Chapter 9

Rolf was laying in his new bed within the interior, relaxing quite well in the bed as he felt the most comfortable bed he'd been in ever since he'd found himself trapped in this world. He was curled up in the bed, rolling onto his side as he felt a soft warmth on his cheek. This stirred him from his sleep, slowly opening his eyes. Sitting up, Rolf gave a yawn, stretching as he looked around in the spacious room he'd been given. It wasn't like the barracks that he'd been used to at camp but more spacious and the beds were certainly better. It still had several bunk beds so it wasn't as if he had a room to his own, but still it was a luxury compared to what he'd had to deal with all this time.

Smacking his lips as he wiped his eyes, Rolf shielded his eyes from the morning sun-

…

"The sun!" Rolf shouted before slipping out of his bed as he panicked and tried to force his bed sheets away. This was his first day as a member of the elite Military Police, and he had slept in. As Rolf was grabbing for his uniform and tossing his pajamas off, he couldn't help but mentally hit himself.

How can you be such a nincompoop, son of a shepherd?! Rolf never misses a good morning howdy do with commanders! Oh Rolf begs for the mercy of the commander's belt! Rolf thought to himself.

In the commotion of scrambling to put on his uniform, Rolf heard someone else stirring. Looking up behind him on the bottom bunk below his, he saw one of his new squadmates: Marlowe Freudenberg. The boy stirred as he rubbed his eyes looking over at Rolf scrambling.

"Ugh...Rolf right? What are you doing?" He asked, before he also noticed the sunlight. As his eyes widened, Rolf nodded.

"Marlowe-with-hair-of-a-clay-bowl, we have persisted the persecution of the rooster, our tardiness shall surely represent the reddening of our behinds!" Rolf said as Marlowe also got out of bed, muttering as he ran to his uniform. As the two boys were almost finished a shrill voice shouted from one of the top bunk beds.

"Will you two shut up?!" Came the slightly groggy voice of another squadmate of Rolf's: Hitch Dreyse. Her hair was a mess from sleep as she looked through half closed eyes. "I was still sleeping here."

"Oh come on Hitch, we're already late! We have to get out now!" Marlowe said, before Hitch just rolled her eyes and fell back into her bed. "Yeah, whatever."

The two boys were quick to rush out of the barracks down the stairs and into the main hall. However the only ones waiting there was one of the other squadmates but one Rolf knew already: Annie Leonhart. Looking around Rolf was a bit confused, although next to him Marlowe stopped as if he had been deflated.

"...Where is everyone else? Surely the sun has not risen extra early in the day, yes?" Rolf asked Annie, who just shrugged. Rolf and Marlowe slowly walked over to the wall and stood next to her as they waited for their supposed orders. Rolf looked back over to Annie. "So...why not help a son of a shepherd and awake him if you saw that Rolf had still been sleeping like a lazy loaf on an oak stump?" He asked.

"It's not my job to wake you up." Annie said, straight and coldly not even sparing Rolf a glance. Rolf shook his head.

"Come now, she-with-the-grin-rarer-then-the-bald-spot-on-papa's-back, surely we've come past the whole shtick of meeting me with naught but silence and the glare of a hungry predator locked on a chicken?" Rolf asked, which just lead to Annie ignoring him. Of course next to him, Marlowe couldn't help but stare a bit open-eyed at Rolf's rather...particular speech.

"Um...wait what did you say?" He asked Rolf.

"Rolf would appreciate if Marlowe-boy would not interject himself into the conversations of Rolf like a hungry sow shoving others aside at the trough." Rolf said, shaking his head. Marlowe just blinked several times as he tried to piece together what Rolf was saying.

With Annie's enforced silence and Marlowe's confusion over Rolf, the three just stood there in silence. Slowly, one by one the other new recruits would trickle down the stairs and stood there. Rolf was confused as to what was going on. Back in training, their sergeant would flay them alive if they so much as showed up a minute late, but here it had to have been at least an hour and a half and their commanding officer had yet to show up. Eventually they heard the clacking of boots on the wood floor, and they all saluted. Rolf looked over at the approaching officer who was absent-mindedly looking at some papers as he passed by them. Looking up he seemed almost confused for a second.

