There was an air of uncertainty looming amongst them all. Everyone stopped atop the hill overlooking the smoking woods.
It was a vast expanse stretching out covering a stretch of hills with dark shadow-like smoke oozing from them, rising and disappearing into the sky.
Everyone was afraid, but none wanted to say it.
Moonlight alongside the other horse-mounted banner wielders had paraded themselves with an air of certainty and courage, speaking of how they would conquer the forbidden smoking woods. Now, standing before them, they had a realization as to why the woods were forbidden.
Still, the pride burning within them could not let them back down.
Moonlight and Sunny knew well what they were after. The others were merely after feeding their own ego.
After a while of quietly watching the smoke rise from the woods, listening to the eerily calm winds, Moonlight moved forward, mounted on her horse with Sunny seated in front of her.
"Come on now, you cowards!" She called out to the others, making them move forward without a thought, all to defend their pride from a woman's tongue.
At a point, even the horses refused to go any closer. This was akin walking into fire knowing well they were to burn. The horses had no ego to defend, nor did they have any need to find Luna.
"The child will most probably die," Areste commented, as they stood at the border of the dark smoke.
He could be right, logically this was not something anyone with half a brain would do. But at times, one must act illogically.
"Sounds to me like you're the scared one," Sunny managed through gritted teeth, clenching his fists tight by his sides.
Only weapon he had on him was one of Orion's daggers. Good for close combat. If he was to find anything that demanded a fight, however, he was planning on completely avoiding getting close to it at all. He had no use for a dagger.
Everyone else was well armed and armoured, making Sunny rethink the situation he was putting himself in. Yes, acting illogical is required at times, but he wasn't thinking illogically here, he was just acting stupid.
"Scared? Don't make me laugh!" Areste's voice cut through the silence after a moment as he hesitantly stepped into the darkness.
Everyone else waited for a moment, waiting and listening for screams or anything of the sort.
None came.
Naturally, they concluded that it was safe to enter.
One after the other, they stepped in, a bit of hesitation in each one's step, until Moonlight and Sunny were the only ones left.
"This is..."
"Scary," Moonlight finished Sunny's statement, as though she was thinking the very same thing.
"Yeah."
"No one's trained for this kind of thing, but sometimes you have to–"
"Act illogically?"
She looked at him, giving him a silent nod, her mouth twisting to an unsure smile before taking a deep breath and facing the dark smoke again.
"Do you think there's fire in there causing the smoke? If so, I hope the animals aren't too overcooked, I like them medium rare" she laughed awkwardly before taking a step forward, disappearing into the smoke.
Such an idiot, Sunny thought to himself, clenching his fists tighter and shakily stepping forward, his feet almost getting repelled from the woods like like poles of twin magnets.
Still, he managed a step forward, the smoke moving at him as it always did in the spectator room. As it always happened, he found himself amidst a vast stretch of trees shrouded in the smoke they were emitting.
It was dark, even with his ability to see clearly at the darkest of nights, he could tell it was dark. Maybe it was from the dark smoke or the dense canopy preventing light from entering.
The others must have been in quite a situation.
At that very thought, Sunny realised something that he wished to have been his eyes deceiving him. He was all alone. The whole party was gone, it was as though he had entered the woods all on his own.
" Shit," he cursed under his breath.
He was about to call out to them but instantly decided against it. He had seen something in those very woods while in the spectator room.
If that thing lived in such dark woods, then it would be have a very heightened sense of hearing and probably smell in order to survive in such situations.
In the woods, however, with pollen and other smells from the vegetation, he opted to remove the adaptation of smell. Therefore, he concluded that anything that lived in those woods would in fact have a sense of hearing so great that any slight sound would mean death.
He only hoped Moonlight and the others had concluded the same.
Who am I kidding? In a medieval world, how would they even know about adaptations?
Walking through the woods Sunny felt like an ant in comparison to the mighty thick trees pillaring high in the air accompanied by the dense undergrowth, clearly showing the lack of anyone using the ground for movement.
A bat, perhaps? Sunny thought.
A bat would thrive well in such conditions, and wouldn't have any need for the ground, explaining the unbothered undergrowth.
Still, Sunny felt that the conclusion was too early met. It couldn't be that simple to deduce what kind of creature was in those woods. From the little time he had spent since getting his system, he had come to realised that the more something made sense the less likely it was supposed to happen.
As he manoeuvred through the growth, as quiet as he could, he recounted the past few experiences he had undergone since having the system placed upon him.
He remembered how he was immediately sent to a mission that successfully delivered him to the hands of death, only for his system to snatch him right back. He remembered how he had returned to the cathedral, how cathartic the moment he saw it felt. He had hated it but at that moment he had realised that the world outside might have been crueler than the insides of the golden walls. Still, he wouldn't ever return to submit to a tyrannical murderous malevolent god.
He also recalled his past moments for the previous month in this other world. The memories of the new world came to him easier and clearer than the memories of the other one. If he didn't have the spectator room aiding his memories, Sunny feared that he would have concluded that the memories of the other world were but a dream.
A loud scream brought him back from his train of thought.
If he could enter the spectator room he could try to get a look around to see what it was. But he would, in return, leave himself defenceless. Entering the spectator room was also rather difficult in this other world without his system doing it automatically.
There was also the fact that every time he had tried viewing the woods in the spectator room they seemed to move too rapidly for him to properly see anything.
He froze, reaching for the dagger tucked in his belt, trying to blend in with the dense undergrowth and avoid any confrontation that wouldn't be crucial.