TPFR 02

Chapter 2

Prim opened her eyes wide at the chill of the marble floor against her back and the back of her head.

“—Hk!”

The breath that had stopped suddenly rushed back into her lungs, and every sensation around her seemed painfully sharp.

The musty smell of dust-filled air inside the old, worn-out temple, the scent of sunlight warmed by the early summer heat, and the fragrance of young greenery sprouting in the distant forest all rushed over her at once.

Yet nowhere could she sense the fragrance she had created at the end of her life.

She could clearly remember every scent of the ingredients she had personally selected, as well as the lingering fragrance they had created when blended together. And yet, at this very moment, she could not smell any of them.

The Inquisitors who had come to arrest her were nowhere to be seen, either.

Only the dry chill of the ancient marble against her back, free of blood and even a single drop of perfume, brought her back to her senses.

Varin had shown her two paths, and she had made her choice.

She had obtained what she wanted.

She did not need to look into a mirror to confirm it. She could feel it clearly.

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

“Ah.”

The sound of her own childish voice felt terribly unfamiliar.

She had never run since the day she took the curse meant for Rosien, but she imagined this must be what it felt like to finally stop after running for a very long time.

As she looked down at her younger body, her heart suddenly began pounding hard and fast, and emotions she had never asked for came crashing over her.

It was as though she had truly become a child again.

She felt inexplicably miserable, exhausted, and worn out.

Every bit of strength had drained from her body, leaving her feeling as though she could not move even an inch.

Prim simply lay back down, almost collapsing.

“I’ll rest for just a little while…”

She had spent years creating and selling fragrances endlessly, chasing wealth and glory in an attempt to escape poverty and deprivation. She had even exploited her friend’s guilt and taken advantage of him for a long time.

Only after losing him had she regretted it.

Now that she had finally returned, she wanted to stop living that way.

She would take things a little more slowly this time…

—Huh? No, no, no! Wake up! We still have thirty million Petals to go! There’s no time to rest when every second counts!

Prim stopped thinking for a moment.

Was she hearing things?

—Oh, how cold-hearted! Have you already forgotten my voice? I even made it possible for you to turn back time!

Prim slowly sat up again.

Now that her body had been reduced to that of a ten-year-old, the low altar was exactly at eye level.

The dried bouquet lying on top of the altar was trembling.

It had been placed there by Marselia, the priest who tended this temple, as an offering to the god. It had probably only been slightly wilted at first, but while she was busy taking care of the children, it had completely dried out.

The bone-dry bouquet trembled with a low humming sound and gave off a faint light.

The completely discolored leaves crumbled into powder.

Prim remembered the voice.

It was difficult to forget the voice of someone she had spoken with until the very moment of her death.

Back then, it had sounded like dozens of bells ringing simultaneously, or like a hundred-stringed instrument being swept by someone’s fingers.

But now…

“…Varin?”

—Yes, it’s me! Me, Varin!

The moment she recognized him, an intense reaction burst forth, and half of the bouquet crumbled away.

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

Prim blinked.

The bouquet trembled again.

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

The words of a god were called an oracle.

At the moment before her death, Prim had thought that was certainly what she had received—a divine revelation filled with radiant scenery, mysterious sounds, and miracles.

But now, there was only one trembling, withered bouquet.

A bouquet trembling atop the crumbling altar of a shadowed temple…

Varin noticed the look in Prim’s eyes as she compared the two and shrieked.

—The power I gained from the fragrance you gave me exists in a future that has already disappeared! You returned to the past according to your choice, so the power you gained in that future disappeared too!

“Ah. So that’s how it works.”

Varin continued shouting at Prim, who remained eerily calm even after returning through time.

—I’m using the scraps of power I had left after sending you back, along with the scent of this bouquet, and squeezing everything I can out of them just to speak to you. So listen carefully. You have to become a Perfuma Aetheria again.

At the word again, Prim answered calmly.

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

Only the greatest perfumers on the continent could bear the name Perfuma Aetheria.

