The morning of the second day.

　The night before, as expected, no alcohol was allowed.
　If we ate and drank around the campfire in the middle of the night, and even drank more alcohol, it would be a 100% hangover course.
　The ex-mercenary group members complained about it, but the owner of the camp had the authority to insist on it. I don't want them to feel like they're done with the preliminaries when the second day is rather the real deal.

　Instead, he made me promise to let him eat and drink as much as he wanted after the third day.
　Well, I was able to get more than 1,000 Demon Crystals from the first day's Hitozuki alone, and I had some monster equipment left over. The monster drop items from the first day wouldn't be worth that much money, but the second and third days would be different.
　If I could just get through this Hitotsutsuzuki, then I could become a Hitotsuki Gold Winner! No, I'll have to share it with the members, so I may not make that much money.
　Anyway, I'll probably be able to pay for the launch.

　Hitotsutsuzuki Day 1. All the spots around Elisheh seemed to be able to finish without incident.
　We have a few people with minor injuries. This one was fully recovered with only Priestess's normal magic. We still have a whole bunch of spirit stones left over without using any of them, so we're able to carry them all over.
　In other spots, half of the spirit stones have already been used, so I'm still worried about the situation. However, it was a good thing that I had encouraged them to prepare for it beforehand, because they were able to defeat the last statue by using the ballista (which was originally from this world, and was less powerful and accurate than the one I had prepared for the blueprint) without causing any deaths.

　And so the second day of Hitotsutsuki begins--


'Come on, I'm going to join the fight today!

　I packed up with Rebecca, the general manager.
　Yesterday, I felt like I was the only one playing around, and it was really indigestible.
　I want to join in the fight.

　They've already arrived and we're about to have a meeting as a whole.

Of course I'm going to be there. Of course I'm going to do that, and I'm going to fight today. Let Etoi take care of the rest.
'Oh, really?'
'I don't think we can afford today and tomorrow. While you're at it, Jirou, you should prepare yourself too. Like, for example, if someone dies, you can keep fighting until the end of time at .......

　Rebecca's words were grave, but they are in fact life-threatening.
　I'm the only one who knows that the Clan members will survive.
　I'm the only one who knows that this world is a game.

　By the way, Priestess registered as a clan member yesterday.
　In fact, it seems that she wanted to join the clan too, and the way she jumped up and down in joy was so cute that I even felt like I could die.
　Today and tomorrow, I'm going to have you work quite a bit, Priestess. In other words, we'll have her near the front lines, so clan registration was a must.

　There was a bit of a doozy where Etowah was in general command, but other than that, the only other change was that the newcomer would be in the back. The tactics themselves were the same as yesterday, with the hard, large monsters being destroyed with an iron ball, the others with ballista, and the monsters scattered left and right at random.
　All the newcomers will be standing by at the rear of the team, helping Orica cook and bringing lemon honey to the tired seniors. If the front line troops are destroyed, I've told them to run to the wards, but it will be useless. The newcomers may not all be strong, but they are still 'knights'. They wouldn't be able to run away when there are villages and cities behind them. But, well, that's the time.

　The time had come, and the second day of Hitotsutsuki had begun.
　Today, the east side was fortified with the ex-mercenary army and the west side was fortified with the old army.
　In the center, Shamash-san and the summoned demonic beasts, a few former mercenary warriors and the archers set up in the center.
　The general command was Etoi. It's an important job to send orders to each squad from the sighted Yagura, but Etois could do it.

　As for the distribution of forces, this side of the battlefield is composed of the monster Shero, Rebecca, a dragoon with a holy sword, Marina, a magic weapon with a hammer of war, and Ion, a general and holy knight.
　Elepippi has decided that the second day is too tough for him, so he's the walkie-talkie attendant at the Yagra (summoning tower).
　On the other side, Hetty, the god of death, and the other mercenaries who have been through a hundred battles are all here.
　With this much strength, they shouldn't be in a pinch all of a sudden. If that were to happen, the world would normally be in trouble. We have some of the world's top-ranked forces here.

　A single-eyed monster appears as it scrambles through the forest.
　According to the documents, the type of monsters that spring up will change drastically on the second day--

"One Eye is a war tiger!　He's a monster like a relative of mine!'

