Seeing guilliman escape, the blackberry guards immediately pursued him, scattering into the streets of the slums.
However, try as they did, they wouldn't be able to find him.
He was gone.
The next morning, a silhouette with ragged hair and a serious look on his face walked into a courtyard in the upper areas of the shelter.
His presence was disturbed, worry painted all over his face. He had to sleep in the corners of the street last night trying to avoid the black berry men.
Contrary to their believe, he hadn't actually gone far, he only took refuge in the back areas of the slums. Skillfully avoiding the Slayers of the black berry family. This was especially hard since even now the search hadn't stopped.
This wasn't over, he was such that a few of them had seen his face, he had to be careful or grow really fast in the short period of time.
"Ah, Guilliman welcome back" as he stood with his back facing the gate in a lost state, a voice echoed right next to him causing him to look to the left.
There, Victoria could be seen looking down at him with a smile on her face. As if she was expecting him.
"Come, join us, we have important things to discuss" Victoria beckoned for him to join them, prompting him to nodd slightly as he walked up the stairs and joined them in the Japanese styled dojo area.
He had never heard Victoria use the word important before, even when she went to kill the black Devil mole, she saw it as only natural.
Looking around, Guilliman could recognize most of the people here, but there were two additional Slayers amongst them.
One of was a well built man clad in a black amour with green hair draping from his head. He looked very powerful.
As for the other, it was a slim average sized girl with a kimono on and a look of calm on her face. She also had green hair.
"So, to sum up what we've discussed so far…" Victoria looked to Guilliman and said.
"A Yellow gate has opened several kilometers away from the shelter, and as per decreed, we have to clear it"
Aside from being assigned a dungeon to clear, there was an age old rule in the region that made it so that dungeon clearing was the responsibility of whomevers Shelter his the closest.
This made sure that every shelter pulled their weight and didn't just leave things for whomever was more at risk.
"Gate?" Guilliman paused taken aback by a little.
"Ah? Don't you know what a Gate is?" Victoria tilted her head, she knew guilliman was a slum kid, but surely even those in the slums knew about Gates right?
"I do, just surprised" Guiliman nodded pulling himself together. He might not have attended the prestigious schools in the shelter, but he knew a thing or two from the Manuel his father left behind.
It contained everything he needed to know, not just beast, but even mythical lores and legends, they went into so much detail that he even doubted that this was written by his father.
However, it had one major flaw.
It contained mainly theoretical information, where this was supposed to be. Why this should be and why this shouldn't. Practically though, there was little there he could rely on.
It was as if the manual was written by a silent observer.
"Okay good," she nodded then continued,
"Right now several prominent Slayers families are already fighting for the rights to enter the Gate, so the lord of blacksteel has decided to hold a sort of competition"
"A closed one, where those who can will fight for the right to enter the Gate,"
The politics of the shelter was always muddled with privilege and elitism. The strong wanted to keep getting stronger, leaving the weak to fend for themselves.
"Luckily my father was able to pull some strings so we have an opportunity….but first we need to fufll the most basic requirement" Victoria paused looking down at the men and girl seated on the ground before her.
"Power capped at Yellow"
Immediately the room grew solem as Guilliman, Barthold and Jemie frowned.
Power capped at yellow meant one had to be at level 5, sure some of them were at level 3 but the only person that maybe had achieved that level of power here was Victoria.
"And you say the competition…..its next week?" Jemie asked with a gloomy expression on his face.
It took them weeks to scale to level 3 and they were one of the fastest in their generation. To put it into preceptive. Guillimans stepfather was also a Slayer, one at level 2 as a matter of fact.
However, how long has it taken him to reach this level? More than half is life. Granted his constitution was incredibly weak as compared to those seated here, leaving up was not as easy as they made it seem.
Most of those who became slayers in Guillimans set were probably still struggling to reach level 2 by now…the key word was 'struggling'
"don't worry about that, I obviously have a plan" Victoria saw the look on the faces of the three and said releasing their confusion.
Then all of a sudden the smile on her face became skewed causing them to feel uncomfortable.
"So…what's the plan?" Guilliman asked from behind, he had seen this smile before, it usually meant she was up to no good.
"Ahh, nothing much to be honest, we are just going to see if we can maybe kill a few tortie" she smiled walking over to a sword rack and picking up a sword.
'I knew it, she's fucking crazy!!'
Guilliman screamed in his head, but then smiled helplessly. There was no other choice to be honest. He also needed to grow fast because of the threat of the black berry family, and he saw no other way.
They were going to attack the giant Torties back in the communal zone