Soul Trade

Many civilians from Blue Grill's slums lining up for inspection to determine if they qualify for the Soul Trade.

The Soul Trade (魂の取引き, Tamashī no Torihiki) is a sinister trading operation performed within Blue Grill, where certain individuals are forced to trade their souls, allowing Food Spirits to possess them, in exchange for taking part in a Blue Grill's special project in the Kitchen of Eternity, the recreation of Acacia's Full Course Menu The Soul Trade mainly exists due to very cruel reasons; 10% of Blue Grill's population suffers from different handicaps due to their ancestors having been unable to properly adapt to Gourmet Cells when they were enslaved by the Gourmet Nobility. The Soul Trade turns the weak and handicapped populace into hosts for better and more capable Food Spirits, making the weak bodies into usable and productive members of Blue Grill and assisting in manual labor as part of the project. This decision was made as an alternative to wasting unnecessary funds on treatment and education for the disabled. However not all are granted new souls, as the potential candidates for the project are divided into two classes, those having 'abnormal bodies' and those having 'abnormal souls'. Those who fall into the category of 'abnormal souls' are individuals who are constantly lazy, unintelligent, violent or have no education, and their souls are replaced with the souls of competent and intelligent hard-workers, such as the Five 10-Shell Cooks, who have been revived time and time again into bodies such as these. Those who have 'abnormal bodies' are those who suffer from physical disabilities, such as frailness, old age, abnormal senses or poor health, and these individuals are instead used as "fertilizer" for the Soul Furnace to enhance the flavor of the Full Course. However if their physical disabilities are deemed minor they are instead sent to work on the project as they are in the form of slave labor. As such, death is seen as a better alternative than the inhuman work and pain involved in working on the project or having one's body possessed and those who are killed are considered lucky.

The weak and handicapped of Blue Grill reside mainly in the slums and every six months they receive a checkup to determine whether or not they will become hosts for the bodiless souls, work in slave labor or be killed. If they meet the requirements, they are qualified for internment and are either used as hosts, slaves or fertilizer, regardless if the host already has a home and family or if the host is even a child. Those that become hosts don masks due to Food Spirits being unable to handle the intense light of the world of the living.

However, not all the souls used are those of the elite, as some are actually former slaves who weren't too weak to work and if they are revived they are forced to once again take part in slave labor, a fate that has felt like an eternity for many of them, and truly serves as a living world Hell for them.

Those who have become slaves may still be allowed a few luxuries, such as being allowed to drink at the local bars surrounding Shell Mountain where they can drown their eternal sorrows in booze.

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