Blahaj crept forward with an expression of demonic hunger, swimming through the air as I struggled to break free. The shark was out for blood–the blood of knowledge–and wanted everything I had. He began to peer into my soul.
“Hmm. Hmm. Surprisingly robust current events knowledge–wait, the Erdogan TikTok account controversy, not even I knew that existed! Most impressive. An excellent knowledge of CS as well – you actually know how to make tables in R studio! But what’s this?”
“Huh?” I replied dumbfounded, not understanding what the shark wanted from me, let alone my current situation.
“The Acronym. THE ACRONYM?!” he bellowed.
“Oh, uh, yeah, second best club on campus after ping pong clu… I mean Quizbowl, your holiness.”
“Do not flatter me with your saccharine worldly alms, o sycophant of sycophants. I know exactly who you are. You are an agent of our great enemy, the press… A SOLDIER OF BABYLON!”
Right now, the only soldier I wanted to be was the PVP warrior I became on the Minecraft server after a hard day’s work. I had never even been to Babylon–just how old did Blahaj think I was? I needed a way out, and quickly, before this situation became nastier. When all hope seemed lost, I remembered one last trick up my sleeve with which I could destroy my enemy from within.
“Well, I’ll join your cult and study up for the tournaments, but there’s one thing I need to know.”
“As long as it’s not my phone password, which certainly isn’t the amount of Carmichael numbers less than 10^16, you should be fine,” Stephen replied.
“Yes, well, anyway, I was wondering what the best category is.”
Blahaj rushed to answer before anyone else could, blurting out, “Well, they’re all great! You should study everything. Case closed. Now, let me continue devouring your soul!”
It was too late. War was on the horizon, and not even Blahaj could stop it.
Stephen went first. “History. History’s clearly the best! What other category lets you learn about stuff like general Zhang Zongchang or the Nottingham Cheese Riots? Not science, that’s for damn sure!”
“Hmm, you claim to like history, and yet you’re majoring in civil engineering so that you can actually make a living and do something meaningful with your life. Curious,” Joshua Mu ‘25 replied. “Whereas you are the cringe and humanities-pilled histoorian, I am the based and science-pilled chemistry chad (see meme inserted).”
A devastating hit to history players’ egos worldwide
“Says the man who went to ILMEA instead of watching Lunar!” Nathaniel interjected. “If you didn’t know fine arts, how could you impress the pompous college professors for your required electives? Why put in all the work for a lab job with 300K yearly pay when you could get the same amount from taping a banana to a wall?”
“NO! OBEY ME!” Blahaj cried, to no avail. The Quizbowlers had broken out of his clutches and the hive mind could no longer be sustained. He fell to the floor, lifeless once again as his subjects continued arguing.
I had broken the spell! “Alright, guys, let’s get back to practice!” I demanded, but the arguing continued. I had ousted a tyrant, and chaos seeped in to fill the void.
At that point, I left. There was no point staying in this club, cult or no cult–either way, the mental pain it brought me wouldn’t be worth getting a “benzene” tossup every other game.
What an astounding conclusion to a riveting story! Now, to Google what the Carmichael numbers less than 10^16 are…