　I can hear Etowah's screams coming from the walkie-talkie.
　A wartiger, it seems, is a human-like monster with a tiger's head.
　I saw him walk up to the fork in the road, and I saw him too.

'I see, a tiger mask,'

　That's all I can say.
　He has a tiger's head. He's wearing trousers, and he looks more like an eccentric old man than a monster.

They're coming!

　Rebecca calls for attention.
　The old man seems to have decided on this side as his target.
　The monster's peculiar gaze, unable to see my emotions, clearly catches me.
　And in the next moment, his body jumped.

''Fast!''

　The agility of the monster of yesterday was incomparable to the one of yesterday, and in no time at all, it was fleshed out.　
　It's truly the agility of a tiger, but--

I won't let you!

　Aeon stood in the way.

'Ah!　Marina would have wanted to do this!

　Marina stepped on the ground.

'Guwah!'

　Wertiger fires a powerful punch to the standing Aeon.
　It's more like a straight boxing right than a straight fist strike.
　It's a fighter's style that I didn't expect. What happened to the tiger's kiva and claws? Are they stronger in the boxer style, using their speed and weight to their advantage? No. Is it natural because they are Tiger Mask, or do they use aerial killers or something?

　Aeon continues to fight back and forth, using shields and swords to neutralize War Tiger's attacks.
　The enemy, as well as the enemy, has a flutter of intelligence in his movements, unlike the monsters of the past, which are often simple movements. Rather than attacking in response to magical power, they recognize the enemy and attack.
　Aeon is blessed with a vocation and has a good amount of combat training, but he has never been through a shura.
　He is hesitating to attack against the fast-moving and hard defending war tiger.

''Ku!　Well then, here we go!

　Aeon sent a ray of fire running with magic to War Tiger, who ducked a sideways sword flash with a brilliant back roll.
　Ion is also a magician. I knew that he had been learning it carefully for two years from Shamash-san, but I didn't expect him to be able to use it so vividly in actual combat.
　The flames went straight through the air and struck the war tiger's face.

''Guwahhh!''

　Aeon steps into the war tiger, which screamed despite being a monster, and flashes a steel sword.
　Shards of light scatter violently. It folds. In succession, Aeon's sword roars.
　Once it breaks down, it's ours. With the fourth attack, the war tiger becomes a grain of light and disappears.

　It's stronger than I expected.
　Aeon is not ......, but the monster is.

'Good night. No, I'm surprised. It's nothing compared to the monster from yesterday.''
'Hah, hah. Yeah. If it's going to be so much trouble for you on earth: ......

　Ion replies, a little breathlessly.
　Aeon had been given the general's calling and had been training under Isaac for about four or five years (once a week), and he was a good fighter.
　If it was just yesterday's monsters, they were all almost effortless to deal with.
　But I struggled a bit with the first monster of the day.
　This might be quite bad .......

''Next!　It's out. It's a dog!　The big red-eyed dog!

　Etowah's voice from the walkie-talkie.
　I checked and it was indeed a big black dog with red eyes.
　This time he ran to Hetty's side.

'Now that was a hellhound, wasn't it? Maybe they're all a bit tougher monsters than I thought: ......

　Rebecca-san muttered anxiously.

　Well, that hellhound was killed by Norilin with a single blow, but I guess that's the exception to the rule.

''I'm coming out next!　This time it's a human-shaped monster with a dog face!'

　This time it was a warwolf. I'm not sure how different it was from a war tiger, but I thought that the actual situation was much different between a werewolf and a tiger mask.
　Although I didn't have time to check it out as it ran over here and attacked me, but it ended up being killed by Shero-san with a single blow.


　◇◆◆◆◆◆.


'Etowah, what do you think?　What about every minute?
'There's more variation than yesterday. Minimum one minute, maximum four minutes.

　About an hour after the second day began.
　The intervals between the monsters were considerably longer than yesterday.
　There are many monsters that can be defeated with a single blow, so I'm comfortable with it for now.
　It may just be that this one is stronger.

"Master. There is an urgent request for help addressed to a priest.
"Yeah, for real.

　I get a call from Deanna via walkie-talkie.
　At the same time, I think we got a call, and Priestess ran over here with a panicked look on her face.

