This is an updated post as of April 2026. (My previous post from 2025 here)
Jump down to the Read More for info on the translations
Korean Title: 내가 키운 S급들
This time a fan-made cover by s_class_potato that showcases a more complete cast list than the official cover. ↓↓↓↓
What's It About: It's about the Power of Love! And never giving up! And what does it mean to be a parent, a partners, a friend, a brother?
Fantastically detailed world-building and fantastically realistic and fleshed out cast of characters and a fantastically unhinged unreliable narrator of an MC.
It starts out looking like a standard male OP fantasy, but that is very much a fakeout, and it is very very much a subversion of that genre - something that has unfortunately earned this novel much ire in the Korean dude webnovel reader sphere of the internet.
It is also one of the best examples of "time travel fixit" as a canon premise that I have ever seen.
After his estranged little brother - Korea's top S-Sank Hunter Han Yoohyun - dies saving the life of the pathetic F-Rank Hunter Han Yoojin, Han Yoojin gets the opportunity to turn back time by 5 years and gain a new uber-powerful Skill that lets him 'nurture' S-Rank hunters to their full potentials - both humans and monsters.
Yoojin is determined to just chill and prove himself by supporting Yoohyun, but it's not so easy especially as he finds more and more people to love and care about. And also this one annoyingly fascinating and useful guy - the current #1 hunter Sung Hyunjae - who had disappeared from the public eye in mysterious circumstances before Yoojin turned back time - keeps finding him fascinating and useful too and won't leave him alone.
Webtoon Adaptation
Yes, there is a webtoon adaptation of it with an official English translation: My S-Class Hunters. There are 152 chapters in S1, which adapt roughly the first 160ish chapters of the novel, and the webtoon is currently on hiatus with work ongoing on S2. ETA: S2 is out, babey!! Released April 20th! Not in English yet though, but it can be Found.
The art is beautiful, and it is a very good work in its own right but it does adapt things more comedically than the novel. It makes for a pretty funny reading experience, but it leaves out enough of the (plot-relevant!) emotional bits as well as changes up certain plot points for better visuals that I would recommend reading (or at least skimming) from the start for anyone coming in from the webtoon.
Where to Read The Original
I.E. The novel in Korean: The complete story is 1165 Chapters
Main Story: 856 Chapters + 14 Epilogue Chapters (870 Chapters)
Side Story: 167 Chapters
Afterwords: 128 Chapters
These are now available on Naver, Ridibooks and Kakaopage.
Naver is horrendous to use internationally
Kakaopage is the easiest to use internationally IMO, and has a lot of freebies points. With enough grinding one can probably get all the webnovel chapters for free, while still showing support to Geunseo
Ridi is quite convenient too and often has sale events. Ridi is a more slash-friendly and female-reader friendly platform overall and has a more positive and shippier comment section I think.
However! Before you buy: One thing to note is that there are two versions of the text - a webnovel version and an ebook version. Yes, the text itself is different between the two.
Webnovel version: The ones that you can buy one-chapter-at-a-time and what you'll usually find on the 🏴☠️ sites. Side Story and After Words only exist as webnovel chapters as of April 2026.
Ebook version: The 870 chapters of the main novel are also available as 35-volume set of ebooks.
- Ebooks version has many added emotional beats and scenes (mostly of the homoerotic nature)
- Ebooks version also has many "extras" - additional chapters and short stories, often from the perspectives of characters other than Yoojin, that often add a lot of great characterisation and world-building information.
Apart from this there also exist some physical book sets but not in English - currently there is a Korean physical bookset of 10 volumes (with hopefully many more to come), and a Taiwanese bookset as well, and both these physical booksets have more unique "extras" in them as well.
If anyone decides to throw money at Geunseo for this, I would personally recommend going for the ebooks over the webnovel chapters.
Where to read the Translations!
1. SFS Translations (Chapters 1-460s)
- They use the ebook versions of the chapters.
- One needs to contact them for access to their locked/gdocs version (access can take a few days, but generally not more than 3-5 days)
- This is currently the most detailed and accurate translation, and the only one that includes the ebook extras, as far as I know.
