Kim Namhyeon’s life was a comfortable hell.
Magic aptitude evaluation: D-rank. Though he was a prospective hunter in his fourth year at the Hunter Academy, things like “drive” or “goals” did not exist in his daily life. Aside from breathing, there was virtually nothing he could do of his own volition.
Every time he tried to attempt something, Lee Jia—Korea’s top S-rank hunter and his childhood friend—would step in and solve everything for him. Assignments, practical training, even trivial interpersonal relationships or choosing what to eat for lunch were all under her control.
The beginning of this warped relationship went back to the past. The one who had saved young Jia, who trembled every night under the horrific domestic violence of her trash-like parents, was Namhyeon. Namhyeon had wrapped Jia in his arms and taken the beatings in her place, called the police while covered in blood, and finally dragged her out of that hellish house.
But the price of that salvation returned in the name of twisted madness and obsession. After awakening and obtaining overwhelming martial power, Jia began to bind every part of Namhyeon’s life under the pretext of repaying the debt she owed him.
“Hyeon, you don’t have to do anything. I’ll take care of everything dangerous. You just need to stay by my side and rest comfortably. I’ll protect you from everything. I won’t let even a single speck of dust in this world touch you.”
Jia thoroughly controlled Namhyeon’s world. Those who approached him were excluded through secretive and violent means, and his every move could not escape her surveillance network. Beneath the vast skirt of her overprotection, Namhyeon was nothing more than a doll that merely breathed and floated along. His body may have been comfortable, but psychologically, he had to endure the terrible suffocation of being slowly strangled day after day.
His body was certainly at ease, and yet living felt like hell every single day, because he had no will of his own.
Wondering whether he had to keep living like this, Namhyeon simply went on living.
Then one day.
Taking advantage of the moment when Jia’s surveillance loosened ever so slightly, Namhyeon was walking the night streets in a daze when he turned a corner and failed to avoid a large truck barreling toward him.
Since he was a hunter, he could have dodged it if he had only come to his senses, but he simply had no will to avoid it. He just thought blankly, Ah, it’s coming, and was struck by the truck as he stood there.
Baaang—!!
The sound of every bone in his body shattering. His vision dyed red, and a dreadful pain seemed to tear his entire body apart. But in that fleeting instant before his consciousness snapped, a faint smile spread across Namhyeon’s lips. A strange sense of liberation, as if it was better this way. The relief that he could finally escape that suffocating cage covered the pain. And so, Kim Namhyeon of reality became a vegetative patient and lay upon a hospital bed.
But his mind, his soul, did not die. Following an unknown pull, it crossed over into a world of another dimension.
The place where he opened his eyes was a mysterious otherworld where mana and martial arts coexisted. Should it be called a fortuitous encounter? The one who took in Namhyeon’s wandering soul there was an eccentric traveler of the world, a nameless Daoist.
“Hoho, the shell is as shabby as can be, yet the vessel of the soul filling it is truly peculiar and vast. Because it is empty, it possesses the quality of a blank canvas that can contain anything.”
The Daoist recognized at a glance the unusual qualities contained in Namhyeon’s soul and passed down his secret art, the “Illusion Art.”
The Illusion Art the Daoist taught was not the common sleight of hand or magic trick one might imagine. It was a miraculous power of creation that shaped what one imagined with vast magical power and “turned the fake into reality.” When Namhyeon pictured the form of a wild beast in his mind and breathed magic power into it, a true magical beast with real teeth and claws would leap out of thin air and tear into an enemy’s throat. It was even possible to create hundreds of clones, form a great army, and sweep across the battlefield.
After decades of harsh training, Namhyeon reached the pinnacle of the Illusion Art. Before ascending, the Daoist left him with one final request.
“The power you possess now touches upon the authority of a god. I will not blame you for using it for your personal safety. However, never use that power for a dreadful evil deed that crosses the line. That is this master’s only request.”
Namhyeon engraved his master’s will into his heart. In the decades that followed, he wandered the otherworld, fought and defeated countless powerful beings, saved nations on the brink of destruction, and subjugated vicious magical beasts that threatened the continent. The frail D-rank hunter who had once lived with bated breath under Jia’s protection was nowhere to be found. Now he was a completed absolute being who looked down upon all things from the very summit of that world.
