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 - Memory of the Stars — The Oblivious Young Lady and Fragments of the Future —
The third-floor office of the Ministry of Magic was a little dimmer than usual, thanks to the heavy curtains that shut out the afternoon sun. The leaves of the potted plant by the window trembled whenever a draft slipped through. Katarina Claes sat frowning at a mountain of paperwork.
"Ugh... why does the Magical Education Division have to generate so much paper?"
She set the sheaf of parchment in her hands down on the desk and stretched, arching her back. A sun-tanned wrist peeked from the cuff of her white blouse. The calluses on her palms, earned from farm work, had grown thoroughly hard. They didn't look like the hands of a nobleman's daughter. She herself had never once minded.
"Lady Katarina, I'll take care of this, so please don't push yourself too hard."
A soft voice came from the desk across from hers. Maria Campbell tucked a wave of bright chestnut hair behind her ear and watched Katarina with a worried look. Her green eyes were gentle, and the air around her alone—she who harbored light magic—seemed just a touch clearer than elsewhere.
"Maria, are you sure you're not overdoing it? You've been working late three days straight, haven't you?"
Katarina tilted her head, and Maria gave a small laugh. It was a smile like a saint's—and yet with a shadow somewhere in it.
"I'm fine. Just being able to work alongside you makes me happy, Lady Katarina."
At those words, Katarina broke into a bashful "ehehe" grin. This junior of hers always adored her to excess. Maria, born a commoner, had been able to enter the Ministry of Magic because she possessed light magic—rare in this kingdom. In the Kingdom of Luminousfel, only about fifteen percent of the population could use magic at all. Among them, the light attribute was exceedingly rare, and Maria, hired by special exception despite her common birth, was often regarded with envy by those around her.
(Which is exactly why I have to protect her.)
Katarina reached for the stack of documents with that thought in mind.
That was when it happened.
Maria's fingertips suddenly flickered.
"...Huh?"
A pale golden light drifted around Maria's white fingers, wandering unsteadily like a lost firefly. Her light magic was leaking out, independent of her will. Katarina's hand, still holding the papers, stopped.
"Maria, your fingers—were they glowing just now?"
Maria stared at her own palm. The light was already gone. But her expression had clouded with something like unease.
"...The stargleam is restless. Lately, especially at night, the light inside me just won't settle."
Stargleam. The particles of magic that filled the atmosphere. Magic users drew them into their bodies and converted them through incantations to cast spells. The stronger one's magic, the more sensitive one became to changes in the stargleam.
"The stargleam is restless?"
Katarina tilted her head. Honestly, she didn't really understand. Her earth magic could barely raise a small mound of soil—nowhere near delicate enough to sense the flow of stargleam.
"Yes. It feels like... an omen that something bad is about to happen."
Maria's voice was so small it seemed about to vanish.
Katarina thought for a moment, then flashed a bright smile.
"You must just be tired. It's been so busy around here lately. Hey—next day off, why don't we go out for sweets? I hear Stardust Hall in the Lumina shopping district has some new baked goods in."
Maria looked up at Katarina's face. That unconscious kindness seeped into her chest.
"...Thank you, Lady Katarina."
Maria's cheeks softened ever so slightly. But deep in those green eyes, a faint shadow remained that she could not wipe away.
Katarina pretended not to notice and turned back to her paperwork.
(It's fine. She's just tired, I'm sure.)
She repeated it to herself in her heart. In a corner of her mind, the words of the silver-haired young man she'd met three days ago at the observatory in the North Tower of the royal palace—Celes Valmont—were crackling like static.
"You will soon be forced to make a very important choice."
"That choice will deeply wound the people you love."
(That was just sleep-talk. A recorder of the stars has to be an odd one, after all.)
Katarina shook her head and drove the thought away.
—And yet, when night came, her feet carried her, as if of their own accord, to those spiral stairs.
The stone staircase leading to the North Tower of the royal palace was cold at night. Guided by the pale blue light of the magelamp in her hand, Katarina climbed one step at a time, carefully. The stargleam-crystal lamps embedded in the walls had been thinned out as before, so that islands of light floated up every few paces.
(Why am I coming to a place like this again?)
She didn't really understand it herself. The observatory she'd stumbled upon during a patrol assignment that day. In a place that was supposed to be off-limits, she'd met a silver-haired young man. He'd introduced himself as a recorder of the stars. One who read the branching paths of the future from the movements of the stars and recorded them—the rarest post in the kingdom.
(I have to confirm what he said.)
A prophecy. A choice. A future that would wound the people she loved.
She had no intention of believing in such things. She didn't want to believe. And yet the young man's silver eyes would not leave her head. That hollow light, like someone floating alone in a sea of stars.
When she reached the top of the spiral stairs, that iron door was there.
(It's open again.)
Katarina pushed the door gently. The hinges creaked.
The observatory was filled with the light of a sky full of stars, just as it had been that night. A circular room fifteen meters across. The starlight pouring down through the skylight made the fine graduations on the brass star chart glow pale blue.
And before the star chart stood the silver-haired young man.
Celes Valmont.
He turned slowly at the sound of the door opening. His long silver hair flowed smoothly, catching the starlight. His silver eyes fixed squarely on Katarina.
