14 Thin skin, big filling, eighteen folds...

Slash.

With a clean and crisp slicing sound, a torrent of fresh blood and a massive rat head dropped from the air.

"As expected, now that I've switched back to Longsword, I don't even need Iai techniques. Just a Spirit Blade slash is enough."

Sherwin calmly sheathed his blade, muttering somewhat disinterestedly, then pulled out his hunting knife and stabbed it into the oversized rat he had just taken down.

With a simple stab and pull, a complete rat pelt spread neatly over the giant rat corpse.

"Hmm… we don't really need monster hides much anymore…"

Sherwin curled his lips in distaste and casually packed away the rat pelt. At that moment, Sanji-meow, who had been waiting nearby, immediately darted over and, as usual, began processing the game skillfully.

By now, quite some time had passed since they had taken down the Goat King and the boar king.

Sherwin didn't bother with the kind of tracking shown in movies, where the protagonist scratches tallies onto rocks or trees to count the days.

He only knew one thing: he had grown taller. He no longer needed to carry the longsword horizontally at his waist—he could finally sling it diagonally like a proper longsword swordsman.

Also, since the "villager set" on his body didn't come with any kind of auto-adjustment system, it had long since turned into a crop top.

As for the pants, which had grown increasingly tight and uncomfortable, Sherwin had simply ditched them. He used the sewing skill he had unlocked while crafting tents to stitch himself a pair of hide trousers.

After Sherwin finished making the tent, they started a lifestyle of moving camp while exploring new areas.

By now, Sherwin and Sanji-meow had already changed base locations several times, and their map exploration progress had reached 36.3%. They had basically run through the entire southern region of the island.

Of course, there had been no shortage of battles with large monsters on the island during this time. However, as Sherwin strength increased day by day, it had become rare for him to encounter monsters that could pose a real threat.

In fact, in order to hone his combat skills, Sherwin hadn't used the Longsword for quite a while. Instead, he had switched to a roughly crafted homemade bone blade and occasionally even used the boar king tusks to practice dual-blade techniques.

The only reason he brought the Longsword back out today wasn't because this giant rat was particularly strong.

It was simply that its nest happened to be perfect as a new base of operations.

Plus, this giant rat had a vicious temperament—it couldn't be tamed and kept around for training purposes like some other large monsters. So Sherwin just gave it a clean end…

It was also a good chance to test his current strength.

While Sanji-meow was handling the ingredients, Sherwin pulled out his Hunter Manual from his pack.

Although another new entry had been added, bringing the number of large monsters in the bestiary to ten, the book remained silent just like before. There was no response, no sign of a new summon ticket fragment for hitting double digits.

"Tch!"

Sherwin clicked his tongue in frustration, casually named the new entry "Rat King," and flipped back to the first page showing the map.

"Yeah, after we set up here, we won't need to change base for a while," Sherwin said to Sanji-meow as he looked at their current location.

"Stuff like that doesn't matter, nya! Still no summon ticket?"

Having finished putting away all the ingredients, Sanji-meow blinked over to Sherwin side in a flash, pawing at the arm holding the manual while poking his furry head in close.

"Nope. I still have no idea how many monster entries I need before I get the second fragment," Sherwin said with a shrug. "Or… maybe that was the only one, and I need to unlock other pages for more?"

"No way! Absolutely no way, nya!" Sanji-meow shook his little head like a fifth-gear electric fan, clearly refusing to accept such a terrible possibility.

"At the very least, we'll get a summon ticket if we finish exploring the whole island, nya! Otherwise, why would it even bother showing a progress bar, nya!"

Although this was Sanji-meow excuse to avoid reality, Sherwin had to admit—it made a bit of sense.

In fact, Sherwin also believed that once the progress bar hit one hundred percent, the Hunter Manual would definitely unlock something new. As for whether it would be a summon ticket fragment… that was another matter.

Besides...

"Even if it does give a summon ticket fragment when it hits a hundred percent, that would still only make two out of three. It still not enough for a full ticket," Sherwin said as he stroked the cat while teasing him.

"M-Maybe it'll give a full summon ticket right away, nya!" Sanji-meow countered, though his tone didn't sound too confident.

After all, the stinginess of this damn manual was plain as day. Despite unlocking so many entries, Sherwin had only been given one-third of a summon ticket for a Felyne companion.

"Then what if," Sherwin continued teasing as he kept petting him, "the first summon ticket was actually used the moment I arrived on this island and unlocked the map page—to summon you here?"

This was one of the guesses Sherwin had made when he was bored, and he just happened to use it to tease the cat. As for whether it was true or not, it didn't really matter anymore.

"I wasn't summoned here, nya!"

Sanji-meow protested angrily at first, then added uncertainly, "I… don't think so, nya?"

