Chapter 50: Marisa: Sharpening Her Blade Against the Paparazzi.
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Marisa had just finished watering every last crop on the farm using her magic broom, finally ready to head home for a well-deserved rest. But before she could fly off, Kihara approached with a cold expression and tossed a newspaper straight at her.
"Your work period has been extended by another month."
At first, she was so furious she wanted to swing her broom right into his face and shout, "I quit!" But after reading the article, all she could do was stare guiltily at her own shiny round-toed shoes, unable to meet his eyes.
Once Kihara and his girlfriends had walked far enough away, Marisa tore the newspaper into tiny pieces in a fit of rage. She hopped back onto her broom and flew straight toward Youkai Mountain, determined to settle the score with Shameimaru Aya.
…
While they were building houses for Hestia and the others, Tatsumaki had just returned from the sunflower field. She was about to greet Kihara when she suddenly noticed Hestia standing beside him. Her eyes narrowed, locking onto the goddess's impossibly large chest.
"Damn it… Is that size even possible without surgery?"
Feeling strangely insulted, Tatsumaki turned away with a sour expression and left. She decided it was time to learn that strange size-altering magic from Kazami Yuuka. Only then could she win the silent war among the girls with an ultrasuperamazing figure.
The remaining stones were just enough to finish constructing the new houses for Hestia's group. Kihara asked Shinjou Akane to take Hestia and the others back to relax, then grabbed his pickaxe and headed into the mine to gather more stone.
Plop… plop…
Small green slimes about half a meter tall bounced cheerfully through the dimly lit mine tunnels. Kihara felt oddly nostalgic. He had worried the mine might turn into a full dungeon layout, but it seemed he had overthought it.
With a casual swing of his sword, he dispatched one slime. Two translucent, jelly-like "slime goo" drops popped out. He remembered these could be used to craft slime incubators, slime eggs, oil makers, and various other useful items.
"I'll store these in the chest when I get back."
Since he needed to mine stone, Kihara didn't teleport directly to the 20th floor. Instead, he swung his pickaxe while clearing monsters and searching for the staircase leading deeper.
Unlike the dungeon in Orario, the Stardew Valley mine had staircases that could appear under dug-up stones, spawn randomly on the ground, or even drop from defeated monsters. There were also pitfall holes that let you skip several floors at once.
With no stamina limit holding him back, Kihara mined and fought his way down. By the time he reached the 20th floor, his four-dimensional backpack was already stuffed with over seven hundred stones, plus a decent amount of copper ore and coal.
Going any deeper risked running into giant boulders his current pickaxe couldn't break, so he put the tool away and pulled out the fishing rod he had received from the heretic. He began fishing on the 20th floor.
"Now that I think about it… Joja Cola over there should run out of stock in a few months after I left… I should go check on that later."
The bobber dipped twice. Kihara quickly reeled in — and pulled up a fish that looked almost exactly like a gray oval stone.
[Stonefish (Golden Star): A peculiar fish unique to the mines. Its meat is chewy and contains only vertebrae.]
"Only vertebrae? Wouldn't that be perfect for Tatsumaki? She loves fish but hates dealing with bones."
Kihara immediately decided to catch a few more. Perhaps thanks to girlfriend luck, what normally had a 60% chance of junk suddenly became a guaranteed Stonefish every cast.
He fished for three full hours and ended up with twenty Stonefish in total.
"What a great haul!"
Even after setting aside ten Golden Star and Iridium Star Stonefish for his girlfriends, he could still sell the rest for over four thousand gold. This was much faster money than fishing by the sea — as long as every cast kept landing fish like today.
At dinner, the tender, bouncy Stonefish that required no careful bone-picking received unanimous praise from all the girls.
Tatsumaki even volunteered to go fishing in the mine herself whenever the rod was free.
With the number of girls in his harem growing, Kihara could delegate more tasks to those who wanted to help. He was finally escaping the exhausting farmer lifestyle of waking at 6 a.m. and sleeping at 2 a.m.
In his newly freed time — aside from spending it with his girlfriends — Kihara began actively building friendly relationships with the other youkai of Gensokyo. After all, constructing a signal base station would require their approval, so getting on good terms early was essential.
The Solar Essence needed for the signal base station only dropped from ghosts that appeared on mine floors 51 through 79. Although his current pickaxe prevented him from reaching floor 52, that didn't mean he had no way to obtain Solar Essence.
He could simply ride the mine elevator up and down repeatedly to refresh floor 51. There was a chance ghosts would spawn, allowing him to defeat them and collect the essence.
The rest was just a matter of waiting for his crops to mature, raising his foraging level to 6 to unlock and craft lightning rods, and hoping for a thunderstorm.
Since he had no direct way to contact Ibuki Suika, Kihara decided to head to Youkai Mountain himself to ask around. But the moment he reached the foot of the mountain, he unexpectedly ran into Shameimaru Aya being chased by Marisa.
"Damn tengu paparazzi! How dare you publish me looking like that!!!"
"I already told you — it wasn't a real photo! It's a technique called Photoshop!"
"I don't care! Either pay me compensation for emotional damage, or put your own picture through the same process and publish it!"
"No way!"
A magic blast shot past Aya's beloved camera, nearly making her lose control of her wings and plummet from the sky. She glared back angrily. "Hey! You're actually trying to hit me?!"
Marisa roared through gritted teeth,
"Because of you, that trash reporter, I have to work another month for Kihara!"
"You don't mind if I write this into the next article, right?"
The fearless paparazzi asked the worst possible question.
"You still dare mention the news!?"
Marisa's lungs nearly exploded with rage. She shoved a handful of mushrooms into her Mini-Hakkero and aimed it straight at the shameless tengu who had ruined her reputation. Pouring both her fury and magic power into the attack, she shouted:
"Die, you damn paparazzi! Love Sign: Master Spark!!!!"
"I'm not scared of a fight! Wind God: Wind God Leaf Concealment!"
Kihara watched the spectacular, fireworks-like danmaku battle light up the sky for a while, then calmly looked away and continued up Youkai Mountain. Among the youkai here were many who could take human form, but also plenty of half-beast or completely non-humanoid ones.
Yet every single one of them showed clear respect and awe toward Kihara. The scent of Ibuki Suika — one of the Four Devas of the Mountain — clung to him, signaling that he was under her protection.
"Um… could anyone tell me where Suika is?"
Before the youkai could answer, a tipsy voice came from behind him. "Oh~? If it isn't Kihara-kun. What brings you looking for me?"
He turned around to see Ibuki Suika standing there, eyes half-lidded, lazily holding her gourd of sake. She had appeared without a sound.
"Here are ten barrels of divine sake I brought from another world."
"Ohhh~ This is the offering for borrowing my power earlier, right? Mhm, mhm… I accept it."
Suika shrank the ten barrels down and tucked them into her pocket, then pulled out a faintly glowing white slip of paper and tore it apart. "There. Your debt is now cleared."
Kihara's eyes widened in surprise. "You guys actually use IOUs!?"
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Thank you for reading.