Section 3: The Battle To Reclaim Area One

...You there! Show your true selves, hermit crabs!

We're all in position, and most of the enemies have revealed their true forms!

Indeed. All that remains now is for us to weaken them.

Now that the Con are armed...

...we shouldn't have to worry too much about breaking the shells for them.

We need to weaken these enemies to the point the Con can finish them off with one blow, yes? Can you all manage that?

O-of course. I've got this. Totally. No problem, heh... (Nervous)

Naturally. Do you not know who you are speaking to? (Baselessly confident)

If I am given sufficient time, I can do a most excellent job tormenting them without killing them! (Utterly monomaniacal)

Oh, by the way, I was able to grab some data from your last battle...

...and since I knew what we'd be doing for this one, I used it to write a support program that'll display the enemies' remaining vitality numerically.

I think it'll make your job of weakening them without killing them way easier, since it'll sound an alarm when they're near death.

I see. That should make it easier to focus on fighting them without worrying about accidentally finishing one off.

？！

(Deep breaths...)

...Okay. It's time to take back what's ours!

(...The second time, for us.)

(This time, we're going to win!)

Looks like that was the last of them! We've freed all the Con they ate!

We won?

Waha! We won big!

We...won?

Phew. Thank goodness...

That's right, Sister! We did it! We took this area back!

...Yeah!

？！

I don't know what to say.

You figured out the identities of these water monsters and gave the Con weapons to defeat them... You did all the hard work.

We never would have been able to do this without your help. Thank you so, so much!

Keh heh heh! I love a good show of gratitude!

It's not as if there was any chance of you failing since the goddess of the underworld herself came all the way here to help.

In fact, I've always been better at cultivating land than building a nation.

Hehe. It won't be long now.

Soon, my dream of a stage where Leviathans and Con dance beside me in perfect tandem will be a reality.

Now that will be something to look forward to, don't you think?

I'm glad Benkei and I were of some help in this.

Indeed. I was surprised to see variants of crab monks here, though... Are we anywhere near the coastal waters of Japan?

I wish I could say, but we still can't get a fix on the Singularity's position.

Even at night, a thin layer of cloud cover prevents us from checking constellations, and the topography isn't helping, either.

Oh well, I'm sure we'll figure it out sooner or later.

Besides, this is only the first step. We have a lot still to do.

Exactly. This was a great victory, but we've only recovered a relatively small part of the island.

Most remains under the water monsters' control.

I'm sure it'll take us some time, but I'm hoping we can use the land we've reclaimed as a stepping stone for our next campaign.

So there are still other water monsters out there that need to be defeated, huh?

Well, that shouldn't be a problem. All the Con those hermit crabs ate have come back, right?

...Yeah. I don't expect that weird rule about Con having to deal the final blow is going to change.

So once we have more of them, that should give us a proportionate advantage...maybe.

Yeah, the Con aren't going to be of any help in battle, no matter how many of them there are.

We're really just talking about making dealing the finishing blow easier.

Which means we'll, in turn, focus on our role of preparing the way to keep things easy!

Now that we've recaptured this area, we may be able to find new places to collect resources as well.

I'll continue to make sure you have a lineup of Servants ready to be deployed when needed.

In the meantime, let's solidify our position here and make preparations to advance to the next area!