The emergency alert arrived at four thirty seven PM on a Friday.
Han-Ho was cleaning a storm drain in Yeongdeungpo.
He looked at his phone.
Read the alert.
Read it again.
Put his phone in his pocket.
Looked at the storm drain.
The storm drain was eighty percent done.
He finished it.
This took four minutes.
Min-Seo, who had been standing nearby with his phone showing the same alert and the specific expression of someone whose Hunter instincts were generating responses he had never experienced before, watched Han-Ho finish the storm drain in real time.
"Han-Ho," said Min-Seo.
"Done," said Han-Ho, standing up.
"The alert—"
"I read it."
"All of it."
"Yes."
"The part that says RECOMMEND FULL NATIONAL RESPONSE."
"Yes."
"And you finished the storm drain."
"It was eighty percent done." Han-Ho picked up his bag. "Leaving something eighty percent done is worse than not starting."
Min-Seo stared at him.
Han-Ho was already walking toward the alert coordinates.
Min-Seo looked at his phone. Looked at Han-Ho's retreating figure. Looked at his phone again.
He had six messages from other S-Ranks already.
He put his phone in his pocket and followed because that was apparently what he did now and he had stopped questioning it around day four.
Internal Monologue Of Something Very OldRecorded Here Because Nothing Else Was Going To And Someone Should
I have no name.
Names are for things that other things have named. Nothing has ever survived an encounter with me long enough to do the paperwork. This has historically been fine. I did not require paperwork.
I am old.
Not nine thousand years old. Not ten thousand years old.
Old in the way that makes nine thousand years sound like a Tuesday afternoon nap.
I predate the concept of Tuesday.
I predate the concept of afternoons.
I predate the concept of naps.
I was here before this world had a surface to stand on and I will be here long after it has forgotten it ever did and I have been asleep under the rock and the earth and the accumulated weight of time for longer than this world has had anything interesting happening on it.
Something woke me up.
Not a Gate. Not a weapon. Not a catastrophic event or a dimensional collision or any of the things that have occasionally disturbed my sleep over the millennia.
Something clean.
Something moving through the city above me with a quiet relentless thoroughness that reached down through the bedrock and touched something in my sleeping awareness and said: there is something interesting up here.
I woke up.
I have not been awake in a very long time.
The world is different.
There are many small structures. Many small creatures in metal boxes. Many lights. Considerable noise.
I came up through the financial district because that was directly above me and I did not plan this in advance.
I have been awake for four minutes.
In those four minutes:
Several hundred small creatures fled which was satisfying in the traditional way.
Several buildings expressed structural opinions about my proximity.
A river was briefly redirected which I did not intend.
Six beings in colored armor arrived and began doing things.
I am not sure what the things are supposed to accomplish.
The beings appear to believe the things are working.
The things are not working.
The things are, precisely, the equivalent of a light drizzle on a mountain range. Noted. Filed. Irrelevant. Continuing.
I came up because of the clean thing.
I am looking for it.
The six colored armor beings are significant by conventional measurement. The one with shadow energy in particular. S-Rank adjacent. Genuinely substantial.
I am not here for them.
I am here for the clean thing.
The thing that reached through the bedrock.
I cannot find it.
I can feel it.
It is—
There.
There is a man walking toward me through the evacuation zone.
He is not running.
He is not in colored armor.
He is wearing a blue uniform and carrying a bag and his hands are in his pockets and he is looking at the ground with the expression of someone who has been working since seven AM and has developed a complicated personal relationship with Fridays.
He has no aura.
No mana signature above the ambient background noise of the city.
He is—
He is clean.
Not clean the way a surface is clean after washing.
Clean the way the concept of clean is clean.
Clean the way that makes everything else look like it has been carrying something it didn't know it was carrying.
I have been awake for six minutes.
I have existed since before this world cooled.
I have never encountered anything clean the way he is clean.
He looked up.
He is looking at me.
He is looking at me the way someone looks at something that is inconveniently in the way.
I am the size of a significant geographical feature.
He looks mildly annoyed.
He looks specifically annoyed in the way of someone who has found something blocking access to a surface they were planning to assess.
Something is wrong.
I came up from under the earth for the first time in longer than this world has had a surface and this man is looking at me like I am blocking a pavement section he needed to check.
He just said something.
He said: "You're blocking the road."
I AM blocking the road.
I am blocking all the roads.
I am also blocking the river and four buildings and the financial district skyline and the general concept of accessible infrastructure in this part of the city.
He is looking at the road.
At the section directly under me.
He looks personally affected by the condition of this road.