They had to pass three trials, receive the blessings of the Twelve Gods, and earn the recognition of both the Emperor and the Seat of God.

It was a title permitted to only twelve people in the entire Empire.

The trials were held once every ten years.

When Prim was fifteen, circumstances had made it difficult for her to participate. And when the next trial came around at twenty-five, she never had the chance to enter.

She had died before taking the test and returned to the past.

—No! You were already practically a Perfuma Aetheria! You created a fragrance powerful enough to make me use the Forbidden Art of Defying Heaven! If not you, then who could possibly be called the greatest perfumer on the continent? No one else has ever accomplished what you did!

Prim listened to Varin in silence.

Not because she agreed with him, but because she had no desire to argue.

She no longer wanted money or glory.

In her previous life, her fragrances had nourished the gods and called forth their blessings.

Those miracles and blessings sharpened the swords of the knights who fought against magical beasts and made Prim wealthy enough to shine like a star in the heavens.

For all those years, she had hardly ever set foot on the ground herself, wearing nothing but soft, beautiful clothes as delicate as angel feathers.

And now she had been given an unexpected extra life.

She intended to help Rosien enjoy the wealth and glory that should have been his.

But that was all.

As Varin had said, she had created a fragrance powerful enough to make a god use the Forbidden Art of Defying Heaven.

From now on, it no longer mattered what other people thought of her, or whether they acknowledged her or not.

As though reading her thoughts, the bouquet trembled violently.

The few remaining dried petals crumbled away.

—Oh, my little lily of the valley! That’s ridiculous! You have to create a fragrance like the one you offered me!

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

—That fragrance won’t do anymore! It has to be a new fragrance. Something that has never existed before. A scent that even the gods have never smelled even once. If you don’t create such a fragrance and offer it to me before the day you died—

“…?”

—……

“Varin?”

At that moment, every remaining petal trembled and turned to powder, falling to the ground.

Varin’s voice abruptly stopped.

Prim blinked as she stared at the bouquet, now reduced to nothing but brittle stems, then called the god’s name again.

“Varin…?”

A few brittle stems rattled.

Then even the linen string that had held the bouquet together had decayed and fallen apart, leaving the stems scattered across the altar.

A cloud of pale dust rose into the air.

Prim could only blink in confusion.

The god had disappeared in the middle of his sentence.

He had even seemed about to give her some important warning or information, but the completely crumbled bouquet remained silent.

At last, the bouquet gave one desperate little tremble of its dry stems.

Then it stopped.

What happens if I don’t offer him the fragrance before the deadline?

If she wanted to continue the conversation, if she wanted to hear this oracle again, how could she do it?

“I’m using the scraps of power I had left after sending you back, along with the scent of this bouquet, and squeezing everything I can out of them just to speak to you.”

Varin had said that.

If the bouquet had possessed a well-balanced and harmonious fragrance, would Varin have been able to speak to her for longer?

Prim turned her head and looked outside the old temple.

Early summer sunlight poured through the half-open door.

Prim looked down at her legs.

More precisely, at her feet.

She raised her head again and looked outside.

The warm air of early summer was waiting for her.

Prim suddenly muttered,

“Life is still a thorny road.”

Her life had become a thorny road when she was even younger than this.

Prim and Rosien were two orphans completely cut off from the rest of the world.

They had met on the streets.

Rosien had been like a stray dog, hiding his blood-red hair—which was the same color as the fur of magical beasts—beneath a tattered rag.

Prim herself had probably looked like a scrawny, mangy animal as well.

Neither of them had enough strength even to bare their teeth at one another, so they leaned against each other as though using each other in place of a coat.

Their parents had abandoned them.

Any food they barely managed to scavenge disappeared the moment they put it into their mouths, and the money they stole through pickpocketing was taken from them again by someone else.

But neither of them disappeared.

Neither could be taken away from the other.

So, if it meant protecting each other, if it meant protecting the one and only family they had never imagined they would ever have, they could do anything.

Even something like shoving Rosien away when they were caught up in a back-alley dispute and, while fleeing, were about to be struck by an unknown curse.