Jujutsushi Wa Yuusha Ni Narenai

East of Yamata no Orochi's nest.

This place was the most intense battlefield against five heads for the other classmates.

「The 4th head is charging its breath! JuryMary stop them! The 6th head is about to recover in 30 seconds!」

Momokawa's scream resounded along with the piercing roar on the battlefield.

「DAMMIT, MAKE IT IN TIME!」

「ORAORAORAAAAAAAAAAA『HEAVY SMASH』!」

JuryMary Combi struck the side of the head of the 4th head that started to gather an ominous glow in its mouth with its respective martial art.

The moment the head slanted upward, the bright red flame breath got unleashed upward.

Breath attack was Yamata no Orochi's killing move that couldn't be controlled even by the Orochi themselves. Thus the only way to stop it was by forcing them to release their breath to the sky by hitting Orochi's head.

But, the head had to be attacked at the correct time. It was a tough challenge that rarely succeeded.

「THE 7TH HEAD'S BREATH INCOMING! DODGE AT ALL COST!」

The 7th head opened its maw and fired a huge lightning pillar as countless electric sparks surrounded its jaws.

A torrent of the enormous magical power of thunder left scorched marks on the ground along with a blinding flash and loud explosion rivaling dozens of thunderbolts.

The breath only stopped around 10 seconds later.

「ANY CASUALTY!?」

「EVERYONE IS SAFE!?」

Souma Yuuto quickly replied after making sure that everyone was safe.

Though no one got hit by the breath attack, their formation was disturbed due to the said breath attack. And even if they managed to avoid a direct hit, the aftershock alone left tingling pain on their skin.

「THE 4TH AND THE 7TH ARE ENTERING COOL DOWN! 5TH IS CHARGING! TENDOU, TAKE CARE OF THAT ONE WITH KENZAKI!」

Though none of them replied, Ryuuchi and Asuna rushed as fast as they could to deal with the 5th head attack.

「UEDA COME BACK, YOUR SWORD IS ABOUT TO REACH ITS LIMIT! NAKAI GET SOME TREATMENT FOR YOUR SCRATCHES!」

「BOTH OF YOU FALL BACK, I'LL FILL IN FOR YOU!」

「MY BAD!」

「TAKE CARE SOUMA!」

Seeing Yuuto running to deal with the 8th head by himself with his sword of light, Ueda and Nakai retreated to the trench where Kotaro had been waiting for them.

「Ueda, your pace in changing weapons is too fast, use your next weapon more carefully.」

「That snake scale is tough as hell.」

Ueda had received the new 『Silver Iron Sword』 from Kotaro, he dumped his cracked sword on the ground, then sheathed his new sword into the scabbard hanging on his waist.

「Nakai, you take too much damage. Since we have a limited number of shields, better not switch it with a new one.」

「The shock wave of the breath is too damn strong. Didn't make it in time to dodge it.」

Kotaro sprayed the uncorked potion on Nakai who had just taken off his 『Wolf Vest』.

「Tell JuryMary that it's time for them to resupply. Once you have done that, regroup with Kenzaki to stop the 6th head. It's already revived.」

「Roge~r.」

「Geez, you're such a slave driver, Momokawa.」

Despite their exhaustion, both Ueda and Nakai rushed toward the battlefield immediately.

「Dammit, we can really barely hold on.」

Kotaro cursed under his breath upon seeing this situation.

They managed to somehow keep the five heads at bay with the current lineup, but the battle was really tricky and the party barely held their ground.

At first, he intended to entrust the battle to the fighters but… It turned out the party had a hard time seeing the condition of each of the five heads and attacked them at appropriate timing.

Though they gained the upper hand when the 8th head appeared, they slowly lost that advantage as the battle went on.

When all five heads could move, they could only do their best to dodge the breath attack.

He realized that it was a mistake to leave the baton of commander to Souma Yuuto.

While it was true that he contributed the most in this battle as an ace and understood the movements of everyone in the party, telling him to give appropriate orders while watching the state of each of the five heads of Orochi was a tall order.

