By Bakufu Narayama and Ebisushi. Released in Japan as “Danzaisareta Akuyaku Reijō wa, Gyakkō-shite Kanpekina Akujo o Mezasu” by TO Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Alyssa Niioka.

It’s been a while since the start of this series, and it’s become very hard to remember that Claudia had a life before this one. I mean, we hear about her life as a sex worker on a regular basis in the series, but that’s not what I mean. I mean the “Condemned Villainess” part of the title. And since we haven’t thought about that part as much, it can be hard to remember, not to put to fine a point on it, how gullible and naive Claudia was, and how easily she was led around by the nose. That’s not the Claudia we have here, who is the belle of everyone’s ball, the apple of everyone’s eye, and saving the world one yakuza organization at a time. Unfortunately, there are still shadowy people in the background who very much want things to go badly for the main cast. And as a result, since Claudia can’t be a condemned villainess, someone else is going to have to step to the plate.

We’re dealing with another country next door, and things are pretty bad there. At a masquerade ball, the delegation from Parte, a neighboring country whose citizens seems to hate Harland more and more by the day, have arrived, and they bring with them Niamilia, a noble woman who ends up being suggested as the prince’s fiancee in order to prevent a potential war. But what of Claudia? Well, another of the fiancee candidates, calls her out at the party (can’t have a villainess book without public call out), saying Claudia is an evil woman who uses her mob to traffic in slaves and also murdered a noble the other day. Claudia is, needless to say, above most of these accusations, but given that she IS the secret mob boss of a yakuza organization, she decides to investigate… and finds that someone has been impersonating her.

So yeah, my favorite scene in the book is right at the end – in fact, it’s one of the extra stories added for the book. Throughout the book, we get Wendy, who if she’s been in previous books I’ve never noticed, and she is horrible. She’s easily led, falls for an obvious loser who is luring her into a trap to do his bidding, ignores the advice of the maids who have her best interests at heart, and ends up literally orchestrating murder to prove that Claudia is SECRETLY EVIL. It’s a good look at how conspiracy theories can take hold in someone, and she is teeth-grindingly annoying throughout this book. But at the end, as Claudia leaves the prison where Wendy resides till her exile, she realizes, Oh, that was me. That was literally me in my last life. And thus it affects her more than it otherwise would, and therefore affects us more as well. Claudia gets a time travel get out of jail free card Wendy probably ain’t getting.

All this plus our horrible antagonist from last time, who isn’t in this book in person but who makes his presence felt throughout. These books are difficult but rewarding reads.