"Are you sure you are doing this right?"

No, of course I wasn't sure. At some point we all had started to lose confidence. The first ones to go were most of the maids, not like they had a lot of faith in me in the first place. I think deep down they were intrigued by the infamous potatoes, just enough to suspense their disbelief even after seeing me at work.

Then, to my huge disappointment (mostly in myself) was Clem. She, who was so supportive of me at first, had now lost all faith in me as well.

Athena, on the other hand, had none of it - she had no expectations of me to begin with. Somewhat ironically, that was the one thing we had in common.

The worst part was, that we barely even started cooking. It took as little as putting a pot filled with oil above the fireplace for most of the maids to jump ship. At that point Clem graced me with the benefit of the doubt, before asking:

"So what are we going to do once the oil boils?"

Once I told them that we will cook the chicken in it, I had lost Clem.

Overall it took us less than two minutes to end up exactly where we started. Athena, while staying away, had an evil grin on her face - she was all too happy to see me fail. And fail I would, in her eyes, the moment I poured that oil into a pot I might as well have announced publicly I was mentally ill.

It wasn't all bad though. It was great even, or as good as I could've ever hoped.

See, for someone who couldn't cook to save his life (literally, in this case) the only option was to find something else than just his skills to rely on.

If I couldn't enthrall the princess with my superior cooking ability, my best bet was to get her with the uniqueness and originality of it.

For a brief moment it all lined up in my head: the princess's overzealous interest in the potato chips, her crusade for better food, the unimaginative dishes I had seen in this world, as well as my own place in all this. And so a plan was made - a crude, poorly supported, shot-in-a-dark kind of plan.

It relied upon a single variable - whatever I would come up with had to be new and never before done in this world. Whatever I would make wouldn't be good, it wouldn't be quality food in almost any sense of the word, but it would be unique and unexpected, and in its own way tasty.

The realization that deep-frying was yet to be discovered in this world meant that I lucked out big time. The possibilities were endless, the one thing left to do was making it a reality. That, and hoping that mediocre food with original flavor would be enough to get on her good side.

But while I had a general idea of how to deep fry a chicken, there was still something very important left to do and I didn't have a slightest idea on where to start. Something that I couldn't do myself, not if I wanted for it to be good. And I needed it to be excellent.

"What is it?!" she asked, chopping probably a bit too hard, as the other half of the onion she was cutting flew off the table.

"I think we've started on the wrong foot," after she failed to give any kind of response I continued. "Your name is Athena, isn't it? Clem speaks very highly of you."

"I doubt that," she said, smacking her knife once again.

It wasn't flattery or small talk, though. When I asked Clem who was the best cook of them all, she pointed at Athena without even hesitating. The little maid recognized her as a superior cook, even if she didn't particularly like it.

"I need your help," I went straight to the point.

"Bah!"

"It's not like you're doing anything else."

It was clear she was keen on completely ignoring me, so I had to take certain risks in the way I approached her. Thankfully, she took the bait.

"I'm not doing nothing. I'm making soup, which happens to be her favorite."

"Pumpkin?"

"How very astute of you to notice."

A statement was clearly meant as an insult. There was a cut open pumpkin next to her on the table, not to mention the pumpkin was clearly recognizable in the pot.

"So about you helping me..."

"That's not going to happen."

"Is that because you don't want me to find out how bad your cooking tastes?"

"Listen here, you weird person with an overgrown nose on your face --"

"You really aren't great at insults, are you?"

"Some of us had to work a lot to get where we are right now. I've been giving it my all, my whole life, just to improve, to become a cuisiner worthy to serve the princess!" she stopped, trying to calm herself. But before she did, I thought I noticed something - just a smallest trace of tears at the edge of her eye. "Not everyone gets to just walk in and announce themselves the new cuisiner..."

It felt like one of those moments you see on television. She opens up, just a little bit. We stand there for a while, sharing the silence. Our eyes might meet and something special would happen. We would share that moment together, just with each other. And after the moment was over, we would understand each other a bit better.

But alas, I did not have the time for that right now.

"Very well," I said. "Let's have a cook off, then."