Thus, Kotaro decided to take back the baton of the commander and took charge of the formation on the battlefield.

Because his 『Twin Shadow』 was placed in the trench to contact the party, he was the only one with the leeway to see everyone on the battlefield.

Though it was an unexpected situation, he had memorised all of Yamata No Orochi's attack patterns thanks to the field exercise. He had noted everything, from the movement pattern before using the breath attack, its charging time, its cooldown, regeneration time, etc, etc.

Thus, he could act as an impromptu commander for them.

「We can still keep them at bay for the time being but…」

The heads starting from the 4th until the 8th, not even in the game had we experienced such a mind-boggling rush of remembering each pattern and giving appropriate instruction on time.

From giving out short but precise orders to numbering each head, and calling his classmates… He gave only the necessary instructions to the necessary person as fast as possible while making it as simple as possible. Even then, he was racing against time to give instruction.

Kotaro himself believed that the reason he could give such precise last-minute instruction was simply because his senses were heightened during the battle which enabled him to see the situation.

But, soon enough, he wouldn't have such leeway either.

「I might not be able to give instructions once the shell has been broken…」

Kotaro had to continue using his curse to break Yamata no Orochi's shell. Naturally, the stronger the curse he used, the more brain capacity he needed for that.

The information processing in his brain already doubled.

At this point, it wouldn't be strange if he suddenly collapsed with a nosebleed due to overexerting his brain.

The blood vessels in his brain might rupture before he runs out of magical power.

「――Still, I have no choice but to do this.」

Because he knew that the infiltration team in the middle of the mountain would be annihilated for sure unless he supported the raid team here.

Though he had a sense of responsibility since everyone's life depended on his plan, never had he expected their life to completely depend on his command in the battlefield too.

It was truly an unexpected situation.

「Bring it on. I'll make sure that we succeed no matter what――」

===

「――Uwoo, my 『Terra Alma Shield』 can't dig anymore! WE REACHED THE SHELL!」

At that moment, Randou-san's magic had finally pierced the bedrock.

The hole dug with 『Terra Alma Shield』  was dug vertically like that of a water well.

The hole had a diameter of 2 meters. It was big enough for humans to pass.

But the hole wasn't just dug, the inside was reinforced to the point that it became as tough as concrete.

We did so by compressing the excavated soil and stone to harden the surrounding. In this way, we didn't have to waste our time removing the excavated soil since it was directly used to reinforce the wall of the hole.

「Okay, my turn has come.」

「Kotaro-kun… Be very careful.」

Said Mei-chan to me as if a mother seeing off her son to the battlefield.

「Don't worry, I've practiced the art of landing.」

I replied to her while equipping the lifeline around my body.

After this, I would go to the bottom of the hole dug by Randou-san to invoke 『Rotten Bog』.

「Are you really sure about this?」

「I can afford that much.」

When I peeked into the hole, it was so deep that I couldn't see its bottom.

Yeah, deeper than I thought, in fact, I was already getting cold feet just by seeing this seemingly bottomless hole.

But, I had come prepared. This wasn't the time to back down.

「Oi, this like super deep you know? Are you really sure about this?」

「Be careful, Momokawa.」

Shimokawa and Yamada bid their goodbyes to me who was about to descend into the hole.

「Get down quickly. Don't forget that Big Brother and Co are betting their life to buy time for you.」

「Shimokawa-kun, Yamada-kun, watch over Sakura-chan; make sure she doesn't do anything suspicious.」

「I WON'T! GO IN QUICKLY!」

I stepped into the hole without being able to erase my suspicion toward Sakura-chan.

「Here we come or nothing. I'll leave the rest to you, Mei-chan.」

「Leave it to me.」

Mei-chan nodded while holding on to my lifeline.

The way to descend was by using a pulley like the one used in the well. Even if it were not Mei-chan, Rem, and Yamada could pull the pulley for me.

===

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