“Liria’s Plan A”

★★1. Gain the support and recognition of Grandfather, the current head of the family.

Within the family, the Duke holds absolute power. Gaining favor with the highest authority is one of the basic survival rules in romance fantasy novels.

Currently, Liria is just one of the direct grandchildren of her grandfather, nothing more, nothing less.

The Duke treated all potential heirs equally.

He gave proper treatment and recognition to those heirs who proved their potential, but if not, they were out of his concern. Including not only direct but also collateral children, there were dozens.

So it was rare for the Duke to particularly favor or pay attention to any grandchild.

At least Conrad, the eldest grandson, seemed to have gained recognition for his strong magical power and the manifestation of two elemental magics: fire and lightning.

Marit told me that he was allowed to enter and leave the main castle with the permission of the family head.

‘Yes, I should also strive to enter and leave the main castle.’

Then Liria too must stand out among the potential heirs or catch Grandfather’s attention.

By any means necessary!

2. Keep the three pieces of trash in check and drive them out. No matter how stupid they act, as long as they’re direct descendants, it will be difficult to completely drive them out of the family. But I can prevent them from grasping the family’s power. It’s a success if I can use knowledge from the original story to interfere with their actions and expose their wrongdoings. It would be good to keep an eye on what they’re plotting too. Even if I can’t drive them out completely, I must at least prevent Osdel from becoming the head of the family.

Now, next.

3. Secretly help and facilitate the escape of Adrian, the male protagonist, when he gets kidnapped.

This hasn’t happened yet, but for now, there’s one person who will cooperate. The nanny, Marit.

I should thoroughly familiarize myself with the geography of the Duke’s castle before Adrian arrives. And find escape routes too.

4. Gather emergency funds.

The usefulness of money is beyond words. As much as possible for emergencies!

★★★5. Cure Father’s illness.

★★★6. Prevent Grandfather’s carriage accident.

These two are essential, the current top priorities, so I gave them a ton of stars.

7. Make many allies. After all, both power and information come from winning people’s hearts. Currently, the only people in Roberg who would support Liria are Father Classid and Nanny Marit. Even then, Father is unconscious, and Marit, being a servant, has clear limitations. It would be good to make everyone my ally, even a passing maid.

As Liria was jotting things down, a thought occurred to her.

“To do all these, it would be advantageous if I had power too…”

In a few days, the aptitude test will be held, and their training will begin.

In the original story, Liria never manifested magic throughout her life. Because of this, she was the only one treated as an outcast in the villainous Roberg family and was a villainous supporting character who tormented Adrian.

She had a mana heart, so she had mana and could operate it, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t manifest magic.

She could use magic with magical tools, but that wasn’t sufficient to earn recognition for her abilities within the family.

So to survive in the family, she lived by catering to her uncle Osdel’s whims.

“I don’t want to be treated like that. Isn’t there anything I could use as a weapon from the original story?”

Lost in thought, Liria paced around the room. Then, a thought struck her like lightning.

“That’s right! Why didn’t I think of that before?”

The place where the female protagonist Tiana obtained the magic key was very close.

Here in the Roberg Duke’s castle.

「The ruins of the fallen Roberg Castle were eerily covered in forests and bushes like a grave.

Tiana gathered her holy power to summon a bright beam of light and pushed through the undergrowth one step at a time.

Then, a mysterious great tree appeared. Tiana sprinkled holy water on the dying tree.

That’s when it happened. A female elf with pointed ears and beautiful features appeared in front of the tree.

“You are a kind-hearted saint. A great family has fallen due to the foolishness of its descendants. This key is too precious to rot without ever finding an owner. I’ll give you special authority, so please use it well, Saint.”

“…A key?”

“Yes. It’s a magic key with mysterious powers. It will fulfill the owner’s wishes.”

“This key grants wishes?”

“Try talking to the key with a sincere heart.”

As the elf spoke, a dazzling light enveloped the surroundings.

“Wh-what? Wait a moment.”

When she raised her head, the elf had disappeared, and a golden key remained in Tiana’s hand. 」

Whether it was protagonist buff or not, Tiana possessed several magical artifacts.

One of them was the key with healing power.

Tiana’s wish was to heal people.

With that key, Tiana healed many people, including Adrian. Of course, the protagonist’s sacred power must have played a part too.

‘Maybe I can save Father with the power of that key. And I might be able to pretend that I’ve manifested magic too.’

If so, I must get my hands on it.

The thought made her heart race.

Tiana obtaining that key happens much later after she becomes the Empress.

The current female lead must be much younger than Liria.

Then I should borrow it well and restore it before meeting her.

The place where the Roberg aptitude test takes place is the same spirit tree where Tiana obtained the key.

‘Seeing the elf in the original story mentioning descendants, perhaps there was an elf among the ancestors… Come to think of it, didn’t they say the late Duchess, Grandmother, was of a different race?’

As she swallowed these questions, her eyelids gradually closed.

“From tomorrow… I should prepare for the test too.”

Right now, she couldn’t possibly stay awake any longer.

Liria crawled onto the bed and burrowed into the blankets.

***

‘Only a week left until the aptitude test!’

This was a big deal. It would have been better if she had organized the original story and made plans earlier.

By the way, even if Liria had forgotten, this was something Juan, who was in charge of the heir children, should have taken care of.

His job was to prepare all the materials and schedules for all heirs until they took the aptitude test.

“Ugh… He must have deliberately left me out again.”

This wasn’t the first time this had happened.

There was even a time when he gave her the wrong information about the lecture hall for basic mana classes, causing her to arrive late.

The reason for this was quite obvious.

Juan openly favored certain children. He was smooth as silk with children of powerful parents or those who gave him something in return.

Since he was very conscious of the three siblings Osdel, Benjamin, and Belita, he ignored Liria despite her being a direct descendant.

From the start, even if she went to find Juan, it didn’t seem like he would properly inform her.

What should she do now?

In the original story, there wasn’t much description of the aptitude test.

However, there was one thing that could be inferred from a line spoken by Osdel after he became the head of the family.

“Get rid of all the books about the aptitude test. From now on, I will only pass on the test methods to the heir I designate.”

If that’s the case, it means there must be guides that help with the test now, right?

‘I should go to the library and look for them myself.’

As soon as Liria got up, she quickly got ready and headed to the library. When she asked for help from a passing young librarian, he guided her to a place where there were as many as seven books with the same title.

“All these books here are aptitude test guides.”

“Ugh, is this really all of them?”

“That’s what I’ve been told.”

“Which one do people read the most? Don’t you have records of that?”

“They’re all read about equally.”

The young librarian gave a vague answer and disappeared.

Each book was as thick as a brick, making it impossible to read them all. With only a week left until the test, she needed a concise summary that covered just the key points.

As Liria was comparing all seven books, she tilted her head in confusion.

‘Huh? The authors’ names and publication years seem a bit strange?’