Enter the Endlessness (Arc 2 Start!)

"Well.....that was a hell of a dream.....Huh......I hope I didn't miss my graduation cere-"

Wu's eyes swung open as the sun shined directly down onto his face. He has technically not slept for a day and a half for now, and when he woke up, he saw the edges of the leaves overhead flopping in the wind, carving out moving shadows on the ground. There were sounds of splashing water, and Wu turned to see Lera topless and facing away as she washes her body.

He blinked a few times and forced himself to roll the other way as his heartbeat so loud that he's scared Lera's gonna hear it. Despite being an old and supposedly mature university graduate, he's still considered a young adult according to clinical definitions.

Her back's slim, and the musculature around her shoulder blades are clear yet not bulky. Despite Wu's preference for slightly more muscular girls, even he knew that this is a dangerously slippy slope.

Worse yet, he's dying with a drenching thirst (for water), but with Lera sitting in the spring, there's no way Wu's gonna.....

"Um.....Lera?" He said as Lera's shoulders shot up and she covered her breasts before turning her head back, however, she lets out a sigh of relief when he saw Wu sat facing away with the empty metal protein bottle in his end, "Can I have some water?"
"......sure," Lera said as Wu rolled the bottle backward towards her. She picked it up and scooped up some water upstream before returning the bottle.
"......Don't worry, I didn't see anything......" Wu said, sipping what's now technically Lera's shower water.
"It's.....not that." Lera put her hands over her racing heart and forced herself to breathe calmly and slowly, however, for some reason, the practice didn't work, "I just felt too.....dirty.....Give me a few minutes."

After she showered, she then raised the Heating Cast again to dry her body off and put her clothes back on. By then, Wu has also gone ahead and scouted out the bushes around them. Despite the fact that he took high school geography and biology, none of the flora and trees looked familiar to him, which makes sense.

"Thank you......" Lera said, avoiding Wu's eyes as she reached a finger towards, "Let's.....find something to eat."

As they went around fetching for a handful of berries, Wu is more than thankful that his guardian is also extremely competent in other areas. For the purpose of food-gathering, he will just have to be her muscle for now.

"Are you not.....hungry?" Lera asked as she threw the berries into her mouth, enjoying the surprising sweetness as the fruits burst in her mouth.
"I am......" Wu smiled before thinking how much it will suck if the foods of this world are poisonous to his earthly human stomach, "Here goes nothing......"

The individual berries popped in his mouth, and the juice immediately splashed his tongue with a surprising amount of delicious citrusy flavor. The berries are dark in color and looked like a mix of cherries and blueberries, yet it tastes like oranges somehow?

"Holy shit......" Wu can feel his stomach completely open up now that the first bite of food is down, and he voraciously swallowed the rest of the berries before getting up to find more. However, to his disappointment, there were no more ripe ones in the bush near them.
"They are good, right?" Lera asked, and Wu nodded excitedly.
"What are they called?" Wu asked, poking one of the green-looking fruit that's about a few weeks away from being ready for consumption.
"Berranges." Lera said quickly before she packed up everything they had as Wu sat there pondering the name of the fruit.
"WAIT! THAT'S JUST BERRIES AND ORANGES PUT TOGETHER!"

The Endless Woods are a patch of massive woodlands located just to the north-western side of the Eastern Continent. Its vast forest and sprawling ecosystem are mostly unexplored by the neighboring kingdoms.

The Kingdom of Varous is a landlocked kingdom located towards the central part of the Eastern continent, and it borders the Endless Woods just to the South. Enjoying trades from all but two directions of the Kingdom of Varous, they never spared the resources to fully explore the Endless Woods.

Just to the Southwest of the Kingdom of Varous and the center of the Eastern continent is the Ethereal Realm, a country ruled by a class of forty houses, each selected through a decade-ly tournament. For them, to get to the rich untapped natural resources of the Endless Woods, they will have to go through the Kingdom of Varous, though usually, they turn most of their attention inwards, as a meritocracy of that sort has enough problems to deal with on their own.

A massive mountain range is situated in between the Endless Woods and the Kingdom to the Northwest part of the continent. It is referred to as the Titan's Spine, and it's used to describe its sprawling size and how the spring water from its peaks gives life to the rest of the Eastern continent. Nobody has made it to the peak of the Titan's Spine in one piece, and it is rumored that you can touch the stars from there.

