The scar, in reality, had long disappeared. While the wicked prince himself knew this, he had intended to use the scar-less rival character as a means of defense against an endless stream of female suitors.
In any case, that rival character was truly quite the piece of work — even I was annoyed while playing the game.
Hmm... Why does all this seem so familiar?
Using a scar accidentally inflicted by the young prince to secure a beneficial marriage... The oldest daughter of a duke... Keeping the prince unwillingly bound to an engagement...
The sadistic prince character in this game was... his name was... Prince Jeord.
And the... the rival character’s name was... Katarina Claes...?!
Panicking as the realization hit me, I sat up in my bed, raising the mirror to my face once more. Reflected within was, without any doubt, the face of the game’s rival character — the villainess.
Yes... This was the face of the villainess I had been reminiscing about. That was her role, after all. How...?
“IT CAN’T BE~~~~?!”
For the second time in a day, my screams reverberated throughout the manor.
Gossip in the manor that day, in turn, largely centered around if the young lady would need another visit from the good doctor.
In any case, I had to confirm if this was indeed the world portrayed in that otome game I had played. This could be a coincidence — just because I had the same name didn’t necessarily mean I was in that world! That would be rushing to conclusions.
The first thing I had to do was record everything I remembered about that game on paper. The name of the game I had been playing up until the point where I so unfortunately died was called Fortune Lover, and was set in a mid-century European-style kingdom, where both swordplay and magic were practiced in equal measure. Mainly set in an academy dedicated to the study of the magic arts, it was a classic, romance-centric otome game.
Amongst the nobles in this world, some were born with the gift of magic. Occasionally commoners were blessed with it too, but such cases were exceedingly rare. When the wielder turned fifteen, they would enroll in this magic academy to learn how to better control their powers.
The protagonist was a commoner who was admitted into the academy regardless of her social status due to her rare talent in magic. Suddenly thrust into an academy filled with nothing but nobles, the bright and optimistic protagonist finds herself having to overcome all sorts of obstacles.
On another note, the magic types in this world were based on elements, and included the fire, water, earth, wind, and light elements. Earth was the most common, followed by wind, water, and fire. Light was, as one may expect, the strongest of the five elements, but wielders of it were extremely rare. The protagonist, of course, wielded light magic.
There were four possible romance options in the game, the first of which being the third crown prince of the kingdom, Jeord Stuart. I was taking on his route right before perishing regrettably. At a glance, he was the very image of a fairy-tale prince, with blonde hair and blue eyes. Unfortunately, he had a wicked and twisted personality, and was a genius who could do anything he put his mind to easily. He wasted away his days, having no interests whatsoever. In addition, he also had a fiancée who was engaged to him from his childhood days — the oldest daughter of Duke Claes, Katarina Claes. His magical element was fire.
The second love interest was Jeord’s twin, and the fourth crown prince of the kingdom, Alan Stuart. He had developed quite the complex due to his twin brother’s outstanding capabilities, although he was hardly as twisted as his brother. Unlike Jeord, however, he had silver hair and blue eyes, and had a somewhat wild, dashing atmosphere about him. The youngest child in the royal family, he had a somewhat spoiled disposition. His magical element was water.
The third love interest was the adopted brother of Jeord’s fiancée, Keith Claes. As his name suggested, Katarina Claes was his older adoptive sister. He had been adopted into the Claes family due to his outstanding magical potential. His adoptive mother and older sister, however, did not welcome him into the family, and his childhood was mostly a lonely one.
As a form of rebellion against this neglect, he eventually grew into a flirtatious playboy.
His flaxen-beige hair and green eyes only served to accentuate his ladies’ man image.
His magical element was earth.
The fourth and last love interest was the childhood friend of Jeord and Alan, Nicol Ascart. He was also the son of the royal chancellor. Of the four, he came the closest to having the mentality of a normal person. Due to his ever-present poker face and his reserved nature, however, he was a difficult character to approach. He was considerably handsome with his black hair and dark eyes, and his magical element was wind.
And then we come to the infamous rival character, Katarina Claes...
In the setting of this game, Katarina was the oldest daughter of Duke Claes, and had the prideful airs to match. She sported a scar left on her forehead from an accident with Prince Jeord in her childhood, and was his fiancée, under the justification that she belonged to him as long as the scar remained. The prince, in turn, was honor-bound by this arrangement. She was wicked and unkind — a character who bullied her adoptive brother to no end. Her magical element was earth.
There was a reverse harem route in this game, where a player could actually attain happy endings with all the potential love interests. As for Katarina Claes, however...
While she was an obvious obstacle in the Jeord route, she also showed up to terrorize the protagonist in Keith’s route, unhappy that her adopted brother was interested in a mere commoner. She did the same in the reverse harem route as well, and was an all-around no-good villainess of a character.
If the protagonist succeeded in the Jeord route and reached the proverbial happy end, this dedicated villainess would be stripped of her status and expelled from the kingdom for her long history of petty crimes and bullying against the protagonist... After which the protagonist marries Jeord and lives happily ever after.