"Hmm? Oh right, uh dismissed." He said, looking over particularly to Rolf and Annie. "Right we got you two late cause of that whole thing in Trost District." He said, before looking down at his papers. "Uh...well here are some patrols that you guys have to do today. Nothing out of the ordinary, so these guys can show it to you without me. Just standard stuff, report back on time, dismissed." He said halfheartedly before continuing down the hall. As Rolf looked at him closely, he saw a suspicious bottle in his right hand.

"...Right, come on guys let's get going." Marlowe said quickly. "We gotta show Annie and Rolf the patrol routes." He said as the others slowly and quietly groaned before following him out of the barracks.

Rolf was slowly walking along with the rest of the squad, his musket resting on the strap around his arm. He looked around at the interior city. It certainly looked much nicer than the towns he'd been in before. Albeit the only times that had been was when he was a refugee and bringing what meager crops to market that had been farmed, but those still paled. Here it was much cleaner, not many vagrants were running around, and everyone looked well dressed and went along with their business.

Needless to say, this was not the land for Rolf.

Rolf just kept walking around, trying to keep an eye out for any ne'er-do-wells, but there was nothing of particular note. Besides him, Hitch was walking with her hands behind her head as she didn't really seem to care much about the patrol.

"Hey Marlowe, think we can just finish early when we get to the end of the street?" She asked, to which Marlowe shook his head.

"Of course not. Annie and Rolf are still new and we gotta show them the whole patrol route so they can become accustomed to it." He said, keeping his eyes forward.

"Oh come oooooon. It's not like they're gonna ever do the whole patrol again after this anyways, so what's the point?" She whined, which caused Rolf to look over confused.

"Pardon Rolf's interruption, but why does she-with-the-shrill-of-a-cat say Rolf won't complete the full roundabout of servitude?" Rolf asked. After a quick moment of thinking on what he said, Hitch answered.

"Well...cause we really don't have to. Unless we're given a specific job we kinda just have to walk around for a bit and then go do whatever we wanna. Not like our officers are gonna do jack about it."

"What is this lazy oafishness, huh?" Rolf said, not liking what he heard. "We were tasked an important to do list of which we are always supposed to listen to the instructions of those higher above us! What lazy nimrod doesn't do as they say? Rolf swears, aren't we supposed to be the ones higher and above the rest, trained for the best of the jobs assigned?" Rolf loudly declared. Which after a minute only caused Hitch to break out into hysterical laughing.

"Hahahahahahahahahahah!" She laughed, bending over from it. "Man, and here you were starting to sound like another total buzz kill! But man is that stupid way you talk just the funniest thing ever when you talk about that!" She said between her chuckles.

"Wha-You dare mock the son of a shepherd?!" Rolf said, glaring down at her. Before he could show her the errors of her ways, Marlowe got between the two.

"Alright, cool it will you?" He said, glaring at them both. "Hitch, we're finishing the patrol, you got it?" He said, before turning back to Rolf. "And Rolf...she is right to an extent." He sighed before speaking up. "So far we haven't exactly had a lot of oversight and they all seemed too busy doing whatever they want to make us do our job. But I still think that we should do what we're supposed to, as that's our job."

"Really? Cause I joined the military police to live it up easy." Hitch said. And as Rolf looked over at the others, he saw a lot of the others in his squad were nodding their head in agreement.

The day had continued on pretty easily. Too easily. After the patrol had been finished the squad just stood around near the markets to "guard" it as they did nothing. Rolf spent that time going back over the patrol route to make sure he'd memorized it, but even that didn't take too long.

Eventually the sun had started to set and the squad had returned to the barracks and returned their muskets before getting their dinner. This was the one time during the day that Rolf actually had a pleasant time. He had been given a nice slab of meat and Rolf had practically inhaled it, much to the disgust and shock of everyone in the squad who wasn't Annie.

"Well...lemme guess, you like meat, huh?" Hitch asked, to which Rolf looked over at her with half crazed eyes...specifically on the pieces on her plate. "...You know, I wasn't that hungry anyways." She said, cutting it in half and tossing one half at Rolf. The son of a shepherd caught it in his mouth and swallowed it in two bites. That was when he looked over to Annie's plate.

"...You touch my plate I will break your arm." She said, without breaking stride in eating.

