Thank God for Slavery

As Raven entered the cave, a sense of dread and unease settled upon him. The walls were wet, and the air was stale. The only light came from a few flickering lamps, which barely illuminated the damp, musty cavern.

He and the two other new Shadow Guild members, Sol and Kara, traveled deeper and deeper into the cave. As they walked, Raven noticed small pools of glowing, green liquid. They oozed onto the ground, and gave off a faint, eerie glow.

They were silent, the only sounds the echoing of their footsteps and the occasional dripping of water.

Well... at least Sol and Raven were silent.

Kara was currently practicing her ability to 'Belch on Command'. By now, she had a deep and intuitive control over the pitch, tone, and volume of her burps. 

After a particularly stenchy one, Raven finally snapped. He turned towards Kara, frowning.

"For the love of god, why? Why have you put me through this for the past ten minutes? Is this supposed to be... funny?"

Kara stopped walking, and then smiled smugly. She chortled. "I see you don't understand. I guess you have a lot to learn, my sweet little kouhai."

Raven stared, unimpressed. "Kow-Hi? What the hell does that even mean?"

Kara shook her head. She looked down at her feet, disappointed. "It's an anime thing, you wouldn't understand." 

Sol sighed, brushing a hand through his wavy, blue hair. "Just ignore her, Raven. She has a considerable deficiency in the brain cell department. Attempting to comprehend her would be comparable to trying to comprehend a drugged-up baby ape with ADHD. Her behaviors are beyond human understanding."

Kara's smile quickly dropped, and she scowled. "What did you say, bastard? I am the most intelligent creature to have ever lived!"

She looked back at Raven, pointing at Sol and smirking. "Can you believe it? This cocky bookworm is trying to show off his big ol' smart-boy words! Lame as hell, if you ask me."

Sol chuckled lightly. "Burping, shallow insults, strange 'anime' references; how juvenile, you are. I find it a tad quaint, even. Once again, I offer thanks to the heavens that I received the good genes from our parents."

Kara stomped her foot, glaring at Sol. "I'll show you shallow, you arrogant bastard! Let's duke it out right now! You're gonna eat those words when you taste my fists!"

"You guys are siblings?"

Kara and Sol both turned back towards Raven. 

"Yeah, can you fuckin' believe it?"

"It is certainly hard to believe, but it is true."

Raven shrugged. "Well, it's not that hard to believe..."

***

After a long trek through the dank, gloomy tunnels, they finally arrived at a large, open room. The space was illuminated by a dim, green light, emanating from a large, bubbling pool in the center.

In front of the pool, Ace sat in a luxurious velvet reclining chair. He looked up from a book he was reading, and waved idly to the three players. 

"Hello and howdy~ Welcome to your first training session, where we will have you develop your bodies and Aura cores."

He stood up, and placed his book on the chair. Then, he kicked it into the glowing pool. Almost instantly, the chair dissolved away.

He dusted himself off a little, and then turned back towards the players. "Well, let's go over a bit of information before we proceed."

He raised a finger. "First, you should decide which comes first; enhancing your body, or developing an Aura core. This is important, because whatever you develop second will be weakened. This is because the second enhancement has to develop around the first one."

Raven frowned. "Does that mean if you develop an Aura Core first, your body will be weak, and vice versa?"

Ace shrugged. "Eh, it's complicated. Usually, yes, but it really depends on you. Plus, we are going to cheat today, so your developments should be abnormally powerful."

Ace walked over to a nearby wall, and waved his hands. A part of it disappeared, revealing a pathway. "Follow me, and I will describe the process we will use."

He walked inside, and the players followed.

Eventually, Ace reached a door. He opened it, revealing a room containing hundreds of kids chained up, many of whom were not merely human. "As you may already know, killing a living creature releases Aura. The Aura type is also dependent upon how the creature was killed. A bit of information that isn't as commonly known, however, is that children release the most Aura upon death."

Sol nodded. "I see. That makes a bit of sense, younger people tend to contain more vitality."

Ace gave him a thumbs up. "Exactly! Not only that, but demihumans tend to release even more Aura than humans. Luckily for you, we have plenty of connections to the slave trade. It wasn't hard to buy up a bunch of little ones. We even got ourselves a few elves. Honestly, I am jealous of your opportunity!"

Raven looked around the room, studying the kids. "It seems like they have been well taken care of. Surprising, for slaves to not be starving. Does it have something to do with the quality of Aura released?"

"Of course. The healthier they are, the more Aura that is released."

Kara looked around the room, frowning. 

Ace noticed this. "Do you have a problem with this method, ma'am?"

Kara snorted. "Nah, not really. I was just thinking that this is a pretty fucked up world. Who decided that the optimal way to gain power should be to slaughter kiddies?"

Ace scratched his chin. For a second, he looked a little sad. "God is certain to be a real bastard, I can agree with you there." 

Raven rolled his eyes. 'What a loser. He decides to kill kids to power up his new minions, and then blames God?'

"So, how will they be killed? And how many kids will be allocated to each of us? I was hoping to develop the largest Aura Core possible."

Ace nodded. "Don't worry about the amount of Aura. We have way more kids than necessary. How they will be killed depends on what type of Aura you want to develop, of course. We have plenty of expensive potions that could kill them in basically any way you want."