My Next Life as a Villainess

by Satoru Yamaguchi

  “Thank you, Sora,” I told him, and he immediately released me from his arm, looking away from me and giving only a brief “Sure” as an answer.

  That wasn’t a very Sora-like reaction, so I tried to ask him what was wrong. Tried, because before I could open my mouth, Sora was surrounded by the Biomagic Department employees.

  “Ahhhh, sorry! And thank you!” someone said, apologizing for almost bumping against us and thanking him for catching the monkey. Sora handed them the animal, and they collectively smiled and sighed in relief.

  “Oh, thank you, I’m so sorry,” came a voice from behind them. It belonged to Delius, whose face didn’t look sorry in the slightest. He then explained what had happened, confirming my suspicions, while completely ignoring the angry stares his subordinates were sending him.

  “Oh, you see, I got distracted and let Elizabeth run away! She’s so hard to catch! You’re newcomers, right? I’m Hector Delius, director of the Biomagic Department. Nice to meet you,” he nonchalantly introduced himself, probably forgetting that we had already met.

  “I’m Katarina Claes. My pleasure,” I said.

  “I’m Sora Smith. My pleasure,” Sora followed.

  “The pleasure is... Katarina Claes? The Katarina Claes?! Perfect! I wanted to ask you a couple of things! Would you mind?” Delius said, his eyes suddenly sparkling, while inching closer to me.

  What does he want from me?! I thought in fear, and then noticed that he had stopped moving. Upon a closer look, I saw that a female employee had grabbed his collar from behind.

  “I’m out for one second, and you cause another accident! And why are you bothering newcomers now? Please get back to work!”

  From her sharp voice, I recognized her as the woman who, after I passed out during the orientation, dragged Delius with her to apologize to me.

  “Ah, welcome back. Don’t worry, I wasn’t bothering her,” he replied unconvincingly. In response, the woman just yanked him inside the door before deeply apologizing to us and closing the door behind them.

  “...I wonder what he wanted from me,” I murmured to myself.

  “Delius has taken an interest in you,” said Laura with a hint of pity in her voice.

  “Interest?! Wh-Why?!”

  I barely ever interacted with the guy! Why?!

  “He’s crazily passionate about magic creatures,” she said, confusing me even further, to the point where I might as well have had a question mark floating over my head.

  “Some of the directors have found out about your pet,” she said with a sigh.

  “Pet? You mean Pochi?”

  Pochi was a Dark Familiar, specifically a black puppy who lived inside my shadow. The fact that I owned him had to stay secret.

  “...Yes, Pochi... As you can see, Delius loves magic creatures. Larna said that he’s been obsessed with doing some research on it.”

  “...I see... But I think that Pochi has undergone a lot of research already,” I said. As the first Dark Familiar ever found, the Ministry had previously borrowed Pochi for a while to do research on him. Since they couldn’t find anything problematic, they’d given him back to me and he now lived in my shadow.

  “Yes, but Delius was traveling on duty when that research was done, and he only read the report on it once he came back. Then he started pestering Larna to let him research it.”

  I didn’t know that. However...

  “But I can’t send Pochi off by himself...”

  Pochi only stayed in my shadow or right next to me. He could be forced away from me, but as soon as he realized that I wasn’t around, he turned into a shadow and came back to me.

  “Yes. When he was told that, he asked to borrow you for a whole year.”

  “Wha?! A year?!”

  “He said he wanted to be thorough in his research... He tried to settle for even half a year, but Larna just told him off, so don’t worry. But remember that if Delius involves you in his research, you won’t be able to leave until he’s done. Be careful around him.”

  “...I will.”

  I wouldn’t be able to leave for a year? And what kind of research would he even do in the first place? This whole thing is scary. I’d better be careful!

  I then followed Laura away from the Biomagic Department and into a hallway, where we saw a huge box-shaped container.

  Is that box... flying?! I thought, squinting at it.

