Han-Ho's apartment was, by any reasonable metric, not designed for three occupants.
It was designed for one occupant. Possibly a small one. The kind of person who owned very little, needed very little, and had made a quiet philosophical peace with the concept of very little. The ceilings were low. The walls were close. The single window looked directly at the wall of the building next door, which looked back with the energy of something that had also given up.
It smelled like industrial cleaner and instant noodles and the specific brand of quiet that settles into a place when the same person has lived there alone for four years without ever having anyone over.
Han-Ho opened the door, turned on the light, and stood in the doorway for a moment looking at his apartment the way a man looks at something he loves that is about to change permanently and cannot be stopped.
Then he stepped inside.
Moru floated in behind him.
The small former Frost Giant — who had spent the entire walk from the GS25 looking at everything with the wide careful eyes of something experiencing a world it had previously only interacted with by freezing — ducked slightly coming through the doorway out of nine thousand years of habit and then stopped because it was absolutely not necessary. It fit through the doorway with considerable room to spare.
It looked at this fact for a moment.
"I am very small," it said.
"Little bit yeah," said Han-Ho.
"I froze the Caspian Sea."
"You mentioned."
"I am now smaller than your doorway."
"The doorway is standard size."
The small former Frost Giant looked at the doorway. Looked at itself. Processed this information with the careful dignity of something that has decided not to have feelings about it publicly.
"I see," it said.
Han-Ho put his work bag down. Took off his shoes. Lined them up next to the door with the practiced precision of a man who has cleaned enough floors to feel personally about shoes being in the wrong place.
He looked at the apartment.
One couch. One low table. One laptop on the table. One small kitchen with one burner and one pan and a refrigerator that had been making a sound for three months that he kept meaning to get checked. One bathroom so small that the door and the shower door could not both be open simultaneously, a fact he had discovered on the first day and accepted by the second.
He opened the refrigerator.
Three eggs. Half a block of tofu. The bottle of water he kept forgetting to throw away. A single green onion that was making its own decisions about its future.
He looked at this inventory for a long time.
"Are you hungry," he said, to the room in general.
"I had the chips," said Moru, from the corner of the couch, where he had positioned himself with the comfortable authority of someone who has already established territorial rights.
"I also had the chips," said the small former Frost Giant, from a position slightly above the floor near the window, where it was looking at the wall of the building next door with an expression of genuine curiosity. "What is that."
"The other building."
"It's very close."
"Yes."
"Does it bother you."
"I've stopped seeing it."
The small former Frost Giant looked at the wall for another moment.
"I once buried a mountain range," it said thoughtfully. "The mountains did not bother me either after a while."
"Great," said Han-Ho. "You can sleep near the window then."
"I don't sleep."
"Then you can exist near the window."
"I can do that," said the small former Frost Giant, with the quiet relief of something that has been given a place and is trying not to show how much that matters.
Han-Ho took out the tofu. Took out two of the eggs. Looked at the single green onion, which looked back at him with an air of resignation.
"I'm making dinner," he said.
"What is dinner," said the small former Frost Giant.
Moru looked at it.
"Food," said Moru. "But at a specific time of day."
"Why only at specific times."
"Humans require regular sustenance to maintain their physical form."
"That seems inefficient."
"It is," said Moru. "They also require sleep. Eight hours ideally. Master gets approximately six and pretends this is fine."
"Six is fine," said Han-Ho, from the kitchen.
"It is not fine," said Moru, to the small former Frost Giant, in the tone of someone who has known a person for twelve hours and has already developed strong opinions about their self-care.
The small former Frost Giant considered this.
"I did not require sustenance or sleep for nine thousand years," it said.
"And how did that work out for you," said Moru.
A pause.
"I was frozen off a road by a janitor," it said.
"Exactly," said Moru.
Han-Ho made tofu and egg over rice with the green onion cut into it and a sauce from a packet he found in the back of the cabinet that was technically expired but smelled fine so he used it anyway because he was twenty six years old and living in a basement apartment in Mapo-gu and some standards had to be negotiated with reality.
He put it on the low table and sat on the floor and opened his laptop.
The laptop began loading.
He ate.
Moru watched him eat with the focused attention of something that has decided that monitoring Han-Ho's nutritional intake is now part of its responsibilities.
"You should eat more vegetables," said Moru.
"There's green onion."
"That is one vegetable."
"It's a vegetable."
