The Director of the Hunter Registry had a secretary named Park Sung-Jin.
Park Sung-Jin had been the Director's secretary for eleven years. In that time he had handled gate emergency briefings, dimensional collapse paperwork, the Great Re-Awakening Documentation Crisis of three years ago which had involved seventeen forms and one Hunter who destroyed a mountain and refused to fill any of them out, and one incident involving a B-Rank Hunter and a summoned entity that he was legally not allowed to discuss but which had required three cleaning crews and a structural engineer.
He was not easily rattled.
He was currently rattled.
"He said no?" said the Director.
"He said he has floors to clean today sir."
A pause.
"He has floors to clean."
"Yes sir."
"The Director of the Hunter Registry personally requested a meeting."
"Yes sir."
"And he said he has floors to clean."
"He said he has a schedule sir. And that you had four years."
The Director sat back in his chair. He was a man who had survived seventeen years of government bureaucracy and two Red Gates and he was not accustomed to being told no by anyone, let alone an F-Rank Mana-Janitor with a broken status window and an incident report that had made three of his senior analysts request immediate transfers upon reading.
"Call him again," said the Director.
"I've called four times sir. He doesn't pick up."
"Then go to him."
Park Sung-Jin blinked.
"Sir?"
"Go. To. Him. Find out where he's working today. Take the official Registry vehicle. Show him the credentials. Tell him this is a matter of national—"
"Sir he's a Mana-Janitor. He's cleaning something somewhere in Seoul. I don't know which—"
"Then find out which." The Director picked up Ms. Yoon's file. Looked at it. Put it back down. "And Sung-Jin."
"Sir."
"Take Ms. Yoon with you."
Park Sung-Jin looked at his director.
"Ms. Yoon sir."
"She's been right about this for four years. She deserves to be there."
Park Sung-Jin went to find Ms. Yoon.
Ms. Yoon was already at the elevator with her bag and her coffee and the expression of someone who had been ready for this since last night.
"I heard," she said.
"Of course you did," said Park Sung-Jin.
Han-Ho was cleaning a parking garage in Yeongdeungpo when the official Hunter Registry vehicle pulled up.
It was a very clean parking garage. He had been working since eight AM and it was now ten fifteen and he had done the first two levels completely and was halfway through the third which was the worst because someone had driven through it recently after apparently offroading through a Gate residue site and had left tracks that went in directions that suggested the driver had been having a very unusual morning.
Moru was on his shoulder.
Kjor was on his other shoulder.
Min-Seo was leaning against a pillar on level two watching Han-Ho work with the expression of a man who had intended to have a very serious conversation this morning and had instead spent two hours watching someone clean a parking garage and was quietly reconsidering every decision that had led him here.
The Registry vehicle parked.
Two people got out.
One was a man in a very pressed suit carrying a folder and the expression of someone who had drawn the short straw this morning and knew it.
The other was a woman in a slightly less pressed suit carrying a very thick file and a coffee and the expression of someone who had been waiting for this moment for four years and was trying very hard not to show how much she had been waiting for it.
They looked around the parking garage.
They found Han-Ho on level three crouching next to a particularly aggressive mana stain and addressing it with the focused professional attention of a man who has seen worse and is mildly annoyed but not defeated.
They walked over.
"Kang Han-Ho," said Park Sung-Jin, with the official gravity of someone delivering a summons.
"Busy," said Han-Ho.
"Sir this is an official—"
"I can see you're official. There's a stain. Give me a minute."
Park Sung-Jin stood in an official capacity in a parking garage in Yeongdeungpo while an F-Rank Mana-Janitor finished addressing a mana stain with the calm focus of a professional for whom official Registry secretaries were a lower priority than concrete contamination.
He looked at Ms. Yoon.
Ms. Yoon was looking at Han-Ho with the expression of someone who has been studying a subject for four years through documents and incident reports and is now seeing them in person for the first time and finding that the reality is simultaneously exactly what they expected and nothing like they expected.
Han-Ho stood up. Examined the spot. Crouched again for one final detail. Stood up again.
Nodded.
Turned around.
"Okay," he said.
Park Sung-Jin straightened. This was his moment. He had rehearsed this in the car.
