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Chapter 3
After that day, Prim was cursed so that thorns would grow wherever her feet touched the ground.
No matter what she stepped on, thorns would sprout from it and pierce her feet, leaving wounds behind. Because of this, Prim could not even wear shoes.
At midnight, the wounds would heal completely as if they had never existed.
But because of that, she never developed even a single callus.
Every time, those thorns pierced her soft, newly healed skin and brought the same painful suffering.
And because Prim had taken the curse meant for Rozien, Rozien carried her everywhere.
In her previous life, he continued carrying her until the very end of his life.
“Ugh!”
Prim stood up and groaned from the pain of the thorns growing beneath her feet.
Even so, she closed her eyes and focused on her sense of smell.
A gentle breeze blew past her.
First came the smell of dust and the scent of very old marble.
Then, from somewhere farther away, she detected several other fragrances.
Pale purple heather warmed by sunlight.
The bitter yet sweet scent of small wild rosebuds.
The faint, low musk of pink musk mallow flowers.
The earthy smell of thistles.
And, growing cool and clean in the shade, the scent of lily of the valley.
Prim opened her eyes again and went in search of the flowers she had smelled.
Among the scattered bushes of heather, she found the stem with the sweetest scent and broke it off.
Breaking the wild rose branch with her bare hands was extremely painful, but she had no time to look for scissors.
Going back and forth would be even more exhausting.
Prim looked down at the garden path, where small red footprints from her bleeding feet were scattered everywhere, and squeezed her eyes shut.
She removed the largest thorns before breaking the branches, but the smaller ones still pricked her hands.
Even so, Prim silently looked around.
After gathering several stems of musk mallow and some thistles as well, she had something that looked quite like a proper bouquet.
Finally, Prim stopped in front of a cluster of lily of the valley growing beneath a large tree.
She hesitated for a moment.
After all, these were one of the main ingredients she had used in the perfume she created to die.
How much of it had she used for Varin to call her “little Lily of the Valley”?
The thought made her heart tremble slightly.
“Still, I have to do it.”
She could not leave the fragrance unfinished simply because it brought back painful memories.
Prim firmly broke off some lily of the valley.
The lily of the valley that grew only in this region was called Sanvertal Lily of the Valley, after the name of the territory.
This particular species produced an especially clear and refreshing floral scent.
However, when turned into perfume, its concentrated poison was much stronger than that of ordinary lily of the valley, making it impossible to use.
The perfume Prim had made using the lily of the valley from this region in her previous life had been the first and last time she had ever used it.
Prim examined the flowers carefully before adding them to the bouquet in her hand.
In appearance, this bouquet could not compare to the one Marceria had offered to the god and left there until it completely dried out.
But in terms of fragrance, it was different.
The sweet floral scent of wildflowers that had grown slightly thirsty blended with the soft, warm smell of musk mallow.
The clear and transparent scent of lily of the valley reminded her of early-summer morning dew.
It was as if the clear ringing of a glass bell had suddenly filled the air.
For a moment, she felt as though she had been transported to a beautiful summer villa.
“Hmm.”
But it was slightly different from the fragrance she had originally imagined.
Perhaps it was because the bitter scent from the broken stems had mixed with the fresh, watery smell that only living flowers possessed, rather than refined fragrance materials.
On top of that, the musk mallow flowers did not smell the way she had expected.
Prim thought for a moment before searching around the musk mallow.
She found its seeds, which looked like tiny black snail shells.
When she crushed them with a stone, a somewhat rough but sufficiently warm musky scent rose into the air.
She brushed the crushed seeds together with her hand.
Then she plucked a few thyme leaves growing randomly nearby and scattered them over the bouquet.
The naturally strong and lively scent of thyme spread faintly across the bouquet.
It danced through the other scents, cheerfully expressing the refreshing heat of early summer.
A faint smile appeared on Prim’s lips as she smelled the fragrance.
It had been a very long time since she had created a fragrance using nothing but raw, living materials.
For a moment, she could almost forget the sharp pain coming from her feet.
This should be enough for Varin to speak again, right?
Flowers and trees consumed water and sunlight.
Animals ate grass and other animals.
Magical beasts ate animals and humans.
And humans ate grain and bread.
So what did gods eat?
