Ever so chilly
Under shimmering daylight
Here be fairies

Next to the Scarlet Devil Mansion sits the only lake in Gensokyo: Misty Lake (a.k.a. the lake). Despite being the only lake in the entire realm, it is quite abandoned thanks to being so far away from any human settlement. Except for the rare adventurous fisher, there are no human visitors of the sane kind.

“Water, water, walking toward the lake. Making up a nice tune, while I slowly walk toward the lake…” Our heroine, who liked to think that she still kept her sanity, walked toward the lake with four buckets in hand. The head maid had finally given her a job other than sweeping the garden path: drawing water.

The Scarlet Devil Mansion didn’t use as much water as one might initially think. Its mistress preferred liquid of the crimson kind. The fairy maids didn’t require any form of sustenance (despite this, they still stole food and drink from the pantry, much to the annoyance of the head maid). Patchouli herself was a magician, a kind of youkai not to be confused with an ordinary human who uses magic à la Marisa, and similarly required no sustenance. There were only three people in the entire mansion who consumed water: Meiling (only in the form of tea), Sakuya and Licorice.

Licorice put down the buckets right next to the lake. She didn’t know how she was going to manage carrying them all once they were full of water. The mansion was up on a ridge; and Licorice was just an ordinary human who couldn’t fly like the rest. This is going to be so tiring… She wished that she was an engineer, just so that she could construct plumbing up to the mansion. Or, maybe, she had been an engineer and she just didn’t remember it. Maybe she had been a clown. Hell if I know, all I know is that I need to get this water drawn or the head maid is going to be drawing my blood instead. The latter seemed a whole lot less pleasing, despite the fact that she had her blood regularly drawn by a certain mistress.

Our heroine bent down to fill her bucket, only to notice an odd thing. Chunks of ice, containing frozen frogs and fish, were floating in the lake. This was especially odd considering the fact that it was spring, and there was no ice or snow around except for the top of the nearby Youkai Mountain. Thinking about it, wasn’t it too cold in general? The sun was directly shining upon her, but Licorice felt the need to shiver.

…this is probably bad news, isn’t it? If something felt off, then it was off. That’s how things worked around these parts. She looked around her, not noticing anything else that was off. Eh, I have to fill these buckets either way. Licorice wasn’t getting paid to stand around (more accurately, she wasn’t getting paid at all), she still had a job to do. She continued her job, filling up the buckets while throwing cautious glances around the place. Surprisingly, she managed to fill all four up without any further incident. Maybe there’s just a wave of sudden cold sweeping the lake…

Licorice took all the buckets, two in her hands and two carried by her arms, and she slowly made her way away from the Misty Lake.

Until suddenly… Crack! The buckets splintered into pieces, and four bucket-shaped cubes of ice fell onto her feet. “Ebasi!” A whole bucketful of water was pretty heavy, and Licorice threw more curses at whatever or whoever had just frozen her water. She heard giggles coming from her behind, and turned around to find two small fairies a small distance away from her.

“We got her real good, Cirno!” The one on the left was a fairy with short green hair with a yellow ribbon tied at her back. She had a blue dress with a white trim, which looked similar to the one her friend had, and golden wings that extended from the back of it.

“We did, Daiyousei! What a fool!” The other fairy, who was apparently named Cirno, had hair with an aqua color and a gigantic blue ribbon. Her wings consisted of six shards of ice. She high-fived her friend as they continued laughing at Licorice’s predicament. “I’ve always wanted to get back at that Sakuya!”

“…Sakuya? I’m not Sakuya.” Licorice was unsure as to how someone could manage to confuse her with the head maid. The two looked nothing alike.

“You have a maid outfit, you’re obviously Sakuya!” Only then did Cirno notice something off with ‘Sakuya’. “Did you get a tan during the summer?”

“No! I’m just not Sakuya, you idiot!” Licorice didn’t have the time to be arguing with a bunch of kids. She had to get a new set of buckets. However, when she turned around, Licorice found herself blocked by a few shards of ice being thrown in front of her.

“It doesn’t matter who you are. You have stepped foot in the domain of Cirno, the strongest in Gensokyo!” Cirno flew in front of Licorice, and Daiyousei flew toward her backside. They didn’t intend to let her go that easily. “Only the worthy shall leave this place alive!”

How great. Another life-or-death situation. Licorice could only heave a deep sigh. “So, do I have to fight you or something?”

