There is something to be said for the second part of Satoru Yamaguchi's My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! having overstayed its welcome. That's not because Katarina is any less winning as a heroine, but rather because this volume in particular is lacking in a lot of what made the first four books (and the short story volume) such fun: Katarina's relationships with the primary characters of in-world otome game Fortune Lover. Most of those characters are all but absent here, and if they are more than fleetingly present, they feel very underused, making this feel like the author is desperately trying to recapture the same magic using a different spell.

In part this is because the action has moved out of the Claes estate and school into the working world. With most of the cast being noble, that means that “work” is primarily done from home, either as learning the ropes of the titles they'll inherit or already hold or, in the case of Mary and Sophia, polishing their ladylike skills. The only reason things are different for Katarina is because she's already won the matrimonial prize with her engagement to Jeord, so there's no real need to preen to catch beau, and she's also really, really bad at being A Lady. Add to that Pochi, her dark magic familiar, and it's a much safer idea for her to be at the Ministry of Magic around people who can help if need be, plus it'll keep her out of her mother's orbit. Plus if she's working, there's no way she can immediately marry Jeord, as he'd like, which is something everyone but Jeord agrees is a good idea.

Katarina is, therefore, largely away from the cast of characters she have spent most of her time with. Sora and Raphael are both present at the Ministry and in her department, but neither get much in the way of development – not even Sora, who is Katarina's de facto work partner. Instead we have several new men who form the love interests in the hitherto unknown sequel game, Fortune Lover 2, the existence of which Katarina learned from both a dream and the mysterious presence she met in the palace in the previous volume. In what may be an effort to make the story feel even more different, none of these new romanceable characters (excluding Sora, who just lucked into showing up early) are romantically interested in Katarina; instead they all appear to actually be falling for Maria, the original game heroine.

On the surface, this seems like it might be a good idea, as it would free up Katarina to continue being fought over by her original mixed-gender harem. In practice, however, it sucks the tension right out of the story alongside some of the humor. Katarina being not great at magic is much less amusing than Katarina not understanding someone's crush on her, plus there seems to be at least a moderate goal of removing Maria from the original group of aspirants for Katarina's hand. (Or of setting Katarina up as a rival to the new guys after Maria, which seems like a pretty bad plan all around, given that the point of the story is Katarina winning everyone over.) While there is some space to argue that maybe they're interested in Katarina rather than Maria, it's very slim, and it makes segments from their perspectives feel less relevant than in previous volumes. Fortunately, the end of this book does make it seem like the old gang is going to be getting back together again in the eighth novel, so hopefully the problem will solve itself.

This is especially desirable not just because the series was so good, but also because there's some real potential in Katarina's dark magic abilities. Previously, the story had set up dark magic as something one learned rather than was born with, like light, earth, or any other elemental magic. But Katarina seems to have naturally occurring powers, possibly because she was originally intended to be Maria's rival in all things, so her dark would counter Maria's light. There's also the distinct possibility that her affinity for dark magic is entirely due to the fact that she's been reborn into the story's world from another. Her encounter with the mysterious person deep in the castle in the previous volume suggests that she's not the only one who has been reborn or transported, and the discovery of Jeord and Alan's shut-in uncle may be linked to this idea. What if their uncle was also reborn and recovered his memories? He was a player in the previous war for the throne, so could that have been a different game, an RPG maybe, that simply used the same world as its setting, either accidentally or because all games are secretly set in this one world? And if so, could that be why he's shut himself away – so that none of the game events he remembers come true?

It's an intriguing possibility. The uncle could also simply be someone with a natural affinity for dark magic who is afraid of his own powers; either way, there seems to be a link between he and Katarina. This, plus the lovely scene with Keith (and later everyone else, barring Maria, which may be telling) at the end of the book do provide a reason to keep going with this series. But Yamaguchi is skating on thin ice with this volume, and the story needs to remember what made it fun sooner rather than later.