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"Aha, finally found it. I knew the angle should logically be right around here."
By the edge of the sparkling Mine Cave Lake on the back mountain, Hong Meiling systematically circled the muddy area and triumphantly found the exact location indicated by the simple, chaotic sketch in her hand.
It was a small, weather-beaten Mole Statue hidden deeply between two thick clumps of overgrown berry bushes. In the original game mechanics, this was simply the fast-travel teleportation point for the back mountain totem, but now the mischievous Little Fairies had used the soft dirt space directly in front of it to bury a heavy wooden treasure chest.
"Oh ho! Sisters, we've got a massive bowl of fresh strawberries! A delicious treat for the break room!"
Meiling excitedly dug up the chest and took a massive, chilled silver basin of plump, red strawberries out of it. She cleverly knew Leo certainly wouldn't do something as petty and infuriating as putting a single, pathetic strawberry in such a massive, heavy treasure chest just to troll them. This overflowing basin easily held two solid pounds of premium, glowing strawberries, more than enough for a nice little dessert party for the gate guards.
"Let me see exactly what the next abstract map is..."
Meiling unrolled the next crumpled piece of paper.
(A picture drawn with a red crayon: A massive, lumpy brown square, next to a squiggly blue line, with a tiny, unrecognizable yellow blob sitting on top).
"Tsk, this specific drawing is a bit far too abstract even for me. It looks incredibly familiar, though."
Scratching her red hair in confusion, Hong Meiling started wandering around the back mountain paths aimlessly. There was absolutely no rush; there was plenty of time left on the event clock. She decided she'd just easily find a hidden, shady spot in the grass to take a quick nap first to refresh her brain. Being violently woken up so early by Miss Sakuya throwing knives this morning had left her completely exhausted and lethargic.
At the main venue...
The eliminated or lazy Youkai who weren't actively participating sat comfortably in the shaded VIP rest area, drinking juice and aggressively watching the massive jumbotron screen in the center of the square. Suddenly, a dark, eye-filled Gap violently tore open in the air directly in front of Yuuka Kazami's VIP seat, immediately drawing absolutely everyone's excited attention.
"Oh? Is it finally my turn to actively appear as a boss fight? Let's see exactly who the poor, unlucky star is today."
Yuuka Kazami smiled a beautiful, terrifying smile and gracefully stepped directly into the Gap. A split second later, she appeared in a flash of green light on the wooden planks of the Seaside pier.
Standing rigidly before her, holding a wooden shovel, was Marisa Kirisame with an incredibly long, horrified face. The poor kid's specific treasure map was actually simple enough to read, leading her straight to the pier, but she just aggressively couldn't physically dig anything up but an empty 'Demon King' chest!
"Um... Miss Yuuka, can we please legally settle this peacefully without lasers?!" Marisa trembled violently, clutching her wooden broom like a shield. "The official event rules explicitly say as long as I physically satisfy you, it's fine, right? How about I perform a hilarious magic talent for you instead of fighting? If you genuinely laugh, I pass and get the gem?"
This was only her absolute first dig of the day; how on earth could her RNG luck be this astronomically bad right out of the gate?!
"Sure, why not. What kind of talent do you desperately want to perform to save your life?" Yuuka nodded, amused by the witch's terror. "If you actually manage to make me genuinely laugh, I'll let you go completely unscathed and even generously give you a premium gemstone for your trouble."
Yuuka Kazami wasn't some mindless, violent brute who just attacked on sight; if a weak contestant really, truly didn't want to fight and risk their life, she absolutely wouldn't force a lethal combat encounter. Just actively doing something creative or humiliating to satisfy her amusement was perfectly fine. Leo had given her very loose, highly flexible parameters in this boss regard.
"How about I completely blind-chug one of my own experimental, unstable potions?! One of the highly dangerous, completely unlabeled ones from the bottom of my bag!"