2. Teleportal's MTL Epub: Main Novel (Ch 350-870) PDF and EPUB + Side Stories EPUB and PDF & After Words EPUB and PDF
- It uses webnovel chapters
- It is the only version for the Side Stories and After Words available in English
- While it is MTL, it is IMO one of the best MTL translations I have seen till date and very readable and understandable, and personally I would recommend it over the other edited MTL translations such as Mattreading and Freewebnovel.
3. MattReading Translations (Chapters 1-760s)
- This uses the webnovel chapters, and the earlier chapters use an older unedited versions of the webnovel chapters.
- This is on Wordpress, with last 20 chapters Patreon-locked
- The main/current translation linked on NovelUpdates.
- They are upto Ch 760+ as of April 2026, but (this is my speculation) are primarily edited MTL using the opennovel engine as far as I can tell. Pretty readable in terms of natural-sounding English, however later chapters get into some pronoun trouble and also character mixups last I checked.
4. FreeWebnovel (Chapters 1-782)
- MTL of webnovel chapters and early unedited raws
- I think this is the version one will find in epub/PDF files of early chapters if one goes looking on the usual epub sites
- There is apparently a site called empirenovel too, but it's just this version copied there.
Other than the story itself, the author has also done extensive Q&As, which detail out a ton of worldbuilding and characterization notes and @a-sctir-a-day has been doing MTL translations of the Q&As.
Sung Hyunje looking at hyj's gaggle of children: I'll pay child support. 😄
HanYoojin holding all his children in away it's not humanely possible: What are you talking about you pervert ahjussi?!? I made all these kids via mitosis. 😤😒
Sung Hyunje smiling unbothered: My dear partner, what ever you say... Anyways do you want this fresh limitless Amex card? 😌
Han Yoojin snatches it: Don't misunderstand, it's the least you could and would you lose the possesive word already🙄... Kids who wants ice cream
There's been a number of people reporting over on the AO3 subreddit that they're getting messages like this posted in the comments shortly after posting new fics.
The AO3 team are NEVER going to try and contact you about TOS violations via the comment section (or about anything else for that matter)
Don't click any links. Report the accounts involved (which might claim to be things like "LucySupport"), delete the message and move on.
KSE really does feel a lot more openly emotional in part 3. Is this a result of no longer being in a Good Friend body? Or has he had some sort of epiphany about this time in the DER world during his one year at home? Or both?
I can't wait for JNS to get her self-esteem back soon, fuck Daydream seriously
BSH is being such a cute but rabid puppy right now
Braun?! Please will the performance be broadcast by Braun?!
Or will we get more Ho tidbits with the exploration of his ex-office space, instead?
Some thoughts on Baek Saheon, focusing on how he feels about Kim Soleum.
Includes :
BSH in part 1 & 2
BSH in part 3
What BSH wants
Spoilers up to 394.
----
BSH in part 1 & 2
1.
During part 1, BSH is constantly intimidated and terrorized by KSE. At the same time, KSE saves his life multiple times.
BSH himself wonders about this. But he concludes that the psychopath is simply deriving some sort of enjoyment out of keeping him alive.
[ep 53]
But…
“......”
Was Kim Soleum really a lunatic?
To be more precise, why did he… save his life?
In truth, he knew. In the gallery, Kim Soleum could have killed or sacrificed him multiple times, but did not do so.
He did mess with him a few times, but at the end of the day…
‘No!’
It must have been for enjoyment. Because it’s more fun to keep him alive, to keep more variability in the situation!
Baek Saheon quickly made his conclusion. He’d never met such a crazy person like this before in his life…
2.
During part 2, BSH constantly is helpful to the Jisan Agent. This is because he helped him once and experienced the feeling of fulfillment that comes from successfully helping out someone.
I wrote about it here : On BSH and the agent from Jisan.
This is usually something you learn as, like, a pre-schooler. Either BSH didn’t have the experience of realizing that it makes you feel happy to (for example) make breakfast for your family or something, or all his experience of feeling good about helping someone was suppressed by his later experiences of prioritizing himself and himself only for the sake of survival. (More might be revealed if we learn more about his relationship with his sister). I think the latter makes sense since to current BSH’s mind everything other than ‘survival’ is just background noise. Jisan Agent case only affected him this much bc it did involve the matter of his own survival.
