Awakened: SSS Ranked Soul king

"Yes, the strike force is an exceedingly powerful and important arm of the camp, your friend is lucky to be part of it," inside the forest, Guilliman, Morgan, Jemie, and the old man (whom they later discovered was named Wilson) could be seen walking steadily.

This wasn't Claw Wood Forest, but unlike the rest of the Ravens Wood Forest, the outposts surrounding the three houses had been thoroughly cleared of exceedingly dangerous threats.

"Yes, she's quite talented, but I bet the people from the Aaron family would overshadow her by a lot. It's worrying," Guilliman smiled at the old man, looking down at him.

He was now 16 years of age, and having spent a few months in this world, Guilliman had grown not only in age but in size. He was now tall—not as much as Jemie and Barthold—but he could easily tower over this old man.

"Hahaha, I understand the sentiment. Those monsters are something else," the old man said with a laugh. Not everyone in the Aaron family was extremely talented.

Even though their genes were strong, strength was not defined by just that. So respect could only be earned.

"Yes… uhh, there's this guy Zarci; he uses short daggers. I wonder if you know what style he trains in? I really admire that style," Guilliman asked in a skewed manner. He obviously didn't care about this Zarci—the kid was merely at level 6. He would kill him with a blow.

What he was interested in was forming a sort of student-master relationship with the old man. He wanted him to feel obligated to help him or provide information to him. Since the old man himself wasn't that powerful, he would find a way to compensate.

"Ehhh, yes, I know the kid. But I don't think you'll be able to learn his technique. It's a secret of the clan," the old man, Wilson, shook his head as they slowly walked forward.

Over the past few days, he had grown to like this kid quite a lot. He was proactive in searching for meat and was also interested in stories and tales. He was only 16, after all; it felt like speaking to his grandchild.

"Ahh, bummer." Guilliman's facial expression descended into a depressed one.

It seemed like he really admired the Aaron clan, unlike his counterparts. It filled the old man with joy to see someone take such interest in their talents and their glorious achievements.

It filled him with warmth.

"We are already here, old man—stop joking around," Jemie walked forward all of a sudden, stretching his hands out and pulling back a bunch of vines.

They had been with the old man for a few days now, during which they had hunted a variety of monsters for meat. The good thing about this job of theirs was that it didn't matter how powerful the monster was.

What they went after was big and bulky creatures they could use for meat, so they were mostly safe going after weaker but bulky beasts.

In front of them was a large swampy area in the middle of the forest. It seemed to be naturally formed; however, the source of water was nonexistent. It was just there.

"Okay, allow me to do some surveillance so I can spot the perfect one," said the old man, Wilson, as they entered the muddy grounds of the swamp. He sought their approval to go off.

His aspect was closely tied to tracking, so he had the ability to find beasts. However, he stated several times that he could not use it around people as per the custom of the family.

Yes, the top families didn't treat their aspects as something extraordinarily special. In fact, this was the same for all slayers—they just took theirs the extra mile.

After all, their classes were well known, so most of their abilities were public knowledge and could be used to harm them. However, their aspects varied from individual to individual by a small margin—not so much that it would be glaring, but enough to set them apart.

"Sure, we'll wait here like always," Guilliman and the rest nodded, allowing the old man to go off into the swampy forest.

While he did so, Guilliman and the rest waited around a tree, all looking bored. This was indeed a shitty assignment; Mason really had it out for them.

"What's going on? Is he still going to that place?" All of a sudden, Morgan asked Guilliman with a look of bland curiosity on his face.

It wasn't until joining Victoria and her cohort that he really understood the extent of Guilliman's abilities. At first, he thought his summons was only limited to the wolf and swordfish. It wasn't until he saw the guy controlling an insect that he truly understood how versatile it was.

"Hmm, yeah. That's the routine—whatever is in that hole must be special to him," Guilliman replied, not an ounce of care in his voice.

He had killed a flea not too long ago; it was a beast in the sense that it had the ability to fly more silently than most ordinary insects. But if he were to tag it with a rank… it wouldn't qualify to be ordinary.

However, it did have the ability to serve his purpose, which was to spy on whomever he wanted to spy on without bringing any suspicion.

For the past few days, the old man Wilson would come to this swamp, and all of a sudden he would break off from the team to go do his thing. At first, Guilliman thought it was something important, like the secrets being hidden by the Aaron family.

However, every time he looked into the hole under this tree, he would only see a hallowed ground with nothing but decayed meat, which the old man would bring.

It felt like a complete waste of time the more he looked into it, but he couldn't just stop.

"Should we ask him what he's doing? Or maybe just surprise him?" Jemie smiled, looking in the direction of the old man.

Whatever he was doing didn't seem important, so he felt no caution when dealing with it. Scaring the old man might be fun, though.

"Sigh, you keep getting weirder," Guilliman sneered at Jemie's sadistic idea.