Literature / Deathbound Duke's Daughter

Erica Aurelia, the daughter of Duke Aurelia, looked in a mirror one day and recognized herself as the villainous young lady of an Otome game from her last life, Liber Monstrorum ~Phantom Beasts and the Winter Princess~. Not only did Erica bully and berate the heroine of the story when they enter the Academy together, but she then died early in the game, becoming the first victim in a string of odd murders.

Moreover, in remembering the details of this Otome game, Erica also recalls her last life and its bloody end, as she was stabbed to death by a co-worker who believed she'd "betrayed" him, even though their only relationship was once loaning him her umbrella.

Erica was only partway through Liber Monstrorum's third route when her first life ended, but she knows that her current identity seemed certain to die in every route. This won't stand! So she gets ready and resolved herself to break every death flag she can, with all the allies and equipment she can gather.

Deathbound Duke's Daughter is an in-progress Japanese Light Novel series by Terasu Senoo available for sale in English as a paper copy or on Kindle.

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Examples:

A-E

• The Ace: All of the Capture Target boys are prodigies in one way or another, from Klaus's time magic and Auguste's telepathy to Eduard being a genius adventurer.
• Action Girl: Erica Aurelia and Chloe Lucanrant both get in the thick of things.
• Act of True Love: The dragon Camellia tried to protect Louis Ode-Ignitia by preventing a Cursed Nail from being taken out of her body, even though it caused her endless pain and enslaved her to his orders.
• A Day in the Limelight: Some chapters have perspectives from other characters, like Eduard.
• Affably Evil: The contract beast is polite and somewhat apologetic when she attacks, allows Erica to quickly explain the situation to Klaus, decides to spare Klaus out of respect, puts the fight on hold for a fun riddle contest, and is only really attacking because she’s starving and needs power to grant Auguste’s wish.
• All Myths Are True: Almost all the fairy tales told in-universe turn out to have some basis in the history of the continent.
• Angel Unaware: Invoked by Palug, aka Pestilence the divine messenger, as she’s supposed to be secret from everyone except her contractor. Even after she contracts with Erica and breaks her chains, she mostly keeps to the form of a pet cat, only assuming human form to help passers-by or to play body-double for Erica.
• An Ice Person: Evan Haearn, Erica’s Trial by Combat opponent.
• Animal Eye Spy: People of Ignitia can see through dragons’ eyes via Telepathy.
• Anti-Magic: The Seafarer's Ruins have an effect that cancels spells beyond a certain range of the user, and in Lucanrant there are ores that cut through or disperse magical energy.
• An Arm and a Leg: Harlan Slayson lost them to vampires’ hounds, but was saved by Chloe’s mother Sigríður and healed by alchemy.
• Arranged Marriage: Common for nobles. Tricia and Marquia both have fiancés whom they are actually fond of but they act otherwise.
• Aura Vision: Glam Sight, allowing you to see spells and data about them (creator, caster, duration, effect).
• Badass Boast: “Even if every vampire of Casketia revives, we only need to destroy them a second time.”
• Bandage Mummy: Elric Actorius after the Cursed Sword of Fire burns him.
• Bag of Holding: Critical for advanced alchemists, but also very expensive.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Auguste quickly grows fond of Erica when they bond as anonymous kids in the cathedral, and more when she refuses to believe bad rumors about him.
• Berserk Button: Klaus flies into Tranquil Fury when Ann or Erica are nearly killed.
• Beyond the Impossible: After knocking himself unconscious by mind-controlling most of a city, Prince Auguste then gets up and paralyzes Palug, an actual angel.
• Big Bad: Cain, King of Vampires. He possesses immense Mind Manipulation powers and is implied to be able to predict the future. His ultimate goal is to restore the vampires' tyrannical rule over humanity
• Big Damn Heroes: Klaus shows up at the last minute to save Erica from Palug.
• Big Eater: Tirnanog doesn’t eat much in comparison to his full size, but he can still eat a whole ham in one sitting and go on to ask about larvae preserved in honey. Later on, Erica lets him eat ship-sized kraken to depopulate their numbers.
• Big Fancy Castle: Erica’s family has one for spring/summer, and one for autumn/winter. The Hafan ducal family also lives in one named Silverbough Castle, and the royal family of Ignitia obviously lives in one.
• Blatant Lies: Erica attempts them, but the only one people believe is “it’s nothing” whenever they overhear her muttering about her meta-knowledge. Similarly, Klaus claims his face is red “due to the lighting” when he’s dancing with Erica.
  • “It was an unfortunate accident that I had encountered a giant sea serpent, but fortunately, I got lots of materials because of that,” she said after hunting the sea serpent intentionally.
• Blood Magic: The contract beast of the Isle of Messenger can grant a wish in exchange for consuming one’s blood, body and soul.
  • Vampires also consumes blood and souls, using them to fuel Body Horror magic.
• Bloody Handprint: Activating a desecrated altar recreates the blood offering done on it; Erica notes that one of the bodiless blood smears is definitely a human handprint.