''Jiro-san!　We've been informed that the other spots are already on the verge of being destroyed, except here. Fortunately, there haven't been any deaths yet, but it's only a matter of time and ......!
'Yes, it's only been about an hour since we started!
'There's something wrong with this place where there's so much leeway!　I haven't used a single spirit stone yet!

　That's not what I'm talking about. I was just taking steps to protect me and my surroundings, and the second day isn't over yet, and it's the most gruesome third day of the year.

'The bottom line is that you want relief,'
'...... Yes. I don't think it's right to ask for this. I will do what I can to return the favor. Will you help me and give me ......?
Hmmm: ......

　In this case, it would mean that the rest of the world is in trouble and they should lend their strength.
　I've naturally thought about the possibility of that happening, but .......
　We don't get any warriors from Elishe, so our forces are all our own.

'Well, ...... I don't want to be honest with you. The reason why is because if these girls die here, it's because I'm going to die in my own jurisdiction and on my own responsibility, so I'm comfortable with that. But I would never agree to lend them out to someone else and have them die in a place I don't know about. In fact, I don't trust the way other places fight,

　There's no point in saying this to the Priestess, but it has to be said.
　They are responsible for the destruction of the other monster spots. Why should we, who are doing everything right, pay for it? We're doing it all on our own. We even prepared the spirit stone ourselves.

That's ...... right? ....... But if we don't do something about it, the monsters will come flooding in, even to Elishe. Even Jirou-san has acquaintances in the city, right ......?
Well, yeah.

　It is so in the end.
　In the end, we had no choice but to take out our own forces.
　We hadn't done enough to prevent the Hitotsutsuji.
　That was it.

　We had to take care of the other spots, if we wanted to be more thorough.
　No, it was the Hunters Guild's fault for not getting enough warriors out of the city in the first place. Well, no. Was it the fault of the warriors who were pulled out? Or is it someone else's fault that they were pulled out?
　Anyway, when the possibility of the Hitotsutsuki being a 'konoishi matsuri' came up, I had to think more carefully.

'So how much strength do you need?　We can't break it down that much, either. ...... No, wait a minute.

　I feel like it's more dangerous to distribute the forces in a strange way.
　Dispersing them to the rest of the spots as disparate warriors would be a burnout - I wouldn't go so far as to say, but it seems delicate.
　Rather than thinking in terms of head count, I think it's better to think of them as a unit.
　If that's the case--

Let's send a whole group of former mercenary members of Mr. Hetty's group to ......, except for Mr. Hetty.
Eh. Are you sure?
'Yes, sir. Instead, let's have that manpower hold down one spot. The warriors who originally fought there will join the other spots. In other words, we'll have two of us and the guild will hold down two spots. Of course, we'll need only the elves to stay behind.

　There are a total of four monster spots around Elishe.
　The guild is holding back three of them, which means that they are on the verge of being destroyed, so we'll cover one of the three more with us. So the warriors who were originally fighting there join the other two. The elves are placed in each spot, so as expected, we'll ask them to stay behind.
　I can't concede any more.
　It's indeed tough to send out the entire ex-mercenary group, so I'll ask only Hetty to stay behind. She alone has one hundred manpower, you know.
　Even without Hetty, there's no problem for the ex-mercenary corps since Miyamiya can take over command of them.
　Anyway.... You can't use the Hunters Guild too much. We're supposed to be working!

''Please give all the spirit stones you have, Priestess, to Norilin or Miyamiya. The priest over there can use them. We have our own.
Thank you for ......, Mr. Jiro. This thank you will certainly be appreciated by ...... the city and by me personally.
Well, that is, if you survive, you know.

　I'm anxious to get a personal thank you from Priestess, but it actually hurts quite a bit that the former mercenaries are leaving.
　Now, there are only eight of us who can fight properly in our home: me, Marina, Ion, Rebecca, Shamash, Hetty, Shero, and Priestess.
　Etowah and Elepippi are in charge of communications. The newcomers are standing by at the back.
　Deanna is ...... a recovery potion.
　The humble spirit magic that can be used by Deanna is also effective against humans, but it won't be as effective as a needle against the monsters of today and tomorrow.

　As expected, it hurts to have that many people gobbled up, but they're all warriors in one battle. There are even Shamash-san's summoned magical beasts.
　But even so, there are only eight of them. We've got to get down to business.

　I'll take care of the monsters!