I felt the respect I had always held for my father was in risk of waning ever so slightly.
After that, I stopped looking for a fiancée. And, for some reason, I felt that perhaps reading through one of those weird novels that Sophia always recommended to me, with words like “stolen love” in the title, wouldn’t be so bad of an idea.
Chapter 5: Raphael’s Thankless Job
Almost a year had passed since I had started working at the Magical Ministry. It had been arranged for me to come here because of my involvement in some serious incidents, but, owing to the complicated nature of my past, everyone actively avoided me.
“Nobody wants him in their department? What a waste of a rare specimen! Well, then I’ll gladly accept Raphael Wolt into mine!”
These were the words with which my superior, Larna Smith, accepted me into her department.
Larna, one of the leaders within the Ministry, was an all-around talented woman and an expert in disguise. Nobody knew what she actually looked like, or even where she had come from, making her stand out as an anomaly in a place where everyone was an anomaly to begin with.
However, she had many enemies due to her peculiar position, which meant that her department — of which I was part — was often the subject of harassment. Talented as she was, she already had to take on a lot of work... and then some people would push even more onto us because they didn’t like her.
“...Raphael, I’m spent... Mind if I sleep for a bit?”
“No! If you sleep now, you won’t wake up for at least two days. Please... just a bit longer.” I implored my overworked colleague to stay awake. The only answer he could muster was a sigh, and he looked as if he could fall asleep any second.
This won’t do. I offer him a glass of cold water. “Here, drink this,” I said, and he accepted it and started drinking in an attempt to stay awake.
As I continued working, the door opened and another overworked colleague, who had gone to wash his face to fight the drowsiness, came back in. He must have scrubbed really hard, as his face had turned red.
“So? Did you see Larna?” I asked him, to which he shook his head. Disappointed, I let out a sigh.
After the happy ending to the kidnapping of Keith Claes, a duke’s adopted son, she came back to the office looking very pleased. But before long, she had gone off again to who-knows-where.
And what a time she had chosen to do so. Between the aftermath of the kidnapping and the work pushed onto us by the other departments, we were all exhausted and could think of only one thing: sleep. If she were here, she could make quick work of a good share of all this paperwork. We all wished that she would come back as soon as possible.
My boss was a truly talented individual... but she was also a very eccentric one. The second her interest was caught by something, she’d go off chasing it herself. That being said, she protected her subordinates, took responsibility for what she did, and was an all-around reliable and respected figure.
I should have made her stay here. But who’d have thought she’d disappear again so soon? I sounded my regret by means of yet another sigh. But there was no time for idle grief, so I made sure to keep working while I sighed.
My hands silently moved from one document to the next. It felt as if I was never going to finish. My vision and my thoughts both started to blur. I was getting close to my limit.
After three days of sleepless work, one of my colleagues — in a bout of something I can only describe as insanity — had concocted a dubious formula he called an “anti-sleepiness drink.” If push came to shove, I’d have to consider drinking whatever that was.
As my blurred hands kept moving through the papers, my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the opening door. The only member of the department outside the office, at that moment, was Larna.
Did she come back?! I thought to myself, elated, only to be disappointed to see Sora, the young man who had recently joined the Ministry. Larna had taken him under her wing, but before he could be taught the ins and outs of work in our department, she had brought him with her on a “research trip.”
Normally we would have to teach him from scratch, but right now we could not spare the time to sleep, let alone teach anything to anyone. Therefore, we told him to go to the ministry’s library and study by himself, like one would do at school.
However, since he was involved in Keith’s kidnapping, I had also asked him to write a simple report on that. That was likely the contents of the papers in his hands.
“Here is the report you asked me to write,” he said, confirming my theory and handing me the papers.
“Well done, thank you.”
He looked a bit distressed. “This is my first time writing an official document like this... I did get it checked, but...”
“Uh? Checked? By whom?”
All other members of his department were in this office, staring at their desks with bloodshot eyes. Did he ask someone from another department...?
“Oh, that would be Miss Smith.”
“...Larna? Where is she?” I asked him as my heartbeat steadily got faster.
“I met her while coming here from the library,” he answered, unaware of the trouble we were going through.
“So she was... here... Where exactly did you see her?”
“Hmm, it was right when I left the library, I think...”
The fastest runner in the department, upon hearing that answer, looked at me for an instant before standing up, and I returned his gaze with an imploring one. He nodded, left the room, and went after Larna.
If we managed to catch her, our work could potentially end so much faster. Maybe tonight we could even sleep! In a bed!
The small flame of hope warmed my heart. Did my vision get a little less blurry? Newly motivated, I looked over Sora’s report, which the higher-ups had asked to be submitted as soon as possible.
If Larna checked it, it should be fine... is what I thought, until I actually read it.
“...Say, Sora, what did Larna tell you after checking it?”
