The next morning, Ling woke feeling almost completely normal.
Yesterday's spar with the monkey had left him bruised and aching by the time he went to sleep, but most of that was already gone. Only a few faint marks remained along his arms.
Ling flexed one hand and looked it over.
'Still ridiculous.'
He climbed down from the tree and started his morning as usual. After washing at the nearby lake and getting something into his stomach, he spent some time running through the surrounding forest before returning to his clearing.
Then he tried Soru again.
Ling planted his feet and focused on the sudden burst of movement he remembered.
Nothing happened.
He adjusted his stance and tried again.
Still nothing.
Ling stared at the ground for a moment.
"...Yeah."
Not even close.
There was no sign of the monkey yet, and Ling wasn't going to spend the entire morning repeating something he still had no idea how to perform.
He also needed to learn more about where he was living.
Ling already knew the area around his camp reasonably well. The lake was only ten minutes away, and yesterday's wandering had given him a rough idea of the routes leading back toward Foosha Village. Beyond that, however, most of Mt. Colubo was still unknown to him.
His memories of One Piece weren't much help with that.
He remembered plenty of places from Luffy's childhood, but the story had never provided a convenient map showing how those places connected. Watching Ace, Sabo, and Luffy run through a forest was very different from standing inside that forest and trying to figure out where they had gone.
Ling looked toward the eastern side of his clearing.
'I'll start there.'
He adjusted the small bag over his shoulder and headed into the trees.
At first, the terrain wasn't much different from what he had already seen. Thick roots crossed the ground, bushes crowded the spaces between trees, and uneven patches of soil forced him to watch where he stepped. Ling kept an easy pace, paying more attention to his surroundings than to speed.
Whenever the land changed noticeably, he stopped long enough to remember it. A split boulder sat near one slope, while farther ahead, three unusually pale trees grew beside a shallow stream. Places like those would make finding his way back much easier later.
The farther east he traveled, the less familiar everything became.
The ground gradually rose beneath him, and several times Ling had to climb over fallen trees or circle around steep sections covered in loose stones. Eventually, the trees ahead thinned enough for him to notice open space beyond them.
Ling slowed.
A few more steps brought him to the edge of a massive ravine.
He stopped immediately.
The opposite side was far enough away that jumping across wasn't worth considering, while the rocky walls dropped almost straight down beneath him. Thick vegetation clung to parts of the cliff face, but farther below, everything disappeared into darkness.
Ling leaned forward slightly.
He couldn't see the bottom.
"...Seriously?"
The sight brought back one of the things he remembered about Garp's idea of training Luffy.
The man had thrown his own grandson into a bottomless ravine.
Ling looked down again.
'He actually threw a kid into something like this.'
He straightened and took several steps away from the edge.
'Garp is insane.'
Whatever training value the Marine hero had seen in surviving that fall, Ling had no interest in testing it himself.
He followed the ravine until he found a safe route around it, adding the location to the growing map in his head before continuing east.
Signs of animals appeared everywhere as he went. Deep hoofprints crossed damp soil near the stream, long scratches had been carved high into several tree trunks, and farther ahead, something large had simply pushed through a wall of bushes instead of going around it.
Ling crouched beside one of the snapped branches.
It was thicker than his wrist.
'Definitely not a rabbit.'
He stood and continued.
Not long afterward, heavy movement came from somewhere ahead. Ling slowed and spotted a large boar wandering between the trees several dozen meters away, its tusks curving outward from either side of its mouth.
The animal hadn't noticed him and seemed far more interested in digging around the base of a tree.
Ling watched it briefly before quietly changing direction.
There was no reason to fight it.
Yesterday had already shown him that Mt. Colubo would provide as many opponents as he could possibly want. Picking a fight with everything he encountered would only make exploring take forever.
'I don't need to punch everything.'
The thought almost made him laugh.
Several minutes later, the boar was far behind him.
By late morning, Ling had traveled farther east than he originally expected. He stopped near the top of a rocky slope and looked back through the trees, trying to judge how far he had come.
His camp was completely hidden, and so was the lake.
Nothing around him looked familiar anymore.
Ling wasn't lost. He had paid attention to his route, and the landmarks he had passed were still clear enough in his memory. Even so, standing this far from anything he recognized gave him a better sense of just how large Mt. Colubo actually was.
'And I've barely seen any of it.'
He continued east.
For a while, nothing seemed particularly unusual. Birds called from above the canopy, insects buzzed between the plants, and every so often something moved through the undergrowth nearby.
Little by little, that changed.
Ling didn't notice immediately. It wasn't until he stepped over another thick root that he slowed and looked around.
The forest had become quiet.
Leaves still rustled whenever the wind moved through the canopy, and somewhere nearby, water trickled over stone, but no birds called overhead, no monkeys moved between the branches, and even the constant rustling of smaller animals in the bushes had disappeared.
Ling's eyes narrowed.
'That's strange.'
He continued forward more carefully.
Several minutes later, a set of tracks crossed his path. Whatever had made them was heavy enough to leave deep impressions in the soil, but instead of continuing east, the trail curved sharply toward the north.
A second set farther ahead did almost the same thing.
Ling looked deeper into the forest.
'They're avoiding this area.'
That was enough.
Exploring was useful. Walking toward whatever had convinced the local wildlife to stay away wasn't.
Ling started turning back when something shifted ahead of him.
He stopped.
The sound had been faint, almost like leaves sliding across one another. Ling searched between the trees but saw nothing moving.
He waited another few seconds before taking a cautious step backward.
Then he noticed something lying across the undergrowth ahead.
At first, Ling assumed it was another fallen tree. The thing stretched from behind a cluster of bushes on his left and disappeared between several trunks farther to the right. It was thicker than most of the fallen trees he had passed that morning, but oversized plants weren't exactly unusual on Mt. Colubo.