  “Oh, perfect. That’s the feed for the Biomagic Department,” Laura said.

  Oh, so that’s what it was. Wait, more importantly...

  “Excuse me, but... is that box flying by itself?” I asked Laura.

  “Yes. This container is a flying magic tool, which makes it easier to carry stuff around. But it doesn’t fly by itself. There must always be someone behind it, moving it.”

  I took a second look and noticed that the Magical Tool Laboratory employee with the tanktop who I’d met earlier was behind the container. He saw us and stopped to greet us.

  Even when looked at up close, the container just looked like a normal, nondescript box. But from behind I could see a few sticks connected to it. Laura said that they were used to control the direction the container would fly in.

  “That’s incredible,” I said, amazed at how our department apparently also made useful tools — the ones we had been shown before the exam were the exact opposite.

  “I know, right? A lot of our tools are used throughout the Ministry,” Laura said proudly.

  “Well, because of that, we’re slowly turning into the Handyman Laboratory...” said the tanktop-man with a tired expression on his face.

  Sora and I cocked our heads questioningly, and Laura explained what he had meant.

  The Magical Tool Laboratory took on the other departments’ tasks to try out the effectiveness of newly designed tools. The tools made performing these tasks more efficient, and so the other departments asked that we keep using them. In particular, magic tools were especially useful for small, trivial tasks, which led to more and more of them being passed onto us.

  So envy towards Larna wasn’t the only reason behind the department being so busy. After this explanation, we left the tanktop-man and started walking to the next department.

  Why is he only wearing a tanktop, anyway? It’s still spring... if anything, it’s a bit chilly...

  We went on walking for a while, and then Laura stopped. “This is the Magic Powers Department,” she said, pointing at the fancy black door in front of us.

  “Oh, this is where Maria and Dewey were assigned,” I said, remembering that from when the newcomers’ departments were assigned.

  “Yes. This is one of the most popular departments within the Ministry, and the most talented people usually end up here,” Laura said.

  Well, Maria was a powerful magic user with excellent grades, and I’d heard that Dewey passed the Ministry’s entrance exam with the highest score, so it made sense that they would be assigned to the Magic Powers Department.

  “This department doesn’t usually ask us for help... but,” Laura was saying when the black door squeaked open and an incredibly handsome man walked out of it.

  He had brown hair, and wore a pair of frameless glasses over his green eyes. He was Cyrus Lanchester, one of the romantic interests of Fortune Lover II.

  All I knew about him was what I had learned from the note about FL2 I found in the book I borrowed: He had a strict and serious personality, he was a powerful magic user and department director in the Ministry, and he was good at his work but not so good at dealing with women.

  I was frozen in surprise upon seeing Cyrus, who then noticed us.

  “Guy Handerson? Then you must all be from the Magical Tool Laboratory...” he said, visibly grimacing.

  What’s with that face?! First Dewey, then him?! Does he hate me from the start too? But why...? We met during the orientation, but we didn’t even talk... I was thinking to myself when Cyrus started talking, pushing his glasses up his nose.

  “Tell the foolish
woman in charge of your department that maybe this year she should finally make sure that her subordinates are properly trained,” he said before disappearing like the wind.

  What did he mean? The foolish woman... Larna?

  I looked at Laura for answers.

  “Lanchester, the director of the Magic Powers Department... doesn’t really like us — or rather, he doesn’t really like Larna,” she said dejectedly, putting a hand to her cheek. As always, her mannerisms (and only those) looked very cute.

  Anyway, the “foolish woman” was, as I had thought, Larna.

  “He’s a very serious person who strictly follows the rules, so he doesn’t get along well with Larna... She’s a very good boss, but she can be eccentric. She often skips directors’ meetings and, when she’s interested in something, she just goes ahead without thinking of anything else... Lanchester makes it really clear he doesn’t like her.”

