After much deliberation, Eleanora chose a specialty perfume store.
I was led to the front of the store as if being pushed. The entrance to the perfume store was open from the inside, and I was about to put my hand on the door, ready to enter.
“Welcome, please come…in?”
These stores have human-powered automatic doors. When the staff inside notice visitors, they open the door and welcome them. Depending on the location, a person who will open the door for you may be standing outside.
It’s a system where the staff is in charge, guides you to the item you want, and even gives you a detailed explanation of what you want, then checks you out and escorts you away. That’s why I’m not good at it. My ideal is to go in independently, browse freely, carry my items, and pay at the self-checkout counter. I don’t want to go to a place with a staff who constantly makes small talk.
Besides being uncomfortable with the store system itself, another problem arises when it comes to Yumiela Dolknes. They think, “Oh my God, Yumiela is here. I don’t know what kind of terrible things she’s going to do,” and they tremble with fear.
The girl who opened the door to us was rigid and had a soft customer service smile. This reaction is understandable for a first-time visitor, but my distinctive black hair is also something to consider. Hmm? Her gaze, which has hardened, isn’t on me.
Without paying attention to the unnatural pause, Eleanora then spoke up.
“It’s been a long time.”
“Eleanora-sama… It’s Eleanora-sama! I knew it!”
What she saw in the perfume store wasn’t a dangerous person, but a former regular customer.
The customer service smile is completely broken, and she is bursting with tension and excitement. Just what does Eleanora mean to this store? It goes beyond the relationship between store and customer.
“We were afraid you wouldn’t be able to come back. I’m so happy.”
“I’m happy to see you, too. Thank you for always sending me perfume.”
Did the packages that sometimes arrive for Eleanora come from here? I was entirely out of the loop and understand.
But that wasn’t a mail order or something similar, was it? This store kept giving free gifts to Eleanora. Why?
When one mystery is solved, a new one emerges. This is often the nature of mysteries. Why a mystery leads to more mysteries is still a mystery. Oh, there is one more.
Finally, the staff member turned to me.
“I’m sorry about that. I got carried away.”
“No, please don’t mind me. I’m just a chaperone.”
“You’re Count Yumiela Dolknes… aren’t you? I’ve heard so much about you from Eleanor-sama.”
She gave me a friendly look as if we had known each other for a long time.
They aren’t afraid of me because they have heard stories about me from Eleanora. From her point of view, the image of Yumiela is probably prettier than what the public is used to.
“Um… we don’t have anything strong in our store, so we’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t go on a rampage.”
“…It’s nothing; I don’t get out of control if something strong exists. I mean, what is it? What do you mean by something strong?”
“I’m sorry. Eleanora-sama told me you are that kind of person….”
The me that Eleanora spoke of wasn’t much different from the public me. Seriously, what’s the strong thing? It is too vague, isn’t it?
She quickly changed her awkward expression and led us into the store.
We entered the store expecting a strong smell of perfume, but it didn’t smell that bad.
If you look around, some of the installed windows are half-open. And that one has a magical device that generates wind. Is there a ventilation system in place? It was probably a device to prevent disturbance when trying out the products.
We were relieved to be in a comfortable environment for the time being and offered a seat.
“Please come this way. We will prepare some tea. Please sit down and wait.”
Oh no. I knew we were going to be here for a long time. My ideal situation is to pop in, make a quick purchase, and leave. Oh well. I was prepared for a long shopping trip.
When we were alone, I asked,
“Eleanora, can I ask you something?”
“I think you said something about overreacting to something stronger than you are.”
“…Not that way.”
I understood how she thought of me, not that I paid attention. But that’s not what I wanted to ask.
“What kind of relationship do you have with the people at this establishment? Did you have an investment in them in the past?”
“We were just shopkeepers and customers, you know. Although we were on good terms with each other.”
After she saves the store from financial difficulties, the store, feeling indebted to her, still gives Eleanora gifts. I devised a storyline like this, but she immediately denied it.