In any case, BSH learns (or re-learns) it as an adult.
As a result, he keeps being helpful to the Jisan agent, the one who taught him that it can feel nice to save someone.
During hospital arc, KSE tries to extend this to helping others as well. He tries to generalize his lesson of “survival isn’t always a zero-sum game, you can help others without necessarily risking your own survival” to not just helping him but helping others as well. As a result BSH gets thanked by the guy who they helped, and he does experience a “strange feeling”. So there is a potential of BSH becoming more altruistic (as long as it doesn’t risk himself) in general and not just towards the Jisan Agent.
However, as far as we know, this hasn’t happened since the hospital arc, so at the moment this only exists as a potential. (Maybe he helped some other people during the 3 years but so far we don’t know.)
So far, all we know is that BSH’s list of who should survive went from ‘Me’ to ‘Me and Jisan Agent’.
3.
At the end of part 2, we find out that BSH had been suspecting Jisan Agent to be the same person as KSE for quite some time. (At least since before hospital arc)
Explanation on BSH's suspicion
However, he wasn’t ready to accept it.
[Ep 369]
“Are you… actually…”
The agent who becomes unreachable when a certain person goes missing.
The agent who seems to know him strangely well.
Did that…
……
……
“Well, never mind.”
Baek Saheon took his hand off the tank.
He couldn’t get an answer right now anyway.
No, perhaps he himself wasn't ready yet…
BSH in part 3
1.
In part 3, it seems that during the 3 years, BSH has come to accept that KSE is the Jisan Agent. It probably helped that both these personas went missing for 3 years.
In addition, he seemingly has deduced that KSE’s actual personality must be closer to the Jisan Agent - an altruistic, kind person.
[Ep 392]
“......Hah.”
Baek Saheon pressed his hands on his eyelids.
“I knew it, that you're this kind of person…”
After all, even Roe Deer had kept saving his life. So it all makes sense that way.
2.
BSH also seemingly thought about ‘Then why did he keep up a psychopathic front in front of me?’. He seemingly came to a (pretty accurate) conclusion about it.
[Ep 394]
“And you don't need to be so worried about getting caught. If she was the type of person to not be able to control herself and get caught, no matter how we're cooperating with each other, I wouldn't have been honest towards her.”
“......Ah.”
Baek Saheon’s one eye stares alternately at me and Assistant Manager Jin Nasol.
“Because that's what it was like with a guy like me, huh?”
To me, the above bit read as BSH having his suspicions be confirmed, rather than realzing it for the first time. Because it’s not like KSE was talking directly about BSH, when BSH suddenly brings up the subject of himself. I think he already concluded that that’s why KSE kept up that front towards him, but having it be indirectly confirmed by KSE made him get emotional.
It makes sense that BSH would come to this conclusion. BSH himself knows that he’s a selfish, greedy person.
[ep41]
Baek Sa-heon knew that he was a selfish person, obsessed with practical gains.
In 393, he also seemingly feels a ‘twisted amusement’ when talking about how the guys who beat up KSE ends up calling him a lunatic. Presumably because he now knows that that’s KSE doing his thing.
But also, this must have been another confirmation - on against which type of people KSE pretends to be a lunatic.
3.
To summarize.
For a long time, BSH believed that ‘KSE may act like a kind and caring person in front of others, but he shows his true face to me. He’s a psychopath!’.
[ep49]
Go Yeongeun looked at me with a look of pity on her eyes.
“Hm. Since in corporate life, people look down on you for even being too nice, maybe you might like to consider not speaking too highly of others?”
Huh?
No matter how I look at it, it seems like you’re seeing me in an overly good light because of how I saved your life… but thinking of my silver heart, I just bowed my head.
Let’s be nice!
“……Thank you for the advice.”
Baek Saheon looked back and forth between Go Yeongeun and me with a look of disbelief, but then shut his mouth.
Then he stood up from his seat and left without saying goodbye.
But slowly he realizes the truth :
In fact, KSE’s true personality is closer to the kind, caring persona he shows toward others. It was only towards BSH that KSE was putting up a psychopath front.
