Lee Gilyoung

Lee Gilyoung is the first child Kim Dokja takes under his protection. His talent for communicating with insects develops from subway reconnaissance into the Story of the Insect King, but his biography is equally shaped by a harder question: whether a boy abandoned during the first scenario can believe that he belongs to a family even when he is not useful to it.

Biography

The boy from carriage 3807

Gilyoung survives the first scenario by crushing the grasshopper Dokja gives him, after his mother loses her life in the carriage. When Dokja asks whether he will come along, the small boy moves close to his legs rather than making a speech. He later pays twenty coins for food—including chocolate previously given to him—and asks whether Dokja will continue staying with the group. Those choices show both his need for protection and his reluctance to assume that an adult's care will last. (Chapters 7, 18)

His insect communication immediately makes him more than a passenger. He traces the Dark Root, scouts underground routes, and fights ground rats while riding on Dokja's back. The power is painful rather than effortless: when a warden destroys the cockroaches connected to him, the feedback makes him vomit and leaves only a few safe uses. He also studies Dokja's face, detects a concealed plan, grips his finger, and tells him not to lie. Trust begins as an informed choice by a child who has already seen an adult abandon him. (Chapters 21, 31)

A rival, a partner, and the Demon King

The arrival of Shin Yoosung unsettles Gilyoung because she appears to occupy the same protected place beside Dokja. He pushes for Dokja's pocket, argues over whom Dokja likes, and warns Yoosung to value insects; nevertheless, when she hides, he steps in front of her, and the two gather a combined monster-and-insect force to defend their companions. The rivalry never vanishes, but it starts functioning like sibling language rather than a demand that one child be expelled. (Chapters 118, 124–129, 131, 140)

Their decisive early cooperation is the Chimera Dragon. Ordinary control reaches only fourth-grade creatures, with brief third-grade taming already dangerous, so the children join hands and widen Advanced Diverse Communication together. Both bleed and approach mental collapse before reaching the dragon's mind. Later, Gilyoung refuses to give Dokja the Demon King's Jade after understanding what accepting it will require. Dokja takes it anyway, and the company is forced to kill him as the 73rd Demon King. Gilyoung's grief comes from helplessness, not ignorance of the plan. (Chapters 167–168, 186–188)

Waiting through the Demon Realm

Dokja's expulsion severs the children's certainty that he is alive. When Yoosung cries over her disconnected sponsor link, Gilyoung comforts her by insisting that Dokja will return, then slips back into competitive claims about whom he likes more. He repeatedly flips a coin when the children must decide who acts, turning chance into a ritual that contains their anxiety. Alongside Yoosung and Lee Jihye, he continues fighting and growing rather than allowing the absent guardian to suspend his life. (Chapters 193, 212, 265)

The separation eventually lasts years. Gilyoung grows taller, embraces Dokja at their Demon Realm reunion, and carries Han Sooyoung's message, giving him a role in reconnecting divided members of the company. Three years later, the children confront a strange squid without knowing it contains Dokja; after Yoosung recognizes him, Gilyoung hugs his waist, claims through tears that he knew all along, and turns embarrassment into comedy. The scene proves both sides of his development: he can survive independently, but reunion still reaches the terrified child from carriage 3807. (Chapters 276, 302–304, 307)

A child who calls himself company

By Gigantomachia, Gilyoung and Yoosung can support battles against historical-grade constellations through insect kings and the Chimera Dragon. In the isolated Next City scenario, Gilyoung lacks his usual insects and must rely on Yoosung, Jihye, learned judgment, and the dragon's limited cooldown. The artificial world's age rules also shut both children down at midnight, forcing Jihye to protect them. These constraints keep his growth credible: he is a skilled scenario veteran whose environment, body, and teammates still determine what he can do. (Chapters 312, 325–339, 382, 386)

His central conflict is recognition rather than raw strength. Gilyoung helps judge disputes inside the company and checks injured adults with Yoosung, but he is furious when the children are excluded from a battlefield requiring fire resistance. He cries that they are also members of the company. Soon afterward, demonic aura gathers around him as he mutters broken words about a contract, foreshadowing the danger in proving belonging through sponsor power. The adults' protection is tactically reasonable, yet it touches precisely the wound that makes Abaddon's offer effective. (Chapters 397–399, 407, 409)

The Insect King and the forgotten evil

In the late scenarios, the children are no longer merely carried by the company. They share the Sanzang role during Journey to the West, identify a deception, and direct civilians while Dokja follows them as a nominal disciple. Gilyoung then sends insects into enemy engines, disabling and exploding ships while Yoosung's beasts and their shared dragon attack larger targets. His insect authority has become strategic: different swarms scout, transport, obstruct, infiltrate machinery, and create openings rather than forming one interchangeable cloud of damage. (Chapters 426–431, 465)

