Penelope leads me through the winding halls of Iris Hall before stopping at the door of the Cooking Club room.

  “So, you’re saying that some evil cult is having secret meetings in the Cooking Club room and that they’ve poisoned your food?” Penelope asks for the fifth time.

  “Yes. Garus and I were working together to determine how much of a threat it posed, and it turned out to be much more dangerous than we thought it would be,” I [Lie].

  Penelope lets out a sigh. “Given your luck, I’ll believe that you and Garus may have found an evil cult, but I refuse to believe that it was on purpose. You probably stumbled upon it,” she says, hitting the nail on the head.

  “So, why are we checking out the club room first? Shouldn’t we go and ask the Student Council for help like Hopper said?” I say changing the topic.

  Penelope rolls her eyes at my obvious misdirect. “The Student Council is low on numbers. After all, the fifth and sixth years are still away. So, if we want to get to the bottom of this sooner rather than later, we’ll have to do some of the legwork ourselves.”

  “Where are the fifth and sixth years?” I ask with genuine curiosity.

  “They went on an expedition into the Blight. They should be back before the Class War starts. That’s when the real trouble should start,” Penelope says, whispering the last part to herself.

  Choosing to ignore that ominous statement, I switch topics. “So, we just need to scout out the Cooking Club room?”

  “Basically. Try not to be rude,” Penelope says as she opens the door.

  “I’m never rude,” I [Lie] as we enter the bustling Cooking Club.

  A whole assortment of students fills the room. As we enter, the bustle comes to a crawl. The students look over to me and then over to Penelope. An almost immediate flurry of whispers begins.

  “They’re talking about you in case you were wondering,” I whisper to Penelope as I pass her.

  Penelope pops a grin as she walks with me. “Yes, they are. They’re wondering why I’m hanging out with a charlatan like you. A question that I would also like the answer to.”

  Crouching down, I inspect the ground where the evil-looking magic circle was last night. As far as I can tell, it looks like it was never there to begin with. They’re more competent than I thought they would be.

  “The answer to your question is simple. I’m not a charlatan, and you’ve grown to like me,” I say as I think back on the events of last night.

  I can’t get a clear picture of what the magic circle looked like. I was hoping that finding what it looked like might give us an idea of what the cult is up to. Guess that’s a bust.

  Penelope’s ears wiggle. “What are you even doing?”

  “I’m looking for traces of the magic circle from last night. Seems they cleaned it up,” I say as I stand back.

  Penelope looks down at the ground with her head tilted. Without a word, she walks over to one of the cooking stations and grabs a bag of flour. She then walks back and dumps the flour onto the ground.

  “I assume there’s more to your plan,” I say as I brush some flour off my pants.

  “Of course. I didn’t just drop some flour on the ground for no reason. I’m not you,” she says as she focuses mana to her hand.

  “I would never waste food. So, what are you doing?”

  As she focuses the mana in her hand spreads out among the flour. “Magic circles tend to leave a residual energy behind even days after they’ve been used. This residual energy tends to draw mana to it. So, if I infuse some mana into this flour,” she says as the flour starts to move, “it should give us a rough outline of the magic circle.”

  As the flour moves, it slowly begins to resemble the magic circle from last night. There are some parts missing, but it’s better than nothing.

  “That’s a neat trick, Penelope. Any chance you also know what kind of magic circle this is?” I ask as I watch nearly the entire Cooking Club sneaking glances at us.

  “Who do you think you’re talking to? Of course, I know. It’s a Dark-type magic circle. Based on the runes, I’d say it was going to be used to curse someone,” Penelope says with a smug smile.

  “Used to? They didn’t actually use it?” I ask.

  “No, they tried, but the magic circle has a glaring flaw in it. This rune here is wrong,” she explains.

  “Excuse me, would you mind explaining what you’re doing in our club room?” a human man asks.

  Looking over at the source of the voice, I see a brown haired human with glasses and an absurd amount of muscles. By the Gods, does he beat the dough into submission?

  “Hello there. I’m CJ, The Chosen One, and this is Penelope. We’re just checking something out. We’ll be out of your hair soon enough,” I say, trying to hand-wave the situation.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Yes, I know who you are. You’re the man who had an unauthorized bake sale,” he says with an air of annoyance.

  “I wasn’t aware I had to ask you permission to share my cookies with the world. Who are you?” I ask, annoyed.

  “Cliff Baker, interim President of the Cooking Club. I wouldn’t call what you made cookies. They’re closer to stale bread than anything else. I bet you could use it as a bludgeoning weapon,” he mocks.

  Anger flares in my eyes as I take a step forward. “Do you want to find out if I can use it as a bludgeoning weapon?”

  He gives a stupid smile that I could smack right off his face. “How uncultured of you. No wonder your cookies are subpar at best. I bet you don’t even have a cooking-related [Blessing] or even a [Skill],” he says, successfully trying to rile me up.