"...I knew you would come."
It was a quiet voice. Low and clear, as if dissolving into the night air.
Katarina took a step into the room.
"You're Celes Valmont, aren't you? About that prophecy the other day—I want you to properly tell me what it meant."
Celes set the quill he'd been holding on the edge of the star chart. His slender white fingers showed through in the starlight. On the back of his left hand was an old scar shaped like a star.
"First, allow me to correct something. That was not a warning. It was a prophecy."
"A prophecy..."
"Yes. The stars reflect the branching paths of the future. I merely conveyed one of those branches to you."
Celes's voice was businesslike through and through, with no warmth to it.
Katarina took a step closer to him.
"So you're saying that by choosing someone, I'll hurt everyone? Prince Geordo, Keith, Maria too?"
Celes shook his head quietly.
"Explaining it in words won't convince you. ...First, see it with your own eyes."
With that, Celes held out his right hand. His white palm opened before Katarina.
"Take my hand. With stargleam magic, I'll pour a fragment of the future into your consciousness."
Katarina hesitated.
(Who is this person? I can't get a read on him.)
But her hand had already touched Celes's, almost unconsciously.
The instant they touched, the world burst apart.
—Geordo was there before her.
The golden-haired, blue-eyed crown prince. Katarina's fiancé. He had drawn his sword. In those blue eyes dwelled a cold light she had never seen before. Opposite him stood Keith. Her flaxen-haired adoptive brother had summoned a giant figure with earth magic. The ground split, and clods of earth rose with a roar. Between the two of them, killing intent scattered sparks.
(Stop...!)
Katarina tried to scream, but no sound came.
The next instant, the scene shifted.
Maria was crying. The light overflowing from her hands was changing from gold to black. The saint-like smile was gone, replaced by a face twisted in despair. Her light magic ran wild, swallowing everything around it.
(Maria...!)
And then she looked up at the sky.
The night sky over the royal capital Arcadias. Among countless twinkling stars, one shone with an unnatural brilliance. A red star. It was falling toward the earth, slowly but surely. The calamity of the falling star. The same disaster that had claimed some thirty thousand lives in the six hundred twentieth year of the kingdom's calendar, come again.
(No... Nooo!!)
Katarina's consciousness was shaken violently through the darkness, and then—
"—Ah!"
Katarina came to at the sound of her own scream.
When she realized, she was sitting on the cold floor of the observatory. Her whole body was drenched in sweat. Her breathing was ragged. Her heart pounded violently deep in her chest.
"W-what... what was that...?"
Her voice trembled.
Celes had dropped to one knee before her and was quietly looking down at her.
"That was a fragment of a future your choice may bring about. The conflict between Geordo Stuart and Keith Claes. Maria Campbell's light magic running wild. And the red star falling on the royal capital."
Katarina looked up at Celes's face. Tears spilled over on their own.
"That's... I absolutely refuse! I won't let anyone get hurt! They're all precious to me!"
Katarina's cry echoed through the circular room.
Celes quietly received that cry.
"...This is not a decided future. It is nothing more than one branch."
"A branch...?"
"Yes. The future branches infinitely. Which branch you walk depends on what choices you make. What I showed you is one of the futures you would most want to avoid."
Celes rose and walked toward the star chart. His silver hair glittered in the starlight from the skylight.
"There is only one way to avoid it. To choose what you truly wish for, in your own words."
"What I... truly wish for..."
Katarina murmured, dazed.
(What I truly wish for?)
(That's obvious—it's to live peacefully, on good terms with everyone.)
(What else is there to choose?)
"Who are you? Are you really just a recorder of the stars? Telling me something like this—an ordinary recorder couldn't do that."
Still sitting on the floor, Katarina questioned Celes's back.
Celes did not turn around.
"I am a recorder of the stars. ...At least, for now."
"For now?"
"Yes. Do you know the principle of star-reading? 'The stars are to be read, not changed.' It is the kingdom's law, dating back to its founding. Using the results of star-reading for politics is strictly forbidden."
Katarina gave a small nod. It was a phrase she'd heard many times at the Ministry of Magic.
"However, there is an organization that exists as an exception to that principle. The Bureau of Temporal Audit. An institution directly under the star-reading king, which monitors signs of future alteration and intervenes when necessary. They sometimes dispatch envoys who call themselves recorders of the stars."
"The Bureau of Temporal Audit..."
A cold thing ran down Katarina's spine.
(So that means—)
"You're one of them? You're saying you're not a recorder of the stars, but an auditor of time?"
Celes finally turned around. His silver eyes, reflecting the starlight, held an unfathomable depth.
"...Who can say."
That answer was neither yes nor no.
But in that moment, Katarina felt she had glimpsed an indescribable loneliness deep in Celes's eyes. A being bound by a role, suppressing his own will, existing only to record the stars. That was how he seemed.
(Is this person suffering?)
Something in Katarina's chest gave a sharp little ache.
"Katarina Claes. Your choice is your own. I cannot force you. ...It's just that not much time remains."
Having said only that, Celes turned back to the star chart.
The conversation was over.
Katarina rose slowly and headed for the door on unsteady legs.
Just before opening it, she turned around.
"...Cel
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