3rd Round (4)

Chapter 88: Episode 37 - 3rd Round (4)

"Hello and welcome to Team Michiko's Pumpkin Cakeshop. We have created a pumpkin-shaped cake with caramel custard and a cream cheese filling. On the sides, we have glazed pumpkin slices and a white chocolate ice cream. We hope you can order our dessert and show your love to our team. We hope you enjoy it and spread the word around," I said with a sweet smile to the crowd, trying my utmost best to satisfy and persuade guests to purchase our dessert.

"Ah, the Ice Princess can even smile like an angel!"

"Even how she explains their dessert is so charismatic and moving!"

"Let me get some!"

"Even the dessert sounds exquisite from how she explained it!"

"3 cakes please!"

"I was first, I ordered 5!"

"Stop pushing!"

"Get me 5, too!"

Bombarded by a crowd of people pushing through the line just to get our dessert just mind-boggled me. I was surprised that so many people were at our booth when I expected that just about no one would come and that we'd have a hard time selling our dish. After hearing that they've heard about us or watched us through the previous rounds, I could feel a warm sensation spread through me because I hadn't expected that we were getting famous for our accomplishments in the earlier rounds. We were only in our 2nd year of middle school but we were already attracting a crowd of people.

Instead of lingering further on this thought, I quickly began serving our pumpkin cake dessert to the masses.

"Here's three for you, hope you enjoy it—Five to go, here you are—Two right up—" I was announcing the orders as I was getting through the line one by one. Since we'd implemented a DIY station to decorate their pumpkin cake with an abundance of edible ink markers, we included this as a fun activity for all ages to enjoy. As they took their pumpkin-shaped cakes, people grew curious about this activity and participated because they felt it was different. Edible ink markers were handed out by Hanabusa who was outside of the booth and people of all ages drew pumpkin faces on their cake to make it their own. At this idea, we could see that everyone was enjoying it, of course, there were some who just wanted to eat the dessert without decorating it. Regardless, from their expressions and feedback, I could tell that they loved the taste, appearance, and quality of our dessert.

As I was pumping out the orders, we were quickly running out of the 50 that we had prepared at the beginning. The orders were just going by so fast that it was to the point where I needed the guys in the kitchen to start pumping out more dishes while maintaining good quality.

As if noticing that we were running out of prepped dishes at a fast rate, Hanabusa came inside the booth from outside and figured that Andou and Kashino would need more help in the back.

"I'll help them in the back so take care of the crowd in the front," Hanabusa said as I nodded my head. He headed for the back and dishes were coming out at a quick pace but still had extravagant quality in it.

'Well, that's the sweets princes for you. Being able to work quickly and efficiently to get the job done.'

As I continued serving, I could still see a large line of people at our shop and I knew that not just the three sweets princes and their sweets spirits would be able to keep up. At this rate, it looked like there were about 500 people lined up at our booth.

"Fraise, can you go help out at the back? Make sure the quality is excellent while you guys are pushing them out at a fast pace, ok? I can take care of things here," I told my sweets spirit who already knew what to do. Fraise quickly jumped off of my shoulder and flew towards the back of the booth to help out.

Now that Fraise was back there, we would have all hands on deck to serve all of those people. Since Fraise was more experienced and advanced in her sweets magic and confections, I was sure that our quality and speed would be even more proficient.

"Here you are—Five to go—Welcome—Have a nice day—Please enjoy—Thanks for your support—" I smiled at every customer I dealt with and thanked them for coming to our booth to eat our dessert. As our desserts from the back were coming out at a quick pace, I could serve each customer without any hold-ups or problems. Little by little, I noticed that our dishes were slowing down and the line wasn't even close to being done yet.

'What's going on back there? What's the holdup?'

I continued serving our pumpkin cakes to the customers and eventually, there were only 30 pumpkin cakes left to serve. I could see Fraise fly back to me with a smile on her face as if that was the easiest work she'd ever done. She sat on my shoulder again and whispered something into my ear.

"Once you've sold these 30, we'll be sold out for today!" Fraise announced as my eyes widened in surprise.

'Sold out? Already?!'

I couldn't believe this information. It had only been about 30 minutes since the Halloween Fair was open and we'd already sold almost 500 desserts in that time frame?! Not to mention that there was still a long line waiting to be served!