In addition, even when having a long-term cooperative relationship with BSH as Jisan Agent, KSE never revealed himself to him. He only added it to the list of roles he played. He was never honest towards him.
Why?
Because BSH was an untrustworthy bastard, that’s why.
He was so untrustworthy to KSE that even after they built up a genuinely cooperative relationship, he never let BSH see his true face.
Everyone else knew that KSE is Jisan Agent but BSH. As a result, everyone else knew that the liquified being at the end of part 2 was KSE but BSH.
That’s how little KSE thought of BSH.
Again - BSH himself knows that he’s a selfish and greedy guy.
But still. To realize that this one person in your life who taught you about altruism, who saved your life multiple times (and not bc he was a psychopath like he originally thought lol), who is the one person in your life that you want to keep helping & saving & caring for, thinks of you that way…
Isn’t it only natural that it hurts your feelings?
BSH probably had some time to deal with this realization, but still, when KSE indirectly confirms it in 394, I think it’s understandable that he lashes out.
What BSH wants
Currently, from the text, BSH seemingly has two conflicting wants when it comes to KSE.
1st, He wants to lord it over KSE (the former Roe Deer) a little that he’s now the higher up and KSE is a lowly worker.
This fails at every turn he tries it bc KSE simply does not care. He just will not be intimidated by their difference in position.
And BSH seemingly doesn’t want to actually enforce anything. Like, in 394 when KSE greets him by saying ‘section chief-nim’ BSH is immediately like ‘speak casually’ while using honorifics himself. BSH doesn’t actually want KSE to be sincerely intimidated by his position.
But still he wants to lord it over him a little, you know? So he’ll say things like (ep 393) “If you're in your right mind, shouldn't you be saying '(in honorifics) Do this please, I beg of you' first?” Only for KSE to take the fun out of it by easily complying without any emotion.
2nd, He wants to help KSE (the former Jisan Agent) who is for some reason stuck in a hellhole receiving terrible treatment.
As KSE himself points out, Section Chief BSH keeps going out of his way to help him when KSE himself only asked for one thing. Canceling his bills, saying he’ll smuggle KSE out of there… This is arguably even going beyond the things he did for the Jisan Agent.
Of course, this is all only possible bc BSH now has the power to do it. He says so himself - when KSE is like, don’t overdo it, BSH is like, it’s not like I’m still a supervisor.
BSH now also has the advantage of actually knowing KSE’s situation fully (...well at least more comprehensibly than he did) so he can actually anticipate KSE’s needs and help him without KSE asking for it.
Based on these two things. I’m going further and saying:
3rd, BSH wants KSE to think of him as trustworthy and dependable.
He himself thinks of KSE as special - the only person whose survival he prioritizes besides himself. But KSE obviously did not think much of him despite all their connections. To KSE, BSH was less trustworthy than a bunch of his other colleagues.
But now, BSH knows about all of KSE’s lies. (well not all of them but yk) Moreover, now BSH is in a position where he can actually make a meaningful difference in KSE’s life.
(When KSE gets worried about him getting noticed, BSH is like, I’m a section chief, okay?! There’s no need to worry about me getting noticed! (Also, you’re worrying about me now?))
So, now, BSH wants to say - trust me, depend on me, ask for my help, you can trust me now, I can do much more for you now…
The thing is, BSH is going about all this in not a very sophisticated way.
For one thing, the fact that he has those two conflicting wants which he keeps showing at the same time is pretty funny. Like, stick to one thing and you might get it.
Also, one way for BSH to gain more of KSE’s trust would have been to show altruism to people beyond KSE. Like at least make a try. But when BSH realizes KSE told JNS about the pills, he gets immediately pissed bc it’s unnecessary risk. (Him helping KSE was necessary risk of course) And the way he expresses that feeling - he’s like. I only shared this (potentially lifesaving) info to help YOU, not anyone else! You should have asked for my permission! <- incredibly immature way to express his displeasure
BSH def knows that KSE would like for him to be more altruistic. too. (again, the hospital arc.) He gets incredibly defensive and ‘even a bit desperate’ in 392 when he talks about how KSE looks disappointed in him about not having helped others. (I can’t even tell if KSE actually looked disappointed or BSH was just reading into his expression of concern for the other guys.)
