By now in My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom, Katarina Klaes is 15 years old and she and her many associates are enrolled at the magic academy. Now Katarina's real test as an otome game villainess begins.
Cultivated Friends And Relationships
It is perhaps symbolic that Katarina was getting into gardening in her childhood; not only can she use earth magic to create a garden (to a modest extent), but she is grooming all her friends and associates to create better routes for them in this love game.
For the most part, Katarina has been successful; her adopted brother Keith (pictured) is confident and has high self-esteem, so he's not a frivolous playboy (the girls still adore him, though). Prince Alan has gotten over his inferiority complex with his brother Geordo and his musical talents are fully realized. Unlike in the original Fortune Lover game, his fiancée Mary has little interest in him. Meanwhile, Geordo and Nicol are largely the same as their original game versions.
All this puts Katarina in a fairly strong position from which to launch her efforts and that, combined with her advance knowledge of the game's contents, should give her a serious edge. She even made friends with Sophia, just in case. As for Katarina is doing all this, she needs to delay the game's built-in romances so she can hold off on her own character's doom and if anything progresses too fast, her window of opportunity will narrow quickly. Being the villainess, Katarina is supposed to suffer a bad end while the good guys/girls get their happy endings and she needs to break free of Fortune Lover's pre-set routes to create something entirely new. However, even her carefully-cultivated circle of friends might not survive contact with the heroine herself.
Maria Campbell And The Muffins
Katarina has always known that Maria Campbell would eventually arrive and now, at the magic academy, she has come to the fore. She's a commoner girl, unlike the other students (who come from wealth and nobility), but she's already a standout due to her looks, bright personality and fondness for baking sweets. Now, Katarina is eager to make friends with Maria, to better steer that heroine in a direction that suits Katarina's own needs. If Maria just roams around and meets boys on her own terms, Katarina will face one of those bad endings for sure.
Already, Maria is meeting the boys in Katarina's circle of friends and Katarina is desperate to make a new path. She accidentally made a big step already; she saved Maria from a few bullies and complimented her freshly-baked muffins, a role that Geordo was supposed to fill. Ordinarily, this would go a long way in the Geordo/Maria romance, but as Katarina's inner selves pointed out, this buys Katarina some time by delaying that particular romance. But how much?
Overall, this episode proves Katarina a smart, resourceful, and compassionate anti-hero who is (like a villainess) looking out for herself, but by means of improving the lives of everyone around her. It makes her a curious mix of hero and villainess and time will tell if she can keep juggling these roles as the many romances and relationships progress. At least Katarina makes villainesses look good in the meantime.