• Body Horror: Louis stuck a bunch of cursed nails in his dragons bones and organs to better control it, causing constant pain.
  • The Headless Prince, sealed underground until the day they can kill him.
  • Anything to do with vampires and their powers.
  • Gigantia makes slaves by piercing humans with a magical nail. One is enough for a human, but large dragons can require more than 100 nails in their spine, and more in other organs.
• Body Double: Palug’s main ability while her powers are recovering.
• Boring, but Practical: Erica’s first wand request to Harold is “a wand charged with effective magic at low cost.”
• Brandishment Bluff: A defensive example, as the locks on a certain teleport gate are all illusions (since the gate is too old for real magical locks to be put on it).
• Brainwashed and Crazy: After the tournament, Auguste’s distress makes his Telepathy run out of control, and he ends up unknowingly puppeteering crowds of people.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Erica comes off as this, often muttering asides that no one understands and making crazy jumps of logic or missing social cues, but she’s incredibly powerful under certain circumstances, has very capable allies, and has survived a lot of dangerous situations.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: Erica chants several sentences to undo Tirnanog’s Power Limiter.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Klaus can’t express to Erica that he’s infatuated with her.
• Cat Girl: Palug’s favorite form is of a woman with the ears, tail, and claws of a cat to match her lion-like mane of hair. She briefly gives Erica the ears and tail to mark the two times Erica gets a riddle wrong in their riddle contest.
• Chekhov's Gun: Anti-kidnapping equipment Erica gets in chapter 20 is used to get her out of a hostage situation in chapter 49.
• Chick Magnet: Girls start squealing in joy when they see Klaus at a party.
• Child Prodigy: Even before getting her past life memories, Erica was extraordinarily good at the language and grammars used in making golems.
  • Klaus is also a magic prodigy who can use Time and Space magic even on a young age of 10.
  • Auguste also turns out to be a prodigy in Telepathy; he can control hundreds of dragons at once and even bond with the previous kings' throne dragons.
  • Even if Harold can't use wands due to his constitution, he turns out to be a prodigy in wand-making and item-making in general.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Technically, Erica could get by doing much less to help the capture targets, since she just needs them to not bear a grudge and target her in the future, but she refuses to abandon the people who need help if she can help them.
• The Church: The main religion is monotheistic, but it incorporates other religions’ gods as saints or angels and there aren’t many extremist zealots around.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: How the Military Order of Útför checks for secret vampires.
  • Claude inflicted it on Eduard for information to find Brad.
• Colony Drop: The Alchemist’s Star spell, which pulls a star from the sky down to the ground.
• Cowardly Lion: Harold is scared of ghost stories, but he’s still a noble person.
• Crazy-Prepared: Alchemists rely on pre-made wands, so they need a lot of wands on hand in case of unexpected emergencies.
  • Ann stuck an Alarm spell on Tirnanog’s hand so that Klaus could find Erica and help.
  • Harold investigated all of their classmates; not just things like family and magical abilities, but purchase history, family friends, cousins, old tutors, economic sources, and business partners.
• Crimefighting with Cash: Downplayed. Erica notes that she’d probably have to sell off her inherited silver mines to afford all of her brother’s equipment, and later in the story she still heavily relies on magical items and wands for fighting, but she’s gained her own supply by then.
• Cute Clumsy Boy: Elric Actorius is a rare male example, being very good natured but perpetually clumsy as he trips over his staff while his glasses are askew.
• Dance of Romance: Invoked. When Klaus makes a Grand Romantic Gesture asking Erica to dance at a party, they draw enough attention the band deliberately switches to a slower, more romantic song, and later on Palug provides music for Auguste to dance with Erica in private.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Both Tirnanog and Palug were originally enemies who instead joined Erica as friends because she treated them kindly after winning.
• Death Dealer: Klaus uses cards with magic spells to improve his casting ability.
• Death from Above: The Cursed Sword of Fire does it with molten lava.
• Demonic Possession: Vampires can completely devour someone and assume their form. Via Soul Eating, they have perfect access to the victim's personality and memories and can leave their victims as a Tomato in the Mirror. The worst part is that no one has ever developed any reliable means of detecting this, making the survivors of vampire attacks into suspects.
• Determinator: Deconstructed with Claude Lucanrant. He doesn’t know a lot about magic, but he doesn’t believe the stories of a curse that can’t be resisted and resolves to figure out some way of doing it without ever studying the details in-depth.
• Disability Superpower: Erica is unable to cast spells or create wands due to having Level 7 magic resistance (when Level 6 should be the human maximum), but as a result she can use powerful wands without any type of backlash.
  • Prince Auguste lacks the telepathy to bond with and ride a dragon, except he has the power, he’s just so much more powerful that it terrifies most dragons beyond obedience.
• Double Entendre: Ann Hafan tosses out a lot of them when she meets Erica again.
• Drama Queen: Ann Hafan “faints” and immediately gets up again when she receives bad news.
• The Dreaded: Harlan Slayson, Margrave of Urs in Lucanrant, is a merciless person said to abduct and torture members of his own territory.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Prince Auguste would be mistaken for a girl if not for his clothes.