In short, despite how much BSH has changed, in many ways, he hasn’t changed much at all. He’s still the same BSH who was selfish, temperamental and always on the defensive.
It’s just that he now really really cares for KSE and wants KSE to trust and depend on him.
—--
Anyway, that's my thoughts on BSH.
In conclusion, KSE should maybe consider voicing out loud some of his inner narration about how impressed he is by Section Chief BSH! Wouldn't that make BSH happy!
And also he should give him headpats and chin scritches and maybe hold his hand and have sleepovers and tell him that they can be best of best friends from now on - (gets incinerated by Braun)
Someone said "kim soleum doesn't fuck" which was for some reason the funniest thing to me. There's no reason to believe anyone fucks they're too employed for that.
"Now that you’re a temporary agent, we should call each other by codenames. Do you have a preferred codename?”
Oh my god.
“Oh, we typically use historical materials for codenames. Non-ordinary terms make it easier to distinguish between agents.”
‘He’s even letting me pick a codename?’
It felt like they were fulfilling every conceivable fantasy.
…Oh.
Did I already have a codename I wanted to use for a Disaster Management Bureau agent in the Darkness Exploration Records I’d envisioned?
Yes. Yes, I do.
But… I had enough self-awareness not to bring it up now. It would be far too embarrassing.
“…I’ll go with Grapes.”
So. Do we have candidates for what chuuni Self-Insert Agent Codename KSE had that he supressed in his heart before choosing Grapes (his favorite fruit) instead?
@just-gingerkat oh for sure. That reaction seems like such a classic "grapes are sour" reaction on reread. Though probably there was a bit of element of 'being Daydream means I can aim for Wish Ticket' too.
“Maybe none of the people who entered before were familiar with American pop culture.”
“……”
Could it really be explained that simply…?
“Uh, Soleum-ssi, did you study abroad or something?”
“No, I didn’t.” Kim Soleum answered immediately. “I just happen to know a lot of random stuff.”
- KSE making his excuses about why he was able to solve the clown darkness so quickly.
It's something that made me laugh during my reread, because yeppp. Such a familiar experience as a non-US fan who has been in fandom for a long time. You end up knowing so much random stuff that you have no way of explaining to anyone IRL about how and why you know other than going 'i just know a lot of random stuff haha'.
That said, all through Part 1 and Part 2, I had definitely assumed KSE was a stealth fan IRL. Great at maintaining normie cover in front of colleagues and people irl, given his age (mid-late 20s in 'real life' i think, though in DER world his body was younger) the way he was during the pop-up event and his monologues about the importance of maintaining a poker face etc (and his competence at it!)
[Some speculation and wondering about KSE's fannish activities, as shown in Part 3 under the cut]
I can't say I really thought about this before seeing a comment to this point on KKP, but
KSE's boss (and presumably fellow employees) all know him being a fan of DER wiki, and apparently he was someone who would openly going on the wiki during work breaks.
But as per KSE, he hasn't actually checked the DER wiki at all in the 365 days after he got back home. As soon as he checks the wiki, it goes down with that specific message for him.
So exactly how openly obsessed with DER was he in his workplace, that even after ONE YEAR of not doing anything with it, his boss still associates that with what KSE usually does in his breaks? Because this changes my perception of KSE as a person pre-isekai quite a bit I think!
Unless... it's just these last 365 days when he's often spending his breaks with idk the search engine results for DER open on his computer, trying to psych himself into clicking on the link to the wiki but never actually doing so. And that's what the others noticed?
With the trendy dog plush thing, I guess it could be a new habit after getting used to having Braun with him all the time, but at the same time, it could also be that he was already used to carrying around plushy type toys with him, which is why he didn't overthink openly carrying a pink bunny keyring/plushie with him even in a cutthroat corporate environment. IDK which option I like better.
I really want to know more about KSE's irl life pre- and post- his (first) DER jaunt so bad!!
