Kim Sangshik

Middle-aged and gray-haired, Kim keeps his hair trimmed into a short crew cut. For day-to-day wear he favors a blue blazer thrown over a white collared shirt, finished with jeans.

In ordinary moments Kim came across as warm and sociable, fond of a morning coffee. That friendliness, though, sat beside a self-preserving streak; he valued his own survival above the safety of those around him, leaving Jinwoo to die within the Double Dungeon for his family's sake. Guilt caught up with him afterward. Ashamed of how he had treated Jinwoo, he set out to make amends, and just before his death he honored that vow by apologizing for everything, proving he stayed a fundamentally decent man.

Devotion to his family anchored Kim in the perilous trade of hunting: his wife, his young daughter Eunji of kindergarten age, and his older daughter Eunha, soon to enter middle school. Their security came before all else, pushing him onward despite the danger. Across his career he struck up a friendship with fellow D-Rank hunter Park Beom-Shik, who had stepped back from the work to devote himself to his own household.

In the D-Rank Dungeon Arc, Kim was drinking coffee at a Seoul construction site where a gate had opened when he caught sight of Park among the arriving hunters, learning his old friend had returned to support his growing family. Pressed on whether Jinwoo was strong, Kim explained the young man counted as humanity's weakest, wounded even at E-Rank gates, though his presence at least promised an easy raid. He accepted Song Chi-Yul as party leader and urged Jinwoo to stay close so he would avoid injury. Inside, after a second dungeon turned up, Jinwoo's final vote sent the group through. Kim sensed danger at the elaborate door, and once the chamber of giant statues sealed, he watched in horror as a statue killed a hunter who tried to flee. When the Statue of God swept its heat vision across them, Kim and others ducked on Jinwoo's warning and knelt at Chi-Yul's order to stay clear of its range. Once the Cup of Reincarnation reshaped the world, life returned to Kim stripped of his hunter memories, and he was seen toiling at a construction site beside Park after Jinwoo beat Antares and came back from the Dimensional Crack.