My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Volume 5

by Satoru Yamaguchi

  If only I had the kind smile of my sisters, I thought in disappointment as I found myself grimacing at today’s party. Just being there filled me with sorrow. Had the one being celebrated not been my beloved sister, who would always side with me, I would have already said that I did not feel well and left.

  I sighed and moved towards a corner of the room, planning to hide until the party was over, but the hall was suddenly filled with excited voices. I looked at where the excitement was coming from and saw a man, who had likely just arrived — late.

  The voices belonged to the ladies swarming around him. Curious, I walked closer to discover the reason for so much fuss.

  He was incredibly, stunningly handsome. His shiny golden hair and blue eyes made him look like a prince from a fairy tale. I reacted to seeing him in much the same way as the other ladies: by blushing and staring.

  “He is so handsome!”

  “Who is he?”

  “You do not know him? He is Luigi Claes, from the duke’s family!”

  “He is that Luigi?”

  I overheard the man’s identity... Luigi Claes, heir to Duke Claes. Even someone as unsociable as me, who seldom attended balls and had few friends, knew of his name. He was beautiful, charming, smart, and talented... and, as if that was not enough, he was destined to become duke. No other man was as sought-after as him in aristocratic society.

  A single glance was enough for me to fall for him, but now that I knew who he was, I could never approach him. My rank may have been high enough, but someone as beautiful as him seemed to come from another world than I, a girl whose unapproachable personality had kept me unmarried.

  I managed to tear my eyes away from him and tried to move back to the corner I had come from.

  “Millidiana!” called out a voice from behind me.

  It was my father, wearing a wide smile on his face. And beside him was... Luigi Claes?!

  I was paralyzed with surprise, but Father gestured for me to come to them. To be honest, I did not want to go so near the center of the hall, nor near someone who gathered as much attention as Luigi... However, I could not pretend that I had not noticed my father, so I begrudgingly obliged.

  “Luigi, this is Millidiana, my second daughter.”

  “I am Millidiana Adeth. It is a pleasure to meet you,” I said, in the most ladylike fashion I could manage.

  “I am Luigi Claes. The pleasure is mine. Your father has always been very kind to me,” he replied with a smile so charming that it made all the ladies around us sigh. Of course, after sighing, they shot me their coldest stares...

  He was even more handsome up close... As his blue eyes looked into mine, I felt my face becoming hot.

  And the scariest thing was that he was so attractive that when he told me, “You are truly beautiful, Lady Millidiana,” I felt like passing out despite knowing that it could be nothing but empty flattery.

  For reasons I did not understand, Luigi ended up spending the rest of the party with me. My father had probably asked him to do so — it would not be good for the host’s daughter to be alone against a wall the whole time — and he had complied, repaying whatever favors he had received previously.

  At first, I felt uncomfortable being stared at with hate by the ladies who wanted to enjoy Luigi’s company, but then I realized that I would never have another opportunity like this and forgot about them.

  Once this party is over, he will probably never even look at me again... I might as well enjoy my time with this fairytale prince while it lasts.

  And enjoy it I did, as happy and smiling as I had ever been.

  “Millidiana, I had a lot of fun with you today. Let’s see each other again,” he told me with a smile when we parted.

  Enchanted, I replied, “Of course.”

  But I knew that we would not meet again.

  ...Or so I thought.

  “Wh-What did you just say, Father?” I asked in a daze.

  “As I said, your engagement has been decided, Millidiana. It was Luigi Claes who asked for your hand. Quite the wonderful news, don’t you think?”

  “Luigi... Claes...”

  I listened to my father, but what he was saying was so difficult to believe that I could not process it. Luigi? Asking for my hand? Why would someone as popular as him do such a thing?

  As I was still too shocked to comprehend the situation, time passed and the preparations went so far that the date of the wedding had already been decided.

  I was madly in love with Luigi, but I did not know why he would ever stay by my side and give me the kind words that he did... until the other ladies from high society told me.

  “Luigi has been treated very well by the Adeth family, so he took the leftover daughter to repay the favor.”

  “He has such a strong sense of duty, he must have felt obligated to help them!”

  “It is so sad that such a wonderful man would have to marry such an undesirable girl.”

  Their words cleared up all of my questions. Luigi married me to repay my father’s favors... After all, the first time we met, he did say, “Your father has always been very kind to me.”

  That’s why he married me... out of obligation...

  But, even after knowing the truth, my feelings for him would not disappear... Still torn between happiness and sadness, I became Millidiana Claes.

  Luigi was always very kind to me, but, maybe because he had only taken me as his wife out of duty, I could feel some distance between us.

  I love him... but he does not love me back. The more he was kind to me, the more I fell in love with him... and the more painful it became. Even after our daughter was born, things did not change.

  However... when our daughter was eight years old, we adopted a child to be our son. Then, after a series of incidents, I finally realized that we had been misunderstanding each other all along.

  He had not married me out of obligation, but had loved me from the start. The pain I had felt in my chest for all these years disappeared at once. We were finally able to feel like a married couple for the first time.

  At last, I was happy from the bottom of my heart.

  “Heigh-ho!”

  We now loved each other more than ever, and our days together were as sweet as those of two newlyweds.

  “Heave-ho!”

  Our adopted son was also smart and talented, adding to my happiness.

  “Heigh-ho!”

  ...What’s this sound?

  I was drinking my afternoon tea, savoring the moment as I remembered the past... but these weird sounds coming from the garden were ruining the atmosphere.

  There was only one person who would yell like that in this respectable, venerable family. I put my tea back onto the table and made for the door leading to the garden. Once there, I found that the noise had come from the person that I had expected, who was tilling the soil in the getup that I had also expected.

  Because of that person, the beautiful Claes garden was slowly turning into a field.

  “Heigh-ho! Heave-ho!”

  I approached that person, who was so concentrated on working the hoe that she did not even notice me.

  “Katarina!”

  Afterword

  Hi everyone, I’m Satoru Yamaguchi.

  My Next Life as a Villainess has finally reached its fifth volume. This is all thanks to you, the readers. You have all my gratitude!

  In this volume, I wrote about some things that happened in the background of previous events. These include the stories that I wrote as extras for the web novel: the ones about the Claes servants, Katarina’s parents, her rival, and her friends — Jeord, Alan, Keith, Mary, Sophia, Maria, and of course Nicol with his matchmaking dates. There are a lot of characters to write about!

  I hope that you’ll read this volume thinking, “Oh, so that’s what happened back then!”

  Nami Hidaka-sama, other than drawing the usual beautiful illustrations for this volume, has also drawn a wonderful manga, longer than ever before!

/>   I am so grateful to Hidaka-sama for their wonderful work on this manga, as well as those on Volumes 3 and 4. And I can’t help but smile any time I read them. And this time it’s even longer! Fantastic!

  Seeing my characters’ stories so beautifully illustrated is an incredible feeling. After seeing them for the first time, I almost passed out! Make sure to read the manga pages!

  Thank you so much, Hidaka-sama!

  And finally, I also want to thank my editor, as well as all the people that made this book possible.

  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  Satoru Yamaguchi

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  Copyright

  My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Volume 5

  by Satoru Yamaguchi

  Translated by Marco Godano

  Edited by Aimee Zink

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Satoru Yamaguchi

  Illustrations by Nami Hidaka

  All rights reserved.

  First published in Japan in 2017 by Ichijinsha Inc., Tokyo.

  Publication rights for this English edition arranged through Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

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  Ebook edition 1.1: May 2020