"Hah, haha... hahahahaha..."
Sherwin, who had collapsed on the ground completely exhausted, turned his head to look at the goat-like monster beside him, now lying in two separate pieces.
His laughter came out broken and ragged, but it was full of unrestrained satisfaction.
As someone who'd rarely even been in a fight before crossing over, being able to take down such a massive monster in a one-on-one battle—it was hard for Sherwin not to feel proud of himself.
But soon enough, he stopped his foolish laughing. Struggling to sit up, he reached into his waist pouch and pulled out a piece of smoked meat to gnaw on...
Who knew if a second monster would appear? The priority now was to recover as quickly as possible.
While chewing on the smoked meat, Sherwin suddenly smacked his forehead in frustration.
He had actually forgotten to replenish his stamina during the fight—Sanji-meow had packed plenty of food for him, after all.
Memories were just memories, after all. Until he converted all of them into real combat experience, he was still just a half-baked monster hunter.
As he munched on the food and slowly regained his strength, Sherwin began to go over the battle in his head...
Although he had technically taken down the goat monster without taking a single hit, his review of the fight made him realize that he'd missed quite a few opportunities during the battle.
Some were due to nerves—he'd failed to seize the moment during his first real combat—while others were simply because of his lack of experience. He just hadn't been able to react in time.
"...I still need real combat."
Sherwin felt that the growth he'd gained from this one battle was ten, no, dozens of times more valuable than what he got from training.
And having taken down a large monster without injury had helped him establish a bit of confidence. He no longer felt so hesitant and cautious about fighting.
After all, he couldn't always rely on the Felynes. And now that he had crossed over to this world, if he were to keep living like the coward he was before, wouldn't that make this whole journey pointless?
At this moment, Sherwin truly felt like the world had just opened up before him.
"Meow! What the meow is going on here?!"
Just as Sherwin was getting fired up in his own head, Sanji-meow returned from his outing.
He froze for a moment, then launched himself with a flying leap straight into Sherwin arms.
Sherwin was covered in blood, sitting next to the corpse of the goat monster, and Sanji-meow face was filled with concern as he frantically patted and pawed all over him.
"Sherwin! Are you alright, meow?! Are you hurt anywhere, meow?!"
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Not even a scratch. Don't be fooled by how big that thing was—it way clumsier than you. It didn't land a single hit on me."
Receiving that worried Felyne attention made Sherwin instantly forget all those grand ambitions he'd been thinking about moments ago.
With a big dopey grin, he scratched Sanji-meow on the head and gently reassured him.
"Hmph! I'm only worried because otherwise there'd be no one to take me to find Beautiful big sister Felyne, meow!"
Hearing that Sherwin was alright, Sanji-meow quickly reverted to his usual tsundere self, crossing his little paws over his chest and turning his head away with a humph—but he didn't shake off Sherwin hand that was still scratching him.
"Yes yes yes," Sherwin kept that dopey grin on his face, "I'll definitely help you find Beautiful big sister Felyne~"
These days, the tsundere girl act might be out of fashion, but a tsundere cat—regardless of male or female—was still unbearably adorable!
As for Sanji-meow being a perv...
Even Zidu once said: Food and sex, these are human nature.
Sherwin liked pretty women himself, so wasn't it completely normal for a little tomcat like Sanji-meow to like cute Felyne girls?
"Oh right, meow!" After enjoying Sherwin service for a bit, Sanji-meow suddenly jumped out of his arms. "We need to deal with this corpse quickly, or the quality of the ingredients will go down, meow!"
"I'll help too." Sherwin stood up and picked up the longsword he'd tossed aside earlier.
With a "goat" this big, if they left the whole thing to Sanji-meow, who knew how long it would take?
Under Sanji-meow direction, Sherwin swung the longsword and quickly chopped the huge corpse into several chunks. And then...
He couldn't help anymore.
Because Sanji-meow complained about how clumsy he was, said he couldn't even cut a corpse properly, and unceremoniously kicked him aside.
"Tch..."
Looks like Sherwin would have to keep eating this bowl of cat food for a while longer.
With nothing else to do, Sherwin thought for a bit and finally remembered the high-tech hunter manual he had.
By now, he'd not only seen and come into contact with that goat monster—he'd actually taken it down himself. So the large monster index should've unlocked by now, right?
Thinking that, Sherwin found a rock to sit on, then pulled the hunter manual out from his waist pouch.
Flipping past the small creature index to the next page—sure enough, this page had been unlocked too.
The overall layout wasn't that different from the previous page. Most of it was filled with descriptions of the goat monster and a colored illustration of it.
However, unlike the previous page, which was full of monster names that required scrolling to view, the list on the left only had one lonely, unnamed entry.
Calling it just "goat monster" felt kind of wrong, and truthfully, it didn't even live in the mountains...
Struggling with his chronic naming disorder, Sherwin hesitated for a while, then finally decided to name his first large-monster kill "Forest Ram King."
After all, based on Monster Hunter usual tendencies, low-rank 1–3 star large monsters often had corresponding small versions of the same species, so he just followed the naming convention from Monster Hunter...
He could always change it later anyway.
However, the moment he entered the name "Forest Ram King" into the hunter manual, the large monster index page suddenly lit up with a soft white glow. As the light grew brighter, the page began to rise slowly.
At the same time, the hunter manual floated out of Sherwin hands, drifting gently in the air before him.
"!!!"
The sudden change caught Sherwin off guard, and even Sanji-meow, who had been busy processing the Forest Ram King corpse nearby, was drawn over by the glowing book.
"What the meow is happening?"
"No idea. I just unlocked the large monster index, and then it suddenly started glowing," Sherwin shook his head, then asked in return,
"Haven't you ever heard of anything like this before?"
"Of course not, meow." Sanji-meow shot him a glare.
"I've never heard of any hunter owning a manual this magical, meow… What now? Should we try closing it, meow?"
"…No, let wait and see what happens next."
Sherwin thought it over and decided to stay put and see how things developed.
Fortunately, this hunter manual—possibly his true golden cheat—didn't keep them waiting long.
When the page glow reached about the brightness of an average energy-saving bulb, it slowly detached from the manual and floated into the air.
And right where the page had torn off, another glowing white page "grew" in its place. The glow on the newly grown page quickly faded, revealing that its contents were still the "Large Monster Index."
Then, the floating hunter manual suddenly lost its "power" and fell from midair, reclaimed by Newton law.
Sherwin quickly reached out to catch it, though his eyes remained fixed on the glowing "Large Monster Index" page still drifting in the air.
As he stared at it, the page slowly began to shrink. Once it had become slightly narrower than a sticky note, its glow faded, and it gently floated down from the air.
Sherwin reached out and caught it again. But before he could even take a closer look at what had changed, a message suddenly transmitted from the page—
Felyne Summon Voucher (1/3)
Sherwin: ???