Solo Leveling Kim Chul

Appearance

Chul was a large and muscular young man with bluish-gray hair in a buzz cut. He wore a gray suit of armor with a furry collar, a white tassel cloth, and a helmet that resembled a monster's head over a simple black undershirt. He also wielded a large shield and a long battle axe and had a longsword strapped to the left side of his hip.

Personality

Chul was a very arrogant man who took an excessive amount of pride in his skills, even referring to himself at one point as the "Great Kim Chul." He was very disdainful towards those who ranked lower than him, mocking them as dead weight to their faces, and lacked a sense of empathy for others, as he had no problem leaving the lower-ranking hunters behind to fend for themselves during the Red Gate Incident and showed little remorse when his entire squad was annihilated by Yetis as a result of his reckless actions.^[1]

Due to his vanity, Chul could not own up to his mistakes even when people died from them, as displayed when he blamed the deaths of his squad members on circumstantial factors instead of his poor planning and leadership skills. This character trait along with the trauma of witnessing his entire squad get slaughtered right in front of him caused Chul to go insane and attack Jinwoo's group upon discovering that they had survived due to their own preparations, a mistake that he ultimately paid for with his life.

As noted by Jinwoo, Chul was also a dunce, a trait that he retained when he was reborn as a shadow soldier and when he was reborn as a human into the new reality created by the Cup of Reincarnation.

History

Red Gate Arc

During one of his guild's training exercises, Chul was appointed as the leader of the raid party and was annoyed by the fact that Ahn Sangmin had allowed some E-Rank outsiders to participate..^[2] Once he and the rest of the raiding party walked through the designated gate, its entrance suddenly closed up behind them and they found themselves stranded on a frozen, snow-covered landscape.^[3]

Realizing that they had walked into a red gate, Chul decided to have the party split in two based on their ranks and lead the stronger squad to clear the gate and kill the dungeon boss, while the weaker squad led by Jinwoo remained behind in the forest for their safety.^[4] However, due to his poor leadership skills, Chul and his squad spent the next few days suffering from starvation and frostbite, and thus were in no shape to fight when they ran into a pack of Yetis. As a result, the beasts easily slaughtered everyone in the squad except for Chul, who only survived by running off in terror.^[5]

While he was running through the forest, Chul stumbled across the weaker hunters who had stayed behind and was stunned to find out that they were still alive and healthy, with all the supplies they could ever need due to Jinwoo and the System. As he was already unstable from witnessing his entire squad get killed off, Chul incorrectly assumed that they had hidden the supplies from the rest of the team and angrily attacked them before even giving them enough time to explain. Fortunately, before he could hurt them, Jinwoo appeared and slapped him from behind, flinging him into a nearby tree and knocking him out cold.^[6]

Now completely insane, Chul regained consciousness, grabbed his sword, and attacked Jinwoo from behind while the latter was fighting Baruka, the dungeon boss. This proved to be a big mistake, as Igris emerged from Jinwoo's shadow and impaled Chul on his sword. Realizing that Jinwoo had predicted his attack, Chul cursed him one last time before finally dying from his wounds, enabling Jinwoo to revive him as one of his shadow soldiers under the name Iron.^[7][8]

Epilogue

After the Rulers used the Cup of Reincarnation one last time on Jinwoo's request, Iron was erased from existence and Kim Chul was brought back to life with no memories of his time as a hunter. In this new reality, he became a high school track athlete and eventually encountered Jinwoo again during a track contest. Despite having no memories of the original timeline and never having met Jinwoo before in this new timeline, Chul had a strange urge to kneel down in front him and angrily confronted him about it. This led Jinwoo to hypnotize Chul into letting him go and becoming a better person from that point on in his life.^[9]

Ragnarok

Several decades later in the revised timeline, Chul would regain his powers and become a hunter once again. However, not long after this event, Chul would unwittingly become a servant of the Itarim, which eventually forced Jinwoo's son Suho to kill him and turn him into a shadow soldier once again.^[10]

Abilities

As a A-Rank Hunter, Chul was one of the top hunters in the guild. He was also said to have received special training and was set to join the White Tiger Guild's elite strike squad before his death during his Red Gate Incident. However, despite his strength, he failed to notice the presence of the Ice Elves that ambushed his raid party and was easily overpowered by Jinwoo, who knocked him unconscious by just slapping him in the back of the head during their first confrontation.

• Enhanced Strength: Chul possessed great physical strength, and was able to kill a group of ice bears all on his own and wield a massive shield about as large as he was with ease.

• Enhanced Durability: Chul possesses great physical durability, as he was able to tank attacks from a group of ice bears without suffering any injuries and was physically unharmed when Jinwoo slammed him up against a tree.

• Shout of Provocation

Trivia

• "철" (Chul) is a given name often meaning 'iron' or symbolizing strength and steadfastness.