"Um.....are you sure you aren't bored?" Lera asked as she took a pause in revealing the world's history, but Wu seemed more than interested to hear her go on about at least what's going on in the Eastern continent.
"I mean.....it's not like we have much else to do around here, right?" Wu asked as he hopped up, now getting used to his usual weight as they are trying to save Lera's Wave reserve until it's absolutely necessary.

"Well, we are probably approaching one of the Dweller's territories, so it might be worth......" Lera said, but before can finish, she heard a sharp hiss of an arrow before a single shot narrowly missed her neck.
"LERA!" Wu called out before reaching to her and getting her to bend down, but she moved even quicker.
"Bubble bubble!" She said, forming a shield around the two of them when suddenly, she felt an arm wrap from behind them before a rough loth filled with a strange scent was covered over her mouth.

NO! How could they have been this careless......

As Lera's lied down gently, Wu's also attacked by another person. As the cloth's covered over his nose and mouth, it actually smelled like one of the cheap vodkas from Tescos. He has had enough of an alcohol tolerance at this point that he might actually fight back......

What a great day 1 for the savior......Wu laughed internally at the irony of the situation as everything went limp.

That was when he saw dozens of figures emerging from the depths of the forest before he was also knocked out by the special smell.

When he next awoke, he heard the sounds of bells ringing in his ear and giving him the most unbearable of headaches. Trying to shake away the drowsiness from whatever potion that was, Wu's first instinct was to look around.

Surrounded by a large crowd of people and having their arms and legs tied together, Wu found himself bound against Lera. They are placed at the bottom of a large dirt pit, and the crowds of people were dancing around along the edge to the sounds of drumbeats.

Feeling the soft body of Lera in her back, he turned his head and tried to shake her awake. After a few shakes, shouts, and an accidental head bump, Lera finally opened her eyes.

"Hello, Guardian!" Wu said half-jokingly, "Got any idea what this is about?"
Lera yanked her wrists back, and it tugged Wu's wrist along with it. Thankfully, he has made sure to always stretch his shoulders after days of work and training.
"Shit." She cursed, and Wu agreed, "I don't know.....Can you stand?"

"Only if we match out timings together," Wu said, then the two of them pressed their backs into one another before extending their legs at the same time. As their feet slipped slightly on the dirt at the bottom of the pit, they were able to at least stand.

That was when the two of them shuffled their feet and turned all the way around to look at the bottom of the pit around them. From the look of things, it looked like they were placed in a caved part of a series of underground caves, but why are they tossed here of all places? And why are those strange-looking people dancing around?

Speaking of strange-looking people, this is the first time that Wu has gotten a closer look at them. Their skins are grey with lines of white paint going over parts of their bodies like markings of some sort. The patterns differed from people to people, but there are also shared components of those lines from one to the next.

Their hair is a mixture of white, Grey, and Orange, and a handful of the dancers looked pretty well-built and muscular.

The music and drumbeats came to an end as the dancers finished in a victorious pose and returned to standing. Then, the crowds watching from the edge departed as an elder stepped through and walked all the way to the edge of the rises around the pit.

"Let the great sacrifice begin! The Great Gods! I offer you the preys, so please bless us with the endless spring!"

The old man said, and the unilingual translator that was given to Wu the moment he entered this world immediately picked up what he meant

"HEY!" Wu shouted as Lera half-turned his head, "Can we negotiate? What is going on?"
"Tsk......they took my Book of Casts too......"
"There is no negotiation, for the gods have shown me what's right......" The old man said, "I know for certain that if those people that enter into our domain and disrespected our gods are destroyed, then endless spring shall come, and my people will be saved forever!"

Then, he looked down with a gaze as sharp as an arrow.

"Start the sacrifice." He said quietly to the dancers by his side before turning around and walking away.

As sets of drums and musical instruments were played again, Wu and Lera can feel the ground slowly quaking underneath their feet, then, the earth suddenly split apart, and a gaping hole swallowed them hole.

"Well. Ain't this tragic......" Wu said as the two of them fell through the air.