Ever since the Club Competition was announced, as soon as the last class of the day ended, the students would quickly flock to their own clubs to work on their upcoming projects for the festival.
The students who made part of the Delicious Food Fan Club were no different from the others and on that Tuesday afternoon they were having an important meeting.
"No, no! Guys, we have to change our approach! Didn't you guys see the amazing projects from our competitors? The Board Game Club is building a freaking real-life board game! From what I have seen, the game is fun as hell! And I'm sure the other clubs also have amazing ideas! If we let ourselves be narrowed down by our passion for food and only serve delicious food at the festival, we'll never reach 1st place in the competition. I don't have any doubts that we will cook amazing delicious food to secure a place at the Top 10, but it is still too little to secure the championship!" Olly Fletcher loudly argued with his fellow club members.
Some people might think that Olly Fletcher was an arrogant man to declare that their club could easily secure a place in the top 10 among the dozens of clubs competing. But that was a reason for his arrogance.
Olly Fletcher was in his third year of high school, and he was also the President of the Delicious Food Fan Club. This meant that he was the boss of the couple dozen students who made the club.
As a famous club renowned for its strict entrance rules, every club member was a student who aspired to a career as a cook and cuisine chef. Even if the first-year newcomers didn't have much experience, the second and third-year students had considerable culinary skills, especially the third-year seniors. Consequently, the person who got the presidency among various talented cooks had to be better than the rest.
A curious fact about the Delicious Food Fan Club was how they chose the club president. They settled just like everything was settled in prestigious culinary schools.
On the first day of the school year, the second and third-year students would gather for an all- out culinary battle, and at the end of it, the student who cooked the best dish would get to be the club president for the rest of the school year.
Without any surprise, every year's shokugeki was brutal to choose the winner as each club member wanted to best their colleagues.
Even though everyone was good friends with each other, when they entered the shokugeki, it was everyone for himself.
Everyone wanted to prove that they were the better cook.
And with more experience, it was almost always that the presidency position would be snatched by the third-year students. That's because, they had an extra year to learn and better their culinary skills, but here in there throughout the decades since the club was founded, there were some occasions that genius second-year students managed to win the shokugeki.
Every student who achieved this feat would later become a famous chef, and Olly Fletcher was a student who achieved this feat!
Last year, he showed how much of a genius cook he was as he won the shokugeki against his third-year senpais. His dish was so great that after everyone tasted it, the third-year senpais had to admit that their kouhai's dish was better than theirs.
And during this year shokugeki, Olly won once again without any surprises. If he managed to win after only one year into the club, this year he became even more monstrous. Everyone in the club was an avid fan of him, and they all agreed that Olly would be able to enter Hamamoto Culinary College, which was the most prestigious cooking school in the country and the world.
That's why when Olly exposed his views in the upcoming competition, they took his words as the law.
With Olly's cooking expertise, they knew that the public would flock to their stand to taste Olly's food, consequently, a place in the Club Competition Top 10 seemed easy with these factors standing.
But their obsession and goal from the beginning was the championship!
They wanted new kitchen appliances!
And if Olly said that their chances of winning were small, they totally believed his words. "What now, guys?"
"I don't know, but we have to think of a solution quickly as the festival is in 10 days already!" "It has to be something we are good at. I heard that the Student Council's Inspection of the Club Projects is really strict."
"Yeah, I heard that Brenda vetoed some club projects as they wanted to sell industrialized products to earn more sales."
"But I have to agree with her inspection. If the clubs were allowed to sell third-party products, they could cheat their way into the top 10."
Everyone loudly discussed as they tried to think of a good idea to earn more sales.
Olly was satisfied as he looked at this scene. He wanted to rouse the competitive spirit of his club members. He knew they were creative and talented, and he wanted to stimulate even more of their creative spirit.
He genuinely wanted to win the championship he wanted to be the president who managed to renovate the club facilities. He was sure that his name would be written on the club's history with glory if managed to do that. Plus, if he had a new kitchen to practice in his last year of high school, he would be able to be much more efficient in his studies to enter the Hamamoto Culinary College.
It was then that a first-year new member said with a soft voice, "What if we sell street food?" Everyone was silent for a second as they processed her idea, it seemed so simple, but it went against most of their ideals of food sophistication.
Some of the club members were about to shoot down this idea when Olly suddenly exclaimed, "Great idea, Evie! I can't believe I didn't think of this before!"
Most of the club members looked at their club president with puzzled expressions.
Olly looked at his puzzled friends and shook his head in disappointment, "Guys, never be blinded by your cooking skills, that's because even a small street food vendor may cook better food than you as they had years and years of experience. Delicious food can be found anywhere whether fancy restaurants or small street food vendors. Always strive to learn more as each cook has its own unique view about cooking, and if you open your heart to learn, you may improve your cooking techniques in the most unusual places."
It was then that the majority of them woke up with Olly's words, they realized that they had been too conceited after learning a few fancy techniques.
They found infinite wisdom in Olly's words, which made them admire their president even
'It must be due to his wisdom and open heart to everything around him that makes him a great cook.' They thought to themselves.
With Olly's wise words, the fog of their future cleared as they promised themselves to never become conceited again. They would open their hearts to learn as much as they could until the
Among the excited club members was Evie Owen, the new member who suggested the idea of selling street food.