Another sunny day in Karate Island... Linnea had resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't be willing to go away from this place in a very long time, but then it wasn't like she was forced to do it. Interesting things just kept on happening, interesting people kept on showing up one at a time, all in all she'd never feel like she was missing out by staying on this island. Her heart still raced whenever she thought back to the training session in that little off shore islet, the beautiful girl she met there and all the things they did... Who would have thought there was so much fun to be had like... that... It was next to impossible for the bashful young Kuja to go anytime longer than one hour without thinking back to that at least once, that was how overwhelming it all felt.

Linnea yawned as she sat up on her bed, stretching her arms up and looking outside... She scratched her hair before getting up from bed, scratching and tossing aside her jammies, swapping them out for a comfortable and short ranger's outfit. Today she'd be exploring the jungle yet again. Yesterday she noticed how there was a promising part of the jungle that she had yet to explore. It would probably not be as fruitful as the other, more frequent parts, but she would still go and give it a try. Exiting her room, she headed downstairs to the inn's dinner room, opting to eat there this time. She had gotten up pretty early today so there weren't many people around, but there was plenty of food, so it was a good arrangement. She picked up two loaves of bread with butter and jam, and a cup of tea. A reinforced yet light breakfast for what she foresaw as a long adventure. She didn't know how long it would take to see whatever there was to see in this part of the island after all...

With breakfast out of the way, the archer pulled up her hood, grabbed her bow and arrows, and stepped outside, tugging on her hood so it shielded her eyes from the blinding sun's rays. True, she could use Kenbunshoku to see around her, but her sight still had a long range capacity her Kenbunshoku lacked...

Just like the Inn's dinner room, the village's streets were empty and deserted save for a few people walking to their boats and opening their stores before the influx of customers truly began. An average village on an average early morning, nothing out of the ordinary to see here after all. On to the next sight, she walked away from the main streets, into the alleys that led outside the village's borders. This jungle was the people's main source of food aside from the sea, and the only source of meat. She occasionally saw other hunters prowling for their dinner, not unlike Linnea and even the other carniviorous animals she occasionally saw there... But today there weren't any in sight.

Once she got outside the village, she immediately headed east. She had followed the northern and westward paths extensively by now, and seriously doubted the possibility of being surprised or intrigued by anything she could still see there. Without further ado, it was time to explore the other part of the jungle, the same part she had recently descovered an unexplored portion in. Thus, she turned eastwards towards the rising sun, as it slowly travelled towards its peak height. The trees provided a great deal of shade allowing for a rather pleasant morning walk, but even then, Lin wiped off some beads off sweat off her forehead with her backhand; even if the heat wasn't overwhelming, the jungle was rather humid from the recent rainstorm. This tropical jungle envoiroment - similar to the one she had on Amazon Lily - was typical of Islands close to the Grand Line... She traveled over a fallen log, activating her strongest Kenbunshoku Haki to further her awareness of the surrounding envoiroment.

This allowed her to be aware of potential threats before they wandered too close to her, but it was still a mere forty meters radius. Thus, when she detected a concerning aura, Linnea immediately crouched into a prowling stance, trudging forwards slow and silently... There was a tiger on the prowl, clearly hungry from what she gleamed off its aura. Surely it wouldn't hesistate to attack her given his hunger. Thus, Linnea chose to try and avoid it, circumventing the animal, letting his aura stay right on the threshold of sensory range.


OOC: Used Kenbu haki, B-rank (25/40 Haki STA remaining)

Alas, it would not be so easy... Of course it wouldn't, how could she even expect something like that? Granted, her Kenbunshoku allowed her to not only see in an enviable 360º angle, and even predict how her foes were going to move before their bodies did it, thanks to attentively following the flow of their aura to antecipate feints and surprise attacks. It was a moot point against much faster foes, but that wouldn't be the case here. The problem laid in how most animals had much wider senses that her Haki's range, and obviously the tiger was now vaguely aware of her presence. Still, Linnea kept doing what she was doing before, trying her best to outmanouver the beast, hopefully long enough that it might get distracted by a tastier meal such as a deer or a boar.

But she wouldn't be that lucky, not today. Slowly but surely, the tiger approeached her faster than she could move away, Lin knew that if she started running its hunting instincts would drive it after her immediately. Instead, she did something else, slowly drawing a bow and a single arrow. She shifted her postion so she could still keep walking away in a crouched position, but doing so facing the tiger, strafing and walking backwards while relying on Kenbunshoku Haki to remain mindful of potential obstacles behind her. By looking towards where her foe would probably be, she eventually spotted a rustling in some shrubs thirty meters away, where its aura betrayed the Feline's position. But then it poked its head out... For a split second, Linnea's sharp steel blue eyes met the hungry beasts's slitted cat pupils, and in it she recognized a loook that never changed no matter what species on belonged too. The look a predator gave its prey. Thus she obviously antecipated once the tiger would start dashing at her, and let loose her arrow in advance. The urgency to fire kept Linnea from landing an immediate kill shot, but she still severely wounded the beast by embedding an arrow deep in its shoulder. Immediately, she turned tail and ran... But even with that wound, she could still feel the beast closing in, roaring in a mix of pain and ravenous hunger...


