Black Iron's Glory Chapter 165

Though Claude wanted to cry, he could find no tears. He didn't know how he walked out of Felidos's office. It was all a daze. He held the conscription order in his hands and listened as Felidos praised and encouraged him nonstop. He walked out of the city hall like a zombie and looked at the sky, before giving himself a harsh slap. After making sure that he wasn't dreaming, he sat down on the steps leading to the building.

He never would've dreamed of that happening. Who knew that a single meeting with Felidos would be so crucial to his enlistment into the military? Not only id the man write him a recommendation letter and got a conscription order for him, he even handed it to him personally. How free must he be to do all that? After he calmed down, he realized that he had been dragged down because of his number-one rank in the physical stream.

If I knew that would be the case, I wouldn't have competed with Welikro in grades... Even if Maria managed to get the letter of exemption early, the kingdom would begin its large-scale draft this year, or latest next year to prepare for war with the five anti-Aueras nations. Even if he were to hold back his enlistment, it could be delayed for a year at most. That way, the exemption would still be of use.

Yet, it was already too late. The conscription order was now in his hands and if he didn't enlist immediately, he would be dealt with as a deserter and serve two to three decades of forced labor. Even though laborers don't have to become cannon fodder on the battlefield, they were treated like slaves and didn't have any freedoms. They wouldn't have good meals or clothing and would be monitored constantly as they worked hard jobs. It might be better to just die from a bullet on the battlefield.

Perhaps he shouldn't have met Mayor Felidos when he visited the company that day. If he knew this was how it would turn out, he would've called in sick and stayed home. It was all Rodan's fault for introducing him to the mayor and ultimately caused him to pay him attention and get all fixated on sending him into the army.

Then again, Rodan was not completely at fault. Claude was well aware that Rodan was trying to boast how well-connected House Normanley was as well as get Claude the mayor's favor. That way, anything they wanted to do in the future would be much easier with a relationship established beforehand. If there was a problem, Felidos could also come out to speak on their behalf.

But Rodan forgot that Felidos was a military man first. He understood what Rodan intended and did indeed do Claude a favor. But his favor was sending Claude into the military, and it was all the more justified given his rank in his cohort. To Felidos, there would be no better way to care for Claude than enlisting him.

After thinking everything through, Claude really didn't know what the appropriate response was. Maria made the decision on her own to help Bloweyk pay his debts regardless of whether Claude wanted it or not. Felidos on the other hand forced his kind intentions on Claude without asking for his opinion first, choosing to enlist him immediately.

Perhaps the way they saw it, Claude was a youth of only eighteen years of age and was still immature. As their senior, they figured that they'd help Claude make his life choices per their wishes without caring about what he thought. That was especially the case with Felidos, who thought that Claude ought to be proud for his recommendation and expected to be thanked for it. He didn't think that Claude was suppressing the urge to give his smiling face a punch.

You call that a surprise? That was a shock! I really want to beat him up... He didn't even ask whether I want to be a soldier... Claude held the document in his hand up and looked closely at it once more. There was no mistake. It was written in black and white and it was indeed his name. The only special part of that page was the blue feather embossed into the page. It was one of the four main armies of the kingdom, Bluefeather's insignia.

The four armies of Aueras were actually the units in which officer casualties were the highest in combat. Behind their glorious victories were piles and piles of bones and corpses, both their own and their enemies'. Their fearsome reputation came at the price of death.

The conscription order stated that Claude had to report to the base at Fokby Hill in Gourneygada, a city in the prefecture of Kafreizit. Kafreizit? Did the kingdom have a prefecture like this? Claude couldn't recall the place no matter how hard he tried. His grades in geography were pretty decent, so what was going on?

He stood up and walked back to the city hall and read the large map of the kingdom hung on a wall in the great hall. After spending quite a while, he found that Kafreizit was one of the three prefectures ceded by Nasri to the kingdom more than two decades ago. In the nextbook, they're collectively known as the three border prefectures and because they weren't the focus of the tests, the names of those prefectures would often be forgotten. As the prefectures were former territories of Nasri, they have been placed under constant martial law to shut down the slightest sign of a revolt, so news seldom traveled from there into the papers.

Isn't that where the frontlines was? Claude grimaced. He was being posted as cannon fodder right away. When conflict broke out, there was no doubt that Bluefeather would be the first to go on the battlefield. How high did Felidos regard him anyway? He sent him to the frontlines right away and even asked him to perform well and not disappoint him and let his recommendation down. Claude really didn't know where that man found the confidence he had for him. It wasn't that Claude was impervious to harm. The smallest bullet was capable of taking his life.

If war really broke out and the kingdom began its draft, Claude would probably only be posted in one of the secondary armies in the three southwestern prefectures. Only after a short period of training would he be sent to the battlefield. If the situation seemed positive, he might even get to stay at the rear as reserve troops to fill up the ranks of the units at the frontlines when they were running out.

