Monster Hunter of the One Piece World

Because he had defeated Uncle Bucks in a one-on-one fight, by the time Sherwin met Mr. Cody again, the latter attitude had become much warmer, even taking the initiative to raise Sherwin guard payment...

If the previous payment offer was basically just enough to buy some bombs, then this time, it was clear Cody recognized Sherwin strength.

Cody also knew Sherwin was currently short on money, so he proactively paid him half the reward in advance as a deposit.

Sherwin certainly wouldn’t refuse such a good thing. He was still planning to find a good blade at this trade fair to try unlocking the weapon page... ideally, a famous sword.

However, Sherwin also knew that, let alone half the reward, even if Cody paid him the full amount, it still wouldn’t be enough to buy a famous sword. As for other "sharp blade" level weapons... although he didn’t fully understand the pricing in the pirate world, he figured it probably wasn’t enough either.

Moreover, to summon more Felynes, he not only needed to collect all kinds of excellent weapons, but also couldn’t ignore Devil Fruits.

In that case... there would be plenty of expenses in the future...

He used to worry about money before crossing over, and even after crossing over, he still had to worry about money. As expected, the fundamental laws of the world never change.

Sherwin let out a long sigh, pushed those annoying thoughts aside, and decided to go pet a cat to lighten his mood.

"Klee Meow~ come over here, big bro gonna keep telling you the story of Ninja Cat Naruto today."

At first, Sherwin used to read fairy tales like One Thousand and One Nights to the little ragdoll, but Klee Meow wasn’t interested in those "not even a little intense" stories. She much preferred tales where heroes defeated demon kings—especially if there were elements like fire and explosions.

So after thinking it over, Sherwin tried telling her a cut-down version of Naruto, with Felynes as the protagonists. The kid loved it... and so, the storytelling continued.

As for the possibility of summoning a Naruto Meow or Sasuke Meow from the Naruto series of Felynes someday, Sherwin wasn’t worried at all.

First off, the chance of summoning Naruto-series Felynes among a bunch of anime characters was pretty low. Secondly, even if he did summon one, it wouldn’t matter—there were tons of people with the same names, let alone cats.

Besides, the cats lives were very different from their original inspirations anyway. There was even a Sanji waiting in East Blue to meet Sanji Meow.

"That awesome, meow!" Klee Meow, who had been lying on the table drawing, clutched her drawing paper and ran over excitedly. "Sherwin bro, look! This is the Sasuke Meow I drew!"

Mm, since Deidara and Konan hadn’t appeared yet, Klee Meow current favorite character was Sasuke, who was good at Fire Style and had eyes that turned red...

At first, Sherwin was a little worried that Klee Meow might turn into a chūnibyō cat later on, but thankfully, there were no signs of that for now.

"Klee drawing is amazing."

Sherwin took the drawing from her paw and genuinely praised her. Klee Meow did have talent in drawing, and her style looked exactly like the one he’d seen in the Klee PV before he crossed over.

"Ehehe~"

Pleased by the praise, Klee Meow happily jumped into Sherwin arms, rubbing her little head under his chin, then urged him excitedly,

"Sherwin bro, hurry and tell the story, meow! Last time you said Naruto successfully summoned the giant toad, and Klee still waiting for him to go beat that bad guy called Gaara, meow!"

Off to the side, Sanji Meow was fiddling with something, not coming over, but his cat ears were perked up high, secretly turning in Sherwin direction.

Sherwin gently scratched Klee Meow chin, raised his voice a little, and continued the story from where he had left off.

...

The next day, Cody ship had already been loaded early. Once the crew was all accounted for, the ship slowly sailed out of the port of Color Paper Town.

"Damn it! I’m such an idiot!"

Watching Color Paper Town shrink into the distance, Sherwin suddenly slapped his thigh and shouted in frustration.

"What wrong?" Bucks asked curiously.

"Uh... it nothing, just remembered I forgot to buy something," Sherwin expression stiffened as he made up a random excuse. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Technically, he wasn’t exactly lying. He had indeed suddenly remembered something he hadn’t done, which made him so upset.

As for what it was...

"You idiot, you must’ve forgotten to unlock the map, meow," Sanji Meow said gloatingly from the side.

Sherwin shot him a cold sidelong glance. "Why are you so happy? If I don’t unlock the map, summoning the big sister Felyne has to be delayed."

"!!!" [Shocked Cat Meme.jpg]

Both the man and the cat moods instantly soured, and they looked in unison toward the already-vanished Color Paper Town, wearing matching expressions of melancholy.

"Map?" Bucks, who had vaguely overheard bits of the conversation, blinked in surprise and suddenly remembered how Sherwin got "scammed" buying a map the day before...

"It just a map, right? Sherwin kid, wait a sec."

Bucks patted his chest and turned to run toward the captain cabin. A short while later, he came back holding a weathered-looking scroll.

"Here! Only the Navy has a complete map of the West Blue, but we’ve gathered maps of the nearby seas and the islands we frequently visit. Shouldn’t be much less accurate than the one Mr. Cody has," Bucks said as he handed the map to Sherwin.

Then he added, "Not giving it to you though—just letting you take a look. If you want to copy it, that fine, but you have to return it afterward."

"Uh... no need to go through all that trouble. Just looking at it is enough. Thanks, Uncle," Sherwin quickly expressed his thanks.

He had to admit, running into good people like Cody and his crew first in the pirate world meant his luck really wasn’t bad. Totally unlike how cursed his luck used to be before crossing over.

As Sherwin took the map from Bucks, he shamelessly claimed credit for something a certain ragdoll cat had actually done.

Of course, he had his own logic...

Sure, it was Klee Meow who had pointed out the direction back then, but Sherwin was the one who summoned Klee Meow! So if you traced it back to the source, wasn’t it still thanks to his good luck?

While trying to justify things to himself, Sherwin unfolded and carefully examined the map in his hands.

See? That what I thought... In a world dominated by oceans, even with handy tools like log poses and eternal poses, the quality of nautical charts shouldn’t be that terrible.

Sure enough, accurate sea charts did exist. While still not up to the standard of Earth maps printed after repeated surveys—lacking details like elevation or coordinates—and far from anything like a digital map, at the very least, they looked like proper maps now.

After returning the chart to Bucks, Sherwin pulled out his Hunter Handbook...

This time, the map page finally showed a change.

First, aside from the areas Sherwin had already unlocked, a small patch of phantom terrain appeared on the map—essentially the same region covered by the maps he had just examined. A faint translucent segment was also added to the progress bar below.

If it were just a "pre-rendered" zone, then looking at those maps wouldn’t have meant much for Sherwin. But after studying them carefully, he realized things weren’t that simple.

After obtaining this "pre-rendered" effect, Sherwin vision had expanded dramatically.

To put it simply: before getting the "pre-render," the area illuminated on the map during sea travel was only about a finger width. Now, it had expanded to the width of a palm—as if he had learned Advanced Reconnaissance in Heroes of Might and Magic.

And the Color Paper Town he had previously stayed in no longer required a revisit, since the entire island was now lit up.

Though he didn’t know the exact reason, Sherwin let out a huge sigh of relief...

If the only way to light up the map was the same as before, who knew how long it would take to push progress forward—let alone eventually lighting up the whole world map.

Without "pre-render," the only way Sherwin could possibly complete the full map progress would be to go beat someone like Kizaru or Kuma, then find the newly reborn Glint-Glint Fruit and Paw-Paw Fruit, and use their powers to fly around the world nonstop.

But speaking of stealing Devil Fruit abilities...

A bold idea suddenly popped into Sherwin mind.