Then one day, as Namhyeon roamed the world, a group appeared before his eyes, covered in blood and being pursued.
Surrounded by an army of hideous demons was a noble dragon, desperately fleeing with five young hatchlings in her arms. Her name was Hatsune.
In Hatsune’s eyes, as she struggled to protect the children with her wounded wings, Namhyeon saw both the young Jia of the past, trembling after being exposed to violence, and his own helpless self.
Namhyeon did not hesitate. When he lightly flicked a finger, space distorted, and tens of thousands of illusionary swords rained down, turning the demon army to ash in an instant.
Having saved them with overwhelming power, Namhyeon drew up an immense amount of magical power for the sake of the dragons who had nowhere to go and unfolded the Illusion Art. He tore into the space of reality and created his own independent “subspace.” A perfect and absolute refuge where no threat or law from the outside could reach. At the center of that subspace, Namhyeon built a grand and elegant mansion.
To Namhyeon, who had not only saved their lives but even provided them with a perfect place of rest, Hatsune and the hatchlings felt a blind debt of gratitude and reverence they could not repay even if they devoted their entire lives to him. Casting aside even the pride of noble dragons, they took on the form of “maids,” a symbol of comfort that remained in Namhyeon’s memories, and willingly volunteered to become his attendants.
“Master, our lives exist solely for you.”
Led by Hatsune, who became the head maid, were five dragon hatchling maids, each possessing different attributes and charms. And so, in the mansion within the subspace, Namhyeon spent several decades of peaceful yet peculiar days with the six dragon maids who absolutely and blindly believed in him alone. That place was not the suffocating cage Jia had created, but a perfect paradise he had entirely controlled and built with his own hands.
And then, who knew how much time passed?
Flash—
His closed eyes snapped open.
The first thing that pierced his nose was not the scent of mana, but the acrid, dry smell of disinfectant. A regular mechanical sound dug into his ears. Beep— beep—.
Namhyeon gathered his blurry vision and slowly raised his upper body. His body felt heavy as lead, but the pain of his bones shattering had vanished.
With dazed eyes, he looked down at his own body.
The long beard he had grown in the otherworld was nowhere to be found, his chin was clean, and what he wore was not a Daoist robe but stiff hospital clothes. Seeing the bony wrist with an IV needle inserted into it, he immediately grasped the situation.
“……I’m back.”
His cracked voice echoed through the hospital room. The soul of Kim Namhyeon, who had risen to the ranks of an absolute being as an illusionist, had crossed long years and returned to the body that had once been his vegetative self in his original world.
In the past, perhaps he would have despaired. He would have been devastated by the fact that he had returned to the dreadful control of Lee Jia, to the life of a helpless D-rank hunter. But the Namhyeon of now was different.
Though his physical body was weak and shriveled, without a single bit of muscle, deep within his dantian swirled the vast, ocean-like magical power he had built up in the otherworld, completely intact.
More than anything, what relieved him was the tenacious connection of his soul. When Namhyeon quietly closed his eyes and looked within, he sensed the enormous gate engraved upon his soul. The absolute refuge he had created with the Illusion Art: “subspace.”
Beyond that gate, he felt familiar and welcome presences.
Even amid the dimensional turbulence of his return to the real world, the six dragon maids who followed Namhyeon had remained within the subspace lodged in their master’s soul and crossed over to this Earth together with him.
[Master. You have opened your eyes. Whenever you give the command, we shall place this world beneath your feet.]
At the telepathy of Hatsune, the head maid, resounding in his mind, Namhyeon let out a faint chuckle.
Click—
At that moment, the sound of the hospital room door opening reached his ears. The regular, familiar sound of dress shoes. Without needing to look, it had to be Lee Jia, who had heard the news and come running like a madwoman. If it had been the Namhyeon of the past, he would have held his breath in fear, but the eyes of Namhyeon sitting on the bed were endlessly calm and deep.
The pitiful childhood friend in need of protection no longer existed.
The absolute being who shaped illusions into reality, and the master of six dragons, had returned to reality.