Black Badger

Everything surged in.

I remembered. The things I had forgotten, the things I had been searching for answers to.

I must have been staring into empty air, trying to digest the flood pouring out of me.

Once I regained my senses, I took out my phone and sent a message.

A message addressed to Erich Erhart and Yekaterina.

[Where is Falcon?]

Erhart replied first.

His roundabout answer rolled another memory into place.

[Wouldn’t he be spending time at the old continent mansion?]

Ah, right. I know exactly where that is.

I had once been invited there before the war began.

I shot up from my seat.

“Hilde?”

“What are you doing?”

People called out to me, but I had no strength left to answer.

I walked toward the huge window in the conference room. Sixth floor. If I jumped from here and went just a little further, I would reach the underground parking lot.

I threw the window open.

“You!”

“Hildebert!”

I set my foot on the window frame.

“Get down!”

I jumped.

I grabbed onto ledges as I fell, slowing my speed, and landed safely on the ground. There were barely any people outside, but the few who were there screamed at the sudden appearance of someone dropping from the sky.

But I had no room to care.

I sprinted toward the parking lot.

The rage twisting around my body.

Grief and remorse. Something like resentment was about to burst out of me.

***

[Looks like he remembered.]

A message came from Spitfire.

Colton read it, then slipped his phone back into his inner pocket. He had already been thinking the time was nearly here.

It wouldn’t take long for him to arrive.

The one sitting at the absolute peak of current power.

The one who placed everything beneath his own feet spoke calmly.

“Strengthen the perimeter.”

“Yes!”

Not that it would actually stop him.

Jaeyeon, who was standing beside him, giggled.

Today’s Jaeyeon was obedient.

She brushed her hair back with fingers painted a blazing red.

“He’ll be here soon. You invited him once before, didn’t you?”

Indeed.

He would be running here, brushing aside everything else. The distance was not far.

Probably soon.

Any moment now...

KWA-AANG!

At the entrance of the wide estate.

A tremendous roar came from the front gate.

Alarms blared, and security began rushing in every direction. Jaeyeon laughed. Colton did not even glance toward the source of the noise.

He walked across the grounds with his cane.

If those arriving had been insignificant.

If they had possessed power humanity could simply ignore. If Titans had been that trivial, the war would not have happened. They would have lived as persecuted immigrants, wandering without land, never part of the mainstream, facing senseless discrimination but not immediate threat to life.

But despite being few, they were overwhelmingly dangerous.

Even the small clash that erupted the moment they appeared had filled humanity with terror.

Had humanity not realized that they did not age, humanity would have wiped them out before they mastered Earth’s technology.

If that white-haired man had not approached with that unbelievable offer, history would have been far simpler.

‘I will let you study our ageless bodies. In exchange, safeguard our lives.’

It had been Hildebert’s proposal.

Humanity had accepted it eagerly. It was an offer they could not refuse.

And from that came a brief peace.

A peace that had once seemed eternal. And perhaps it could have lasted forever.

But there are always those with paranoid minds.

By the time humanity had obtained the secret of eternal youth, certain powerful figures who knew of the Titans’ existence began to push the idea that Titans should be eradicated.

‘They are too dangerous.’

Their individual combat power.

And the things they knew.

‘We must eliminate them before they learn more about us.’

Titans were not foolish enough to miss that shift in the air.

BANG!

“Drive them into the corner! Corner them!”

Bang! Bang! Ratatatatatat!

This was the point where opinions split.

The clash between the two leaders of the Titans.

Hildebert insisted they hide among humans.

Kyle insisted they strike humanity and seize the position of Elders for themselves.

Kyle’s argument had merit. When the war broke out, they discovered they were far more potent than humanity had predicted. It was not an unwinnable fight.

And in an era where individual media was widespread, it was reasonable to think they could not hide forever.

Hildebert might have agreed with Kyle—

If not for him.

More precisely, if not for the human powerholders who thought the same way he did.

『If it must be taken from us, we will burn everything.』

Powerholders of Colton’s kind believed exactly that.

And their resolve was no lie. Rather than bow beneath invaders. Rather than let what they held fall into enemy hands.

Sweet air, the sprouts pushing up from the ground—everything.

KWA-A-A-AANG!

“All personnel to your positions!”

‘You possess the power to devour humanity.’

That woman—the highest authority at the time, the iron-willed woman Colton had tried to break—had said this to Hilde.

‘But we possess the power to destroy the Earth.’

Even if humanity vanished along with the planet—

‘The moment a few buttons are pushed, it will all end.’

The one who most terrified both Kyle and humanity—10th-stage Rei—had not believed this.

Even if they kneeled to the enemy, they could still survive. Why would anyone choose mutual destruction with that option available? He dismissed the Elders’ threats as bluff. Thought they were simply using words as intimidation.

And Kyle, who had once kneeled before an enemy, trusted the Elders’ words even less. Before coming to Earth, he had knelt at the Emperor’s feet to save his people.

He had kissed the Emperor’s red ring.