"Master—"
"It's a vegetable Moru."
"I once commanded armies across nine dimensions," said Moru, "and I am telling you that one green onion does not constitute adequate vegetable consumption."
"What do you know about vegetable consumption."
"I know what I have observed in the last twelve hours and I have concerns."
The small former Frost Giant was watching this exchange with great interest from near the window.
"What are vegetables," it said.
"Plant matter," said Moru. "Humans consume them for nutritional benefit. Master consumes them insufficiently."
"I consume them fine," said Han-Ho.
"The refrigerator contains three eggs, half a block of tofu, an elderly green onion, and a bottle of water that has been in there long enough to have developed a personality."
"The water is fine."
"Master."
"The water is fine Moru."
The laptop finished loading.
Netflix appeared.
Han-Ho pointed the screen toward the couch with the practiced angle of a man who has spent four years watching Netflix from the floor and has optimized the geometry.
"What is that," said the small former Frost Giant, staring at the laptop with the cautious attention it had previously reserved for new dimensional phenomena.
"Netflix," said Han-Ho.
"What does it do."
"Shows things."
"What kinds of things."
"Stories. People talking. Sometimes things exploding."
The small former Frost Giant was quiet for a moment.
"I have seen things explode," it said. "I caused several explosions. Of mountains. They were quite large."
"These are smaller explosions."
"How small."
"Building sized usually."
"That is very small."
"It's television."
The small former Frost Giant looked at the laptop with the expression of something recalibrating its expectations significantly downward and deciding to be diplomatic about it.
"I will observe," it said.
"Great," said Han-Ho.
He pressed play.
Three blocks away, Jang Min-Seo was standing on a pavement outside a GS25 that was emphatically not the GS25 he was looking for, holding his phone, bleeding slightly from a wound he had not yet had treated because he had been too busy trying to find someone named Han-Ho.
"There are," said Ara, on the phone, "forty seven registered Mana-Janitors in Seoul named Han-Ho or some variation of Han-Ho."
"Narrow it down."
"I'm trying. Rank F?"
"Obviously rank F."
"That's still thirty two."
Min-Seo pressed his hand against his side. Looked at the GS25 he was standing outside of. There was a clerk visible through the window, on her phone, completely unbothered by the existence of S-Rank Hunters bleeding on her pavement.
He went inside.
"Excuse me," he said.
The clerk looked up.
"Ten thousand won minimum purchase," she said.
"I'm looking for someone. Young man. Blue janitor uniform. Came in here earlier today with two small—"
The clerk's expression did not change.
"Ten thousand won minimum purchase," she said again.
Min-Seo stared at her.
She stared back with the serene patience of someone who has been working the morning shift for six years and has developed an immunity to urgency.
He grabbed the nearest thing on the counter. A lemon flavored drink. Put it on the counter.
"The man in the janitor uniform," he said. "Did he come in here today."
The clerk scanned the drink.
"Twice," she said.
"Twice."
"Morning and evening. He's a regular."
Min-Seo felt something in his chest that might have been hope if he hadn't been so tired and so cold and so recently almost frozen by a nine thousand year old glacial entity.
"Do you know where he lives," he said.
"No."
"Do you know his last name."
"No."
"Do you know anything about him."
The clerk considered this with the thoroughness of someone taking the question seriously.
"He always pays exactly ten thousand won," she said. "He gets the tuna mayo triangle kimbap. He told me once the lemon drink doesn't deserve his customers." She looked at the lemon drink Min-Seo had just purchased. "He was right about that."
Min-Seo looked at the lemon drink.
Looked back at the clerk.
"That's all you know."
"He has good taste in chips," she said. "Honey butter. He introduced the small dark one to them this morning. And the other small dark one this evening."
"The small dark ones," said Min-Seo slowly.
"The floating ones. With the red eyes."
"Right."
"I don't ask," said the clerk. "It's easier."
"Right," said Min-Seo. He picked up the lemon drink. Looked at it. Put it back down. "Keep it," he said.
"I will," said the clerk, and went back to her phone.
Min-Seo walked back outside into the night air of Gangnam which still smelled faintly of ice and ancient power and the specific confusion of a city that had very nearly become a glacier and was still processing it.
He called Ara.
"Anything," he said.
"I found someone," said Ara. "Kang Han-Ho. Registered Mana-Janitor. Rank F. Registered address in Mapo-gu."
