Divine-Class Awakening: I Can Steal From Gods!-Chapter 16: Unwanted Witnesses

Marika’s scream tore through the ruins.

Snot reacted first and shot forward, boots hammering over broken stone as he ran toward the sound. Max moved right after him, heavier and louder, while Neo followed with the others only a step behind, in his hand already appearing his sword.

By the time he rounded the broken wall, Snot was already there with both hands half raised.

"Wait, wait, wait— don’t do anything stupid."

Neo stepped into view and saw the whole thing at once.

Marika stood with fire gathered in one hand, bright and unstable, the flames curling between her fingers as if they only needed the smallest push to fly. Her face had gone red, though it had little to do with the heat. Alice was beside her from the start, axe already in hand, staring hard at the girl across from them.

And across from them, partly hidden by another broken section of wall, stood a stranger around their age who looked just as startled. One hand hovered near her weapon, while the other tugged awkwardly at her clothes as if she had barely had time to straighten them before all of this turned into a disaster.

Neo understood it immediately.

Marika and Alice had gone off together.

The other girl had done the same on the other side of the cover.

Then they had all found each other at the worst possible moment.

Snot clearly got it too, because his expression changed into the look of a man who had stumbled into something he absolutely did not want explained in detail.

"Alright," he said, glancing from one side to the other, voice quick but careful, "everyone relax. This is already embarrassing enough. Let’s not make it worse."

Marika pointed at the girl with her free hand. "She was there."

The girl frowned at once. "So were you."

"Exactly," Snot said quickly, jumping on that before either of them pushed it further. "That’s the whole problem. You were both there. Nobody was plotting anything. You just scared the hell out of each other."

The girl’s eyes flicked to her. "You think I came here hoping to run into someone while pissing behind a wall?"

Marika still looked like she wanted to set something on fire anyway. "She could’ve said something."

"And so could you," the girl shot back.

Snot sucked in a breath through his teeth. "This is somehow getting dumber."

Neo almost agreed.

By then Max had reached them fully, slowing once he saw there was no monster, no ambush, just a humiliating mess between two groups inside a Breach. Nep came in a second later, and behind the stranger, more people were approaching now, drawn by the scream.

Two boys. Another girl. And one more figure behind them.

Their group.

They slowed as soon as they saw the scene, alert at first, then visibly confused once they understood what kind of crisis this actually was.

Snot turned slightly, enough to make himself visible to both sides.

"Good news," he said, with the kind of strained calm only he could make sound halfway casual. "Nobody’s dying. Even better, nobody has to explain this any further. We can all agree this was terrible timing and move on with our dignity mostly intact."

"Mostly?" Marika repeated, glaring at him.

Snot gave her an apologetic smile. "I’m doing my best here. You could help."

That finally got some of the heat out of the moment. The fire in Marika’s hand shrank, though no longer on the edge of being thrown. Alice remained tense, but her grip shifted slightly on the axe. Across from them, the other girl straightened a little, still annoyed, though no longer ready for a fight.

The rest of the group slowed as they came into view, whatever urgency had driven them there fading into caution once they understood what kind of scene they had walked into.

There were five of them.

Two boys, two girls, and at the center of them, the one the others noticed almost immediately.

Vivienne Mourne.

Neo saw the change in his own group before anyone said her name out loud. Snot straightened a little without meaning to. Marika, still annoyed and embarrassed, looked like she was trying very hard not to show either thing too clearly. Max’s expression grew more focused. Even Nep lost some of his earlier stiffness and turned quieter in a different way.

Neo looked at her properly then.

Red hair. Red eyes like polished rubies. A sword at her side. There was no hesitation in her, nor any need to push herself forward. She looked serene, and stepped into the moment as if it had already been sorted in her head.

Her eyes passed once over the scene. Marika clearly embarrassed. Alice beside her with the axe. The girl from her own group still tense from the whole mess. Snot standing in the middle trying to stop the world’s stupidest fight from happening.

Then Vivienne spoke.

"It was an accident," she said. "Nobody here was looking for trouble. We’ve all wasted enough time already, so there’s no point stretching this any further."

Her voice was calm, direct, and completely certain.

Snot nodded at once. "Yes. Exactly. That. Very well said. Thank you for comprehending this."

One of the boys behind her exhaled softly, like this sort of thing happened more often than it should around Snot-shaped people.

