My Next Life as a Villainess

by Satoru Yamaguchi

  Larna laughed at my surprise. “At least that’s what Daurand says, and all the ones I’ve seen so far fall into that category. Some of them with just text, some with illustrations, some about love affairs, some about stealing lovers, and oh... this one’s about two men,” she said after looking at one of the books near her.

  There are even Boys’ Love books?! Sophia would be thrilled. Lately, she’s been getting bored with normal romance and has started getting interested in that genre.

  I was listening to Larna with utmost interest, but Cyrus, as strict as always, scolded her.

  “Larna, mind what you say around women! A place so full of despicable materials is bound to be bad for the body and the spirit. Maria, Katarina, get out of here.”

  I didn’t see how it could be bad for the body, but he sounded dead serious.

  I’d read a lot of romance novels in my time, but nothing that was straight-out erotic. Dewey, considering his age and upbringing, probably hadn’t either. Sora, our most respectable older colleague, probably had first-hand, non-fictional experience with that kind of stuff. But as for Maria, I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t even know about the existence of books like these. All in all, it was probably better for us to leave.

  “But the covenant could be hidden among these other books!” Maria said, refusing to go.

  It was an unexpected comment from the most unexpected source.

  “But Maria, the books in here are not appropriate for you...” Cyrus said, looking worried as he tried to convince her, but she looked like she wasn’t going to give in any time soon.

  Had Sora said the same thing, I’d have thought that he just wanted to look at the naughty books, but it was obvious that Maria had no such ulterior motive. She really wanted to find the covenant.

  When I had first heard about the forbidden library, I had gotten a weird, inexplicable feeling that the covenant would be hidden here. Maybe Maria had felt something similar, which was why she was so intent on searching the place before giving up.

  One would think that a place called the “forbidden library” would hold valuable ancient magic books or tomes full of dangerous spells, but... erotic books? I could see why they’d want to hide them, but why go through the trouble of building this underground room? Was the idea born out of the same instincts that compelled boys to hide adult magazines under their beds?

  And anyway, why was this place so big? I couldn’t believe that they’d have built this room specifically for erotic books. I mean, if they really had, that would be impressive in its own right.

  Larna, who had been thinking something similar, spoke up. “When was this place even built? I doubt that it was conceived as an erotic library to begin with.”

  “I’m afraid that it was built specifically as an erotic library, right alongside the main library. The wife of the first library director was a very jealous woman, who wouldn’t forgive her husband if he kept as much as a single erotic book. She told him to throw away all the ones that he had collected before marriage, but he only pretended to do so, and hid them inside his mansion. However, she eventually found them, and the director, who had no better place to hide them, had this room added to the library, which was then under construction. This is what I’ve been told,” Daurand explained slowly, as if he were narrating an epic tale, probably unaware of the fact that he had just called it an “erotic library” himself.

  “That’s incredible,” said Larna, stupefied. “But does this mean that all of the books here were his? That would be a ridiculous amount for a single person, and some of them are more recent than others.”

  “Some of them are, but several of the men who succeeded him added their own so that their wives wouldn’t find them. Some directors even added to the collection after they retired, which is why there are so many,” he explained, looking extremely tired. This great erotic collection must have come with great responsibility.

  “That explains it, but that would also mean that the books just keep piling up.”

  “Indeed. Which is why every once in a while I throw out ones that have become too old or worn out. I mix them in with other trash from the Ministry so nobody finds out.”

  Having to do that while also making sure that nobody sees these books must have been a tiresome task... Hm? I can’t put my finger on it, but something sounded off just now.

  “That must be tough,” said Larna, sympathizing with Daurand as he let out a deep sigh.

  “It is. It’s a very troublesome duty,” he said. Then, looking at all of us, he continued, “So please keep this a secret. If those strict colleagues of mine knew that I was looking after this place, they’d all start looking down on me. And my wife, while lovely, can’t stand this kind of thing. She could even divorce me if she found me going in and out of a place like this. Please, please don’t tell anyone about it.”

  He looked so intense in his plea that we all nodded gravely.

  “...Thank you,” he said with tears in his eyes.

  And so, since the director insisted that there were only erotic books in the library, and since Larna, Cyrus, and Sora all checked for themselves and found the same thing, we all went back upstairs.

  I had been positive that we would find the covenant in the underground library, but now we were back to square one. We’d also already checked most of the ancient books in the library, which made me think that maybe the covenant wasn’t in the Ministry at all. Which was weird, considering that this was, without a doubt, the largest library in the kingdom...

  Wait a second... What was that thing that sounded so off before?

  “Isn’t there any place in the Ministry, besides the library, where ancient books are kept?” Maria asked Daurand while I was still thinking to myself.

  “I’m sorry, but there isn’t, at least not that I know of.”

  That was inevitable. If it wasn’t among the other ancient books, it couldn’t be anywhere else. Earlier, he’d also said that the old erotic books were being thrown out, so... Wait! Of course!

