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"It's over, it's over, we're going to get beaten to death."
In the center of the smoking, ruined farm, four pitch-black, soot-covered Flandres held their heads tightly in their hands, skillfully performing the defensive 'head-holding squat defense' they usually reserved for Remilia's harshest scoldings. Their small bodies trembled slightly; this time... it seemed she had really caused big, undeniable trouble.
Flandre swore on her honor that she didn't actually mean to destroy anything. Usually, when she sat on the counter and watched her big brother cook, it looked quite simple—just a casual twist of a dial, a click, and then tossing the chopped vegetables into the hot iron pot for a few quick stirs. Why did it violently explode when she gave it a twist?
Waking up early in the morning to find absolutely no one home, Flandre had proudly wanted to try making breakfast herself to surprise Leo. She perfectly imitated Leo's fluid way of cracking eggs into a bowl and washing the raw rice for porridge. Everything looked totally fine; if Leo saw this prep work, he would surely smile and say Flandre had grown up and was doing a great job.
But since it was Flandre doing it, it was statistically unlikely for there to be no problems.
People who live entirely on the magic side of the universe share a very common, destructive flaw: when using modern technology and encountering a mechanical mechanism they don't understand, they always instinctively like to use raw magic to forcefully solve it. (A particular, frustrated mention goes to a certain Digital Goddess—I reckon this works).
She had tried to physically twist the knob on the gas stove exactly like Leo did, but the cold stove only emitted a few weak, clicking electrical sparks without igniting the burner, since the main safety valve hidden underneath wasn't open.
Not knowing exactly why there was no fire, Flandre simply kept the burner knob open and proceeded to aggressively twist every single knob, dial, and switch she could find in the entire kitchen, including finally finding and yanking open the main gas valve that was initially closed...
After happily tinkering for a while and unknowingly inhaling quite a bit of highly flammable natural gas, Flandre felt a bit hyper and dizzy. If there was no fire coming out of the metal rings, then fine; couldn't she just make some fire herself? The culinary effect would be the exact same! What can't a Great Youkai do?!
So... Flandre happily pulled out Lævateinn... Drew the flaming magical sword, swung it at the stove—spark, explosion, boom!
A world-shaking, deafening explosion immediately followed.
All the glass windows in the farmhouse shattered outward into a million glittering pieces, and surging, roaring orange flames spewed aggressively from the window frames. The actual construction quality of the wooden house built by Nitori Kawashiro was actually quite incredibly good; after taking such a massive, concentrated gas explosion directly from the inside, only the glass was shattered and the interior charred, and no catastrophic structural damage was caused to the main load-bearing body of the cabin.
Flandre, who took the point-blank gas explosion completely head-on, was pitch black all over from the soot. Her mouth hung slightly open in shock, blinking her wide red eyes, revealing a set of healthy, gleaming pearly white teeth against her blackened face. Aside from being startled and turning a bit black, she was physically perfectly fine. This little kitchen explosion was nothing; every time her older sister hit her with Gungnir during an argument, she was much harsher than this.
But as the old saying goes from Mordekaiser, the Iron Revenant: Blessings do not come in pairs, and misfortunes never come alone. Before Flandre could make any frantic remedial moves to put out the kitchen fire, a sudden, terrifyingly strong sense of cosmic crisis made the Flandre who was blown up in the kitchen—and the three Flandre clones who were sent violently flying from the living room couch while waiting for food—immediately run out of the smoking cabin.
They stood in the dirt, looking up in absolute shock at the massive, flaming meteor falling rapidly from the blue sky directly toward the farm.
Is the universal punishment for failing to cook breakfast really this severe?! Flandre panicked.
"Everyone! Together, stop this meteor!"
When nothing dangerous was happening, the Flandre Main Body's authoritative words were ignored like passing farts, and the clones' absolute greatest daily joy was relentlessly bullying and pranking the Main Body. But when there was real, life-threatening trouble, the clones were Flandre's most reliable, perfectly synchronized partners.
The three clones didn't hesitate for a single microsecond and charged straight up into the sky, closely following the Main Body.
"Shatter for me!"
The three clones linked hands and propped up a giant, glowing crimson magical barrier to try and physically block the massive meteor's descent, while the Main Body hovered slightly behind, her eyes locking onto the falling space rock. Her crimson eyes glowed with blinding red light as she raised her small hand toward the meteor.
The conceptual 'Eye' of the meteor—its structural weak point—appeared vividly in her palm. And as she clenched her small hand into a tight fist... the massive 'Slug' of the meteor violently turned into scattered 'Buckshot'.
Great Youkai are not omnipotent. Before physically reaching the terrifying, reality-bending level of Great Youkai like Yukari Yakumo and Yuuka Kazami, one still fundamentally has to respect the raw, kinetic power of nature and gravity.
The propped-up crimson barrier was instantly broken by the momentum of the massive meteor, which had successfully shattered into countless, smaller pieces. Under Flandre's wide-eyed, screaming gaze, which had turned into a horrified caricature of 'The Scream' painting, the burning fragments strafed and peppered more than half of the entire farm below like a shotgun blast.
Furthermore... these chaotic, flaming meteor fragments seemed to have malicious precision guidance, specifically picking the absolutely most expensive things Leo owned to brutally smash into splinters.
The pristine, high-yield gold-star strawberry fields were completely, utterly wiped out, while the unsellable, cheap windbreak grass planted along the fences wasn't magically affected at all.
