Divine-Class Awakening: I Can Steal From Gods!-Chapter 28: Terms for the Next Breach

Neo pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.

"Well, then tell me. What was it you wanted to talk about that you apparently couldn’t say over the phone?"

Snot had already opened the orange juice. He took a drink, looked at Neo, and for once seemed to understand right away that this was not the moment to waste time.

"Alright," he said. "You don’t look in the mood, so I’m not going to drag it out. I know you don’t like that."

Neo gave a small nod and listened.

"It’s another Breach," Snot said. "The government has it."

At that exact moment, Neo’s phone lit up on the table.

A message from Richards.

Neo glanced at the screen, but did not open it. He did not want the read mark showing yet.

A new Breach has appeared. You can enter.

Snot noticed the message almost immediately and pointed at the phone with the bottle in his hand.

"See?" he said. "I wasn’t lying."

Neo looked back at him. "Go on."

Snot leaned back in the chair.

"Right. The plan was this. Since we all have the same goal of getting into Gray Hand, you, Marika, Max, Alice, and me are going into the Breach together to get cores." He took another drink before continuing. "This one isn’t like the last one. There’s no time limit this time. It looks way bigger than the last Breach, which was simple in comparison. We’ll probably have to camp inside and everything."

Neo did not interrupt.

That sounded fine to him. Better than fine.

More time inside meant more Soul Cores. More fighting. More adaptation. More room to grow the way he wanted.

"I don’t see a problem," Neo said. "Actually, I think that sounds better."

Snot’s mouth curved slightly. He had clearly wanted to hear that.

"Glad you said that," he replied. "I think the same." He lifted his phone. "That’s why I wanted to define the details with you first. We’re going tomorrow. I already made a group chat with everyone."

Neo’s phone buzzed again as Snot started adding him.

Snot glanced down at the screen while tapping. "There. Done. As you can see, Alice has a cat as her profile picture, Max has a selfie flexing like an idiot, and Marika’s got a picture of her legs at the beach. So now you can save them properly in your phone."

Neo pulled his phone closer and started saving the contacts one by one.

Snot drank the last of the orange juice and set the bottle down.

"Anyway," he said, "last time things went pretty well. Nep died, sure, but whatever, I couldn’t stand the guy honestly and me not standing a guy it’s rare. Deaths happen. That’s common inside a Breach if someone slips for even a moment." He shrugged. "This’ll be good for us. Better communication. Better teamwork. We’ll probably be spending more time together from now on anyway."

Neo gave a small nod.

That part was probably true.

If they were all aiming for Gray Hand, this would not be the last time their paths crossed.

Snot looked at him over the table. "Any doubts? Anything you want to ask?"

"Nothing."

"Good."

He stayed quiet for a beat, then scratched lightly at the side of his nose.

"And... yeah. Maybe it looked weird, me finding where you live and all that. But I swear it really was coincidence. So sorry if it came off strange."

Neo looked at him without saying anything.

Snot raised one hand slightly, like he was reinforcing the point.

"I mean it. Promise."

He pushed the chair back and stood up.

"Alright, I won’t bother you any longer. See you tomorrow. Keep an eye on your phone tonight, the others will probably start talking in the group."

"Fine," Neo said. "See you tomorrow."

Snot headed for the door.

Then, just before leaving, he changed direction, walked back to the fridge, opened it, grabbed something to eat, and left with it like that was the most natural thing in the world.

Neo stared at the empty space he had just vacated.

"Bastard."

Snot was already gone, the elevator carrying him down before Neo could say anything else.

Neo stood there for a moment with the food thief’s last bit of noise still lingering in the air, as if the place had not quite accepted that he was gone yet.

’He’s a bastard... if he keeps this up, I might still kill him and take his class.’

The thought came easily.

It always did when something useful drifted too close.

It passed just as fast.

Not because it was wrong. Snot’s class was still valuable, and Neo had not forgotten that for even a second. But right now, killing him would be more trouble than gain. Snot was useful. Worse, he had started becoming something harder to sort cleanly inside Neo’s head. A friend perhaps.

Neo shut the door properly, locked it, and finally picked up his phone.

The message from Richards was still waiting.

"Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll go with a group this time."

The reply came almost instantly.

"The same group from the Breach?"

Neo leaned one shoulder against the wall and typed back with one hand.

"Yeah. Same group."

A few seconds later, Richards answered again.

"Hm. For you to willingly stay with a group, they must be at least half-decent."

Neo stared at the screen a moment longer than he meant to.

’He knows me better than I thought.’

That sat with him strangely.

He pushed it aside and opened the group chat instead.

Messages were already waiting.

Max had been the first.

"Glad you’re coming. Last time you vanished without saying anything. Thought we’d never see you again."

Neo read that once, then moved down.

Alice had written after him, shorter and quieter even through text.

"Hi."

That was it.

It still sounded like her.

Below that came Marika. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"Get proper rest. We leave early tomorrow. Bring supplies. Max can carry most of it."

A reply from Max came almost at once.

"Oi. That hurts my feelings."

Snot followed right after.

"Ignore him. His feelings are built like his muscles. Completely fake."

Max sent something back immediately, and Marika followed with a dry comment sharp enough that Neo could almost hear the tone she would have used saying it out loud. The chat kept moving after that, small remarks, supplies, time, where to meet.

Neo stayed there with the phone in his hand, reading in silence.

For anyone else, it would have meant nothing.

For him, it felt strange.

A group chat. People expecting him tomorrow. People talking to him like there was already a place for him among them.

Neo lowered himself onto the sofa without really thinking about it, the phone still lit in his hand.

Since his mother, he had not had anything like this. No one to speak to like that. No one waiting for him in something as simple as tomorrow. There had been the old man after her, in his own way. And now he was dead too.

The thought darkened the room for a moment.

Neo locked the phone and set it aside.

He got up a second later and started getting ready for the Breach.