My Next Life as a Villainess

by Satoru Yamaguchi

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Color Illustration

  Character Introductions

  Chapter 1: Starting Work at the Magical Ministry

  Chapter 2: Deep Inside the Castle

  Chapter 3: I Found a Fantastic Field

  Chapter 4: Lost Magic

  Chapter 5: The Covenant

  Chapter 6: A New Power

  Afterword

  About J-Novel Club

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Starting Work at the Magical Ministry

  “Good morning, young miss. Please wake up... Oh, you were already awake?” said Anne, my maid, with a hint of surprise in her voice.

  “Yes. Today is my first day of actual work at the Magical Tool Laboratory. I have to act like an adult,” I replied proudly.

  I had entered the Magical Ministry in the spring, and then took the newcomer examination to find out which department I would be working in. I ended up at the Magical Tool Laboratory, where I would start working today. I was thrilled.

  I’m finally a working adult... I think I might get emotional.

  After all, my previous life had ended when I was still a student. I was raised in the country, the daughter of a simple office worker, and when I was in high school, I enjoyed little time as an otaku before my untimely death. I remembered all of this when, at the young age of eight, I fell down and hit my forehead in the castle garden. Thus started my new life as Katarina Claes, a duke’s daughter.

  My slanted blue eyes looked a bit menacing, but at least my silky brown hair and new face — slightly better-looking than the one in my previous life — weren’t that bad. Or so I thought, until my sudden engagement to the prince made me realize that these features belonged to Katarina, the villainous antagonist of Fortune Lover, the otome game I had been playing shortly before dying.

  Once I reached 15, I would have to enter the Academy of Magic, where, in the game, Katarina would bully the protagonist and be destined to either exile with a good end or execution with a bad end. Doom either way.

  I spent the years before joining the academy coming up with countermeasures to these doomed endings. But after my enrollment, I met with the protagonist, Maria, and became friends with her...

  I had to overcome a few challenges, but the game peacefully came to its conclusion with the Friendship End. I could finally spend the rest of my days in peace and freedom!

  After graduating from the academy, I got a job at the most important organization in the kingdom — the Magical Ministry. I thought that I wouldn’t need to worry about the future anymore... but I then found out that the Magical Ministry was the setting for the sequel to Fortune Lover.

  The love interests from the prequel would come back, along with some new faces, for the protagonist to romance... I had no problem with this — what I did have a problem with was that in Fortune Lover II, Katarina Claes, after being exiled, would come back just to be a villainess again. She was ready to make more mischief and risk more Bad Ends.

  Why would you do that?! Leave me alone! We already avoided doom once!

  And here I was once again, having to prevent a catastrophe, this time while working at the Ministry. And now I had even less information to work with.

  But I won’t let all these years of efforts go to waste! I will attain my dream of a peaceful retirement!

  I’ll win over doom for the second time! I swore to myself, clenching my fists with determination while sitting on my bed.

  “Lady Katarina, you managed to wake up early today. Do not squander this rare opportunity. Stop wasting time, lest you be late,” said Anne, giving me a meaningful look.

  Oh snap. I had been so busy reminiscing and swearing things to myself that I had forgotten about the time.

  “I’m going to do my best! I won’t lose!” I said, jumping off of the bed.

  “Yes, please do your best. You should start by changing clothes,” said Anne, helping me put on my work getup with her skillful hands. So began another morning like all the others.

  ★★★★★★★

  “I’m counting on you to teach the newcomers,” my boss said.

  I replied with a “Yes, ma’am,” but I actually had my share of doubts.

  This year, two new employees were deployed to the Magical Tool Laboratory, the department where I, Guy Handerson (known as Laura) work. One of the two had already come in as an apprentice, but the other one was... a very problematic newcomer.

  Duke’s daughter and fiancée of the third prince. Nobody with titles as important as those would normally work for the Ministry, which was why she had been the subject of many rumors before she’d even set foot here.

  One of those rumors said that this allegedly spoiled noble girl had asked either her father or her fiancé to give her a job here to kill time until her marriage, and people now assumed this to be the truth.

  It wasn’t, in fact. She was very different from who she was made out to be.

  I had spent a few days with her to oversee the examination that would decide which department she would be assigned to, and I quickly realized that she was neither a spoiled noble girl nor just here to kill time. And I even came to know of the real reason why she was at the Ministry: hidden Dark Magic powers.

  It didn’t surprise me that she was assigned to the Magical Tool Laboratory. She was a good girl at heart, but a difficult one for the Ministry to deal with for a variety of reasons. And all difficult-to-deal-with people ended up in our department.

  What I wasn’t expecting was that I would be appointed as her mentor together with another colleague.

  “I will do my best!” she said with sparkling eyes as she bowed her head. She was a really good girl. Despite being a duke’s daughter, she didn’t look down on people and was always trying her best.

