мѕ.gяα¢є αη∂ мя.муѕтєяу •𝔐𝔬𝔫𝔬𝔫𝔬𝔨𝔢•

几ㄩ乇 ㄒ卄丨尺ᗪ 匚卄卂卩ㄒ乇尺

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"The first scent is ready." Lady Ruri announced.

Her servant, an old lady who always had her eyes closed, was the one in charge of delivering the incense to the players.

Each of the suitors grabbed the circular incense holder, which had a small drop of the agar in the middle.

Oosawa brought the object closer to his nose and calmly sniffed it. Once the fragrance entered his nostrils, his eyes opened wide.

"Goodness! What a peaceful scent she chose to begin with..." He thought while being in a trance. "It makes me feel like I've met a new friend; joy filling my heart."

The next one was Nakaharai. Since he had a cone on his nose, he removed it for the session. His eyes also widened as he let out some sounds of surprise.

"My goodness! Such a nostalgic scent she chose to begin with. It reminds me of a sunny day in my home when my father scolded me for not attending to my studies."

It was the samurai's turn. He analyzed the incense in front of him for some seconds before deciding to smell it. He kept his body away from the new object since he was always on edge about new things. It was something his job had taught him to do.

"God! This small thing does have a fragrance!" He thought.

It was finally the turn for the medicine seller and his companion. He smelled it quickly since he didn't have a desire to win and was only playing because he had to. After recording the scent on his head, he carefully drew the incense closer to Shinju, allowing her to quench her curiosity.

"The second scent is ready." She announced again.

This kept repeating until they reached the fifth scent. Each of them had calm exteriors, but their minds were filled with thoughts about the game. Some of them were trying to correctly guess the type of incense, like the short man. Others were thinking about the similarities between the given scents, such as Oosawa and Muromachi. Except that their feelings were different. While the politician was confident in his skills, the samurai felt anxious and hopeless, since he couldn't determine the differences between the incenses. And then there were also the two traveling merchants, whose minds were on another place directly.

A sound coming from the outside caught one of the suitor's attention, who quickly commented on it.

"A Nue's cry, eh?"

"N-Nue?"

"Oh, it's just the birds." Oosawa chuckled.

Kusuriuri's icy stare was fixated straight ahead. He didn't even need to turn around to know that the exorcist wannabe was preparing the scales. Due to his enhanced hearing, even with the chatter of the contestants, the familiar sound of the bells moving around had his attention.

"The fifth scent is ready. Decide how will you answer after this."

"One and three are the same, and I believe that four and the last one were, as well."

"Shinkyara? No, Sasora?"

"This one is the same! They're all mocking me! They think I'm a bumpkin! A yokel!"

"..."

"Scales... Scales... Oh, wait, I should be writing down my answer!"

And thus, all of them began to build their answers using the blocks from the game. Since the answers had to be secret until they revealed them together, they placed the blocks underneath the individual tables. In Shinju's case, she was given a piece of paper to write down her answer by drawing the combination because she was only playing for fun.