The hidden sponsor behind his power is Abaddon, the myth-grade Ruler of the Deepest Pit. The Story begun by the first grasshopper awakened that connection, and synchronization can turn Gilyoung's eyes white and surround him with black Status or yellow locust clouds. Dokja condemns Abaddon for contracting with a child because the power can press through Gilyoung's body like possession. Crucially, Gilyoung's own Insect King Story remains distinct: it remembers the grasshopper, searches for the Demon King of Salvation, and joins the company's Stories in reaching the person he chose. (Chapters 469, 472, 489–490, 502)

Reading, rewriting, and growing older

At the Final Scenario's end, Gilyoung and Yoosung cling to Dokja's legs and beg him to stop exchanging himself for everyone else. After another separation, Gilyoung joins group regression, reenacts Abaddon's sponsor selection, and releases his Stories in the attempt to recover a whole Dokja. These are not repetitions of passive dependence: the rescue distributes responsibility across the company and turns Gilyoung's attachment into sustained work with people who share it. Even his promise to raise Dokja if he reincarnates as a bug combines grief with the insect jokes through which he remains recognizably himself. (Chapters 514–516, 529–540, 544)

Two years later, Gilyoung and Yoosung enter high school. He sneaks a look at Sooyoung's manuscript, reads despite its painful memories, complains that his Abaddon contract and other skills were omitted, and later edits the scheduled text with Jihye. When the Star Stream's collapse leaves Stigmata and creatures much weaker, the three young companions still conduct a maritime rescue with a smaller turtle ship and Chimera Dragon. The ending does not confirm what awaits at Dokja's hospital room, but it shows that the boy has become a student, editor, and rescuer beyond the system. (Chapters 542–546, 550–551)

Appearance and personality

Gilyoung is introduced as a small young boy moving among adult casualties, a contrast that makes his controlled stillness more striking. He grows noticeably taller during Dokja's long absence and reaches high-school age in the epilogue. Under Abaddon's strongest synchronization his eyes become white, and black demonic Status or enormous yellow locust clouds visually overwhelm his ordinary body; that transformation signals an external sponsor pressing through him rather than a permanent change in his appearance. (Chapters 7, 276, 469, 472, 542)

He is highly observant, practical, and guarded. Paying for food, reading Dokja's hidden intention, and noticing tactical scams show a child who learned not to depend on assurances alone. With people he trusts, that reserve gives way to possessiveness, loud grief, competitive boasting, and deliberately tasteless insect jokes. His jealousy of Yoosung is real, but so are the moments when he protects her, joins hands despite psychic pain, and comforts her with promises he cannot prove. (Chapters 18, 21, 118, 146, 158, 212, 314)

His courage has an anxious edge. Gilyoung wants to surprise Dokja and insists on being treated as company, which can inspire independent growth or make dangerous power feel like proof that he deserves a place. He does not become serene after receiving reassurance: he still cries, lies about having recognized Dokja, steals a look at a notebook, skips school, and argues over omissions. Those inconsistencies keep his development human. He matures by widening the people and work that sustain him, not by ceasing to need anyone. (Chapters 304, 386, 407, 543, 546, 550)

Abilities, attributes, and stories

Diverse Communication

Diverse Communication opens a mental and sensory channel between Gilyoung and insects. He can locate colonies, receive information, infer danger, and direct movement, allowing insects to serve as scouts, guides, mounts, messengers, or attackers. Its early form has a limited number of safe activations, and connection is reciprocal: the violent death of linked cockroaches produces nausea and severe mental feedback. Powerful or intelligent beings resist, while widening too many channels can cause bleeding, cognitive overload, and unconsciousness. (Chapters 21, 31, 125, 167)

The skill develops into Advanced Diverse Communication and large-scale battlefield command. It guides allied movement underground, carries companions by air, obstructs enemies with swarms, and sends small insects into ship engines where their size matters more than raw grade. In a world without suitable insects, as in Next City, Gilyoung cannot simply manufacture his usual army. After the Star Stream weakens, the learned communicative instinct remains, but peak-scale control and system-supported summons can no longer be assumed. (Chapters 125, 167, 382, 465, 551)

