TGPFC 12

Chapter: 12

The Baroness Corvas held back the urge to say, “No matter what ingredients you have, you won’t be able to do it with your skills, will you?”

She had already invested too much into this endeavor—her marriage to him, the money poured into the perfumery, the countless hours wasted, the pretense of being a noblewoman while wandering the orphanages, and the endless labor buried in the ground. Quitting now was not an option.

The baroness imagined the extravagant life in the system, and before that, the lines she would speak to seduce the Castellanza landholder, Teresia Convalis:

“Oh, Your Excellency, I heard your youngest has been lost, and your grief is still heavy. If you only smell this fragrance…”

She stopped herself from imagining further.

The fragrance that would appear in that scenario was still far from complete.

Had all of his perfumery experiments failed, she could have given up—but there were sporadic successes, however small, which made abandoning the pursuit difficult.

“Let’s face it: Lethémore seems hopeless. Shouldn’t we try Tamdrion instead?”

Until now, they had offered fragrances to the altars of Lethémore and the Dream, seeking blessings—but they were repeatedly rejected.

Though they occasionally received faint blessings, it was never enough to truly soothe a person’s heart or provide meaningful power.

“Do you think Tamdrion would accept a fragrance Lethémore rejects?”

Baron Corvas exploded in anger. At that moment, a chilling cawing of crows echoed from afar.

The Baroness Corvas likewise scowled in irritation.

“You don’t know unless you try, do you? How many years has it been already?!”

“And now you want to travel all the way to the Tamdrion temple? When would we even have the time to go there and back?”

Fragrances could only be offered at temple altars. Nearby, there were only Lethémore’s or Barin’s temples. While there was a temple in the Sanbertal lordship for Curesen, they could not go there.

The Baroness narrowed her eyes and snapped.

“We have to try something! Even that foolish Sanbertal lord has begun moving. And those cursed crows are running amok! At this rate, we might end up leaving empty-handed, no matter what happens to the fragrance!”

Humans offer fragrances to the gods, and the gods bestow blessings on the fragrances they like and their creators.

But perfumes that fail to satisfy the gods are cast aside in disdain—and over time, accumulated resentment can transform into even more powerful beasts in the darkness.

This is precisely why the perfumer’s qualification exam exists: to regulate who may create and offer fragrances, preventing anyone from acting recklessly.

Beasts can sprout anywhere like aphids on roses, harming humans, livestock, and crops. But the massive surge in Belclen was said to be the direct result of Baron Corvas’ failed perfumery.

And somewhere, beasts were appearing so quickly that half of the wheat harvest was destroyed and people were getting hurt. Even the poor Sanbertal lord could no longer tolerate it.

Rumor had it that he was selling his bedroom silk curtains, squeezing every coin he had, to hire knights to exterminate the beasts.

While this news delighted the commoners, it was far from pleasant for the Corvas couple.

If they went to the Curesen temple now and were confronted by the lord… if he even became suspicious?

If the knights come and start digging for the cause…

The thought of what might be discovered buried beneath their estate sent chills down their spines.

“The problem is the lack of pure dew. With just that, I think I can finally complete it. Even Lethémore would surely grant a special blessing for this fragrance!”

The baron glared at the walls stacked with ingredients.

“Pure dew” referred to the tears of innocent children.

The baron had long sought the most special ingredients for perfumery. The reason he could not become a Perfuma Aeteria himself was that, being born into a humble family, he could not access rare ingredients.

Finally, he had realized: the blood and tears of the innocent must be the most precious ingredients!

With these pure dews in the fragrance, the gods would undoubtedly be impressed!

The baroness scratched her temple irritably with her fan.

“So we start today? It’s been about a week since we brought the children from the orphanage.”

“Yes, let’s begin.”

The baron claimed that the greater the fluctuations of joy and sorrow, the more precious the dew produced.

For a week, the couple had doted on the children unnaturally, and now that it was over, both looked pleased.

The baroness suddenly remembered something.

“Prim must not be touched.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot? I’ll take her to Vitrelia, of course.”

Prim’s plan was as follows:

1. Do not refuse the Corvas couple’s adoption offer—get adopted.
2. Determine the location of the perfumery.
3. Then, create a fragrance to offer to Yulveron via Barin.
4. Offer the fragrance and wait until the Inquisitors and knights arrive.
5. They will be executed, and she will inherit their wealth—end of story!

Her only concern in this plan was how to endure the time between offering the fragrance and the arrival of the inquisitors.

But that worry was quickly pushed aside.

Prim’s greatest concern at the moment was how to withstand the overwhelming fragrance the Corvas baron was creating.

In her previous life, when she first heard about this incident, she had not pondered their failure deeply.

No matter how powerful a god’s power was, gods could only understand the intentions and prayers humans sent them—they could not read every human heart.

Naturally, no blessing from the gods could arbitrarily manipulate human hearts.

She had thought this was merely the incident of a delusional, mad, murderous perfumer attempting something futile and failing.

But now she understood. Even if such blessings existed, they would never be permitted to the Corvas couple!

What on earth were they trying to accomplish with this skill?

Determining the perfumery’s location in the estate was not difficult. She only had to follow the chaotic scent of the mixed ingredients.

Prim knew they had been doing this for several years.

One year would have been enough to fully reveal their talents, yet they continued this madness, still clinging to hope in perfumery?

They don’t even realize it’s impossible, do they?

How could anyone be so oblivious to their own abilities?

Prim recalled aspirants who had shown their fragrances to her, received harsh evaluations, and cried.

Compared to the Corvas baron’s perfumery skills, those aspirants would already be more than capable perfumers.

This was no longer fragrance—it was a stench, and Baron Corvas owed an apology to the ingredients themselves. How could he have passed the perfumer’s qualification exam?

But she dismissed that thought quickly.

The moment Prim saw the Corvas couple descending to the dining room, she knew what decision they had made—and why they had done what they did.

They must have thought special ingredients would make a difference.

Now, everything made sense.

Foolish and wicked people, when they fail to achieve as much as others or as much as they desire, do not blame themselves—they blame external factors.

They think others suppressed and obstructed them, that the accomplished succeeded only through special connections and luck, and that they themselves merely lacked rare ingredients…

Prim had never seen such people possess genuine skill. Baron Corvas was one of them.

Unable to accept that repeated failures were due to their own lack of ability, they treated special ingredients as a universal key and searched relentlessly.

And now, after repeated failures over the past week, he had resolved to harvest more of these “special ingredients.”

“Bianna! What’s with that face of yours?!”

The moment the couple arrived in the dining room, they shouted at Bianna.

Sitting opposite Prim, Bianna had been preparing to smile broadly when she saw the couple coming down—but her eyes widened in shock instead.

“Yes, y-yes?”

She hurriedly grabbed her sleeve.

After a week of kindness from the couple, their sudden scowls and anger left her completely at a loss.