In the bad end, however, she would attack the protagonist with a knife out of sheer jealousy. Jeord, jumping in to defend the protagonist, ends up killing Katarina in response.
Even if it was to protect someone he loved, Jeord ended up killing his fiancée, and leaves the kingdom in self-exile to embark on a long journey.
The same was true for the Keith and reverse harem routes, with Katarina the villainess either dying or being chased out of the kingdom.
Hmm...? That’s a little strange, isn’t it? In the happy end scenarios, she gets chased out of the kingdom and stripped of her title... and in the bad ends, she dies... Are there no happy ends for Katarina Claes?! There are only bad ends! All routes lead to doom!
In this fashion, I moved my quill across the paper as quickly as I could, jotting down any and all information I could remember. Holding my papers in one hand, I interviewed and gathered information on nobles from my parents, before heading into the library to conduct detailed research on the history of this kingdom.
With my messy hair and bloodshot eyes, I ran from shelf to shelf. Concerned about my welfare, my parents and servants offered to call a doctor. But I had no time for that, so I flatly rejected their offers.
A few days later, I finally arrived at my answer, but it left me at a complete loss. My investigations only served to confirm my suspicions, and further digging yielded the one answer I did not want to arrive at. I had no choice but to believe the fruits of my labor.
This was indeed the world portrayed in Fortune Lover...
I had no choice but to believe that I was indeed somehow reborn into the world of the game I had been playing on the night before my death. This was the world of Fortune Lover. But if this was the case, there was no way I could simply sit by idly and accept the Bad Endings of Katarina Claes.
Honestly, being chased out of the kingdom or being killed in one way or another was not something I looked forward to. Given that my
previous life had been so cruelly cut short, I should at least want to be able to live until a ripe old age in this life! Yes, with a cat on my lap and everything!
As such, we now officially commence the first Bad End Avoidance Strategy Meeting.
Meeting chairwoman: Katarina Claes.
Meeting representative: Katarina Claes.
Meeting secretary: Katarina Claes.
...I suppose I have to somehow figure it out all by myself. After all, I didn’t have anyone to discuss this with. Even if a doctor did deem me mentally sound, I could not exactly stand up and announce to my parents and servants that “I was actually reborn in the world of the otome game I had been playing in my previous life!” Between the wild look in my eyes and their looks of confusion, I would surely be dragged away by force to a hospital.
And so, without further ado, let the first Katarina Claes Catastrophic Bad End Avoidance Strategy Meeting commence.
“Well then. Do any of you ladies have any good ideas?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Well then, Miss Katarina Claes, if you would.”
“Firstly, I think that it would be wise to break off the wedding engagement with Prince Jeord. If we can achieve that, we would successfully avoid all of Jeord’s Bad Ends of Doom.”
“That is true, yes. But this offer was extended from Jeord himself... Could you do something like that in this jolly familial atmosphere?”
“... I suppose not.”
“Well then... What if we simply don’t attend classes at the magic academy? If we successfully avoid the protagonist, we would avoid all of the game’s plot points!”
“Isn’t going to the academy a duty of all those born with magical aptitude? In Katarina’s case, her powers manifested at five years of age. Even if she is spoiled by her father, I don’t think he would yield with regards to the academy...”
“Kuh. All that trouble for this no-good, useless earth magic...”
“Well... How about we just not bully the protagonist in the first place?”
“Yes, yes that’s right!”
“... In the game, didn’t Katarina’s flunkies end up bullying the protagonist too? Even if we didn’t bully her, we could be seen as the ringleader!”
“That’s not all! Our fiancé is that twisted Prince Jeord! He may... do something about us, if only so that he could end up with the protagonist!”
“N-No... What do we do, then?”
“I don’t want to die...”
“...What do we do if we get chased out of the country and lose our social standing...? I have no idea...”
“In any case, we should all calm down. I’ve just thought of an excellent idea.”
“An excellent idea?!”
“First things first... If Jeord ever makes an attempt on our lives, we need to be able to defend ourselves. To that end, we have to become more skilled at the sword! If it comes down to it and we do have to fight him, we would not fall so easily to his blade!”
“Oooh! That’s true!”
“Also... we will need some means of survival if we do get exiled from the kingdom. My suggested solution would be... improving our magical ability.”
“And how exactly do we do that? Katarina only has that pathetic earth magic of hers...”
“There aren’t as many individuals with magical aptitude in other kingdoms and lands. So... if we do practice and hone our magical skill, we would have no trouble finding employment even if we do get kicked out of the kingdom. In fact, Katarina was obsessed with Jeord in the game, and spent all her time trying to get into his good books... That’s why her grades were bad! She didn’t study or practice her magic at all! So, if we really put our minds to it, we can become skilled at magic!”
“Oh, I see!”
“That’s exactly it!”
“Well then, ladies. The solution is clear — we are to put our minds to honing our swordplay and magic!”
“Agreed.”
“Agreed.”
