"Never, if the instructors have any choice in it - and they do," he muttered. The opportunity was too good to give up on. And it'd be nice to really have a proper time of rest. Even better - one with a bit of fun. There had been moments here and there where he'd been able to enjoy himself. But he'd also done a lot of training. And it was summer!

Summer was meant to be a time of... chilling out and maybe having a good time in the fields or splashing through water. It wasn't for sweating all their water out within an hour because they had to keep climbing a damn hill.

"We have to do something," he said, looking at Connie. The fun guy, the one messing around. The boy made him laugh. And that was exactly what they needed right now. A really good laugh. "Got any ideas?" he asked eagerly.

Groups of cadets had been sent out on hikes into one of the nearby forests, each tasked with a list of what to do. They had no supervision. Once they had found a good spot to camp, the group had settled down into prepping everything for the night.

The bonfire crackled as one of the cadets cooked up some meat another had caught. Their list for the night had been ticked off, leaving them only with the morning's tasks and the hike back to go. Night had not long fallen before they completed it all, leaving them with time to spare. A rarity with most of their activities, particularly when the instructors left them to moderate themselves.

Eren had been in charge of collecting firewood, and now that they had enough to last them through the night he sat down on a log and rested. Despite the summer heat even in evening, the bonfire was still a welcome beacon. The temperature had slowly dropped off as darkness consumed the sky. Now only the flames gave them light.

He turned to Connie beside him. "Feels pretty dull to just... go to sleep now, doesn't it?" he said. The cadet corps had many routines, one of which of course included their sleeping times, but... nobody could stop them from staying up out here. He ached for something different. These hikes were designed to bond teams and teach them survival techniques. But they were almost always the same, just with different environments and maybe a switch in responsibilities.