  She was just too peculiar. Of course, I was peculiar myself... but during the examination, I found out that my peculiarity was relatively tame. I had nothing on someone who would try to fight a huge dragon with a stick.

  Katarina Claes looked at me with anticipation about what we would be doing next, and I, deep inside my heart, sighed.

  How am I going to mentor this girl?

  ★★★★★★★

  Today was my first day working at the Magical Tool Laboratory.

  “I will do my best!” I said, bowing to the two colleagues who would act as my mentors.

  One of them had a huge, muscular body underneath cute, frilly clothes and heavy makeup, while the other had a pair of thick glasses behind his long bangs. The former, in particular, looked unique enough to surprise anyone at first sight. But after traveling together for a few days and becoming acquainted with her, I wasn’t that shocked anymore.

  They were Guy Handerson (who preferred to go by “Laura”) and Nathan Hart, the two people who had overseen our examination.

  To be honest, at first I was a bit anxious about this department that was full of oddballs, so I was relieved that my mentors would be the two I already knew — not that they weren’t weird, but...

  Of course one of them was a musclebound, blue-bearded macho who dressed, spoke, and acted like the cutest of girls, and the other was an easily forgotten, easily lost man who could never find his way back... But during the examination, I realized that they actually were very talented and caring colleagues, which is why I was relieved.

  “Let’s all do our best.”

  “We will teach you as well as we can.”

  The two of them addressed me, and I once again briskly replied that I would do my best.

  “First of all, let me briefly introduce the others in the department,” said Hart, pointing at the colleagues in the room.

  There wer
e the two who had guided us during our orientation: the woman who only speaks through her raccoon hand puppet and the narcissistic man with the sparkling uniform. Then there was another one wearing a white lab coat and clutching a smoking beaker, and one wearing a tanktop and holding a dumbbell. Almost no normal people. Almost none of them were even wearing the standard uniform. As expected of a department dealing with dangerous stuff, it was chock full of unique people.

  After I was introduced to some of my new colleagues and showed the dangerous zones in the room, Laura walked into the mountain of papers in the center of the room and came back with someone, bringing him in front of me. I happened to know that someone very well.

  “...Raphael,” I murmured.

  “Welcome to the Magical Tool Laboratory. I’m Raphael Wolt, the vice-director,” he said with a smile.

  “So you work here, Raph... Mister Raphael,” I said, realizing that I should speak respectfully to him now that he was my superior. My last-minute correction made him giggle.

  “Yes, Lady Larna brought me here to work with her,” he explained.

  Raphael, who was then using a fake name, had been the Student Council President at the academy. He was involved in an incident with Dark Magic and had to leave before graduation, quitting his fake name and starting work at the Ministry. Because of his complicated circumstances, he had to hide his identity. His red hair was still dyed brown, but his face was mostly back to his usual handsome one. However...

  “...You have some pretty dark circles under your eyes. Are you okay?” I asked, noticing the huge spots ruining his beautiful face.

  “...Oh, lately I haven’t had much time to...” he started explaining with a tired expression, moments before being interrupted.

  “Mister Raphael, new documents,” said an employee before dropping a new pile of papers on Raphael’s desk, making his expression get even worse.

  “Understood. Lady Claes, see you around,” he said before disappearing inside his mountain of piled-up work.

  Our brief meeting was enough for me to understand that Raphael was very, very busy with work.

  I was then introduced to some more people, and ended up greeting most of my new colleagues in the department.

  “That is it for people who are here right now. There are some colleagues who are out right now, but I will introduce you to them when they come back,” said Hart before sighing. “Well... it is about time I explained the outline of our work here,” he said, his face grave.

  “Y-Yes. Please do.”

  It was decided that I’d be hearing that explanation together with Sora, the boy who I had met during another incident at the academy. Originally an orphan from another country, he had hopped from job to job until reaching this kingdom, where he started work at the Ministry just before I did. He was one of the possible romantic interests for FL2, and, as such, was not only talented but also stunningly handsome, with his hair the same light-blue shade as his eyes.

  “Why does Sora need this explanation after working here for months?” I asked. It turned out that right after he had moved into the department, between Larna being out on duty and all the other colleagues being terrifyingly busy, he was given the simplest of instructions, asked to only follow those, and then more or less left to his own devices.

  That’s... kind of sad. However, that explained why he was standing there with me, listening to that briefing.

  Hart’s description of our tasks was... surprising.

  The department was called “Magical Tool Laboratory.” Before our examination, we were shown a warehouse full of junk magical tools developed there, making me guess that we’d be working with, well, magical tools.

  ...But Hart said that most of what we actually did was carrying out the menial tasks that other departments couldn’t be bothered with. Checking reports from local Ministry branches, filing documents, distributing supplies, and even maintaining and cleaning the building. Menial tasks, alright. We’d only be researching magical tools in the spare time between those duties.

