Though it seemed like we were about to set off, Mr. Cat Ears put a damper on the atmosphere.
“Are you really going to go, meow?”
“We’ll be fine,” I said.
“It’s not good to be in the sunlight. The king doesn’t pay it any mind and walks around, but he’s special. You shouldn’t do it.” The fact that his speech quirk was gone meant that he was probably sincerely worried.
I definitely need to go, though. I silently shook my head, and the older man sighed and seemed to give up. He then set the calico down to the side and handed me a small glass bottle of something.
“At least take this with you.”
“Is that...perfume?” I probably knew it was perfume right away because of Eleanora. I couldn’t contain my curiosity, and I immediately did a single spray on my wrist and smelled it. What could my gift from the cat-eared man be...? “Is it the smell of crime...?”
That was the kind of scent where you couldn’t tell what the offense was. Because it wasn’t a clear breaking of the law, an officer would probably have a hard time trying to come up with a charge for his cat ears. Anyway, there was no such fragrance, and I couldn’t really place the scent. It felt like flowers enveloped by a spicy aroma.
“It’s the smell of here. It’s based on the Kingdom of Twilight.”
“It’s ‘based on’...?” The way he’d phrased that made it sound like he’d made the perfume himself, so I’d repeated what he said as a question.
He nodded. “Yes, I made it. I’ve been making things like that since back when I was alive. I passed out from exhaustion after overworking, and I retired. After that, I dabbled in fragrances.”
So Mr. Cat Ears made perfumes as a hobby during retirement... I’ve heard of another person who got into perfumery after retiring, but is it a popular hobby for seniors, like hiking and making noodles from scratch?
I took another whiff of the fragrance, but I still couldn’t tell what it smelled like. He said it’s based on the Kingdom of Twilight, but I don’t think this desert has a smell... I looked at the hero as if to ask if my nose wasn’t working, but he just gave me a troubled laugh. This was apparently a part of the cat-eared man’s sensibilities.
“It’s a barren wasteland in a perpetual sunset, but the people live peacefully, doing as they please,” he continued, his speech quirk still gone. “I got the idea for the scent of a gentle afterlife.”
“Are you perhaps Quartus...?” I didn’t think it was actually possible, but a certain person’s name left my mouth.
The unfortunate perfumer, Quartus, had started making perfume after he’d retired. He was inspired by scenery and culture and created fragrances using his unique sensibilities... It matched up too closely, but there was no way that the man Eleanora respected looked so ridiculous.
“How do you know my name?”
“You’re really Quartus?! The Quartus?!”
“I’m not sure what you’re mistaken about, but I’m not too special of a person. Ever since I was young, I followed my father’s words and studied, and I worked as a bureaucrat just as he did. I died without ever getting married. I wanted to freely travel the world like my younger brother did, but I had no strength to do so once I retired. I’m just a man who died regretting not having given myself more freedom and not having rested more.”
Hearing how he lived a life that would make anyone want to become a cat, I was even more certain he was definitely Quartus. I was a bit familiar with the details of his life postretirement.
“You began making perfume after you retired when you passed out from exhaustion, right?”
“I’d always admired perfumers. But it was just the hobby of an old hermit, so no one took me seriously.”
“Your work gained notoriety after your death. Your perfumes are a huge hit!”
The reason he was known as the unfortunate perfumer was because he’d passed before he could see his work praised. The late bloomer Quartus didn’t get to be there when his work saw the light of day. Currently, it was so renowned that Eleanora, who was quite the fragrance lover, raved about his scents. I’d heard about them countless times.
“That’s impossible. The perfumes I made were...”
I had no interest in perfume whatsoever, but I couldn’t help but remember some things after hearing the same story hundreds—no, thousands of times. I knew what he was going to say.
“...fake fragrances,” we both said in unison. The man was shocked by how I’d matched him perfectly, so I continued in his stead.
“The reason your fragrances were called fake was because they were based on places and things that you didn’t know. You made scents based on unfamiliar scenery, culture, and flowers that your brother wrote about in his travelogues as he wandered the world.”
There were scents based on a deep, dark forest crowded with giant trees, a kingdom filled with cheery music lovers, a rare flower that only grew in certain regions. The scents based on things no one knew weren’t immediately accepted, but they’d only gained popularity after the perfumer had passed by fueling people’s imaginations with a peek into an unknown world.
Though he hadn’t believed me, now that I’d said the motivations behind his work, he was flustered. “B-But...I was someone who’d only left my town a handful of times. The scents I imagined based on mere text were definitely off the mark...”
“That’s right. They smelled nothing like the real thing. That one rare flower is locally notorious for smelling terrible.”