"Mapo-gu."
"Basement apartment."
Min-Seo stood on the pavement for a moment.
He had Re-Awakened twice.
He had fought things that defied classification.
He had forty million views.
He was standing outside a GS25 in Gangnam holding a phone and bleeding from a wound that he really should have gotten treated an hour ago, trying to track down an F-Rank Mana-Janitor who had cleaned a Frost Giant off a Seoul road and then taken it home.
"Send me the address," he said.
"Min-Seo you need medical attention—"
"Send me the address Ara."
A pause.
"You're going there tonight aren't you."
"Send me the address."
"It's nine PM."
"Ara."
"He's a janitor Min-Seo he's probably asleep—"
"SEND ME THE ADDRESS ARA."
She sent him the address.
Min-Seo looked at it for a moment.
Then he started walking.
At the Hunter Registry, the building was mostly dark.
Mostly.
One light was still on. Third floor. End of the corridor. The office of Ms. Yoon, Senior Registry Analyst, who had been at the Registry for fifteen years and had the specific posture of someone who has spent fifteen years looking at things on a screen that should not exist and has developed a coping mechanism of very slow coffee consumption.
She was looking at a file.
The file had started four years ago as a single complaint form — a status window error report from a Rank F Mana-Janitor who had noted that his skill's star rating appeared to be malfunctioning and could someone please look into it.
Nobody had looked into it.
Ms. Yoon had looked into it.
She had been looking into it for four years.
The file now contained:
The original complaint form Forty seven incident reports from various Gates across Seoul where post-cleanup analysis had found no trace of mana residue whatsoever — a statistical impossibility for an F-Rank Janitor Twelve reports of monster behavior anomalies in areas where the Mana-Janitor had worked — specifically, monsters fleeing designated zones before Hunters arrived, for reasons that could not be explained One report from a B-Rank Hunter who had worked briefly alongside the subject and noted that his presence made her feel "like standing next to something very clean in a way that's hard to describe" One status window screenshot that the Registry system had produced automatically and then immediately flagged as corrupted because it contained more stars than the display field was designed to show followed by an error message that the system had never generated before and could not explain
And now, tonight, she had added:
One incident report from the Gangnam Frost Giant Incident stating that the threat had been neutralized by an F-Rank Mana-Janitor named Han-Ho using a method that one S-Rank and one A-Rank adjacent witnesses could not describe coherently One note that the subject had left the scene before his registration number could be obtained One note that both responding Hunters had requested leave
Ms. Yoon looked at the file.
The file looked back at her with the energy of something that knew it was about to become somebody's entire career.
She drank her coffee.
It had gone cold twenty minutes ago.
She drank it anyway.
She opened a new document and began typing a formal request for a Registry Investigation into subject Kang Han-Ho, Rank F, Mana-Janitor, Registration Number 4471-B, on the grounds that his activity profile presented statistical anomalies inconsistent with his registered rank and skill classification.
She titled it: Preliminary Assessment: Something Is Very Wrong And Has Been For Four Years And I Would Like Someone Else To Know About It Now and Take Care of it Please.
She looked at the title.
Changed it to: Preliminary Assessment: Subject 4471-B — Anomalous Activity Report.
That was more professional.
She sent it to her supervisor.
Her supervisor would read it in the morning.
Her supervisor would send it to his supervisor.
His supervisor would send it to the Department of Special Classifications.
The Department of Special Classifications would look at it for approximately thirty seconds before sending it to the Director's office.
The Director would read it.
The Director would call Ms. Yoon personally.
But that was tomorrow's problem.
Tonight Ms. Yoon turned off her light, picked up her bag, and walked out of the Registry building into the night air of Seoul.
She had been right about something for four years and nobody had listened.
She felt the specific tired satisfaction of a person who has finally made it someone else's problem without fully solving it themselves.
It was not a comfortable feeling.
It was better than nothing.
Han-Ho's apartment was quiet except for the laptop.
On screen a man in a suit was explaining something to another man in a suit in a room that was about to explode. The small former Frost Giant was watching this with complete focused attention from its position near the window. Moru was watching from the corner of the couch. Han-Ho had fallen asleep on the floor approximately forty minutes into the episode with his back against the couch and his arms crossed and the expression of a man who had intended to watch one episode and had been defeated by the accumulated exhaustion of a Thursday that had contained significantly more than a Thursday should reasonably contain.