• Easily Forgiven: Because he was a victim as well, Erica releases and tries to befriend Zaratan the same night they defeated him, giving him a new, smaller body to move around in.
  • Similarly, Harold Nibelheim and his father hold no hard feelings after being distant for a few years, and Elder Turm has always cared more about Gilbert than about porcelain.
• Eating the Eye Candy:
  • Palug enjoys this, and finds a man’s looks very important.
  • Tricia and Marquia have fiancés but enjoy eyeing the attractive teachers.
• Endless Corridor: Spatial magic in Lindis creates one of these as a school mystery.
• Explosive Breeder: White worms rapidly grow and divide when they can eat magical power.

F-M

• Face–Heel Turn: Claude Lucanrant had been a trusted friend to Eduard, Elric, and Brad, until he decided to kill Brad so that Cain couldn’t use Brad’s body to resurrect; when Brad escaped his ambush, Claude tortured Eduard and fought Elric to try to find him.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Because wands are more versatile and destructive at longer ranges, gun technology isn’t widely used.
• Fantastic Racism: There are huge cultural differences between Lucanrant and Hafan that makes them racist towards each other. The eastern people think the northern people are barbarians and uncultured savages. While the northern people simply think magic as evil, they call the mages as witches/wizards, and they think Hafanese cannot be trusted. Take the Military Order knights' attitude as example.
  Knight Leader: It is better than losing her life, is it not? Or would you rather have us return your precious friend as a corpse? There is no need for you to be mindful of the circumstances of a person from Hafan like her, Chloe-sama.
• Fed to Pigs: Ignitia’s kings are fed to their surviving dragons, rather than being buried.
• Flash Step: Being made of light, Palug can move at near light-speed.
  • Similarly, the One Who Covets Death can cover 15 meters in the blink of an eye.
• Friend to All Living Things: Auguste.
• Foreshadowing: Auguste warns “An angel cannot be an angel if his identity is exposed. That’s the rule.” It turns out Pestilence must inflict Laser-Guided Amnesia on everyone else who knows her identity when she forms a new contract with a human.
  • Erica reads a list of local folktales in chapter 63, several of which become plot-pertinent.
• For Want Of A Nail: When Erica caused a collapse at the Seafarer's Ruins, Eduard learned that the money needed to explore further was excessive, so he started working for the King as a secret agent for funds (with Klaus helping to repay his own debt), which means that two of the capture targets are now aggressively involved in the solving mysteries of the kingdom that would lead to Erica’s death in the game.
  • A small one, but Erica picking up a dropped journal meant that Chloe missed a game event because she was busy looking for the diary out in the city.
• Frameup: Attempted on Beatrice Glaw as part of a bullying campaign.
• The Gadfly: Ann Hafan says a lot of suggestive things to Klaus and Erica.
  • The Hanging Ghost insults people because she has fun riling them up.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Harold Nibelheim is a prodigy wand-maker.
• Genius Bruiser: While he speaks simply and fights with brute force, Tirnanog has an exceptional memory, deep knowledge of chemistry, and a solid grasp of battle tactics.
• Godzilla Threshold: Averted. Erica’s ultimate goal is to survive, so she refuses to use or carry wands like The Alchemist’s Star, which tend to kill the user.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: Not God himself, but the source of angels’ power is human faith and prayer, meaning Pestilence has grown weaker as people forgot her or lost faith.
• Good Feels Good: Tirnanog has this realization after Gilbert begins to realize his dream.
• Good Is Not Soft: Vampires are Always Chaotic Evil, but torturing suspects who may be vampires in disguise – which the Knight Templar does – isn’t a good act, being only debatably necessary.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Harold has two crossed scars from preventing Knot Reed’s destruction.
• Grand Romantic Gesture: Given that both are pre-teens, Klaus pulls off a good one by kneeling at a party and asking Erica for the first dance.
• Grand Theft Me: The contract beast’s new plan to grant Auguste’s wish. She’ll burn Erica’s soul to fuel it instead of her own, and secretly take Erica’s body to live with Auguste.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Hard work generally pays off, but there are still things people can’t do no matter how hard they try due to medical reasons, and geniuses grow more for their effort.
• Healing Factor: Lucanrant’s signature unusual power, along with Super-Reflexes.
• Heel–Face Turn: After Zaratan became convinced he had killed Erica, he felt satisfied. After he learned that he was not betrayed by his friend, but they both were betrayed by others, he became amicable and let Erica rename him to start over again.
  • Later, Erica recruits Rob, a runaway mage who originally tried to purse-snatch her.
• The Hero: Chloe is the hero of the game, but early on Erica makes clear that she’s willing to die in defense of others as well, even though her stated goal is to live through the game’s events.
  • Erica turns down a literal divine miracle because there’s nothing she wants as much as the well-being of the angel offering it, who would die in fulfilling her wish.
• Hero Antagonist: Evan Haearn is a decent and moral person who is manipulated into targeting Beatrice when she is framed for stealing his Childhood Friends amulet.
