Shadow Slave - After the Third Nightmare - A different Story

Introducing soldiers

"And that's how you become Awakened"

Luster finished his talk to veteran soldiers. Sunny sitting near on his Shadow Chair just making sure Luster didn't misspoke. He didn't like to take the effort to talk to many people so he made someone else do that for him. It seemed to work fine.

*laugh*

But the veterans had a different opinion. One with a more unmoved expression asked in a dark tone.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, what's the problem?"

Luster asked innocently. What followed was a wave of complaints.

"We killed hundreds... thousands of these bastards! If you're right we could have awakened long ago! God dammit!"

"What a bullshit! This... excuse me."

"Sir, with all respect for your rank, and experience, but this is the stupidest thing I ever heard, seriously! How comes?"

Luster was confused so Sunny decided to take it from here. He sat up from his chair silencing the audience, and pursued the matter.

"Care to elaborate the question?"

"I mean... look at you! You went through the Nightmares many times, and you probably know many Awakened who did that as well. You probably also went across tens of Awakened during those trials, didn't you?"

"Yes, we did."

The soldier didn't sound happy.

"I didn't mean that as a question... nevermind. I have just one thing to tell you."

And then he raised the voice in dissatisfaction.

"HOW THE HELL NO ONE HAD ENOUGH BRAINS TO FIND OUT HOW NATURAL AWAKENING OCCURS?"

The words hit everyone, and Sunny the most, because it raised in him a serious sense of guilt. How comes? It's a serious question. The soldier talking reduced his volume.

"And what do you think it is? Our lives are some kind of joke?"

The weight was put on his heart. Behind the mystery of natural awakening there was a truth, a very harrowing truth. One that he surely ignored till it was no other way than to admit it is. However before he had time to really come to terms with the implications of the answer the flaw hurt him so he had to answer. He gestured to Luster to not overreact.

If he was a Legacy things would take problematic turns. He would have to at least threaten the soldier a bit. But he isn't from legacies, and doesn't have ambitions to save his honor. Also he's actually at fault here.

"I don't know! I only learned that recently. I don't consider it a joke."

"What does 'I don't know' mean to you?"

"I don't know why this could escape the attention of the entire community of Awakened. I'm sorry. Really. There were many occasions when we could get the answers. Many of us could. I could. What we did instead is we ignored that possibility. We're inexcusable. We failed you. I did."

The soldier brightened a bit, and calmed down. The rest got a bit more trustful.

"I'll take that apology, Sunless. Do you still want to Awaken my comrades? Even though how mean I am to you?"

"...yes."

"Okay. Let's forget about that. How does 'plunder their soul essence' work? Let's say I'll kill a Dormant Beast with a long range missile. That's actually a very probable scenario. Otherwise all our weapons would be useless. Not to mention that we often use body parts of some Dormant Beast to amplify the effect. Dormant Beast gets obliterated. There's no soul shards left behind. Do I..."

Sunny again felt a headache. Usually he doesn't have to answer many questions, especially from random people, who should buy almost any propaganda that institutions would sell to them. This was unusual.

"I don't know. Rather not."

"Master Sunless, do you know what the Government did when Europe was overtaken by the abominations?"

"I heard they used some special bombs..."