Soma: The Phantom Seat (Abandoned)

Chapter 36 Moon Banquet Festival Part 2

As the announcer states the rankings of each area, Soma and Megumi find themselves in 6th place with the sales, and Kuga's is the first one. They also heard that there is one booth that went into the red, much to their surprise.

As Soma and Megumi are walking with their portable stall, they hear Erina's yelling, "All of you participated in the Autumn Elections main tournament! How can even two participants of the final be in the red? Do you want to depreciate the reputation of the honored Autumn Election?"

Soma and Megumi walk into the room and Soma says, "Geez, Nakiri, your yelling is too loud."

"Yukihira and Tadokoro-san?" Erina asks.

"Are you two alright?" They also notice that Ikumi, Takumi, and Isami are also there, and Ikumi asks them. "I mean, we heard that you got the sixth place."

"Yeah, we have a plan sorted by the Phantom, so everything is going to be fine." Soma adds. "By the way, I made some of my dishes with the leftovers, how about you guys eat them as your supper?"

"I want to try some." Alice says as she picks the Oyster fritter, she says, "Wow, there are oysters in it and they are not that bad."

Ryo tastes the Turnip Pastry and he mutters, "I could do a lot better."

"By the way, how was the uptown area? Nakiri, you set up a booth with Arato and such, right? What rank were you?" Soma asks.

"Second place." Erina says.

"Oh, so you're second, huh?" Soma says.

"What's with that face for!" Erina yells after seeing his smug look. "It seems your objective is having higher sales than Kuga-san...however, the same doesn't apply for the rest of the participants. There are many students who don't fixate on increasing their sales and pursuing their own cooking. My restaurant only accepts customers who make a reservation and we deny entrance to customers who come in without one. Isshiki-senpai also sets his booths price quite low for the uptown area standards."

But Soma isn't listening to Erina as he is asking Hisako to make reservations on the final day, causing Erina to be yelling, "Listen to me for once! And Hisako! Why are you letting him get the reservation?"

As Erina is talking to his secretary, Soma looks at the newspaper and finds that Rindo and Eizan are not on the list, and they also find that Alice and the others are in last place.

"By the way, I have been wanting to ask something." Erina says, "You have been trying to beat Kuga-san to even get help from the former Elite 10 member who is also the authority of the Taiwanese food in Japan. You must concentrate only on defeating him in the final area."

"Of course." Soma says.

"What? You got help from the former Elite 10 member?" Takumi yells. "Interesting. Now I'm firing up."

But after the day is over, Soma is seen by Megumi that he is lending his keys to a stranger, and Megumi asks, "Soma-kun, who is he?"

"Oh, a friend of mine that is going to help me something tomorrow." Soma says. "Now we should go onto the next phase."

The next day, Soma decides to add some meals, such as Danzi Noodles, Pork ball Soup, and even Oyster omelette, with these three things, they get a much more sales, and Kuga looks at the newspaper to see that Soma is already in the second place with him being the first.

"Oh, he worked hard today. Hey! Hey! Did any of you see Yukihira-chin today?" Kuga asks his staff, and one of them says, "Come to think of it, he might have had more customers than yesterday. They added some new dishes, it looked like noodles, a soup, and some sort of omelette."