"Ha, haha... hahahahaha..."
Exhausted and sprawled on the ground, Xie Wen turned his head toward the goat monster lying beside him, its head severed from its body, and let out a halting but thoroughly exhilarated laugh.
For someone who had barely even been in a fight before transmigrating, killing such a huge monster with his own hands in a one-on-one battle was something he could hardly help feeling proud of.
Before long, though, Xie Wen stopped his silly laughter. He struggled into a sitting position, pulled a piece of smoked meat from his waist pouch, and started gnawing on it...
Who knew whether another monster might show up? Getting himself back into fighting shape as quickly as possible was what mattered most.
While chewing the smoked meat, Xie Wen suddenly slapped his forehead in frustration. He had actually forgotten to replenish his stamina during the fight, even though Sanji Meow had prepared plenty of food for him.
Sure enough, memories were still just memories. Until he had fully turned them into experience of his own, he was still only a half-baked monster hunter.
As Xie Wen ate to recover his stamina, he went over the fight he had just finished...
Although he had managed to slay the goat monster without taking any damage, his review made him realize that he had actually missed quite a few openings during the fight. Some had slipped past because he had been too nervous in his first battle, while others had simply gone unnoticed at the time because he lacked experience.
"...I really do need actual combat."
Xie Wen felt that this one battle had helped him improve ten or even dozens of times more than his usual training. Defeating a large monster without getting hurt had also given him the beginnings of confidence, leaving him less hesitant about fighting than before.
After all, he couldn't rely on his kitty forever. Besides, he had already transmigrated. If he still lived as timidly and miserably as he had before, wouldn't the whole thing have been wasted?
At that moment, Xie Wen felt as though a single shift in perspective had opened up the whole world.
"Meow! What happened here, meow?!"
Just as Xie Wen was silently getting fired up, Sanji Meow returned from his outing. He froze for a moment, then launched himself into the arms of Xie Wen, who sat covered in blood beside the goat monster's corpse, and anxiously felt him all over.
"Xie Wen! Are you okay, meow?! Are you hurt anywhere, meow?!"
"I'm fine, I'm fine. I didn't get hurt at all. This thing might be huge, but it was a lot clumsier than you. It never landed a single hit on me."
The instant his kitty showed concern for him, Xie Wen forgot all about his grand ambitions. Wearing a doting grin, he scratched Sanji Meow's head and gently reassured him.
"Hmph! I'm only worried about you because there'd be nobody to help me find pretty Palico ladies otherwise, meow!"
Once he heard that Xie Wen was fine, Sanji Meow immediately returned to his usual prickly attitude. He folded his little paws across his chest, turned his head away, and huffed, though he made no attempt to shake off the hand scratching his head.
"Yes, yes," Xie Wen said, still wearing that doting grin. "I'll definitely help you find some pretty Palico ladies~"
Sure, tsundere girls weren't fashionable anymore these days, but tsundere kitties were still just as adorable, whether male or female!
As for Sanji Meow's fondness for pretty ladies...
A sage had once said: appetite and desire were human nature.
Xie Wen liked looking at beautiful women himself. Wasn't it perfectly normal for Sanji Meow, a little male cat, to like female cats?
"Oh, right, meow!" After enjoying Xie Wen's attention for a while, Sanji Meow suddenly jumped out of his arms. "We need to butcher this carcass quickly, or the quality of the ingredients will drop, meow."
"I'll help too." Xie Wen stood up and retrieved the Salted Fish Long Sword he had tossed aside earlier.
With a "goat" this huge, who knew how long Sanji Meow would be at it if he had to handle everything alone?
Following Sanji Meow's instructions, Xie Wen swung the Salted Fish Long Sword and quickly cut the enormous carcass into several pieces. Then...
There was nothing else he could help with.
Sanji Meow thought he was too clumsy, unable to cut in the right places even when dismembering a carcass, so he shooed him aside without hesitation.
"Tsk..."
It looked like Xie Wen would have to keep living off his kitty's cooking after all.
With nothing to do, Xie Wen thought for a moment and finally remembered his "high-tech" Hunter's Notes. He had now not only seen and touched this goat monster, but even killed it. Surely the large monster guide had unlocked too?
With that thought, Xie Wen found a rock to sit on and took the Hunter's Notes out of his waist pouch.
He turned to the page after the small creature guide. Sure enough, it had unlocked too. Its layout wasn't much different from the previous page, with most of the space devoted to information about the goat monster and a color illustration of it. The monster list on the left, however, wasn't packed full like the previous page, which had required scrolling to see everything. There was only a single, lonely entry: (Unnamed).
Just calling it a goat monster doesn't seem quite right. Besides, it doesn't actually live in the mountains...
After agonizing over the name for a while, Xie Wen, who had never been good at naming things, finally decided to call the first large monster he had slain the "Forest Sheep King."
Given Monster Hunter's usual habits, large monsters in the one- to three-star low-rank range generally had smaller monsters of the same type, so he had followed Monster Hunter's naming conventions...
He could change it anytime anyway.
But after he entered the name "Forest Sheep King" into the Hunter's Notes, the large monster guide page suddenly began glowing with a faint white light. As the light grew brighter, the page slowly rose upright.
At the same time, the Hunter's Notes slipped out of Xie Wen's hands and floated gently in front of him.
"!!!"
The sudden change caught Xie Wen off guard. Sanji Meow, who had been working on the Forest Sheep King's carcass nearby, was drawn over as well.
"What's happening, meow?"
"No idea. I just unlocked the large monster guide, and then it started glowing." Xie Wen shook his head, then asked, "Have you never heard of anything like this before?"
"Of course not, meow." Sanji Meow rolled his eyes at him. "I've never heard of any hunter having a magical book like this, meow... What do we do now? Close it, meow?"
"...No, let's see what happens next."
After thinking it over, Xie Wen decided to leave things alone and observe for now.
Fortunately, the Hunter's Notes, which seemed to be his true cheat, didn't keep him and Sanji Meow waiting for long. Once the page reached roughly the brightness of an ordinary energy-saving bulb, the glowing sheet slowly detached itself from the book and floated into the air.
Where the page had broken off, another sheet, also glowing white, "grew" out. The light on this newly "grown" page quickly faded, and its contents still read "Large Creature Guide."
Then the hovering Hunter's Notes suddenly lost its "power," fell back into Newton's clutches, and dropped out of the air.
Xie Wen hurriedly reached out to catch it, but his eyes remained fixed on the glowing "large monster guide" page still floating above him.
Under his gaze, the sheet began shrinking little by little. When it had become slightly narrower than a sticky note, its glow faded, and it drifted down from the air on its own.
Xie Wen reached out and caught it as well. Before he could examine how it had changed, a piece of information suddenly transmitted itself from the sheet-
Palico Summoning Ticket (1/3)
Xie Wen: ???
Basically, that's the protagonist's entire cheat system: visit more places and see more things to summon more kitties.
In a One Piece fanfic, the protagonist needs some motivation to set sail. But plenty of people have already written about becoming a pirate, joining the Marines, or becoming the World's Strongest. I always like doing something a little different when I write, so after thinking it over, I gave the protagonist this motivation.
When I write fanfiction, I prefer to keep the themes as close to the original as possible. One Piece is about "dreams" and "freedom," so the kitties are the dream, and traveling around with them is freedom.
As for becoming the Pirate King or fighting for world domination, those have never been themes I liked, and they don't suit the kitties either.
Before you continue