  “Mister Daurand! You said that you throw out those erotic books when they’re too old and can’t be read anymore, but does that also apply to the other books in the library?” I asked so enthusiastically that he was surprised.

  “Yes. We see if they can be repaired, and if they cannot, and it is judged that they do not hold particular value, we get rid of them.”

  This meant that even if the covenant really had been here, it could have been thrown away because it was too worn out! That hadn’t occurred to me at all until then.

  “And what do you do when you throw them out? Burn them?” I asked, fearing the worst.

  “I don’t actually know. We throw them away, but other people take care of it from there.”

  “And who are these other people?”

  “The Magical Tool Laboratory,” he said, and I turned back to look at Larna, who was grinning.

  “When we get the books to be thrown out, we don’t get rid of them straight away, just in case there’s a useful one amongst them. Except for the ones that were given to us a long time ago, they should all still be in a warehouse within the Ministry.”

  So there was another place besides the library where we could look for books! I looked at Maria, who looked back at me and nodded.

  “Miss Larna, please show us that warehouse!” I said.

  “Yes, please!” Maria echoed.

  “Since this all started in a garden that’s kept tidy by magic, I assumed that the book would stay in mint condition as well, so I didn’t even consider looking at the discarded books. It might be worth our while to check though,” Larna mused. Then she smiled at the enthusiastic Maria. “I’d tell you to wait until tomorrow, but you don’t seem able to wait any longer. I’ll show you the place, but you’re not allowed to keep searching until late at night,” she said, and then guided us to the warehouse.

  The covenant, which I had almost given up on finding, now seemed to be within reach again, even if the chance of actuall
y finding it was still minuscule. I really hoped that it would be somewhere in that warehouse.

  The large warehouse, used for storing things that didn’t immediately need to be on hand, wasn’t far from the Magical Tool Laboratory office.

  Larna unlocked the door and we all entered. The place was a bit dusty, possibly because people didn’t go there often — after all, nothing that people would normally want was stored here. It looked huge from the outside, but when we went inside, I saw that it was so full of stuff that it actually had very little free space left.

  “Hm, I think books were over here...” said Larna, starting to walk forward. If she hadn’t been there with us, finding the place where the books were being kept would have been a feat all on its own.

  “Oh, here they are,” she said pointing to a bunch of books. Literally a bunch, since they weren’t neatly stacked on shelves like in the library, but just lying around in piles on the floor. There were so many that they could fill a small library room.

  “Looking through these won’t be easy,” I said to myself.

  “Of course,” said Larna, who had heard me. “They’re all piled up at random, and you need to move all the ones on top before you can even see the ones on the bottom. This will take a while, so let’s start after the weekend.”

  We had the next two days off, so it made sense to rest and start searching on Monday. I was nodding at Larna when I noticed Maria walking towards the books by herself and then stopping in front of them.

  “Maria?”

  She removed a few books from a pile and then took one of them in her hands. This was so sudden that we were all staring at her in confusion.

  “Maria? What are you doing?” I asked her.

  “I have finally found it,” she said with a smile.

  “Found it? You can’t possibly mean...”

  I stared at the book she was holding. It was a dusty, old book with a cover which had lost almost all of its original color.

  “Yes. This is the covenant,” she said, shocking everyone.

  What?! The covenant?! For real?! How can she even tell?!

  “Maria, how can you be sure that that is the covenant? And why did you go straight for that one in the first place?”

  It was Larna who asked this, but everyone else was probably thinking the exact same questions.

  “I am not sure of the reason, but I just realized it as soon as I saw that pile of books. This is the one that I have been looking for,” she replied, with a stare so intense that nobody could doubt her words. Regardless, anyone who knew her also knew that she never lied anyway.

  “The protagonist of that fairy tale was able to tell that he had found the covenant as soon as he saw it, but could such a thing really work in reality? Do you mind showing that book to me?” Larna asked.

  She took the book from Maria’s hands and opened it. “This is...” she said, staring at the book’s contents.

  What is it?! Is it a book on incredible, unmatched magic powers?! I was leaning forward, hanging on Larna’s every word.

  “...an introductory book on basic magic.”

  “Whaaaat?! But why?” I found myself screaming. The whole thing made no sense anymore.

  “How am I supposed to know why? I’m just telling you what I see. Look for yourself,” Larna said, handing me the book, which was full of... ancient script, of course.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t read this...” I said, giving up immediately.

  “Oh, right,” Larna said, and then explained that it described very basic magic that academy students learned at the start of their first year.

  Since all the other people around could read the book — unlike me — they all took turns looking at it and then asking Maria the same kinds of questions.

  “Are you sure that this is the covenant?”

  “Yes. I am positive.”

  “But why does it only talk about basic magic?”

  “That could be on purpose, so that people cannot tell what it is really about.”

  “It’s no wonder that they wanted to throw it out, since it only describes basic stuff and it’s this battered.”

  Once again, I felt sad about being left out of the conversation because of my ignorance. Maybe I should go back to studying ancient script. Like, right now, I thought to myself, and took the top book from the pile closest to me. It looked as worn-out as the one that Maria had found, and inside it were tons of difficult letters which I didn’t understand.

