Starting with a Cat

"...wake..."

"Wake... Sapphire..."

"...wake up... Sapphire Star..."

The intermittent calls and shoves from who knew where gradually brought Xie Wen out of his sleep. Still groggy, he instinctively tried to sit up...

Huh?

Why couldn't he move?

His mind was clearly awake, yet Xie Wen found that he couldn't even open his eyes.

Damn! Sleep paralysis!

It wasn't as though he had never experienced this before, so Xie Wen wasn't particularly alarmed. What puzzled him was that he lived alone. Who could possibly be calling him to get up?

At the same time, that voice rang out again-

"Wake up, meow! Sapphire Star!"

"!!!"

With that shout, the "force" restricting Xie Wen's movements suddenly vanished. He sprang upright on the soft sand and looked at the strange creature that had been pushing him and trying to wake him-

A pale-yellow cat standing on two legs, wearing a white coat and a chef's hat.

Well, calling it a little cat wasn't quite right. From Xie Wen's perspective, it was actually a little taller than he was while sitting upright...

Holy shit! I got up too fast! Now I'm seeing a Palico waking me up!

As a veteran Monster Hunter player, Xie Wen couldn't possibly fail to recognize where this "furry" came from. The problem was...

That's a character from a game!

Figuring that he was probably still half asleep, or perhaps still dreaming, Xie Wen promptly lay back down on the slightly damp sand, intending to clear his head with another nap.

"Why did you go back to sleep, meow?!"

The chef-clad Palico roared, raising its little furry paws to unleash a flurry of kitty punches on Xie Wen's face.

"Holy shit! This isn't a dream?!"

The cat's paw pads didn't hurt much when they struck his face, but the realistic sensation of those blows, coupled with the cold dampness against his back, kept reminding Xie Wen that he wasn't dreaming.

"Did the seawater leave you addled, meow? Of course this isn't a dream!"

Arms folded, the Palico gave Xie Wen a sidelong look as he sat up again. Its little furry face vividly displayed a complex expression that was three parts disdain, three parts resignation, and three parts worry.

Could I have...

Transmigrated?

As a longtime homebody with a perfectly normal thought process who had read and watched plenty of transmigration novels and anime, Xie Wen naturally arrived at that suspicion.

After all, anyone who woke up to find themselves suddenly by the sea, with a talking Palico beside them, would probably think the same thing.

Always fairly laid-back, Xie Wen stood up and brushed the sand off his clothes while looking around...

He was on a beach. Aside from the dense jungle behind him, there was nothing around but an endless expanse of sea.

So I'm on an island?

Xie Wen scratched his head. Had he ended up in the world of Monster Hunter Tri?

As far as he remembered, only the third installment, including the later Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, had a primarily maritime setting.

Wait, that's not right...

Xie Wen soon rejected that idea.

If he remembered correctly, the companions in the third installment weren't Palicoes, but peculiar creatures called Shakalaka, which had previously appeared as minor enemies.

Besides, he still remembered what the Palico beside him had called him. Sapphire Star-that was a title from Monster Hunter: World.

Could this be a combined edition?

Xie Wen wouldn't find that particularly strange. If he hadn't transmigrated into a game itself, but into a real world operating under the game's setting, then connections between the different installments would be perfectly normal.

His first priority was still to figure out where they were.

"Do you know where we are? How do we get to the nearest village?" Having organized his thoughts, Xie Wen looked at the Palico beside him.

"No idea, meow." The little cat shook its head. "When I regained consciousness, all I saw was you lying here with me, Sapphire Star... meow? That's strange..."

The Palico twitched its ears and tilted its head, muttering, "Why do I think you're the Sapphire Star, meow? This is clearly our first meeting, and you don't look like the Sapphire Star either, meow."

"Uh..." Xie Wen's expression stiffened before he explained with a sheepish smile, "Maybe it's because I really did earn the title of Sapphire Star?"

Even if it was only in the game.

The Palico looked him up and down, its face full of doubt. "You? How old are you, meow?"

Only after hearing that did Xie Wen notice something. He was standing now, yet his eye level wasn't much higher than the Palico's.

Xie Wen hurriedly looked down at his body, running both hands over his torso and face.

His stubbly chin had become smooth, and his arms and legs were much smaller. As for his height, he was only a little more than a head taller than the Palico. Assuming Palicoes averaged about a meter tall, he was now around 130 centimeters at most.

"Holy shit! How did I turn into a kid?!"

Perhaps he hadn't adjusted to the "difference between worlds" yet, but Xie Wen kept feeling as though his reactions were half a beat slow... well... maybe more than half a beat.

After all, no matter how oblivious he was, he should have noticed such an obvious physical change much earlier.

