It was the next day, and Taya and Lucy were already on their way.
After that conversation with Dojun, the D-rank awakened, Taya had made up her mind to join the military. Fortunately as fall was approaching, it was almost the time for the new recruitment. When she asked Lucy what she wanted, Lucy only nodded and followed along. She herself didn't really know—her only aim, at the very least, was to survive.
But Lucy wasn't herself anymore. After what happened last night, the cheerful girl with the smile that could melt any frost was gone. Today, her face carried no warmth.
Yesterday…
"Lucy!
Wake up! You're making me afraid!" Taya yelled.
After a long, eerie silence, Lucy finally snapped out of her trance, her face drenched in sweat. Whatever she had seen had shaken her to the core. She jolted upright but said nothing. When Taya inquired about what happened, Lucy just stayed silent, unable to speak. She kept her distance too, and though she tried to hide it, Taya noticed.
Taya sighed. She didn't press further—she just hoped that one day Lucy would tell her what really happened.
—
After an endless stretch of travel, asking for directions, walking, and then taking a transport vehicle, they finally reached the military recruiting base.
In front of them stood the 1st Lunar Military Base—a fortress named for its crescent-like shape, carved into the earth. The outer wall curved in a great arc, silver-gray stone gleaming faintly even under daylight. From above, it resembled a waning moon cradling the courtyard within.
It had been one of the first strongholds raised after the fall of the old governments, built on the ruins of a once-great city wiped out in the first monster wave. The crescent design had been chosen deliberately—or so people believed. Some whispered it was more than architecture, that the base was part of some massive hidden mechanism, with every other base across the continents built in the same pattern, pointing toward some unseen purpose. Perhaps prophecy, perhaps preparation. But no one truly knew.
The crescent's open end faced east, where the sun rose each morning—symbolizing renewal. Its shadowed arc faced west, toward the abomination-infested lands, like a warning that darkness was never far behind. The crescent also served as a vantage point and observatory towards all directions.
Massive gates of blackened steel marked the entrance. Towers lined the curved wall, their watchfires burning day and night, making the fortress shine like a shard of moonlight visible even from miles away.
Inside, the base was a world of its own. The crescent walls encircled the training fields, barracks, armories, and a central plaza wide enough to gather thousands of recruits.
During the nights, the moonlight poured directly into the plaza, bathing it in pale silver.
To the recruits, who for the first time ever visited a military base it appeared more than just a building. It was incredibly beautiful. It felt alive, but also heavy with the weight of those who had stood there before—sworn loyalty, marched into battle, and never returned.
—
The military program was a strict one: two years of training, followed by five years of service. That was the standard path. What came after depended entirely on the individual.
The military enforced a mandatory draft only for the awakened. For ordinary humans, enlistment remained voluntary. Yet there was never a shortage of recruits. People didn't join for honor or pride—they joined just to survive.
Most civilians had no weapons, no training, no resources. Decades after the collapse of normal human designs of an ordinary world,
Change had to happen,and fast. When the military was in shambles, the triarchs came in and built it to the way it was now.So, the military itself had a debt to pay to them and had to stay loyal.
Private training academies now existed, but only the rich could afford them.
For everyone else, the military was the only viable path. Here, at least, they could count on rations to fill their stomachs, shelter to last another night, and training that gave them a sliver of hope.
Families often sent their teenage sons and daughters—barely sixteen or seventeen—into the army. Yes, the casualty rate among ordinaries was brutally high, but their odds of surviving inside the military were still better than waiting helplessly in a ruined town swarmed by monsters, with no way of personal defense. For many, it wasn't about living forever. It was about delaying the inevitable.
Survival was the utmost priority in this day and age. Hunters, awakened, and guilds roamed and fought, but fate is often unreliable, unpredictable, appearing and vanishing like storms.
When soldiers completed their term, they had the following choices: return to their native lands and defend them, or join the factions and guilds under the dominion of the three rulers—moving toward the central regions of the continent where authority and protection were stronger.
—
Inside the courtyard, the crowd pressed close. New faces everywhere—boys and girls barely sixteen, young men and women forced by circumstance to harden far too soon.
Some recruits wore excited expressions. Others had grim, set faces. Many wept quietly, already mourning the distance from their families—or fearing they might never see them again.
Taya kept her chin high as she and Lucy joined the throng. Her eyes flicked across the faces around her, but her thoughts weren't fully there.
"I wonder, how long could I hide my true nature among so many people"
The constant pain from binding her serpentine hair never let her forget her true nature.
"There's a high chance I can get caught, then what would happen.What will they do to me? What will I do if somebody forces me to uncover my head?", she wondered.
The only reason she had decided to join the military was to survive, to get stronger, to learn to fight and get good armour and weapons to make herself strong enough to defend on her own to survive on her own.
But she also feared that relying on these people might also turn out to be the end of her. Just because of the nature of her strange powers she was bound to get in trouble.
When looking at Lucy, she thought at least her new friend was ordinary and was not cursed ;like her. She also seemed calmer than the day before—though Taya knew better than anyone how calmness could mask a storm within.