Departure

To be honest, black panther meat was not very tasty.

For barbecue, meat needed to be like lamb—some lean, some fat. Meat marbled with fat and lean tasted best when grilled, giving off a distinctive rich aroma as the fat rendered.

A nimble predator like a black panther barely had any fat on its body, and its muscles were astonishingly tough. It was hard and chewy to bite through.

Still, that did not stop Gato from eating the entire black panther. To a hungry man, anything edible was a delicacy, let alone precious meat.

Gato realized that he could not stay on this isolated island any longer. A black panther of this size could only provide enough energy for one day of Living Body Technique training, and there probably were not many animals this large.

After all, he had already reached roughly the island's central region. His exploration of the island had come to an end.

Gato had originally thought the island's supplies would be enough to last him several dozen more days. It seemed he had underestimated his appetite.

Now, he needed to consider how to leave.

Ever since arriving here, his fire had barely gone out except on the first day. Later, he made a special bonfire: once it was lit, all he had to do was cover it with some unknown fresh leaves, and it would produce especially thick black smoke.

If the wind was not too strong, the smoke could stretch several kilometers into the sky. Even ships beyond the horizon should have been able to spot it.

He did not know whether no ships had ever come near this place, or whether they had seen the smoke and simply ignored it. In any case, he had not seen any signs of ships or people these past few days, so he could only seek a way out himself.

He decided to build a boat. Although he could walk on water, the ocean was boundless. Who knew when he would encounter civilization if he crossed it on foot?

Gato estimated that, unless one was lucky, crossing the sea with nothing but one's physical body required at least Kage-level chakra.

Building a boat was now an effortless task for him. The island had plenty of high-quality hardwood. Ordinary people would struggle even to damage it, and it was more than suitable for building a sturdy raft.

The wood was not especially dense either. It was practically perfect material.

Gato spent a full two days preparing before building a composite raft around ten meters long and four to five meters wide, made of five layers of wood. He had too many things to bring with him; without adding extra layers, even this excellent wood would not be able to bear the load.

That was because he spent another two whole days scouring the island, finding quite a few good prey animals. Together, they probably weighed a ton.

On the third day, when he intended to continue hunting, he discovered that he could no longer find any relatively large animals. Only then did he stop hunting.

Still, it was enough. This food should support two or three days of full-force training. Any more than that would not keep for long in the humid heat of the ocean, even if he smoked it dry.

If he ran out of food, he could always fish in the sea. When it came to resources, the ocean was surely far richer.

Water, however, needed to be stocked in greater quantities. The freshwater on this island would become a scarce resource once he was out at sea.

Once he had made all these preparations, Gato knew it was time to leave. Thus came the end of the first leg of his journey in another world.

Gato had already drifted on the raft for four days, and once again suffered from his lack of survival experience.

When he had lived in the forest, he had not noticed it at all, but the sun at sea was truly vicious. It had not occurred to him, so he forgot to put a sunshade canopy on his raft.

As a result, after the excitement of first setting out to sea faded on the first day, he began to feel that something was wrong. By now, he could only lie face down on the raft and let the less delicate skin on his back endure the blazing sun.

Only his chakra let him resist it somewhat. An ordinary person probably would not be saved even by lying facedown. Under such exposure, their skin would likely peel off in less than three days, followed by infected wounds and a painful death.

Gato had chakra protecting him, so there would be no problem in the short term. However, his need for water had increased. Water that he had estimated would last fifteen days would now probably last ten at most.

"This is really pathetic. I should have kept those beasts' hides."

To smoke the meat, he had naturally skinned the animals and thrown away their fur and hides.

At the time, Gato had even thought their hides were too cumbersome. Now, it seemed those things had been more valuable instead.

Even without food, he could still find some in the sea. But without water, he would truly be doomed.

Regret was useless now. In this environment, Gato did not dare continue training.

Three days passed, and all the meat was gone. If he wanted more, he could only personally dive into the sea to search for it, but any activity would consume even more water.

If he did not train, then casually catching a few fish would be enough to meet his daily needs, no different from an ordinary person.

He usually chose to catch fish when the daytime sun was at its most scorching, partly so he could hide from the sun as well. It was not time yet.

He could not stay in seawater for too long either, or he would rapidly lose moisture just the same.

"If only I could stay still and have meat delivered right to my mouth."

Accustomed to training every day with huge amounts of meat, Gato's mouth was practically tasteless from the lack of it.

But dehydration was more dangerous, so he could not waste strength fighting the large creatures in the sea. Before it was time to fish, he could only hope that some meat would come to him on its own.

At that moment, a bird about the size of a seagull landed on his raft.

Gato thought, Could something this good really happen? Catching this bird would be easy with his speed. But when he looked closer, he thought he was hallucinating.

The bird was wearing clothes, no different from a person. A bag hung from its chest, and a bundle of newspapers was strapped to its waist.

"A News Coo?"

When he had previously eaten the "Devil Fruit," he had known it was not one. He had thought his guess was wrong, that this was not the world of One Piece. Yet now he had encountered another distinctive feature of that pirate world: a News Coo.

It seemed the God Tree Fruit had taken on the appearance of a Devil Fruit because it had unconsciously assimilated to this world. In this world's eyes, a fruit containing extraordinary power was a Devil Fruit. Nothing wrong with that.

Gato really wanted to know where he was in this world's timeline, but he had no money.

He still wanted to try bargaining. "I don't have any Beli. How about this? I'll catch a few fish in exchange for a newspaper. Deal?"

The News Coo seemed somewhat tempted, but it appeared to recall something frightening and shook its head.

Gato was very disappointed as well. Still, he could not be too far from the timeline of the main plot. The owner of the news agency did not look like a long-lived species, and there was something more urgent at hand.

"Then can you take me to the nearest place where people gather? If you get me there, I'll give you a few fish to eat. You still have to keep selling newspapers anyway, right?"

This time, the News Coo hesitated for a moment before nodding in agreement.