[Dear Crayon V. Wyatt,
You are hereby notified that your Garrison Reserve registration is scheduled for 14/03/3226 at Moonox City Reserve Garrison. Official orders and reporting instructions are attached to this notification.
Please review the documents carefully and confirm receipt with this office within 24 hours. If you have any questions regarding your reporting location, date, or time, contact the recruiting office immediately.
Respectfully,
Garrison Reserve Recruitment Office]
After learning Mary's study materials for the medical license exam and completing my basic survival and combat training in my dream domain, it was already nearing the afternoon.
I wanted to continue practicing the True Name Sutra gion tattoo until I could use it instinctively, but I decided against it. Instead, I turned my attention to the materials on advanced survival and combat training that I could access through the institute's library and the grim web.
That way, I could keep up with Mary in tomorrow's class. After all, she was repeating the class to prepare for her annual fitness exam.
However, I ended up doing neither as I received a notification from the city's Garrison Reserve Recruitment Office stating that my Garrison Reserve Registration was scheduled for tomorrow. The message also asked me to confirm receipt with their office within 24 hours. That didn't even make sense. They had scheduled my registration less than 24 hours from now, yet they were asking me to confirm within 24 hours.
Was this some kind of joke? I hadn't even obtained my medical license yet. I hadn't started my advanced survival and combat training either. At this rate, I would completely bomb the registration exam and end up enlisted as a grunt. They were, quite literally, treated like slaves, often used as cannon fodder whenever the Garrison Reserves were mobilized. This couldn't be happening.
There had to be a mistake here. Usually, a latent grimlock had their Garrison Reserve registration scheduled three to five weeks after becoming an awakened grimlock having completed their grim deck's basic card set: the Cypher card, Grim Web card, Gioncore card, and Gion Circuit card.
It hadn't even been a week since I became a grimlock. Clearly, there was something wrong with this letter. Maybe they had gotten the date wrong. I needed to get to the bottom of it.
With that thought, I immediately shared the notification from the Garrison Reserve Recruitment Office with Mary and called her in a panic. When she answered, she told me to calm down and wait for her. She said she would be right over.
Soon, Mary arrived with a pensive look and a six-pack of her favorite coffee. She had already finished two by the time she got here. Handing one of the cups to me, she began, "I checked with the office. The notification is legit and the schedule is correct. They didn't get your name or the date wrong."
Listening to Mary, the little hope I had left was extinguished. The implications of this sank in, and frustration slowly welled up inside me as I thought about what it meant for my future.
"But I read on the grim web that they usually call a grimlock for registration three to five weeks after they ascend to awakened rank. It hasn't even been a few days since I became an awakened grimlock—" I pointed out, only for Mary to cut in. "There's no such rule. That three-to-five-week gap is just a delay caused by the backlog of pending registrations, not a mandatory waiting period. Normally your registration would've been pushed back too, but for some reason it wasn't."
"What do I do now?" I asked dejectedly, placing the coffee on the table and sliding down to sit on the floor, leaning against the bed, arms wrapped around my knees wondering if I had finally run out of luck.
Suddenly, everything felt too real, too fast. It wasn't the registration itself that weighed on me. I had come to terms with that long ago. What troubled me was the rank I would be assigned in the Garrison Reserves. And the timing of the registration. The way it had been scheduled felt too sudden, almost deliberate. I could only hope I was overthinking it.
"It is what it is. For now, just register as a soldier. You can update it later," Mary replied helplessly, trying to console me. "Besides, during that time the chances of a grimmon horde or a grimgate outbreak happening in our city are very small. Besides, we might not even be called, the city garrison would be able to hold them off until the reinforcement from the F.O.E. arrives."
In the last decade, across all the cities of F.O.E., there had been nearly a thousand incidents of grimmon hordes or grimgate outbreaks. In every case, F.O.E. reinforcements arrived in time to help the city's forces contain the situation, keeping casualties low and minimizing damage to the city.
Considering that those nearly thousand incidents were spread across tens of thousands of cities over ten years, Mary was technically right. Still… What if?
"Mary, is there any way I can take the medic license exam today? I've already gone through the study materials you gave me. And with the help of the medic grim cyphers I copied, I think I have a good chance of clearing it," I asked, clutching at the last thread of hope.
"Wyatt, I'm sorry. That's not possible," Mary said, shaking her head slowly, her expression soft and a little dark. "Those exams aren't something you can just walk in and take whenever you want. They're scheduled in advance."
She paused for a moment before continuing, "For now, focus on your survival and combat training in your dream domain and prepare for the registration. Hope for the best. That's really all we can do at this point."
"Can you do me one last favor?" I asked pitifully. Seeing her nod, I quickly added, "Could you please come with me to the city's Garrison Reserve office for the registration?"