Matteo Romano's Perspective
Matteo had to admit it: he was nervous.
And not the kind of nervousness you mask with a joke or a forced smile.
It was the kind where death's scythe seemed to graze your neck at every moment.
In the past few hours, he had nearly died dozens of times.
Every goblin charge, every failed attempt to raise his earthen walls in time, every miscalculation…
He almost saw his virtual body being pierced, crushed, or split apart, only to be saved at the last second by a well-placed arrow from Silent, or a shimmering shield cast by the cleric Lumina.
To keep himself together, he clung to a mantra.
It's fine.
It's just a game.
It's not real.
Even if I die, I lose nothing.
That thought had carried him through the entire dungeon.
And, in a way, it worked.
With each repetition, each victory, he noticed small changes in himself.
He hesitated less.
He no longer froze when a creature came roaring at him.
His arms reacted faster, his staff rose almost on reflex.
His performance had undoubtedly improved.
But now… now everything felt different.
Standing before the boss's door, the air was heavy with suffocating tension.
The silence was so thick that even his own breathing felt too loud.
And his companions weren't helping.
It was getting harder and harder to convince himself that everything here was just an illusion.
A detailed, realistic illusion.
In their eyes, Matteo saw expectation, fear, restrained anxiety.
They weren't treating this chamber like players staring at a screen.
They were warriors standing at the edge of a real battlefield.
And honestly, Alessio was the worst of them all.
God, Matteo had never seen him so focused.
Where was that friend who never cared about anything?
The one who always carried the same bored look through the night?
Now, the man drew a deep breath, preparing himself as if he were about to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.
It was impossible not to be swept up by it.
The Tank looked ready for an epic battle.
And in that instant, Matteo felt reality slip beneath his feet.
All the logic that screamed "It's just a game" began to collapse.
Because nothing about this felt like a game anymore.
With every passing second, the Tower felt more like a living world of its own, filled with consequences.
And he could almost believe that if they failed, the goblins wouldn't stay confined to this room.
He could almost hear the echoes of nearby villages being raided, families running, screams of despair.
Everything felt too real.
Terrifyingly real.
Alessio was the first to step into the chamber.
His footsteps echoed like hammer strikes — firm, heavy, full of confidence.
The rest of them followed only after, keeping a good ten paces behind him.
That wasn't coincidence.
It was part of the plan Alessio had explained with his calm, analytical tone.
Everything measured, everything calculated.
The air in the chamber seemed to vibrate.
The dim glow of black candles cast long shadows across bloodstained walls.
And every step they took sounded like an open challenge to the goblin shaman, who still sat silently on his throne of bones, watching.
When the distance shrank to less than ten meters, the inevitable happened.
The guards moved.
Two goblins clad in crude armor, wielding massive greatswords nearly as tall as themselves.
One charged straight for Alessio — the most advanced, the obvious target.
But the other veered off, aiming to bypass him and reach them, the weaker members of the group.
Matteo's heart pounded.
If that happened, the plan would crumble.
The entire strategy Alessio had laid out would collapse on the very first move.
But Alessio was faster.
With a sidestep and a calculated pivot, he placed himself right between the two guards.
Then he unleashed a guttural roar, deep and primal, reverberating through the chamber like the bellow of a beast.
It was a Tank skill.
And in that moment, everything changed.
The two guards, who seconds ago seemed like disciplined warriors, became rabid beasts.
Their eyes locked solely on Alessio, as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.
They roared back, raised their blades, and attacked without thought.
As for Alessio—
He calmly led them.
Shield raised, steps steady, he guided their strikes where he wanted, retreating toward one edge of the room.
Each clash of blade against steel thundered through the hall.
But he did not falter.
He controlled the rhythm, dictated the distance, turning their fury into a dance of movements under his command.
Lumina stayed close, eyes fixed on him, hands lifted, ready to heal at the first sign of danger.
The tension in her face was plain, but her focus was absolute.
And with that, the first phase of the plan was complete.
Alessio had drawn the two guards to himself.
And for the first time, the boss stood "vulnerable" before their eyes.
Matteo exchanged looks with Ember and Hana.
It was their turn.
This time, the responsibility of handling the boss was theirs.
And in the worry shining in their eyes, he knew they were thinking exactly the same thing as him: if they failed, there would be no second chance.
The first to move was Hana.
Her hands moved quickly, almost automatically, as she pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked it.
She slid to the side, her eyes never leaving the goblin shaman.
Until that moment, the boss had ignored them.
His gaze was fixed on Aslan and the guards, as if watching a bloody show put on solely for his amusement.
The throne of bones was like an arena balcony, and he watched with disturbing calm, a king savoring the brutality of his warriors.
Then Hana's arrow flew.
There was no sound.
Only a faint trail of shimmering blue energy surrounding it, like an ethereal veil.
Matteo recognized the skill.
And honestly, it scared him more than the insane combo that had knocked Hana out earlier.
It wasn't just a boost to damage — though that was part of it.
The real terror was in the silence.
The arrow became undetectable.
No twang of the bowstring, no hiss through the air.
It was like being attacked by nothing at all.
And when combined with the natural stealth of archers cloaked in shadow, it became a weapon that turned Hana into something truly frightening.
Matteo had already wondered which class would prove the most dangerous in the Tower.
But at that moment, only one thought consumed him:
Archers.
He feared that class more than any other.