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"Thanks for the hospitality. Next time you dare to maliciously tease a virtuous, pure-hearted man like me, it absolutely won't end so easily."
Half an hour later, Leo finally, triumphantly let go of the sweaty, trembling feet in his arms. He calmly tidied his slightly wrinkled clothes, wiped his hands, and walked back down the wooden steps to the sun-baked fields to continue his agricultural work, feeling incredibly, profoundly refreshed in both body and soul.
He left behind a completely shattered Yukari Yakumo, who was currently slumped deeply into her lounge chair, her face burning an unnatural, furious red, and her mouth slightly open, nearly drooling from sheer sensory overload. Why on earth had she been so arrogant and foul-mouthed for absolutely no reason?! She had just actively, voluntarily given the dense little brother a massive, free wave of physical benefits, and her ancient heart was completely full of agonizing, humiliating regret.
"Wow, the cows have actually grown up!" "The fluffy chicks too, they became so big all of a sudden!"
On the other side of the farm, the massive swarm of Little Fairies who had lined up all the way from the Secret Forest to the farm boundaries immediately ran cheering to find the specific animals they had previously claimed as pets.
As soon as they pushed open the heavy wooden doors and entered the warm, hay-scented livestock barn, they gasped in awe at the sight of the fully grown animals. Successfully finding their own designated animals through the colorful, hand-written wooden tags hanging around their thick necks, the Little Fairies giggled and climbed directly onto the massive animals' broad backs like tiny jockeys. With a gentle squeeze of their little legs, the massive dairy cows beneath them obediently mooed and walked forward slowly, preparing to go out into the rustling, green woods to forage for fresh grass.
"Big brother, look! The chickens laid eggs! Oops!"
The fairies who were diligently taking care of the small animals like chicks and ducklings happily discovered pristine, white and brown chicken and duck eggs resting perfectly in the soft straw nests as soon as they entered the coop.
Just as they joyfully finished collecting the warm eggs scattered across the room, Flandre ran out of the coop excitedly, holding a heavy woven basket high above her blonde head. These were real, fresh eggs! These were exactly the premium eggs Miss Sakuya had been desperately longing for. Because they didn't have access to fresh eggs over in their dimension, their massive household hadn't eaten authentic, fluffy little cakes for a very, very long time.
It would have been perfectly fine if Flandre's three identical clones were strictly telepathically controlled by the Main Body, as they could easily complete complex tasks requiring physical cooperation. But the three clones inexplicably each had their own chaotic, independent consciousness. Including the Main Body, the four of them together essentially had seven conflicting, noisy group chats going on in one brain; how could they possibly run over the uneven dirt so smoothly?
Moreover, Flandre clearly hadn't studied structured marching at Hengshui High School; the four of them ran wildly with completely messy, overlapping footsteps. This specific, tragic fall happened simply because the Flandre clone lagging in the back accidentally, forcefully kicked the ankle of the Flandre sprinting in the front.
"No!! Don't~~ ah~!"
Watching the woven basket fly out of Flandre's hands and the precious, fragile eggs gracefully arch into the air in slow motion, Leo's whole being completely took the horrified shape of Edvard Munch's famous painting, 'The Scream.'
After working so incredibly hard for so long (referring entirely to the fact that the hardworking Little Fairies were taking care of the smelly animals the whole time while he slept), wasn't absolutely all this massive agricultural effort just for a single, delicious bite of animal products?! Now it was all about to violently smash into a gooey, yellow ruin on the dirt!
The World!
Time instantly, violently stopped. The vibrant colors of the farm inverted into a stark, silent monochrome grey.
Sakuya Izayoi stepped elegantly out from a dark, spatial Gap and happened to see Flandre frozen mid-air, about to violently face-plant into the dirt. Time Stop activated. She walked calmly through the frozen air, her silver pocket watch ticking softly in the absolute silence. She gracefully, skillfully plucked the airborne eggs out of the air one by one and placed them safely back into the woven basket. Feeling the smooth, fragile eggs that still held a lingering, biological warmth from the hens, Sakuya forcibly suppressed her deep, maid-like urge to immediately bake and offer a fluffy little cake to the Eldest Daughter right then and there. She constantly, strictly reminded herself that these were someone else's legal property and she absolutely couldn't steal them!
Taking the heavy basket securely from Flandre's frozen hand and gently steadying the Main Body Flandre who was frozen mid-tumble, Sakuya then simply snapped her gloved fingers with a sharp CLICK to release the time stop.
Color flooded back into the world.
"Ouch!"
Flandre's Main Body fell heavily to the dusty ground with a loud cry as gravity resumed. Then, completely forgetting that she had just been holding a massive basket of fragile eggs a millisecond ago, she crawled furiously up from the dirt, turned around with glowing red eyes, and started violently, physically fighting with the clone that had tripped her, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
"Here. If possible, could you kindly sell me a few eggs? The Eldest Daughter hasn't eaten little cakes for a very long time."
Handing the pristine basket to a hyperventilating Leo, Sakuya's elegant face, which was usually completely stoic and expressionless toward outsiders, showed a rare, visible hint of pink embarrassment. When exactly had the incredibly wealthy, aristocratic Scarlet Devil Mansion fallen so low to the point of a Head Maid politely begging a human farmer for a single egg?
With the precious eggs safely recovered, Leo breathed a massive, trembling sigh of relief, clutching his chest. Just as he was about to greedily take the basket, he suddenly thought of something and firmly pushed the basket back toward her with an air of righteous generosity.
