Divine-Class Awakening: I Can Steal From Gods!-Chapter 25: Conversation With Richards

Night had already fallen over the city by the time Neo returned to Richards’ apartment.

He had stopped on the way back and picked up food, something simple but decent, then carried it upstairs with him and left it on the table while he waited. The apartment was quiet. For a while, the only sound came from the city outside, distant traffic and the faint murmur of a place that never seemed to fully sleep. Neo stayed seated, one arm resting over the chair, his mind turning back over the last few days.

Richards had given him a place to stay. Bought him a weapon. Bought him a phone. Helped him move through a city he still did not understand. Neo did not like that kind of weight sitting on his side of the balance. He never had. Help was one thing. Debt was another.

When the door finally opened, Richards stepped inside, loosened his shoulders, and stopped when he saw the food already waiting.

"Well," he said, looking from the table to Neo, "I wasn’t expecting this."

Neo looked at him. "You helped me a lot. I thought we could eat."

Richards’ expression softened slightly. He closed the door behind him and stepped in properly. "Then I guess I shouldn’t complain."

He set his things down and glanced again at the table. "Were you able to sell the relic?"

"Yeah." Neo paused, then added, "They gave me a lot for it."

Richards gave a short nod. "That’s good to hear."

Neo let a short silence pass, then said what he had been meaning to say since the afternoon. "I wanted to thank you for everything. The sword, the phone, letting me stay here. I can pay you back for all of it."

Richards looked at him for a moment, then pulled out a chair and sat down across from him. "You don’t need to do that, Neo. I helped because I wanted to. That’s all."

Neo did not argue with him. There was no point. But he did not let go of the thought.

’One day, I’ll pay it back anyway.’

He pushed that to the back of his mind and moved on to the real reason he had wanted this conversation.

"There are a couple of things I wanted to tell you," he said. "I want to find a place to live on my own. And I know what I want to do next."

That got Richards’ full attention. "Now you have me curious. Go on."

Neo leaned back slightly. "I’m thinking about joining Gray Hand. I ran into one of the people from the Breach today. He explained some of it to me."

Richards nodded once. "That’s not a bad choice. Gray Hand has its problems, but it also has access, structure, and enough backing to be useful for new awakeneds. It’s affiliated with the World Government, which makes it a safer path than a lot of others." He studied Neo for a second. "I heard there are still a few months left before the next intake."

"Three months," Neo said.

"Then you’ve got three months to prepare." Richards folded his hands loosely over the table. "I’ll ask around about a place for you. Somewhere private and nice, I’m guessing."

Neo said nothing, and Richards understood anyway.

Richards continued, "And until then, you can still keep entering government Breaches. If I can move the right contact, I might even be able to ask about access to a Godscar Ruin later on. That would be better for you."

Neo watched him a little longer than before.

He did not understand it.

Richards had no reason to do all this. So he asked directly.

"Why are you doing this for me?"

That seemed to catch Richards off guard. He blinked once, then let out a quiet breath.

"Because I wanted to," he said. "Sometimes you see someone putting in the effort and you decide to help. That’s all." He paused, then gave Neo a small look. "You said it yourself. Hard work matters. Don’t call it luck just because someone gave you a hand at the right time. You kept moving. That’s why you’re here."

Neo had nothing to say after that.

He did not answer. He only looked down at the table for a moment, then back up.

Richards began opening the food as if that settled the matter.

For him, maybe it did.

For Neo, it did not.

He would remember this.

And one day, one way or another, he would pay it back.

The next morning came with clear light and a different kind of tiredness.

Neo was already downstairs by the time Richards finished a short call and told him the woman was on her way. He had been more surprised than Neo expected after hearing the relic had sold for one hundred and fifty thousand Creds. That surprise had shifted expectations quickly. A small room or some cheap apartment had stopped being the obvious option the moment the number became real.

The woman arrived a few minutes later.

She stepped out of a dark vehicle with a tablet in one hand and the sort of professional look that seemed built to make other people trust her before she even spoke. Her clothes were fitted and expensive without trying too hard to show it, her posture straight. She greeted Richards first, then turned to Neo.

She looked him over once, and that was enough.

She had already decided what kind of person he was.

It showed in small ways after that, the slight pause before speaking to him directly, the tone that tried to sound patient, the way she explained basic things as if he might get lost halfway through the sentence. None of it was open enough to call out cleanly. That only made it more irritating.

Richards spoke to her briefly, confirmed the budget again, and left once he was sure the arrangements were in place. Neo watched him go, then followed the woman to the first property without wasting words.

She showed him two places before the one that stayed with him.

The first was decent. The second tried too hard. Neither of them mattered much. By the time they entered the elevator for the third, she had already started speaking in that same tone again.

"This one is more exclusive," she said, glancing at the tablet. "It’s not usually shown first, but given the budget mentioned yesterday, I thought it would be worth including. Though of course, properties like this come with responsibilities beyond the initial payment."

Neo looked at her.

She smiled as if she had said something helpful.

The elevator opened onto the top floor.

The moment he stepped inside, he stopped.

It was a penthouse spread across the top of a twenty-floor building. The space opened wide from the entrance, with tall windows stretching across the outer wall and showing most of the city below in one sweep. Light filled the whole place. The floors, the walls, the furniture, everything still looked untouched. No history pressed into the corners by years of people living badly inside it.

Even with the city spread below the glass, the place felt removed from it, high enough that the noise could not fully climb after it.

The woman noticed his reaction immediately.

Her expression barely changed, but the look in her eyes did. There it was again, that faint distance, that same quiet assumption that he was too out of place to belong in something like this. When she started speaking, her voice turned softer in a way that sounded false.

"As you can see, the view is one of the strongest selling points," she said. "Of course, apartments of this level are usually chosen by clients who already have some familiarity with city living."

Neo kept walking.

The kitchen alone looked larger than some of the spaces he had known people spend entire lives in. The living area opened toward the windows. A hallway led to the rooms farther back. Everything felt too far from the world he came from, like a place built for someone who had never once needed to think about locks, leaks, hunger, or what kind of person might be waiting outside the door at night.

He stopped near the glass and looked out over the city.

Behind him, the woman continued talking about layout, privacy, transport access, and neighborhood value.

Most of her words passed by him.

The place seemed so far removed from everything he had known that even he had trouble fitting himself into the picture.