3rd Round (1)

Chapter 85: Episode 37 - 3rd Round (1)

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"Grand Prix 3rd Round participants, please start preparing your booth in the central plaza!" A loud voice from the intercom announced.

"Hm…" I groaned after hearing the loud voice blare into the cooking lab's kitchen and came to a sudden realization.

'Geez! We stayed up all night prepping our dishes to the point where we fell asleep!'

"Everyone, wake up! The 3rd round is about to start!" I exclaimed in a rush, quickly getting up and getting boxes of our pumpkin cake ready.

The boys and their sweets spirits' eyes shot open after they heard me and they quickly rushed up to their feet as well.

"Oh, shit! Already!" They said hurriedly as they began getting their elements ready.

We quickly sorted our things together and walked to the St. Marie Academy's plaza which was situated in the middle of the school grounds. As we walked to the iconic St. Marie black front gate, we could see it was decorated with Halloween features. Not only that, but a huge crowd of people were waiting to enter from outside. It seemed to look like there were over 1000 people anticipating to get in but I could also see even more behind them.

"Wow, there's already this many people," I said in amazement.

"Well, we're a famous school after all," Hanabusa responded as he also took a gander at the crowd.

"Look! The stores are already done and decorated!" Fraise announced as we took a look at the plaza that had 9 booths forming a circle. We glanced at all of the beautifully decorated booths that had different desserts labeled on the signs of them. Then, a thought hit me.

'Shit! If I had realized that decorating our booths was an important factor, I would've spent some time doing it!' I could feel my blood pressure rising as I began to stress over this important detail. If we couldn't decorate our booth, then we definitely wouldn't get any customers. I could feel my face tense up and a familiar snobby girl's voice called out to me. It was none other than Koshiro Miya.

"What's up with that sour face, Michiko Keiko? Don't tell me that you didn't think about decorating your sweets shop? Did you really think that you'd sell anything in a small and plain shop?" Koshiro Miya laughed at us, but most specifically at me.

We glanced over at her overly decorated and fancy "Mont Blanc" shop. She had dark red silk curtains, white roses neatly scattered around, a huge tiara above their shop's sign, and her two henchmen dressed up formally and standing at her shop. It was safe to say that although she could be over the top, her shop definitely emitted luxury that even I would want to go there.

Overall, I could still sense a hint of saltiness after I had defeated her in the pudding competition and grouped up with the sweets princes. Not to mention the time when I humiliated her by having her kowtow to me and apologize in public. In summary, our relationship with each other was hostile.

Koshiro Miya wore a puffy princess dress with extravagant white lace and light pink silk embroidered with white roses. After looking at her and her overdressed shop, I could only feel bad for her father's wallet.

"As you can see, if you do this much to grab the customer's eye, you can gather just about anybody! Hahaha!" Koshiro Miya laughed out loud. "I can already predict that my shop will out-sell your shop and that we'll at least get 2nd place behind Team Tennouji. Just looking at you, you appear to be just a poor and weak girl with three handsome guys doing all of the work for you!"

Her self-conceited remarks were making my blood boil but I knew that it wouldn't be smart if I were to express my true anger. In a sense, all I could manage to do was fight her back with words.

"Oh? Is that so? Well, it must've hurt your pride to kowtow to a poor and untalented girl like me in public after defeating you in a simple pudding contest. Not to mention apologizing to me in front of an audience? Now, I wonder who it really is that has people behind them doing all of the work without any of your own achievements?" I said, pretending as if I was a weak and frail girl but couldn't help but smirk.

I noticed the expression on her face with her teeth gritted and eyes furrowed in anger.

"GRRR!" Koshiro Miya looked as if she was ready to burst after I brought up the past competition.

In general, I didn't really like pointing out anyone's shortcomings to boost up my own self, but since Koshiro Miya wanted to attack me with words, it was only fair that I do the same to put her in her place.