Lim Do-Gyu

Slim of build, Do-Gyu carries himself like the art student he once was. His glasses are the detail people remember most, a black frame set against pale brown eyes and a head of straight orange hair. Back in his Seoul College days he favored a working uniform of blue overalls paired with a beige apron, the kind of outfit suited to long hours in front of a canvas rather than a dungeon.

The romance his pupils attach to hunting never matched Do-Gyu's own view of it. To him the job is unglamorous and, worse, badly compensated, which is exactly why he leans on tutoring and freelance gigs to get through each semester. His real enthusiasm sits with art, and he pushes the students under his wing to chase their own creative instincts. Courage is not among his strengths. Set against anything genuinely dangerous, his first response is to put distance between himself and the threat.

The Great Cataclysm left Do-Gyu awakened at the bottom rung as an E-Rank Hunter. He built a routine around it, taking freelance contracts and assisting at the university's painting department while mostly avoiding combat, tagging along with mining crews into the dungeons and saving his attention for art and gallery prospects. One encounter with a Mist Burn left a scar that never healed, becoming a private source of dread he carried forward.

Two years on, he stopped to praise the work of a student named Sung Suho at a campus exhibition, intrigued by the boy's recurring ant imagery and one menacing king figure Suho claimed had come to him in a dream. The moment soured when another student, Youngcheol, dissolved into blue smoke. As alarms spread about a Gate opening in the gallery and evacuation orders went out, Youngcheol's body stirred and gave off the same blue mist Do-Gyu instantly recognized. He shouted a warning to Suho, knew he could not face the beast alone, and used his phone to call for backup. With the infection spreading from student to student, he chose self-preservation and fell back, leaving Suho to try to contain it. He came back later at the head of the hunters he had summoned, startled to find so many students had gotten out alive, and grew anxious for Suho once he learned the young man was responsible and still inside.