• Hero of Another Story: Eduard Aurelia and his friends are shown investigating various ruins or criminal rings seeking to discover truths and make the world a better place.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Readers know that Erica has saved many lives in dangerous situations, but due to her Think Nothing of It habit and lack of a filter, she’s rumored to be a wicked woman who monopolizes a famous alchemist and has excessive warehouses of valuables.
  • Bort of the Evil Eye is infamous for cruelty and greed in the last war, but learning that she was Erica’s late mother, a close friend of Ignitia’s late First Princess and the late Duchess of Lucanrant, throws the ill rumors into question.
• He-Man Woman Hater: Klaus Hafan began this way as a young child, believing girls were weak.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Harold gleefully teases Erica about her Student Council invitation, and how she can’t turn it down, only to immediately receive a similar notice.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: People worship God, but they also tend to give thanks to saints and angels. Also, When Erica lies, she “increases the thickness of her face.”
• Hope Crusher: The Big Bad, Cain, is fond of running complicated Despair Gambits designed to completely break the people he wants to turn into his pawns. Those who fall into despair become far more vulnerable to his Mind Manipulation powers.
• Hope Spot: In Ignitia, just when it looked like Auguste had won and Erica could avoid the doom flags, Blackcurrant began rebelling and threw him off.
  • In Knot Reed, the characters end up Tempting Fate after it appears that they’ve solved the problems caused by the fraud, and The Cursed Sword of Fire is accidentally released.
• Horrifying the Horror: Pestilence is a creature of living energy who eats bodies and souls, but when Erica answers “Despair” to a riddle whose answer was “Love” during their contest, it weirds Pestilence out so badly that she backs away and gives Erica a do-over.
• Humble Hero: Erica actively avoids the fame and glory that would accompany most of her accomplishments, such as refusing to be the model for figurines of Knot Reed’s savior angel.
• Humongous Mecha: Erica fights a giant golem set loose by an accident at Lindis.
• Iconic Item: In-universe, Elric’s perpetually askew glasses are so iconic that Erica notices them when he’s in disguise and identifies him immediately.
• I Have Many Names: The true identity of Isle of Messenger’s contract beast is hidden in a dozen myths, from the Riddle of the Sphinx and the story of Ignitia’s founding king meeting an angel to the tale of a cat beast that ate a plague to save a village. It’s Palug, the angel Pestilence.
• Immune to Mind Control: Aurelians in general, due to being the descendants of the Seafaring Tribe.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Vampires eat the blood and souls of people. Black Dragon Tirnanog and the Angel Pestilence can also do this, but usually refrain.
• In Love with Your Carnage: Downplayed, but Chloe prefers people who are stronger than her.
• Insane Troll Logic: Louis Ode-Ignitia believes himself to be the secret heir to the throne, even though he’s six years too young. It turns out this is because he’s been mentally manipulated by an outside force.
• Instant Costume Change: Palug pulls one of these off on herself and Erica mid-dance.
• Internal Reveal: Only Erica knew the black knight’s identity until his helmet was knocked off.
  • In chapter 52, she informs Palug about receiving the “oracle” of her doom.
• I Owe You My Life: Rather than a love interest, Harold sees Erica as his benefactor who saved his family and is helping him achieve his dream.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Prince Charles of Ignitia is a severe person who wants Gigantia burned to the ground and who never compliments Louis… but after Louis was arrested, he’s been religiously fasting and devoutly praying for Louis three times a day.
• Kill It with Fire: How Palug purifies the corrupted altars to her god.
• King Incognito: Erica runs around dressed as a merchant’s daughter in her free time in Knot Reed and Isle of Messenger; she even fakes surprise when she “finds out” Harold is an Earl’s son.
• Knowledge Broker: Harold acts like this for Erica, providing information on classmates.
• The Lady's Favor: Auguste steals Erica’s hair ribbon as a joke, but she then identifies him in the tournament despite his armor because he’s wearing it as a token around his arm.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Whenever the angel Pestilence makes a new contract with a human, she must wipe away the memories of people who already know about her.
  • Chloe lost some memories due to a childhood trauma.
  • Lucanrant soldiers occasionally take a drug so they can’t be forced to give information.
• Laughing Mad: Louis Ode-Ignitia, after all his crimes are exposed.
• Lies to Children: Erica explains her knowledge as an oracle vision, rather than reincarnation.
• Like a Son to Me: Palug is The Not-Love Interest to Auguste, considering him more a son to her.
• Lineage Comes from the Father: The dukes and the king are all male, as are their heirs, but the First Princess would have inherited instead of her younger brother if she hadn’t died.
  • Lucanrant uses patronyms, so Harlan Slayson is the son of Margrave Slay of Urs.
• Little Miss Badass: By age 10, Erica had survived the Seafarer's Ruins, the chaos at the Isle of Messenger, and the Cursed Sword of Fire.
• Living Crashpad: Auguste jumps off a dragon and bounces off other dragons’ wings to slow his fall.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: When Erica enters her brother’s storeroom, we get a scene of her choosing all the gear and equipment she can carry into the ruins.