  “But right now he looked like he didn’t just dislike Larna, but all of us,” said Sora, taking the words right out of my mouth.

  “Yes, exactly... he doesn’t like any of us, since our department is full of unique people who don’t follow the rules,” she said, looking even more dejected than before.

  I took a good look at her, her flamboyant makeup, and her modified, frilly uniform. The rulebook we’d received before entering the Ministry said that modified uniforms and excessive makeup were prohibited, meaning that Laura was breaking the rules.

  I wonder if crossdressing is against the rules to begin with... I was now so used to seeing Laura that I’d forgotten how peculiar she looked. And then there were all the other colleagues in my department, almost none of whom were even wearing the uniform. It was no wonder that a person as strict as Cyrus would hate us.

  However, as one of the new love interests of FL2, he was likely to lead me to doom. I had to befriend him, like I had with Dewey, and learn more about him... but he hated my whole department. I let out a big, sad sigh inside my heart.

  Our tour went on and ended without any other remarkable event. Since the building was so large, Laura only showed us the most important places (just like during the orientation).

  “This place is huge, but you only need to remember a few points of interest. Don’t start walking about willy-nilly, or you’ll get lost. A colleague from our department actually got lost just a few days ago,” she said, scoldingly raising her index finger. Of course, she was talking about Nathan Hart.

  Thus ended our tour, the explanation of our work, and my first day at the Magical Tool Laboratory.

  “Starting tomorrow, you’ll be doing real work,” Laura said, and I went back home feeling excited about the next day.

  The Ministry actually had a dormitory, where Maria, Dewey, and Sora were staying, but they didn’t let me stay there. The reason, I was told, was that there was no room fit for the daughter of a duke. Not that I cared about the room I stayed in, but I was only allowed to live somewhere befitting my rank, and so I had to travel from home to work and back.

  The swaying carriage brought me back home, where Mother had been (apparently impatiently) waiting for me.

  “Did you do anything improper?” she asked me.

  “Not at all! Things went perfectly,” I replied briskly.

  Keith and Father, on the other hand, appreciated my hard work.

  Starting this spring, by the way, Keith had become a sort of secretary to Father, to learn about his work and become ready to inherit the title of Duke Claes. He was so busy that we couldn’t see each other as often as usual, and that made me feel a bit lonely.

  I ate dinner with my family, talking with them about my day at work, and then went back to my room.

  “Hmpf! Hmpf! Hmpf!”

  “Excuse me, young miss... you seem to be very busy, but may I ask you one question?” said Anne, my maid.

  “Yes, of course. What is it?” I said, dropping the dictionaries I was holding in each hand.

  “Why are you making strange groans while moving those dictionaries up and down?”

  “Ah, this? I’m just working out my arms. I’ll start work tomorrow, so I thought I’d need as much muscle as possible.”

  “Young miss, you work at... the Magical Ministry, do you not? Why would you need muscle to do that?” she asked, confused.

  “There’s a lot of manual labor in our department, like carrying stuff around,” I explained.

  “Manual labor? Carrying things around?! Y-Young miss, you are a duke’s daughter... That kind of toil does not...”

  “That kind of toil? I prefer using my body over my head, so I’m totally happy about it.”

  “...I see. That is very like you.”

  Hm? Is she praising me? I think so. In that case...

  “Perfect! Another 30 reps with the dumbbells! Hmpf! Hmpf!”

  I started moving the dictionaries up and down again.

  “If you need to work tomorrow, would that not just make you too tired? I suggest you just rest for today,” Anne said.

  I agreed with what she said and went to bed.

  The next morning, like on most mornings, I had Anne pull off my covers, help me prepare while I was still half-asleep, and put me on the carriage that would bring me to the Ministry.

  The Ministry was in the same area as the academy, so I already knew the place and it wasn’t that far away to begin with. But I was so used to life in the dormitory, where I didn’t have to travel in the morning, that even this little distance felt like a drag. I also had to wake up earlier to account for the commute time — so of course, I had to make up for that lost time by falling back asleep the second I got in the carriage.

