There Is Freedom Here

Chapter 18: G-BOMB

Everything he told you was worse than you could've ever imagined. You couldn't even count all the crimes he had committed on both your hands. Eren was an outright villain.

The uncomfortable silence that settled between you two after he finished explaining everything—at least you hoped there wasn't anything he was leaving out because you thought it was impossible to commit any more horrible acts—was broken by Eren's voice. It was disturbingly confident.

"Let me repeat this: the Marleyans are going to kill everybody within the walls to eradicate my bloodline. If I want to save the people I care about and grant the freedom we have been deprived of for centuries, I need to unleash the titans within the walls to do that."

"And that means killing 80% of the world's population."

"Correct. However—"

"What the absolute fuck, Eren? Are you okay? How can you say that so casually?"

"I once struggled to accept that fate, too." Eren sighed, leaning into the leather couch. "I will steal the freedom of anyone who opposes mine. Nothing was going to stop me from achieving that... until I ended up here."

You sat on a lounging chair diagonal to Eren, utterly speechless and bewildered at his explanation. He seemed so indifferent about it, too, like it was a same-old, usual plan to snag rights for his friends. No guilt or shame or literally any emotion that would be expected from confessing to all these sins oozed from him.

If anything, Eren actually seemed more relaxed than usual.

His shoulders were untensed. He laid back on your couch, manspreading with arms sprawled out on the headrests. His green eyes stared at you with an uninterested dullness, lacking a glint of hostility that was familiar to you.

Eren looked like a normal twenty-year old boy. But he wasn't a normal twenty-year old boy. Eren wasn't normal at all, period.

But this life—your life was. You were a normal girl. Yeah, your parents died, but in comparison to Eren? You weren't just normal—you were an angel. Eren shifted to this normal universe to join your normal life and live in your normal house. He was ripped from all the tragedy and thrown in a world where genocide was outrageous... although... there were still parts of the world here, in 2020, where genocide was occurring. The idea made you shiver in disgust.

Either way, genocide wasn't normal, even if the shitty humans that corrupted this world normalized it. It was a good thing he ended up here. His shifting prevented him from continuing that plan. Those innocent people were alive and breathing in his world. They still had a chance. Was him shifting here fate? Were you supposed to convince him to stay to spare those people's lives? How were you supposed to do that if you were blissfully unaware that your roommate was a genocidal maniac?

"I just can't believe I didn't notice anything off," you said in disbelief.

"Yeah, you are pretty stupid." Eren smirked at you and you, still not ready to joke, just stared at him with a terrorized face. "My bad. I mean, I've known about this plan for the past four years so I'm kind of desensitized."

You were going to have a fucking panic attack and there was Eren, joking about the whole situation. Out of all times he could've decided to start joking around since you've known each other he deemed this the perfect time to make his debut. Was this real life? Surely not. You were dreaming. You've been stuck in a horny nightmare ever since he appeared in your backyard.

"Eren, have you ever thought that maybe it's a good thing you ended up here?" You couldn't help yourself from saying it—it was obvious. This is why he shifted. Somebody—maybe that Ymir girl he mentioned a million times—did this on purpose.