“She laughed and then said something like ‘I like how peculiar it is’... Is there anything wrong?”
This poor, confused guy probably meant no harm... but this was no way to write a report.
“...and then Katarina Claes was going crazy, like, ‘this dog is so cute!’ and she kept yapping like that...”
This is how downtown delinquents talk! And why did Larna just laugh and let it go?! I’m going to be the one to get in trouble with the higher-ups! How can he be this bad at writing?!
“...Sora, I heard that you used to be the butler for an important noble house, yes?”
“Yes, I was.”
So I wasn’t wrong. I felt safe letting him write this on his own because I had heard that, but...
“And, during your time as a butler, did you not write any kind of official document?”
“Oh, well, I was a butler but, you know, I’ve never been to school. I can read and write kind of fine, but nothing very complex. I usually just had someone else write things for me and then use magic to change their memories.”
So he just used Dark Magic and didn’t actually write anything...
“...I may have to teach you how to write a report...”
Sora gave me a nod of apology and understanding as I despaired at my work increasing even more.
The door opened and my colleague came back in... alone. I didn’t even need him to explain what had happened.
“...I couldn’t find her. She’s already left the Ministry.”
The whole department sighed in unison, and I felt my vision get even blurrier than before. My hopes of sleeping in a bed tonight were shattered.
“Hey, about that anti-sleepiness drink you made...”
Chapter 6: Love-Talk With the Girls
The graduation ceremony that I’d been dreading so much came and went without incident, so by next spring, I would start my second year of studies. And with my worries gone, I was now free to
enjoy myself.
The sun shone gently onto the garden, the birds sang happily, and more and more couples started walking around the academy together. It was as if the whole world had come together to celebrate Katarina Claes’ success at avoiding all the Catastrophic Bad Ends.
I’m so happy... Uhm? Wait a second, why are there so many couples around?
“I heard that there always are more couples in spring,” said my childhood friend Mary, answering that very question.
The other girls and I were spending the day in Mary’s room, and the four of us were chatting together. Other than Mary and I, there was my other childhood friend Sophia and the Fortune Lover protagonist Maria, who had also become a good friend of mine.
During that pleasant all-girls tea party, I voiced my confusion about what I had noticed lately. “Is it just me, or are there more couples than usual around the academy?” Which is the question that prompted Mary’s answer.
“But why?” I pressed on. I was pretty sure they weren’t actually celebrating my victory over the Catastrophic Bad Ends. Actually, ever since Jeord took me as his fiancée to avoid lady suitors, the only romance I’d experienced was in my books... Are they doing this on purpose to taunt me?
“It could just be the season. A lot of animals breed in spring. And also, most high-ranking nobles become engaged when they’re still children, but the others start looking for fiancées after their debut in society, around the age that we are now. So these could be new couples, trying to get to know each other better.”
So it’s not about taunting me. That’s good.
And, while I wasn’t so sure what animals’ breeding had to do with anything, the part about getting to know each other better seemed to make sense. A lot of them seemed to show that cute awkwardness typical of fresh couples.
“New engagements! New couples! Oh, it’s so romantic!” said Sophia, who had also ignored the thing about animals.
“But I wonder... They’re political engagements, aren’t they? Is there really any romance in that?”
When Jeord proposed his engagement to me, my heart didn’t race with love, but with fear over what I should do next. Sophia, romantic as usual, looked disappointed after hearing my unromantic view.
Mary noticed and tried to brighten the mood. “It seems that nowadays many young people are choosing their partners out of their own will, however.”
“Really?” asked an excited Sophia.
“Yes. I’ve just heard of a lady who fell in love at first sight with a young man during her social debut ball. Struck by passion, she proposed to him.”
“Love at first sight and a passionate proposal... It’s so wonderful!” Sophia enthused.
“So even nobles marry out of love!” commented Maria in surprise.
Mary, well-informed on noble society as usual, explained that most marriages used to be political in the past, but that things were slowly changing now.
“Do you think the couples in the academy are of the love-marriage variety?” I asked her.
“Probably, yes,” Mary replied after thinking for a moment. “They look pretty close.”
If that were really the case, these would be the same type of lovers I used to frown upon with envy in my previous life. I had mixed feelings about seeing them enjoy their blooming youth like that. Before getting reincarnated here, I had only ever experienced love by proxy through my otaku media... Unfortunately, I died before I could ever go on a date with anyone.
And now in my second life, I was so busy dodging Catastrophic Bad Ends that, again, I had no time for romance. And the second that catastrophe was averted... couples everywhere. Sigh.
With four young girls getting together and chatting, you’d expect us to talk about love, but all we’d been talking about were topics like the vegetables in my field and the new dishes in the school dining hall. Why couldn’t we talk about something more... girly?