"Mr. Kang Han-Ho. I am Park Sung-Jin, Executive Secretary to Director Choi Byung-Soo of the Hunter Registry. The Director has requested your presence at Registry headquarters at your earliest—"
"I filed a complaint four years ago," said Han-Ho.
Park Sung-Jin stopped.
"Sir—"
"About my status window. I wrote it carefully. I included my registration number." Han-Ho looked at him with the patient expression of a man who has had this particular feeling for four years and is finally getting to express it to someone official. "Nobody responded."
"Sir the Registry receives thousands of—"
"I am aware of how many complaints the Registry receives. I am one of them. Registration number 4471-B. I can give you the date if you need it."
"Sir—"
"February fourteenth. Four years ago. I remember because it was Valentine's Day and I thought the irony was appropriate."
Park Sung-Jin looked at his folder. Looked at Han-Ho. Looked at his folder again.
Ms. Yoon stepped forward.
"Mr. Kang," she said. "My name is Ms. Yoon. I'm a Senior Registry Analyst. I found your complaint two weeks after you filed it."
Han-Ho looked at her.
"It took two weeks to find."
"The F-Rank complaint queue is—" She stopped. Considered her words. "It is not well monitored."
"I see."
"I want you to know that I did read it. And I have been tracking your case for four years." She held up the file. It was very thick. "This is your file."
Han-Ho looked at the file.
The file was, objectively, enormous for a person whose entire registered professional history consisted of cleaning things.
"That's my file," he said.
"Yes."
"That's very large for someone whose skill is Stain Removal."
"Yes it is."
"Why is it that large."
Ms. Yoon opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at the file. Looked at Han-Ho. Looked at Moru on his shoulder, who was watching this exchange with the bright interested eyes of something that finds bureaucratic confrontations genuinely entertaining.
"Mr. Kang," she said carefully. "Are you aware that in the last ten years you have cleaned approximately four thousand three hundred Gate residue sites across Seoul?"
"That's my job."
"Yes. And are you aware that in one hundred percent of those sites the Registry's post-cleanup monitoring equipment registered zero mana residue. Not low residue. Zero."
"I clean thoroughly."
"The equipment is calibrated for S-Rank Hunters Mr. Kang. S-Rank Hunters leave residue. You do not."
Han-Ho considered this.
"I'm very thorough," he said.
From his shoulder Moru made the small sound again that was technically not a laugh.
Min-Seo, still leaning against the pillar on level two, said nothing but his expression said several things simultaneously.
Ms. Yoon pressed on with the focused energy of someone who has been saving this conversation for four years.
"Additionally," she said, "in the last three years there have been forty seven documented cases of monsters fleeing Gate sites before Hunter response teams arrived. In all forty seven cases you had been working within a three block radius in the preceding twenty four hours."
"Monsters leave for lots of reasons."
"They leave because they sense something Mr. Kang. Our analysts cannot identify what that something is because you have no detectable mana signature above F-Rank. But something is making Class B and C monsters evacuate entire zones before our teams get there."
"Convenient for the teams," said Han-Ho.
"Mr. Kang—"
"Less cleanup for me too actually. Monster residue is very difficult when it's fresh."
Ms. Yoon looked at him.
Han-Ho looked back at her with the sincere untroubled expression of a man discussing professional logistics.
Kjor leaned toward Moru very slightly.
"Does he know," Kjor whispered, at a volume that was technically a whisper but carried easily in the concrete acoustics of a parking garage.
"No," Moru whispered back, at the same volume.
"Should we tell him."
"I have tried. Several times. He says he's a Mana-Janitor."
"He IS a Mana-Janitor."
"I know."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"I know."
Park Sung-Jin, who had been standing slightly to the side holding his folder with the expression of a man who has realized this is going to take considerably longer than planned and is adjusting his schedule internally, looked at the two small formerly apocalyptic entities having a whispered conversation on an F-Rank Janitor's shoulders.
He looked at Ms. Yoon.
Ms. Yoon was looking at her file.
He looked at Min-Seo.
Min-Seo looked back at him with the expression of a fellow traveler who had also been trying to process this situation for approximately fourteen hours and had made limited progress.