If the situation turned grim, the secondary armies might receive an order to hold some kind of defense line. Claude wouldn't have had to be among the first to set foot on the battlefield like Bluefeather. Taking the initiative in battle meant mounting offensive attacks. The casualties of those were far higher than defensive ones.

After reading the conscription order again, he finally understood why Felidos thought Claude ought to thank him. The recommendation letter stated clearly that Claude was to participate in an officer training course instead of the standard new recruit routine.

That meant that he would be nurtured into a military officer instead of a mere private. While officers had to go on the battlefield like the normal soldiers and the enemies' bullets won't avoid someone just because they were an officer, it still meant that Claude got to skip much time as a new recruit in his military career and join the ranks as an officer immediately.

In peacetime, a new recruit could only be promoted to become an officer after five years of service. After three more years, their performance would be reevaluated and they might be promoted to the rank of second lieutenant. Second lieutenant was the lowest rank of commissioned officers of the kingdom's troops and whether they retired from injury or stayed in their unit they would still gain dignitarian status.

It was no wonder Felidos said that if Claude did well, he would become a second lieutenant within three years. But that was contingent on the war not breaking out. Should that be the case, Claude really did owe Felidos a huge favor. Perhaps it was due to his stellar grades and the favor Maria showed him that made Felidos do such a thing as reaching out to an old acquaintance in Bluefeather to get Claude a space in the officer training course.

He really didn't know whether he should be happy or sad about the news. Regardless, with the conscription order in hand, there was no escaping enlistment. Even if Maria got him the exemption, it would be pointless. It would only be useful had he not been conscripted already. All he needed to do was to register the exemption at the city hall and it would be done with. But since he was conscripted before he had the exemption, his name was already included in the military registry. It still wasn't certain whether he would get the exemption or not, and even if he did, it would go to waste. Given the order of priority, even an exemption by the king wouldn't make the ministry of defense budge. It would cause chaos for any soldier in the unit to leave just because they got an exemption.

It was the 30th of the 7th month and Claude estimated that it would take around five to six days to head to Kafreizit. If he used a carriage all the way, he might arrive one day earlier. If he decided to take a ferry from Whitestag to Port Neru, that would take two days. The trip from the port to the prefecture would take another three, so taking two carriage rides straight there was more convenient. It wasn't that he lacked any money either.

In other words, Claude had only twenty or so days remaining at home. He had to depart latest on the 20th of the 8th month, though a day or two earlier than that would be better as he had to get used to an unfamiliar location and prepare for any emergencies that could happen on his way there. Military law was heartless and he would be punished for coming late no matter how convincing his reasoning was. Claude didn't want to be caned the first day he arrived.

There were some things he had to settle first. He was going to serve in the military. Even as an officer, there was a chance he would die on the battlefield. Nobody could guarantee that he would remain standing after each battle. So, before he left, he had to settle the matters of his family first to make sure their lives wouldn't be disturbed by his absence.

But that only made him more disappointed. His elder brother, Arbeit was missing and not in town. It was said that he left town the day Morssen committed suicide, supposedly heading to Baromiss for a job. Yet, nobody in the prefectural capital saw him or heard anything about him.

Claude was still hiding that news from his mother as he didn't want her to worry for that piece of shit. No matter how unfilial Arbeit was, he was still her eldest son in her eyes. Her flesh and blood relative.

Every day after school, Claude had to fetch Angelina back to the wood and train her in using a musket at an empty lot there. While she was a rather timid girl, her personality was quite firm. She was already fifteen and she could already support the family. That was especially the case after Claude taught her magic. He would often be taken aback by her wit. Life at the wood also made her braver and more cheerful.

His brother, Bloweyk, was still eight. He was at his most energetic age. Though, the huge changes in the family and his father's suicide matured him quite a bit. During the time they lived in the wood, Bloweyk slept in the same room as Claude and the latter corrected many of his brother's bad habits under his watchful eye. While Bloweyk was still quite rowdy, he did know to help his mother out with the chores he could handle, much to Claude's delight. At the very least, he wouldn't turn out to be a failure of a son.

Rodan was quite unhappy with what the mayor did on his own accord without consulting anyone and wanted to go argue with him. He insisted that Claude couldn't go serve the military when construction was at its busiest. He even devised a few ways Claude could escape conscription, such as breaking one  of his legs or cutting a few of his fingers off.

But Claude refused all of them. He didn't want to become a cripple just to escape conscription. To ensure that the company could continue operation as usual, he had to use a lot of time to set it in the right direction and ensure that everything would run smoothly even with his absence. As such, he had to work overtime often, literally burning the midnight oil to work.

Chapter end