“Of course, in a battle of wits!” Cirno placed her hands on her waist, trying her best to look cool and mighty. “I’ll let you know that nobody has beaten me! Ahem, first question.” Licorice looked confident. She could easily beat a child. “What is nine plus nine?”

Without hesitation our heroine answered. “Eighteen.”

“Wrong! It’s obviously nineteen.” Licorice opened her mouth to object, but Cirno had already began talking over her. “You have failed. I’ll take it easy on a weakling like you, with my strongest spell card. Ice Sign「Icicle Fall」!” With this, she summoned a barrage of ice shards that slowly headed toward Licorice.

“This is unfair-” Licorice did her best to graze through the stream of ice. Thankfully, the ice shards were slow, and they moved in a predictable pattern. First the shards launched left and right from Cirno in a sweeping pattern that moved from her back to the front, and then they did a 90 degree turn to move in the general direction of Licorice. This pattern looked quite beautiful, and our heroine would have stopped to appreciate it if her mortal soul wasn’t on line.

Having understood Cirno’s current pattern of attack, Licorice realized a glaring flaw in the ice fairy’s way of attack. The 90 degrees turn combined with the limited angle of her sweep meant that the shards meant that they never covered the area right in front of Cirno. Our heroine quickly jumped in front of Cirno, and as predicted, the ice fairy continued her pattern without changing it.

“Cirno! Why did you use that spell card?!” Daiyousei was protesting from the back. “She found the blind spot like all the others!”

“We’ll be fine, Daiyousei!” Cirno continued Icicle Fall as usual. “It would be too boring if I froze this weakling instantly!” Plus, one couldn’t change their spell card mid-attack, meaning that she also couldn’t change the pattern she was currently attacking in. “It’s not like she can do anything.”

Cirno was right. Licorice didn’t have any power to cast any projectiles. Or could she? There was one way… “Uhm… Shoe Sign「Fairy Annihilating Throw」!” With this, she committed to a Hail Mary.

“What kind of name is that- Woah!” Cirno barely grazed a shoe flying her way. She had stopped her spell card at this point. “Hah! Idiot, don’t you humans need shoes to wal- Pichuun!” The other shoe landed right on Cirno’s face. She ungracefully crashed down to earth.

With this. Licorice earned the distinguished title of ‘Able to Beat Cirno on Easy Mode’.

“Huh.” Licorice was surprised at the fact that a shoe had been so effective against a fairy. “Guess I can participate in danmaku.” She made haste to pick her shoes up and wear them again; the wet ground near the lake wasn’t that pleasant to walk barefoot.

“Cirno! No!” Daiyousei ran toward her friend. “A- Are you fine? That woman just did a nasty-sounding attack there…”

Cirno coughed, as if she was breathing her last. “No, Daiyousei… I’m afraid that… I’ve been…” Her entire body went limp. “…annihilated…” She closed her eyes and stopped moving.

“Cirno!” Daiyousei began shaking her friend’s cold and motionless body. “She’s… she’s…”

Licorice was awkwardly standing at the corner while this dramatic event unfolded. Lajnó… Mama, I just killed a man. She wasn’t sure what to do. She couldn’t console Daiyousei, the murderer consoling the victim’s acquaintance would only make things worse. What was she going to do now? Was murder illegal in Gensokyo? Would the Gensokyo Police get her, if such a thing even existed? “Uhm…”

Our heroine was in the deepest pits of despair.

What would she do now?

…

“…she’s alive!” Cirno suddenly jerked up, and declared her living state herself. “Gahaha! Did you think that the strongest would be defeated by such a stupid spell card?” The ice fairy looked at the horrified Licorice, and high-fived her friend while giggling. “We got her again, Daiyousei!”

“We sure did, Cirno!” Daiyousei was back to her usual self. She had only been playing her part in this prank. “What a fool!”

“What an idiot!” The fairy pair continued laughing at Licorice.

Licorice took out one of her shoes again. “Vǎrvi po djavolite!” She began running toward the fairies in a berserk state.

“Cirno… The scary lady is running towards us!” Fairies weren’t exactly the strongest physically, especially compared to an angry adult woman equipped with a leather shoe.

“I think she wants to play tag with us.” Cirno got up and began running away with Daiyousei. She was giggling as if she was actually playing a game of tag. “You’re it!”

“Hodi se ebi!”

Like so, Licorice spent the rest of the morning fruitlessly chasing around fairies. She was later reprimanded by the head maid for failing this very simple mission of drawing water, and Licorice was forced to deliver eight buckets of water while carrying them all at the same time as punishment.