Not to mention that his clothes had changed from the SpongeBob pajamas he wore to bed into a thoroughly Monster Hunter-style set of coarse linen clothes... probably the outfit characters wore during character creation.

Under other circumstances, Xie Wen would have been quite happy to see his body grow younger. Getting several extra years of life was a win however he looked at it.

But right now, he was most likely in the Monster Hunter world, and aside from a jungle inhabited by who knew what monsters, there wasn't a single sign of other humans nearby. With his current child's body, forget a Rathian or Rathalos-even one Velociprey would spell his doom...

Though even with his adult body, he probably wouldn't fare much better...

Xie Wen was well aware of just how poor his physical condition was.

So Xie Wen turned his gaze back to the Palico...

"Um... you can fight too, right?"

In the early Monster Hunter games, chef cats and combat cats could switch "jobs."

"Didn't you say you were the Sapphire Star, meow?!" the pale-yellow Palico roared at Xie Wen, looking fierce and adorable at once. Still, it nodded and said, "If it's just gathering ingredients, I can manage. But if we run into large monsters or wyverns, don't count on me, meow."

"Phew..." Only then did Xie Wen breathe a sigh of relief. "That's enough. With these scrawny little arms and legs, I wasn't planning to pick fights with those monsters anyway."

"So what part of you is supposed to be the Sapphire Star, meow?!" The Palico gave Xie Wen a scornful look.

"Well, I've shrunk... and I don't have a weapon or anything..." Faced with the cat's contempt, Xie Wen couldn't help arguing back, though inwardly he was lamenting his predicament.

In his current situation, unless he found a "starter village" soon, some monster passing by would probably swallow him within a few days.

Just then, a flood of hunter-related memories suddenly surfaced in his mind. Along with wilderness survival knowledge, there were techniques for fighting monsters with various weapons and items, as well as some basic hunter "common knowledge."

It felt as though a long time had passed, yet also as though it had only been an instant. Xie Wen snapped out of his rigid daze and instinctively looked down. At his waist was a simple, old-fashioned object resembling a waist pouch. The characters created in the game seemed to have one too.

According to the "common knowledge" he had just acquired, the Hunter's Pouch at his waist really could hold a great many things, just like in the game.

Unlike the game, however, he couldn't see a panel of items arranged in individual slots. Instead, it was somewhat like the spatial storage equipment in cultivation novels: he sensed the pouch's contents entirely through his mind.

So did I transmigrate into a game, acquire a game character template, or is this simply how the hunter world works?

Regardless, starting out with spatial storage equipment and a cat already made Xie Wen far luckier than many transmigrators. It was just that...

Since I got a cat, where's the dog I can ride, fight alongside, use to tank hits, and scale walls with?!

After that burst of outrage, Xie Wen refocused and reached into his extradimensional Hunter's Pouch, intending to take stock of anything useful inside...

Just as the knowledge he had acquired suggested, the moment he put his hand inside, he could instinctively sense every item stored there.

First were two Potions, excellent lifesaving supplies that he would have to use sparingly until he found a village.

Next were three Well-done Steaks... With a chef cat beside him, Xie Wen didn't feel they were particularly useful, but they were better than nothing.

Then Xie Wen sensed a copy of the Hunter's Notes. It might contain useful information, though he didn't have time to read it just yet.

Besides those, Xie Wen also found one Fishing Rod, one Portable BBQ Spit, one Carving Knife, one infinitely reusable Whetstone, one Shock Trap, five Paintballs, one Sonic Bomb, two pieces of Raw Meat, one flame sac, and one Gendrome hide...

Why do the contents of this pouch feel so random?

Xie Wen scratched his head in confusion. The contents didn't resemble a "new character's" basic loadout, nor was the pouch packed with high-tier items befitting a "Sapphire Star." Instead, it seemed more like the inventory of a character who hadn't been playing for very long.

Also, this really is a combined edition! The latest Monster Hunter doesn't need Paintballs, while Whetstones in the early versions weren't infinite-you used one up each time.

These things weren't exactly useless, but in Xie Wen's current circumstances, the items other than the Potions really wouldn't help much.

So where are my all-purpose Wirebugs?! I even got a BBQ spit! And the combat techniques I just received included Silkbind Attacks!

Even without Wirebugs, at least give me a Slinger!!!

Feeling dejected, Xie Wen skimmed through that assortment of miscellaneous items and finally found what he needed most right now: a weapon.

Except...

"Why did it have to be Fresh Knife: White Calm?!"

-

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Regarding the protagonist's name, since One Piece's overall setting leans Western, I chose a name that could work in both Chinese and foreign contexts. But I didn't want a common name like "Ron" or "Lewis." After going back and forth, I settled on Xie Wen (Sherwin), which means "swift runner" in English, so you can also call the protagonist Xie Pao Pao... _(:зゝ∠)_