Chapter 44: Stars of Freedom.

"Welcome everyone, now, all of you know why you're here, right?" asked the rambunctious girl with red hair.

"No you crazy monster, you guys just told us nothing, we are here because of our orders." replied Jean with a pissed off tone.

And who could blame him?

He and his friends had just been taken from their previous team without explanation and entrusted to the two craziest people in the entire regiment.

At least he was still together with his two best friends, Connie and Sasha, but the problem was that their superior just gave them to the monsters without them having the chance to refuse, but he didn't doubt that his two friends would have accepted.

Sasha had been tamed by the crazy girl and Connie wouldn't have refused the chance to learn how to be a better soldier from the two strongest, on the contrary, he was good friends with the crazy man.

Now that he thought about it, Jean was doomed whether he had a choice or not, in the end he'd have joined anyway as he couldn't leave his two very impressionable friends in the monsters' hands, what if they turned out like them?

"Oh yeah, maybe I didn't, you guys will join our squad, the Stars of Freedom!"

"The what?"

"Huh?"

"That name sucks."

"What!?" replied the girl dubbed the crazy monster, "I thought so hard about it!"

"To be fair, you chose it exactly because it sucks." replied her companion.

"Yes," said the girl while punching him on the shoulder and staring daggers at him, "but they didn't have to know."

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on the person, the two's bantering was interrupted by Sasha raising her hand, as if asking permission to speak from a superior, which she actually was.

"Yes Sasha, points to you for remembering the etiquette to use with superiors."

"Who's the superior?" mumbled Jean sarcastically, while hoping that nobody heard him, but, unfortunately for him, Liesl did exactly that.

"We are the superiors, Jean, and congratulation for getting the first punishment in the team!" said the girl with great enthusiasm in her voice as her companion slowly clapped with a deadpan expression on his face.

A shiver went down the poor young man's spine as a feeling of dread rose in him, making him wish he had never said anything, 'Fuck!'

"But that will be for later, now for the explanations, our unit will be the spear head in our offense against titans, both normal and titan shifters, Kle and me with be the main force while the three of you will be in charge of cleaning up after us."

Connie asked for permission to speak and after receiving it he asked, "What do you mean by cleaning after you?"

"Good question, your task is to kill any titan we miss, take the initiative and take any possible opening while fighting with titan shifters and train to reach our level, even if it's probably impossible."

Everything in her speech was fine, until she reached the last part, causing everyone to groan out loud, even her own closest companion, "Remember what we talked about, Lie?"

"Kle, we talked about an uncountable amount of things, we've always been together for fourteen years, do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?" she said while looking at him as if he was an idiot.

'Deep breath, Klemens, deep breaths' he thought as he stopped a vein on his forehead from blowing up in irritation, "The thing about hubris."

Somehow, it was the most annoyed voice tone she had ever heard him make, but what could she do?

It was his fault for not being specific enough, definitely not hers.

"Oh yeah, but I'm still not convinced, hubris might be the downfall of man, but aren't we different from normal people? There's no way being arrogant is enough to take either of us down."

She had absolutely no doubt about her words, everything that had happened in her life shaped her current worldview, they had never lost, not once.

Even all those years ago, as ten year olds alone in what was probably one of the most dangerous places in the entire world, a titan invaded land, somehow they still pulled through without being harmed in the slightest.

Or that time when they found themselves without weapons right in front of a shifting Armored Titan, they were injured, but not killed in a situation where anyone else would have long since died.

If so, with everything telling her so, why would she worry about anything?

In the end, somehow, things would be resolved and they would persist, at least that is what she thought.

But her companion wasn't of the same idea, he thought that both of them were alive thanks to sheer luck, even if he didn't like to admit, the amount of times they would have died if they had been just slightly more unlucky was staggering.

He sighed deeply while looking at his companion who ultimately had never tasted real defeat, she was showing a puzzled face, completely not understanding him.

"See, this is exactly what I meant, eventually we will run out of luck and we might die."

But the girl's reaction wasn't what he expected, instead of a concerned expression mimicking his, he saw her barely holding her laugher.

"Did becoming squad leader damage your head Kle? Luck is you ability, nothing can take it away, you are lucky and I got the instinct, this will never change."

