There was a "Palico Ticket" in the game, but that was used to craft equipment for the cats. As far as Xie Wen remembered, nothing like a "Palico Summoning Ticket" had ever appeared.
After all, recruiting cats in the game simply cost money. There was no need for anything so fancy.
"Could it be..."
Xie Wen stared at the Palico Summoning Ticket Fragment in his hand as a rather unpleasant suspicion arose in his mind-
Could Monster Hunter have released a mobile game?
Fragments, gacha pulls, half-assed monster designs, and crossovers with other popular IPs...
That's the full mobile game package, isn't it?!
Especially those last two. This was probably one of those shameless cash-grab mobile games that milked an IP's fans for all they were worth.
Wait, that wasn't right. I hadn't heard anything about MH getting a mobile version before I transmigrated.
Besides, according to the basic rules of transmigration, anyone who ended up in a mobile game or received its system should've been a veteran player, a whale, a cheater, or even one of the designers, right?
With a good starting setup, you'd get VIP 18 right off the bat and a daily paycheck. Even a worse one would leave a few hundred or a thousand diamonds in your account to splurge with.
Why pick someone like me, who knew absolutely nothing about it and hadn't even heard of it, to transmigrate with a newbie account?!
A newbie account was one thing... but where was my beginner gift pack? My daily check-in rewards?! Where had they all gone?!!
Keep breaking the basic rules of transmigration like this, and I'll send you a cease-and-desist letter!
While Xie Wen was conducting this one-man brainstorming session, Sanji Meow grew impatient beside him.
"Xie Wen, what exactly is going on, meow?!"
Sanji Meow tugged at his clothes with a little paw, his large, shiny black eyes brimming with curiosity.
"Uh..." Xie Wen thought for a moment, but he really had no idea how to explain it to Sanji Meow. He simply told him the part he cared about. "Basically, even if there aren't any other Palicoes on this continent, you don't have to worry about never meeting any pretty Palico ladies."
"Meow!"
Sanji Meow's eyes instantly lit up at the news.
"Tell me more, meow!"
"Ahem. This thing is called a Palico Summoning Ticket. As the name suggests, you can use it to summon other Palicoes." Xie Wen held the Summon Ticket Fragments in front of Sanji Meow. "But this is only one-third of it. We need to collect the other two fragments before we can summon anyone."
"Then what are we waiting for, meow?! Let's go collect them!"
Sanji Meow had no interest in the Summon Ticket itself. He didn't even glance at the little scrap of paper in front of him, instead urging Xie Wen on impatiently. Meanwhile, he was already imagining meeting pretty Palico ladies, and his smile grew positively dreamy.
"The problem is... I don't know where to collect the other two pieces." Xie Wen shrugged and explained, "Sure, this piece appeared after I unlocked the Large Monster Guide, but nothing like it showed up when I unlocked the Small Monster Guide. And I don't know how to unlock the remaining pages, either."
"Meow!!!"
The ups and downs of a cat's life were far too intense. Having just found hope in life, Sanji Meow was instantly crushed by reality again, his expression switching to utter despair in a single second.
Seeing the cat looking so utterly deflated, Xie Wen rubbed his head, half amused and half sympathetic. "Don't be so down. What I just described was only the worst-case scenario. Maybe we'll get the remaining fragments just by hunting two more monsters, or another page might suddenly unlock at some point."
"Since you can beat a monster like that now, does that mean you can come explore the map with me, meow?"
His spirits restored, Sanji Meow arrived at the same idea as Xie Wen... though their original motives were different.
"Of course." Naturally, Xie Wen didn't mind that. Smiling, he scratched Sanji Meow under the chin and replied, "But before that, shouldn't you finish processing all that meat? Didn't you say its quality would drop if you left it too long?"
"Meow! My ingredients!"
Reminded by his words, Sanji Meow hurried over to the remaining Forest Sheep King meat.
Xie Wen sat back down on the rock and began examining the Summon Ticket Fragments carefully... Sanji Meow's interruption had kept him from getting a proper look at it earlier.
The Summon Ticket was ivory-colored. Apart from some pale gray Monster Hunter-style patterns and borders, it bore only the word "Palico" in two black characters.
Like the sentence on the title page of the Hunter's Notes, those two characters were written in that strange "Monster Hunter script" that Xie Wen could somehow understand.
The edge of the paper beneath the second character had the familiar irregular, jagged shape of a tear.
Xie Wen pictured the complete Summon Ticket and felt it looked a lot like a piece of Monster Hunter merchandise made into a bookmark.
After putting the Summon Ticket Fragments safely into his bag, Xie Wen opened the Hunter's Notes again, intending to investigate whether there were any items or functions he had yet to discover.
Unfortunately, despite going through the notes over and over, nothing else as special as the Palico Summoning Ticket appeared.
That day, Sanji Meow didn't cook with the newly acquired Forest Sheep King meat. He still used the food he had gathered himself.
"With ingredients this high-grade, of course we should save them until tomorrow, right before we hunt other monsters, to get the most out of them, meow!" Sanji Meow explained confidently.
Hmm, that made sense.
Since eating was his only responsibility, Xie Wen had no objections.
Early the next morning, a rich, mouthwatering aroma soon woke Xie Wen from his sleep.
He hurried out of the cave and immediately saw Sanji Meow roasting an entire hind leg from the Forest Sheep King.
Sanji Meow turned the hind leg, which was several times larger than he was, while sprinkling various spices over it. Every so often, he made a few cuts in it with his kitchen knife. Golden fat dripped from the roast leg into the fire below, sizzling as it landed.
"Eating something this greasy first thing in the morning... can't be good for you..."
Xie Wen swallowed and muttered under his breath, without meaning a word of it.
Knowing full well that Sanji Meow had a short temper while cooking, Xie Wen didn't go over and ask for trouble. Instead, he obediently found a rock to sit on and watched the cat prepare his top-quality Cat Cuisine, occasionally wiping the "sweat" trickling from the corner of his mouth...
It couldn't be helped. The bonfire Sanji Meow had built was simply too big. Even watching from the sidelines, Xie Wen felt unbearably "hot."
After an agonizing wait, Sanji Meow finally took the leg off the fire and placed it on a huge leaf he had prepared nearby to serve as a plate. Xie Wen immediately rushed over.
"Thanks for all the hard work." While thanking Sanji Meow aloud, his hand involuntarily reached toward the leg.
A small, furry paw promptly slapped his hand away.
"Don't rush! It's not ready yet, meow!"
With that, Sanji Meow took out a few dried leaves, crushed them, and sprinkled them over the leg.
"Now you can eat, meow." After handing Xie Wen a knife and fork, Sanji Meow planted his paws on his hips and said proudly, "This Forest Sheep King's meat is really special. Its quality ranks in at least the top five of all the meats I've seen, meow."
But Xie Wen had no time to care about the quality rankings of monster meat. He had already cut a piece from the leg as fast as he could and stuffed it into his mouth. He yelped at the heat but couldn't bear to spit the meat out. After chewing for quite a while in mingled pain and pleasure, he finally swallowed it.
And the roast leg certainly lived up to being food made from a large monster's meat. With just one bite, Xie Wen could feel a slight increase in his strength. Most importantly...
This roast leg tasted far better than anything he had eaten before!
He had simply transmigrated too late. By the basic rules of early transmigration stories, the leg Sanji Meow had roasted should, at the very least, have lured over a sacred beast or a dragon.
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