"What do you mean you're going to the smoking woods over a dream?" Trinity asked, plucking and throwing flowers into her basket.
Sunny couldn't explain it. How could he say he was from another world and he thought one of the people he was with was held there? How could he explain he was a system user and he had reason to believe that he had accessed the smoking woods through the spectator room?
Magic existed here to an extent, Sunny had already learnt that over the day's he had spent in the town. But it had it's limits, and if definitely didn't let someone visit forbidden places like the smoking forest while their body is sleeping.
"What are you, possessed?" Trinity asked, placing the back of her hand on his forehead, as if trying to feel if he had a fever. "It's a forbidden area, you know that."
Sunny didn't persist. He knew how ridiculous it sounded. Wanting to go into a forbidden place that's known to be impossible to return from, all because of a dream. Even he wouldn't believe her if he was in her shoes.
Eight days since the weaver festivals yet the decorations still stayed up. They were barely noticable, with the flowers having fallen and decayed already, but Sunny noticed.
They passed through miss Oles' flower shop, delivering the baskets of flowers the had picked before proceeding to ser Teles' bakery to buy some freshly baked bread.
The insides of ser Teles' bakery smelt so nice that calling him ser despite him not being a knight was fully justified.
Night was approaching yet Sunny's eyes still saw clearly. He could see the men covering their faces while heading into brothels while some walked freely, chugging booze as they did. He saw some children racing to their homes and irresponsible women hurrying to shops at the last moment while some– like Sunny and Trinity– walked with emptied baskets on their back, chattering along the way.
Despite all this, however, the tower at the distance still managed to draw Sunny's attention.
It holds up the sky– according to the world's history.
Sunny had attempted to approach it through the spectator room but the space around it seemed to warp infinitely, making it go further the closer he got to it.
After eating, that night Sunny couldn't sleep. The town too, didn't sleep, but that was a regular occurrence at flowwood, there was always someone doing something, be it building or getting drunk.
"Luna," Sunny thought to himself, he was certain he had seen her in the smoking woods. It wasn't clear, but her face had flashed before him while he was in there. The whole world seemed to be messing with his spectator room. He couldn't see things as clearly as he could back in the real world.
There was something affecting his system. It even sounded distinctly different when it talked.
Maybe it was concentration that was lacking, he thought, looking at the ceiling, ignoring Trinity and Orion's snoring.
He shut his eyes.
Even accessing the spectator room alone posed difficult, as though he was trying to break through a barrier of invisible force separating them. This barrier was, perhaps, the reason as to why he couldn't call up his system as easily.
Eventually, he managed to enter the spectator room. He hovered in an infinite stretch of the abyss. This time, the great screen representing his system was but a distant light, appearing blurred behind a great webbing.
After the first few days, he had taught himself how to view the world through the abyss.
He shut his eyes and after great concentration he shifted the abyss, bringing himself to the world, hovering above the three of them– Trinity, Orion and himself.
He hovered through the roof, stopping a distance in the air, overlooking the town, a peaceful place that felt oddly out of place. It felt real but at the same time it felt dreamlike.
At the distance he could see a great rise of dark smoke marking the location of the smoking woods. He flew to it, stopping at the edge and hovering down to the ground.
Something was wrong.
There was something in his chest, something weakening him. He had felt it before but this sudden surge was unlike what he had felt before.
Still, like the others, it faded and he managed to get back up and instinctively he spoke out, speaking to his system before immediately realizing they were no longer interlinked and he couldn't talk to it.
He stepped into the woods and immediately they pulled him in– or they moved, what he knew was that in a sudden moment, he was surrounded by a dense stretch of trees emitting a dark smoke.
Another step and he went too far yet again.
With his spectator room malfunctioning he wondered if he could find Luna again.
As he wondered this, he faded back into the abyss, sitting in the great expanse of nothingness.
His thoughts collided with one another before a thought crossed him. He didn't have to visit the place and track the path to her as he would normally, he simply had to make sure if she truly was there.
With that, he waved his hand, viewing the smoking woods yet again, this time as one would be viewing a screen.
Still, he couldn't properly use it.
He floated before the screen quietly. Maybe he had to charge into the woods with only hope that she was there.
He hated this. Maybe his system could know how to do this better than him.
With a groan, another thought crossed him.
He brought himself back into the woods, attempting to view them in true sight. Maybe he could simply see through them.
All he saw, however, was a dense spider-like webbing followed by nothing but smoke.
For a moment, as though taunting him, he heard Luna's voice calling his name. He returned to normal sight, streaming through the woods trying to locate her.
For a moment, her face flashed before him before suddenly disappearing with a step. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't find her again.
Instead, he saw something moving within the darkness of the black smoke. Instantly, he returned to the abyss, his heart racing.
Maybe there indeed was a reason as to why the smoking woods were forbidden territory.
But if Luna was there he had to go. Maybe she would have information as to what was going on.