  Before I can do anything, Penelope clears her throat. “Apologies for intruding on your club. We’ll be on our way now,” Penelope says as she basically drags me out.

  As we leave, I give Cliff the stink eye, which he promptly rolls his eyes at. Asshole.

  Entering the hallway, I turn to Penelope. “Can you believe what he said about my cookies? They are delicious and soft,” I complain.

  “Yes, yes, they are, but can you stop picking fights with our upperclassmen? It’s one thing to pick a fight with a second-year student. It’s a whole other beast to pick one with a third-year. They’re literally on a whole other [Level] than us,” she says as she lets go of my arm.

  “Fine, but he was the one picking a fight with me. Insulting my cooking. You’d get beaten for that back home. So, what do we do next?” I ask as we continue down the hall.

  “We know the kind of magic circle they were using, but that’s only going to get us so far. We need to find one of the actual cultists,” she says as she thinks.

  “Oh, that shouldn’t be too hard,” I say nonchalantly.

  “I thought you said that you didn’t see any of them.”

  “I didn’t. They were all wearing cloaks and didn’t use names,” I say as I take one of my delicious cookies out.

  “Get to the point already, Charlatan,” she says with an annoyed tone.

  “Well, they were using the Cooking Club room, which stands to reason that they had the key. While you were checking out the magic circle, I was keeping an eye on the club members. While everybody else was sneaking glances at us, one member didn’t ever look our way,” I say as I take a bite of my delicious and soft cookie.

  “Hmm. You think they’re one of the cultists?” she asks, not fully convinced.

  “Yup. You see, when you’re an amateur, you tend to over-correct when trying to blend in,” I explain.

  “You would be the expert in that.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. So, what, do we jump this guy when he leaves the club room?” I ask.

  Penelope shakes her head. “No. We’ll take him to a room and interrogate him.”

  “That sounds like kidnapping. I can get behind that.”

  “It’s not kidnapping!”

  Penelope and I try to catch our breath as we drag the now unconscious guy into a storage closet.

  “Not kidnapping, huh?”

  “Oh, shut up. Who knew he was immediately going to break into a sprint the moment he saw us?” she says, while tightening the rope around his hands.

  “I knew.”

  “No, you didn’t. You were just as surprised as I was when he started running,” Penelope says.

  As I go to speak, the human man on the floor starts to stir. “I think he’s starting to come to.”

  “Where am I?” the man says slowly.

  “Hello there, bud. We have some questions for you,” I say as I crouch down next to him.

  “I don’t know anything. Why did you bring me here?” he asks.

  “We haven’t even started asking you questions. How can you be sure you don’t know anything?” I say as I place a cookie on his face.

  “I… just assumed that… I didn’t know anything. Who are you?” he asks.

  I look over at Penelope, who gives me a knowing look. “Ok. Lying 101. Don’t act too dumb. It makes you extremely suspicious. I’m The Chosen One. Literally everyone I’ve ever seen in this school knows this. Do you know how weird it’d be if you didn’t know I was The Chosen One?”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize. How about, uh, ‘Chosen One, why have you kidnapped me?’ Does that sound better?” he asks.

  “Definitely an improvement. This time, try to sound more confused rather than confident. Remember, you’re not supposed to know what’s going on. Maybe add a little bit of fear,” I recommend.

  The man nods. “Chosen One? What… Why… Why have you done this to me?”

  “Marvelous. That’s much better. Maybe-”

  “Charlatan, stop teaching the cultist how to lie to us,” Penelope says, making a good point.

  “Oh, yeah, right. Sorry about that. So you belong to a cult. Care to tell us who the rest of the members are?” I ask, getting back on topic.

  “Cult? I… have no knowledge of any cult. I’m just a student like you. Please… let me go,” he says with a hint of genuine fear.

  With a proud smile, I look over at Penelope, who promptly gives me a deadly look. “Enough of your good lying. You’ve poisoned Garus and me. Speaking of what kind of poison was that? It tasted really good,” I say, getting off topic again.

  “Oh, thank you. It was poison from a Dark Orchid. I hear in low amounts it can be used to expand on the flavor of the dish,” he boasts.

  “Really? I might use that in some of my cooking later. Where did you get some of this poison?” I ask genuinely curious.

  “Oh, well, our leader is growing a Dark Orchid as a hobby. He really cares about that flower.”

  “That’s really cool. I’m actually really into botany myself, but I always have a hard time growing Dark Orchids. They’re very delicate after all. Maybe I could ask your leader for some advice. What’s his name and where can I find him?” I ask as I feed him one of my cookies.

  As the man munches on the cookie, he nods. “Oh, yeah. His name is Plink Drak. You’ll probably find him in his room in Dianthus Hall. This cookie is really good, by the way.”

  “Thank you. Here, have more,” I say, placing a small bag of cookies next to his mouth.

  Penelope and I leave the storage closet.

  “How did that work?” she asks.

  “I’m The Chosen One,” I say as we head towards Dianthus Hall.