34 New Year Celebration in Gensokyo (1/2)

Editor: Crembo.

AN: Author has never seen any real snow in his life.

-Morning, My House-

-My POV-​

”… This is kinda disappointing.”

I said while hovering above the ocean.

”Now I understand that no matter how big this thing is, it's still a fish.”

The thing in question was in the air, struggling to loosen my (telekinetic) grip on its tail.

[Lv.30 Megalodon]

For simple size comparison, it could take a nice chunk out of a bus with a bite. Say, at least 20% of the bus would be gone.

As for how this situation came to be, I caught the Megalodon after it tried to take a bite out of me by jumping out of the ocean.

I observed the fish that was dangling in the air.

The Megalodon just has a larger body than a normal shark; its moveset is also the same as its smaller cousins. Bite, Tail Whip, Head Butt, Pursuit… the more I say, the more it sounds like I'm describing Pokémon moves, and if that's really what the Megalodon Pokémon moveset is, then this thing is a bad Pokémon.

A Water Pokémon that can only use normal-type/dark-type Pokémon moves, what trash. Even the orca is more interesting than this thing; this thing could win against an orca with its massive size, but without that advantage, the Megalodon would lose instead. Oh wait, is that why the Legendary Pokémon is an orca(Kyogre)? The devs knew that the orca is the true apex predator of the sea, not the shark.

”But I digress, let's stop roasting the poor fishy and just finish this fi-…simulation.”

I cut its head off using my Steel Katana and Vector Change.

[Simulation End]

Everything started turning into data and the surroundings became a blank white space.

”Next time, let's fight something interesting. Even if it'll be something low level, at least how they fight or their appearance should be worth seeing… Bikini Warrior?”

And with those final words, I exited the Simulation Room.

”Let's make some snacks for when I'm at Akyuu's place.”

I went toward the kitchen.

A week has passed since... You know, since I visited SDM. I did do something besides visiting Reimu and wasting time inside the Simulation Room.

After some hard thinking and brainstorming, I finally planted something in my garden: a bush… I know it's nothing much, but it's a step. I do plan to plant more trees or flowers in there, but since the season is winter, a bush will be fine for now.

On another matter, I was curious about why all of the Oni hadn't come running to fight me since the first one challenged me. My knowledge regarding them is not that detailed, but based on what I know, they should be searching for me since they knew that I was an Oni-Slayer.

I did have some theories as to why they hadn't shown up yet.

1. That Dorokin guy was too ashamed about how I defeated him, so he didn't tell his friends what really happened.

2. They all know what happened, they all want to fight me, but they are all stopped by their obligation to contain the evil spirits, so now they're all fighting with each other and the winner of that fight will fight me in the end.

As much as I didn't want no.2 to become true, I was pretty much inclined to believe that's what really happened.

I scowled as I cooked the snacks.

So that meant it was either Yuugi or Suika that would win the fight, and I didn't want either of those two to visit me.

One of them can cause a calamity and the other one can break the moon, so I had pretty clear pretext to wanting to avoid fighting either of them.

…Fuck, IaMP (Immaterial and Missing Power) will happen, and Suika will appear in Gensokyo.

This is stupid. PCB (Perfect Cherry Blossom) hadn't even started yet and I was already worried about a future incident. But to be fair, the threat here already exists and just needs a little nudge to activate, while on the other hand, other incidents, like SA (Subterranean Animism) need Kanako to arrive in Gensokyo first before the incident would be possible.

”I hope this is enough. 6 portions of potato chips and 6 portions of popcorn. Although they're great snacks, I still doubt it'll be enough, considering these foods' hugely addictive reputation...”

”... Meh. If they are not satisfied then they can have the leftover cookies from a few days ago. Even though I cooked them a while back, they're still fresh because of spacetime storage shenanigans.”

I wrapped them up and readied myself to go out of the house. I had a reason why I wanted to go visit Akyuu -

I closed the front door to my house and looked at ground.

It was full of snow.

It covered everything and made the ground white.

- 'We made a deal some time ago, about showing me what winter is, and now is the perfect time to do it.'

Using Vector Change I made all the snow part away from my walking path, just like the time in Marisa's house.

The snow started falling a few days ago. At first I kinda felt excited seeing snow for the first time, but then my brain started working and gave me the anti-fun words ”Snow is just ice dust, ice means cold water, water means wet, I hate being wet.” and then it stopped being exciting.

”Killing fun time in 5 minutes” by Pessimistic Brain, only 9.99, tax not included.

I got an alert that said I completed my monthly quest that morning, which meant it was now January. New Year's celebrations were happening all over Gensokyo, thus why I was wearing a new clothes.

A black winter jacket with the black fur on the hood area, that's it, back to basics, but with an enchantment of course.

Black Winter Jacket [Add-ons: +Defense Up, +Magic Defense Up, +Durability Up, +Vitality Up, +Vitality Regeneration, +Energy Up, +Energy Regeneration, +Air Conditioning, +Self-repair] = 3,010 IP

”I know I could use my ability to stop the cold reaching me, but I think I still need to prepare winter wear. On the one hand it's for fashion, and on the other, it satisfies my OCD side. If it's winter, wear winter clothes.”

I started my walk to the Human Village.

-Late Morning, Human Village-​

I have arrived.

No Youkai in sight while I was on my walk.

'Thank goodness, they're at least sensible enough to let the human celebrate their new year's.'

Now, since I don't want people to freak out when they see snow part away when I near them, let's change tactics.

The reason why people have difficulty walking on snow is because their feet sink through the snow, and the reason for that is because the snow isn't compressed enough to be walkable, so that means all I need to do is one obvious thing.

I compressed all the snow on the road with my ability.

”Wow, I can totally see the difference between the snow I compressed and the snow I didn't.”

The snow that I didn't compress is higher by few centimeters from the compressed snow.

Since I was satisfied with the results, I kept doing it on my journey to Akyuu's house.

Since entering the village, I've already passed several people, and I sensed they were all staring at me.

'They are probably curious about my jacket.'

In the past, when I first arrived here, I was maybe too worried with how people looked at me or judged me based on how I looked, but now, I don't give a single damn so long as I'm presentable (look clean & sane) to other people.

Humans adapt, they will get used to it, and I will also get used to it.

While I was inside the village, I noticed the activities the villagers were doing.

They were all are busying themselves with cleaning their houses and stores.

'New Year Cleaning?' I thought.

New Year Cleaning is not an unknown concept to me, I know this because my family usually does this too.

I saw no children playing around in the street because their parents ordered them all to help with the cleaning, but I did see some housewives gossiping with each other. Guess gossiping is a higher priority than cleaning their house for these people.

Because my hearing is improved I could hear what they were saying whether liked it or not.

”... Kita-san's wife is pregnant…”

”… My daughter is doing great in school…”

”... Mizuhasi-san's store's doing great…”

”… Winter's started, mice are eating our rice provisions…”

”… Youngsters and their weird sense of fashion…”

...

'… Fuck you too, aunty.'

I decompressed the snow around them.

I passed them and encountered someone interesting.

[Lv.27 Headless Horror, Sekibanki]

Sekibanki was walking around with a red Yukata and a blue bow with red trimming behind her head. She also had a black line on her neck.

She and I both stared at each other's appearance as we walked opposite directions on the road.

She nodded her head and I nodded back by reflex before we both passed each other.

'… That was weird.' I thought.

-Human Village, Hieda Mansion-​