My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! — Requiem of the Starry Night
In the world of *FORTUNE LOVER*, Katarina Claes has spent her second life dodging every doom flag the game could throw at her—and against all odds, she's succeeded. Graduated, employed at the Ministry of Magic, and surrounded by the people she loves, her future finally looks bright. But when a routine night patrol leads her to a forbidden star-viewing platform and a silver-haired stargazer named Celes Valmont, her hard-won peace begins to crack. "Soon, you will be forced to make a very great cho
My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! — Requiem of the Starry Night - Prophecy of the Starry Night — The Oblivious Young Lady and the Silver-Haired Record Keeper —
The spiral staircase of the royal palace's north tower took on a sharper scent of cold stone at night. Katarina Claes held a small mage-light at chest height and climbed one step at a time, careful with each footfall. Today was her first assignment on the Ministry of Magic's patrol duty, and until now she hadn't even known a staircase existed in this part of the building.
By day, this whole wing was filled with the footsteps of her colleagues and the rustle of turning documents. Now it was dead silent. The star-vein crystal lamps set into the walls were apparently dimmed late at night, so that every few paces only a scattered island of pale blue light floated in the dark. The sound of Katarina's leather shoes striking the stone steps echoed through the narrow cylinder of the stairwell and faded away.
The royal capital of Arcadias, in the Kingdom of Luminousfel. At the heart of this city of a hundred and twenty thousand, the royal palace and the Ministry of Magic headquarters stood side by side. The Ministry was a five-story stone building, and its roughly twelve hundred employees served a dual role: the nation's only institution of magical education, and the government office that policed magical crime. Katarina worked in the Magical Education Division on the third floor. She wore the issued uniform—white blouse, navy skirt—but the ribbon at her collar was always loose, and today it had once again slid halfway down the left side.
"...Huh? Is this a dead end?"
At the top of the spiral staircase stood an iron door. A door that should, by all rights, always be shut. The Ministry's patrol procedure manual said nothing about it. Katarina tilted her head.
(Is patrol duty really supposed to come this far?)
The parchment map in her hand marked only "Star-Viewing Platform" at the top of the north tower. It bore a No Entry stamp—and yet the door now stood slightly ajar. Through the gap, the color of the night sky leaked in. Within that deep indigo, countless stars were twinkling.
Katarina pressed her lips together. Curiosity won out, and she gently pushed the door. The iron hinges gave a small, creaking groan.
Beyond it was a circular room about fifteen meters across. There was no ceiling—a vast skylight opened directly onto the night sky. Starlight poured down, and on the brass star chart set at the center of the room, fine gradations glowed faintly in pale blue.
And before that star chart stood a young man.
His hair was silver. The long strands caught the starlight and shone faintly. Katarina stopped dead. The young man kept his back to her, slowly drawing the quill in his hand across the star chart. Now and then he glanced up at the skylight and tilted his head, as if confirming something.
"Um..."
When Katarina spoke, the young man's hand stopped cleanly. The fingers holding the quill were white and slender. He turned around slowly.
His eyes were silver. A transparent gaze that seemed to pierce through whoever it fell upon—yet somewhere in it dwelt a hollow light. Under that stare, Katarina felt as though she were floating alone in a sea of stars.
"...Katarina Claes."
The young man's voice was quiet, as if dissolving into the night air.
"Magical Education Division, Ministry of Magic. Third Records Room. Today is your patrol shift, I believe."
Katarina started and took a step back.
"Wh—how do you know my name? And this place is supposed to be off-limits..."
"I am the Star Record-Keeper. Celes Valmont."
The young man who called himself Celes set his quill on the rim of the star chart. There was no wasted motion in the gesture—as though he had repeated the same action in this same place for years.
"Star Record-Keeper... you mean the one descended from the stargazer bloodline? The one in fifty thousand?"
Katarina desperately dredged up the term she'd heard around the Ministry. A post that read the branching paths of the future from the movements of the stars and recorded them. One of the rarest positions in the kingdom, open only to those with the gift for stargazing who had completed more than ten years of training.
Celes gave a small nod.
"Yes. The stars are to be read, not changed. In accordance with the stargazers' principle, I do nothing but keep the record here."
"I... see. Um, then I suppose I've interrupted you. I was on patrol, and the door was open, so I couldn't help myself."
Katarina gave a wry smile and reached behind her for the door. Time to get out of here, she thought.
"Wait."
Celes's voice stopped her in her tracks.
"There is something I must tell you."
Katarina turned back. Celes's silver eyes were fixed straight on her. Reflecting the starlight, those eyes alone seemed unnaturally bright.
"Katarina Claes. Soon, you will be forced to make a very great choice."
"...What?"
"That choice will wound the people dearest to you, deeply."
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Katarina thought, *Another conspiracy, is it.* Memories of her past life flickered through her. Ever since she'd been reborn into the world of the otome game *FORTUNE LOVER*, she had been dragged into conspiracy after conspiracy, each one called a doom flag. Exile from the country. The death ending. To avoid them, she had tilled fields, climbed trees, and kept making snake toys.
"...Um, I'm kind of used to that sort of thing by now. I'm busy avoiding doom flags, you know. Telling me about a choice or whatever—"
Katarina tried to laugh it off. But her mouth wouldn't quite move the way she wanted.
Celes shook his head.
"This is not a warning. It is a prophecy."
"A prophecy..."
"And that choice is yours. You cannot entrust it to anyone else."