Marisa gritted her teeth in desperation and pulled a glowing, violently bubbling, completely unlabeled glass potion bottle from her messy apron pocket. These failed, experimental potions were exactly like lethal mystery boxes in her chaotic magic shop; even she absolutely didn't mathematically know what the horrific biological consequences of drinking them raw would actually be.
"Fine. Drink it all." Yuuka crossed her arms, smiling expectantly.
Receiving Yuuka's absolute, non-negotiable answer, Marisa decisively popped the cork, pinched her nose, tilted her head back, and violently downed the entire bubbling mixture in one gulp.
...
No sudden physical changes or extra limbs, so it wasn't a horrific transmogrification potion. No burning pain from inside her stomach, so it wasn't a lethal, corrosive poison. It actually seemed to be a stable, positive-effect buff potion; her luck was finally good!
After finishing it and wiping her mouth, Marisa immediately began nervously checking her internal magical condition. Finding absolutely no negative changes or debuffs, she sighed a massive, heavy breath of relief. As long as it wasn't a negative, debilitating potion, it was perfectly fine; she just didn't know exactly what the specific positive effect of this blue bottle was yet.
".em ot enotsmeg eht evig ,kniht I ,gniknird hsinif I"
Marisa confidently extended her left foot outward toward Yuuka Kazami. Having made such a massive, brave sacrifice for entertainment, she should absolutely be given the gemstone now!
"Not bad at all, quite interesting." Yuuka raised an elegant eyebrow, genuinely amused, and casually tossed the glowing green emerald she had been playing with directly to Marisa.
Then, she watched with a cruel smirk as the witch's limbs suddenly seemed to violently cross-wire. Marisa tried to reach out and catch it, but instead threw herself entirely off balance, causing her to fall spectacularly flat on her face into the wet sand.
"!gnineppah si tahw s'tahW" Marisa cried out in absolute shock, her voice entirely reversed.
Her panicked mind desperately thought 'extend left foot to stand up,' but her right hand violently moved instead, slapping the sand. When she frantically tried to move her left hand to support her weight, her right leg kicked out aggressively into the air. Her entire body's neurological operating system and vocal cords had been completely, flawlessly reversed by the potion!
"Have fun playing in the sand, little witch. I'm heading back to my tea. By the way, Aya Shameimaru has already arrived overhead. Absolutely everyone at the main venue has likely seen exactly what an idiot you look like right now on the big screen."
Yuuka Kazami cruelly pointed a finger up to Aya Shameimaru, who was happily hovering in the sky with her massive camera equipment focused directly on the flailing witch, and calmly walked back into the dark Gap with a satisfied smile. Indeed, this festival activity was very, very interesting!
"!uoy llik ot tnaw I"
Marisa felt exactly like violently killing someone right now, but her mental will was strong while her physical body was utterly weak and confused. Her limbs acted exactly like they belonged to someone else entirely and absolutely refused to listen to her brain's commands. She couldn't even physically manage to reach into her pocket to pull a neutralizing antidote from her apron! She could only lie completely motionless and defeated on the wet sand, desperately trying her absolute best not to have any more of her humiliating, flailing state captured on HD film.
"Nice! Truly heart-warming karma!"
The massive crowd of Youkai at the venue clapped loudly and cheered viciously as they watched Marisa's humiliating, paralyzed state on the massive screen. Marisa usually obnoxiously threw her weight around and stole things in Gensokyo; finally getting to safely see her make an absolute fool of herself on live TV was deeply exhilarating for her victims!
Half a day quickly passed. As absolutely everyone slowly but surely got onto the exact same, chaotic wavelength as the Little Fairies, the overall speed of finding buried treasure increased significantly across the map. Several fast people had already come back to the desk to excitedly collect their second wave of three treasure maps.
However, everyone greedily kept exactly what they dug up to eat themselves; Yuyuko Saigyouji, who had been patiently, desperately waiting at the designated feeding station for half the day, was so incredibly hungry her stomach had completely flattened out like a sad pancake.
