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On the golden sands of the Beach, Leo deliberately chose a secluded spot quite far down the shoreline from Waka and Kagerou's Seaside hut. If a massive, flaming meteorite were to fall from the sky and accidentally crush their wooden house into splinters, he would be far too physically and emotionally embarrassed to ever ask them for fresh seafood again.
"Are you ready?"
Ishin Shion shielded her blue eyes from the bright, cheerful morning sun with her sleeve. The clear Stardew Valley sunlight was simply too intense; for someone like her who usually hid in the damp shadows of alleyways and shrines, it was genuinely painful to adjust to.
"Come on! It's just a meteorite! Bring it on!"
Leo excitedly moved the sleeping One-Eyed Xiao San umbrella from his shoulder to the shoulder of Wakasagihime, who had waddled over from her hut to watch the bizarre excitement.
He sternly told Waka and the umbrella to stay much further away up the beach. If he personally got hit by the space rock, he'd just utilize the farmer's immortality to pass out and go back to his bed to sleep it off at most. But if the NPCs got hit by a meteorite, they'd have to be rushed to Eientei in Gensokyo for emergency trauma treatment.
"I really, really don't understand what you're thinking," Shion muttered, shaking her head at his suicidal eagerness.
The deep, depressing blue aura behind Shion, full of swirling, ominous special effects that looked like physical debt notes, began to aggressively expand outward, enveloping Leo who was standing confidently in front of her.
"Huh. I don't feel anything?"
After staying inside this supposedly terrifying, ominous aura for a full minute, Leo didn't feel a single negative thing. It actually just felt incredibly cool, like standing in an aggressively air-conditioned server room; it would probably be quite a comfortable, money-saving place to stay in the blazing heat of summer.
"Heh. You don't feel anything? Why don't you try to take a few steps forward?"
Crouching tightly on the sand with both hands protectively covering her head, Shion chuckled darkly at Leo's reckless, arrogant remark. Her cursed ability fundamentally didn't distinguish between friend and foe; at full power output, she would also suffer immediate, severe bad luck. Therefore, whenever she actively used her ability, she instinctively crouched in the fetal position with her hands over her head to minimize the chance of accidental concussions.
"It's nothing... Holy crap! AH!"
Leo confidently tried to take two steps forward out of the aura.
The first step on the sand was perfectly fine. But on the second step, his heavy work boot landed perfectly on the jagged edge of a razor-sharp, magically hardened clam shell hidden deep in the soft sand. His ankle violently twisted outward with a sickening sound.
CRACK!
"Ow, ow, ow! My foot! My freaking foot!"
Leo collapsed, clutching his rapidly swelling leg and wailing in agony on the hot sand. Through the blinding pain, he now truly realized how utterly ridiculous and inescapable this causality-level ability was.
So what if he didn't have easily droppable physical currency on him? So what if his bank account was safely linked to his soul-bound phone and couldn't be lost? Then the universe would just violently ensure his leg went lame! You'd be forced to spend massive amounts of money for medical treatment at the clinic anyway, so the Poverty God's ultimate goal of draining your assets would be flawlessly achieved!
"Should I stop? In a little while... Hiss!"
Shion uncurled slightly, wanting to advise the writhing Leo to give up, but before she could say more than two words, her own teeth clamped down hard, violently biting her own tongue. She tasted blood, teared up, and obediently shut her mouth, covering her head again.
"Continue!"
Leo lay flat on his back in the sand, entirely motionless from the waist down, but his mouth remained incredibly stubborn. At worst, he'd just die of pain once and magically wake up in his bed minus 1,000G. He desperately wanted to see what kind of loot-filled meteorite this curse would summon.
BOOM!
A massive, earth-shaking explosion sounded in the far distance, rattling Leo's teeth.
Leo frantically turned his head to look; a huge plume of thick black smoke was rising directly in the northern direction of his Farm.
The only person currently residing at the Farm at this time of day... should be Flandre.
His Farm!!!
Looking at the thick, greasy black smoke rising ominously in the distance, Leo's capitalist heart shattered into a million pieces.
Remilia Scarlet, what a terrifyingly deep, sociopathic scheme! You intentionally sent your walking-disaster sister Flandre here to live with me just to save your own Scarlet Devil Mansion from blowing up again!
You're too underhanded!
But since things had already catastrophically come to this point, if he weakly yelled for Shion to stop now, wouldn't his broken leg and his exploded Farm have suffered for absolutely nothing?! Sunk-cost fallacy gripped him.
"Why do I feel like things are suddenly getting fired up?"
Shion peeked through her fingers, looking at the agonizing Leo, and felt like the crazy guy was suddenly burning with intense anime passion. What was wrong with humans these days? How could someone actually get fired up with fighting spirit just from experiencing horrific, agonizing bad luck? What exactly are you getting fired up about, you masochist?!
After gritting his teeth and holding on for a bit longer, Leo finally saw a blinding flash of light high in the blue sky. A massive, terrifying fireball appeared in his vision, rapidly growing larger as it tore through the atmosphere, trailing a long, roaring plume of superheated flame.
But looking at the exact trajectory and landing point... Oh no! His actual farmhouse was about to be directly hit!
