My Next Life as a Villainess: Rewriting Katarina's Paths

Chapter 13

"Any luck?" Alan asked Gerald, who was focused on reading the third volume of the Encyclopedia of Earth Magic.

Gerald grunted as a response, too caught up reading the book to be able to reply to his twin brother. Alan sighed then gave up trying to talk to him, shifting his view towards Mary, who unfortunately was already sleeping heavily with her face buried on the Nature Guide she was reading.

Alan closed his own book named "A Collection of Non-Traditional Magic According to History", and stared outside the window.

"Huh neat, the sky was dark when we first entered and now it's dark again," Alan stated.

The castle library was as grand as you would expect, with large bookcases placed side by side on top of green tinted white tiles, tables and desks for studying and writing, large stained windows, three grandfather clocks placed in separate locations, and an elegant green green and brown wallpaper. Because of the size of it. Were the situation different, Gerald would have invited Katarina and the rest of their friends in the library seeing how fond Katarina was with shades of green.

Gerald sighed once again, feeling his disappointment in himself grow larger and larger the more the time passes.

"I know that sigh." Alan stated, his right hand softly caressing Mary's head.

"What?"

"Stop blaming yourself for what happened." Alan said as he crossed his arms across his chest.

Gerald stared at his twin brother with a solemn frown.

"You heard what she said, this all started when I first formally, or informally rather, visited their estate after she rejected me. Maybe if I hadn't gotten involved--"

"Oh can you be quiet? None of us knew what was going to happen nor did we know what was already happening. Even Katarina admitted that,"

"I know I know... Maybe I'm just trying to make some sort of sense about all of this..." Gerald replied.

"Blaming yourself is not the way to go,"

"You're right, you're right..."

The room was suddenly filled with silence, the ticking of the grandfather clocks being the only thing that they could hear. Gerald closed his book, still in a complete loss of words, thoughts, or possible explanations.

"I just woke up in cold sweat despite not having a single dream then suddenly there was a green spot on my left shoulder," Katarina started, recounting the night where it all began.

"Then suddenly it began escalating from there. After that, nature began becoming louder and more violent, at least to my ears. What once was comforting to me became detrimental to me,"

Everyone else inside her room was either shocked to silence or at a loss of words. They managed to bring Katarina back up to her bedroom without anyone in the house noticing her green hands and upper torso, thanks mostly to Nicole's coat that was lent to her.

Keith was sitting on the bed with Katarina, hugging her tightly like he was going to lose her. Gerald and Nicole were standing on her right, and Mary and Sophia were sitting at opposite sides of the edge of the bed. None of them could form coherent thoughts nor could they think of  anything to say to Katarina.

"But... But why...?" Gerald started, not really sure if he's questioning the fact that this was happening, asking why she never told anyone, or wondering if there was any way to reverse what was currently happening.

"The fact that I couldn't even say a single reassuring thing to her..." Gerald stated out of nowhere, reminiscing the scene from a few days ago.

"She's currently doing somewhat alright at the moment? According to Katarina's letter, the spread of green hasn't become worst now that she feels a lot more at ease what with all of us finding out,"