After seeing off the third team, Annie could no longer sit still.
She stared at Lock and said resolutely, "If you're not leaving, I'm going alone."
Lock felt a bit embarrassed; he had mainly seen that Krista and Ymir had also chosen this path.
He thought he could wait for them, but he hadn't expected it to take this long.
Looking at it this way, they probably got lost before reaching the safe house.
It was already getting dark, and the snow hadn't stopped. If he turned back to look for them now, he could easily get lost in the forest himself.
It seemed his wish to witness a Titan transformation would not be fulfilled this time.
He patted his rear and stood up with some helplessness, looking at the displeased Annie. "Alright, let's go then."
The two packed their backpacks. Annie carried a candle lantern, and Lock extinguished the fire with a pile of snow.
Opening the wooden door, the head-on wind and snow still stung the skin.
Lock was about to continue leading the way with his wood-cutting knife when he suddenly heard some movement.
"Did you hear that?" he turned and asked Annie.
Realizing Lock didn't seem to be joking, Annie listened carefully and shook her head.
Lock never doubted his first instinct. He put away his knife and picked up the axe leaning against the wooden house.
While Annie was still puzzled, she saw Lock stealthily creep around to the back of the house. She followed behind, stepping in his footprints.
Annie saw Lock peek his head out as if he'd seen something behind the house, and he reached out to give her a gesture to stay quiet.
Annie leaned in next to Lock and finally saw a massive black creature behind the wooden house.
"A wild boar?"
Realizing they were pressed right against each other, Annie leaned away slightly and whispered, "Why would this thing be here?"
Lock tilted his head forward. "Food is scarce in the snow. The kitchen waste you dumped behind the house attracted this guy."
Annie was a bit dissatisfied, thinking, This is my fault? Weren't you the one who wanted to eat rabbit?
She grabbed Lock's sleeve and urged, "If you're not crazy, let's leave before it notices us. If it chases us, we don't have Omni-Directional Mobility Gear to escape."
An adult wild boar within the Walls weighs over three hundred kilograms, can reach a top sprinting speed of 70 kilometers per hour, and its sharp tusks can easily crush human bones.
Even a lion would take a detour if it saw this thing.
The "future golden lion" was not an actual lion.
But Lock smiled and patted Annie's hand, whispering, "This guy won't leave for a while. If we just leave, the comrades coming to the safe house later will likely run into it."
Annie pulled her hand back, knowing Lock's "condition" was acting up again. At times like this, he wouldn't listen to anything she said.
"Then what do you plan to do?"
Lock didn't reply. He took off his coat and threw it to Annie, revealing a single thin shirt underneath.
He cracked his neck and walked out into the clearing behind the house, carrying the axe in one hand.
Hearing the noise, the wild boar turned around instantly.
It stared at Lock, this sudden intruder, as if sensing a dangerous aura from him, and didn't act rashly for a moment.
Lock slowly approached it.
Provoked, the wild boar reacted instantly and charged straight at Lock.
What would you do if a light truck were driving straight at you?
Lock raised the axe high, gave a loud shout, and with the force of splitting a mountain, he swung the axe down onto the top of the charging boar's head.
The axe broke through the boar's tough hide and skull.
The boar's momentum dropped sharply, but it still pushed Lock back, plowing through the snow for nearly ten meters.
Lock pressed his entire body weight onto the axe. The boar let out a howl and violently whipped its head, throwing Lock off.
The axe remained firmly embedded in the boar's forehead, and blood flowed uncontrollably from its head.
The boar staggered but still didn't fall; it began frantically attacking everything around it.
Annie looked at Lock, who was lying on the ground not far away, with some concern.
Lock slowly stood up and signaled to Annie that he was fine.
He watched the boar, which was crazily spinning in circles with the axe in its head, and did not approach again easily.
Lock knew he had already dealt a fatal blow; he just needed to wait for it to waste its remaining life force.
He walked over to Annie, tookoff his clothes, and smiled. "Why that expression? I'm not a fool like Eren, who's in a hurry to die."
Annie stared at Lock and said crossly, "I think you're no different from him."
Behind them, the boar finally lost all its strength, and its hill-like body crashed to the ground.
Lock put on his clothes and laughed. "You might not believe it, but I actually never do anything I'm not sure of."
Seeing him take a rope and a sleeping bag out of his backpack, Annie knew what Lock was planning.
She was once again shocked by Lock's "monstrous" idea. "You plan to drag this big guy back?"
Lock said seriously, "Annie, you eat with me every day. Have you already forgotten how bad the food for the other Trainees is?"
"Even though wild boar meat doesn't taste great, it's still meat."
Being lectured by Lock, Annie's face rarely turned red, and she didn't argue. After a long while, she whispered, "I'll help."
...
"This is the finish line! Keep it up, everyone!"
Standing under the Training Corps flag, the female instructor encouraged everyone as they reached the foot of the mountain one after another.
The male instructor next to her checked the time and said, "Nine hours and twelve minutes. Considering the weather conditions, that's a decent result."
Sitting by the base's campfire, Eren let out a sigh of relief. "I'm exhausted. I didn't expect snowy mountain training to be so tiring."
Jean sat nearby and said, "My legs are so cold I can't feel them anymore."
Connie hung his head. "Why won't they let us inside yet?"
Sasha said with a face full of anticipation, "They must be preparing a feast for us!"
"Hey!" Everyone saw Reiner running over with a serious expression. "Krista is missing!"
Mikasa thought for a moment and said, "I remember she was in a group with Ymir and Daz."
"But Daz isn't here either, and Ymir is gone too."
Reiner's words made everyone's expressions change.
Marco suggested, "Let's ask the people who took the same path as them. I remember Thomas and Lock's group were on it."
Reiner continued, "I asked Thomas. He said he hadn't seen the three of them."
"As for Lock and Annie, Thomas said they were still at the safe house when he left."
Eren said in surprise, "Huh? Those two haven't arrived yet either?"
Armin couldn't help but say, "Could they all have gotten lost?"
"Hey, in snow this heavy, getting lost could really kill you." Connie voiced the worry in everyone's hearts.
Eren stood up but was held back by Mikasa. He said directly, "We have to go look for them. There's no other way, right?"
Sasha's nostrils suddenly twitched, and she said to everyone, "I smell blood!"
While everyone was puzzled, exclamations of surprise came from the base entrance one after another.
"Lock and Annie are back!"
Sasha cried out exaggeratedly, "It's the smell of wild boar, there's no mistake!"
Lock and Annie dragged the two-hundred-plus-kilogram thing and finally arrived at the base at the very end.
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