Most of this improvement can come down to insanely good monster encounter RNG - only one unwanted encounter.

That said, there were a few shiftings of the route that I think could've also made up a little bit of time here or there. Don't visit the adventurer's guild until I break into the monastery. First visit to the Leshy on day 5. And use oil in the castle to go through the front hall instead of fighting the bats (although timings after the fact say that doing this is at least a second slower).

Twitch VOD: