“Don’t worry, Helena. This isn’t the end of the evidence. Dylan, hand her the cover letter.”

He quickly cut off Helena’s next excuse.

Then he threw Helena’s report onto the table.

“The report you wrote. The style is both precise and uneven, as if you copied someone else.”

“……It’s an official document, I put effort into writing it!”

“Exactly. That’s why I brought this.”

This time, a document in Kun’s opposite hand was thrown in front of Helena.

She wet her lips and reached for it. Her trembling hands picked up the paper and immediately dropped it.

“The handwriting you copied is very similar to the princess’s.”

It was Chloe’s self-introduction written on the first day of the conference.

The elegant handwriting that boasted of its own authenticity immediately stood out.

“Now, what will you say this time?”

Helena didn’t know the reference that everyone else remembered.

And the coincidentally overlapping handwriting styles of the two.

No one would believe Helena’s further excuses here.

She looked around blankly. Those who had been praising her just now were busy avoiding her gaze.

The chairman was looking at her as if she was pathetic.

Like a leaf aimlessly swaying in the wind, her eyes also continuously trembled.

“I’m really looking forward to your next excuse.”

Lifting her trembling chin, she found the triumphant Emperor smiling.

Helena eventually collapsed on the spot. Though Kun didn’t get a confession, everyone knew it was her doing.

While Helena took a break in the palace’s council chamber, knights searched her room.

And they found a heap of shredded paper in the trash can. It was Chloe’s report, shredded in case of an emergency.

Now that evidence had appeared in an already ambiguous situation, Helena had become the perpetrator.

Later, Chloe received a very awkward apology.

The chairman bowed several times in front of her, and even the library librarian asked for forgiveness for their oversight.

“I didn’t mean for things to escalate like this……”

Chloe, who had left the conference room with Kun, muttered.

The sight of Helena collapsing from shock and the knights treating her like trash was imprinted in her eyes.

“To be precise, the one who escalated things is the one who collapsed.”

“I won’t deny that. But did Your Majesty really plot all this without questioning me?”
“A surprise gift for the princess.”

Even if she expressed her bewilderment, all that came back was a disdainful shrug.

‘Your Majesty? What brings you here at this hour?’

“As you said, princess, there’s a missing reference section in the report. So, what were the books you intended to include in the references?”

The question from last night, when he unexpectedly visited her room, came to mind.

Considering the dozens of books Chloe had read, she had struggled to recall the ones that were actually cited.

“But how did you notice the change in Helena’s handwriting?”

What truly surprised Chloe was that he had noticed a change in Helena’s handwriting. Although the lines were a bit irregular, it wasn’t suspicious enough to question.

That’s all? He even realized that the handwriting she had copied was Chloe’s.

For Chloe, who had been writing in that style for decades, it was nearly impossible for someone else to notice it.

“Well…”

“…”

“Maybe it bothered me because it resembled the handwriting of a dear friend.”

A voice unusually tender for addressing a subordinate.

And an overly affectionate title.

‘What did he just say…’

Feeling indignant, Chloe unconsciously halted her steps.

‘Dear… friend?’

As she stood there pondering his words, their meaning finally became clear.