Panic overriding the pain, he scrambled up from the ground and tried to limp frantically toward the Farm path, but exactly as before, he hadn't gone two steps when his other boot caught on a piece of driftwood. He cried out and fell heavily again.
CRACK.
This time, both legs were officially lame.
Seeing the meteor about to strike, Shion immediately stopped her active ability. The sprawling, deep blue aura shrank rapidly and returned to her back, merging harmlessly with her long, deep blue hair.
"Well? Still acting tough?"
Poking Leo's cheek, whose face was currently buried entirely in the sand, Shion felt a very rare, unfamiliar sense of joy. As the old internet saying goes: Smiles don't actually disappear; they just transfer from your face to someone else's face.
"It's fine. I'll do it again next time."
With both legs now completely useless and screaming in agony, Leo stubbornly propped up his upper body with his shaking hands, took out his phone from his pocket, and opened his contacts app. After a moment's pained thought, he sent an emergency message to Nitori Kawashiro.
Mo Gu: "I'm at the beach. Both my legs are broken. Send a stretcher, thanks."
Ding. AA Kappa Heavy Industries General Agency: "We provide earthworks, infrastructure maintenance, appliance upkeep, nuclear facility repairs, cucumber wholesaling, school runs, homework assistance, and more. For other services, please consult customer service. As long as you can afford it, we can do absolutely anything. (Auto-reply)"
Ding. AA Kappa Heavy Industries General Agency: "Understood. The trauma rescue team will arrive within 10 minutes. Voluntary rescue extraction is free of charge."
Kappa Heavy Industries' emergency rescue extraction services are totally free. The massive profit from this specific service mainly comes from the hefty, secret medical fee commission they get as a kickback after delivering the injured person directly to Eientei's clinic.
Of course, if you don't want to go to Eientei, that's perfectly fine too. The Kappa rescue team will take you wherever you want to go; you don't have to worry about them callously dumping your bleeding body halfway in a ditch just because they're not making money off the trip.
"Wee-woo, wee-woo~!"
In exactly less than ten minutes, three Little Kappa interns wearing crisp white nurse uniforms and small white caps ran over the dunes, aggressively providing their own vocal siren sound effects.
One of the Kappa carrying a heavy red medical kit ran over. She checked Leo's visibly swelling legs, sighed incredibly deeply, shook her head, and immediately put the medical kit away without opening it.
"Doctor? Doc?! I just violently twisted my ankles, there's absolutely no need for that grim expression! You're making me feel like I have bone cancer and I'm beyond saving!"
Seeing the Little Kappa nurse's hopeless reaction, Leo's heart skipped a terrifying beat. At that exact moment, he even vividly imagined a bleak future where he'd spend the rest of his life paralyzed in a wooden wheelchair, with Ran dutifully pushing him around and feeding him pureed meals.
"Huh? No, it's not that," the Kappa nurse blinked. "I just don't know how to treat this. I only barely passed my basic medical exams and only graduated the academy by earning extra physical education credits. As for the deep sighing, it's because I've been working grueling overtime lately digging that canal and I didn't sleep well. I was just yawning."
The Little Kappa explained casually and signaled the other two interns to roughly lift Leo onto the canvas stretcher.
"Does the boss want to go directly to Eientei, or a specific place? We can take you anywhere. It's free."
As the Little Kappa asked Leo where he wanted to go, the two Kappas carrying the heavy stretcher were already jogging aggressively in place in the sand to warm up their leg muscles.
"Eientei," Leo groaned, his head lolling back. "Kogasa, go home on your own later. Shion, check your phone. I gave you permissions. There's an empty tent behind the Kappa Heavy Industries Office on the mountain; you can stay there for now. You can ask Kogasa or Daiyousei for food. Remember to wait for me to come back!"
After hastily settling his domestic affairs through the pain, Leo was carried by the Little Kappas at a dead sprint toward the mountain, entering the glowing spatial passage directly to Gensokyo.
Deep inside the eternal twilight of the Bamboo Forest of the Lost.
Leo lay completely flat on the bouncing canvas stretcher, staring up at the canopy. The Little Kappas carrying him were only the physical size of six or seven-year-old human children; their chassis was simply too low to the ground, making the high-speed stretcher ride incredibly, painfully bumpy over the thick bamboo roots.
"Oh my, let this little bunny see who this is! It's only been a few days, young man, and you're already back here on a stretcher!"
Just as Leo was looking up at the towering bamboo stalks swaying above, a cheerful, highly mischievous-sounding voice rang out from the shadows.
Tei Inaba's face suddenly popped into view, leaning over the stretcher and occupying his entire field of vision.
Unlike Reisen Udongein Inaba's stiff, upright, formal rabbit ears, Tei's ears were soft and floppy. Her furry white ears brushed lightly against Leo's nose as she leaned in, feeling a bit ticklish.
The exact moment Leo had spatially entered the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, the ancient Earth Rabbit, Tei, had instantly sensed his presence. This entire sprawling Bamboo Forest had always been her absolute, sovereign territory; even the immortal fugitives of Eientei had to pay her monthly rent on time to live here peacefully.