Marika cleared her throat. "It was a misunderstanding."

Vivienne gave a small nod. "Then let’s leave it there."

That should have been the end of it.

Snot ruined that possibility almost immediately.

He rubbed the back of his neck, then gave a short, awkward laugh. "Right. Well. This is a bit strange to say right now, but... you’re Vivienne Mourne."

Max closed his eyes for half a second.

Marika looked like she might set him on fire after all.

Snot kept going anyway, because of course he did. "I mean, everyone knows who you are."

One of the girls from Vivienne’s group smiled faintly. The boy beside her already looked tired.

Max inclined his head with far more control than Snot had managed. "It’s a pleasure."

Marika hesitated, then added, "I’ve heard a lot about you."

Even Nep joined in, his tone smoother than before. "Most people have."

Neo didn’t join in.

That was what brought Vivienne’s attention to him.

She had already noticed the shift in the others. She had also noticed the one person in the group who had neither spoken nor tried to impress her, and who did not look especially interested in the fact she was standing there.

That seemed to catch her attention more than the others’ reactions did.

Neo met her gaze without changing expression.

The noise around them seemed to thin for a moment. Her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and far too alert.

Neo held the look without lowering his eyes or offering anything away.

Vivienne kept it for a moment longer than simple politeness required, then let it go.

"We should move," she said to her group. "There’s nothing useful in standing here any longer."

Snot nodded too fast. "Right. Yeah. Same here."

One of Vivienne’s companions said something low to the girl from before, and their group started to move again. Vivienne turned with them, though not before she gave Neo one last brief glance, quieter than the first and somehow more curious.

Then they were gone, disappearing deeper into the ruins with the kind of steady pace that made it obvious they had not come this far by luck.

Snot watched them leave and exhaled. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Well," he muttered, "that could have gone worse."

The mood changed again once Vivienne’s group disappeared into the ruins.

For a little while, nobody said much. Even Snot seemed to understand that he had already spent enough words on one absurd situation for the day. The group started moving again, deeper into the Breach, leaving behind the broken corner where Marika’s dignity had nearly gone up in flames.

The ruins ahead were changing.

The streets had been giving way bit by bit for a while now, but this was different. The ground sloped lower. Cracks widened into sunken sections of stone, and the remains of older structures began appearing half-swallowed by the earth. What lay ahead no longer felt like streets at all. It looked more like the edge of something buried, a deeper section where the ruin folded inward and the space below had been eaten hollow over time.

Snot broke the silence first, though even he did it with less force than usual.

"I still can’t believe that happened," he muttered. "Out of every possible way to meet another group inside a Breach, that had to be the one."

Marika, walking a few steps ahead, shot him a look over her shoulder. "Keep talking and I’ll recreate the moment for you with more fire."

Snot lifted both hands. "See? This is why I’m trying to move forward emotionally."

That got a short sound out of Max that might have been a laugh, though he buried it quickly enough that Snot still turned toward him in triumph.

The exchange eased the tension a little, but only on the surface.

Neo kept walking with his eyes ahead and part of his attention elsewhere.

He had stopped looking at Nep openly. There was no point. The bastard had already recovered from that earlier reaction. No visible mistake left hanging on him. That was what made it worse. Whatever he had seen, whatever he had done with that touch, he had put it back behind his face and locked the door.

The path narrowed as they descended toward the lower section. Broken stone gave way to stretches of old structure half-buried under rubble and dust, with low spans of collapsed roofing and dark openings ahead where the ruin seemed to continue under the ground. No enemies came at them yet, but the silence itself had changed. It felt denser here, like the Breach was gathering itself farther below.

Snot slowed near the front and looked ahead. "Yeah," he said quietly, more to himself than the others, "this feels like the part where things get unpleasant."

Neo almost answered, but footsteps shifted closer at his side before he could.

Nep.

He had timed it well. Max and Snot were a little ahead. Marika and Alice had drifted closer to the front as well. The space around Neo and Nep was narrow enough that no one would think twice about them walking near each other, and open enough that a low voice would not carry far.

Neo kept his expression flat.

Nep did the same.

When he spoke, his tone held none of the irritation from before. None of the awkwardness either. It came out low and controlled, almost calm, which made it worse.

"If you want your secret to stay hidden, do what I say from now on."