The atmosphere in the classroom of Senior Class One didn't just thicken; it solidified. The moment Derek Faulkner uttered the words "Northern Front," a strange, electric tension rippled through the parents. In the Empire, that region wasn't just a place on a map; it was the Deadlands, a theater of perpetual frost and shadow where the nation’s survival was bought with the blood of its finest.
To hear this man, this supposed 'pretty boy' live-in son-in-law, speak of the front with such casual, heavy familiarity was like hearing a ghost recount the details of its own funeral.
Selene Moore, the homeroom teacher, stood motionless behind her podium. She had prepared herself for a scene of confrontation or perhaps a pathetic display of a failed father trying to make amends. But as she watched D