Because in truth, he couldn't clearly remember how he ended up on this island. And the moment he saw Sherwin for the first time, he instinctively knew that this person was his employer. So...

Was that actually possible, nya?!

Sanji-meow was startled by his own speculation and clutched his head with his little paws, shaking it in disbelief.

"No, nya! I don't want that to be true, nya!"

"Ahem, it was just one of my random guesses, no need to take it so seriously. Alright, alright, don't get so worked up. There are still lots of locked pages—we'll definitely get you some new companions eventually."

Seeing Sanji-meow like this made Sherwin feel a little guilty, so he quickly picked him up and gently comforted him.

It took quite a while for Sherwin to calm the frantic Sanji-meow down. And the first thing the cat did once he was quiet… was to grab Sherwin hand and give it a vicious bite in revenge.

"Hiss—Easy! Easy! You're gonna break the skin!"

"You're not that easy to hurt, nya!" Sanji-meow kept biting Sherwin hand, glaring at him and mumbling through clenched teeth, "That what you get for scaring me, nya!"

Sherwin quickly begged for mercy, and only then did Sanji-meow reluctantly let go.

Rubbing the teeth marks on the back of his hand, Sherwin fell silent for a moment before suddenly asking, "Come to think of it, I still don't know anything about your past. Can you tell me about it?"

After coming up with the theory that Sanji-meow might have been summoned, Sherwin found himself curious—was Sanji-meow created out of thin air by his cheat system, or was he truly summoned from the Monster Hunter world?

But thinking about it more carefully, he felt like there wasn't really a difference between the two. After all, from Sherwin perspective, the Monster Hunter world was something made up by game designers in the first place.

Still, he was a bit curious about Sanji-meow past.

"Nya? My past? There nothing special about it, nya." Sanji-meow tilted his head in confusion, then replied, "I lived together with other Felynes and Melynxes, then got taken to the village by the cat granny to train as a chef, and then..."

He raised his head, trying hard to recall, then suddenly smacked his paw down.

"Oh right, nya! I was catching fish underwater when I suddenly lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was already on this island, nya! And you were lying next to me, nya!"

So it really was possible that Sanji-meow had been summoned… though maybe not by Sherwin himself.

Because just like the original Sanji, Sanji-meow was a great swimmer. It was hard to believe he would just lose consciousness from diving in to catch a fish.

Sherwin thought for a moment but decided not to share that guess and risk upsetting the cat. Instead, he just followed along and made something up.

"Same here—I was soaking in a hot spring, and then suddenly I passed out. When I woke up, you were calling out to me, and even my body had shrunk."

As expected, after hearing that, Sanji-meow immediately perked up.

He wasn't really bothered by the idea of being summoned—Felynes didn't care much about that.

What really mattered was, if he wasn't summoned, then once the map progress hit 100%, the chances of Sherwin getting a full summoning ticket would be much higher.

After chatting a bit more with Sanji-meow about things before the crossover, Sherwin finally learned something surprising—Sanji-meow wasn't even an adult yet...

Although Felynes were cats, they didn't have the short lifespans of ordinary felines. In fact, they were a species that lived even longer than humans.

Their concept of adulthood was similar to humans—around the age of 18. However, they didn't judge it purely by age but rather by physical development, so the actual age could vary, though never by more than five years.

When Sanji-meow first appeared on this island alongside Sherwin, he was only eight years old… the same age Sanji was when he escaped from the Vinsmoke family.

Who knew if that was just a coincidence.

In the period that followed, Sherwin began to feel that fighting those large monsters wasn't helping him improve anymore. So he couldn't be bothered to keep using the bone blade or the boar tusk for combat training.

When he encountered relatively docile large monsters, he'd just beat them up with the Longsword to unlock their entries in the field guide.

If they couldn't be reasoned with, he'd simply unsheathe the Longsword and end the fight with a single Spirit Blade Slash to the head.

This drastically improved the efficiency of his map exploration. In less than a month, their exploration progress had nearly doubled, approaching 70%. Their base of operations had also moved from the southern coast of the island all the way to the northern region.

At this rate, they'd be able to run across the entire island in just over half a month.

Just as Sherwin was looking over the map in his handbook, thinking about where their next base camp should be, Sanji-meow returned from foraging and leapt into his arms with a flying pounce.

"Sherwin, Sherwin! I found something weird today, meow!"

While enjoying Sherwin gentle petting, Sanji-meow reached his little paw into his Felyne pouch and pulled out a strange fruit about the size of his head. Its outer appearance resembled a dragon fruit.

But when Sherwin saw the familiar spiral pattern on its surface, along with the flame-shaped skin and stem, a storm surged in his heart.

It was actually a Devil Fruit!