I have existed since before roads were a concept.
He is looking at my feet.
WHY IS HE LOOKING AT MY FEET.
WHAT IS HAPPENING.
I AM THE OLDEST THING IN THIS WORLD.
I CAME UP THROUGH THE BEDROCK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN—
He's crouching down.
He is crouching down and looking at the ground next to my foot.
He just said: "Is that subsurface fracturing. How deep does that go."
He is asking me about the subsurface fracturing.
I caused the subsurface fracturing.
He appears to be professionally concerned about the subsurface fracturing.
I have been awake for eight minutes.
I do not know what is happening.
I know what civilizations crumbling feels like.
I know what geological epochs feel like.
I do not know what this feels like.
He stood up.
He is looking at me.
Not with fear.
Not with awe.
Not with the specific expression of beings who understand they are about to cease to exist.
With the expression of a man who has assessed a job and found it larger than ideal but not unmanageable.
He just said something else.
He said: "This is going to take two weeks minimum."
He said it the way someone says it about a difficult cleaning project.
I am not a cleaning project.
I AM—
He is taking out a notebook.
WHY IS HE TAKING OUT A NOTEBOOK.
The situation in Yeouido was by any reasonable metric the most significant event in South Korean history since The Gate appeared twenty years ago.
Six S-Rank Hunters had arrived in the first four minutes.
S-Rank Hunter Yoo Chae-Won had activated her full combat capability. The kind of capability that had residuals clauses in brand contracts. She was generating enough energy to level a substantial building and aiming it at the thing with the focused precision of someone who has been doing this for a career and is very good at it.
The thing had not looked at her.
It had looked slightly in her direction the way you look slightly in the direction of a sound you are not sure you heard.
That was all.
S-Rank Hunter Baek Sung-Il had hit it with everything.
Full output. Re-Awakened once. Twenty years of refined combat capability concentrated into a single strike that had previously ended things that should not have been ended.
The thing had made a sound.
Not a pain sound.
The sound you make when you are doing something and a small noise happens nearby and you register it for half a second before returning to what you were doing.
Baek Sung-Il was currently standing very still processing the fact that his full output had registered as a small nearby noise.
S-Rank Hunter Jin Tae-Yang had destroyed four buildings in Busan simultaneously on the worst day of his career.
He was looking at the thing with the specific expression of a man whose best credential has just become contextually irrelevant.
S-Rank Hunter Oh Kyung-Soo, oldest active S-Rank, fifty three, had seen many things in thirty years. He was currently revising his definition of many upward with the focused attention of a man doing important internal work.
S-Rank Hunter Lee Soo-Bin, twenty six, youngest S-Rank in Registry history, was behind a structural column. His Hunter instincts, which had never failed him, had looked at the thing and generated a response that had two components: first component, significant combat data; second component, a very clear and unprecedented recommendation which was simply: no.
S-Rank Hunter Song Mi-Rae had made her shadow energy invisible in the hope that invisibility would help.
It had not helped.
Min-Seo arrived at the perimeter and activated everything.
The full power of an S-Rank Hunter who had Re-Awakened twice and destroyed a mountain and had forty million views and had been sleeping on a janitor's couch for eight days.
The thing looked at him.
Actually looked.
Not the peripheral glance it had given the others.
A real look. The full attention of something that has existed since before attention was a concept and is now directing all of it at one point.
Min-Seo felt this in places he did not know he had.
He held his stance.
Barely.
"Status," said Min-Seo, to Yoo Chae-Won.
"Nothing works," said Yoo Chae-Won.
"Define nothing."
"I hit it with everything. Baek hit it with everything. It looked at Baek the way I look at my notifications when I don't want to deal with them."
"Song Mi-Rae went invisible."
"Still visible to it apparently."
"Oh Kyung-Soo."
"He's doing internal processing. He'll be back."
"Jin Tae-Yang."
"He destroyed four buildings in Busan."
"I know."
"He keeps mentioning it."
"It's a coping mechanism."
"Lee Soo-Bin."
"Behind the column."
"Still."
"Still."
Min-Seo looked at the thing.
Looked at Han-Ho walking calmly through the evacuation zone toward it with his hands in his pockets and Moru and Kjor on his shoulders and his work bag over one arm.
"We wait," said Min-Seo.
"For what," said Yoo Chae-Won.
Min-Seo pointed.
Yoo Chae-Won looked at Han-Ho.
"Is that," she said.
"Yes."
"He's walking toward it."
"Yes."
"With his hands in his pockets."
"Yes."
"And the small ones."
"He always has the small ones."