Moru watched him sleep for a moment.
"He does this," Moru said quietly, to the small former Frost Giant.
"Sleeps on the floor?"
"Falls asleep when he intends to stay awake. He does it on the couch sometimes too. And once apparently at his desk, according to a work report I found in his bag that I was not supposed to read but did."
The small former Frost Giant looked at Han-Ho's sleeping face. The expression even in sleep was one of mild professional concern, like someone who is having a dream about a stubborn stain and is working through it methodically.
"He cleaned me," it said. Very quietly.
"Yes."
"Like the road."
"Yes."
"Is that." It paused. Searched for a word it had apparently not needed in nine thousand years of existence. "Is that normal. For him."
"I don't think anything about him is normal," said Moru. "But the cleaning is real. It's just what he does."
The small former Frost Giant was quiet for a moment.
"I was going to destroy this city," it said.
"I know."
"I had frozen seven seas."
"I had unmade seventeen civilizations," said Moru. "We are not so different in that respect."
"And now we are here."
"And now we are here," Moru agreed.
They sat in the quiet apartment in the small pool of laptop light while Han-Ho slept on the floor below them and the city outside went about its Thursday evening business completely unaware that three blocks away an S-Rank Hunter was making his way toward a basement apartment in Mapo-gu with a wound in his side and a look on his face that suggested he was not going to be reasonable about this.
The small former Frost Giant watched the man in the suit on the laptop explain things to the other man in the suit.
"This is television," it said.
"Yes," said Moru.
"It's quite small."
"Yes."
"The explosions are very small."
"Yes."
"And yet." It tilted its head slightly. "I want to know what happens next."
Moru looked at the screen.
"So do I," he said.
They watched in comfortable silence.
On the floor Han-Ho slept with the deep uncomplicated sleep of a man who has cleaned a road, accidentally purified a ten thousand year old demonic entity, handled a Frost Giant incident, acquired a second formerly apocalyptic houseguest, made tofu and egg over rice with one green onion, and pressed play on Netflix all in the same Thursday.
He would deal with whatever came next tomorrow.
He always dealt with whatever came next.
That was the job.
The knock on the door came at nine forty seven PM.
Han-Ho opened his eyes.
Looked at the ceiling.
The knock came again. Three times. Very deliberate. The knock of someone who has been rehearsing it.
Han-Ho sat up. Looked at the laptop. The episode had ended and Netflix was asking if he was still watching with the gentle judgment of a streaming service that knows the answer is no because someone fell asleep.
He looked at Moru.
Moru looked at the door.
He looked at the small former Frost Giant.
The small former Frost Giant looked at the door with the focused attention of something that has dealt with uninvited arrivals before and has opinions about them.
Han-Ho stood up. Walked to the door. Opened it.
Jang Min-Seo stood in the hallway outside his basement apartment looking like someone had taken an S-Rank Hunter and put him through a very difficult afternoon. His jacket was torn. His side had been hastily bandaged with what appeared to be a convenience store first aid kit purchased en route. His hair which was normally very deliberate was not deliberate at all. His expression was the expression of a man who has Re-Awakened twice and has forty million views and has just walked forty minutes to a basement apartment in Mapo-gu and is now standing in front of a door that is shorter than he expected and feeling complicated about all of it.
He looked at Han-Ho.
Han-Ho looked at him.
"You're Han-Ho," said Min-Seo.
"Yes," said Han-Ho.
"Kang Han-Ho. Rank F. Mana-Janitor."
"Yes."
"Registration number 4471-B."
"...Yes."
Min-Seo stared at him for a long moment with the intensity of someone trying to find something in a face that would explain what he had witnessed that afternoon and coming up empty.
Han-Ho was twenty six years old. He was wearing the slightly worn indoor clothes of a man who has been home for two hours. He had a small crease on his cheek from where he had been asleep on the floor. He looked like someone who worked with cleaning products and was mildly surprised to have a visitor.
He did not look like the most terrifying thing Min-Seo had encountered in two Awakenings.
He looked like someone's neighbor.
"I watched you clean a Frost Giant," said Min-Seo.
"He was on my road," said Han-Ho.
"He was FORTY FEET TALL—"
"He was on my road."
Min-Seo opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at Han-Ho with the expression of someone whose carefully prepared questions have just been completely derailed by the answer to the first one.
From inside the apartment, a small voice said:
"Master who is it."