• Loophole Abuse: Making a golem with an artificial spirit is illegal, but having and using one is not, so long as it isn’t remodeled and was made before the ban.
• Love Hurts: Familial love is safe, but due to her past life’s tragedies Erica can’t really believe that falling in love could make people happy.
• Made of Iron: Despite being The Klutz, Elric Actorius is very tough and hard to hurt. up to eleven in a fight, as his Holy Nail giant powers make his skin metallic.
• Madness Mantra: “Grudge, grudge, grudge, grudgegrudgegrudgegrudgegrudge…”
• Magic A Is Magic A: Various specific limits and requirements for spells and artifacts are brought up, allowing for Loophole Abuse in creative ways while remaining within the rules, such as using Passwall to avoid falling rubble (broken chunks of wall, floor, and ceiling).
• Massive Numbered Siblings: The current Count Turm is the eldest of 13 siblings.
• Meaningful Name: The Noble Houses have several:
  • Aurelia comes from the Latin word for Gold, which fits a family of Alchemists.
  • Ignitia comes from ignite, and in addition to their fire mythology they ride dragons.
  • Lucanrant has the Latin root for Wolf, and their family originated the Wolf-Headed Prince.
  • Hafan means Shelter or Haven in Welsh.
  • The continents Ichthyes (where the story happens) and Karkinos (to the south) are named after constellations (Pisces & Cancer) they resemble.
• Media Transmigration: After being stabbed to death, the protagonist wakes up as the villainess of an Otome game she was playing. Unfortunately, while she knows she’ll die in seven routes, she only finished the first two routes, so she doesn’t know the whole story.
• Men Don't Cry: After crying once, with Erica, Harold resolves not to do so again.
• Mercy Kill: Harlan killed Chloe’s mother before the werewolf curse could take her.
• Mobile Maze: The Seafarer's Ruins.
• The Mole: Jack Citrouille is working to smoke out traitors in the Military Order.
• Mood Whiplash: The Sky Throne arc, from the terror of rampaging dragons, to the awe as things calm and the Throne Dragons appear, then anger as Louis throws a tantrum, ending in horror and disgust as his crimes are revealed.
• Mook Horror Show: Two thieves who try a purse-snatching on Erica get this in return.
• Morton's Fork: If Erica flees the contract beast, it’ll kill itself unsuccessfully and eventually Auguste when the power of his wish runs out, but if she stays it’ll eat her to fuel his wish instead.
  • Played for Laughs: Joining the Student Council will eat up time and attention Erica needs for avoiding her death flags the first year, but declining will “apply mud to the face of the twelve recommenders,” including Klaus and Auguste.
• Motivational Lie: Auguste's telepathy is Strong, but Unskilled, causing most dragons he tries to influence to panic in fear of him. Even when Palug tried to explain this to him, he didn't really get it. She could not help him with a normal wish since her power was exhausted, she did not want to weaken his gift, and her alternative plan would have required Human Sacrifice. Ultimately, the solution she chooses is to tamper with his memories, making him think he was weak to begin with and given tremendous power by his wish, helping him realize that he needs to moderate his power.
• Muggle Born of Mages: Downplayed. Erica can use magical items like wands, but literally every human is able to do that, and she can’t cast independent spells or charge magical items, which normal alchemists are able to do. Subverted when we learn that her mother had a similar constitution, and it’s a Disability Superpower that prevents wand backlash.
  • Prince Auguste was believed to be this because he can’t mentally commune with dragons, which Malicious Slander blamed on his mother’s infidelity. Also subverted.
• Mundane Luxury: Though she’s the daughter of a wealthy and powerful Duke, Erica is largely happy if she can eat good food with her friend(s) while her life isn’t in danger.
  • The technique to make porcelain is lost, so porcelain is now more costly than silver or gold. Similarly, the chemicals used for blue dyes only come from an enemy country.
• Mundane Solution: Most of Erica’s adventures in the third arc weren’t necessary, as For Want Of A Nail had the adults already investigating behind the scenes, so all she needed to do to avoid her death flag was decline a nuisance fee for the use of her name and property.
• Mundane Utility: Tirnanog often helps carry Erica’s luggage.

N-S

• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Eduard Aurelia gave his sister a necklace taken from dangerous magical ruins; he didn’t know it was enchanted because they were both immune to its effect, but others weren’t, and it bewitched their guests to visit the dangerous ruins.
  • Claude Lucanrant’s decision to kill Brad before Brad could become Cain’s vessel ended with every bone/joint in Eduard’s arms broken from torture, the Holy Nails pulled out of Elric’s spine, and Claude himself infected with the Golden Wolf Prince curse, which not only drove him to murder his whole family, but forbade him from killing Cain’s chosen body.
• No Endor Holocaust: Averted. Erica needs to very carefully destroy a giant golem, or else the stones from its collapse will destroy even more buildings than the golem has.
• No Kill like Overkill: Harold advises Erica to fight a duel with twenty 1,000-charge wands.
  • Invoked in the All Souls Day arc, when Chloe assures Erica the inquisitors can survive things that would kill a normal human 8 times over, so Erica shouldn’t hold back.