He realized that there was no way he could change her mind about this, ultimately, she believed in their respective abilities, as she called them, above anything else, there was absolutely no doubt in her mind.

"Anyway," she said turning to the three subordinates who had been left out of the conversation and ignored, they could barely make out the content of their talk as they murmured, but they were pretty sure that whatever it was about, it was dumb, "first order, all of you are going to run around the complex until your legs give up, or until six hours pass, good luck."

"Six?" wondered Sasha, already dreading the fact that she'd be way too late for lunch.

"No wait, we've already trained enough in the cadet camp, why would we have to train in such a brutal way?" objected Connie as he almost fell into a panic attack, six hours was way too much for anyone.

"It seems that you guys are mistaken about something," replied Klemens after seeing the other two agreeing with the small one's words, "we didn't chose you because of your current abilities, but because we trust you and know of your mutual understanding, we naturally need to bring your skill up to an acceptable level now."

'Acceptable? So we aren't even acceptable in their eyes.' thought Jean in his mind, but not in a dejected manner, he was in the top ten of their cadet regiment, but he wasn't even acceptable in front of the top two.

This, something that might have even brought despair to some, lit a fire deep inside of him, 'I'll show you, I'll become even better than the two of you!'

But while those words motivated him, they caused anger to emerge inside of Connie, the person who tried harder than almost anyone to reach where he currently was, "What do you mean acceptable Klemens, are we really such weaklings in your eyes?"

"Oi, Connie." said Sasha as she tried to stop him from doing something stupid, but she was too late.

"You are weak, but don't worry, you are pretty good compared to most, you should be proud of where you are, but you should never stop striving for improvement."

The girl by his side nodded vigorously at his words, she might be arrogant, but if there was something she enjoyed, that was growing stronger together with Klemens.

His hands tightened into fists, he knew that the person in front of him was right, but he still couldn't stomach being looked down upon, both figuratively and literally, so much by someone his age.

"And when will we finish your training?" he asked.

"Never?" replied the two top rankers at the same time, to them it was such a stupid question that their answer came out as a question.

'Why would it ever stop?' there was no end to strength, and even if they reached the human limit, the fighting skill limit would never be in sight, the road to power was probably infinite, even if they reached the point where any advancement was almost impossible, the training would never end.

"What do you mean never? Don't we have an objective or something?" he insisted.

'Is never such a difficult concept to understand?' thought the two training maniacs who took themselves as standard before looking at each other.

Eventually it was Liesl who opened her mouth first, "I guess an objective would make you more motivated, how about this, the training will end when every single one of you can beat both me and Klemens."

But it seemed that her companion wasn't content with her 'lenient' goal, and added, "At the same time."

"Oh, good idea, that goes as well." laughed slightly the girl as she patted her friend's shoulder as silence descended upon their three new subordinates.

The two almost started bickering again when, almost an entire minute later, Sasha herself broke the silence, "...So, the training will never end?"

"What? No," rebuked Liesl, "you just need to defeat the both of us together in a 1v2."

"Okay, I got it," replied Sasha as her shoulders dropped, "never it is."

"It is with that attitude, now start running, move it recruits!" shouted Liesl as she used a deep voice, trying and failing to imitate their old teacher at the cadet ground.

"We're part of the same cadet corps, you're recruits just like us!" protested Connie.

"No, we are captains, and Sasha," replied the red haired girl while turning to her friend, "the one among you who does the best will receive meat for today's lunch."

As the two boys understood those words, Sasha, A.K.A. the Potato Girl, was already far away, running as if her life depended on it.

"Stop Sasha! The meat is mine!"

"Oh no, you dwarf, it's mine!"

Finally they started running too, but unfortunately, Klemens behind them was shaking his head, "You're evil, now they'll give it their all from the start, they won't last three hours, forget six."

"I think that you underestimate them too much," replied his fellow captain, "they'll realize their mistake soon enough and start going at a more manageable rate, just trust them."

"Well, if you say so, anyway, want to join them?"

"Obviously, I'll bring the weights, give me a second."

But not everything could go as intended, before the girl came back a messenger from Erwin found Klemens and relayed a message.

The squad has its first task.