Min-Seo looked past Han-Ho into the apartment.
Moru was on the corner of the couch looking at him with red eyes that still carried the faint echo of ten thousand years of darkness even at the size of a large mango.
The small former Frost Giant was near the window looking at him with the careful assessment of something that has encountered humans before and is deciding how to categorize this one.
On the low table the Netflix screen was asking if Han-Ho was still watching.
Min-Seo looked at all of this for a long moment.
"Is that," he said very carefully, "the Demon King."
"That's Moru," said Han-Ho.
"And the other one."
"That's Kjorvaan. We're working on a shorter name."
"Kjor," said the small former Frost Giant helpfully. "I have been considering Kjor."
"We're considering Kjor," said Han-Ho.
Min-Seo stood in the hallway of a basement apartment in Mapo-gu at nine forty seven PM on a Thursday looking at a purified Demon King and a miniaturized Frost Giant watching Netflix in a studio apartment that smelled like industrial cleaner and tofu and the specific quiet of a person who lives alone and has made peace with it.
He had Re-Awakened twice.
He had fought things that defied classification.
He had forty million views.
"Can I come in," he said.
Han-Ho looked at him.
Looked at the apartment.
Looked at the couch, which had Moru on one corner and no room for a full sized S-Rank Hunter unless someone moved considerably.
Looked at the floor, which he had just cleaned.
"Don't touch anything," said Han-Ho.
"I won't."
"Shoes off at the door."
Min-Seo, S-Rank Hunter, Re-Awakened twice, forty million views, took his shoes off at the door of a basement apartment in Mapo-gu.
He stepped inside.
The door closed behind him.
Kjor looked at him from near the window with ancient eyes that had seen nine thousand years of human civilization from a distance and were now seeing one up close for the first time at a conversational range and finding it considerably smaller than expected in every sense.
"You were behind the vehicle," said Kjor.
"Yes," said Min-Seo.
"You were bleeding."
"Still am a little."
"You called for a Holy Sword."
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Kjor considered this.
"I have been frozen off a road and shrunk to this size and fed honey butter chips and shown television," it said. "I think the Holy Sword would not have helped you."
"I'm starting to understand that," said Min-Seo.
Han-Ho had gone to the kitchen. He came back with a cup of instant coffee which he put on the table in front of the spot on the floor where a person could sit if they were visiting and there was nowhere else.
Min-Seo sat on the floor.
Picked up the coffee.
Looked at Han-Ho who had resumed his position on the floor with his back against the couch as though this were a completely normal Thursday evening situation.
"I have questions," said Min-Seo.
"Okay," said Han-Ho.
"A lot of questions."
"Okay."
"Starting with what you are."
Han-Ho looked at him.
"I'm a Mana-Janitor," he said.
Min-Seo stared at him.
"Rank F," said Han-Ho.
Min-Seo continued staring.
"One skill," said Han-Ho.
From the corner of the couch Moru made a small sound that was technically not a laugh but was definitely in the same family as a laugh.
Min-Seo looked at Moru.
Moru looked back at him with enormous red eyes and said nothing, which was somehow more infuriating than if he had said something.
Min-Seo drank his instant coffee.
It was not good coffee.
He drank it anyway because it was nine forty seven PM on a Thursday and he was sitting on the floor of a basement apartment in Mapo-gu next to a purified Demon King and a miniaturized Frost Giant and an F-Rank Mana-Janitor who had just cleaned a nine thousand year old glacial entity off a Seoul road and seemed primarily concerned about the floor.
On the laptop Netflix had given up asking if anyone was still watching and had gone to the screen saver.
"I Re-Awakened twice," said Min-Seo, to nobody in particular.
"I know," said Moru, very gently.
"Twice."
"I know."
"I destroyed a mountain."
"That is very impressive," said Kjor, with the sincere respect of something that has also destroyed mountains and understands the effort involved.
Min-Seo looked at Kjor.
Kjor looked back at him.
"Thank you," said Min-Seo.
"You are welcome," said Kjor.
They sat in the quiet apartment for a moment, two beings who had both been defeated by the same F-Rank Mana-Janitor in the same Thursday and were finding a certain solidarity in that shared experience.
Han-Ho pressed play on Netflix.
The episode started again from the beginning because he had fallen asleep and Netflix had reset it which was fine. He had not seen the ending anyway.
Nobody objected.
They watched.