The Genius Perfumer of the Fallen Cult - Chapter 64

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Genius Perfumer of the Fallen Religious Order Episode 64

“Is that child of Varin’s answer sheet really… really that strange?”

People quietly exchanged glances.

‘Should we have said a ten-year-old wasn’t allowed after all?’

‘But didn’t you see that Marseria Priest’s expression? If we had said no, one of us wouldn’t be sitting here right now! We’d be hanging from the castle walls by now!’

‘Ahem, even if the answers are quite strange, we could just let it slide and fail them…’

While the priest and other perfumers communicated through glances, Mennellik continued endlessly reading through the answer sheet. His pupils trembled.

“Lord Mennellik?”

“Come on, don’t just look at it alone, you should say something, ugh.”

Someone grumbled quietly before getting elbowed in the ribs and shutting their mouth, but even during this, Mennellik only stared at Prim’s answer sheet.

Finally, Mennellik set the answer sheet down before them. With a deep sigh, he held his head in his hands.

“There are this many types of magical beasts that can scratch agarwood to produce resin? We can’t even verify all of this… No, more than that, that bergamot extraction method is…”

Mennellik snatched back Prim’s answer sheet that the other examiners had tried to check and quickly skimmed through it. The examiners looked at him with bewildered expressions.

The answers were written as if they were a divine answer key bestowed by god for perfumers.

More precisely, a divine answer key from some future day.

All the problems across this vast field had answers written for them. But scattered throughout, different methods and different interpretations from the current ones were written as if they were obvious, without a shred of doubt.

To say they made things up because they didn’t know well, the answers to other problems were perfect, as if they had memorized and written out entire perfumery textbooks.

Prim’s answer sheet, which Mennellik slowly set down again, circulated among the graders.

While everyone was surprised and shocked by Prim’s answer sheet that had not a single blank space, someone frowned and said,

“Wait, but the answers… aren’t there strange answers mixed in? Could there really be this many types of magical beasts that produce agarwood resin? Then this would be wrong…”

“What if they’re not strange answers?”

“Pardon?”

“They wrote all correct answers to problems across all these fields, but just three or four problems have such detailed and strange answers – doesn’t that seem unlikely?”

The surroundings fell quiet.

“So you’re saying this child alone figured out unknown territories we haven’t discovered yet and wrote the correct answers?”

“Haha, that can’t be possible, can it?”

Laughter echoed through the room.

Mennellik looked at them with a pitying expression.

Geniuses – their thinking operates on a different dimension from ordinary people. This was what he had felt watching his master Vittorio Alquezia right beside him.

They view the essence of matter from angles different from ordinary people. When others say something is impossible, they simply accomplish it.

“What if we simply didn’t know and it’s really true? If everything written here is later proven to be fact, would you tell this child then that we’ll correct their qualification exam score?”

The authority of the priests overseeing the perfumer qualification exam would plummet to the ground that very day.

“But then how would this child know something we don’t even know!”

Saying the perfumer qualification exam organizers don’t know something is tantamount to saying no one in the world knows it. So their words weren’t wrong either.

Within their logic.

Mennellik now understood his master’s feelings a little. Looking at him pitifully as he struggled, wondering ‘You can’t do it unless you go that far?’…

“At least we should test the changes according to this bergamot extraction method. Even if we can’t immediately find information about the agarwood resin.”

“Ha, if this is true, His Imperial Majesty would be very pleased.”

Someone muttered. The current Emperor was the Elector Prince of Sollevante Territory, Juba Tarik Di Oro.

And southern Sollevante Territory is famous as a bergamot production area. If bergamot extraction methods were expanded, he would naturally be so happy he’d dance.

However, Mennellik couldn’t even picture the Emperor’s chocolate-dark face. That wasn’t what was important right now.

* * *

Prim tilted her head. She had heard news that the announcement of successful candidates for the second exam would be delayed by a week longer than scheduled.

“No one knows the reason?”