  I quickly realized that kind of study wasn’t for me — looking at difficult script made me sleepy. I wished that Larna would build a magical tool to automatically translate books.

  “Well, it seems we achieved our goal here, so let’s go home. It’s quite late already,” Larna said, and only then did I realize how late it had gotten.

  “Let’s get out of this dusty warehouse,” she said, and I quickly followed her, amused by the fact that she also thought it was dusty.

  Once we were all out of the warehouse and ready to go home for the day, Larna said, “As soon as the weekend is over, let’s bring that covenant to the garden.”

  “Actually, I would like to go tomorrow. I can go by myself, if you give me permission,” Maria said timidly.

  “Maria, we know next to nothing about this lost magic, and we can’t tell what could happen. We can’t have you go there by yourself,” Larna replied, and Maria nodded sadly.

  “But I get that you want to try out that magic as soon as possible. If it were me, I’d go right now. But I wasn’t able to get inside the rock by myself,” Larna continued.

  “Larna, when did you even try that?” asked Cyrus, suspicious.

  “As soon as I heard about the garden. How could I resist trying out a type of magic as rare as that? But unfortunately, it didn’t work. Judging from what Maria and Katarina said, and what was written in that fairy tale, I think that only Light Magic users can enter the rock.”

  Cyrus put a hand on his forehead. The fact that Larna had tried to enter the secret dimension inside the rock wasn’t really surprising.

  “So, as I said, I understand why you’d want to try it out as soon as possible. Tomorrow we have no work, and I’m free... So free, in fact, that I may just so happen to take a stroll through the Ministry to kill the time,” she said, grinning like a child, and Maria’s face instantly lit up with happiness.

  “Thank you!” she said with a bow.

  What are they talking about? I think I’m missing something here, I thought, and I looked at Sora, hoping for an explanation.

  “What she means is that she can’t do it officially, but she can go with Maria to try out the covenant as long as they keep it a private thing,” Sora, who had immediately realized what I wanted to ask him, whispered.

  So tomorrow Maria is going to go back to that dimension with the covenant?

  “I’m also free tomorrow! Please let me come,” I said. I’d been helping Maria in her search all along, so I wanted to see Maria as she got her new awesome Light Magic upgrade.

  “Larna, if Maria and Miss Katarina are going then I’ll go too, just to be safe,” Cyrus said, and was soon followed by Dewey and Sora. Eventually, it was decided that, on the next day, we would all go to the lost magic garden together.

  After we decided on a time to meet, the workday was finally over, and I went home.

  “We finally found it,” I said to myself while stretching my tired body on my bed. “But I never thought it’d be in one of the Magical Tool Laboratory warehouses all along.”

  After all the trouble we’d been through, it was inside a place owned by my department... It had been right under our noses the whole time.

  I remembered what Jeord had said a few days ago, and realized that he was right. My fiancé was really incredible.

  I took off my uniform and threw my bag onto the desk — if Anne were there, she would have scolded me for not walking to the desk and gently placing it there, but I was alone, so it didn’t matter.

  The bag landed
perfectly where I wanted it to, thanks to years of practicing the art of throwing toy snakes. Unfortunately, however, the bag opened and all of its contents spilled out.

  I should have walked to the desk like a good girl, I thought while picking up my stuff from the floor, and... Wait, what’s this?

  It was the book I had tried to read in the warehouse. Larna had hurried us out of the place, so I had mindlessly put it in my bag and ended up bringing it home.

  Ah, why did I do that...?

  At least it was a book from the warehouse, so it wasn’t like anyone was going to need it anytime soon. I could just put it in my bag and bring it back to the Ministry the next day.

  I heard a light knock on the door, and when I asked who it was, Keith replied.

  “Oh, you aren’t sleeping yet today. May I talk to you for a while?”

  “Of course. Come in,” I said. He opened the door a crack and peeked his head inside, but he just shook his head while looking preoccupied.

  “No, not this late at night. I see you still aren’t heeding my warnings... not that it surprises me,” he said sadly. “But anyway, you have work off tomorrow. Do you want to go out somewhere together?” As he asked me this, every trace of sadness on his face disappeared.

  Unfortunately, I had to go to the Ministry tomorrow despite the fact that I had no work. I explained that to him, and he started looking slightly irritated.

  “Weren’t you supposed to only work a few days each week, and only a few hours each day? Father doesn’t seem to care, but I think that you’re working too much for a girl of your lineage.”

  Indeed, I’d meant to join the Ministry part-time at first, but since I was having trouble learning about everything I needed to do, I realized that I needed to work more hours if I didn’t want to be left behind. That was why I had personally asked to work as much as the other newcomers.

  Mother agreed with me, saying, “You would probably make less trouble working by yourself than by becoming someone’s wife,” so I was now working full-time. Furthermore, because of the search for the covenant, I’d been coming home late for the past few days.