0. Background
The world of this story isn't the Earth we know—it's a parallel universe called Earth-245. In Korea on Earth-245, the shrinking pool of conscriptable citizens was recognized as a dire crisis early on, leading to mandatory female conscription starting in 2010. Remarkably, this wiped out all traces of "gender conflict" from society. By 2023—the year our tale unfolds—the military's male-to-female ratio had evened out to a perfect 5:5. Yet, to preempt any sex crimes from the get-go, men and women still served in strictly segregated units.
That changed when the higher-ups, eyeing more efficient human resource management, hatched a plan for mixed-gender units. And the lucky—or unlucky—pick for this pilot program? A freshly commissioned male artillery officer...