Souls

The two of them picked their way carefully through the stone pillars.

"People must have been here before," Frisk concluded. "These stone pillars were definitely built by someone."

Linde smiled and shook his head at that.

"Who knows? Maybe monsters built them."

Frisk gave a dismissive laugh and walked through the doorway beside them. "Pfft, you still believe in that stuff? Those stories people tell to scare kids... Aaaah!"

She suddenly shrieked and hid behind Linde. He smiled. No matter how mature she acted, she was still just a child.

Frisk eyed Flowey with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.

"Okay, you were right. Maybe monsters really do exist."

Linde marveled inwardly at how readily children could accept new things.

Before them stood a golden flower with a bizarre face.

The flower looked at them and gave a bright, sunny smile.

"Howdy! I'm Flowey. Flowey the flower."

"The flower talked!" Frisk's voice was very quiet, but he could still hear it trembling.

So cute! Linde thought. He stood motionless, putting on a puzzled expression as he looked at Flowey.

"Golly, you must be so confused, having just arrived in the Underground. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here! Little old Flowey will have to step up!"

As Flowey spoke, a strange ripple spread outward from him.

Linde felt something being peeled out of his body. Looking down, he saw a purple-and-yellow heart floating a few centimeters in front of his chest.

Perseverance and Justice.

Those were his soul traits. He even had two of them!

He glanced at Frisk beside him. She was staring at her chest in terror, where a red heart floated.

Many people might assume that this soul's trait was determination, but that was not actually the case.

Determination was something all humans possessed. It was precisely what made humans stronger than monsters. Monsters did not have determination, nor could they have it, because it would melt their bodies.

The protagonist was "filled with determination" every time simply because they possessed the strongest determination in the Underground.

So what exactly was a red soul?

According to the Snowball Challenge, the red soul's descriptions were:

(First time) "Bravery, Justice, Integrity, Kindness, Perseverance, Patience. Using these traits, you won the 'Ball Game.'"

(Second time) "Red-Try as you might, you continue to be yourself."

From this, the Red Soul should have been a combination of the other six souls, a guardian of the self. Its trait should have been "selfhood."

Of course, going by the seven religious virtues, the Red Soul could also have represented "hope" or "faith," which could, in a sense, explain why the protagonist's determination was so strong.

Linde quietly studied Frisk's soul, his understanding of that little red heart from his previous life flashing through his mind.

"See those two little hearts in different colors? Those are your souls, the very essence of your lives!"

Flowey continued speaking, the leaves beneath his stem swaying gently. He looked relaxed and cheerful.

"Your souls may start out weak, but you can grow stronger by gaining LV."

"LV? Like levels in a game?"

Frisk worked up the courage to ask. She felt that Flowey probably wasn't a bad person...

Flowey shook his head. "No, no, no! LV stands for LOVE, of course!"

"LOVE? How do we get LOVE?"

Linde pretended not to know and asked Flowey.

"Down in the Underground... LOVE is shared through..." As Flowey spoke, several little white oval pellets rose behind him.

"These little white 'Friendliness Pellets.' Ready? Catch as many as you can!"

With that, Flowey sent the "Friendliness Pellets" drifting toward their souls, neither particularly fast nor particularly slow.

Seeing Frisk cautiously reach out a finger to test them, Linde sucked in a sharp breath.

Monsters' bullet attacks targeted the soul. No matter which part of the body touched a bullet, it would suffer the same damage.

"Watch out!"

Linde pushed off with both legs and tackled her to the ground, but one of Flowey's bullets grazed his waist-

An intense pain erupted from his chest, tearing through him from the inside out. In an instant, his soul was riddled with cracks.

Linde trembled slightly, struggling to turn his face to the side before suddenly coughing a large mouthful of blood onto the ground.

The blood splattered across the floor, leaving a horrifying stain.

Frisk was too shocked to make a sound. She stared blankly at Linde's deathly pale face.

If his full health had been twenty points, Linde probably had only one left now.

"Careful... those... bullets... if they... touch you... you'll..."

Linde struggled to warn her, but inwardly, he was swearing up a storm. Back when he had played the game, he had never known that damage to the soul could hurt this much...

Frisk cradled Linde in her arms and stared hard at Flowey.

"Hee hee hee. You're pretty smart, aren't you?"

Flowey leered at them. Frisk looked at him, then down at the utterly weakened Linde in her arms, and a nameless fury rose within her.

"Why?! Why would you do this?!"

"Why? How naive. Didn't I tell you? I'm going to teach you the rules of the Underground. And the rule is-in this world, it's kill or be killed! Hahahahaha!"

Flowey summoned a vast swarm of "Friendliness Pellets," surrounding them completely.

"Die."