Insect command and the Insect King Story

Gilyoung's command grows from local cockroaches and ground insects into specialized swarms and giant insect kings capable of entering constellation-level wars. The Story of the Insect King begins from the grasshopper he crushed in the first scenario, so it records survival, guilt, and his bond with Dokja rather than merely naming a combat class. During the Final Scenario, that Story can act as part of the company's narrative formation and search for the Demon King of Salvation. (Chapters 7, 127–129, 329, 465, 489–490)

The ability's main strength is distributed utility: a swarm can search multiple routes, carry people, obscure attacks, immobilize machinery, or sacrifice portions of itself to buy time. Its limits are ecological and psychological. Fire, overwhelming Status, or a hostile environment can erase available insects, and loss can recoil through communication. Abaddon's locust manifestation amplifies insect imagery on a myth-grade scale, but it must not be confused with the Insect King Story that Gilyoung himself accumulates through choices and relationships. (Chapters 21, 407, 469, 472, 489)

Chimera Dragon partnership

Gilyoung and Yoosung first reach the Chimera Dragon by combining Advanced Diverse Communication beyond either child's normal grade limit. Joining hands widens the channel and divides the cognitive burden, but the first attempt leaves both bleeding and near collapse. Once contact is established, the dragon becomes a shared mount and large-scale ally whose breath and body can oppose powerful creatures and constellations. Neither child can claim the achievement alone; its mechanics are built around their complementary insect and beast affinities. (Chapters 167–168, 329, 333)

Later deployments provide flight, transport, fleet assault, and a platform from which both children direct other creatures. Control is not free or constant: the dragon has cooldowns, disruption to either tamer weakens coordination, and higher states impose physical strain. After the scenarios, a smaller and weaker form still works beside Jihye's diminished turtle ship during civilian rescue. The latest state therefore preserves the partnership while honestly separating practiced cooperation from the former scale granted by the Star Stream. (Chapters 386, 465, 493, 539, 551)

Abaddon's sponsor contract

Abaddon, the forgotten Ruler of the Deepest Pit, is Gilyoung's hidden sponsor. The first grasshopper Story draws the myth-grade being's attention, while later references to a contract indicate a more dangerous level of access. Synchronization can flood the boy with demonic Status, turn his eyes white, and manifest vast yellow locust clouds capable of obstructing the Nameless Ones or answering clashes between the Oldest Good and Oldest Evil. This is sponsor-scale amplification rather than an unlimited personal reserve. (Chapters 409, 469, 472, 502)

The cost is agency. Abaddon can appear to look, speak, or act through Gilyoung, and Dokja explicitly objects to an ancient being exploiting a child who wants strength. Probability, bodily tolerance, and the sponsor's separate will all constrain use; more power increases rather than resolves the risk of being treated as a vessel. Gilyoung later remembers and reenacts the sponsor route and complains when the manuscript omits the contract, but the novel does not establish reliable myth-grade output after the system's collapse. (Chapters 469, 502, 536, 546)

Power progression

Relationships

• Kim Dokja: Dokja is Gilyoung's rescuer, chosen guardian, and the person around whom his earliest sense of safety forms. Gilyoung's devotion is not passive: he catches Dokja lying, refuses the Demon King's Jade, protests sacrificial plans, and later helps edit the manuscript intended to restore him. Each disappearance reopens abandonment fear, but the relationship gradually becomes reciprocal rescue rather than one-way protection.
• Shin Yoosung: Yoosung begins as a rival for Dokja's attention and becomes Gilyoung's closest operational equal. They bicker, pinch, compete, and make jealous claims, yet their joined communication controls the Chimera Dragon and their paired Stories repeatedly search for Dokja. The persistence of rivalry makes their trust more convincing rather than less.
• Lee Jihye: Jihye is an older peer, field leader, and fellow young survivor. She fights through Dokja's absences with both children, protects them when Next City's rules shut them down, edits the epilogue manuscript with Gilyoung, and commands the diminished rescue in which their old creature partnership finds an ordinary use.
• Lee Hyunsung: Hyunsung is one of the first dependable adults in the subway party. His protective presence gives Gilyoung a model of care less volatile than Dokja's secretive sacrifice, helping widen the boy's family beyond a single guardian.
• Abaddon: The sponsor offers strength on a scale Gilyoung cannot reach alone, but exploits his wish to be useful and can press over his identity. Their connection is therefore both a resource and a coercive threat; it should not be read as Gilyoung choosing the sponsor's values.

Items

• Demon King's Jade: Gilyoung retrieves the jade after Yoo Joonghyuk drops it, but refuses to hand it to Dokja because he understands that accepting it leads toward Dokja's sacrificial Demon King role. Dokja takes the item and apologizes, making Gilyoung's brief custody important as evidence of judgment and resistance rather than ownership. (Chapter 186)