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Don't answer! Don't answer! Don't answer!
Leo's mind screamed, his eyes widening in absolute panic. As the old Earth saying goes, listen to advice and you'll eat well. Leo genuinely, desperately didn't want to know the second half of the skeletal Legendary Fish's terrifying biological sentence at all. But he simply couldn't physically move fast enough to stop the innocent Chen from being mortally curious.
Curiosity killed the cat!
"And what, meow?"
Chen, happily holding two massive, dripping slabs of premium, pinkish-white fish meat in her small paws, asked with bright eyes. She had just trotted over through the mud to proudly share her victorious joy with Leo and Lady Ran, and happened to accidentally overhear the skeletal Legendary Fish's ominous trailing words.
"Because... shedding the meat is like a fat person losing weight—just throwing away that big chunk of belly fat. It feels amazing!" The skeletal fish rattled happily, completely oblivious to the horrified atmosphere.
"Belly fat?"
Chen tilted her small head in utter, innocent confusion. She glanced down at the heavy, incredibly soft fish meat in her arms, her feline brain not quite understanding what the horrifying, bony Legendary Fish was talking about.
"It's the fat on ordinary people's bodies," a calm, chilling voice interjected. "From overeating and lack of exercise, it accumulates heavily on the belly. It looks soft and feels nice to poke, but if you cut the skin open with a surgical knife, it's all yellow, greasy fat deposits, extremely clumpy and disgusting, and it even flows like a thick liquid."
Eirin Yagokoro added the vivid, horrific medical details at the absolute worst possible moment, adjusting her collar with a serene smile. Most of the ancient old-timers in Gensokyo were inherently chaotic troublemakers who absolutely loved seeing innocent kids violently lose their bright, beautiful dreams.
Chen's yellow eyes instantly lost their sparkling light, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Her frozen, traumatized expression looked exactly as if she'd seen a terrifying, legendary Cat Demon standing directly outside her bedroom door. The premium, highly sought-after fish meat she'd been proudly holding suddenly felt like a greasy lump of human cellulite. It slipped limply from her trembling paws completely unnoticed, falling through the air... only to be instantly swallowed by a dark, eye-filled Gap that had silently opened directly beneath her boots at some point.
"Wah! Lady Ran!"
Suddenly recalling that she'd been lovingly hugging a massive, greasy lump of "disgusting yellow belly fat" to her chest, Chen's black fur stood straight up on end like a startled hedgehog. She let out a terrified wail, threw herself violently into Ran Yakumo's warm arms, and buried her face deep in the golden fluff, crying her eyes out.
Glaring furiously at the smug, smiling Eirin Yagokoro over the kitten's head, Ran tightly held the trembling Chen. She gently smoothed her fur and stroked her back, taking quite a long while to soothe and calm the traumatized cat down.
"You're a bit too twisted," Leo sighed, rubbing his temples to stave off a headache. He turned back to the skeletal fish floating in the rain. "So, what's this legendary recipe?"
Leo and the now completely skeletal Legendary Fish were floating off to the side of the wooden platform, officially discussing the divine, legendary recipe the fish had arrogantly mentioned earlier.
"It's sashimi. The meat of us Fish Kings actively condenses the pure, magical essence of an entire season—so fresh and delicious, it absolutely doesn't need much cooking at all. Just eat it raw, and you can instantly taste the true flavor of spring. Every time I shed, it takes a full year to organically grow back."
The skeletal Legendary Fish bobbed in the air, then slowly, gracefully returned to the dark, freezing waters of the Mine Cave Lake. Its divine task was officially done, and now it needed to safely hibernate deep in the underwater cave until next year to slowly regrow its premium meat.
"By the way..." Megumu Iizunamaru, who had been listening nearby, suddenly narrowed her sharp Tengu eyes, spotting the fatal, tactical flaw in the scene. "Was the fish meat stolen by that Yakumo Yukari using a Gap?!"
"Oh no, she's with that glutton Yuyuko! Our ingredients are under attack!"
Meanwhile, inside the Adventurer's Tavern tent.
