"Fine," he said. "Temporary."
That was all Snot needed.
A grin spread across his face so quickly it felt almost offensive. "Great. See? That wasn't hard at all." He pointed at Neo like they had just settled something between old friends. "Now we only need some tiny, insignificant details."
Neo already disliked the sound of that. "What."
Snot looked genuinely pleased with himself. "You gave me your name. Very touching. But unless your strategy is standing there looking mysterious until monsters die on their own, a little more would help. How do you fight? What do you do? We should know how to work around each other."
Neo held his gaze.
"I use a sword," he said. "I dodge a lot."
To Neo, that covered the important part. To Snot, it clearly covered nothing.
"That's it?" he said, staring at him. "You're a very dry person, Neo."
Neo let the silence answer for him.
Snot let out a breath through his nose, then tapped his own chest with a thumb. "Fine, then I'll be the friendly one. Again. I'm Snot. Blood Assassin." His mouth curved with obvious satisfaction. "Good name, right? Sounds cool."
'It sounds like you named it yourself.'
Snot did not wait for a response. He turned and pointed toward the blonde girl. "That's Alice. She's quiet, a bit shy, and looks normal and some times terrifying, right up until she starts tearing monsters apart with that axe of hers."
Alice gave a small nod at being singled out, almost hesitant despite the axe in her hands looking heavy enough to split a person in two.
Then Snot gestured toward the woman farther back. "That one's Marika. Fire magic. She'll burn something the second it annoys her enough."
Marika gave him a flat look. "That is not how I would describe it."
"Close enough," Snot said, completely unbothered.
He shifted toward the broad-shouldered man with the shield. "And he's our wall, Max. Reliable, steady, hard to move. Exactly the kind of person you want between you and whatever wants to kill you."
The man gave Neo a short confident nod.
Then Snot tilted his head toward the last one.
"And that's Nep."
The change in tone was small, but obvious enough.
Neo looked at him properly this time.
'Nep, huh.'
The impression he got did not improve.
'I don't like you. Don't try anything weird.'
Snot clapped his hands once, like that settled everything. "Alright, introductions done. Let's move and see how badly or surprisingly well this works."
No one argued. Even Nep only gave Neo one last cold look before turning away.
The group started forward.
Neo followed a step behind at first, sword still loose in his hand, eyes moving over the ruined street ahead and then briefly to the people beside him.
Temporary. That was the deal.
The street they entered a few minutes later was worse than the last one.
Broken walls leaned inward from both sides, narrowing the path and forcing the group into an uneven line. Rubble split the ground in jagged stretches, while the remains of upper floors jutted over the street at bad angles and left strips of shadow between the pale light above. One glance was enough for Neo to see the problem. Too many places for something to come from, not enough room to move cleanly if the front got clogged.
They did not have to wait long.
The first skeleton stepped out from behind a fallen column with a proper sword in hand. Two more followed from the right, another dropped from the broken frame of an upper floor, and by the time bone began clattering from farther back, the fight had already started.
Max met the front with his shield and stopped the first impact cold.
Alice moved a second later.
She did not ease into combat. One swing of her axe broke through a skeleton's guard and split it so hard the rest of the body came apart with it. Marika used that opening at once, a burst of fire flashing past Max's side and catching another one across the ribs, forcing it off balance.
Snot was nothing like any of them.
He talked while fighting.
"Left side, left side— Max, hold that one. Alice, nice. Really violent. Love that for you."
He slipped in and out of bad angles like he had no business being there in the first place, then appeared where a skeleton had already committed to someone else and cut it down before moving again. His rhythm was loud, quick, impossible to miss. Neo's was the opposite.
He stayed just outside the main clash, reading the movement first. A skeleton overextended toward Max. Neo stepped in, cut through its neck, and was already gone before the body finished dropping. Another turned toward Marika after her flame burst. Neo caught it from the side and opened its spine.
Then Nep brushed past him.
Neo shifted away on instinct.
Not long after, it happened again. He moved toward a gap Alice had created, only for Nep to slide in close enough to ruin that chance.
Neo avoided him a second time, jaw tightening.
The third time, Nep's hand almost reached his shoulder.
Neo cut down the skeleton in front of him, turned sharply, and looked straight at him. "What are you trying to do, Nep?"
Nep frowned as if Neo were the problem. "You're in the way. Go somewhere else if you don't want to be a bother."