• No-Sell: The Aurelia Ducal household might be from another planet, or at least another continent, which means they can even resist mind magic cast by literal angels.
  • Vampires can ignore almost all physical attacks due to their Healing Factor.
• Not Me This Time: The One Who Covets Death denies that she caused Claude Lucanrant’s descent into madness, as is inconvenienced her to lose the wolf-headed prince.
• Oblivious to Love: Erica has no use for romantic love in real life, causing misunderstandings.
• Oh, Crap!: Whenever Erica gets closer to a Death Flag or finds out that something she knew about a route was wrong.
• Ojou Ringlets: As a duke’s daughter, Erica wears her hair in ringlets.
• Olympus Mons: Zaratan’s full size was measured in kilometers, and Palug is a literal angel in service to her god.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: During their dance, Klaus and Erica discuss his letter to her. He tries to persuade her that he’s serious while she tells him to back off and find someone else; Klaus tried to write a love letter, but Erica took it as a challenge letter naming her his rival due to clumsy wording and her Oblivious to Love mindset.
• One-Hit Kill: Erica dismantles a multi-story stone golem with a modified Gust spell.
• Ontological Inertia: Attempting to dispel or interrupt the Cursed Sword of Fire will cause it to immediately materialize, and while it de-materializes after 5 minutes, the fires that start and the damage done remains afterward.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Erica knew about the Theurge from Lindis tutoring Auguste, and she met Brad Clochydd when she attended Lindis, but she only realized they were the same person when Auguste called him “Professor”.
• Our Angels Are Different: Pestilence is composed of energy instead of matter, and she was once a phantasmal beast before she was recruited and raised up by their world’s god.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Each one is an Eldritch Abomination that can store the blood and souls of countless victims in their bodies, nearly impossible to kill once they’re old enough, and they used to rule the continent before they were overthrown.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Only one, but it’s a case of You Kill It, You Bought It.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: How did Palug miss that dream magic was cast to keep Auguste’s eggs from hatching? They were kept in a room that only the royal family were allowed to enter, and since Palug is lawful, she couldn’t go inside to check.
  • Attempting to dispel the Cursed Sword of Fire will cause it to immediately materialize and fall, so Erica uses Levitation to keep the lava from falling on the city.
• Passive-Aggressive Kombat: Ann Hafan responds to snubs at a party with a Sherlock Scan of Those Two Girls, listing off their family names and specialties, before properly introducing herself as the daughter of Duke Hafan (meaning she outranks them), and then politely accepting their apologies since “it’s not like the two of you were bullying me” (they were).
• People Puppets: Auguste can do this through his powerful telepathy, but only to non-Aurelians (since they are immune to mental manipulation).
• Portal Network: The transfer gates between territories and certain areas.
• Poor Communication Kills: Klaus is a Tsundere and his Love Confession to Erica gets mistaken for a challenge letter by her and Tirnanog.
• Posthumous Character: The four founders of the Association of Mysterious Story Collectors are all dead by the time of the prologue.
• The Power of the Sun: The contract beast of Isle of Messenger, an angel serving the sun god.
• Power-Strain Blackout: Erica passes out after massive wand use in Knot Reed.
• Pride Before a Fall: Auguste got through the tournament with Blackcurrant, and if he’d just landed instead of showing off with several fancy moves the Intoxication magic wouldn’t have worn off and Blackcurrant wouldn’t have rebelled.
  • Pride turns out to be Claude’s Fatal Flaw: despite knowing that he wasn’t very scholarly, he sought out a cursed monstro to assure his place as heir even if his step-mother had a son, and he heavy-handedly decided that he should kill a potential host body for Lunatic King Cain by betraying his friends who refused to kill a classmate.
• Princess Protagonist: Technically, Erica is the daughter of a duke, but the kingdom’s three ducal houses were royalty until they swore fealty to Ignitia’s king, so she is still treated like a princess in Aurelia and referred to as such several times.
• Race Against the Clock: In the Seafarer's Ruins, Erica is hit by a Curse of Merciful Death, meaning they need to get home and cancel the curse in 8-12 hours or it will kill her.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: The Royal Family and the Ducal Houses all are largely led by reasonable people willing to understand exceptional circumstances and show respect.
• Redemption Demotion: Tirnanog and Palug are both weaker than they were as Zaratan and Pestilence due to being defeated.
• Rich Bitch: Two of them suck up to Erica at the Advent Festival, only to accidentally snub Ann (both girls are the daughters of dukes and they’re friends). Ann forgives them, and the two later grow to be more mature and understanding for their friendship with Erica.
• Riddle Me This: Erica and Pestilence have a riddle contest to decide whether she will be eaten.
• Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The Seafarer's Ruins have become very deadly for once being ship people lived on. It turns out the Ruins were originally the body of a living ship, and it turned against people when it was betrayed and slain.
• Ruling Family Massacre: The game’s backstory revolves around the massacre of the Lucanrant Ducal family, of whom the heroine (Chloe) is the Sole Survivor.
