the girl who had acted as if she knew exactly where she was going.

She actually had absolutely no idea were any criminal was and had just walked in a random direction, but what she did know was that if her friend had anything she envied, that was his luck even if he didn't want to admit it and by now she knew how to exploit it.

She didn't know what she would find in that random direction and to her surprise she actually found a tunnel.

Long ago, in this city, the royals had tried to build an underground city just like the one in the capital, but they never managed to repeat the feat.

Normally, the people didn't interact with the tunnels, they weren't wide enough for large groups of people to pass through shoulder to shoulder, at most ten people if they were to pass with their shoulders touching in the largest areas.

At worst there were parts of the tunnels were two people could pass at the same time.

Therefore, the tunnels were not a great place for the common people, but for criminals who were trying to hide it was a safe haven.

The normal citizens stayed as far away as they could from the tunnels while the garrison could do little with the small tunnels that made an incredibly complicated tridimensional maze filled with dangers to people who didn't have a guide.

Even if the original tunnels built by the government weren't that complicated, they were further amplified with the building of more tunnels by the criminal underground of the city as a place to hide, coming to even the building of safe rooms and illegal hotels with rooms for people who were hiding for a reason or another.

But Liesl cared not for any of this, she opened the trap door revealing a ladder underneath, she shoot right down the ladder and quickly descended and went too far for Klemens to see her.

He let out a sigh, clearly not excited about the prospect of fighting with some criminal during his holiday, but he couldn't just let the girl go alone even if he knew that she would be fine.

So, even if reluctant, Klemens started descending the ladder.

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The ladder wasn't that long, at most ten to fifteen meters before the ladder touched the ground and they could finally put their feet down.

"Mind you repeat why are we even here?" asked the boy who never managed to understand why the girl did the weird things she did, but mystery helps in keeping a relationship active and happy, at least that's what his parents has once said long ago.

The boy's mother once said that managing to always discover something new about her partner made their marriage and their love last as long as it did, he didn't truly understand those words even to this day, but he had long realized that he really enjoyed staying together with Liesl, with her there was never a dull moment.

"Why not" replied the girl with a smug grin on her face for whatever reason, not giving any further explanation and leaving the boy with a wry smile.

The tunnels were completely dark, the boy had absolutely no idea were he was going so he let the girl grab him by his hand and let himself be guided forward.

She couldn't see either, but by mixing his luck with her instinct they managed to not stumble to the ground or against a wall.

They eventually reached an intersection, which they couldn't begin to even realize the existence of, but the girl followed the right tunnel, the left at the next, then straight and then right again.

Eventually they reached an illuminated area.

'Finally, this was really getting annoying, ridiculous even, how the hell didn't we even hit a wall or fall down?' thought the boy to himself, if the girl could read his mind she would have replied with 'Luck', an answer he really wouldn't like.

What once was a source of pride as a child playing chance games became a source of shame the day he couldn't protect the four of their parents.

It was illogical, he was a child and nothing would have changed if he actually was there, but the thought of 'what if' kept lingering in his mind even years later.

"Who are you?" asked an aged voice, the two of them turned to look at the man who interrupted their tunnel date, even if none of the two thought of it as such.

The man was middle aged, but looked far older because of the conditions he lived in, he didn't have an inch of muscles on his body and was trembling, he had miserable clothes filled with holes and tears from having used them for too long, his bad smell was so strong that they could smell it from afar.

The man's condition was so miserable that the two ignored the knife he was currently pointing at them, the girl's eyes held pity in them, but the boy's didn't.

He believed that pity was an insult, he had seen too much of it in the eyes of others during their two years between the fall of Shiganshina and joining the military, they even had to beg for food in the worst moments, like when there were too many people to feed before they sent a large number of them in Wall Maria as titan fodder.

The girl didn't mind those stares as she didn't care about what other people thought in the first place.

"Just a couple on a vacation" replied the girl, but the old man grew even more wary at those words.

'What kind of dumb excuse is that? Does she want to fool me for some reason? But why? What does she gain? Are they soldiers trying to rid this place of criminals? In that case, there can't be only two of them and they look far too well fed to be people who are forced to hide here' thought the old man.

