The Genius Perfumer of the Fallen Cult - Chapter 91

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Genius Perfumer of the Fallen Order, Chapter 91

When I knew him in my previous life, he was the only one who could keep up with me when it came to fragrance, so I knew someone like him was rare. Still, I never imagined he could see through my situation in an instant.
Until now, every time Prim brewed a perfume blessed by the gods without a hitch, everyone had simply assumed it was her talent and nothing more.
‘How did he figure it out?’
“How did I figure it out?”
“….”
“My foolish apprentice saw your skilled craftsmanship and took it for the dazzling talent of a pure genius.”
Vittorio recalled the first time he had received Mennellik’s letter. The apprentice had written that her talent seemed “unbelievably unrivaled.”
Because the apprentice couldn’t see the same landscape he could, she couldn’t rigorously tell what her “genius” could and could not accomplish.
But the moment Vittorio read the letter, he knew.
This doesn’t add up.
While rushing straight to Castellanza, he looked into this girl named “Prim” and her background.
He couldn’t uncover this orphan’s origins perfectly, but he did learn that she had roamed the back alleys with a boy, and that, cursed and all, she had eventually made her way to the Temple of Varin’s orphanage.
Before Baron Corvus adopted her from the Temple Orphanage, she had never so much as touched anything resembling fragrance materials.
And yet, in what seemed like a sudden, almost forced leap, she had taken the Perfumer Qualification Exam in less than a year.
Up to this point, one might say it could have been the special inspiration of a born genius.
“But, oh, no genius is ever simply granted ‘skilled hands.'”
Vittorio’s eyes glinted with heat.
“Your talent may let you master things two or three times faster than others, but that doesn’t mean a penniless Temple Orphan can handle mass production skillfully on her very first try!”
Vittorio spoke in a whisper barely above a breath, yet he could not hide his agitation. Delight bloomed in his voice like fireworks at a festival.
“Do you think I was too brilliant when I was creating, that I must have regressed?”
“Regressed? Oh, so that’s how you’d put it! Yes, quite right. Just how did you perform that miracle? No, no, no! I understand now!”
Vittorio said this and clapped his palms together.
“Ha, there’s no need to wonder, it’s obvious! …Varin must have turned back time for you? Empowered by the incense you offered?”
“….”
“Yes, I’ve checked all your fragrances. With that talent, it’s entirely possible, of course!”
“It may not be my talent alone. I—”
“Why? You might think you brought the perfume formulas back from the future, so how can I know it’s really your skill? Shameless fellows who take someone else’s work and pass it off as their own never have much manufacturing skill to speak of. You can’t make blessings begin settling into mass-produced goods right away like that.”
‘And he reads minds too.’
“Has no one ever told you that you can’t hide your expression?”
“….”
“That Bergamot Extraction Method you wrote down as ‘obviously correct’? I devised it only recently. Starting this year, I was going to have the bergamot farm I do business with carry out extraction that way. How on earth could you have known about it? Could some orphan from far-off western Sangbertal, where not a single bergamot grows, have come up with it on her own? Absolutely not! In your future, this very Bergamot Extraction Method of mine must have become the norm!”
Vittorio stomped his foot and threw an uppercut at the empty air, shouting with excitement. He seemed delighted that his deduction had hit the mark.
“Why did you turn back time? Did you have some regret? Was there a fragrance material you couldn’t obtain? If not that, did you kill someone?”
Prim narrowed her eyes and looked up at Vittorio.
‘I wondered whether Vittorio had regressed too, but it doesn’t seem so.’
His self-assured face carried the particular arrogance of one who has crushed every regret and come through unscathed.
The look of someone certain he has never once had cause to turn back time.
In that instant, a surge of anger rose in Prim for some reason, and she clenched her fist tight and punched his forearm with a solid thwack.
Vittorio, struck suddenly by a small girl he had only just met, did nothing but laugh heartily.
“So you really did come back in time, truly!”
“….”