  I reached the Ministry and walked to the Magical Tool Laboratory, where Laura and Hart, who were assigned to me as mentors, were already waiting. The two lived in the Ministry’s dormitory, and always walked to the office together to prevent Hart from getting lost.

  “Starting today, you will actually work together with us,” said Laura, whose makeup was already on point this early in the morning.

  She then guided us to a warehouse near the Ministry’s entrance, while Hart once again kept working in the office lest he got lost.

  “What is this place?” I asked, looking at the room full of all kinds of stacked boxes.

  “This is where all packages delivered to the Ministry are stored before being sorted and carried to the appropriate departments,” Laura explained.

  Oh, that’s why there are so many boxes. Wait, she doesn’t mean that...

  “Excuse me... are we going to sort and carry all of these packages?” I asked with worry. Working in the fields had made me sturdy enough, but this room was chock full of boxes. It wouldn’t be easy.

  “Of course not, if we were to do this all by ourselves, a whole day wouldn’t be enough,” she said with a wry smile. Phew.

  “There are people specifically hired for this job, but the Magical Ministry has grown so fast in the past few years that they aren’t enough anymore, and so we’re helping them with magic tools. We’re only going to carry a small portion of these packages,” she said, explaining which ones we would need to take care of.

  “I’m going to show you how it’s done, and then you two can go and do it yourselves.”

  After her explanation, Laura started showing us how it was done in practice. She went to the edge of the warehouse and retrieved the same container that the tanktop-man had been flying around yesterday. Each package stated the name of the department that it needed to be delivered to, and she chose those meant for specific ones and put them inside the container.

  The “small portion” she had told us about was still large enough, but she moved those packages around so fast that we couldn’t even try to help her, proving that all those muscles weren’t just for show. The usual cutesy maiden had turned into a macho manual laborer.

  “Since we are going to visit the departments in order, you want to put the packages for the farthest ones on the bottom, and the packages for the closest ones o
n the top,” she said, without stopping what she was doing. It wasn’t long before she was done, and then she placed her hand on one of the sticks attached to the container, which made it lift up and hover mid-air.

  “Oh!” I said, impressed despite having seen this magic tool at work just yesterday.

  “Try flying it. It’s easy once you get the knack of it,” Laura said while pointing at the (joy)stick.

  “Yes,” I said, eager to try my hand at controlling the container... but all it did was shake around a bit. It was difficult.

  “It’s harder than it looks,” I warned Sora as he went to try after me, but he instantly managed to make the container fly as he wanted.

  “Well aren’t you slick?” I said, feeling defeated.

  “Kind of, yeah,” is all he said in return.

  Like all the other love interests of FL2, Sora was incredibly talented.

  I wish I was too...

  Since he was so good at maneuvering the container, he went on to deliver the packages as Laura oversaw him. I was walking behind them, looking with envy at how skillful Sora was.

  “Don’t worry Miss Katarina, you’ll be able to do it yourself very soon. You just need to get a feel for it,” Laura comforted me. Her looks were unusual, but she was really kind.

  While I was busy thinking about how good of a person my colleague was, we reached the first department on our delivery route. I wanted to help, of course, but in the time it took me to take one package out of the container, Laura had already taken out three. I have to try harder!

  After someone in the department took the packages, we had to ask them for a signature. It looked just like what the delivery people of my previous world did.

  “And this, more or less, is all you have to do when sorting packages. One or two people must take care of this every day,” Laura explained. “No time to lose. Let’s go to the next one,” she added.

  Sora, who had been working at the Ministry longer than me, had already memorized most of its layout, and was able to move from one department to another even without Laura’s instructions. I have to memorize it too.

  The three of us kept going around like that, and even though I still couldn’t fly the container, I at least got a feel for how to handle packages and became faster at taking them out.