"Youmu, slice the fish meat thinly."
Yukari Yakumo casually tossed the massive, stolen slabs of pinkish-white fish meat high into the humid air of the tavern.
Youmu Konpaku, who was dutifully standing nearby wiping barbecue sauce off Yuyuko's mouth with a napkin, glanced sharply at the still-airborne meat. She calmly, methodically finished wiping the last drop of sauce from Lady Yuyuko's smiling lips. Only when the heavy meat reached its absolute, suspended peak in the air and just began to fall to the floor did she blur into motion, her hands gripping the hilts of the twin swords strapped across her back.
Six Roots Purification Slash, second stage, into Sakura Flash, into Future Eternal Slash, finishing with a Single Thought of Immeasurable Calamity, adding a burst of Earth Fire Fairy... The air within the tent was instantly filled with a blinding, terrifyingly beautiful web of silver sword flashes. The sheer speed of her blades created a vacuum, extinguishing the cooking fires for a split second before she cleanly sheathed her swords with a sharp, resonant CLICK.
Hundreds of perfectly uniform slices of fish meat drifted down slowly from the air like falling cherry blossom petals, sliced so impossibly light and thin a mere breath could blow them away.
Youmu smoothly found a clean, white ceramic plate on the counter and elegantly caught the falling meat. She stood with one hand resting calmly behind her back, an overwhelming air of masterful pretentiousness rising around her. This was her true, terrifying martial strength as the official Hakugyokurou gardener and bodyguard, not just some soft, easy-to-bully rice cake!
The fish meat in the plate slowly, beautifully piled into a small, glistening mountain. Each individual slice was completely crystal clear and as paper-thin as a cicada's wing. Picking one up delicately with wooden chopsticks, you could literally see perfectly through the translucent flesh to whatever was behind it.
"Please, enjoy."
Youmu placed the exquisite plate gently on the wooden table in front of Yuyuko, maintaining her cool, untouchable samurai demeanor.
Unfortunately for Youmu, her epic coolness lasted for exactly less than three seconds.
A sudden, earth-shaking, thunderous commotion from behind made Youmu turn around in absolute confusion, her pretentious aura vanishing instantly. A massive group of incredibly angry Great Youkai charged violently into the tent, murderously kicking over tables and chairs. They were led furiously by Megumu Iizunamaru, who had even terrifyingly activated her demonic Tengu mask and was sprinting almost on all fours like a rabid beast.
"Y-Yukari-sama?" Youmu stammered, looking back to the table.
She turned back, only to see the rapidly retreating, blurry figures of Yukari Yakumo and her own Lady Yuyuko sprinting out the back flap of the tent. The two ancient hags had already run off with the entire plate of sashimi, laughing maniacally and happily feeding each other translucent slices of fish meat with chopsticks as they fled into the rain.
Not using a magical Gap to instantly escape—now that absolutely everyone was forced to be on foot, it could still technically be called a playful, physical game of tag. If you simply couldn't physically catch up to the Sages and missed out on the fish meat, absolutely no one could legally complain about cheating. But if they had shamelessly used spatial boundary abilities to instantly flee across the map, well, the other old-timers had plenty of terrifying, world-breaking counter-tricks up their sleeves to retaliate.
The Gensokyo Ironman Triathlon officially began in the mud of Stardew Valley.
Starting violently at the Adventurer's Tavern, Yukari and Yuyuko took an early, giggling lead, with the furious mob of Great Youkai hot on their heels. Miss Megumu Iizunamaru began to aggressively break away from the pack. Sprinting like a rabid dog with its tongue literally hanging out, she used her wind magic to close the distance on Yukari's back.
But someone else was even faster!
It was Miss Hong Meiling from the Scarlet Devil Mansion! She had started a bit slow with the heavy burden of four Flandres clinging to her back like koalas, but with her absolutely formidable, superhuman martial physique and Qi reinforcement, her legs became a blur. She quickly and brutally caught up to Yukari in the forest, physically lifting the giggling Flandres off her back one by one like artillery shells so they could reach out and aggressively grab fistfuls of raw fish meat directly from the fleeing plate!
