City ​​of Witches 461

## Chapter 461 – #97_Perfume(2)

#460

1.
After more than a hundred wagons had come and gone.
A flood of roses swept into the once-quiet warehouse.
The plump, red roses, which seemed quicker to weigh than count, filled the empty workshop to the brim.

After hours of delivery, the roses piled high on the white cloth spread on the floor.
Even with magic, it would have taken three full days just to bring in the roses.
Siwoo picked up a luscious flower.

“How many flowers are there?”
“About twenty thousand per wagon.”
“That’s easily over five million…”

One might wonder why there would be five million roses in the dead of winter, when they aren’t even in season…
But it’s possible.
That’s just how it is in Gehenna, the city of witches.

Since ancient times, flowers have been used in countless alchemy and magic experiments as a concentration of life force, so they are cultivated year-round in the gardens of the sacred mountain.
Even so, this amount seemed like they had uprooted an entire hill’s garden.

“Do we really need this many?”

Siwoo asked, tossing the rose, whose petals felt heavy and full, back into the pile.
It seemed excessive no matter how he looked at it.

He worried that Amelia might have miscalculated and bought too many.
In fact, Amelia, a great witch and 23rd-level mage, was unlikely to be bad at calculations, but perhaps because of the way she had acted in the past and present, he kept finding himself looking after her.

“If you extract ten thousand roses through distillation, you get one drop of essential oil.”
“One drop?”
“Yes, 1mL.”

Siwoo had been relieved when he heard the price of Amelia’s perfume, but now he suddenly started worrying about the cost.
The ingredients Amelia used for perfumery were not commonly used synthetic fragrances, but essential oils extracted from natural ingredients.

Was it because she found Siwoo’s surprised expression amusing? Or was she just happy to explain something she knew?
Amelia smiled sweetly and pulled Siwoo’s hand.

“I’ll teach you how to extract it too, Siwoo. It’ll be fun.”

Amelia led Siwoo to a large copper distiller.

Three cylindrical tanks, much taller than Siwoo, stood side by side, and each tank was connected by long pipes, forming a continuous distiller.

All the materials were made of copper, which was said to be the highest quality material for a distiller.
Although it had the disadvantage of being very difficult to manage.

Somehow, it didn’t seem like an item that belonged in Gehenna.
If anything, it seemed more suited to a steampunk world.
Amelia stood in front of the machine, which was twice her height, and checked its condition by tightening and loosening the valves.

Then, she used telekinesis to float a box from the corner.
Inside was a large glass bottle that looked like it could hold at least several tens of liters.

“Is that magic water?”
“Yes, it is.”

Of course, magic water was also quite an expensive item.
If all the boxes piled up there were full of magic water and used for making perfume, it was understandable why a bottle of Amelia’s perfume was so incredibly expensive.
It was a product made with all sorts of expensive ingredients, so it was bound to be worth that much.

“There are many ways to extract fragrances, such as cold maceration, maceration, pressing, and solvent extraction, but I mainly use distillation.”

With that, Amelia poured magic water into the first tank.
Of course, such a large tank was not filled with just one bottle of magic water, and after Siwoo helped her pour in a total of 20 bottles, it was only about half full.
Looking inside closely, there were several additional magical devices inside the tank.

Normally, magic water does not vaporize or solidify due to heat, but seeing that it was called distillation, it seemed that a magic circle had been engraved on it.

The next step was filling the second tank with roses.
Siwoo thought he had become quite good at telekinesis, but he was no match for Amelia.

Tens of thousands of roses flew in a row and neatly filled the tank.
After filling the tank with roses and closing the lid, Amelia continued her explanation.

“First, we vaporize the magic water in the first tank by heating it. The magic water, which has turned into hot steam, is then connected to the second tank through a pipe.”

Amelia explained, tracing the ‘L’-shaped pipe with her finger.

“The steam that is connected in this way is sprayed into the second tank and passes through the flowers. As it does, the steam absorbs the fragrance of the flowers.
At this time, the pressure is adjusted with a valve. If the pressure is set high, high-temperature steam is sprayed, leaving a sweet and soft rose scent, and if the pressure is lowered, relatively low-temperature steam is sprayed, bringing out a lively and vibrant feel.”
“Oh, that’s kind of amazing.”

“Right? The steam created by passing through the second tank gathers at the top and moves to the third tank, where it turns back into liquid as it passes through the cooling pipe.
The liquid solution is then separated back into oil and magic water, and finally, the fragrance is created. The separated magic water returns to the first tank.”

It looked like a boiler or a coffee machine.
As Amelia turned the valves a few times, a fragrant floral scent already filled the room.

“Today it’s roses, tomorrow I’ll extract essential oils from jasmine…”
“You’re going to be very busy.”
“Yes, for a while.”

At least the magic water seemed to be recycled, so he could worry a little less about the raw materials.

Anyway, Siwoo and Amelia finished setting up the distiller and began to boil the roses.
When Siwoo had only heard Amelia’s explanation, he thought it was just a matter of simmering it like bone broth, but it seemed that was not the case.

Amelia meticulously adjusted the temperature and pressure by constantly checking the needles on the gauges and tightening the valves or releasing excess steam through the nozzles.
Siwoo’s role here was, so to speak, a conveyor belt.

His job was to remove the roses that had been extracted from the second tank and put in new flowers.

“Siwoo.”