Ling's gaze followed its length until sunlight slipped through the canopy and caught the surface from another angle.
He froze.
'Those are scales.'
The enormous body moved.
Leaves slid from its back as the section Ling had mistaken for a fallen trunk shifted across the ground. Bushes bent beneath its weight while more of the creature appeared between the trees.
Ling immediately backed away.
'A snake?'
His gaze followed the moving body until something began rising beyond the bushes ahead.
The snake's head emerged above the surrounding vegetation, its upper body thick enough that nearby branches scraped across its scales as it moved. Its eyes swept slowly across the forest while a long tongue flicked between its jaws.
Ling stared upward.
He had already seen absurdly large animals since arriving in this world.
None of them had looked like this.
For a moment, his eyes moved over the snake's body and the distance between them.
'No chance.'
Ling began backing away.
The snake's tongue flicked again.
Its head turned.
One enormous eye settled on him.
'It saw me.'
The snake moved.
Ling ran.
Its head shot through the undergrowth behind him, turning the quiet forest into a storm of snapping branches and crushed bushes. Ling sprinted between the trees, keeping to tighter spaces whenever possible as he vaulted over a fallen trunk and changed direction around a cluster of thicker trees.
The noise stayed behind him.
'It's still coming?!'
Ling risked a glance over his shoulder and saw the snake sweeping between the trees far closer than he expected.
"So much for slowing it down."
He pushed harder.
Roots passed quickly beneath his feet as Ling cut through the forest. Yesterday's spar with the monkey had already shown him how much trouble sudden changes in direction gave him. Out here, one bad step wouldn't end with him getting kicked across a clearing.
The ground dropped unexpectedly as he rounded another tree.
Ling caught himself before sliding down the slope and immediately turned along its edge, but the snake simply crashed through the bushes above and came straight after him.
"You've got to be kidding me!"
Its shadow passed over him.
Ling looked up just as its jaws opened.
'One second.'
The world skipped.
When he returned, the snake's head had already shot through the place where he'd been standing, its jaws snapping shut several meters ahead.
Ling turned and ran in the opposite direction.
'Good.'
The snake twisted around almost immediately.
'Not good.'
Ling kept moving.
Several closely packed trees appeared ahead, and he sprinted for the narrow gap between them. He slipped through cleanly, but the snake didn't stop. Its head slammed into the trunks behind him with enough force to split one of them apart.
CRACK!
Ling glanced back.
'Right. Giant snake.'
He ran faster.
The chase continued through another stretch of uneven forest. Ling used whatever terrain he could find to slow the creature, but none of it bought him more than a few seconds. The snake simply forced its way through bushes and thinner trees whenever going around became inconvenient.
His breathing grew heavier as the distance between them refused to increase.
Ling crossed a shallow stream and reached the opposite bank, only to find a rocky wall rising through the trees ahead.
"No."
It stretched too far in either direction for him to circle around before the snake reached him.
Branches snapped behind him.
Ling turned.
The snake approached through the trees, its enormous body blocking the route back.
He raised his hands.
'Running isn't working.'
His eyes settled on its head.
He didn't need to beat it. He only needed enough room to get past.
The snake lowered itself and lunged.
'Now.'
Ling stepped aside at the last moment and drove his fist into the side of its jaw with everything he could put behind the strike.
THUD!
Pain shot through his knuckles.
The snake's head shifted slightly.
That was all.
Ling stared at it.
'That did nothing.'
Its eye turned toward him.
'Forget fighting it.'
Ling slipped past the head before it could strike again and sprinted back toward the stream.
The snake twisted behind him.
Ling crossed the water and kept going, choosing the clearest route he could find rather than wasting energy on constant turns. His lungs burned and his legs had begun to feel heavy, but he forced himself forward until the crashing behind him finally began to fade.
He kept running.
Several more seconds passed without another branch snapping behind him.
Ling slowed and looked back.
Nothing followed.
He continued a little farther before stopping beside a thick tree. His hands rested on his knees while he caught his breath, but his eyes remained fixed on the path behind him.
No snake appeared.
Once his breathing settled, Ling cautiously moved far enough back to see through the trees.
The giant snake was still there.
It had stopped well behind him, its head raised above the undergrowth as it watched from a distance. It made no attempt to continue the chase.
Ling stared back.
A few moments later, the snake lowered itself and disappeared into the eastern forest.
'Why did it stop?'
Ling looked around. There was no cliff between them, no river blocking its path, and nothing else had appeared.
His gaze returned to the east.
'Territory?'
Maybe.
Ling leaned back against the tree and released a long breath.
"Mt. Colubo..."
He flexed his aching hand.
"...You're ridiculous."
It was well into the afternoon by the time Ling returned to familiar ground.
He took a longer route than necessary. After what had happened, accidentally wandering toward the eastern forest again was the last thing he wanted.
The ordinary sounds of Mt. Colubo gradually returned around him. Birds moved through the canopy, small animals rustled beneath nearby bushes, and somewhere farther away, a loud call echoed through the trees.
After the silence of the eastern forest, the noise was strangely reassuring.
Ling eventually reached the lake and crouched beside the water, splashing some across his face before taking a long drink. His breathing had already returned to normal, and the heaviness in his legs was fading quickly.
He flexed the hand he had used against the snake.
The pain in his knuckles had already eased.
'What was I expecting?'
Ling shook his head.
Whatever that snake was, he wasn't ready for it.
Not even close.
He returned to his clearing sometime later and found no sign of the monkey. For once, Ling didn't mind. He climbed onto his usual branch and leaned back against the trunk, looking through the trees toward the eastern side of the mountain.
From here, Mt. Colubo looked almost peaceful.
Ling knew better now.
'I'll stay away from there.'