There were corpses everywhere.
A young man who had just graduated from high school stood blankly in the trench.
Corpses surrounded him—all corpses of his own comrades.
Since last year, the Federation's recruitment drives had targeted universities and colleges. High school students were offered the same terms: discounted tuition and admission to university without an entrance exam.
University students were offered direct training as reserve officers, allowing them to enter the battlefield as Second Lieutenants.
This was no exaggeration or reckless talk. With the military expanding by two million soldiers, they could easily fit in one Second Lieutenant, one thousand Second Lieutenants, or even ten thousand.
There were many high school graduates, but very few university students.
In this era, there were only two kinds of people who could attend university. One consisted of those above the Middle Class. They were already the beneficiaries of the Federation's society and the dividends of the era.
They had taken part in dividing up those social and historical dividends. Even if they had received only a small share, they were still far better off than the bottom rung of society, who received nothing at all.
They would never let their children enlist, much less care about becoming reserve officers.
No matter how good being a reserve officer was, could it compare to becoming part of the management of a major corporation?
Therefore, the high school students made up the bulk of the applicants.
This young high school student had received only four months of training before being sent to the battlefield.
The Federation had never had many veterans to begin with. Before that, under Gefra's oppression, the Previous Former President—the unfortunate man branded with "Surrenderism"—had agreed to disarm.
By the end, the army had been reduced to fewer than five hundred thousand men.