A couple of seconds later he shouted at them "Are you soldiers? If you want to find real criminals you have to go in that direction, please don't mind this old man, I'm just trying to survive inside here"

He even lowered the knife and started stepping backwards as to put more distance between them.

They looked far too dangerous to be just normal people and too well fed to be criminals, so them being soldiers was the only answer that the man considered viable, to survive for that long in these tunnels he had to learn who he could afford to disregard, and soldiers were not among them.

y "Thank you" replied Liesl with a bright smile, she had finally found a lead that could lead them to have some fun and the man hadn't lied, it was the brightest smile the man had seen in months, or even years.

Klemens left the man a little money so he could fend off hunger for a bit longer, the man thanked them and run away before they could change their mind and take him away too.

There were many reasons soldiers would come down here even if they usually ignored the place, either they decided to round up everyone in one fell swoop, or there was some really dangerous criminal that they wanted to get rid of fast, the old man wanted to stay nearby in neither of those cases.

To survive in his situation he had to learn to be smart after all.

They followed the road the man indicated them, this time is was a far more illuminated tunnel so they didn't have to hold each other's hand to not fall, but how could he refuse when she grabbed his contentedly?

They reached another wide area, this time it even had some semblance of structures, with doors and wooden windows, the ceiling was tall and the clearing was wide enough for a small crowd to gather, but nobody was there.

Suddenly a man, who seemed to be keeping guard near one of the bigger structures pointed at them with a knife.

He looked better fed and clothed than the previous inhabitant of these tunnels they had met, almost average, but he still showed signs of fatigue and dehydration.

"Who are you? This is the territory of our new bosses, Reynolds and Bernie, whoever you are you better scram!" the man shouted, which not only served to intimidate the opponent, but also alert the other people of his gang who were gradually starting to show up following the noise.

"We are soldiers and we came here to show who rules this city to some puny criminals who dared to think too highly of themselves and stick their necks too high" replied Liesl, readying herself for a fight.

Suddenly the first thug dropped the knife and lowered his head "Please forgive me, we did nothing wrong and are only trying to protect ourselves, we have never attacked people from the surface, we did nothing!" he shouted.

'Again?' this was the second time they met someone who pointed them a knife just to back of just a moment later and she was starting to regret even coming here.

How could she know that nobody here wanted to start a fight with soldiers?

Even if they didn't have a uniform on or had shown any proof, the thugs knew better than test if it was the truth, if they really were soldiers then there were more nearby, meaning that attacking wasn't the wisest idea.

Liesl didn't like that everybody surrendered without a fight, she knew that not everybody in these tunnels were criminals, so she decided that she would only retaliate if attacked which meant that if nobody attacked, she could not respond.

They both lacked human on human real battle experience so she thought that resolving it like this would have been a good idea, but the current situation brought them nowhere.

But she could still feel a gaze coming from the building behind the thugs, the biggest one.

'Hopefully it's an idiot who doesn't understand our strength' she thought before shouting in the building's direction.

But instead of quietly surrendering, an hooded figure sprinted away from the building in a seemingly random direction and entered a tunnel, while another hooded figure went to a different tunnel.

"You go after the short one while I go after the tall one?" asked the girl, following the tall one seemed more fun as she could feel some modicum of danger from him.

"Sure" replied the boy who had never expected the enemy to just run away before even starting the fight.

He started running after the shorter one, which was pretty easy given his monstrous physical abilities that let him run faster than a normal person could.

He rapidly shot after him, but before he could reach the man and grab his hood, the man held out his arm, as if to grab something, that something quickly came.

It was a lever.

As the lever was pulled, Klemens could see the walls starting to shake, this brought him to decide to retreat.

It turned out to be the correct decision as the tunnel came down soon after.

'That was dangerous, I almost died' thought the boy with cold sweat on his forehead 'Oh no, Lie!'

He was the cautious one between the two, she was capable of giving chase even if she saw the tunnels coming down on her, so he turned back and shot in her direction.

Fortunately, when he came back to the original cave he saw her standing there, with an unconscious hooded person held head down.

As he came near he asked "Why do you keep him like that?"

The answer was instant "Obviously, for added drama"

"This hooded person is..." she kept the last letter slithering for a while, until the boy lost his patience and lifted the unconscious person's head himself.

And to his absolute dismay, it was someone he knew.

"Reiner"