When he opened his eyes, the first thing that entered his vision was the stark white ceiling of a hospital. At the acrid smell of disinfectant stabbing at his nose, Namhyun slowly sank into thought.
‘Ah, right. I got hit by a truck.’
It felt as if he had been resting beneath the night sky as his ceiling only moments ago, but upon realizing that he had suddenly returned to his original world, Namhyun slowly looked down at his own body.
The memory of the terrible pain of every bone in his body shattering was still vivid, yet when he actually tried moving, he felt light, without a single ache or stiffness. If anything, the sensations of the body he had trained in the other world remained intact, and vitality coursed through him as if it might overflow.
He pulled back the blanket and was just stepping barefoot down from the bed.
“D-Doctor!”
A nurse entering the hospital room spotted Namhyun and, horrified, called for the doctor. The doctor who rushed in with urgency was likewise unable to hide his shock when he saw Namhyun standing perfectly fine on his own two feet.
And no wonder—until just a short while ago, it had been uncertain whether he would live or die.
“How can this be...? Hunter or not, this makes no sense.”
The doctor looked back and forth between the chart and Namhyun as if he couldn’t believe it. The time it had taken for Namhyun, who had been brought in as a complete wreck, to rise without a single wound was no more than a few hours. The doctor had no choice but to write it off as a miracle caused by a Hunter’s recovery ability, even if he was only D-rank.
‘Only a few hours, huh.’
Namhyun swallowed a laugh inwardly. In reality, only a few hours had passed, but from Namhyun’s perspective, he had just returned after spending an unfathomable span of decades in another world.
Namhyun quietly closed his eyes and checked the magic power within himself.
Before long, he felt an immense world firmly connected deep within his soul. The subspace he had created, and the maids within it, holding their breath as they waited for their master. Only after confirming that even his subspace had followed him back to his original world intact did relief finally wash over him.
He was just about to complete the discharge procedures and leave.
“Hyeon!”
From the far end of the corridor, someone came running while calling Namhyun’s name almost like a scream. Then, before he could avoid her, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. The fiercely familiar scent of perfume and the constricting embrace. Namhyun blinked for a moment.
‘Who is this... Ah, it’s Jia.’
The only person who called him by the nickname “Hyeon.” His childhood friend, Lee Jia.
If it had been the Namhyun of the past, he would have been horrified by this suffocating hug that bound him tight, or felt a sense of psychological pressure. But now, after rolling through another world for decades and reigning as an absolute being, the anguish of those days had weathered away into the distant past. His inner self had matured to the point that he could barely even remember why her overprotectiveness had been so hard on him.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere? How did you even get into an accident...? I’m sorry, I should have been by your side!”
Jia buried her face in Namhyun’s chest and burst into loud sobs. The shoulder of Namhyun’s hospital gown grew damp with her tears.
“I was crazy. I shouldn’t have left you alone. From now on, I won’t leave you for even a second. I’ll keep protecting you by your side! I swear. So...!”
In Jia’s eyes, a madness darker and murkier than before flashed. The terror of nearly losing him had pushed her obsession to its limit. But despite her desperate cries, Namhyun’s gaze was utterly indifferent.
“I’m fine. I’m not hurt anywhere.”
Namhyun’s voice was endlessly dry and cold. There was no sign of comfort or relief in it.
“I’m tired, so can I go home... no, was it the dormitory?”
After decades, trying to recall his residence in reality, the word did not come to him right away. When Namhyun tossed the words out indifferently, Jia’s sobs came to an abrupt stop.
“Ah... Yeah. Okay. Let’s go.”
Jia looked up at Namhyun with reddened eyes.
A sense of wrongness.
He was clearly the Namhyun she knew, but he was not the frail childhood friend who relied on her, trembled in her arms, or became flustered. At that cool, indifferent attitude, as though he were dealing with a stranger, a strange unease began to bloom in one corner of Jia’s chest.
The two left the hospital in silence and got into a taxi. Their destination was the Hunter Academy where they both resided. Jia persistently followed Namhyun’s profile with trembling eyes as he rested his chin in his hand and watched the scenery flowing past outside the window.
.
The place she led him to was an apartment-style dormitory of about thirty pyeong located within the academy.