"Miss Sakuya, what on earth are you saying? If it weren't for your magic just now, these eggs would literally be gone and smashed in the dirt. If you want them, take them all. Just save a few pieces of the finished cake for me later."
That's exactly what he said out loud to sound cool, but in stark reality, Leo absolutely didn't know how to bake little cakes anyway. He had foolishly tried his hand at baking before back on Earth, specifically buying expensive low-gluten cake flour and professional cake-making tools off the internet. But for some cursed reason, even though he meticulously, perfectly followed every single step of the video tutorials, the cakes he made just fundamentally wouldn't rise in the oven. They weren't light or fluffy at all, and they would tragically, depressingly collapse into a dense brick after sitting on the counter for a while.
Once, for his lonely 20th birthday, he tried to make himself a celebratory cake and even specifically splurged on heavy cream and expensive chocolate. The final result... the cake absolutely didn't rise and was exactly like a tough, flat pancake. Without a proper spinning decorating turntable, he could only awkwardly frost it on an upside-down cereal bowl. The cream was spread hideously unevenly, and the absolute most disastrous, depressing part was that he bought the completely wrong chocolate. He only realized while melting it in a double boiler that it was actually crunchy hazelnut chocolate—it had massive, chunky nuts in it! In the end, the frosted cake looked exactly like someone had taken a massive, lumpy dump on a plate!
(He still had a tragic, cursed photo of that specific cake saved on his old phone cloud drive from six or seven years ago as a permanent reminder of his culinary failures.)
Since that dark day, Leo's passionate heart for baking had completely, permanently closed; he no longer ever tried to make cakes. The expensive electric oven he bought was now exclusively only used to roast cheap, Yan-25 Shandong honey sweet potatoes in the winter.
"Eh? Is that truly okay? I deeply understand. Once the cakes are perfectly ready, I will personally bring some fresh slices to you."
Sakuya took the heavy basket, bowed and thanked Leo very solemnly, and then walked purposefully into the farmhouse kitchen, tying her apron.
Ever since Leo had formally issued her Stardew Valley ID Card No. 015, she reliably came through the portal to Stardew Valley every single morning strictly to buy fresh groceries. Actually, she could effortlessly just place an order on her smartphone for groceries to be delivered via Gap, but Sakuya Izayoi seemed to have some unique, traditional maid persistence, absolutely insisting that personally inspecting and buying freshly picked vegetables was superior. When the field crops weren't fully ripe, she would meticulously pick through the shipping bins; when the crops were ripe, she would even go directly into the muddy fields herself to carefully select the specific vegetables that caught her critical eye.
A loud, rhythmic splashing sound suddenly came from the open kitchen window. Leo leaned over the wooden sill to take a curious look. Miss Sakuya was an absolute physical powerhouse; she actually chose to violently whisk the thick egg whites entirely by hand with a wire whisk, her arm moving at superhuman, blurring speeds. After watching her at the window for a while and seeing that her violent technique was eerily similar to his old, failed method, he shuddered and stopped paying attention.
Instead, he rubbed his hands together greedily and walked with a dark chuckle toward the massive animals leisurely strolling near the grassy edge of the farm. Time for some fresh milk!
"Ah! The terrifying, bad fairy who eats innocent animals is here! Cow, run for your life!"
Seeing Leo walking over with a bucket and a greedy smile, the tiny fairy riding on the dairy cow's back cried out in absolute, primal terror. She immediately jumped down, effortlessly shouldered the massive, 1,500-pound cow that was several times larger than her entire body, and absolutely bolted toward the tree line.
That terrifying, physics-defying speed... even a racing greyhound would shake its head in disbelief at it. Leo stood completely frozen, his bucket swinging in the breeze; he certainly had zero physical desire or ability to give chase to a superhuman, weightlifting fairy.
"Tsk, how long ago was that stupid joke?! Why do they still remember that?!"
Leo, who genuinely just wanted to peacefully see if there was any fresh milk to drink for lunch, clicked his tongue in annoyance. Let them run; they'd have to come back to the warm barn at night anyway. He'd ambush them and try again then.
Returning to the shaded porch of the small house, Leo took out some of each fresh, tropical fruit, washed them in the sink, and cut them into perfect, small, bite-sized pieces. One large portion was given respectfully to Sakuya in the kitchen to make into fruit cakes, and the other personal bowl was generously drizzled with wild honey.
He moved a small wooden stool to sit directly beside the still-recovering Yukari Yakumo, leisurely soaking up the warm tropical sun while eating his fruit, occasionally stabbing a sweet piece of fruit with a toothpick to lovingly feed to Kogasa Tatara, who was happily sitting in his lap. It was incredibly, perfectly pleasant.
"Yo, eating?"
A dark Gap suddenly opened in the air beside the porch, and Aya Shameimaru stepped out smoothly, her wings folding behind her. Seeing Leo sitting comfortably on the veranda sunbathing like a retired old man, she handed him a thick, sealed manila file folder she was holding under her arm. With her other hand, she stealthily, lightning-fast used a wooden toothpick to violently snag a premium piece of honey-drizzled fruit from his plate to eat.
"What's this?"
Pushing the fruit plate generously toward Aya Shameimaru so she didn't have to steal, Leo looked down at the heavy file folder with some genuine curiosity.
"It's a formal petition for recreational activities directly from the Youkai populace," Aya explained, chewing the fruit. "Eirin Yagokoro specifically asked me to deliver it to you. She said if you officially agree to the proposal, absolutely all logistical costs and prize pools will be borne entirely by Gensokyo's treasury; you just need to provide the venue and officially host the event."