"Just a little more left."
Sherwin held the Hunter Manual in his hand, staring at the nearly fully lit-up map, and murmured softly.
After mastering Armant Haki, the entire island felt like his own backyard. On top of that, with Sanji ow—who had already thoroughly explored the island—leading the way, the remaining less than 30% of the map was completed in just a few days.
As Sherwin stepped onto an unremarkable small dirt mound, the map progress bar finally jumped to 100%. A familiar flash of white light followed, and from the seam of the manual, another fragnt of a Felyne companion summon voucher appeared...
"Hmm? Sothing... doesn’t seem quite right?"
Sherwin picked up the fragnt and noticed the color was different again. The background was ocean blue, while the pattern was dark blue. Most importantly, the two characters on it still read "companion."
So... the summon voucher fragnts obtained from the monster compendium and the ones earned from map exploration—are from different pools?
Having encountered all kinds of gacha chanics before crossing into this world, Sherwin imdiately grasped the situation.
He glanced again at the Hunter Manual. As expected, the island they were currently on had shrunk down to the size of a fingernail, and the surrounding area was once again shrouded in black mist. The progress bar at the bottom of the map had also reset to 0.1%...
No one knew how large the area would need to be explored this ti to reach 100%, but judging by the current situation, there was no hope of finishing it any ti soon.
Still, there was so good news—when their current island was fully lit up, a large surrounding area of the sea was also revealed. From the looks of it, they most likely only needed to visit every island, rather than circling the entire sea.
"Uh..." Now that Sherwin understood the situation, he turned to look at the two cats at his feet, both staring up at him with eager faces. He shrugged helplessly. "Looks like our new companion won’t be joining us so soon after all."
"oww..."
Klee ow drooped her ears slightly in disappointnt, but she quickly perked back up and slid onto Sherwin back with a "whoosh." "Then when are we going out to sea, ow? Klee can’t wait any longer, ow!"
As for Sanji ow, the blow hit him a little harder...
"Nooo—!" The little yellow cat dropped to his knees with a plop and let out a heart-wrenching wail: "My Beautiful big sister Felyne—! She gone, ow—!"
Sherwin rolled his eyes and lightly kicked him. "Get a grip. Klee still here, you know."
Sanji ow, who had been doing his best impression of Yuan Hua, stopped his howling instantly.
He raised his head and saw Klee ow lying on Sherwin shoulder, tilting her head with a confused look. Her ruby-like eyes were full of curiosity.
Sanji ow quickly jumped to his feet and switched to a serious expression. Before Klee ow could ask anything, he swiftly changed the topic:
"By the way, Klee, what do you want for lunch today, ow?"
"Klee wants fish, ow!" The innocent little ragdoll instantly tossed aside her questions and answered cheerfully,
"Even though all the fish Sanji big brother makes are tasty, today Klee really wants catnip fish soup... Is that okay, ow?"
"Of course it okay, ow! Sanji big brother will cook up so fish soup for you right now, ow!" Sanji ow was instantly energized like he’d been injected with chicken blood and turned to dash off to cook for Klee ow.
Only to be yanked back by Sherwin.
"It still way too early for lunch!" Sherwin reminded him irritably. "We’ve got more important things to do!"
The important task Sherwin ntioned, naturally, was the raft they needed for going out to sea...
Well, with their current skill level, building a raft was pretty much the limit of what they could manage.
They had originally hoped to summon a Felyne that could build ships, but that damned Hunter Handbook had opened several different pools instead.
Still, following that logic, the weapon unlock page was most likely going to be a new summoning pool too... and probably a rate-up pool for slash-type battle Felynes.
Sherwin rubbed his chin. He was actually looking forward to the cats from that pool.
After all, in all kinds of ani, swordmasters were a di a dozen. If he could summon that type of Felyne, not only could they practice and improve together, but he might even learn so sword techniques from other ani worlds through those Felynes.
But that was all for the future. The current priority was building a sturdy enough raft to get out to sea.
The process of making the raft wasn’t that difficult—after all, a raft wasn’t exactly a complicated thing. And now that Sherwin strength had greatly increased, a lot of things were much easier to do.
He found about ten trees of similar thickness on the island, chopped them down, and tied them together using strong vines.