In pure, unadulterated physical clashes and running speed, Hong Meiling feared absolutely no one. Four Flandres? She could carry the entire mansion's weight—including Miss Sakuya—in her arms and still outrun everyone on foot! The terrifying physical power divide in Gensokyo between spellcasters and martial artists was absolutely no joke!
"Alright! Patchouli Knowledge, let's go."
The four Flandres now triumphantly held wooden bowls in both hands, each completely filled to the brim with glistening, stolen fish meat. Hearing the completely random, triumphant command, Hong Meiling spun 180 degrees instantly, her boots kicking up a massive wave of mud, and sprinted back toward the Mine Cave Lake at Mach speed.
"Hehe, big brother, and sisters, Kogasa, kitty, let's eat together."
Arriving back at the peaceful fishing camp, Flandre proudly placed the four heaping bowls of premium fish meat on Leo's folding table. Remilia, who had been sipping tea nearby, felt her crimson eyes grow genuinely moist with emotion. Flandre had finally grown up, actually knowing how to politely share stolen food with her older sister!
A large, eager group gathered tightly around the wooden table. Leo hesitantly picked up a translucent, impossibly thin slice of raw fish meat with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth.
Though it was just a paper-thin slice, the moment it hit his tongue, an explosion of flavor occurred. He literally tasted the pure, concentrated essence of spring—an overwhelming, vibrant medley of fresh floral flavors flooded his senses. Each individual chew surprisingly revealed a completely different, blooming flower's sweet scent: cherry blossoms, fresh tulips, blooming jasmine. The raw meat was strangely, perfectly resilient like chewing gum, absolutely not breaking apart or turning to mush, providing an endless, refreshing stream of floral aromas that cleared his sinuses.
A single, thin slice took several glorious minutes to chew before the intense, magical fragrance finally faded, turning into ordinary, high-quality, melt-in-your-mouth fish meat to be smoothly swallowed. And Flandre had successfully, brutally snatched four entire bowls filled with dozens of these miraculous slices!
Leo immediately called over the eager, drooling Little Kappa interns who were standing nearby holding clipboards, generously giving each of the hardworking students a slice. Good things are fundamentally meant to be shared with the laborers.
He specifically, carefully kept a small, sealed bowl with over a dozen premium slices tucked away into his inventory for the Three Goddesses and the Uma Musume back home in his world to eventually try. Even after his generosity and hoarding, it left more than enough for everyone else currently at the table to happily eat four or five slices each.
Meanwhile, deep in the valley...
After frantically running over towering mountains, violently crossing deep rivers, literally swimming through the crashing sea, and experiencing extreme, muddy town parkour over the rooftops of Pelican Town, Yukari Yakumo had long since been violently caught and physically pinned to the dirt by the mob of Great Youkai.
But the moment the victors triumphantly took a bite of the prize, the ceramic plate in the hands of whichever Great Youkai who grabbed it seemed to instantly turn into a glowing, cursed Royal Seal—a highly coveted hot potato. And the brutal, physical chase violently began anew, alliances shattering instantly.
In the end, the very first battered victor to slowly, painfully return to the ruins of the Adventurer's Tavern was Yuuka Kazami.
By the time she walked in, only a thin, pathetic layer of shredded meat remained stuck to the bottom of the plate. Yuuka herself wasn't entirely unscathed from the brutal, free-for-all brawl—her usually pristine, elegant plaid clothes were heavily disheveled and torn, covered with dirty, black muddy footprints from who-knows-who's desperate kicks, and she sported a highly visible, swelling punch mark directly on her beautiful cheek.
After calmly, generously distributing the last remaining scraps of fish meat to the terrified Little Fairies hiding under the tables, Yuuka Kazami's crimson eyes darkened. She silently rolled up her torn sleeves, a terrifying, demonic smile spreading across her bruised face, and walked back out into the rain for revenge.
She'd taken far too many cowardly, cheap shots in the mud while successfully protecting the plate with one hand, and now... it was finally payback time!