The one romantic topic we did discuss was novels, but even then, Sophia had recently started liking ones geared towards more mature women, and you could hear her using words like “affair,” “mistress,” and other things you wouldn’t expect a girl her age to say.
I finally realized that, just as in my previous life, I had been left behind in the race of love. But what about my friends? They all were incredibly beautiful, and with good personalities to boot. How could not a single one of them have romance in their lives? Or maybe they had partners, but hid them from me so that I wouldn’t feel left out. The more I thought about that possibility, the more likely it seemed... and the sadder it made me feel.
“So... don’t any of you have any romances going on?” I asked to fulfill my curiosity.
If they really were hiding their love stories out of consideration for me, I wanted them to stop. I just wanted to talk about romance like other girls my age.
It had taken some courage for me to ask about it so directly, but everyone just stared at me and tilted their heads, thinking in silence.
They really don’t have any? Or are they keeping it from me?
“M-Mary, I mean, you’re the focus of all the balls you go to... You must have a lot of boys approaching you!”
“...Approaching me?”
★★★★★★★
Katarina’s stare had put me on the spot.
“But I am already engaged to Prince Alan...”
“Yes, but don’t you ever get approached by a stunning boy at a ball?”
“...A stunning boy at a ball?”
Now that I thought of it, such a thing did occur quite often, despite the fact that I had a fiancé — Alan Stuart. It was only for show, but no one except me and the prince knew about this.
It was just last year that Alan, realizing his feelings for Katarina, suggested that we cancel our engagement. This did not surprise me, as I had always known that Alan was extremely candid for a noble. However, I refused and proposed that we stay formally engaged. Not because we had feelings for one another, but because it was just more convenient to do so.
Since he became my fiancé when we were eight years old, I had never disliked Alan; I was actually quite fond of his honest personality (which was a stark contrast with that of his cold, calculating twin).
But no one holds a place as large as Katarina in my heart. Had I not met her, I would have likely fallen in love with Alan, who was the closest person to me next to my family, and happily married him.
However, I had met someone unique and irreplaceable. A girl who changed me. A girl who saved me. I had never had feelings that strong for anyone before.
This was why I kept my engagement with Alan. The last thing I wanted was to marry someone and be forced to part with Katarina.
Despite this, for some reason, young men continued to approach me left and right. At first I was incensed, appalled that they would even come near a girl who was already engaged. But after attending many balls, I eventually realized that these people were not like the men in Sophia’s novels, falling in love at first sight and passionately proposing, trying to take me away from Alan. They only sought the thrill of unfaithfulness.
In our noble society, that was far from the exception. Although this was slowly changing, the norm was for young men and women to be forced to marry for political reasons, often to someone that they had no regard for at all. They took this to mean that once they had fulfilled their duties by giving birth to an heir, they could play around as much as they wanted. Nobles were much less loyal to their partners than commoners were.
As someone who was — to my displeasure — considered particularly attractive, I was the target of the advances of many such nobles.
Another reason for this could be the fact that I was not usually accompanied by Alan during the balls, even though he should have been my escort. (It was not that he would refuse if I asked him to, but attending solo was more convenient for snooping around...)
Usually, I would simply gracefully dodge the moves that any of those womanizers would try to put on me, but at
the ball the other day I really risked getting into trouble...
The ball, a fairly large one, was close to its end.
“Come and keep me company! Just for a while!”
“Thank you, but I’m not interested.”
This young man, reminiscent of a downtown thug, had been approaching me so insistently that both my voice and choice of words had become a bit rough from my annoyance. Failing to notice that, either because of innate stupidity or because of how much wine he had drunk, the boy continued to pester me with his breath reeking of alcohol. And, what’s worse, he had somehow drawn me into a corner of the hall with no one around.
This isn’t good... Maybe I should stomp on his foot with my heel and run...
“You’ve come this far... might as well play with me, no?” he said with a creepy smile as he pinned me against a wall. I could hardly move and was completely terrified.
“What d’you think you’re doing to my fiancée?” said Alan, heroically coming to my rescue. He pulled my harasser away from me and stared at him menacingly. In response, he just stood there with his mouth open, trying to think of an appropriate excuse, before running away as fast as he could.
“Are you alright?” Alan asked me once I finally felt safe.
Taking a good look at him, I saw that he was out of breath. He must have run here to save me as soon as he saw that I was in trouble, I thought, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Thank you,” I said, to which he blushed, turned away from me, and grunted a reply.
Perhaps he was childish, but I was glad to have him as my fiancé, even if it was just for show. And I wouldn’t tell anyone that, on that day, I felt something for Alan that I had never felt before.
As for the harasser, I had him swiftly removed from noble society.
Even searching through my memories, I couldn’t find any romantic stories like the ones that Katarina was looking for.
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Volume 5 Page 9
