Classroom of The Elite x AOT: Wax Wings

Vol 4.5 - The Defeated

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"We have to protect Eren! Damn it, what do we do? Eld, where should we go?"

"There isn't time to reach the horses! Head for HQ as fast as you can!"

"Is it the Female Titan?" Petra looked back. "Or is there more than one?"

"There can't be!" Eren blurted out. There couldn't be two Female Titans!

"She can probably transform more than once! But I thought we  caught her!" How the hell had she managed to get out of that trap? He thought back to her locked in place by a hundred cables and hooks. "How'd she  managed to give both Captain Levi and Mike the slip?!"

Unconsciously, he lifted his hand.

"No!" Eld stopped him. "The three of us will kill the Female Titan. You will continue to head straight for HQ at top speed!"

"What?! Let me fight with—"

"No! This is the best move!" Gunther said stubbornly. "We can't risk losing you!"

"That's just—"

"What? Do you doubt us?" Oluo demanded.

"Do you, Eren? Do you find it that hard to trust us?" Petra asked, eyes pleading.

The brunette turned to look behind them, the Female Titan blitzing through the forest at top speed trying to catch them. He couldn't waste time now! Wordlessly, Eren zipped away deeper into the forest.

He trusted his allies to get out of this hell alive.

||𝐓𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑: 𝐖𝐀𝐗 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒||

There was one thing I've never understood about human nature, even after spending so much time being free from the White Room as a facility.

Collective Trust.

Trusting someone to do something, trusting a group of individuals to carry out a task without the explicit oversight of another more loyal tool—I still didn't understand this.

How to lead a group, how to manipulate a group, how to manipulate a large population; I can do this just fine but that is due to their predictability and lacklustre intelligence.

You can train people to obey you subtly through a process known as operant conditioning. It's basically the process of training a pet. You reward them for good behaviour, the behaviour you like and punish them when they exhibit behaviour undesirable to your goals. It's the most basic but most potent method of gaining control over another person or group of persons.

You give them tools to carry out their passions, or you can give them a cause to fight for. It doesn't matter, they'll become yours to use whether they like it or not. It's certain.

So I still don't understand it, though.

Trust.

How can someone trust another so well to carry out a coup against the government of all things?

I barely made it out of the Royal Assembly building in time they were so fast...

To my understanding, this development came fairly quickly, within the months leading up to the Scouts going on another expedition. In comparison to my long-term goals, which had taken basically my entire time here to set up, 4 years, they blew it out of the water with their speed.