• Sacrificial Lamb: If Erica’s death would begin the mystery in the game, then Beatrice Glaw’s death is used to announce that the player is losing. For this reason, Erica asks Tirnanog to guard her when they get to Lindis.
• Samus Is a Girl: The black-hooded swordsman in Lindis is really Chloe Lucanrant, the game’s heroine.
• Saying Too Much: While protesting his innocence under accusations of slave-trading, treason, and cheating, Louis Ode-Ignitia accidentally refers to Gattine’s Cursed Nails as Holy Nails instead.
• Screw Destiny: Erica’s main desire, wanting to survive when she dies in every route.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Zaratan was sealed in the bottom floor of the Seafarer's Ruins. Klaus later sealed him in a magic bottle, but Erica released him soon after.
  • The Headless Prince was sealed in an underground room to contain the curse until the day he can be killed.
• The Seven Mysteries: Lindis Academy has seven mysteries, and there are seven secrets in the setting that lead to the routes of the seven main capture candidates.
• Sherlock Scan: Erica can’t do it well, but several intelligent people use this.
  • Ann Hafan pulls it Those Two Girls at a party, identifying their families and territories.
  • Elric figured out the location of sea serpents underwater by watching the behavior of seabirds.
  • Harold identified Erica as Aurelian despite her disguise by looking at her shoes.
• Shipper on Deck: Duke Aurelia and Ann Hafan ship Erica and Klaus.
  • Palug prefers to ship Auguste and Erica.
• Shock and Awe: The Theurge’s black dragon Boaz can breathe lightning.
• Shout-Out: Several of the setting's magic spells share name and effect with counterparts from Dungeons & Dragons (e.g., grease, magic missile, levitate, firebolt...).
• Sole Survivor: The game’s heroine, Chloe Lucanrant, after her brother went mad and massacred their whole family.
  • Elric Actorius is the one survivor of the team dispatched to investigate the ruins in Knot Reed.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: Static repeatedly keeps the magic mirror from conveying Bort’s true name.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In-universe, Ann Hafan is not killed by Zaratan like in the game.
• Spotting the Thread: The only way to catch a vampire impersonating their victim, like when they ignore an injury or exert more force than a human body can withstand.
• Stepford Smiler: While she can be pleased for real, Erica generally “has a smiling poker face”.
• Super-Reflexes: One of Chloe’s magical enhancement abilities.

T-Z

• Taken for Granite: The first death Erica seeks to avert: a vengeful alchemist’s ghost would possess a girl Erica got killed as a child and turned Erica into a gold statue.
• Talking Animal: In a carriage with Auguste, Erica comes face to face with a black dragon reading a book and talking like a human.
  • Palug usually takes the form of a kitten and talks while in that form.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Pestilence amusedly lets Erica explain things to Klaus before continuing the fight.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Elric Actorius, Brad Clochydd, and Eduard Aurelia are all teachers at Lindis and capture targets who could start a romance with the main character (a student).
• Tears of Joy: Harold sheds them after they find replacement income for his house to recover from the fraud, and Palug when Erica declares You Are Not Alone.
• Telepathy: The people of Ignitia generally possess light telepathy that lets them handle monstro (monsters), while a powerful talent will let someone bond with and ride a dragon.
• Technician Versus Performer: Louis vs Auguste, as the former uses a rough, brutal style formed through genuine combat and the latter performs with heavy reliance on his bond with his dragon.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Erica is the Tomboy to Ann (demure, elegant conversationalist,) but the Girly Girl compared to Chloe (a socially unpolished sword fighter).
• Too Many Mouths: A golem with no mouth or head used to test a desecrated altar grows a mouth out of its clavicle and begins offering evil prayers.
• Took a Level in Badass: Once Prince Auguste gets his Telepathy useable, he’s able to near-immediately affect dozens of dragons or hundreds of people at once.
• Top-Down View: The experimental Eye of Overworld lets Erica see herself from above.
• Trial by Combat: Erica enters one in defense of Beatrice after her Frameup.
• Tranquil Fury: Eduard is entirely rational, polite, and cheerful when he talks about killing the guy who just took his sister hostage.
• True Companions: Erica and Tirnanog quickly become close friends, as does Palug when she joins them, with Erica apologizing for the occasional imposition and indulging their whims.
• Verbal Tic: Tirnanog commonly clears his throat with an “Umu” sound when he speaks, while Auguste and Palug have ~ in their sentences to show that they’re talking in a sing-song voice.
• Video Wills: The Hanging Ghost doubles as Dolores Wynt’s last will.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Tirnanog and Palug constantly snipe at each other but are clearly close.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting:
  • Tirnanog has an amorphous body that can change shape, but he remains the same black substance and uses armor to hold his form.
  • Palug has a bestial form, and she can also take the appearance of various humans whom she’s previously contracted with.
• Wall Pin of Love: Auguste does this to steal Erica’s hair ribbon as The Lady's Favor.
• Warrior Prince: All high-ranking nobility and royalty are trained in magical combat.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Zaratan’s true body under his shell is like a wraith and can be sealed like one. By divine mandate, Pestilence must compete fairly when challenged to a riddle contest.