She said they wouldn’t keep giving expensive perfume to just any customer. I tried to ask for more details, but the staff member came back. Not only does she have a tray in her hand, but she also has several people behind her. The perfume store seems to have more employees in the back.
“Eleanora-sama! You come again!”
“I’m so glad to see you are well.”
“Have you used the perfume I sent you?”
The pressure on these women is unbelievable. This is far beyond the realm of being a valued customer.
For now, let’s calm down with the tea aroma that was served to us. Take the cup in your hand and smell the familiar scent of… Ah, this is herbal tea. The tea smells like a flowery aroma. While enduring the incessant olfactory onslaught, I remained as docile as an ornament.
Leaving behind Yumiela, who is suddenly quiet and meek, the territorial cat alliance engages in conversation.
“I’m glad to hear that everyone is doing well. I have used all the perfumes you gave me.”
“Please give me your impressions, just the ones you remember.”
“Alright—”
Eleanora’s perfume discussion is long.
It is as long as you ask a military enthusiast whether or not the Zero fighter plane is strong. Suppose we are talking about turning ability or armament. In that case, it is not enough to talk about cruising range, fuel quality at that time, or the mistake of equating aerial fighters with local fighters, etc. after lengthy discussions, the conclusion is unclear. All I could do was brace myself for the start of a long talk that I was uninterested in. People surrounding Eleanora were listening intently to her thoughts. Some were even taking notes.
“What impressed me the most during the trial tasting was a new product from Patchouli. The container design made me think it was a chypre type, but it was totally a fougere type.”
“We market it as a chypre-type product.”
“There are some women who shy away from fougere-type products. The citrus trend is likely to accelerate. Few people dislike citrus scents, so I think it’s good….”
“I’m afraid we don’t have many new gourmand notes that Eleanora-sama likes. We also make our original products, but they are not very well received.”
What language is it? There are so many technical terms that I don’t know what they mean. The only word that sounds familiar to me is Eleanora.
I have been taught the words before, but they are words that I didn’t know in the first place. Like Menko earlier, I don’t remember much because it is impossible to translate them into my brain.
The conversation between the girls continues, without me understanding any of the conversation’s content.
“Really? Do you have the original? I don’t remember.”
“I’m afraid I can’t send you this one, but would you mind having a sample?”
“I’m curious!”
I can’t even follow the context, so I have no clue what Eleanora is interested in.
I stood up silently. No one seemed to pay any attention to me, and I could walk around the store by myself.
“This one has… hmmm, a bit of animal fragrance mixed in. I wonder what the last note is… it doesn’t seem to blend in very well; it needs to be aged a bit more to make it cohesive. It’s too strong now, and you need to lower the intensity and—”
“Right, that’s really informative.”
While I look at the shelves and the bottles lined up on the desk without a speck of dust, I can still hear the conversation.
I know that Eleanora has something informative to say because the word ‘informative’ means to provide useful information.
Although I somehow admire the products, the amount of information I can consume is no different than looking at a milk bottle that has stored rainwater. Since this is the kind of store where a shopkeeper is always around, there is no written description of the products. In the meantime, I try to deduce that the ones with the same markings are the same brand.
As I listened to the background noise of what seemed to be a never-ending informative conversation, something caught my attention.
One of the shelves looked strange. It was perfume, but it was different from the others. For example, there was only one of these on the shelf, the one with a flower-like engraving, which should have been placed in a group.
Only on these shelves were the brands different, and the order of the items seemed disorganized. In a well-organized store, only this one place was chaotic.
And there, to support my thoughts, was a handwritten pop-up. It was written in poor handwriting in a poem-like sentence that didn’t look like a recommendation but made me feel embarrassed to read it.
It makes my skin crawl, but let’s read one out loud.
“The infinite expanse of the ocean, a drop of love—”
“Waa! Waah! You can’t! You mustn’t read that!”
The embarrassing poem reading was interrupted by Eleanora, who was supposed to be engrossed in the conversation.
She did not need to be that embarrassed, but she was red-faced and protesting to the staff.
