Lazing About in a Dating Sim

The second the competition began, I reached for a handful of cereal on the left side of my table, and crushed it into a powdery paste with a rolling pin.

Then I began mixing it together with a few pinches of salt.

Samantha ended up doing basically the exact same thing I did, except she added a pinch of sugar to her mix.

This made me feel slightly more confident about my chances of winning this thing, as at least both of us started off similarly.

Unfortunately, this feeling didn’t last for long.

Just a few seconds later, I caught a glimpse of Samantha mixing some chunks of butter into a bowl with her crushed pieces of cereal. A step that definitely wasn’t mentioned in the book I had read in preparation for the competition.

Nonetheless, I didn’t let it get to me and continued to do my best to follow the instructions I had vaguely in my head.

After I had felt that I had mixed the salt together with the cereal enough, I poured half a cup of milk with the mixture and began to whisk.

And just like the book had said, the mixture became more viscous the more that I stirred it around.

Eventually, the mixture became the right consistency that the novel had specified, and I simply stopped stirring before shoving the mixture into the oven.

Then I took a cursory glance over at the clock and adjusted the heat of the oven accordingly.

I had about 5 more minutes before the heat of my oven and Samatha’s was going to miraculously rise, just enough time for the biscuit to bake completely.

And upon realizing that, I simply just let out a sigh of relief before taking a cursory glance over at Samantha’s station again to see how she was doing.

As expected, Samantha was doing quite well and had also been able to get her biscuit in the oven by this point. She also appeared to not have any doubts about what she was making.

Moreover, the biscuit she was making definitely reflected this confidence, as for what essentially was a circular piece of bread, it looked quite decadent, especially when it was compared to my own.

Luckily, it didn’t take that long for the aesthetic playing field to be leveled.

As just a few minutes later, Lucia covertly caused the tiny shields she had planted in the ovens to heat up. Which in turn caused both of our ovens to also heat up immensely.

Since I had already pulled my biscuit out a few seconds before this happened in anticipation, my biscuit’s quality wasn’t affected at all when my oven’s heat increased.

However, the same could not be said for Samantha.

And from the looks of it, she also didn’t appear to have realized that Lucia had meddled with our ovens.

Though, that isn’t really saying much.

As if Lucia hadn’t told me beforehand that she was going to do this, I probably wouldn’t have guessed that the malfunction had magical origins either, due to the subtlety of Lucia’s spellcasting. 

“Oh come on, you just had to fail me today of all days didn’t you?”

Samantha remarked, annoyed about the fact that her oven had rebelled against her.

“Unlucky.”

I replied before attempting to quell the smoke that was coming out of my own oven.

In turn, Samantha just sighed, then proceeded to salvage the most that she could from the biscuit she had baked.

A few moments later, Samantha decided to have the competition end a bit early.

Probably because she felt that there was no way she was gonna be able to make a new biscuit with the time that was left in the competition. 

“Phew.”

I said simply after I sat down on the hard wooden floor and closed my eyes.

Just a few seconds after I did so, I felt a cold cylindrical object come in contact with the left side of my face.

And in response, I cracked open my left eye.

At which point, I was greeted with Lucia holding a glass of water.

“You make it seem like you just finished fighting a dire wolf.”

Lucia said with a mischievous grin on her face. 

“You try cooking under pressure.”

I replied, before taking the glass of water from her and taking a large sip from it. 

It was the best cup of water I've ever had.

“I think I’ll pass, thanks. Also take it easy with the water, you wouldn’t want to choke to death right after the competition ended.”

Lucia remarked after giving me a pat on the back and taking a seat next to me. 

“So, who do you think the judges are gonna rule in favor of, Otto?”

“Here’s hoping that they deem me to be the winner. I don’t really want to have to deal with the alternative.”

“Yeah, I’m hoping that happens too. It’d be a real pain to have to find a new spot that’s both filled with books and devoid of annoying people.”

Lucia remarked before running her fingers through my hair. 

Moments later, the door to the baking clubroom creaked open and three students shuffled into the room.

And after they were greeted by Samantha, the three were promptly led over to the two baking stations in the room.

“Those must be the judges.”

I said listlessly after stretching my arms and getting up from my seat.

“Good luck.” 

Lucia said while helping me to stand up.

In response, I just nodded before walking over to the three people who were currently grading the two biscuits that had just been put in front of them.

The manner in which they conducted their business appeared to be methodical yet also somehow efficient at the same time.

In fact, by the time I had gotten there, most of the grading appeared to already have been done.

“Ah, you must be Otto. The guy who had the guts to challenge Samantha to a baking competition of all things.”

One of the students remarked.

“Didn’t really have much of a choice.”

I shrugged.

“Regardless, for a beginner, you did quite well and even managed to beat Samantha in a couple categories.”

“Is it enough for me to win the competition overall?”

I asked curiously.

“Well, you see that’s the thing, for every point you’ve gotten in let’s say structure, you’ve lost another in some other category like aesthetics.”

“So I lost then?”

“No, it wasn’t enough for you to lose per say.”

“I don’t think I follow?”

“He’s saying that we tied Otto.”

Samantha chimed in, slightly exasperated.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.”