Shota is surrounded by monsters!

Shota swallowed again, handed a bottle of milk from his bag to Mashiro, and said, "Wait here for me, I'm going to register."

"I want to go too."

Mashiro grabbed Shota's hand.

"Okay, okay, then come with me to register."

Shota squeezed through the sea of ​​people, found the registration point, paid the 1,000 yen registration fee, and then squeezed out of the crowd with Mashiro.

"call."

Seeing Mashiro looking like she was about to melt, Shota was terrified. He realized he shouldn't take her to places that were too hot or too crowded in the future.

"Have a popsicle."

"Oh~"

To cool Mashiro down, Shota ran to a roadside stall and bought two fruit-flavored popsicles. With half an hour to go before the match started, the two of them leisurely sat in their rest area, licking their popsicles.

"Is it tasty?"

Shota saw Mashiro putting half a popsicle directly into her mouth with a strange look on her face, so he asked, "What's wrong?"

"It can't be dissolved."

After pulling the still-unmelted popsicle from its tip, Mashiro said with a dejected expression, "I can't eat it..."

As the weather gets warmer, Mashiro has been taking cold showers every morning and drinking iced beverages lately. This has caused her body temperature to drop drastically, probably only around 7 degrees Celsius, like in a refrigerator. However, Shota doesn't seem to mind; holding Mashiro's cool little hands in his own is quite a comfortable feeling on a hot summer day.

However, this characteristic makes it a little troublesome when eating popsicles, as the temperature in the mouth is not enough to melt the ice.

"Hmm... I remember it being mentioned in class? I wonder if Mashiro still remembers."

Shota put the popsicle in his mouth and mumbled, "Friction generates heat."

As soon as he finished speaking, Shota regretted it. Because Mashiro really started...

"Registered participants, please use your number tags to enter the venue."

"I'll go ahead first, Zhenbai. You stay here and watch over me. After we finish eating, we'll take the money and go have some fun."

Shota patted Mashiro's head and instructed, "Don't wander around. Conceal your demonic aura, hold your breath, and don't panic no matter what you see."

"Uh-huh."

Mashiro nodded, and after Shota absorbed the demonic energy emanating from her, he headed to the competition venue for the gluttony contest.

There were 53 contestants who signed up for the competitive eating contest. Shota's number was 39. Most of the 53 contestants were huge, with only a few, about seven or eight, having a more balanced or slender build.

but……

There were actually two other monsters besides myself...

Shota glanced at the enormous woman and the other, rather thin man, and sighed. It seemed the monsters weren't having an easy time lately. With their appetites, they could easily have overtaken humans and won the championship, but alas, they'd run into a glutton.

Try to maintain a slight advantage to achieve victory, and while eating, let your stomach slowly fill up so that others don't notice your monstrous side.

Thinking of this, Shota adjusted the position of what was hidden in his crotch, otherwise, if he got too excited and got an erection, it would be painful.

A plate of various sushi, estimated to weigh three kilograms, was laid out in front of him. Before the competition began, participants could choose their favorite flavors of sushi. Shota, of course, wasn't picky; anything edible was fine with him.

Before the contestant finished eating three kilograms of sushi, a special hostess would bring out another large stack of sushi for him to continue eating. The organizers were there, rattling off a long list of competition rules, but Shota barely listened to a word they said.

Smelling the faint aroma of sushi, he could barely contain his desire.

"Timer start!"

Shota rudely grabbed three sushi pieces and stuffed them into his mouth. After chewing them a couple of times, he swallowed them whole into his bottomless stomach. Then, he used both hands to eat them one after another...

"Cough cough cough."

Shota choked, took a sip of water to recover, stopped his frantic eating, and a bead of cold sweat appeared on his forehead.

The reason was that he sensed two somewhat troublesome auras.

"Yellow Springs, are there really monsters here?"

"Of course there will be, Kagura. Last time I caught two monsters in the eating contest."

A high school girl in plain clothes stood in the crowd, holding a wrapped-up katana, watching the match on stage. She said, "Look, that fat woman is obviously a yokai, right? Even though she's concealing her yokai aura, that speed at which she devours things is definitely not human. And that skinny man over there."

"But shouldn't we be careful not to attack monsters that aren't breaking the law?"

Kagura Tsuchimiya asked with some confusion, "After all, what about up there..."

"What does it matter? It's wrong for yokai to participate in human competitions." Yomi didn't care about Kagura's words. To her, yokai were ultimately heretics, and the duty of exorcists was to cleanse the world of all filth. Even if the higher-ups tacitly approved the legitimate existence of some yokai, they had also signed an agreement with them not to interfere with the human world—that is, not to appear in the public eye.

During the previous eating contest, an unexpected incident occurred. Two of the three participating monsters lost control of their appetites and began attacking humans after the competition. Fortunately, Yomi was on the sidelines and prevented some tragic events from happening.

After all, the monsters who come here to participate in the eating contest are all unregistered, which means they are hidden dangers.