As she put one of today’s required violet candies in her mouth and chewed, Rozien shrugged his shoulders while organizing chess pieces.

“They said there’s something they need to verify?”

“What?”

“I’m not sure.”

She thought there was no way anyone would fail such an exam, so everyone would pass and they’d proceed to the second exam, but was there really something to verify from those test papers?

Bianna said while shaking out towels,

“Prim, didn’t you write answers that only you know or something?”

Fox Bell hopped around between the spread towels. Bianna infinitely repeated lifting and moving Bell each time she folded a towel.

“I didn’t… Oh, maybe?”

Some extraction methods had certainly been improved over time. However, she couldn’t remember exactly how many years ago the methods were improved, and she hadn’t thought to consider that.

“But then they would have just said it was wrong, right?”

“…”

Bianna looked at Rozien.

Anyone can do it, ordinary perfumers all know it.

Rozien avoided her gaze. Our child seems to be a genius, but what can I do about that?

* * *

When time passed, she received notification of passing, and the second practical exam began, Prim realized that her concern about how they would accommodate so many test takers had been an unnecessary worry.

It seemed less than half the people remained.

‘There were people who failed that written exam? How is that possible?’

Prim thought in shock. The world was still full of amazing things she didn’t know well.

“This is a perfume completed this morning. Only those who correctly identify all the fragrance materials inside can proceed to the next stage. Everyone check the fragrance, return to your seats, and write down the fragrance materials used in making this perfume.”

Everyone seemed nervous as they swallowed dry saliva and stood up. The examiner who finished speaking approached Prim directly to let her smell the fragrance.

Prim’s eyes sparkled as she smelled the fragrance.

‘It’s a good fragrance.’

They probably deliberately didn’t age it and completed it this morning for the exam.

Perfumes that have gone through an aging period and stabilized become harder to distinguish individual fragrance materials as they bind together.

Of course, Prim thought such consideration was unnecessary since a proper perfumer should be able to distinguish fragrance materials in any state of fragrance, but considering this wasn’t an exam to select the best among perfumers but simply to select perfumers, it seemed like a reasonable measure.

Prim began writing down the names of fragrance materials that passed through her sense of smell.

First was high-quality bergamot that seemed to have been extracted just a few days ago. It had somewhat sharp edges, but she would consider using this bergamot herself. It was very good compared to what was at the villa in Sangbertal.

There was a little grapefruit, then pink pepper. The spicy yet grassy scent mixed with rose nuances rising up. Prim thought this would be good to use with Ferum Rosa too.

Next came a leather scent. Of course, it wasn’t fragrance squeezed from real leather, but a fragrance combination that created the feeling of leather. After writing down the detailed breakdown of that accord, Prim smiled slightly.

For this wonderful leather scent, the perfumer had cast a small magic. A tiny bit of birch tar, and the deep scent supporting all these fragrances. It was cacao with tonka bean and ambergris.

‘The ambergris isn’t that excellent.’

Since it’s quite an expensive fragrance material in itself, it’s not easy to obtain even better quality. Prim felt slightly disappointed but silently wrote ‘ambergris’ and put a period.

The perfume’s intention was too clear. A stranger with explosive charm encountered at the end of a long journey, having ridden on horseback from an unknown place.

Having written up to that point, Prim set down her pen. The birch tar was quite interesting, so Prim developed a small fondness for this perfumer.

‘But surely I won’t have to keep waiting for this too, right?’

This was even a problem designed so that the correct answer would come out just by smelling the fragrance.

Moreover, since human olfaction becomes fatigued very quickly, smelling a fragrance multiple times for a long time doesn’t help you learn answers you didn’t know.

Fortunately, the exam organizers seemed to have the same thought, as when ten minutes passed, the examiner rang the bell indicating time was up.

Screams of despair leaked out from various places. After collecting test papers from the back, they immediately began announcing passes and failures. Again, about half received failure notifications.

And someone among them protested.

“This isn’t the correct answer? I can’t believe it!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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