OOC: Kenbu Haki still active, 1 arrow used. T2 Tiger is wounded

Linnea just ran... She ran, and ran, and ran... Maybe she was just in a really good mood today and didn't feel like killing this beautiful animal who despite its attack was obviously hungry. Time and time again had she killed in situations such as these and perhaps today would be no different, but at the very least, she felt like trying, hoping the beast would chase after some prey it could actually bite into, instead of one who could kill it in a heartbeat. But she wouldn't be able to... Despite her own speed and the animal's injury, it was still gaining on her. She ran through the jungle, reactivating her a shorter ranged Kenbunshoku Haki to better focus on her direct surroundings. Running over a fallen log, she could notice the presence of a hill nearby, maybe there would be somewhere she could hide there? She could only hope...

With sweat trailing down her body, overheating from the intense running, even Linnea's trademark hood had fallen off her her gleaming platinum hair fluttered in strands behind her... But as she leapt off the fallen tree, she realized she wouldn't be able to leave this animal alive. Thus, she turned around mid jump just as the tiger pounced at about five meters away from her, intercepting it in mid air with a quickly drawn and shot arrow, so fast he wouldn't even know what hit him as the arrow pierced its skull. She had taken to calling this technique "Viper's Bite" given how it always managed to stagger the few opponents who did survive it, as if they'd been poisoned. Falling down at her feet with a loud thump, the tiger's body laid dead and lifeless, for the disappointed Linnea to feel sorrow for such needless death... Pulling out a short knife she normally used for wood carving, Lin tried to take as much resources off this tiger as she could: Namely, it's pelt...


OOC: Used Kenbu haki, C-rank (15/40 Haki STA remaining)
2 arrows used, total; T2 Tiger dead

Spoiler:

It wasn't easy to skin an animal with such a pitiful knife that wasn't event meant to cut people, but she managed to work with what she had, and after a tenuous 30 minutes she had managed to skin the animal and carry the pelt with her, leaving the carrion itself as food for the vultures. Even if she didn't find anything else, that pelt would still fetch a good price if nothing else, as well as allow the hunter a certain peace of mind for not having killed a wild animal for absolutely no good reason. It did try to hunt her down but it was probably just hunrgy and following its instincts, tigers normally prefer tastier prey over humans...

But then, even if now strapped a folded animal pelt on her back, she didn't deem her expedition over... There might be something else interesting around this place if she just took the time to try and find it. But would she be able to? She had used a shorter version of her Haki so as to use it in beating her hunting enemy, so her ability to scout her blind spots were slightly diminished. Climbing over a tree and making way through branches instead, she used her eyes as her main source of sensory information, and no doubt the best way to find that interesting discovery that would let her leave this jungle satisfied. She explored mainly around that hill, confident that whatever she might find would likely be found there.

After another twenty minutes of wandering and exploring, her hunch proved true, to a point. There was no way to tell if she'd find something better elsewhere, but for now an unexplored cave would satisfy her thirst for adventure. Just what might she discover here? Intrigued, she ventured inside with a combination of keen eyesight and Kenbunshoku Haki to find her way around the progressively deeper cave... It reeked of death and decay, making Lin's nose twitch with disgust. There were mauled and eaten corpses all around her, hinting at this being the den of some carnivorous animal, a feline judging by the teeth and claw marks. Could this be that tiger's den? None of these corpses looked even remotely fresh, further attesting to how the animal living there might have been going hungry.

Still, the ranger let none of that bother her and pressed forth, until she found something interesting at the end of the cave. Though it wasn't the first human corpse she found in the cave, it was by far the freshest, with some items the victim carried still scattered around. After scavanging around in the dark, Linnea found a single item worth taking: A satchel filled with paper and some odd trinkets (some of them shiny enough to be worth a few jewels).

Happy with her plunder, she headed back outside the cave and returned to the village, eager to sell to both the pelt and some of the trinkets in teh satchel. Yet even then, she couldn't help but get a better look inside it once the sunlight shone upon her face once more; and much to her surprise, she found a promising map! Could this lead to treasure?! It certainly warranted studying, so she kept it in her pocket, separate from the items she intended to sell off, and marched right into the market...

-exit-