"Are those," said Park Sung-Jin, very quietly, to Min-Seo.
"Yes," said Min-Seo.
"Both of them."
"Yes."
"On his shoulders."
"They go everywhere with him apparently."
"The Demon King is on his left shoulder."
"Yes."
"And the Frost Giant from yesterday's incident is on his right shoulder."
"We're calling him Kjor now."
Park Sung-Jin looked at Kjor.
Kjor looked back at Park Sung-Jin with nine thousand years of ancient history behind eyes the size of large marbles.
"Hello," said Kjor.
"Hello," said Park Sung-Jin, on instinct.
"Are you also trying to talk to Master about something important that he is not fully engaging with."
"...Yes."
"We have been doing that since yesterday," said Kjor sympathetically. "It is a process."
Park Sung-Jin added this exchange to the growing list of things he was going to need time to process privately.
Ms. Yoon meanwhile had rallied.
"Mr. Kang," she said, with the focused energy of someone playing their final card. "Yesterday evening you neutralized a Class A Frost Giant threat using your registered skill. Two S-Rank adjacent witnesses confirmed. The Giant is no longer giant. The Director of the Hunter Registry wants to speak with you because what you did yesterday is not possible for an F-Rank Hunter and we need to understand what you are."
Han-Ho looked at her.
She looked back.
It was a very direct look. The look of someone who has been right about something for four years and is owed a direct answer.
Han-Ho was quiet for a moment.
"He was on my road," he said.
Ms. Yoon closed her eyes.
Opened them.
"Mr. Kang."
"The road was clean. He was dripping. I asked him to move. He didn't move." Han-Ho picked up his work bag. "So I cleaned him."
"That's not—"
"Like I said at the time. It wasn't about the giant. It was about the road."
Ms. Yoon looked at her file.
The file contained four years of anomalous data, forty seven monster evacuation incidents, one corrupted status window report, one Frost Giant incident, and approximately zero useful information about what Kang Han-Ho actually was or understood himself to be.
She added this conversation to the file mentally.
It did not help.
"Will you at least come to the Registry," she said. "Today. After your shift. The Director will wait."
Han-Ho considered this.
"He had four years," he said.
"Mr. Kang—"
"He can wait until five."
Ms. Yoon looked at him.
"Five PM," she said.
"I finish at four thirty. I need to change."
"Five PM," she said. "The Director will be there."
"And someone should respond to that complaint," said Han-Ho. "Officially. It has been four years. There should be a response on record."
Ms. Yoon opened her file. Found a blank form. Filled it in on the spot standing in a parking garage in Yeongdeungpo. Signed it. Dated it. Handed it to Han-Ho.
It said: Re: Complaint filed 14 February, four years prior. Status window anomaly acknowledged. Under investigation. Apologies for delayed response.
Han-Ho looked at it.
Folded it.
Put it in his jacket pocket.
"Five PM," he said, and turned back to the parking garage because level three was only half done and he had a schedule.
Ms. Yoon stood in the parking garage for a moment.
Park Sung-Jin stood next to her.
They watched Han-Ho resume cleaning level three with the focused professional attention of a man for whom the Hunter Registry and its Director and its four years of unanswered complaints and its file that was somehow enormous despite everything — were all secondary to the concrete in front of him.
"Ms. Yoon," said Park Sung-Jin.
"Yes."
"Is he."
"Yes."
"But he's."
"I know."
"He just went back to cleaning."
"I know Sung-Jin."
They stood in silence for a moment.
From Han-Ho's shoulders Moru and Kjor watched them with twin expressions of ancient beings who have accepted their situation completely and are mildly entertained by everyone else catching up.
"Honey butter chips," said Kjor suddenly, to Moru.
"What about them."
"Do you think they have them at the Registry."
"I doubt it."
"Should we bring some."
"That is an excellent idea."
"Master," said Kjor.
"I heard you," said Han-Ho, without turning around. "One bag."
"Two bags," said Kjor. "It is a formal meeting."
A pause.
"Two bags," said Han-Ho.
Ms. Yoon added this to the file.
She didn't know why.
It felt relevant.