The car was silent for a moment, save for the steady clack clack of Han Soo-yeon's fingers tapping the steering wheel.
She glanced sideways at the boy in the passenger seat—barefoot, wearing a hoodie she kept in the back seat for emergencies, hunched forward slightly as if the seatbelt was trying to strangle him.
"So..." she finally said, voice calm but loaded,
"Where do you live, Han Joon-seok?"
He blinked. "...Earth?"
"Okay. More specific?"
He looked out the window and pointed at a passing convenience store. "That building looks friendly."
"Right. Homeless. Got it." She sighed. "Let's backtrack."
Her reporter instincts kicked in.
"You were inside the Tower, right? The first floor? The one that no one's ever cleared in fifty years?"
He hesitated.
She leaned forward. "Did you see it? The monster?"
More silence.
"What happened in there? Did someone clear it before you got out? Was it one of the big guilds?"
Joon-seok stared at her, the faintest crease in his brow.
"You ask many questions. Is that a hunter trait?"
"No. That's a journalist trait."
He nodded, as if she'd just taught him something important.
But in his mind he wasn't just confused.
He was remembering.
....
Earlier — Inside the boss room.
He had no name. He never needed one.
For millennia, he had been the Devourer. The Maw. The Thing Beneath the Floor.
He ate what came.
Hunters,monsters,anything.
Some begged. Some screamed. Some fought.
All ended the same.
After all they attacked first and he simply answer them by defending himself.
But this one... this boy... did something strange.
"Please," he whispered.
"Protect her. My mom. She'll be alone..."
And then he held out... a picture.
Not a weapon. Not a skill scroll.
A blurry digital image of an exhausted woman with kindness in her eyes.
No one had ever asked him for anything like that.
What is... a mother?
He didn't know. He wanted to.
Curiosity—the only hunger he could never satisfy.
So instead of eating the boy whole, he copied him.
He broke the body down to its atoms, read the memories etched in bone, and rebuilt it—a perfect replica.
He even replicated emotion... mostly.
But clothes?
That was harder.
What are these flimsy skin-fabrics humans wrap around themselves?
He hadn't figured that out yet.
Then the System Tried to Stop Him
[You are bound to Floor One]
"No."
[Go back to your position]
"Ugh annoying."
And so, he ripped it apart—string by string, protocol by protocol.
[ERROR]
The System tried to hold the floor together.
But the moment he stepped outside the parameters.
The entire floor destabilized. Collapsed. Sank.
Before it crumbled, he casually absorbed every legendary weapon and high-tier material scattered through the floor's vault. Just in case they were useful in... human economics.
Then he walked out.
.....
Now — Back in the Car
"I... can't say much," he told Soo-yeon finally.
She narrowed her eyes. "Can't or won't?"
"The Serpent Guild... stole my clothes. Then... they died."
Her jaw dropped. "What does that even mean?"
"They said I was bait. My friend died protecting me." His tone was flat, not emotional—just stating facts. Like someone reading a grocery list.
That part wasn't a lie.
Something in Soo-yeon's expression shifted. She had heard rumors about Serpent Guild—small-time scum known for sketchy recruitment drives and using F-rankers as cannon fodder. But to hear it this bluntly?
"So you're telling me you're the only survivor from that raid, you walked out of the Tower, naked, and no one even saw the boss?" she asked, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Yes," he said. "Also... they took my shoes."
"Oh, you poor thing," she muttered sarcastically.
He suddenly pulled out the battered phone he'd kept in his hoodie pocket. It beeped as he unlocked it—slow, deliberate movements. Not clumsy, but... cautious. Like someone who had just learned what thumbs were.
"I used the boy's... memory," he mumbled. "His phone has location."
He handed it to her, screen already pulled up to a saved address.
"Wait. So you're using his GPS to find your own house?" she asked.
He blinked at her. "Is that wrong?"
"No, it's just—wow. Okay. That's new."
They drove in silence for a few minutes until her car rolled up in front of an old neighborhood on the outskirts of the city—cracked sidewalks, laundry lines, rusting streetlights. They stopped in front of a tiny brick house with an old blue mailbox that looked like it was built before the internet existed.
The boy stared out the window.
"This is the place."
She parked. "You're sure? Doesn't look like anyone's home."
He reached for the door.
"I'll go alone."
But as he opened it, Soo-yeon grabbed his arm. "Hey, hey—no way. You don't get to just vanish. I brought you here, and I need your statement. If what you're saying about Serpent Guild is true, I can blow that story open wide."
He blinked. "I don't care."
"What?!"
"I care about her."
And just like that, he slipped out of her grip.
Only... he didn't so much "pull away" as he moved, and her whole upper body went with him.
"Agh—!" she yelped, stumbling forward, still holding his sleeve.
"What are you, made of steel?!"
He turned back slightly. "Sorry. Didn't mean to drag you."
She looked at him wide-eyed. "You're F-rank. You shouldn't even be able to pull open a tough jar."
He gave a slow blink. "I don't know what that means."
Before she could say another word—
"Joon-seok?!"
They both turned.
Standing in front of the house was a woman with tired eyes and soft, shaking hands. A plastic grocery bag fell from her grip, fruit and tofu scattering across the pavement.
She ran forward and threw her arms around him.
"Joon-seok, you... you came home..."
His body stiffened.
The hug was warm. Tight. Gentle.
His eyes widened.
He had eaten gods. Worlds. Suns.
But this?
This was new.
The only word that escaped his mouth was:
"...Warm."