Normally, it was strictly forbidden for a man and a woman to use the same dormitory, let alone share the same unit. However, thanks to Jia, an S-rank Hunter, applying “pressure bordering on threats” to the academy’s higher-ups, this abnormal cohabitation had been made possible. All for the single, blind reason of protecting Namhyun perfectly within her sight.
When he opened the door and stepped inside, damp memories of the past he had spent with Jia in this space surfaced faintly in Namhyun’s mind.
“You’re tired, right? Do you want to wash up first?”
At Jia’s tender question, Namhyun gave a short nod.
“I will.”
Namhyun entered the bathroom and stood beneath the pouring stream of water, lost in blank thought.
There were two sets of memories: the decades he had spent in the other world, wandering the continent with illusion arts as a vagabond, and the memories of this modern age, where he had lived helplessly and quietly as a D-rank Hunter. He needed to synchronize the two without any sense of dissonance. Namhyun tried to recall the knowledge and daily life of the past that had begun to fade away, doing his best to grow accustomed to this unfamiliar “original life.”
After Namhyun finished showering and came out, Jia headed into the bathroom this time.
Entering his own room, Namhyun felt a sensation both unfamiliar and familiar. A simple room with nothing but a computer, a bookshelf, and a bed. He opened the desk drawer and took out his student ID.
On the plastic card, the words “D-rank” were stamped clearly.
‘Now, what should I do?’
Namhyun shook out his wet hair and fell into deep thought.
Graduation from the academy was soon. Once he graduated, he would be qualified to belong to a guild and work as an official Hunter, but did he really need to wear the title of “Hunter” in this world and hunt magical beasts? Now that he possessed powers beyond the norm—subspace and illusion arts—while keeping them hidden, the dungeons of the real world were far too trivial a place for Namhyun.
Well, I do need to earn money.
Come to think of it, he had forgotten the most important thing.
Money.
He already had money from the other world, but that wouldn’t be of much help on Earth, so he had to start over here.
“Hyeon.”
Jia’s voice came from outside his door. Snapping out of his thoughts, Namhyun went out into the living room. Jia, who had just finished washing, was standing there in thin pajamas that were strangely seductive and revealing.
“Why did you call me?”
“What are you going to do about class tomorrow? Do you want to take sick leave and rest?”
In Jia’s eyes was a sticky expectation, hoping he would stay only inside the house. Namhyun answered calmly.
“No. I’m not sick, so I’ll just go.”
“You already have all the credits you need to graduate anyway. Is there any need to go?”
As Jia said, there was no issue at all with his graduation. But Namhyun wanted to see with his own eyes the now-faded traces of the life he had lived here, to recall what kind of air his past self had breathed in this place.
“I just want to go.”
At the dry reply that allowed no opening, Jia bit her lip for a moment, but soon smiled brightly and nodded, saying she understood. Namhyun left behind a brief, “I’ll sleep first,” then entered his room and lay down on the bed.
Staring at the firmly closed door, Jia remained alone in the living room, and the smile vanished from her face in an instant.
‘What is it? He’s definitely my Hyeon...’
He was the same man she had devoted her entire life to protecting, weak and full of wounds, yet something about him was strangely different. The firmness that no longer obeyed her words or was dragged along by them as before. More than anything, that cool and composed air, as if he had suddenly “grown,” grated on Jia’s nerves.
‘Well, fine. It starts from now on anyway.’
Jia toyed with the hem of her pajamas as the corners of her mouth twisted upward grotesquely.
Once they graduated from the academy, she had not the slightest intention of letting Namhyun work as a Hunter. She had already obtained the perfect fortress to lock Namhyun away in—a “safe house.”
‘I’ll bring in all the money. I even set up the best computer so my Hyeon won’t get bored. There won’t be a single reason for my Hyeon to leave that place.’
Imagining the future within the control she had designed perfectly, imagining Namhyun trapped forever in a cage that belonged only to her and depending on her alone, Jia let out an ecstatic, overwhelming breath.
“Hyeon, don’t get hurt anymore. If you get hurt, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
She wished that he, her everything, would never be hurt again. In that sense, she intended to bind him even tighter.
“I can’t wait. After we graduate, let’s never be apart.”
Lee Jia stared emptily at the room where Namhyun was. Her life these past four years had been happy. She had loved the years she spent with him so much that she wanted this period to continue forever.
That was the only thing she desired, and if anything were to stand in its way—
“I’ll destroy it all. Because Hyeon and I will be together forever.”
Filled with madness, she saw only a single goal.