They ate fragrance.
The gods used well-made fragrances as their food and gained powerful energy from them.
With that power, they could perform miracles and deliver divine revelations.
When people witnessed the power of a god, more believers began to worship and follow that god.
Those believers offered more faith and more fragrance.
The god consumed those fragrances and became even stronger.
The opposite was also true.
If there were no believers to worship and follow a god, there would be no fragrance offered to them.
Their usable power would grow weaker, which would cause even more believers to disappear.
It became a vicious cycle.
That was exactly what had happened to Varin.
As the years passed, people slowly forgot about him.
The fragrance offered to him decreased.
His power as a god became extremely weak.
Eventually, the only people who still believed in and followed him were the inhabitants of a tiny temple and orphanage in this completely ruined territory.
Prim cleaned up the altar and placed the freshly made bouquet on top of it.
It had been a very long time since she had worked with living plants instead of refined fragrance materials and essential oils.
It felt somewhat unfamiliar.
She even felt a little embarrassed.
Prim glanced around for no particular reason.
Then she clasped her hands, closed her eyes, and called out the god’s name.
“Um, Varin?”
“…”
Prim cautiously opened one eye.
The bouquet remained silent.
“Is this not enough?”
As Prim muttered this and reached out to remove the bouquet, rain suddenly began falling from the clear sky.
At the same time, a soft light burst out around the bouquet.
Then Varin’s panicked voice echoed through the temple.
“What are you doing? You just called my name without even saying a single prayer!”
“Oh, Varin. You were here.”
Prim calmly continued,
“So, how would things end up if I don’t become a Perfuma Etheria and offer you a fragrance?”
There was a brief silence.
Then Varin spoke.
“…What about the prayer?”
Prayer? What prayer?
Prim’s eyes widened.
“Is there a special prayer for Varin?”
“Of course there is! I have one too! Naturally! I’m a god, you know!”
Prim rolled her eyes slightly.
Suddenly, thunder rumbled.
Rain began falling through the holes in the temple’s ceiling, soaking the inside.
Prim moved slowly on her knees toward a dry area where the rain could not reach her.
She thought about it.
If even a god worshipped in a temple like this has a prayer, where could I find it?
Perhaps she could ask Priestess Marceria.
But…
“I’ll look for it. Later. I can’t do it right now.”
“…”
The bouquet trembled.
Seeing its reaction, Prim cleared her throat.
She had always been very direct and tended to get straight to the point.
Perhaps that had been one of the things that ultimately caused problems for her in her previous life.
This time, Prim decided to explain why it was impossible and ask about Varin’s well-being before getting to the matter at hand.
“I can’t look for a book right now. I’ll ask the priestess later.”
Then she added,
“But Varin, how is the fragrance? Do you like it?”
“…It’s a wonderful… fragrance.”
Varin was actually annoyed with her.
Even so, he answered honestly.
The bouquet contained the atmosphere of a summer vacation villa in a southern country.
It felt like pleasant fragments of early summer shimmering beneath the sunlight.
It was a warm and cheerful fragrance, like someone dancing a waltz while splashing through water before becoming pleasantly tanned under the sun.
Varin wandered through the fragrance and thought:
This is why Yulberon hurriedly sent the Inquisitors in her previous life.
Those Inquisitors had rushed there to “take Prim into custody.”
Not because they intended to execute her for her crimes.
But because Yulberon knew that Prim intended to kill herself.
And he could never allow her to die.
How could they give up on a perfumer who could create such a fragrance from nothing more than wildflowers scattered across a field?
She had not used expensive fragrance materials.
She had not used rare flowers and plants carefully cultivated for their fragrance.
She had simply gathered wildflowers growing freely in the fields.
And yet she had created a fragrance powerful enough to reconnect a god’s broken voice and allow that voice to manifest in the mortal world.
How could the gods possibly abandon a perfumer like that?
“…I think I can give you divine revelations for about three days.”
“I see. That’s good.”
Prim nodded.
“There are hardly any proper fragrance materials here. That’s why I was asking about what you said earlier.”
She looked at the bouquet.
“What will happen if I don’t offer you a fragrance?”
“…The god just praised your fragrance, and that’s all you have to say?”
Prim immediately answered,
“I’m very happy. I really am.”
