Eleanor Whitmore's Perspective
Eleanor had always considered herself a good player.
Not perfect, but at least reliable.
Someone everyone could count on to control the flow of battle with her heals, keeping the team on its feet when everything seemed to fall apart.
She had learned to efficiently calculate the right timing for her spells.
To heal her allies—when, where, and how it was needed.
That fine balance between casting too early and casting too late was something she had trained for years.
And, in time, she came to believe she had mastered it.
After all, she had good results.
Her friends trusted her.
They always asked her to join the toughest missions.
And that made her happy.
It was her way of feeling useful.
But now…
Now, inside the Black Tower, she realized how unprepared she truly was for the complexity of this game.
Because to be a good healer here, it was no longer enough to just time spells or make sure the Tank didn't fall.
It was far more complex.
Far deeper.
A level of responsibility she still didn't fully understand.
And her two great mistakes spoke for themselves.
First came the awe.
She had watched, wide-eyed, Hana's insane display.
The girl had literally become a human machine gun, arrow after arrow flying in every direction, mowing down every goblin that dared to breathe.
Eleanor was fascinated.
How could she not be?
The cadence of the shots was superhuman, the bow resounded like a living war machine, and the monsters fell in sequence, turning chaos into order.
It was breathtaking to witness that in real time.
Almost… hypnotic.
And for a moment, she simply forgot her own role.
She didn't think of the absurd mana cost Hana was burning.
She didn't consider that it wasn't just physical energy but focus and concentration, that Hana was fighting against pain in her own mind to pull that off.
It didn't even cross her mind that at that very moment she should have been supporting her friend.
The mana recovery spell was right there in her hands.
She could have extended that lifeline, could have sustained Hana so she wouldn't break under her own effort.
But she didn't.
And the result was cruel.
At the peak of the rain of arrows, at the moment when Hana seemed invincible, she simply collapsed.
Her body fell like a puppet with its strings cut.
Eleanor froze.
She already knew that overusing skills caused headaches.
It was something talked about, debated, even something she herself had experienced in lesser measure.
But she had never imagined that, if that pain were pushed to the extreme, it could actually make someone faint inside the Tower.
And that was exactly what happened.
Hana lay on the ground.
Unconscious.
Fragile as she had never been.
And guilt burned like red-hot iron in Eleanor's chest.
For an instant, she felt the air vanish, as if struck by an invisible blow to the chest.
And before that sight—hands trembling, mind in panic—she made her second great mistake.
She forgot her own role.
Without thinking, she ran.
Her feet struck the stone floor in a desperate sprint, her breath ragged with panic.
Her healer's instincts should have been screaming that the battlefield was not yet clear.
That the sub-boss was still alive.
That her allies were still in danger.
But all of that was drowned out, suffocated by the image of her fallen friend.
Eleanor only wanted to reach Hana.
To hold her, check her breathing, feel her pulse, make sure she was still there.
In that moment, nothing else mattered.
She forgot they were in a dungeon.
Forgot that monsters gave no respite.
Forgot that the Tank still needed her.
Forgot, above all, her primary role: to keep the team's shield standing.
It was a lapse.
A moment of weakness.
But she knew all too well that lapses could cost dearly.
By luck, the Tank didn't fall.
But that wasn't thanks to her.
It was because of the cold, almost monstrous skill of the player named Aslan.
While Eleanor ran blind with despair, he alone held the front line.
His shield and axe absorbed every charge, deflected every arc of steel, redirected every brutal impact.
He didn't just survive: he kept the fight under control, as if he needed no one.
Eleanor only realized this when she was already kneeling at Hana's unconscious side, trembling fingers searching for vital signs.
The metallic clash of battle behind her wasn't that of someone about to fall, but of someone fighting at the peak of concentration—even abandoned by everyone.
When the boss finally fell—its massive body collapsing to the ground with a dry thud, defeated almost single-handedly by the Tank—Eleanor felt a knot tighten in her throat.
That scene said it all.
Aslan had held the impossible without depending on her.
And in that instant, a crystal-clear certainty took root in her mind:
All her experience in other games was worth almost nothing inside the Black Tower.
Here, she wasn't the confident player who could time heals like perfect equations.
She wasn't the veteran who mastered pre-programmed mechanics with trained reflexes.
Here, she was just a novice. A novice who had, more than once, failed to judge the situation correctly.
Who didn't recognize the cost of Hana's rain of arrows.
Who abandoned the Tank at the most critical moment.
And honestly, admitting that reality was painful.
It was like swallowing molten iron.
But at the same time… a strange relief spread through her.
It was better to know now.
Better to recognize her ignorance on the second day of the Tower's release than months later, when the cost would be much higher.
At least now she had the chance to rebuild herself.
To find her path again without carrying so many losses.
And deep down, that thought was the spark of hope that kept her standing—
Even with the bitter taste of failure still clinging to her mouth.