Food Stall (5)

I smiled as I finally came up with the perfect smoothie. It included a mashup of all the ingredients they had from the first district using only vegetables and fruits. We had to make sure we wouldn't mix it with the ones from the other districts. It was a revolution since no one thought of blending all the precious and rare ingredients together just for the taste. Sprinkling a little bit of my mana while mixing, it melted into my mouth more than any dessert I had tasted.

It was better than the strawberry shortcakes I was obsessed with. Passing some cups to the rest of the club members, even our president begged us for seconds. While everyone else experimented with the ingredients to determine what other things to add to the menu, I walked towards the design clubroom with Henry. Since the rest of our plans were starting to fall into place, we need those disposable containers sooner.

"Are you done yet?" I opened the door.

"We told you yesterday that it'll take us at least a month to produce a cup that will hold the amount of mana in your drinks," the president of the design club had tasted a failed sample.

"We need them by next week," Henry pressured them.

"We're trying our best!" She sighed.

"Please remember the details in the contract for not meeting the deadlines," I found Oili's terms to be very clever.

"Let's go," I clung onto Henry's arm.

"Should we try the takoyaki machine?" I noticed the heating tray on the ground once Henry opened the door.

"Will it cause a fire?" The president was afraid of anything that used electricity.

"We can try right now," I plugged the machine into an outlet.

"Don't we need a batter first?" Shelly reminded me.

"We do," I sighed, wondering what ingredients we should use this time.

The food coming from the first district didn't follow the same logic from the other districts, holding a distinct taste of mana in the land where they were grown. Even the seafood tasted different, needing different ways of cooking them. It was all trial and error in trying to determine which ones had the best synergy together. The raw taste and after they were cooked were vastly different as well.

Once everyone mixed in a random set of ingredients together, adding a subtle touch of mana to enhance the taste, I plugged the machine back into the outlet again. Using a small spoon to pour the batter inside, I waited for them to cook. Ellen stood as standby, making sure to instantly create a barrier if she noticed there was something wrong. Flipping the small balls of somewhat an imitation of takoyaki, the amazing aroma entered my nose.

Placing the imitations on a plate, I passed them to the taste testers, Henry and Sienna who had the most exquisite tongues after me. Both of them frowned, finding the taste not matching the smell, which meant this round was a failure as well. We all ended up taking turns when tasting the small samples, not wanting to fill ourselves with these foods.

"Should we just mix everything together again? Like all the seafood and vegetables," I was starting to become more frustrated from all the failures.

"They might taste different since we're cooking them," I remembered how we only mixed all of the vegetables and fruits together in the smoothies.

"We'll try this in our next batch," Delia seemed equally tired.

Passing me the next batch, I started to cook them inside the pan. This time I was the taste tester. Once I flipped each of the balls, I pulled out a fork to try one myself. Closing my eyes, having no expectations, it tasted amazing. My mind melted, quickly consuming the rest of this entire batter before others wanted to try out a portion of their own. However, all of them sighed in relief when they finally found one that worked rather than trying to take some.

"Can we just use this batter?" I turned to all of them.

"Let me just get rid of the other ones," Delia threw the rest away in the trash can.

Since the trash can was full, Cillian placed one more trash can outside of our club room, hoping someone else would take care of it. Unfortunately, this school didn't have something like a cooking club, leaving no place to dispose of the materials. We couldn't stand the smell of all the failed samples we made, placing them far away from us. However, none of us thought we would get complaints from the other clubs since it ended up spreading to the entire building.

"It's this club again," someone from another club knocked on the door.

"I can't believe they're still alive from last time," another person recalled the incident.

"Can you get rid of the smell?" A person yelled.

"If you can throw them out for us, it'd be great!" Oili shouted to them while he made another batch.

"Shouldn't you get rid of them?" Another person became irritated.

"We're busy!" Sienna yelled.

"Thanks in advance!" Cillian shouted to them.

Seeing how we weren't willing to clean them up, the members from the club room beside us groaned while getting rid of the garbage. Once they were gone, Cillian decided to take out all of the trash bags inside our room, taking advantage of their complaints. Not knowing we had piles of trash bags in front of our room by the time he finished, the members who came back from throwing them out, kicked the bags.

"We're not cleaning them up this time!" They yelled, not knowing all the bags were beginning to collapse towards them.