Hana Takayama's Perspective
Hana never thought her old hobby would become something so useful.
Archery had always been just that throughout her life: a quiet passion, a refuge that had accompanied her since her most difficult years—her adolescence. A world where her problems didn't matter, where all that counted was wood, string, and the release of an arrow, without a single sound.
At her school, archery was treated as an exotic sport, the kind only an elite institution like that could provide for its students. Few ever bothered to practice it.
For her parents, it was just a pastime with no future—something she'd probably forget in due time.
But for her, it was simply part of who she was.
No matter the game she played, she always ended up creating an archer.
But there was no real life in that. The mechanics were too predictable.
Select a target, choose a skill, fire. Some games even allowed the chance of a miss—but it was just that, a probability calculated by some algorithm.
It was all superficial. Symbolic. Just pixels on a screen.
The Black Tower, however, had shattered that limit. It had changed everything.
Here, she wasn't just another ranged class selected from a menu.
She held the bow in her hands.
She felt the real tension of the string biting her fingers. The faint creak of wood with each pull. The weight of the arrow balanced between two fingers, sharp enough that a slip could slice her skin.
It was even better than the training she had during her adolescence.
It was simply superior to reality itself.
It wasn't just about hitting a static target.
It was about taking down a moving one—one that struck back, one that pressed her.
It was about protecting teammates, holding the line, keeping monsters from breaking through.
The pressure of having lives—even digital ones—depend on the precision of her aim made her heart race.
And, as strange as it was to admit… that pressure was addictive.
She could feel it.
Her muscles trembled under strain, her arm burned from repetition, but every time an arrow found the exact spot between a goblin's ribs, or pierced the throat of a creature mid-charge, a wave of satisfaction coursed through her body.
This was it.
This was the feeling she had always sought in training and amateur tournaments, but had never found.
In the Black Tower, the bow was finally everything she had always dreamed it could be.
Not just a hobby.
Not just a symbol.
It was part of her life.
Part of who she was.
And that exhilarated her more than anything else.
This was only the second day in the Black Tower.
But Hana already considered herself a true addict to this game.
Even so…
Faced with the current situation…
There was something she had to admit.
The battle unfolding before her eyes was a little too intense.
To say the least.
Even for someone like her—who loved the adrenaline of firing arrows on the edge of life and death—the pressure was suffocating.
But she didn't allow herself to lose focus.
Hana dashed across the hall like a moving shadow.
She ran through the open space, dodging claws and blades, searching for the next vantage point, the next opening to shoot.
She stopped.
Breathed.
Two arrows flew in succession.
A goblin collapsed with an arrow through its throat.
Another spun in the air before slamming into the stone wall.
And then she ran again.
Behind her, uneven footsteps echoed.
The sharp cries of monsters chased her trail.
She didn't hesitate. At every corner, every turn, she gained distance, twisted her body with precision, and loosed another arrow.
It was a cycle.
Run.
Shoot.
Breathe.
Run again.
Her body vibrated with tension, and every second she felt like she could fail. That she could fall—dragging the entire group down with her in this dungeon. And all it would take was a single misstep, a goblin dagger reaching her body.
Aslan had said before the fight began that the sub-boss would summon only twenty-four goblins.
That was the expected mechanic.
And though Hana simply had no time to stop and count her enemies…
She couldn't believe that number was correct.
Arrows flew, monsters fell—and still more footsteps emerged from the shadows. More yellow eyes glimmered in the gloom. More claws scraped stone as they rushed at her.
She ran, fired, ran again.
Each cycle drained her breath and her focus.
And still, the enemies didn't end.
She didn't quite know what to do, but as she barely dodged a rusty blade that nearly cut open her leg, Hana felt the truth weigh on her chest:
She couldn't miss.
Her allies were already doing their best.
Matteo and Cassandra were bent over their own spells, raising walls of earth around themselves and Eleanor—an improvised defense that creaked and trembled under the constant pounding of goblin claws. In the little time they weren't channeling, they cast disordered spells, desperate conjurations that looked more like automatic reflexes than precise attacks.
Eleanor, in turn, tried the impossible.
Keeping everyone alive, sustaining the human wall that was Aslan, while also hurling bursts of fire and raising shields of light as if she had twenty hands and twenty minds. Every second, Hana wondered how she was still breathing under that weight.
And at the center of the hall stood him.
The Tank.
The man who called himself Aslan.
His shield raised against the sub-boss, his axe sweeping against the goblins that dared surround him. It was as if he were dueling on two fronts at once—and still, he didn't give in. The goblin warrior's roar echoed through the chamber, but the response came in heavy, steady strikes that crushed bone and split flesh as though they were mere obstacles.
But Hana knew the truth.
She had enough experience to understand.
That entire scene wasn't sustainable.
At least, not for long.
The earth walls were full of cracks.
The glow of Eleanor's healing was already faltering.
Even Aslan's shield bore deep scratches, marks of a battle too heavy for its wood.
And it was then that Hana understood.
Her allies were already at their limits—but still they fought.
And that only reinforced one truth:
She had no right to fail.
Her mission was to eliminate all the goblins as quickly as possible. That was the role the Tank had given her.
It was she who had to resolve this situation.
Among them all, her condition was the most stable.
Her body still firm, her bow still taut, her mind still clear.
If there was anyone capable of turning this fight…
That someone was her.
Hana Takayama.