  • Averted with vampires, who have none of the traditional weaknesses like sunlight, garlic, or running water. Erica killed one by collapsing its internal dimension, but we don’t know if that strategy is applicable to all vampires or not.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 13: It turns out Erica’s meta-knowledge is not 100% accurate, as the evil spirit is not the ghost of a betrayed alchemist, but the remnants of his creation, a Philospher’s Stone golem that was once the Cradle Of Life that carried Aurelia to the new continent.
  • Chapter 34: Auguste wins the competition with a nearly impossible move, only for Blackcurrant to rebel and throw him at the end when he’s showing off.
  • Chapter 44: Auguste stops Palug from killing Erica, and confirms that Erica has won the riddle contest, granting her a wish. Palug reveals that everyone else forgets her when she makes a new contract, meaning she and Auguste will lose their close relationship anyway, but she cedes fairly and offers Erica a miracle. Erica asks for Palug to make a wish for herself, rather than break any of the unknown death flags in her future.
  • Chapter 53: Something has been manipulating or controlling Louis Ode-Ignitia, it can’t be detected by any magic Eduard has, and it knows to predict Erica Aurelia dying an awful death when she enters Lindis Academy in six years.
  • Chapter 67: Up until now, Erica had been more worried about a Phantasmal Beast targeting her than anything else. Learning Earl Nibelhiem already bought the (fraudulent) mining rights to an Argene silver vein starts a brief panic, as it means the Earl’s destruction has begun.
  • Chapter 118: A magic mirror connects Erica to a girl 30 years in the past. Erica starts investigating the Association of Mysterious Story Collectors after Auguste informs her that the girl she spoke to, Bort, may have been her late mother Frederica Bort.
  • Chapter 133: Eduard Aurelia, Brad Clochydd, Elric Actorius, and Claude Lucanrant were all classmates at Lindis, and Eduard is currently under suspicion of being a vampire.
  • Chapter 146: Liber Monstrorum’s narrator and help character appears in the isekai world to explain some history about the Golden Wolf Prince curse.
  • Chapter 156-157: Margrave Harlan Slayson and Jack Citrouille are the same person, and he’s also a member of the Association of Mysterious Story Collectors, trying to finish the work begun by Erica’s and Chloe’s mothers. Moreover, Claude is the current victim of the Golden Wolf Prince curse, and he escaped 4 months previously.
• Wham Line:
  Eduard: “By the way, Erica, that golem……it’s made of starsteel, huh? When did you make it?”
  Ann: “Erica-oneesama, that golem……no, is that monstro possibly Zaratan?”
  Erica: “It, it walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening, what is it!?”
  Erica: “Palug-san, what do you wish for?”
  Auguste (to Erica): “Evil Eye Bort……Frederica Bort was the Duchess of Aurelia. She was your mother.”
• Wizarding School: Lindis Academy, the setting of the Liber Mostrorum game.
• The Worf Effect: Inverted. Erica’s narration spends a lot of time describing how competent and dangerous the Military Order of Útför is, and how most alchemists or mages would be defeated or killed near immediately, all while she and Chloe are repeatedly outmaneuvering, defeating, and subduing more than three dozen adult Order members over the course of an evening.
• Worf Had the Flu: Erica only survives the first bit of fighting against Pestilence because 1) the angel is starving, trying to conserve power, and 2) Erica needs to be intact as a suitable offering.
• Wrong Assumption: Pestilence assumed that her power was decreasing because people were losing faith and not worshipping or honoring her, but it turned out that vampires secretly desecrated and corrupted the altars that gathered faith energy to slowly starve the angels who had overthrown them.
• Winds of Destiny, Change!: When multiple magical effects on someone’s destiny conflict, the stronger one will avert the weaker fate. Erica survives a Death spell this way, as it would cause her to die immediately, but she’s already under a more powerful curse to die in several hours.
  • The secret behind the Golden Wolf curse is that it infects a person’s past to contaminate them when they’re vulnerable, even if they should be protected in the present.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: During the kidnapping, Chloe wonders if she just isn’t a good person, but Erica reminds her that she charged at a vampire and a huge golem without fear.
• You Are Not Alone: Erica refuses to let Palug root out the altars’ corruptors part-time between doom flags because she (Erica) insists on helping, since Palug alone won’t be enough.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Erica does her best, and seems to be succeeding, but a lot of what she’s fighting started before she gained her memories, so it’s slow going.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The merchant who defrauded Count Nibelheim disappeared with his household, and it’s believed this happened to them.
• You Just Told Me: When Ann want to confirm whether the golem Tirnanog is secretly Zaratan, she claims the mark from her spell is still on his leg, prompting Erica to complain that she changed his armor so there’s no way the mark should still be there.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: The Curse of the Golden Wolf Prince transforms whoever kills the current victim into the next Golden Wolf Prince. This is what happened to Claude Lucanrant, though there’s some flexibility, as he technically used the cursed prince as a shield when fighting Elric Actorius, who dealt the actual killing blow.