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"Wait, I'm sunbathing for a bit. Don't close it yet."
Hearing this weak, muffled voice echoing from the metallic depths, Leo abruptly stopped walking. His hand hovered over the heavy iron lid. He peered carefully down into the shadowy cylindrical space of the town square trash can. Although he had a fairly good guess as to who it was when he first saw the system's unlock mission pop up earlier, his morbid curiosity won out. What if Yukari Yakumo was the one lying inside to ambush him, right?
Inside the surprisingly clean, dry trash can, a petite girl radiating a visible, depressing deep blue aura was looking up at him with dead, half-closed eyes.
She wore a large, faded blue bow in her messy hair and an oversized, short-sleeved hooded sweatshirt completely covered in fluttering, desperately scrawled paper debt notes. She looked profoundly listless, her thin arms protectively cradling a chipped, broken ceramic bowl against her chest. The air around her felt physically colder, as if it were constantly sapping the warmth and prosperity from the immediate environment.
"Hello there, human. I am Fujiwara no Mokuran, a goddess. If you can give me a bite to eat, I can possess you and bring you good luck."
Ishin Shion stood up unsteadily from the bottom of the trash can. She slowly hoisted herself out, her elbows trembling as she levered her weight over the cold metal rim. Her sneakers hit the cobblestone path with a soft thud. She then leaned precariously back into the bin to retrieve her begging bowl and a worn, slightly dirty black cat plushie before weakly extending the chipped bowl toward Leo's waist.
"Does Fujiwara no Mokou know you're saying that, Miss Shion?"
Leo's lip twitched violently. Even if he hadn't explicitly known who she was from the system prompt, just looking at that iconic, pathetic begging bowl—the exact same miserable kind used by the Little God of Poverty in a game of Monopoly—he wouldn't have believed for a single, delusional second that she could bring anyone 'good luck.'
"Tch, so you know me. Never mind then. Got any food? Spare some, I'm hungry."
Seeing that her terrible alias was instantly seen through, Shion became even more listless. Her shoulders slumped completely, the blue aura around her darkening into a shade of pure, unadulterated depression. She shook her chipped bowl twice, the ceramic making a sad, hollow clinking sound, signaling Leo to just feed her, after which she'd leave on her own to spare him.
After all, no one liked her or her sister. She had thought things might be a little better and more forgiving in this vibrant new world, but the very first person she ran into already knew her notorious reputation.
Ishin Shion Ability: The ability to bring misfortune to everyone, including herself. Race: Poverty God. Occupation: Vagrant. Residence: Hakurei Shrine, Bhava-agra, Wandering. Unlock Condition: Rummage through trash cans for one month straight (Completed).
Leo sighed, the heavy weight of capitalist guilt washing over him. He unslung his canvas backpack and unzipped it. He took out a few plump, sweet rice balls carefully made by Daiyousei earlier that morning and placed them gently into the broken bowl, topping it off with a thick, aromatic skewer of leftover grilled fish.
Seeing her immediately clutch the food to her chest and prepare to scurry away down the alley the second she got the calories, he quickly called out to her.
It wasn't that Leo was some holy, self-sacrificing saint who desperately wanted to save everyone he met; it was more of a common, deeply ingrained male psychological quirk. How to describe it? Men loved nothing more than trying to lead the virtuous astray, or conversely, convincing the thoroughly wayward and broken to magically reform. It brought a strange, intoxicating sense of savior satisfaction. 'I can fix her.' Leo genuinely wanted to see if he could get Shion to stay on the farm, to feed her three square meals a day so she wouldn't have to miserably wander and sleep in trash cans anymore.
"What is it? Since you know who I am, you should be clear about my ability. Stay a bit longer and you'll become poor; the money on you will disappear for no reason."
Shion paused mid-step, her worn sneakers scuffing the dirt. She turned back to look over her shoulder at Leo, her blue eyes surprisingly earnest. She honestly didn't want to financially ruin this good person who had given her a free meal. She knew her own cursed nature better than anyone alive; no one would ever truly like her once the bad luck set in. It was like that in Gensokyo, and it would undoubtedly be the exact same in this sunny world.
"Don't be in such a hurry. I'm bored anyway, let's have a ten-dollar chat."
Leo smiled, waving his hand dismissively. He wasn't worried about randomly losing physical money at all. What era was this? People were still using archaic physical currency—gold coins and paper bills—in Gensokyo, so physically losing money from holes in one's pockets was normal there. But he used an interdimensional, system-bound virtual currency; all his money was strictly digitized on his smartphone, and the smartphone was soul-bound to him as the World Lord. Let's see an ancient Poverty God try to magically lose encrypted digital data.
"Fine, since you gave me food. What do you want to say?"
The two of them walked a few paces over to the wooden benches lining the main Pelican Town road. They sat across from each other, with the wide dirt path acting as a safe buffer zone in between them.