"Min-Seo it shrugged off Baek's full output—"
"I know."
"BAEK'S FULL OUTPUT—"
"I know Chae-Won."
"And he's just WALKING—"
"He finished a storm drain first," said Min-Seo.
Yoo Chae-Won stared at him.
"He read the alert," said Min-Seo. "He finished the storm drain. Then he walked here."
"He finished the—"
"It was eighty percent done. He said leaving something eighty percent done is worse than not starting."
Yoo Chae-Won looked at Han-Ho.
Looked at the thing.
Looked back at Han-Ho.
"I left mood boards," she said quietly. "On Friday. I have left mood boards twice now for this man."
Han-Ho stopped twenty meters from the thing.
Looked up.
Way up.
Past the point where up was a useful direction.
The thing looked down at him.
With the full attention it had given Min-Seo. But different. More focused. The attention of something that has found what it was looking for.
The six S-Rank Hunters on the perimeter held their breath collectively.
Han-Ho crouched down.
Examined the ground next to the thing's presence.
Pressed his hand against the pavement.
His skill activated. Soft warm golden glow. Stain Removal reading the damage the way a doctor reads a patient. Methodically. Thoroughly.
He stood up.
Took out his notebook.
Started writing.
The thing watched him write.
From Han-Ho's shoulder Moru was very still. Not the stillness of someone waiting. The stillness of someone who has felt something that has no category in ten thousand years of experience and is processing it in real time.
Kjor was also still.
River's eyes were very wide.
"You came up," said Han-Ho, without looking up from his notebook. "From under the earth."
The thing was still.
"The subsurface fracturing goes deep," said Han-Ho, still writing. "Mana vein damage based on the signature. That's going to be the difficult part of the cleanup." He made a note. "Was it a mana vein you came through or did you fracture through standard bedrock."
The thing made a sound.
Han-Ho listened.
Made another note.
"Mana vein," he said. "Right. That's three weeks minimum then. Possibly four." He looked up for the first time. Looked at the thing directly. "I'm going to need the Director to approve Class A subsurface equipment. He's responsive now. That shouldn't be a problem."
The thing looked at him.
Han-Ho looked back.
With the patient expression of a man who has assessed a job and found it significant but not impossible.
The thing made a different sound.
Slower. More deliberate. The sound of something very old trying to communicate with something that can hear it.
Han-Ho listened carefully.
"You came up because of something," said Han-Ho.
The thing was still.
"Something woke you up," said Han-Ho. "You came up to find it."
Still.
"It was me," said Han-Ho.
The thing looked at him with the full weight of something that has existed since before looking was a concept.
Han-Ho looked back with the steady unremarkable patience of a man who has been looked at by a Demon King and a Frost Giant and a Director of the Hunter Registry and a contamination entity and an entire conference room of S-Rank Hunters and who has found that being looked at does not change what needs doing.
"I've been cleaning the city," said Han-Ho. "For ten years. Gate residue. Mana stains. Storm drains. Subsurface contamination. I'm thorough." He looked at his notebook. "Apparently thorough enough to reach through the bedrock."
The thing made no sound.
But something in its vast dark presence shifted.
The way a room shifts when the thing that has been filling it without being seen is suddenly visible.
Han-Ho closed his notebook.
Put it in his bag.
Looked up at the thing.
"The road under you is going to be a significant project," he said. "The river contamination downstream is going to need addressing. The subsurface fractures are going to be the main work." He paused. "There's a more practical location for the cleanup. The river bank west of Yeouido. Open space. Less infrastructure. Easier access for the subsurface work."
The thing was very still.
Han-Ho waited.
He was good at waiting.
He had waited for four years for a complaint response.
He could wait for something that had been asleep since before the concept of waiting existed.
The thing made a sound.
Low. Slow. The sound of something very large beginning to make a decision.
Han-Ho nodded.
"The river bank," he said. "West of Yeouido. I'll walk with you."
He put his hands in his pockets.
Started walking west.
On the perimeter Yoo Chae-Won grabbed Min-Seo's arm.
"Min-Seo," she said.
"Yes."
"Is it."
"Yes."
"Is it actually."
"Yes."
"Is the oldest entity in the world actually moving toward the river bank because an F-Rank Janitor said the cleanup logistics were better from there."
Min-Seo watched the thing begin to move.
Slowly. Enormously. With the particular gravity of something that has not moved in a very long time and is relearning the concept.
Moving west.
Because Han-Ho was walking west.
"Yes," said Min-Seo.
"I LEFT MOOD BOARDS," said Yoo Chae-Won.