Lotus shrugged, "Whatever. Just how confident are you with this bait, Trey-senpai?"
"I'm pretty sure this could work." He chuckled as he handed her a sample of the bait, "Can you still tell the ingredients we used apart?"
Lotus took one sniff much to the surprise and disgust of others before she sneered, "Are you really trying to test me? This is from the carp intestines, fatty mealworms and other beetle larva, and this is from the onion variety... Twincrest onion. These a pretty common to find around here."
Trey was taken aback as did everyone else, especially upon seeing the look on his face. Trey chuckled in disappointment, "Ah, there you go again. You figured it out."
"You asked and I replied. However..." Lotus frowned, "I can smell neurotoxins in here. Did someone accidentally picked out firefly larvae? Who sorted the bugs out?"
"I-I did!" Gabriel called over in bewilderment, "But, I didn't see any firefly larvae while I was looking around for bugs."
"Firefly larvae?" Grim questioned in confusion.
"They are commonly called glow worms." Lotus explained with deep confusion, "However, it's not that difficult to spot the difference between mealworms and glow worms. I won't be dishing out any punishment anyway. I don't have the power to do that, so quit shivering like a leaf already, Gabriel. Geez... Anyway, firefly larvaes have bright color body such as orange or a very pale red with a black and flat shell. Their end also lights up similarly to their adult bodies. They are also carnivores, so they hunt their food. Like spiders, they immobilize their prey with paralyzing neurotoxins before injecting them with digestive enzymes. They have a soft body and are voracious predators. They have toxins similar to toads. Now, nobody here have the crazy idea of actually licking toads, right?"
"Don't we need to process toads before we can do anything with them?" Yuu questioned in bewilderment, "So..."
"Then you don't want to eat those larvae either." Lotus nodded, "Aside from that, fireflies have an undesirable taste created by the chemicals in their bodies. The next time you guys plan to use larvae to anything related to food, be more careful."
She sighed before handing the bait back to Trey, "You are lucky that Catfish can't taste food and we will be cleaning out their stomach. That and this bait would be dissolving in the waters. Otherwise, I would have to whip up painkillers and meds into you for an hour."
This sent a shiver down their spines as the others nodded their heads nervously. Gabriel hesitated in confusion, "Just how in the world did I pick one of them up? Mealworms aren't black, so there was no way I would pick the wrong ones."
"It was likely that you picked up a mealworm that was being attacked by a glowworm." Lotus replied, "It's easy not to notice any differences after picking out so many worms. However, you should be more careful. If that went down your stomach, you would be having quite a painful stomach ache. Make sure to clean out the fish when you catch them."
"Yes, sir!" The other stammered nervously as they begin to prepare the fishing line.
Confused by their sudden tense behaviors, Yuu questioned Trey curiously after handing the bait, which looked like chocolate whipped cream, to one of the freshmen, "Why are they suddenly so tense?"
Trey wore a dry smile nervously before responding awkwardly, "Ah... Those guys had some bad experience with Lotus's experiments once."
"They did?" Grim looked to him in bewilderment.
Trey nodded, "He was trying to make a medicinal pill that would cause harmless cramps when eaten. Who knew that those guys took him lightly and stole the pills while Lotus was absent. They were left on the ground during the three days you were gone with the sports team's camping trip. Not even the nurse could figure out what was wrong with them before Lotus came back and found out that his pills were missing. Since it was not poison, he wasn't really concerned. Turns out, he had made some antidotes to those pills while he was away. After giving them the antidotes, they quickly returned to normal but they seemed to have gotten a trauma from that incident. They weren't even able to eat properly for those three days and resorted to yogurt and such. However, they could only eat them as long as the taste does not touch their tongue. It was quite a hassle. According to Garbiel, he was making it for someone who kept digging through the trash and picking food off the ground to eat. Quite a bizarre habit of this friend of his. It does sound awfully familiar though..."
Hearing this and seeing the smirk on Trey's face, Yuu immediately understood everything and glanced over to Grim who was shivering in fear, "Right..."
Seeing their gaze, a foreboding feeling emerged in his chest as he questioned nervously, "W-Why are you guys staring at me?!"
Lotus turned her head with a look of confusion, "What are you guys talking about?"
"It's nothing, Lotus. Were you able to take a look at the other clubs?" Yuu responded as he approached her with a smile.
"No." Lotus shook her head, "I was too busy trying to get Kalim to sleep with Ren's assistance in the stories."
"That's all right. We'll take care of the rest. Lilia seemed to have finished fishing just now." Yuu responded.
Looks like Lilia finished his task right before he vanished. Took them long enough.
"Got it." Lotus nodded, "Then, let me know if Grim misbehaves again. He especially needs to stop picking things off of the ground."
"Got it." Yuu nodded.
Hearing this from afar, Grim froze and cried in despair, "Fgna! That pill was for me?!?!"
Curious as some freshmen was struggling to hush the cat, Lotus looked back in confusion, "What has gotten over him all of a sudden?"
