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Even in the dormitory, the most affordable room, which is a four-person room, there was a cooking space provided.

Of course, very few students actually use it.

In fact, there are quite a number of students who have never entered it once, from the start of their enrollment until graduation, even after the semester begins.

One reason for this is that a significant portion of the students come from noble families.

When they were at home before enrolling, they would have had chefs or servants from their families cooking for them.

Moreover, their taste buds would have gotten increasingly picky with the variety of gourmet dishes.

Now, to suddenly have to cook for themselves?

They might try chopping something out of curiosity and ambition just once or twice.

But after tasting the result from their own hands, they would likely give up immediately.

Furthermore, in this academy, there is a fantastic alternative called the student restaurant.

The fearsome tuition fees also funnel a significant amount into the student restaurant.

The budget received goes towards buying top-quality ingredients and hiring first-rate chefs.

Additionally, the extra budget secured through meal tickets is separate.

In such a situation, would a picky noble choose to eat something cloaked in the name of “food” that they hastily made themselves, or would they prefer a dish made by a first-rate chef using high-quality ingredients?

It’s not just the nobles; the well-off merchants’ children would naturally use the restaurant, and commoner students who receive sponsorship would also dine there.

Perhaps only impoverished students without sponsors like me, or those genuinely interested in cooking, would use the kitchen.

For the record, I had always been dragged to the student restaurant by Selian’s hand, so I had no options in the matter.

Yet, I now feel grateful to Selian for taking me to the student restaurant.

If she hadn’t done so, I might have only bought flour, sugar, and salt to scrape by under the pretense of saving money.

I can’t even imagine the taste at this point, but back then, I was quite accustomed to eating tasteless food.

Hmm. Just thinking about eating boiled dough with a bit of salt makes me feel bloated.

Comparing it to a cake made from the same flour seems even more horrifying.

On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve been spending excessively on food lately…. But then again, who cares?

Now that I’ve become a hero, my worries about tuition are gone; I think I deserve to enjoy this small luxury considering the past ten years.

“Alright!”

In one corner of the kitchen, I took out one of the pieces of meat I had bought yesterday.

After all, you can’t have a meal without meat, no matter what dish it is.

Quietly, I began chopping the meat into sizable pieces.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one in the kitchen; my friends were also busy working at their stations.

There was Anne, like me, cutting meat, Selian prepping vegetables, and Yuli, who was already enthusiastically boiling something.

Everyone was caught up in their respective menus they had in mind.

It’s somewhat surprising that we’re all doing our own thing, though.

Nobody expected things to turn out this way when we were shopping for ingredients in the market yesterday.

However, the reason for this surprising development wasn’t that significant.

It was simply because we agreed to Anne’s idea, who was hanging onto us in her pajamas, saying she wanted to have a cooking competition after seeing something somewhere.

So, the four of us decided to make lunch before preparing our bento boxes and compare our culinary skills out of fun.

Leaving behind my friends who were deeply absorbed in their cooking, I started to make the dish I had seen in a book earlier.

I was making meat pie.

Thanks to having read a cookbook in the library in advance, I had the recipe imprinted in my mind.

Once I chopped all the meat, I also diced carrots and onions into similar sizes.

However, since meat is tastier than vegetables, I decided to use a bit less of the veggies.

If I filled the missing quantity with more meat, it would surely taste better.

Since Anne loves sweetness, I thought it would be good to add a bit more sugar as well.

It could be considered a sort of arrangement.

Of course, I’m not disregarding the recipe written in the cookbook. But in a cooking competition, being able to make an impact that says “I made this” is important, rather than going strictly by the book.

So, I added a bit more of what I thought would taste good and took out a bit of what I thought would taste bad, and filled the pie filling.

The brownish filling, packed with meat, surely seemed delicious.

Now that I had made the filling, it was time to make the crust to envelop it.

Again, I recalled the recipe I saw in the cookbook and began making the flour dough.

However, since we don’t usually cook, there were no scales or teaspoons in our room, so I put in ingredients according to feel.

The lump of dough I made.

The book says to let it rest in the refrigerator or something…. But I don’t have that luxury to wait for hours.

Skipping a step like that probably wouldn’t significantly affect the completion of the dish. It’s not like any other ingredients need to go in.

I laid the thinly rolled dough over the pie mold I had bought yesterday.

Then, I filled it with the meat feast I had prepared earlier and covered the top with more flour dough.

I put the pie I made in the oven and set the time and temperature.

Now, all I had to do was wait.

With a bit of free time, I glanced around.

I had definitely seen Anne grilling meat earlier, and now, while I was finishing my cooking, she was still grilling meat.

Peeking over at Anne, I saw a mountain of well-cooked meat piled on her plate.

…I do love meat, but that seems a bit excessive for Anne.

This time, I turned to look at Yuli.

Yuli seemed to be finishing up too, starting to plate her completed dish.

Honestly, Yuli’s dish looked so good that it could easily be mistaken for something made by a professional chef.