It was incredibly lucky that the new farm animals had been eagerly picked up by the Little Fairies early in the morning for their racing; otherwise, the farm would have absolutely had fresh, Flandre-style stir-fried beef and pork chops for dinner today.
The good news: the main structural body of the Farm Cabin was technically saved from being flattened by the space rock. The bad news: the entire agricultural output of the farm had basically returned to square one overnight.
When Leo and Ran Yakumo walked out of the glowing dimensional passage hand-in-hand and returned to the quiet valley, they saw this hellish scene of smoking craters and shattered glass before them.
It was exactly as Leo had excitedly expected when he first thought of the exploit; the massive meteor did indeed carry incredibly dense, valuable minerals—shiny gold, crude iron, raw copper, and pulsing purple iridium ore were all sparkling brightly among the smoking craters—but the collateral price was far too damn high.
He had meticulously planted expensive strawberry seeds across more than half the farm's workable land, and the financial losses from this single, devastating meteor wave were economically explosive. After spending days cleaning up the heavy, jagged meteor fragments on the farm and selling the raw ore, he would basically be right back to where he was financially when he first arrived in Stardew Valley. If he hadn't securely saved a few rare seeds in a metal chest on the porch, he really would have been completely back to square one overnight.
And... his newly built, beautiful wooden house.
"Flandre, do you have any clue about the house?"
Looking down at the four pitch-black, soot-covered Flandres, who were aggressively giving him pleasing, incredibly guilty smiles with their prominent white teeth against their black faces, Leo pointed a trembling finger at the dilapidated, smoking cabin.
His tone was completely, terrifyingly calm; he knew in his heart this disaster was all Remilia's fault for sending her here and didn't have much to do with Flandre's actual malicious intent.
"I... I just wanted to learn how to cook, but it exploded as soon as I pulled out Lævateinn."
Flandre twiddled her dirty fingers and lowered her blonde head in deep embarrassment, her boots scuffing the dirt. Heaven knows, she did cause massive property damage on purpose back at the Scarlet Devil Mansion just to annoy Sakuya, but here, she genuinely, really didn't mean to blow up Big Brother's precious house.
"Forget it, wanting to learn is a good thing," Leo sighed, rubbing his temples to stave off a headache. "Next time, do it under an adult's supervision; it's still too dangerous for children to play with fire."
Rubbing Flandre's sooty head affectionately, Leo said no more. Children still need to be gently encouraged, not yelled at for mistakes.
After pulling out his phone and sending a quick message to Kogasa Tatara, Leo unslung his heavy iron pickaxe from his back and began the arduous, exhausting task of manually clearing the scattered, smoking meteors on the ruined farm.
Ran silently went inside the shattered cabin to meticulously tidy up the rooms, salvaging what furniture and clothes could still be used and leaving the rest of the charred, broken debris in the house for Nitori Kawashiro to efficiently rebuild and bill him for later.
"I told you, don't get too close to me, but you didn't believe it."
Too many chaotic things had happened today. Summoning the devastating meteorite on the Beach in the morning, then experiencing the bizarre, localized customs and Reimu's terrifying physical stats in Gensokyo at noon. It was only 5 o'clock in the afternoon now; Kogasa and Shion were still wandering around Pelican Town and would be walking over to the farm soon.
"Ishin Shion?! Why are you here!"
Ran's massive golden tails puffed up aggressively to three times their normal size the exact moment she saw the ragged, blue-haired Poverty God approach.
She immediately stepped forward, blocking the farm entrance with a fierce glare, wanting to drive the cursed girl away with force. This miserable girl was considered even scarier and more destructive than Marisa in Gensokyo. Every single youkai knew the terrifying legend about the Hakurei Shrine explosion; absolutely no one in their right mind dared let Shion Yorigami step foot into their home.
"I didn't want to either, this guy insisted on having me possess him," Shion muttered listlessly, finding a big oak tree and sitting heavily in the shade without bothering to argue. "Go ask him."
For the sake of the massive free meal Leo gave her earlier, she'd sit quietly and let them say whatever mean things they wanted.
"It's fine, I asked her to do it."
Leo wiped the sweat from his brow and quickly explained his chaotic, money-making thoughts and the meteor exploit to Ran. He then took out his phone and sent a direct message to 'The Forever 25-Year-Old Beautiful Girl' group chat.
Since things had already violently turned out like this and his farm was a cratered wasteland, why not just go all in and summon a few more meteors to maximize profit?! If the massive rocks could be preemptively shattered high in the sky by powerful Youkai before they hit the ground, the collateral losses should theoretically be minimal, and the raw ore profits astronomical!
Leo: "Are you guys done over there? I need some help. Call Yagokoro Eirin and Sister Yuuka. And whatever you do, don't call Reimu; I don't have the money to hire her right now."
Ding. The Forever 26-Year-Old Beautiful Girl: "Almost. I just finished lecturing Youmu, and the three of us are still in line. It'll probably be finished by tomorrow morning. Why are you calling them? Who do you want killed?"
Inside the solemn halls of Hakugyokurou, Eiki Shiki, the strict Yama of the dead, was currently harshly, loudly lecturing Eirin Yagokoro about the sanctity of life.
Yukari Yakumo secretly pulled out her phone under her sleeve to reply to Leo's message, then immediately got hit hard on the head with the Rod of Remorse by Eiki. She yelped, immediately put her phone away, and stood up straight, acting exactly like a good, obedient girl.