And with this, the first Katarina Claes Catastrophic Bad End Avoidance Strategy Meeting came to an end.
If there were just one person in this meeting who wasn’t Katarina Claes, they would be quick to point out that the solution the three Katarinas had arrived at did not amount to very much at all. Unfortunately, there was no other person present to tell Katarina this very important point...
After the first Katarina Claes meeting, I set about my agenda the very next day, starting a special training regimen in swordplay and magic. While my parents were adequately surprised at my sudden request, I claimed that it was for the purposes of self-defense, and so that I would not embarrass myself at the academy. My unfaltering stance eventually led to my parents agreeing, albeit in a somewhat exasperated manner. Come to think of it, their expressions reminded me of a face my previous parents used to make. How nostalgic...
With my concerted efforts, I pestered my blank-eyed father, convincing him to find me swordplay and magic tutors posthaste. While he did manage to find me an instructor for swordplay relatively quickly, a magic tutor was a little more difficult. As a result, I resigned myself to reading books on magic from the manor’s library instead — for now, this would suffice as practice.
In a corner of the garden, I propped up an old, thickly-bound tome on my knees, opening it and reading the very first page. Written on the page were the following words: “To reach great heights in magic, one must first communicate with one’s magical origins.”
To begin with, I did not exactly swing swords around or cast magic in my previous life. As such, there was no way I would suddenly become a magical prodigy in this world — in other words, I was starting from scratch.
Communicate with one’s magical origins... My magical element was earth. To make things worse, it was pathetically weak. For reference, my one and only magical spell could raise the earth’s surface by two or three centimeters. In its current state, it was basically useless to me. In fact... Katarina Claes could not use any other kind of magic in the game — raising the earth by miniscule levels was the best she could do.
This “Raise the earth for two or three centimeters magic” — I suppose we could call it “Earth Raiser” magic — was primarily used to trip the protagonist. Was... Was there anything else? No? Well, “Earth Raiser” could very well be seen as a tool made for the express purposes of tripping someone, as that was all it could do.
Terrible. A truly pathetic kind of magic. If this tiny Earth Raiser was all I could use, how would I escape the doomed fates before me?! I had to somehow improve my magical powers!
Communicate with one’s magical origins... Hmm... Does that mean I have to speak with... the earth itself?
The earth... Communicate... Speak with the earth. OH! I see!
“Um... My lady. What exactly is it that you are doing?” my maid Anne called out to me with a somewhat concerned expression.
“Why, I’m tilling the earth, Anne,” I answered energetically, dressed in a set of overalls I had borrowed from one of the gardeners. On this day, I had decided to plant some crops in the manor’s large garden.
“Umm. I do recall you wishing to practice your magic, my lady. But... why are you tilling the earth?”
“I’m tilling the earth and planting crops to increase my magical power, you see!”
“I sincerely apologize, my lady, but I do not profess to understand any of what you just said,” Anne replied, her expression of concern now replaced by a surprised one. She seemed confused by my cheerful response.
“Umm, you see. In this tome of magic I read, it said... ‘To reach great heights in magic, one must first communicate with one’s magical origins.’ And my magical element is earth, right? So this is it! I’m communicating with the earth! And I’m doing it while planting crops in this field I’m tilling!!”
To tell the truth, my mother’s side of the family in my previous life had a long history of farming. My grandmother used to say that tending to the fields was much like speaking to the ea
rth, and that was that. Truly, I was grateful for her advice — if I succeeded in tilling this field and eventually reaped its harvest, I would have achieved great communication with the earth.
I did, of course, first ask for permission from the gardener, and then borrowed a hoe, shovel, and gardening overalls. I could not possibly be more prepared. Taking all that into consideration, as long as I kept honing my magical powers by tilling the fields, I would successfully avoid a Catastrophic Bad End.
“...I do not think that tilling the fields is ‘communicating with one’s magical origins’... Somehow, something feels... off, about that interpretation...”
Anne seemed to be mumbling to herself now. Leaving her to her own devices, I brought my hoe down onto the ground, renewing my efforts at tilling the earth.
Only seven more years until I would start studying at the academy. During this time, I had to do more than simply strengthen my Earth Raiser spell — I also had to learn other magics, preferably profitable ones. And so I continued working the small field I stood in, shoveling the dirt with a steely focus.
My field work was soon interrupted by Anne, however, who appeared to have suddenly recalled an issue of import. “...Ahh!! This isn’t the time for you to be tilling the earth and working the fields, my lady! You have an important arrangement — the prince... Prince Jeord is paying you a social visit today!!”
“... Eh? Why?” I asked, dropping my hoe in surprise.
“What do you mean why, my lady?! He’s here to pay you a visit, as is customary after a marriage engagement!!”
“Oh... Is that right?” Oops. It had entirely slipped my mind...
“In any case, you mustn’t keep him waiting! Please return to the manor at once!”
“Y-Yes! Let’s do that!” I could not let the prince, of all people, see me in this getup. Even I knew that was a little too much.
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Volume 1 Page 2