It seemed that Yuli was my strongest rival in this cooking competition.

I wanted to check on Selian’s dish last, but for some reason, I couldn’t see Selian anywhere.

“Uh? Does anyone know where Selian went?”

I thought perhaps she had stepped out for a moment to use the bathroom, but there was no sign of her dish either.

“Hmm? Now that I think about it, she was saying she didn’t have enough heat and that it wasn’t feeling right, and then she took a bunch of stuff outside.”

I thought I only had to watch out for Yuli, but could it be that Selian also had some culinary prowess?

Perhaps she went to borrow the kitchen from the student restaurant.

However, when I opened the window to air out the room, I saw an unexpected sight.

Beyond the window, in the distant park created for walks, I spotted Selian.

But the Selian I found was sitting in the middle of the park, having made a campfire and hanging a pot over it, boiling something she had apparently scavenged from somewhere.

She was even handling the campfire like a pro, ensuring sparks didn’t fly around.

…What on earth is she doing over there?

*

“Alright! Now we’re going to eat each other’s dishes and discuss our thoughts. And finally, we’ll vote for the best dish besides our own.”

On the table, were all the dishes we had made.

Anne’s steak, Yuli’s course dish, Selian’s stew, and lastly, my meat pie.

“Shall we start with Anne’s dish first?”

Including Anne, we each took a piece of Anne’s steak onto our plates.

Since she had grilled so much, there wasn’t a problem bringing over a whole chunk.

We used knives to cut it and tasted it.

“Mmm….”

“This is….”

“Delicious, right? It’s meat, so of course, it has to be delicious!”

Anne’s proud little giggle.

However, against Anne’s confident attitude, Yuli and Selian’s expressions were a bit awkward.

“There’s no sauce, and just grilling the meat doesn’t exactly make it a dish, now does it?”

“And the doneness is all over the place, so it’s hard to comment on the grilling standards.”

“Ugh?”

Anne looked shocked at the unexpected harsh critique.

With the last glimmer of hope, she turned to me.

“Um…. I thought it was delicious….”

As I said before, when it comes to meat, it’s always right.

Of course, compared to a steak made by a professional chef, it had its shortcomings, but with good quality meat used, it at least guaranteed a basic taste.

So, I could eat Anne’s dish deliciously.

“Now it’s my turn!”

The next dish was Yuli’s course dish.

Yuli introduced her dish with a voice a little more lively than usual.

Despite the same amount of time spent, Yuli had whipped up several dishes at once within that short time.

She even plated it so beautifully that it felt almost a shame to touch it.

“Mmm…. As expected of Yuli. I knew you wouldn’t be easy, but I didn’t expect this level….”

“Wow! This is super delicious! Yuli, can I eat more?”

“I made plenty, so go ahead and have as much as you want.”

Compliments flowed from Selian and Anne, who had tasted it first.

Once again, I was the last to try Yuli’s dish.

Gulp. As I had thought, Yuli’s dish was incredibly delicious, just as I had considered her my strongest rival.

In fact, ordinary restaurants should probably close their doors in front of Yuli’s cooking.

“It’s delicious…. You’re definitely my rival.”

“Mmm…. That’s praise, right?”

Yuli answered my compliment as if questioning it for some reason.

However, before I could ask what she meant, Selian spoke up first.

“Okay, now it’s my turn. Everyone, try it out.”

Selian ladled from a large pot into each of our bowls.

At first glance and by smell, it was worthy of a passing mark.

I scooped a spoonful that included a piece of meat into my mouth.

“Mmm…. Did you use some poor-quality meat?”

Yuli started her critique.

There were surely better-quality meats out there, but for some reason, Selian had chosen to put some slightly lower-quality meat into the stew.

“Still, it seems Selian’s skills are so good that those who aren’t picky about it probably wouldn’t notice.”

However, thanks to it being simmered for a long time, the lower quality meat was tender without any chewiness, and the seasoning had soaked through perfectly.

“What do you think…?”

After Yuli’s feedback, Selian asked me for my opinion.

“This is really delicious! It’s totally my style!”

“Of course! It’s a dish that Elysia loved.”

“Huh? A dish she liked?”

“Ah, no! I mean…. it’s a dish made with the ingredients Elysia liked.”

Perhaps because it contained ingredients that suited my taste, Selian’s stew was quite delicious.

Moreover, beyond simply being tasty, it stirred up an inexplicable emotion within me.

Even though it was a dish I had no memory of tasting before, it somehow brought a sense of nostalgia.

Yuli’s dish was certainly tasty, but it seems my vote should go to Selian.

After trying all the dishes, only my dish remained.

Hehe…. The emergence of the winning candidate was making everyone tense.

Even Selian gulped nervously, her face stiff.

That had to mean she was really hungry already.

“This, this is….”

Even Yuli seemed at a loss for words when she saw my meat pie.

Anne, too, couldn’t keep quiet, turning to me and speaking.

“T-this…. Do I have to eat it…?”

 

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