“You still have that poem on display?!”
“It’s well received, and we think it’s lovely.”
“I was out of my mind back then.”
As I wondered what they were talking about, one of the staff members told me about the poetry corner.
“This shelf is a collection of perfumes recommended by Eleanora-sama. Although we can no longer mention her name, this is her recommendation, and it is selling well. The poems have been well received as well.”
“Are you saying that Eleanora wrote this?”
“Yes, in her handwriting.”
Wow…. This was Eleanora’s creation back in the day when she was in young lady mode.
From the looks of it, she wants to forget it ever happened, so let’s not mention it too much. I will ask about something other than the handwritten pop-ups because if I ask any more about the poems, I’m afraid she’ll have a mental breakdown.
“Did Eleanora’s recommendation make such a difference in sales? She was a Duke’s daughter, but does it have that much effect?”
“No doubt there is. Even foreign ateliers send us letters to ask for Eleanora-sama’s reviews. It is only natural that those involved in this industry should know her.”
The best young woman in the kingdom, with the best family name, was Eleanora, the Duke’s daughter. It was understandable if she could lead the trends in one country, in a certain age group, in a narrow community, or something.
But a foreign country? Being Duke Hillrose’s daughter alone shouldn’t make her that influential. Even now, her position in the perfume industry hasn’t changed, and she is giving advice that seemed difficult earlier.
Maybe Eleanora is someone amazing in the perfume industry? Is she some kind of famous reviewer?
With Eleanora beside me, covering her face with her hands, reeling from the poems’ damage, I muttered to myself.
“Why don’t you make your own perfume manufacturing?”
“It’s not a manufacture but something like that? This, this one, and this one. It is marketed under the label ‘supervised by Eleanora’.”
The perfumes the staff showed me, displayed for easy viewing, were familiar to me. They were all gifts from Eleanora. When I wear them occasionally, I notice Eleanora seems pleased, so I use them for that purpose.
If my memory serves me right, she said that she had a lot of things made based on her ideas. Basically, I thought it was something custom-made, but it seems to have been produced commercially. Isn’t that amazing? Are they able to make money as a business? Oh, but there is no money transfer.
“Is the supervision in the form of buying out ideas or something like that?”
“No, although I don’t know the details of the contract, Eleanora-sama receives a certain amount for each new production.”
Huh? Isn’t there a middleman somewhere?
I asked the poet, who seemed easily tricked. She seemed to have heard what I was saying and said casually,
“I’ve arranged for the money to be donated to the Sanon church.”
She’s a saint. The church should make an official announcement that she is an angel.
But, well, when you were a Duke’s daughter, it must have seemed like a small amount of money. It doesn’t seem like a significant amount. Even though I know it’s beneath me, I still ask what’s on my mind.
“By the way, how much did you get?”
I walked up to Eleanora and put my ear close to her. She quietly tells me the income of a perfume supervisor.
“About—”
“…Eh? That much?”
“I’ve heard that a lot of trading ships are buying them to sell on another continent.”
The numbers aren’t something I can donate the entire amount to. And since they will probably continue to sell them, the amount should increase even more.
I could barely manage a curt, half-hearted reply.
“…Ah, is that so?”
After that, everyone except me talked about perfume for a while.
Naturally, I couldn’t understand what was being said. While listening to my inability to do so, gradually, everyone became more enthusiastic, and the atmosphere began to resemble a project planning meeting.
They predicted future trends, thought about the perfect line that would be neither cliché nor niche, and developed a strategy that included packaging and catchphrases. It took two hours to reach a conclusion that satisfied everyone.
Finally, we decided to leave. Eleanora is reluctant to leave.
Normally, I would have said something like, “Let’s get going,” but there was nothing but respect in my eyes as I looked at her.
Leanora, our household freeloader. I had thought that if I threw her out into the world penniless, she would go down in less than three days, but it turned out that she could make a living on her own.
I left the perfume store with Eleanora, feeling both proud and sad, unable to sort out my feelings.