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Xie Wen pulled Fresh Knife: White Calm out of the hunter's Pocket Dimension Pouch, looking thoroughly disgruntled...

It even came with a strap and a sheath!

"Meow? That weapon, of all things? You've got good taste, Sapphire Star, meow."

As Xie Wen drew the blade, the Palico beside him walked over, patted his arm, and offered that compliment.

Faced with the cat's praise, Xie Wen rolled his eyes, speechless.

Of course a Palico would like this blade. After all, it looked like a long ribbonfish with a sword hilt stuck into its mouth...

Come to think of it, ribbonfish were the main material used to forge this blade in the game.

At that thought, Xie Wen leaned his nose toward Fresh Knife: White Calm and sniffed...

Thankfully, it didn't smell fishy.

But even without any strange smell, Xie Wen was still pretty depressed about having only Fresh Knife: White Calm as his weapon. More precisely, what depressed him was having only a Long Sword.

Sure, Fresh Knife: White Calm looked a little bizarre, but Xie Wen didn't particularly mind. Monster Hunter had plenty of bizarre-looking weapons, after all, and whatever else it was, Fresh Knife: White Calm was a fully upgraded Long Sword. It saved him a great deal of time farming materials.

The problem, however, lay with the Long Sword weapon type itself.

It wasn't that real-life Long Sword users were like their in-game counterparts, with all their talent points invested in looking cool and stylish, making the weapon difficult to master. Xie Wen's cheat was actually quite reliable. Every weapon technique he had acquired was good enough to do the title of Sapphire Star proud.

But every Long Sword in Monster Hunter was a nodachi, or an odachi-a weapon roughly as long as the player character was tall, which had to be carried diagonally across the back for convenient use. At his current height of around 1.3 meters, asking Xie Wen to deftly wield a Long Sword nearly two meters long was asking far too much.

Besides, with his skinny little arms and legs, even swinging it would be...

Huh?

Xie Wen suddenly paused at that thought. He realized he had been holding Fresh Knife: White Calm all this time without finding it particularly strenuous.

So he tried raising the Long Sword in his hand and swinging it a couple of times, following the knowledge he had just acquired.

Although its length made the movements a little awkward, Xie Wen really didn't feel weighed down.

It seemed that, although his body had shrunk, his physique had also been strengthened to the level of a competent hunter.

In that case, he wouldn't have to rely entirely on the cat to protect him from now on.

Xie Wen let out a small sigh of relief.

If he had a choice, he really didn't want to be a burden.

Since he couldn't carry the sword diagonally across his back, Xie Wen sheathed it and adjusted the strap slightly, hanging it horizontally at his waist so he could draw it more quickly in a critical moment.

Once his weapon was equipped, Xie Wen reached out and scratched the Palico's chin. "Now that I've got a weapon, I should at least be able to protect myself, barely. But we'd better find somewhere safe to settle down first. Who knows when we'll run into anyone else?"

The Palico narrowed his eyes and enjoyed Xie Wen's petting for a while before patting his chest. "Leave that to me, meow! I might not be that good at fighting, but when it comes to exploring, you can always count on a Palico! Take a break nearby, Sapphire Star. I'll come back and let you know once I've found somewhere suitable, meow!"

Xie Wen had absolute faith in that. Even in the early games, Palicoes were depicted surveying the surroundings from hot-air balloons. In later versions, players could send them out to explore on their own and collect materials. Plenty of Palicoes and Melynxes also lived out in the wild right under the monsters' noses, and players could even find items and materials in their dens.

And in Rise, gathering Palicoes had even been made into a separate support type.

So he petted the cat a few more times and said with a smile, "Don't call me Sapphire Star anymore. My name's Xie Wen. What about you? What's your name?"

"My name's Sanji Meow," the pale-yellow Palico answered honestly.

"Sanji?" Xie Wen blinked.

He wasn't particularly surprised that the Palico before him had such a familiar name. Back in the PSP-era Monster Hunter games, the fan translation teams had taken some liberties, and the Palicoes really did have names borrowed from anime characters. In later versions where Xie Wen could name his own Palicoes, he had habitually carried on that tradition, giving each one a suitable name based on its specialty.

For instance, he used names like Ichigo Kurosaki and Zoro for cutting types, and Vita or Poppy for blunt types.

Although chef cats had become NPCs whose names couldn't be changed in later versions, it still felt perfectly natural to Xie Wen that the chef cat in front of him was named Sanji.

But after taking a closer look at the other's appearance, Xie Wen realized this might be more than a simple coincidence of names.

The chef cat's fur was mostly the same pale yellow as Sanji's hair, but the fur on both his feet was pure black, making him look as though he wore a pair of black boots. That clearly corresponded to Sanji's epithet, Black Leg.

In addition, Sanji Meow had black tufts on the tips of his ears, like a caracal. Unlike a caracal's, however, these two tufts weren't straight. They curled just like Sanji's eyebrows.

Because of his viewing angle earlier, Xie Wen had assumed the tufts were drooping after getting wet with seawater. Only now, after a closer look, did he notice this remarkable similarity.

So...

Maybe this chef cat named Sanji was actually pretty strong in a fight?

Thinking of Sanji, whose combat strength ranked near the top of the Straw Hat Pirates in One Piece, Xie Wen became even more optimistic about surviving on this island.

As Sanji Meow slipped into the jungle, Xie Wen, who had no intention of sitting idle, drew Fresh Knife: White Calm from behind him and began training according to the hunter memories he had just acquired.

As mentioned earlier, for reasons he didn't quite understand, his current combat techniques weren't as practiced or fluid as they were in his memories. For his own safety and the cat's, he needed to master those remembered techniques as quickly as possible.

And the memories Xie Wen had inherited naturally included all sorts of training methods alongside the combat techniques used for hunting, so he didn't have to worry about hurting himself by practicing blindly.

Also, unlike in the game, some weapon techniques could actually be used across different weapon types in real life.

For example, he could still use the Great Sword's charged attacks, the Dual Blades' Demon Mode, and the Lance's charged dash even with a Long Sword. He could even perform the Charge Blade's Super Amped Elemental Discharge by releasing all his accumulated Qi Training Value at once.

And the Long Sword's own Spirit Blade attacks and techniques for raising its spirit level didn't require him to build up energy by hitting enemies the way he had to in the game.

Unfortunately, techniques involving the Insect Glaive's Kinsect, the Gunlance's Wyvern's Fire, or the Light Bowgun's Slicing Ammo required essential components he lacked. Even though Xie Wen knew the relevant techniques, he couldn't use them.

The same went for the Silkbind Attacks newly introduced in Monster Hunter Rise. Without a Wirebug, most Silkbind Attacks couldn't be used. Even the few moves he could perform would lose some of their additional effects and damage without one.

But none of that was a major problem. Once they found a village, he could take a few quests at the Gathering Hub and earn some money, then return to the fold of the Slicing Ammo Church.

As Xie Wen planned his future, he swung the Salted Fish Long Sword in his hands with enough vigor to send it whistling through the air.