"Haha... Nothing. Don't worry about it. You know he's always been an active one." Yuu chuckled drily as he patted her head, "Don't worry. Just leave Grim to me. He is my acting familiar right now anyway."
"Got it!" She sung at the pleasure from the thought of not having more work on her plate.
The others who saw this was shock in disbelief upon seeing her tamed so easily by Yuu who didn't even use magic or wrecked his head to persuade her as they did.
It wasn't long before she noticed Rook return that she realized that the two had decided to split the task between grabbing the tent cover to help catch the fish and making the bait. After telling the students to put away the fishing rod, Trey chuckled at the sight of the freshman eagerly trying to catch fish for their morning meals and tossed the bait out as it quickly dissolved into the water surprising Yuu and Grim. Grim huffed, "Can they really catch a catfish like this?"
Lotus smirked as she suggested, "If they do fail, we could always stuff you into a fake mermaid flipper and present you to the judge instead."
"Fgna! I'm not a catfish!" Grim scowled angrily.
As Lotus and Yuu laughed, there was a large shadow nearby as Rook cried out in bewilderment from the waters, "Trey! Giant catfish alert! And it certainly lives up to its name!"
"Huh?!" Grim gasped with excitement, "Whoa, it really took the bait!"
"Shhh." Trey whispered as he focused on the fish, "Quiet. Catfish have sharp hearing, remember? It'll be wary if we make too much noise. We sure got one fast, though... Maybe it's hungry."
"So far so good. It's going to swim right over the tent." Rook readied himself with the other students quietly as they remained still and barefoot in the waters.
"All right, stay quiet. No scaring it. Pull your rope on my cue." Trey whispered as he held the roped knotted to the tent, "Three, two, one..."
Pulling their ropes, the six then got to quickly pull in the tent covers heavy with their large catfish. The catfish was only a little smaller compared to the one that she caught. Seeing this, a bad premonition came over her as she hesitated, "This size of catfish..."
"Lotus?" Yuu looked to her in confusion.
"This thing's heavy! One of her club member shouted as he struggled to reel it in, "Oof! And it's hard to pull it in when it's putting up a fight!"
"Remain calm and take it slow!" Rook instructed, "If you tug too hard, the catfish will thrash even more and tire us out!"
"Everybody! On my cue!" Trey said with a firm grip on a corner, "Three, two…"
There was a sudden loud chime as Trey stopped with an alarmed expression across his face, "Wait! What's that noise?"
Rook looked up in alarm as he saw a group of water fairies darting their way, "Fairies! And they're coming this way!"
The fairies then started splashing large waves of water at the group with the tent. Surprised, Trey shouted in bewilderment, "Ack! No, stop splashing us!"
"The ground's getting all muddy." One other student from the science club shouted in shock as she struggled to position himself, "My feet are slipping!"
"They'll wear us down if they keep this." Rook stated with a scowl, "Shall I drive them off, Trey?"
"No, don't let go of that rope!" Trey shouted more determinedly and tossed aside his green camping jacket, "I'll handle the fairies. Just hold out 'til I'm done!"
Without his pen, Trey managed to conjure up some weaker magic and attacked the fairies with it! As Lotus watched from the sidelines, Grim questioned Lotus in confusion, "Lotus, you know fairies, right? Why do they always have to get in our way every time we do something?!"
Lotus shrugged, "Sometimes its for personal reasons. However, this time, there's a rather unique reason."
"What's that?"
"There are fairies who live around the lake." Lotus explained, "When finding food, they must always be on the look out for predators that can cause annoyances such as catfish as those fish eats anything they could find. If anything, they wouldn't mind us catching catfishes. The last time the sports team caught them, they were one of the bigger bunch who always causes trouble. However, this time is different, the one you guys caught was utilized by fairies to maintain the population of pests and the overpopulation of minnows. That's why they are more determined to stop you."
"And why didn't you mention this earlier?!" Grim shouted in disbelief.
"The fairies would not be happy if Lotus intervened." Yuu responded with a frown, "After all, between the lines of fairies and us in this area, he must remain in between. We need the fish and they won't allow us to take it. Lotus cannot just let us have the fish, but he also can't let the fairies stop us. Since he can't do neither, he will do neither. But, as for the catfish..."
"Let's turn grim into a mercat and throw him into the lake." Lotus suggested with a shrug.
"Fgna?! NO! HELL NO!" Grim stomped his feet angrily, "I told you before, I ain't no catfish!"
"And that's where two negative become a positive." Lotus huffed a sneer.
"You-!"
"All right." Yuu broke in with a small sigh, "That's enough. Come on. Is there any way we can help Trey?"
As Grim became confused, Lotus sighed as she said with a sneer, "Don't you know? Those who are sleep deprived tends to wake up better if they touch water. The same is even more so after they leave the waters."
Hearing this, Trey suddenly slipped before stabilizing himself and casting magic again. However, this time, he was a little more on cautious.