Celes's voice was flat. There was no feeling in it. And that, inversely, dropped something cold into the depths of Katarina's chest.
"...What do you know?"
Her own voice came out lower than she expected.
Celes did not answer. He only gazed at her face with those silver eyes. And in their depths, for an instant, Katarina thought she glimpsed something like profound loneliness.
"The stars are to be read, not changed."
Celes murmured the words again, as if to himself.
"...I only keep the record. Of what future your choice will bring."
"I don't understand what you mean."
"In time, you will."
Celes turned his back and faced the star chart once more. That back said, plainly, that the conversation was over.
Katarina stood rooted to the spot for a while. There were mountains of things she wanted to ask. But Celes's back would say nothing more.
"...Good night."
She said it softly and left the star-viewing platform behind. In the moment she closed the iron door, Celes's silver hair, bathed in the starlight falling through the skylight, looked as though it were burning white.
On the road home to the ducal estate, Katarina sat in the carriage and gazed absently at the nightscape of the capital flowing past the window. The wheels groaned over the cobblestones, and the vibration traveled up through her body. The star-vein crystal lamps of the commercial district had already gone dark; only a faint glow of hearth-fires leaked from the windows of the commoners' houses.
(A great choice, hm.)
Celes's words repeated themselves in her head, over and over.
(I'm going to hurt someone?)
Katarina was remembering her past life. The memories of when she'd been a Japanese high school girl. She had died in a traffic accident, and when she came to, she'd been reborn as the villainess of an otome game. At this rate, exile or death. She had lived desperately to avoid the doom flags.
(But I've avoided every doom flag, haven't I?)
As Geordo's fiancée, as Keith's stepsister, as a friend to Maria and Mary and Sophia. Somehow, she'd managed to get along with everyone. She'd graduated from the Academy of Magic and even found work at the Ministry. The doom endings should have been a thing of the distant past.
(So what happens now?)
Katarina stared at her own hands. Calluses from farm work, and sun-darkened skin. Could these hands—so unworthy of a noble lady—really hurt anyone?
"...Me, hurting someone? I don't want that."
Alone in the carriage, Katarina murmured it. Her face, reflected in the window glass, floated pale in the darkness of the night.
The next morning, Katarina was battling the mountain of documents piled on her desk in the Magical Education Division office on the third floor of the Ministry headquarters.
"Ugh... why is there always so much? Last week's meeting minutes, this week's teaching-material requisition forms, next month's magic aptitude test notices..."
Katarina set down her pen and stretched hugely. Her spine crackled.
"Lady Katarina, if you'd like, please have some of these."
From the desk beside her, Maria Campbell held out a small package. Her bright chestnut hair, loosely waved, turned golden where the morning light shone through it. Her gentle green eyes held their usual soft warmth.
"Maria! Is this—don't tell me, the usual?"
"Yes. Honey cookies, baked this morning. If you'd like, perhaps at your break."
Maria smiled, a little shy. Born a commoner, she possessed the rare gift of light magic and had been admitted to the Academy of Magic as a special exception. Now she worked in the same Magical Education Division as Katarina, handling aptitude-test assistance and teaching-material development.
"Thank you! Maria's cookies are the best in the world!"
Katarina took the package and immediately popped one into her mouth. The crisp texture and the gentle sweetness of honey spread through her mouth.
"...Delicious. Maria, you're a genuine genius."
"Hehe. Hearing you say that makes me happy, Lady Katarina."
Maria smiled. Seeing that smile, Katarina suddenly noticed something. Maria's light magic had seemed slightly unsettled lately. The star-vein glow that drifted around her would now and then flicker, unstable, as if blinking.
"Say, Maria. Have you been feeling unwell lately? Your light magic seems a little..."
Maria's eyes went round for an instant, as if startled.
"...No, it's nothing. I'm only a little tired."
Maria smiled again. But behind that smile, Katarina thought she caught, for just a moment, something like a shadow.
"Really? Don't push yourself too hard. If anything happens, tell me, all right?"
"Thank you, Lady Katarina."
Nodding at Maria's words, Katarina turned back to the mountain of documents. Outside the window, the streets of the capital Arcadias were lit by the morning sun. The rows of streetlamps with their star-vein crystals gone dark, the roofs of the stone buildings, and far off, the north tower of the royal palace.
(Speaking of which, I wonder if that star-viewing platform's door is open again this morning.)
Katarina was remembering Celes's face from last night. Silver hair, silver eyes. That figure standing bathed in starlight.
(A Star Record-Keeper, huh. So someone like that really exists.)
Her own reflection showed in the Ministry window glass. Long brown hair, water-blue eyes. The slightly upturned cast of her eyes—even she thought of it as a "villainess face." Sun-darkened skin, a few freckles. A body trained by farm work, hardly befitting a noble lady.
As Katarina stared at the glass, her reflection suddenly warped.
It was only for an instant. The outline of her reflection in the window twisted, as if melting. Katarina spun around in alarm.
There was nothing there.
Only the usual office, with colleagues carrying documents and chatting.
(...What was that just now?)
Katarina felt an alarm bell ringing deep in her chest.
"Lady Katarina."
At the sound of her name, Katarina's shoulders jumped.
"M—Mary! You startled me."
Mary Hunt was one of Katarina's closest friends and Prince Alan's fiancée. At the Ministry, she was assigned to the same Magical Education Division as Katarina and the others. Today her face was a little pale.
"Um, Lady Katarina. Lately, haven't you felt as though someone is watching you?"
Mary's voice was fai
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