"So hungry, so incredibly hungry, so hungry, I'm really, physically starving to death~~"
Yuyuko stared intensely at Leo across the venue, a terrifying, predatory green glint flashing in her pink eyes. It was absolutely all because this lying guy had maliciously tricked her this morning, promising her she could freely eat the massive amounts of food people offered for extra points at the feeding station, that she eagerly agreed to work here behind the rope! As a tragic result, after all this long time, there literally hadn't been a single, pathetic offering from the greedy players!
"Lady Yuyuko! I'm finally back!"
Just as Yuyuko was about to completely lose her mind and resort to violent cannibalism on the nearest Fairy, Youmu Konpaku ran over like a desperate gust of wind, exhaustingly carrying a massive, heavy iron basin entirely filled with steaming white rice. She had frantically spent half the morning wandering lost around Stardew Valley before finally, miraculously finding the hidden treasure chest buried directly at the base of the Wizards Tower in the southern Cindersap forest.
If this specific, crude treasure map had been given to Hong Meiling or Flandre, it would have been very, very easy; such an iconic, massive building as the Wizards Tower could be recognized by them at a single glance. But the sheltered Youmu simply couldn't do it; she hadn't wandered around the Stardew Valley map much at all, and the Little Fairies' terrible, crayon drawing of the imposing Wizards Tower looked exactly like a weird, lumpy gray pillar. She had exhaustingly searched the woods for a very long time before finding it.
"Waaaah~~ Youmu! You're absolutely still the best gardener in the world!"
Yuyuko violently grabbed the massive iron basin of hot rice and 'refined' it into her stomach in a terrifying instant. The entire, horrifying process didn't even involve a single polite burp; a massive basin of rice exactly the size of a laundry washbowl completely vanished into thin air down her throat, without even needing a single savory side dish to wash it down!
"Whew, I'm fully back to life. Good luck out there, Youmu, I'm heavily rooting for your success."
Having finally eaten a tiny bit of starch just to line her massive stomach, Yuyuko looked a bit more physically three-dimensional and solid. She gave an exhausted Youmu a cheerful, thumbs-up cheering gesture before immediately slumping heavily back onto the table to conserve her precious energy. However, her hands absolutely weren't idle, as she constantly, aggressively drew little curse circles on the wooden counter with her finger to maliciously curse Leo's gacha luck.
"I've come to officially exchange for a High-Grade Treasure Map!"
At exactly 7 PM as the sun began to set, Hong Meiling returned to the main venue completely covered in thick dust and with her green uniform clothes in absolute tatters. She proudly, violently slammed exactly five glowing, rare gemstones onto the wooden counter directly in front of Daiyousei.
For these specific gemstones, she had properly, brutally sparred with the 'Ancient Demon King' Yuuka Kazami once—absolutely no magic blasts, no physical enhancement buffs, just pure, unadulterated technical martial arts exchange in the mud. Yuuka Kazami, having deeply, genuinely enjoyed the rare, physical fight, generously gave her two gemstones at once as a reward, and the rest she had painstakingly dug up herself.
Currently, her official score points were absolutely the highest of everyone on the leaderboard. She had already rapidly collected and solved regular treasure maps three separate times. When it directly came to playing stupid, childish games with the chaotic Little Fairies, she absolutely dared to say that if she was second place, no one on earth could possibly claim to be first!
"Amazing! This is your official High-Grade Treasure Map, Lady Meiling! Please take it carefully. I sincerely hope you dig up a massive, limited-edition treasure!"
Daiyousei happily took the heavy gemstones and carefully pulled an exquisite, gold-trimmed parchment scroll from a locked box under the counter. Since it was an official High-Grade Treasure Map, it naturally had to be much more high-end and imposing. Furthermore, the artist was absolutely no longer a chaotic Little Fairy. Since gathering enough rare gems for a high-grade map was already so physically difficult and time-consuming, there was absolutely no need to make the final search take forever with abstract puzzles.
Thus, Leo had meticulously, professionally drawn the high-grade maps himself; they were very clear, highly detailed, and incredibly easy to understand geographically.