Snot noticed at once. "What's going on?"
Neo did not raise his voice. "He keeps getting close to me. Cutting into my path. He's putting me and everyone else at risk. I don't know what he thinks he's doing."
For a moment, only the sound of bone settling on stone answered him.
Then Nep clicked his tongue. "I was trying to give you a boost. My class can strengthen people, but I need to get close for that."
That quieted the group for a different reason.
Neo looked at him for a second, then narrowed his eyes. "I'm not interested. Give it to someone else who'll make better use of it."
Nep's expression darkened at once.
He clicked his tongue again, harder this time, and stepped away without hiding his irritation.
The mood of the group dipped with him.
Snot looked from one to the other, then let out a breath. "Alright. Before this gets even more annoying, let's stop for a bit. We'll eat something, drink something, and move after that."
No one argued.
They found the place a short while later.
It was the shell of an old house half-swallowed by the ruin around it, but it still stood better than most of the others nearby. One wall had collapsed outward and part of the upper floor was gone, yet the room they chose still had enough cover to feel safer than the street. For now, it was good enough.
The group settled with the quiet relief of people who knew better than to waste a pause.
Max shrugged off the bag hanging from his back and crouched near the wall. He pulled out water and simple food without making much of it. Bread. Something dry to go with it. Nothing special, just the kind of food meant to keep you moving instead of making you happy. He passed portions around one by one without much talk.
When he stopped in front of Neo, Neo looked up.
Max held out his share with a small smile. "Here."
Neo took it after a brief pause. "Thanks."
Max gave a short nod and sat down beside him. A second later, Snot dropped down on Neo's other side with far more ease than necessary.
Neo exhaled through his nose.
'Here it comes.'
He was right.
"So," Snot said, already biting into his bread, "where exactly did you come from? You're the only person I've seen walk into a Breach alone without a party. Were you really that confident?"
Neo took a drink first before answering. "No. I just don't like relying on others."
Snot accepted that with less surprise than Neo expected. "Fair enough. Trusting strangers inside one of these would be a stupid hobby." He glanced at him again. "Still, you don't look like you're from Arandom City. I've never seen you around."
Neo met his eyes. "No. I'm from a Zone 0. That's probably why."
That changed the mood of the room.
Nep's reaction came first, and it came exactly the way Neo expected. The others were different. Alice looked more surprised than anything else. Marika blinked once, then studied him again, as if she were measuring the answer against the person sitting in front of her.
Neo had seen those looks before. Zone 0 always dragged the same assumptions in with it.
Snot nodded once. "That explains it, then. I was wondering why you didn't seem familiar." He tore off another piece of bread. "Well, I still hope we get along, Neo."
Nep let out a sharp, humorless breath. "A rat from the outskirts wants to use us. That's all this is. I told you bringing him was a mistake. People from places like that only know how to beg, steal, and stab someone in the back when it suits them."
Neo looked at him, but did not bother answering right away. There was no point. Men like that did not speak to understand anything. They spoke because hearing themselves made them feel cleaner.
Marika frowned. "Nep. You really shouldn't talk like that."
He looked at her with open irritation. "Shut up, witch. Do you think I care what you think?"
The room went still for a beat.
Then Snot spoke.
His tone had changed.
"Nep," he said, "shut your mouth."
Something in Nep's face tightened. He did not answer back this time. He clicked his tongue, shifted farther away, and focused on his food with the expression of someone swallowing sand.
Snot looked back at Neo a moment later. "Sorry about that."
Neo took another bite before answering. "Don't worry. It's nothing new."
That earned a quieter look from Snot, one that lingered for a moment before he let it go.
"How'd you even end up in Arandom City?" he asked.
Neo stared ahead. "Things happened..."
Snot caught the edge in that answer and, to Neo's mild surprise, did not push. He only nodded and leaned back a little against the wall.
"Yeah, alright. Fair." He took another drink. "I've always been from here myself. Never left the city, really. Though if you ask me, half the people here think they're more impressive than they are. There was this one guy near the south market who used to swear he had some legendary lineage because his grandfather once killed a low-rank Soul Beast with a farming tool—"
Neo ate in silence and listened because there was little else to do.
Snot kept going.
From the market to the people there, from the people there to some idiot he knew as a child, from that idiot to a story that somehow turned into another one before the first had even finished. By the end of it, Neo was fairly sure Snot had not stopped talking even once.