Mythshaper

Chapter 52: Compress

The decree of conscription was put into effect almost immediately. The very next day, legionaries rounded up all the young boys and girls who had completed at least a year of basic training at the institution and took them back to their camp in Alpeis, a hundred miles west of Klearon.

Even the Magistratus's daughter, Aleya, couldn’t escape conscription. Although Equites and Patrician classes were supposed to be exempt from the shenanigans plebeians had to endure, this time the Ember Throne decreed almost no immunities on the basis of one's birth.

The crown was going to face significant backlash, as this decree not only targeted plebeian children, but also all classes and ages of awakened individuals. The last time something like this happened was during the era when the Alberan Empire united half of the realm, but somehow crumbled when it attempted to conquer Thera.

Moreover, this conscription wasn’t limited to Karmel Valley alone. It extended to the entirety of the western and southern regions, where the empire’s control was looser than elsewhere.

Centurion Arata and the Magistratus explained that this decision made sense given the increasing number of rifts in these regions. With the difficulty of deploying legionaries swiftly to the fringes, they believed that forming a local militia was the only sensible option.

My heart sank when I learned how many nameless villages and settlements had disappeared in recent months because the legionaries couldn't reach them in time. Consequently, all awakened locals, at least one per family, would join the legionaries as auxiliaries to form a militia operating exclusively in Karmel and the surrounding villages.

Only Shapers were exempt from conscription, as the training offered by the legionaries had little relevance to us. That duty was left to the guilds, who planned to provide training modules through the institution.

Honestly, I was unsure if they could offer anything I hadn’t already practised, but I was happy to have a chance to measure myself against others.

While my own schedule didn’t change much, the same couldn't be said for my parents. I had thought that being of a higher rank than most would allow them to wiggle out of any conscriptions and unnecessary commitments, but that wasn't entirely the case. And I was certain they wouldn’t even want to forgo their duties even if they could.

Father had to join the militia and act as their spearhead in offence, while the legionaries secured Mum on a contract requiring her to complete a certain number of fabricators and repairs. Of course, all this was for fair stipends, a considerable sum in Karmel Valley, though probably not much in big cities like Klearon.

They even offered Father a better position, if we moved to Klearon or somewhere better, but Mum was against it for now. She had her reasons, saying that those cities had nothing to offer that she couldn’t get here. If we really wanted to move, she would choose a more neutral location, not someplace under the thumb of a monarchy, such as Nalanda, the city of stars, where the Oracle Academy was situated.