No one would have wanted mutual destruction more, but he could not drive his people into death.

‘They will change their minds when defeat approaches.’

Kyle had told Hilde this endlessly.

‘In the end, their own lives—the extra days they could still live—will matter more. They will wait for a chance to rise at our feet. Humanity will never choose annihilation. Never.’

‘And to hide in hope of human mercy...’

Rei did not trust humanity’s mercy.

More precisely, he did not trust a life dependent on the mercy of the powerful.

‘You know full well how precarious our position becomes the moment they change their minds.’

A Count’s family, falsely accused of treason, had nearly been erased.

That incident must have shaken him deeply. Though not of low rank, a single imperial decree had nearly destroyed an entire noble house.

Only Hilde had believed the hardline Elders’ vows.

Of the three, he knew Colton the best.

“Those were good times.”

Jaeyeon covered her mouth, laughing.

“Thrilling, romantic! Waking up in the morning wondering who died by Hilde’s hand the night before!”

Yes.

Hilde had understood the sincerity behind the Elders’ vow to sweep everything away with nuclear fire if they were to fall.

Recognizing that sincerity, he began killing the hardliners—one by one.

A truly beautiful craft. One would think that a man wielding a greatsword would only fight with spectacular flourishes. But in his hands, the most illustrious powerholders fell one after another. Vanished without sound or trace.

Even as he hunted Elders in the shadows, Hilde always seemed relaxed.

He would emerge from the lab after a peaceful night, smiling as he greeted guests.

He would lounge comfortably on the sofa, smiling at visitors.

Until the war broke out, Hildebert Taleb had killed more humans than any other Titan.

Now that title belonged to the 10th-stage.

“Do you remember the truck?”

Jaeyeon asked brightly.

“That massive pitch-black one! I seriously thought I was watching a movie!”

“It was a fine attack.”

Colton replied, feeling the weight of his cane.

But in the end, Hilde had lost to humanity.

Earth was humanity’s home ground. The hardliners’ resolve never wavered. No matter how many Colton-aligned Elders Hilde killed, there were always others who knew the location of the switch—and plenty who were willing to push it.

And hardliner or not, humanity never revealed the bomb’s location to any Titan.

Still, he fought for a long time.

Hilde held back Kyle and Rei for as long as he could in that razor-thin balance. And while doing so, he continued eliminating the hardliners.

But then one Elder killed an innocent Titan, and things deteriorated rapidly.

‘I have a proposal.’

It was a moment when war could have broken out at any second.

On the day the war hovered just before ignition, Colton had approached Hilde and extended his hand.

‘We each have something we want, don’t we?’

Colton remembered how Hilde slowly lifted his head.

Those golden eyes blazing with murderous intent. Sharp, yet holding no light.

Hilde had shaken the hand of Colton—the one who promised to hide every Titan who chose to live in secret to the end. It was the price for blocking Kyle and Rei.

Even Titans who had once opposed humanity begged for shelter if they changed their minds.

He had never been able to abandon his comrades.

KWA-GWA-GWA-GWA-GWANG!

“Titans who were exiled will believe to the end that the switch was a lie.”

And so they would forever hate Hilde.

The man who turned his back on them in the final moment. The one who did everything in his power to stop their victory over humanity.

The leader who convinced a third of their people to kneel at humanity’s feet.

In the end, Hildebert chose the path that saved as many of his kin as possible. Because he could not choose the path that turned everything into ruin.

He went out to face his friend for that reason.

If he had not turned his back on destruction, nothing would be left here now.

Neither humanity, nor Titans, nor the carefully tended green grass.

THUD!

A heavy impact sounded close by.

Colton Wiseman slowly turned.

He saw a devastated estate, stained with blood. The once-beautiful mansion now lay utterly ruined. Stone walls, the meticulously maintained paths—everything had been torn apart.

Corpses lay sprawled along the path.

The culprit was bound on the ground.

Pinned down by spears and bullets, restrained flat against the earth. Four guards pressed their boots firmly into Hilde’s back.

The man beneath their heels, soaked in blood, glared up at Colton.

Filled with hatred. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

“Colton.”

His voice burned, submerged in boiling blood.

“I hate you.”

Colton approached him.

He stopped before him and slowly knelt on one knee. His men flinched, but he did not care.

White hair and clean, fine features. Akwoo, with his sharp golden eyes.

Even though he had returned without memories, he had not changed much.

His gentle nature and cold realism.

The gaze holding both hatred and trust as he looked at him.

Colton lifted the blood-soaked jaw of his old friend.

“I revere you.”

The one who had judged most accurately.

The one who refused to turn away from reality, even while leaving the worst option on the table. The one who sought a way—any way—to save even one more of their kin. The one who looked for a future that could continue.

“My long-time friend.”

The one who cleared away those who stood in his path.

The one who stood against Rei and Kyle, protecting humanity, Earth, the Titans, and everything Colton held in his hand.

“My ace of victory.”

Hilde had prevented annihilation.

And the one who saved the world—

became the traitor of his own kind.