  Seeing my surprise, Hart elaborated on why things had turned out that way. Our department director Larna had displayed extreme talent at a very young age, and achieved a considerable rank as a result. This, however, made a lot of people from other departments dislike her, which was why they forced all boring, trivial jobs onto her.

  She was so talented that she would just come up with a magic tool to get the job done, and get more work thrown her way as a result. The Magical Tool Laboratory may have been full of weird people, but they were brilliant weird people.

  Eventually people started asking her for assistance not to annoy her, but because they knew that she would be able to help. Now she couldn’t really refuse helping anyone anymore. And since the department had gotten its new vice-director, Raphael, a few years ago, its efficiency had increased even further, resulting in even more people asking for assistance.

  So on one hand, this department mainly had to deal with other people’s menial tasks, but on the other, we were respected as people who could get things done.

  “Other departments are more involved with research and experimentation, but magic tool research is a very young field, so...”

  “Long story short, while you’re still new and we can’t trust you with important documents, you’ll mostly have to deal with manual labor. Is that okay with you?” said Laura, picking up where Hart had stopped.

  Okay with me? If anything, not having to use my head would be...

  “Perfect! Leave the manual labor to me!” I replied energetically.

  This may surprise you, but I wasn’t actually all that smart... Back at the academy, I had the smartest students take turns tutoring me, and that was just enough to make my grades average. I was all too happy to do manual labor over research. I’d even been worried about not getting enough exercise now that work would take time away from tending to the fields.

  “...That’s good to know,” replied Laura, perplexed, while Sora’s shoulders were shaking.

  After the explanation was over, we went out of the department office to meet our colleagues and see what our work would actually involve.

  Laura would be the one guiding us while Hart stayed with Raphael, helping him wade through all those papers. That was partly to help the busy vice-director, and partly to avoid him getting lost while outside. I was told that, in general, Hart rarely left the office for work.

  “Okay, let’s go!” said Laura enthusiastically, sounding like the host of a TV program I used to watch as a kid in my previous life.

  Since our other colleagues were currently moving around the building and would be difficult to track down, Laura said that she could give us a tour and introduce us to any colleagues who we happened upon in the process — kind of like how we did things during orientation.

  “Miss Katarina,” said Laura, turning around before starting to walk, “I heard that during the orientation, you lost consciousness halfway through and weren’t able to see the whole place. You definitely need to see where everything is, especially because our people often go to other departments for work.”

  She was referring to that very unfortunate accident on my first day.

  “Thank you,” I said with a smile, happy that she would do that for me. Laura was a really kind colleague. When she asked me what places I had already seen, I told her, “I’ve seen the library and the Biomagic Department.”

  “Oh, the Biomagic Department is impressive, isn’t it?” she said with a bitter smile. “Their department isn’t completely full of weirdos like ours is, but their director, Delius, is one of a kind. In particular, he tends to forget about everything else when he’s in front of rare creatures. You’d better be careful.”

  She then explained that the Magical Tool Laboratory usually carried the feed to the creatures kept there, and that also, because our two departments were close together, we were on generally friendly terms.

  “This is around the usual feeding time for the creatures. I know you’
ve already seen the place, but it’s so close that we might as well stop by,” said Laura, leading us there.

  “Here we are. I wonder if the feed has already arrived,” she said while standing in front of a door labeled “Biomagic Department,” which was promptly opened by someone, possibly a Ministry employee, who was shrieking and trying to run away.

  What is going on here?! I thought to myself. I looked through the door and found the department in the same state as it had been during my first visit: a battlefield. Papers, shattered glasses, and broken dishes were all over the floor. The only difference was that the battle seemed to still be going on today.

  “Ah, Elizabeth! Didn’t I tell you not to ride on there? Be a good girl and come down now,” said Delius calmly, while looking at the very monkey who, on my first day at the Ministry, had uprooted some weird plant while riding on my shoulder and caused me to pass out.

  Everyone except for the director was doing their best to try to catch the monkey. That was enough to guess what had happened: Delius had probably let the monkey escape again by mistake, and now it was rampaging around the department and breaking things.

  “Elizabeth! Come back!” said the director without moving while his subordinates were running around with nets and bags... This kind of scene made it clear why, after ours, this was the department that newcomers wanted to be assigned to the least.

  I’m glad I wasn’t assigned here. Look at those poor people fighting... I thought, and then my eyes met the monkey’s.

  Before I had time to process my surprise, the monkey had already started running towards me at an incredible speed. It jumped on my shoulder once again, where it stood as the employees came after it.

  Startled, I tried to dodge them, but my legs didn’t move in time.

  They’re going to hit me! I thought, closing my eyes... but I wasn’t hit. Instead, I felt enveloped by something warm.

  I opened my eyes and saw Sora’s arm around me. He was enveloping me, protecting me from the incoming monkey-hunting employees. And what’s more, he used his free hand to catch the monkey. The love interests in FL2 also had incredible reflexes...