"Oh hoh, like that time when Rolf flattened you to the Earth and made you eat nothing but the dust of shame and defeat?" He said with a smirk. Annie just looked up at him, but then reconsidered and rolled her eyes before finishing up her meal.

"So what, were you the big shot of your division or something?" Marlowe asked, having sat on the far end of the table and away from the hungry eyes of Rolf.

"Well Rolf did impress with the many daring feats of doing well and the hunkering of the flat-footed others who couldn't so much as lift a little mole in comparison to the son of a shepherd." Rolf said, grinning a bit.

Returning to the barracks, most of the rookies were content to end their day heading to bed and sleeping off another easy day like they expected the rest of their lives to be. Rolf, however, was simply not sleepy. Even compared to his easy days back in the cul-de-sac, this wasn't nearly as hard a day as he was used to. He was still wide awake and didn't feel an ounce of fatigue.

Groaning, Rolf sat up and focused ahead of him, looking out in the darkened barracks. He wasn't supposed to leave now until the morning, but he was so awake and he felt so disappointed with how his first day had gone. He'd slept in but gotten no punishment for it, done his work so easily but now had learned that it was basically meaningless. Earlier on when he had nothing else to do, he'd asked their commanding officer when they would do some training or Maneuver Gear exercises and he'd been looked at as if he'd had enraged lobsters all over his backside.

Or...at least more than normal.

So they weren't being trained and they were safeguarding the safest city around. Why were they, the elite and best, here?

Rolf supposes that Ben Fischer wanted things to go easily for Rolf...but Rolf saw what those Titan beasts where like. Rolf is only here for a bargain so that Eren-boy could continue his own little revenge tantrum through those disgusting titans. Rolf thought. Rolf should be out with him, flying through the air and smashing into titans like in Trost land. Helping save them from those rascals! Rolf gritted his hands.

Instead Rolf will be here to grow fat and lazy all while Rolf could be giving them a merciless thrashing to their dumb behinds! No! Rolf will not ruin the memories and talents gained here, Rolf will be taking these hands and molding them. And Rolf will make sure that the elite blades stay sharpened for the eventual slaughter!

"This is Rolf's promise to you all!" Rolf shouted, raising his fist into the air...forgetting that right across from him was Hitch and several other sleeping soldiers.

"Oh for the love of-Rolf what is it with you and not shutting up?!"

The next day had started off similarly for the rookies as the rest of them. They'd received their orders (or in this case just been told to do the usual) and had made their way through the patrol. Or at least halfway through it as this time Marlowe couldn't convince the rest of the squad to not just do whatever they wanted.

Later that day as most of the squad was in the marketplace getting their own lunch, Rolf had gathered them together, wanting them to follow him and that it was a surprise. With nothing really better to do, they did follow. Even Marlowe was curios, as despite how strange he was, he hadn't pegged him as someone to goof around.

Rolf had led them to the armory, where they normally would grab their muskets for patrols and where the Maneuver Gear was held should it ever actually be needed.

"Okay Rolf, what are we doing here?" Marlowe asked, as Rolf grinned and looked at them.

"An excellent question, strong-in-the-will Marlowe-boy! Rolf spoke with our resident quartermaster and Rolf was given the okay to allow us to borrow some of the gear we can use for flying by." Rolf said.

"...Erm, why?" Hitch said, still confused. "Why would we ever use them? Not like we can use them within the city limits anyways, not unless we were actually doing something."

"Ah shrill-woman-Hitch, it's for the fact that Rolf is going to keep us in tip-top shape! Rolf had discovered a place that we can do some extra training! Isn't that great?"

"...Yeah, no thanks. Look that just sounds like more work than necessary, and I didn't join the MP for that."

"C'mon Hitch, I actually think it's a great idea! It's like you said, our officers don't care about the normal crap they shovel us to do, and it's not like they could get mad at us if we're actually training instead of lazing around like everyone else." Marlowe said.

"Sorry to break it to you, but I actually prefer lazing around." She said and turned around. However she barely took a step forward when someone tugged her by her collar and picked her up.

"Oh, and Rolf forgot to mention one little fact in Rolf's idea." Rolf said, smirking as he looked at the squirming Hitch. "Everyone has to join Rolf."

AN: A bit of a shorter chapter yes, especially given how long the break between now and the last chapter was, but here we set up Rolf's new life as a member of the Military Police!