Triggered R_2=31. It only saves one "frame rule" over the R_2=72 movie if we cast Fairy spell. This time I took the effort to create a movie that naturally manipulates R_2=31 in.
If it took fewer frames to manipulate in R_2=31, then yes, this would be faster even with the menu loss later. There's room to manipulate away the 21-frame chunk, but not with the R_2 we had coming into the normal encounter.
RNG is complicated business to explain, really.