Everytime Soleum said something like the lines above("happens to know a lot of random stuff"), he sounds exactly like Conan from "Detective Conan". "I learned it from TV", "My father taught me at Hawaii"
Love the idea of Soleum as some sort of cursed-into-cuteness ghost story detective. And it's absolutely not a wrong comparison either. 🤣
----
@everyonesfavoritebastard: see I only know a bit about Pierrot because of that one Cowboy Bebop episode, so being a weeb of a certain age is probably helpful. And clown knowledge of the 'all clowns have different make-up and those make-up means things' comes from Discworld.. But now I am definitely speculating even more about what non-SCP/DER things Kim Soleum was fannish about.
----
@kimorkim Yeah, the more I think about it, the more this sounds the likely option to me too.
@imusteatsomeone And yeah, same! It really felt like he was a stealth fan irl - what with his mental anguish during the DER popup right in the beginning, and being so good at poker-face at work! But that first part 3 chapter gave us so little about his life except poking so many holes into what we thought we knew about the kind of fan KSE was.
It is really moe of him, but it also puts so much more emphasis into just how 'unreliable' he is even as an unreliable narrator!
First of all some non-chapter specific info and speculation.
TIL that the "Deities" are called "Majin" in Japanese. Because "Deities", I've wondering why the fuck are they in Hell (instead of heaven). But nope, they are actually just "Magical Beings". Possibly something more akin to "Greater Demons" than "Deities", given what we've seen so far.
We've already been told that the demons are allowed to do whatever at the Majins' sufferance, but I thought maybe this meant some sort of heaven colonizing hell narrative.
But no, Majin are native to the netherworld, and looking back at the info when they were first properly introduced, may in fact have predated the usual demons. So does that mean, it might actually be that the demons are the ones who are not native to Hell, and came there from somewhere else. (from the human world?! as a species that can interbreed with humans, and has specific interaction with human blood - that would make more sense if they actually co-evolved with humans, wouldn't it?)
Anyway, on to the chapter!
First of all, a timeline confirmation finally? It's been "several centuries" since Delkira!
(So, how long ago was Kushinashi? And for how long? Where is she now?)
So relieved to see Clara's reaction, but Azz-Azz close-up has me both really excited and a bit apprehensive. Also so glad to see the focus on the 'shinyuu'. I am ready for Azz-kun to confront his Iruma-tinted-goggles and also for the potential reveal of both their secrets.
I also hope this means they will take the center stage in whatever is going to happen next. Since Sully and Opera are both going to be in prison too. :(
Anyway, next chapter is an extra long chapter focussing on the "shinyuu and the others' feelings" presumably about the reveal. I wonder if the others in this case are just going to be the teachers who are already in the know or if the rest of the Misfits and Ameri and the school will also find out?
Still love how chill Bellial and Levi are about Iruma being human, and their complete support of Sullivan and Iruma being grandfather-grandchild.
Really hating on Baal at the moment, but in a way where I am appreciating also how absolutely crafty he is - seeding in genuinely good points about the current power system in Hell, while successfully angling to get put on the throne after all.
Shura's yandere moment gives me hope she will eventually be the one to curbstomb Baal (though probably not before curbstombing someone on 'our side' I'm afraid), but also where the fuck are the rest of the Majin? Who and where are her parents? Why is she in this situation in the first place?!
One of the tiny bits from GSGW Part 2 that I keep thinking about...
The Blue Mascot has hugged The Good Child a couple of times before, but towards the end, it is Kim Soleum himself who initiates a hug with him. This is during the time when he feels he's in the final stretch and soon going to be able to go home.
I think this might also be the first and only time Soleum has initiated physical touch with anyone other than Braun. He's very constantly touchy with Braun in his little plush form, stroking his head and ears as reflex action whenever Braun gets too heated, or is helpful. But other than that, i don't think he's ever initiated touch with anyone else. It makes sense for it to be the Mascot in his own huggable cute form - he's hugged KSE before as mentioned, and also he's a big cute mascot.
But then a little while later, a Mascot form KSE (secondary mascot body) encounters LJH for the first time after a while and this is how he responds:
And then, this is KSE reflecting on his good emotions once he is ungooped.
... "The delight of meeting someone I was happy to see"....
I think he really wanted to give Lee Jaheon a hug too, but with him being the way he is, that's awkward.
I hope he gets to hug and openly show "the delight of meeting someone I was happy to see" with everyone in Part 3.
