For 30 + advance chapter: patreon.com/Snowing_Melody
Stardew Valley Calendar, February 30th. Well, technically February 30th.
Stardew Valley had been mostly, exhaustingly set up and decorated by Leo and Ran now for the massive festival. Various colorful wooden stalls with striped awnings were lined up neatly along the dirt roads on both sides of the Pelican Town square, beautifully displaying all sorts of small, hot snacks he had painstakingly made in the kitchen.
Massive wooden tubs of sweet rice flower balls, fresh fruit bowls, crispy french fries, and savory potato pancakes were packed tightly on the tables. It looked like quite an impressive, expensive variety and quantity to an outsider, but in stark, capitalist reality, they were absolutely all inexpensive, basic agricultural products harvested from the farm, used purely to visually bolster the appearance of a massive feast on a shoestring budget.
For a measly 200,000 yuan, did you really expect him to serve high-end, premium goods like imported abalone, caviar, or Boston lobster to these freeloading Youkai?! When the wealthy Uma Musume girls from next door officially arrive for their summer camp, it might be financially possible. After all, the Three Goddesses explicitly said they could happily spend absolutely whatever they wanted and they'd immediately foot the massive bill, entirely unlike a certain stingy, nitpicking Sage of the Moon!
The massive crowd of Youkai didn't care much about the cheap snacks, though. They were mainly just here to have chaotic fun and cause trouble, and basic, salty snacks like these that could comfortably tide them over between activities were absolutely perfect. Besides, there would magically be a massive, all-you-can-eat banquet in the farmhouse after the competitive event ended, so it was all functionally the same to them.
Most of the competitive Youkai from Gensokyo had already aggressively arrived today through the portal. Originally, they only intended to casually come a day early to see the tourist sights and relax on the beach, but after Leo smugly showed them a sample of the highly abstract, crayon-drawn treasure maps created by a Little Fairy, absolutely everyone started getting incredibly serious and competitive.
Unless your brainwaves perfectly matched the chaotic, erratic frequency of a hyperactive Little Fairy, you really, truly couldn't guess where the hell the things on that childish map were actually located!
"Big brother, we're all completely ready! All the Fairy adventurers are in position in the woods, just waiting for the event to officially start tomorrow morning."
Daiyousei was still proudly wearing that crisp, black-and-white Guild Steward uniform Yuuka had bought her. As the official, elected leader chosen by the Little Fairies for this massive commission, she had personally, rigorously confirmed all the hundreds of hidden treasure locations in the dirt. Only after personally ensuring the mud camouflage was absolutely flawless did she sign off on them with her tiny clipboard.
Which strategically meant...
Out of the corner of his eye, Leo suddenly saw Satori Komeiji walking smoothly over toward them, her third eye glowing ominously.
He immediately panicked, physically blocked Daiyousei with his body, and aggressively shouted for the little fairy to run for her life into the woods. Meanwhile, he instantly began a massive, chaotic mental brainstorm specifically designed to aggressively pollute and overload Satori Komeiji's terrifying mind-reading ability: complex high school calculus equations, incredibly trashy, loud TikTok short videos he'd watched on the toilet, various horrifying video game death sound effects playing on loop, the cringey fanfiction novels he'd written as a teenager, and finally, as a last resort, he rapidly veered his thoughts directly toward a certain hardcore pink app's archives.
In any case, after previously having his most private, lustful secrets ruthlessly exposed by Satori Komeiji at the hot springs, he had absolutely zero dignity or pride left to lose. Since that was the tragic case, if she looked into his brain now, they might as well both go down into the gutter together!
"Tsk, I'm absolutely not looking! Stop it, I'm not looking! It's too incredibly filthy and dense in there! Is this garbage seriously all you aspire to in life?!"
A massive, disgusting mess of chaotic, loud thoughts successfully forced a blushing Satori Komeiji to violently cover the glowing 'Third Eye' at her chest with both hands. She looked up at Leo with a distinct, heavy hint of absolute disdain and disgust. Though physically not tall at all, Satori Komeiji, who possessed no small amount of terrifying psychological power, looked at Leo exactly as if he were a piece of non-recyclable, toxic trash on the sidewalk.
But soon, a genuine, confused question mark appeared on her stoic face.
Why exactly was this human guy absolutely not ashamed of his filthy mind, but instead wearing a highly joyful, victorious smile?
"Thanks for the treat, Miss Satori. Pardon my mental mess, but to securely keep the event locations from leaking to the participants, this psychic defense was absolutely all I could do. You'd better behave yourself and keep that eye closed, or I'll violently blacklist you from the server again."
Leo smugly pulled out his smartphone and gave it a threatening shake. He actually wasn't physically afraid of Satori Komeiji's mind-reading cheating the event; the Little Fairies were entirely, exclusively responsible for burying all the heavy treasure chests. He hadn't personally lifted a single finger to dig and genuinely had absolutely no idea where the items were actually buried in the mud.
Look into my brain all you want! I have absolutely no privacy left anyway! Let's see what else you can uselessly dig up!
"Don't worry your filthy head, I usually don't ever actively cause trouble for hosts. Considering you politely remembered to formally invite me this time instead of banning me, I'll generously let your disrespect slide for today."
Satori Komeiji had formally come with her two terrifying pets, a two-tailed black cat and a massive, glowing crow. She legally couldn't participate in the hunt herself due to her ability, but she could let her pets join the fun. Moreover, her pets had a massive, unfair advantage; Utsuho Reiuji's simple, bird-brained thought process actually perfectly synchronized with the chaotic logic of the Little Fairies. They had a massive, natural advantage in decoding this specific event's maps.
