The day that the queen was going to announce the trials had arrived. Ryla had long prepared for this day. She was prepared for every possibility.

She had sent scribes to read through the country archives and figure out every possible trial from every possible queen.

While the country of Eris was an old country the queen system was only in place for about half of the countries history. It was made as a result of the royalty being done with wars of succession. It was easier to create a system where the next ruler would be chosen easily and also fairly bloodlessly.

As a result, they enacted the trials.

Based on her research they fell mainly into three types. Leadership, Strength, and Charisma Trials.

Ryla had been training for each of them ever since she decided she was going to make an effort to win. Leadership was easy, she could do it very simply. She already managed a vast organization among the common folk and she trusted her ability to beat out her other siblings in that regard.

Charisma was also something she had worked on. Ryla had transformed herself from the quiet and meek girl that she was to someone else. Her mask was flawless, it took a long time of practice with Gildron, but eventually, she was able to portray herself as an extremely charismatic leader at the very least one that people would be willing to listen to. She watched other leaders and famous merchants to copy them and eventually found herself with the [Mimic] skill.

It was an unfortunate side effect, she had to scare her siblings with her new mask. The façade would not work if she only made a halfhearted attempt at it.

Strength trails were the most concerning. Ryla was not much of a fighter, she didn’t have the physique or the natural talents for war.

It was far more difficult for her to hold her own in a fight, although [Mimic] was useful for evening the playing field she could only copy skills with it. She would not be able to copy the expertise needed to use it and she could only copy 1 skill at a time. She trained so that she could at least hold off someone like Gildron but she felt like he was pulling his punches.

The one bright side for her was that one vs one strength trials rarely happened. Typical leaders made from such trials were ineffective warmongers.

Most modern strength Trials were fought with willing “champions” chosen to represent the candidate. It was a charisma test masking itself as a strength test. Something that Ryla was confident in doing. At the very least she could rely on Gildron.

Ryla trusted her mother more than that. She knew her mother was far smarter than that, but she also knew that studying previous trials was not going to be a complete fix for her.

Her mother was far more creative than copying a prior trial. At most all Ryla could do was prepare for every eventuality.

As Ryla watch her mother ascended the platform to the voice amplifying crystal. She internally crossed her fingers.

After saying a few words she eventually explained the trail she was giving, and Ryla felt a vein in her head bulge.

[What is this!]

The queen had announced there would only be one trial, and that it was simply to bring back the most valuable item from the labyrinthos.

It was a simple request, but also one laced with snake venom. The dungeon was the lifeblood of the city and thus it was well known. The most valuable item in the dungeon was the crystal dropped by the platinum dragon in the deepest parts of it. The problem with such a request is that only 1 person would be able to claim the treasure since there will only be one dragon that spawns during the time period she had given.

By saying that she wants the most valuable thing, she was implying a lot of things.

First and foremost, it was a race to the dragon, but also it was also a test with how well the candidates could assemble teams to take it down.

The Platinum dragon was no joke and defeating it would take some of the strongest adventurers in the city to do so.

Lastly, there was the sabotage component. If they could hamper each other it would mean that they could also kill each other in the dungeon. In essence, the queen had subtly made this trial a strength trial as well.

[This damn woman] Ryla resisted the urge to scream in frustration and maintained her calm demeanor.

Eventually, the queen left the cheering crowd, and Ryla and the other candidates were stuck with the empty podium in front of them.

[Damnit, I have to fill this gap]

Based on the schedule she was given the queen was supposed to speak longer but it seemed like she wasn’t in the mood to do so. From the corner of her eye, Ryla could see the queen arm in arm with a particularly handsome young man and she internally sighed.

Her mother often did this, leaving events to do her own thing. Since she was the queen people rarely made a fuss and since she was still an effective ruler regardless most of her schedulers turned a blind eye to such actions.

Ryla still found it extremely distasteful.

Kitsura

Wait, I have a webnovel?

In all seriousness, 

Hello, the hiatus is over, I never forgot you all, and thanks for sticking around.