Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Don't get too muscular.

If you are strong, you will be drained away.

No. 7, Gray Brick Lane, 19th Military Camp City.

Leon sat at his old metal table at home, looking at a copy of the new conscription notice on the wall.

He is nineteen years old this year.

Broad shoulders, steady hands, and bright eyes.

In the past, these were all dangerous characteristics.

His father, Cassel, worked in a mechanics shop and had a prosthetic left leg. He lost that leg during a demobilization campaign twelve years ago.

At the time, Cassel was taken to suppress a lower-class riot, and the old PDF officers stuffed them, these repairmen, into the barricades as a human wall. After the riot ended, the officer wrote "heroically wounded" on the report and then gave him a second-hand mechanical leg.

The legs were secondhand.

The maintenance fee, however, is new.

The ration station withheld three months' worth of their rations.

Yuna, the mother, was an accountant at the ration station.

She is literate and quick at calculations, so she understood the announcement earlier than her neighbors.

She had already read the announcement three times.

I took off my old glasses and wiped them three times.

On the fourth attempt, the lenses weren't clean, but my fingers started to tremble.

Leon couldn't help but ask, "Mom, what exactly is written on it?"

Yuna did not answer.

Casso was looking down, fixing a broken water valve. Rust fell onto the table, which he wiped away with his thumb, as if he hadn't heard his son's words.

Leon asked again, "Mom?"

Suddenly, a broken spring popped out of the water valve and hit the table leg with a clang.

Only then did Casso speak.

"It doesn't matter what you write."

“The fact that the recruitment station is open means they are short of people.”

Leon looked at the notice on the wall.

"This time it was written as 'voluntary'."

Casso paused for a moment, then let out a cold laugh through his nose.

"Do you believe?"

Leon turned to look at his mother.

Yuna placed the notice on the table and said softly, "It does say 'voluntary' on it."

Casso put the wrench down, and the metal clashed with the metal with a loud clang.

"It's voluntary first, then registration. After registration, whoever doesn't go will have their water card broken. If they still don't go, their ration certificate will be lost. Finally, the military police will knock on the door and say that you have violated the Emperor's conscription."

Leon pursed his lips.

He had heard all of these stories.

I've heard of it more than once.

Every household in this district has had someone whose property taken away.

Some people die on other planets.

Some people didn't even receive news of their death.

Some people returned, but only half of their bodies remained, muttering unintelligible battlefield numbers.

Yuna said softly, "This announcement is different. It lists the benefits."

Casso paused for a moment.

"treatment?"

Yuna read aloud, her head bowed: "During service, basic rations will be tripled. A monthly military pay will be provided. Families will receive an equivalent subsidy. After five years of service and passing the assessment, upon discharge, priority will be given to positions in Star Harbor, water purification stations, police stations, and factory supervision. If killed in action, the family will receive fifteen years of compensation."

The room fell silent.

The sound of a neighbor's child reciting the Emperor's Prayer could be heard intermittently from behind the wall.

"Read it again." Casso's eyes were strange.

Yuna read it again.

The sarcasm on Casso's face gradually disappeared, leaving only coldness and hardness.

"They want to lure young people into walking into the cage."

Leon's heart raced as he listened.

"Triple rations?"

Yuna nodded.

"What about military pay?"

Yuna gave a number.

The wrench in Casso's hand fell onto the table.

That number represents three months' income for an average worker at a repair shop.

Tiff, who had been squatting in the corner mending old boots, suddenly looked up.

She was only twelve years old, and her hair was tied up with a piece of old electrical wire.

"If I go, will I be able to get into the mid-level technical training program?"

Casso turned and glared at her.

Tiffany felt as if she had been pricked by a needle and immediately lowered her head, but the shoe needle in her hand went astray and pricked her fingertip.

She took a breath and didn't dare to cry.

Leon looked at the announcement, his eyes shining with an alarming intensity.

"Dad, I want to give it a try."

Kaso looked at his son as if he were seeing a tool he had repaired himself slowly sliding toward the stove.

Do you know what you're saying?

"What do you think military uniforms are? New rations? Something that looks good on you and makes you the center of attention in the alley when you get back?"

Caso suddenly stood up.

The mechanical leg slammed into the table leg with a dull thud.

Caso walked up to his son and rolled up his trousers.

The old mechanical leg was revealed.

The interface was red and swollen, and the metal edge had chafed the skin, causing a little blood to seep out.

"Watch."

"Don't look at the wall, look here."

Leon's gaze fell on that piece of cold metal.

Casso tapped the outer shell of the prosthesis with his knuckles.

"This is what the army gave me."

"A number, a bad leg, and a heroic wound."

Leon said in a low voice, "That was back when the old governor was in power."

Kaso stared at him and growled in a low voice, "You think that just because the Palm Print Master is replaced, the cannonballs won't explode? The orcs won't kill people? The Chaos Madman will send you home for dinner?"

Leon remained silent.

“I know you want your sister to attend a technical class. I know you want me to get a new leg. You think you have broad shoulders and can carry this family.”

His voice suddenly went hoarse as he said this.

“But you’re only nineteen, Leon. You’ve barely even seen the sky outside the Nest City.”

Leon looked up: "It's precisely because I've never seen it before that I want to go."

Casso was stunned.

“I was afraid of being recruited in the past. Now they post notices explaining how to select soldiers, how to receive pay, and how to be discharged. I’m still afraid. But this time is different.”

Casso's Adam's apple bobbed.

Leon looked at his father's old mechanical leg.

"They used to be arrested."

"This time, I want to go there myself."

Yuna lowered her head, her eyes reddening.

Kaso remained silent for a long time.

The water valve in the house hadn't been repaired yet, and a drop of water was falling from the pipe.

Snapped……

Snapped……

Snapped……

The next day, long queues formed outside the recruitment station.

This in itself is a spectacle.