As he was going back and forth between the distillers, Amelia gestured.
When he went over, he saw Amelia squatting in front of the last tank of the distiller, the glass tube exposed to the outside.

“Come here and take a look?”

The oil squeezed out of tens of thousands of roses.

After going through the cooling process and then separation, the pure essential oil, which had finally become a pure crystal, was dripping down drop by drop.
Siwoo also squatted next to Amelia and watched the essential oil accumulate in a small bottle.

“The scent… it’s incredible.”
“Right?”

Amelia looked at Siwoo with a happy smile.
Indeed, every time a drop of oil fell and created a small ripple, a thick fragrance, as if swimming in a pile of flowers, spread through his nasal passages.

But this was as relaxed as it was going to get.
If this were a cute perfume-making session, they could have spent some quality time watching the essential oil slowly form.

However, in mass production, which was not far from being a factory, there was no such leisurely time.

After a brief look, Siwoo and Amelia worked all day, no exaggeration, 24 hours a day, and only then were they able to extract a little less than 1L of essential oil.

2.
In order to extract a different type of essential oil from the same distiller, a reset process was required, in which only magic water was put into the empty distiller and heated for several hours.
This was to prevent unnecessary scents from mixing in.

Just as machines need rest, so do people.
Therefore, Siwoo and Amelia decided to take their first break 32 hours after they started extracting rose essential oil.

The two of them rested at the perfume shop that Sophia had newly created in the Malcuth Gallery.

It was a four-story building located in a corner of the already developed Malcuth Gallery commercial district, so much so that one might wonder, ‘There was a shop here too?’

It was a four-story building, but it was sandwiched between other buildings, so it was very narrow, but due to the nature of Gehenna, where buildings were built beautifully, it had a cute and cozy feel.
However, the atmosphere changed completely when you opened the door.

A smooth marble floor that was so shiny you could see your underwear, and sturdy, elegant counters made of rosewood.
A feast of candles flickering splendidly, hanging from a small but magnificent chandelier.

If there was a smallest palace in the world, it would probably look like this. The final touch to the bright interior was the empty bottles on the shelves.

The beautiful empty bottles, displayed in a row on the shelves and reflecting the candlelight, looked valuable even on their own.
Not to mention the beautiful glasswork, like porcelain, the precious metals and jewels that decorated the empty bottles were unlikely to be imitations.

Following the stairs hidden behind the curtain behind the counter, they could also look around the 2nd and 3rd floors.
If the 1st floor was reminiscent of a cosmetics store for noble ladies, the scenery on the 2nd and 3rd floors was somehow familiar.
It was almost no different from Amelia’s research building when she was working at the academy.

The essential oil she had painstakingly extracted was about the amount of a bottle of milk, but there were thousands of bottles containing all kinds of fragrances, from large bottles to small ampoules.
He heard that they were oils that her teacher had passed down to her.

Finally, Siwoo reached the 4th floor, which served as a lodging.
Perhaps because the other floors were private spaces, they were not as fancy as the 1st floor.

Even this place, which was their lodging, had wooden floors and walls, and a simple one-room structure with just a bed, bathroom, and sofa.
Siwoo immediately plopped down on the sofa.

“You worked hard today. Thank you, Siwoo.”
“It’s nothing. You were busier, Amelia.”

In fact, what Siwoo had done was close to repetitive labor.
Take out the flowers, fill them, take them out, fill them.

Occasionally, he would go to the pile of flowers in the warehouse and flip the roses underneath so they wouldn’t get crushed.
If it were in the days when his magic was weak, it would have been an amount of labor that he would never have been able to do, but now it was just a bit of tedious repetitive assembly.
However, perhaps because he was only performing overly monotonous tasks, he felt like he was being mentally worn down.

On the other hand, Amelia was really busy, constantly moving between the distillers, checking the gauges, tightening or loosening the valves, and changing the cooling water.
What was amazing was that Amelia’s face showed no signs of fatigue at all.

Well, Amelia was a master at repetitive labor and tasks that required patience.
It was because of that persistence that she was able to study magic alone for over 100 years.

“This was my job.”
“If it’s Amelia’s job, it’s my job too.”

Even though he said it as if it were obvious, Amelia looked slightly surprised and happy.
Come to think of it, they had been together all day, but they hadn’t been able to have a proper conversation.
That’s how busy they must have been.

“Even if it’s just empty words, I’m happy.”

Siwoo was momentarily speechless at how quickly Amelia, who was cupping her cheeks, expressed that she was ‘happy’.
He awkwardly replied.

“It’s not empty words.”
“Then I can be a little happier.”

The two of them were filled with the scent of roses.
The sense of smell is the sense that is most easily desensitized to stimuli.
After leaving the workshop, which was filled with the scent of roses, and moving to the lodging, they finally realized that the two of them were exuding a floral scent.

“……”
“……”

Fragrance has a big impact on the atmosphere.
In a small room filled with a lovely yet seductive scent, the two of them looked at each other without saying a word.

If there was such a thing as a natural attraction, this would be it.
Siwoo, realizing that Amelia’s gaze was directed at his lips, narrowed the distance between them, which had become much closer in the past few days.

Amelia lifted her heels and wrapped her arms around Siwoo’s waist.
Just as they were about to kiss naturally, as if under some strange magic.

-Knock knock knock

There was a knock on the door.