To be safe, Sherwin drilled a few holes across the logs and inserted thinner wooden sticks to reinforce the structure.
Then he mounted a simple sail made from the hide of the boar king in the center of the raft. And just like that, their sea-bound "ship" was complete.
After the raft was built, Sherwin and the others didn’t rush to set out. They first threw the raft into a lake on the island and let it sit for a few days for basic testing.
In the anti, they sorted through the items in their dinsional bags, clearing out things they wouldn’t be needing for now and replacing them with sailing essentials like fresh water and food.
By the way, Klee ow bag was the backpack she wore on her back. And sohow, her bag had the largest internal space of them all...
So, seriously, who the one with the real cheat power here?!
"Sanji big brother, can you give Klee a little bit of your catnip, ow?"
Klee ow, who was currently sorting through her "treasures," suddenly lifted her head and sniffed the air.
Then she darted over to Sanji ow and stared hungrily at the small tin in his hands, which was filled with dried catnip.
Sanji ow had collected all of it with great effort during their exploration of the island.
And in order not to kill the plants completely, he only ever harvested about two-thirds of the leaves at a ti. Even when using it for cooking, he was always stingy with the amount.
Now that they were about to leave the island, Sanji ow finally harvested all the remaining catnip.
"N-no problem, ow..."
Sanji ow reluctantly took out two pieces of catnip and handed them to Klee ow.
"Thank you, Sanji big brother, ow!" Klee ow cheered, snatching the catnip and quickly stuffing it into her mouth, munching happily.
Such a "wasteful" way of consuming it made the corner of Sanji ow eye twitch, but he couldn’t bring himself to scold the adorable Klee ow. He could only turn his head away—out of sight, out of mind.
Seeing all this, Sherwin didn’t stop them. After all, Felynes were different from normal cats—they didn’t get "high" on catnip. They mostly just treated it as a tasty snack.
Also, just like regular cats, Felynes had varying levels of interest in catnip.
To Klee ow, catnip wasn’t even as appealing as her two favorite things: blowing things up and frying fish.
But Sanji ow, on the other hand, was kind of addicted. Sherwin had often seen him take out his tin of catnip, open the lid, and take a few deep breaths, but never actually eat any—just enjoying the scent for a quick fix.
Sherwin, who had always felt that Sanji ow seed to be missing sothing, imdiately realized what it was after seeing that scene... The original Sanji was a heavy smoker!
But on this island, let alone rolling paper for smoking—even regular paper was nowhere to be found.
Besides, Sherwin had no intention of reminding Sanji ow about that either. What a kid doing thinking about smoking anyway!
A few days later, after the raft passed its tests, Sherwin pushed it into the sea. He then boarded the raft with the two Felynes, and with the help of the sea breeze and waves, the raft slowly drifted away from the island they had lived on for so long.
As the island shrank in the distance, Sanji ow—being the only one with sailing knowledge—turned to Sherwin and asked, "Which way are we going next, ow?"
Theoretically, the East Blue should be to the east, but in the world of One Piece—especially in the Grand Line—the sea was filled with all sorts of bizarre weather patterns and ocean currents. And without knowing their current location, heading east blindly wasn’t necessarily the right choice.
So...
"Why not ask the amazing Klee?"
Sherwin picked up the confused little ragdoll in his arms and said, under Sanji ow incredulous gaze, "Whichever direction Klee thinks we should go, that the direction we’ll sail!"
This wasn’t Sherwin losing his mind—after all, Klee constellation was the Clover of Fortune.
Not to ntion, Sherwin had never once run into a Sea King no matter how hard he tried, while Klee ow just went to the beach to blow up so fish and instantly ca across one.
All of this pointed to one truth: Klee ow was absurdly lucky. So with no clues to go on, relying on Klee ow good fortune was the most natural choice.
"I don’t really understand what Sherwin big brother ans... but as long as Klee can help, right, ow?" Klee ow twitched her ears, lifted a little paw, and pointed randomly in a direction based on pure instinct. "Then let go that way, ow!"
"Sanji?" Sherwin looked at Sanji ow, who was in charge of steering.
"Whatever, ow..."
Sanji ow weakly covered his face with his little paw, then resignedly turned the raft in the direction Klee ow had pointed.
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