Rin Kaenbyou (Orin)
Race: Kasha (Corpse Demon)
Ability: Ability to carry away corpses and manipulate spirits
Occupation: Corpse hauler, Hell's wheelbarrow driver
Residence: Palace of the Earth Spirits (Chireiden)
Unlock Condition: The World Lord must legally die exactly once (Completed via meteor)
Utsuho Reiuji (Okuu)
Race: Hell Raven / Yatagarasu avatar
Ability: Ability to manipulate nuclear fusion
Occupation: Lovable Idiot, underground nuclear facility maintainer
Residence: Palace of the Earth Spirits (Chireiden)
Unlock Condition: Safely reach the deep magma layer in the back mountain Mines (Completed)
Leo conveniently handed the two excited pets glowing ID Cards number 016 and 017, then quickly bid a polite farewell to Satori Komeiji. As long as she didn't actively cause trouble for his event, he absolutely wouldn't go out of his way to target or ban her. Besides, currently... he felt completely, mentally invincible.
"Yo, hello there, Eldest Daughter. How exactly are my homemade snacks treating you? They taste pretty good, right? Flandre happily eats them every single day."
Leo had specifically, thoughtfully made the wooden festival counters a bit physically lower to the ground. After all, the average physical height of the ancient Youkai in Gensokyo wasn't high at all; many terrifying, world-ending monsters were only the physical height of ten-year-old human children. Making the counters too high like a normal human bar would likely just get him violently beaten up for being insensitive. At this customized height, Remilia Scarlet could easily stand straight up and perfectly see the food on top.
"They are indeed quite adequately good for commoner food. It's nice to have a bit of this salty crunch when drinking my premium tea during leisure time."
Remilia elegantly held a paper bag of crispy, freshly fried potato chips with a bit of sea salt sprinkled on them. Sakuya Izayoi stood perfectly straight behind her, holding a chilled silver cup of sweet mung bean soup. Whenever Remilia slightly turned her head, Sakuya would instantly bend down and seamlessly hand her the cup with a straw. She was eating quite happily and lazily.
"By the way, you should have tried both the fresh cow's milk and the goat's milk I sent over by now. Which specific flavor do you prefer for the Mansion?"
Leo suddenly remembered the massive baby bottle of milk Flandre proudly gave to Sakuya earlier and started doing some aggressive, capitalist market research on his biggest client.
He personally, vastly preferred goat's milk, especially that unique, slightly gamey flavor it had. When it came to meat, he also vastly preferred rich mutton over beef. Once, his cheap corporate company back on Earth generously gave out a massive box of frozen, roasted lamb legs as an end-of-the-year bonus; he brought it home to his tiny apartment and slowly heated it in his small oven—it was truly, incredibly delicious!
Later, during a miserable, forced corporate team-building trip to some expensive manor in the countryside, there was a whole, massive roasted sheep on a spit. While all his annoying coworkers were busy awkwardly chatting and networking, he quietly, happily devoured almost half a sheep entirely by himself in the corner. It was a true feast!
"Definitely cow's milk. That awful goat's milk taste..."
Remilia recalled the strong, gamey taste of the goat's milk and couldn't help but violently shudder in absolute disgust. Goat's milk was a highly subjective, acquired thing; those who liked it loved it, while those who didn't might literally vomit upon drinking it due to the smell.
"I see. Then I absolutely won't deliver any more goat's milk to you in the future. Speaking of which, do you formally want to renew your daily milk subscription for the entire next month? It's 200 yuan per liter if bought individually on the app, but if you formally subscribe for a whole month at once, it's only exactly 5,000 yuan. Want to consider the discount?"
Leo proudly pulled out a thick, plastic 'milk card' he had aggressively commissioned Nitori Kawashiro to machine-print for him.
This specific, archaic thing was a deep, nostalgic childhood memory from Earth. When he was a little kid in the 90s, there was a massive, insulated metal milk cabinet locked at the entrance of their apartment building unit. As long as you safely put the stamped plastic milk card inside the slot after ordering, you'd reliably receive a cold glass bottle of fresh Baima Temple Yogurt delivered every single morning by the milkman. After drinking it, you'd obediently put the empty glass bottle back outside for recycling. Because of this system, he never lacked healthy milk as a growing child.
"Hmm, give me... exactly five cards. You wouldn't really, cruelly withhold fresh milk from Flandre just because I specifically didn't order a card for her, would you?"
Remilia rapidly calculated the exact number of essential staff people in the Scarlet Devil Mansion and generously ordered a daily portion of fresh milk for absolutely everyone... except Flandre. That bratty, destructive sister ate much, much better than her every single day at Leo's farm; if she wanted to lazily leech the family's official milk supply at the Mansion, she could keep dreaming!
"That absolutely wouldn't happen," Leo chuckled. "Flandre physically takes care of all those massive animals every single day, and she's surprisingly very diligent about brushing them. She drinks for free."
He pulled out exactly five plastic milk cards and handed them respectfully to Sakuya. From then on, whenever Sakuya came over to buy groceries, she just had to politely present the plastic milk card and let Youmu Konpaku (who was on kitchen duty) violently punch a hole in the edge with her sword to collect the massive bottles of fresh milk. One card had exactly thirty marked slots around the edge, exactly a full month's supply.
Along the way through the crowded festival, Leo aggressively tried to pitch his Stardew Valley premium milk subscription cards to absolutely everyone he saw like a desperate salesman. The happy dairy cows' daily yield was incredibly, impossibly high; a single, magically buffed cow in a good mood could easily produce about thirty kilograms of milk a day. He had ten cows that could currently produce milk, and each one's mood meter was kept permanently at absolute maximum by the Little Fairies' constant, loving petting.
His whole, massive family... absolutely not counting the bottomless Yuyuko... simply couldn't possibly finish drinking it all before it spoiled.