"Alright, because you're a good person, I can only chat with you for seven minutes at most. Any longer and you'll start getting unlucky."
Shion placed her chipped begging bowl carefully on her pale, shivering thighs—she was wearing a tattered, deep blue short skirt that did nothing against the spring breeze. She picked up a rice ball with both hands and took a massive, ravenous bite. She chewed quickly, her cheeks bulging like a squirrel, staring at Leo with wide eyes, wondering what on earth this strange, fearless human wanted from a literal plague of bad luck.
"I want to ask, if I don't have a single cent on me, would I be immune to your ability?"
Leo crossed his arms, leaning forward with immense academic curiosity. He had eaten a few raw cucumbers at the Kappa office in the morning and wasn't hungry in the slightest, so he gladly gave his entire packed breakfast to this starving Poverty God.
"It's not that simple. To be precise, it's about the assets you own. If you only have short contact with me, you'll just lose the cash on you. But stay longer and it won't be so easy. Your assets will encounter all sorts of bizarre accidents and dwindle away until you have no choice but to follow me and beg."
Hic!
Eating just dense rice balls was a bit too dry for her parched throat. She choked slightly, thumping her chest. Leo quickly tossed her a cold, glass bottle of Gold-star strawberry juice. She caught it clumsily, popped the cap, and took a long, desperate swig to wash the food down.
Shion patiently explained the mechanics of her curse to Leo, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve, hiding absolutely nothing about her terrifying ability. This was something everyone in Gensokyo knew; there was no point in lying.
"But I don't have physical currency, I don't trade volatile stocks, I don't buy funds, I don't gamble at the casino, and I absolutely don't pull on gacha banners anymore. Will I still be affected?"
Leo thought about it logically. His absolute greatest asset was this entire pixelated world itself. No matter how conceptually powerful this Poverty God from Gensokyo was, she couldn't possibly blow up his entire dimension, right? If she actually had that kind of apocalyptic power, Gensokyo would have been reduced to cosmic dust by her mere presence long ago.
"I don't understand those dangerous operations you mentioned, but let me give you an example."
Shion sat up straight, her expression turning incredibly grave. Humans were always exactly like this sometimes; even after she explained the horrific consequences so clearly, they still arrogantly insisted on tempting fate.
"I lived at the Hakurei Shrine for a while. You know Hakurei Reimu, right? Even someone as violently powerful and inherently poor as her couldn't withstand it. I didn't even use my ability actively; I just stayed there for a few days, and her shrine was hit by all sorts of mysterious, high-level AOE attacks. She physically blocked them all at the time, but eventually, the bad luck accumulated to a certain critical point, and a literal meteorite fell from the sky and smashed her shrine."
She paused, taking another bite of the grilled fish, chewing grimly.
"Smashed to pieces."
Shion emphasized heavily at the end, her face completely expressionless and dead. She was terribly used to this level of catastrophic collateral damage. This happened whenever she stayed in one physical place for too long, which was exactly why she constantly wandered everywhere, never settling down.
Leo's eyes instantly widened to the size of saucers. His breathing hitched.
"A meteorite? That's a good thing! Can you bring one down for me?"
There were no useless abilities in this world; those that seemed purely negative were just being fundamentally used in the wrong way! Leo really, really wanted to see what a bad-luck meteorite summoned by her would be like in Stardew Valley. If it was what he thought it was—a massive rock packed full of ultra-rare Iridium ore and Prismatic Shards—wouldn't he strike it astronomically rich without lifting a finger?! He wouldn't even need to risk his life going down into the dangerous, monster-infested Desert Skull Cavern!
"Are you some kind of rich heir who actively wants to go bankrupt? Who messed you up like this in the head? Go away, you're a good person, I don't want to ruin you."
The way Shion looked at Leo became incredibly subtle and deeply concerned, as if looking at a psychiatric patient. It was her absolute first time in thousands of years meeting someone who actively cheered at the prospect of a meteor obliterating their property.
"Come on, this is a Stardew Valley ID Card. With this, you'll be an official resident of Stardew Valley. Let's go try it out on the Seaside; there are fewer people there, so no collateral damage. I won't mind you at all!"
Leo stood up excitedly, walked right up to the stunned Shion, and handed her a blank, glowing ID Card, his face completely full of burning sincerity and greed. If possible, he also desperately wanted to invite her twin sister, Joon Yorigami. Her ability to force people to spend money was even more heaven-defying; Leo had already thought of exactly what her terrifying economic ability could be weaponized and used for in his shop.
"Tsk, why won't you listen? Don't blame me when you're left with absolutely nothing."
Helpless against his overwhelming enthusiasm, and clutching her half-eaten fish, Shion hesitantly reached out. She took the glowing ID Card, her blue aura flaring slightly as the system registered her.
Ding.
Ishin Shion officially became Stardew Valley Resident No. 014.