TGPFC 02

The Genius Perfumer of the Fallen Cult – Chapter 2

Prim’s eyes flew open as she felt the cold marble floor against her back and the back of her head.

“—Huh!”

Her breath, which had stopped, suddenly rushed back in, and everything abruptly felt sharp and painfully vivid.

The acrid scent of dust in the old, worn temple air.
The faint smell of early summer sunlight, slightly warmed.
The fragrance of tender new leaves carried by the wind from the distant forest.

All of it rushed in at once.

Yet nowhere among them could she smell the fragrance she had last created.

Every single scent of the ingredients she had carefully chosen—
and even the lingering note they blended into—was still clear in her memory.

But right now, she couldn’t smell any of it.

The inquisitors who had come to escort her away were nowhere to be seen.

Only the dry chill of the aged marble beneath her back—
the absence of blood, the absence of even a drop of perfume—awakened her to reality.

Varin had shown her two paths.

And she had chosen.

She had achieved what she wanted.

Even without looking into a mirror, she could clearly feel it.

She had returned to when she was barely ten years old.

“Ah.”

The youthful sound of her own voice felt strangely unfamiliar.

Since being cursed in Rozien’s place, she had never run again.

But she imagined this must be what it felt like to finally stop after running for a very long time.

When she looked down at her younger body, her heart suddenly began pounding violently.

A wave of emotions she had never wanted surged up.

As if she had truly become a child again—

She felt unbearably sad, exhausted, and worn down for reasons she couldn’t explain.

It felt as though all the strength had drained from her body.

Prim collapsed back down.

“I’ll just rest a little…”

She had spent her life chasing wealth and glory to escape poverty and deprivation.

She had endlessly created perfumes to sell.

She had even exploited Rozien’s guilt for years.

Only after losing him did she regret it.

Now she had finally returned.

So now she would stop all that.

She would live a little more slowly—

—Hey! No, no, no! Pull yourself together! You still have thirty million petals’ worth of road ahead! There’s no time to rest!

Prim paused.

Was that… a hallucination?

—Oh, how heartless. Have you already forgotten my voice? After I even turned back time for you!

Prim slowly sat up.

Now that her body was around ten years old, the low altar was exactly at her eye level.

A dried bouquet placed upon the altar was trembling.

It had been offered to the god by Priestess Marceria, who maintained the temple.

Originally it had probably only been slightly wilted.

But while she was busy caring for children, it had completely dried out.

The brittle bouquet trembled and emitted a faint glow.

The discolored leaves crumbled into powder.

Prim recalled the voice.

It was hard to forget someone you had spoken to right before dying.

But back then, the voice had sounded like dozens of bells ringing together—

like someone sweeping across the strings of a hundred-stringed instrument.

Now…

“…Varin?”

—Yes, it’s me! Me, Varin!

The moment she recognized him, the bouquet shook violently and half of it crumbled apart.

Varin’s voice now sounded like an impatient sparrow chirping.

Prim blinked.

The bouquet trembled again.

—Haha, you must’ve been surprised! Anyway, you don’t have time to rest here!

Words from a god were called an oracle.

Right before dying, she had definitely believed it was one.

A divine revelation filled with radiance, sound, and miracles.

But now—

there was only a trembling, worn-out bouquet.

A dried bouquet shaking on the altar of a crumbling temple.

Noticing the look in Prim’s eyes as she compared the two, Varin shrieked.

—The power you gained from the fragrance you offered me exists in the future that no longer exists! You chose to return to the past, so the power you gained back then disappeared too!

“Ah, I see.”

Seeing how disturbingly calm Prim was even after time reversal, Varin shouted rapidly.

—I’m squeezing out the leftover power from sending you back and the scent from this bouquet just to speak to you, so listen carefully. You must become a Parfuma Aetheria again.

Prim calmly replied to the word “again.”

“Varin, I wasn’t a Parfuma Aetheria before either.”

To bear that title, one had to pass three trials and receive the blessings of the Twelve Gods.

Only the greatest perfumers recognized by both the Emperor and the Pontifex could be called Parfuma Aetheria.

Only twelve in the entire empire held that name.

The exam was held once every ten years.

When she was fifteen, circumstances were too tight to participate.

When she was twenty-five, she couldn’t participate—

because she died before the exam and returned to the past.

—No! You were already practically a Parfuma Aetheria! You created a fragrance so powerful that it forced me to use the forbidden art of defying heaven! If not you, who could possibly be called the greatest perfumer on the continent? You achieved what no one else ever has!

Prim listened quietly.

Not because she agreed.

But because she had no energy to argue.

She no longer desired wealth or glory.

Her fragrances had once nourished the gods and drawn down their blessings.

Those miracles sharpened the swords of knights who fought monsters.

They made her wealthy like a star in the sky.

She had worn only soft and beautiful clothes like angel feathers, never touching the ground herself.

And then—

she was suddenly given an extra life she never expected.

She intended to help Rozien obtain the wealth and honor he deserved.

But that was all.

Just as Varin said, she had created a fragrance powerful enough to force a god to reverse fate.

So whether others acknowledged her or not—

she no longer cared.

The bouquet trembled violently, as if it had read her thoughts.

The remaining dried petals crumbled away.

—Oh, my little lily of the valley! That’s nonsense! You must create a fragrance like the one you offered me again!

“I remember the perfume formula, so I can just—”

—That fragrance won’t work anymore! It must be a new scent! A fragrance that has never existed before! A scent that even the gods have never smelled even once! Before the day you died arrives again, you must create such a fragrance and offer it to me, or else—

“…?”

—……

“Varin?”

At that moment, all the petals crumbled into powder and fell.

Varin’s voice suddenly cut off.

Prim blinked and stared at the bouquet, now nothing but stiff stems.

“Varin…?”

The brittle stems clattered.

Even the linen string binding the bouquet had rotted through and fell apart.

The stems collapsed.

Dust rose into the air.

Prim blinked in confusion.

The god had disappeared mid-sentence.

And it seemed like he had been about to give a very important warning.

The ruined bouquet remained silent.

The dry stems trembled one last desperate time—

then stopped.

If I don’t offer the fragrance before the deadline… what happens?

How could she hear the oracle again?

How could she continue the conversation?

Varin had said:

“I’m squeezing out the leftover power from sending you back and the scent of this bouquet to speak.”

If the bouquet had been balanced with harmonious fragrances…

would Varin have been able to speak longer?

Prim turned her head toward the outside of the old temple.

Early summer sunlight streamed through the half-open door.

She looked down at her legs.

More precisely—her feet.

Then she looked outside again.

The warm early-summer air was waiting for her.

Prim muttered quietly.

“Still a life full of thorns.”

Her life had become a “thorny path” long before this.

Prim and Rozien—

two orphans isolated from the world—

met on the streets.

Rozien looked like a stray dog, his blood-red hair—like the fur of monsters—wrapped in a torn rag.

She herself probably looked just as miserable.

They were too exhausted even to bare their fangs at each other.

So they leaned on one another as if using the other as a coat.

Their parents had abandoned them.

Food they barely managed to pick up disappeared the moment it reached their mouths.

Money they stole through pickpocketing was quickly stolen again by others.

But they themselves—

never disappeared.

And no one could take them away.

So to protect each other—

for the only family they had ever known—

they could do anything.

Even something like—

pushing Rozien away at the moment a mysterious curse was about to fall upon them while fleeing a back-alley conflict.