"Keep an eye on those two, and that student-looking guy number thirty-nine. He's obviously going to choke on that kind of eating, but he's still managing to stuff more in..."

"He choked, as expected."

Kagura looked at contestant number thirty-nine, but before Yomi could finish speaking, the boy began to cough violently.

"Let's observe them a bit more. We can ignore those 13, 17, 28, 35, 55, and 13. I saw them in the last competitive eating contest, and they were checked at the hospital afterwards. They're just ordinary humans."

Huang Quan opened a bag of snacks, found a place to sit down with Kagura, and asked, "Want some?"

"Ah."

……

Oh no, isn't this the exorcist from the Special Countermeasures Office that we encountered last time? Shota glanced at the two women and then quickly looked away, focusing on the sushi in front of him.

Eating too much might expose me... How could I possibly resist eating it?!

Shota picked up a piece of sushi and chewed it. Although it was delicious, his heart was bleeding. The 100,000 yen prize was probably going to fly away like a roasted duck.

He could only slow down, like a normal person with a slightly larger appetite. After eating three kilograms of sushi, he signaled that he was about to collapse and then left the scene.

"Hey, I thought number 39 could hold on a little longer."

"Being able to eat three kilograms in one go is already quite remarkable. For an ordinary person." Huang Quan glanced at Shota as he left, but their eyes met for a moment, somewhat unexpectedly.

"What's wrong? Huang Quan?"

"It's nothing." Huang Quan shook his head and said, "That school uniform must be from the high school I'm transferring to, right?"

"Oh, another school transfer?"

Kagura asked, somewhat surprised, "Didn't you only stay at one school?"

"The excuse is worn out. Mother's condition is getting worse every day."

Huang Quan patted Kagura's head helplessly and said, "If we change schools again, we can use it for a while longer."

When are you transferring schools?

"Hmm... next month? Oh~ Kagura, are you sad because I might transfer to a school that's farther away from you? Don't worry, it's not that far from your school, and it's on the way... Oh no."

Halfway through her sentence, Huang Quan's gaze fell upon the enormous woman, and she sensed that the demonic aura emanating from her was beginning to overflow.

Has your true nature been brought out by your appetite?

"Get ready to start work, Kagura."

On the other side, Shota, who had already left the scene, found Mashiro, who had been sitting there obediently. When Mashiro saw Shota return, she tilted her head in confusion. In her mind, Shota should have eaten more, right?

"Let's go first."

Without saying a word, he grabbed Mashiro's hand and fled in the opposite direction from the two exorcists...

"It should be safe now." After walking for half an hour, Shota finally breathed a sigh of relief. The two exorcists were wearing some kind of equipment that concealed their spiritual power. If he hadn't recognized them while scanning the crowd, he didn't know if they would have discovered him and captured him.

"what happened?"

Mashiro was still somewhat confused.

"Two exorcists infiltrated the crowd just now. If we get exposed, we're doomed."

Shota patted his chest, thankful that his eyesight and memory were good enough, otherwise it would have been a real tragedy.

But... losing 1000 yen on the registration fee and not even having enough to eat, it really hurts...

Shota took out his wallet to check and found that he only had one 10,000 yen bill left. He sighed and said to Mashiro, "Let's go home. It's too dangerous outside."

"Oh, oh~ milk bath~"

"Mmm~ Milk bath. Uh, didn't I say I don't have the money for this kind of high-end play right now?"

"Well."

"Let's just put out a few bottles as a token gesture."

When I got back to my apartment, I ran into someone else at the stairwell.

"Oh my, isn't this Kousaka-kun? Did he go out to do something naughty? What a restless monster."

"Yo, Senjougahara."

Shota looked up and greeted Hitagi Senjougahara, who was wearing her newly bought casual clothes and preparing to leave, saying, "I'm just going out for a stroll. I'm a good 'person'."

"Hey, does it need to go out for walks like a puppy? I thought it was enough for a cat to just stay obediently at home. Speaking of which, what kind of species is the Taotie? Canine? Feline? Hmm... would it be considered a mammal?"

Senjougahara tilted her head and began to think seriously about the question.

“Not an animal!” Shota retorted, then began to explain to Senjougahara, “My ancestors were ancient ferocious beasts.”

"An ancient, adorable beast?"

"...Cute beast?"

Upon hearing this, Mashiro turned to Shota as if she understood something and asked, "Cute Beast Cat?"

"No need to add the 'meow' sound at the end."

Shota tapped Mashiro on the head, then pulled her hand and walked right past Senjougahara Hitagi, who was about to go down the stairs...

Hitagi Senjougahara extended a hand holding an envelope and blocked Shota's way.

"This is……"

Shota looked at Senjougahara, who was looking away, with some confusion.

"Money. Didn't you ask me for money? Of course, you have to pay it back. It's just a temporary measure for you out of the principle of 'helping a friend in need'." Senjougahara Hitagi said matter-of-factly, "If you can't pay it back, I can accept selling myself to me as a pet. Although this pet is ugly and perverted."