Nekomancer Wonder Weapon Guide – Kowakujo

The Nekomancer wonder weapon is Kowakujo's signature weapon in Black Ops 7 Zombies. It is a supernatural cat. It has three abilities. It will carry your run if you stop messing up the steps. Getting it is not hard: it just punishes impatience at every single turn, which is fine, because you clearly have nothing better to do.

Note: You can also pull the Nekomancer from the Mystery Box via RNG: if you trust that. Most people reading a guide do not.

Prerequisites

Do these first or the rest of this guide is meaningless to you.

• Required Turn on power
• Required Unlock Pack-a-Punch
• Required Purchase PhD Flopper
• Required Purchase Death Perception (later in the quest)
• Timing Lava flows intermittently across the map: you will need it active for one specific step

The Maneki Neko cat statue is the crafted tactical grenade at the center of this entire quest. You build it from three components. Each has three possible spawn locations. Check them in order until you find it.

Collect the Bell first, before turning on power. Grab the other two after. The Bell can be found during initial looting: there is no excuse to miss it.

Step 2: Build the Maneki-Neko

Take all three parts to the crafting table near Vulture Aid in the Workshop. Build the Maneki-Neko. It is now a tactical grenade in your inventory, not the wonder weapon. You are not done. You are barely started.

Side use: The Maneki-Neko functions as a short-range, explosion-free Monkey Bomb. Zombies will avoid it: or throw meat at you to get around it. Whether that is better or worse than a regular Monkey Bomb is a philosophical question.

Step 3: Free the Cat from Its Cage

With PhD Flopper equipped, head to the Tenshu Entrance. Find the suspended cage hanging from the ceiling. Perform a PhD Flopper flop dive directly beneath it. The slam creates an explosion radius that knocks the cage down. The cat lands on the floor. Pick it up.

Warning: If you do not have PhD Flopper, none of this works. Buy the perk before attempting. This is step two on the prerequisites list for a reason.

Once the cat is in your hands, find a lava pool anywhere on the map and throw the empty cage into it. Do not keep the cage. The cage is done. Let it burn.

Step 4: Four Doorway Kills

Kill at least one zombie in each of these four locations. Order does not matter. Precision does.

1. Doorway from Central Courtyard into the Kitchens
2. Doorway exiting the Kitchens toward the Flower Gardens
3. Training Area: south of the Warden 308 wall-buy
4. Entrance to the Stables from the middle of the map

After hitting all four, cat paw prints will appear on the ground in one of these locations. They are invisible without Death Perception, which you should already have.

Step 5: Follow the Paw Prints

This is where the game decides to make you feel like a fool in a lava-covered castle chasing ghost cat tracks. Embrace it.

1. Locate the first set of paw prints using Death Perception
2. Note the direction they are heading
3. Walk approximately 5 meters in that direction
4. Kill another zombie to reveal the next set
5. Repeat until the prints form a circle

Once the prints form a circle: Stop killing zombies. The next step requires the Maneki-Neko, not more murder. The murder phase is over.

Step 6: Throw the Maneki-Neko

When the paw prints form a circle, wait for lava to flow through that area. This occurs randomly, roughly every few rounds. If there is no lava, throwing the Maneki-Neko will destroy it: and you will need to rebuild it. Do not throw it into a dry floor like an impatient person.

When lava is active in the circle area, throw the Maneki-Neko into the center of the footprints. An Abomination will spawn. Kill it. This is an Abomination boss kill: it is not a normal zombie. Bring a real weapon.

After killing the Abomination, purchase Death Perception if you somehow don't have it, then advance to the next round. During this round, the cat will be asleep in one of three locations.

The sleeping spots are marked by floorboards that only appear with Death Perception active. Walk through the area slowly: with Death Perception equipped: until you see them.

Step 8: Approach Without Waking It

This is the part where the game decides you have not suffered enough.

• Do not sprint
• Do not step on a floorboard
• If the cat wakes up, it runs: try again next round

Walk slowly. Approach the cat with the deliberateness of someone who has already failed this step twice and is not doing it again. When you get close enough, interact to pick it up.

Step 9: The Egg at Pack-a-Punch

Carry the cat to Pack-a-Punch. Place it near the Egg. The Egg begins pulsing and dealing damage to nearby zombies: useful, but temporary. You need to melee the Egg during the brief window between pulses. Do this several times. After a few successful melees, the cat becomes available as the Nekomancer cat wonder weapon. Pick it up.

You now have the wonder weapon. It can be Pack-a-Punched like any other gun. You have earned it. Debatable, but you have it.