“And it seems we were quite close, you and I. That stings a bit. Well, how could we not have been close?”
That she had thrown a punch out of spite had become yet another proof of her regression. Prim glanced up at the sky once.
Vittorio paid it no mind at all and clapped his two hands together with a crack.
“Right, right, good. You’ll come straight to my Perfumery and start working.”
“I’ll have to decline that.”
“Why? I can give you anything you need. I surely did the same in your previous life. Isn’t that so?”
Prim gazed up at him quietly and nodded.
“That’s right. We got along well enough.”
“I must have wanted to make you my heir, yes? Am I right?”
Prim nodded again. Then she said,
“But back then and now, that’s not something I want.”
“I suppose not. You’re someone who can stand on your own two feet. Still, if you took my hand, you could achieve whatever you desire far more quickly.”
Prim glanced at him once, then fidgeted with the tip of her toes for no particular reason. The soft, tickling feel of her silk lace socks lifted her mood a little.
If you take his hand, things will go his way. Whatever you want, even the rarest and most obscure fragrance materials will be within easy reach, and no business partner will be able to resist you; you’ll be able to grasp anything you desire as easily as dissolving soap in water.
Yet it was just as clear that escaping his shadow would be a long, grinding struggle.
People would call you the newcomer handpicked by Vittorio Alquezia, the one they call the “God’s Perfumer,” and they would whisper, half-suspecting, that his hand had touched every one of your works.
The more beautiful the fragrance she created, the more it won the favor of the gods, the more it sold, the more those whispers would grow.
“So I’m to take your hand and become someone who learned everything from you?”
“Ha! Is that how it’ll go?”
Prim shot a sidelong glance at him, the man who pretended not to know what he knew perfectly well, and shook her head. He flashed a mischievous smile.
“Doesn’t it occur to you that if you don’t join my Perfumery, I might get in your way?”
Prim stared at him flatly.
“Would you really?”
He wouldn’t, and she knew it.
That was why he loved fragrance too much. He couldn’t bear to watch a fragrance that wasn’t beautiful being made into the world.
“So confident. Is it because you’re an experienced one?”
“Shall I tell you your future?”
“No, never mind.”
He tugged his hat down low and shook his head.
“Did I fail, then?”
“…”
“I doubt it.”
Prim frowned. By the time she had met him, at least six years had already passed.
He had been a little more gentlemanly back then than he was now…
“Come see me often while you’re in Castellanza. If your mind changes, just tell me anytime. There will always be a place for you in my Perfumery.”
“Then why don’t you join my Perfumery instead?”
“Oh, you small yet already great Perfumer. Wouldn’t the public say I’ve gone senile? If this master were to join the playhouse-like Perfumery of a ten-year-old, my own reputation would turn to scrap paper, and what use would that be to you?”
“That’s true enough.”
“Don’t tell me you’re not very good at flattery?”
“…”
“Hahaha! Now I see the depth of your talent.”
“Because I’m bad at flattery?”
“Yes. It means that even when you can’t hide what’s in your heart, even when you say whatever you think out loud, even when you’ve done something so regrettable you’d turn back time to undo it, people still accepted you. Talent that dazzling, I suppose.”
“…”
“No matter what nonsense I spout, no matter what I say, people still take me for a cheerful gentleman. Just like that.”
Prim took a step back, her face twisting with distaste.
“If my words offended you, I apologize.”
“Hah! Why would you think that? I understand your heart completely. I have no need for unnecessary flattery. The world knows I’m great, and I know it myself. And so do you, I’d wager.”
“…”
It was arrogance, the notion that only true talent could recognize talent in another, but Prim could not deny it.
“Still, I suspect you’ll soon be needing my help.”
“Me?”
At Prim’s question, he nodded, a smile of amusement playing across his face.
“I’m very curious how you’ll repay this debt. Until next time, then.”
With that, he strode off ahead of everyone. As Mennellik hurried over to him and the two began talking with a flurry of gestures, the gazes of everyone in the room swung toward Prim, who was left standing alone.

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