A man in his mid-20s, clearly not a student, was coming down the stairs.

He must have completely failed to notice the presence of the girl who was pressed against the wooden wall, holding her breath in the darkness.

After descending the stairs without any change in his walking speed, he left the dormitory.

Neris knew that face.

Her heart burned hot for a moment. How could she forget that face!

In her previous life, he was the one who had helped Eustace Grunehals kidnap Neris, and also provided her with the opportunity to escape by showing her an opening!

The one who had given Neris tea laced with sleeping drugs, and dragged her around throughout the kidnapping!

The name was… right.

“Simon! Tie this girl’s hands. Damn wench, how dare you covet my sister’s place?”

“Hey, Simon. What should we do next?”

‘It was Simon.’

That’s what Eustace had called him. At the time of the kidnapping, Simon sometimes seemed to be directing everything, so he was probably a high-ranking servant of the Grunehals family.

He didn’t seem close to Eustace, so he was probably Natasha’s man.

Although he looked more than 10 years younger now compared to then, his face was deeply etched in her memory from the kidnapping incident.

Unlike children, adults change less with time, so it didn’t seem like she had mistaken him.

While Eustace Grunehals was currently attending the academy, he had never encountered Neris. There was no need for Natasha to suddenly send her servant to Neris now.

What on earth was Simon doing here? And at this hour?

Originally, since other people lived in this building too, could there be another poor student who had offended the Grunehals siblings?

Neris quietly climbed the dormitory stairs, lost in thought. Then she entered her room and closed the door behind her.

The room was as tidy as when she had left it. However, it wouldn’t hurt to be thorough.

Her sleep had already been unpleasantly disturbed. Neris carefully examined her pillowcase, desk drawers, and the shelves above.

The word paranoia flashed through her mind, but somehow Simon’s presence bothered her.

Having lived in this dormitory for a long time, Neris knew the other residents well. No one had the courage to go against the influential Grunehals siblings.

Could that earlier encounter have given Natasha some inspiration?

Neris hoped that Natasha had been wary of Megara from early on.

That’s why she had deliberately used the schedule of the student council members she had observed during her punishment with Nelrysion to encounter Natasha and warn her while feigning innocence. Had something gone wrong there?

Could it be that Neris’s deliberate act of sending Joseph away to save Cledwin had caught attention?

Abelus and Natasha were currently in the heat of their relationship.

Was it really impossible that at Abelus’s request, Natasha had moved Simon, and he had tried to find a connection between Neris and Cledwin in Neris’s room?

Neris wasn’t a fool, and she had of course burned all the letters Cledwin had sent her before. But there might have been some other evidence left behind.

She searched the room, focusing on whether there were traces of an outsider carefully touching things.

The pillowcase, desk drawers, and shelves were fine. Nothing seemed to be missing or gone. However, there was one place that strangely caught her eye.

It was none other than the bed mattress.

Everyone had their own way of tucking in the edges of their bed mattress.

Neris usually neatly folded the excess sheet that covered the mattress and pushed it under the mattress, but now she noticed that the edge of the sheet was carelessly stuffed under the mattress.

As if someone had lifted the mattress once, put it back in place, and just hastily tried to restore it before leaving.

Normally, the difference in the sheet’s appearance would have been too small to notice. But in this situation, even the slightest change needed to be checked.

Neris didn’t trust the flimsy locks of this old dormitory.

With just a few hairpins, any door in this building, including her room door, could probably be opened without a trace.

Neris pushed the mattress up with all her might.

“Ha.”

Between the mattress and the bed frame, in a place that would never be seen under normal circumstances, there was a brown envelope.

Neris let out a dry laugh as she pulled it out and put the mattress and sheet back in order. Then she opened the envelope and looked at its contents.

It was an exam paper. Prepared for this midterm exam.

Before even the earliest classes at the academy had begun, the student council members, eating breakfast with sleepy eyes, received a sudden summons.

Students who made it into the student council were all children of renowned families, so instead of eating in the student cafeteria, they were eating food prepared by their own servants in their respective dormitory rooms.

As a result, it took some time for everyone to gather.

Natasha, who had to come without properly fixing her hair, glared fiercely at the juniors who arrived later than her. The young high-ranking noble children who helped with odd jobs in the student council executive looked upset, scared by her sharp gaze.

The tense atmosphere in the student council room, like walking on thin ice, was broken the moment Abelus and Nelrysion opened the door and entered.

Seeing Abelus, Natasha quickly put on a coy yet lightly smiling expression.

Abelus, with his hair a mess, sat down at the desk, yawning widely with his mouth open. Natasha and Nelrysion stood on either side of Abelus, as if guarding him.

With tears in his eyes from yawning, Abelus said indifferently.

“Sheridan’s exam questions have disappeared.”

The solemn silence that had been flowing in the student council room until now sharpened.

The student council members exchanged glances. Natasha asked sweetly.

“When? This morning, Your Highness?”

“Sometime between last night and this morning. According to Sheridan, he definitely checked the questions before going to the 1st year supplementary class last night, so they were certainly there then.”

Nelrysion followed up Abelus’s words with an explanation of the situation.

What was stolen was the 1st year midterm exam questions. The time of discovery was this morning. The first to discover it was a servant cleaning the hallway who quickly reported seeing the office lock twisted open, and so on.

As Nelrysion’s explanation ended, Abelus rested his elbows on the desk and propped his chin on his hands. Then he let out a gloomy laugh.

“This year’s 1st years are really something, aren’t they? There’s never a quiet day, huh?”

It was true. Angarad Nine’s bold theft, the dispute between Rhiannon Berta and Alecto Islani… The student council members were essentially the ones running the school and received reports on all troubles, big and small.

Even for them, freshmen causing non-stop problems like this from the very beginning of admission was a first.

“Your Highness.”

Natasha asked Abelus coquettishly.

“Shall we summon all the 1st years?”

“I’m thinking about it, Tash. If we suddenly call them from the student council, won’t the culprit obviously destroy the evidence and not come?”

Well, that’s true. This was different in nature from the petty theft of valuables that Angarad Nine had committed.

Wasn’t this an act that ignored the academy’s founding principle of ‘aspiration’ and fundamentally collapsed the grading system? If the culprit is caught, the punishment will be very severe.

While the student council members were exchanging disapproving glances at that unknown arrogant 1st year, someone knocked on the student council room door.

“Who is it?”

The student council member closest to the door asked. A thin, lovely voice of a young girl was heard from outside the door.

“It’s me, Megara Likeandros. May I come in?”

Abelus gestured with his chin, looking annoyed. What could this little one want so early in the morning.

“Open it.”

The junior member opened the student council room door. The people who entered were not just one. Besides Megara and her servant, Idalia Kendal and her servant also followed in.

Of course, being young ladies from noble families, they wouldn’t be wandering around alone at this early hour.

Normally, it’s a close maid who follows a noble lady, but given the current hour, they would have brought their servants. The junior member, considering the gravity of the current situation, sent the two servants out and closed the door again.

Abelus looked boredly at Megara, who was carefully approaching him, and Idalia, who was hiding behind Megara.

The two girls were dressed strangely. No matter how you looked at it, they seemed to have hastily thrown on robes over their nightgowns. It was an outfit one would never expect a young lady from a great noble family to choose when going out.

“What’s the matter?”

Nelrysion asked kindly, following Abelus’s eye signal.

Idalia, who had been hanging her head low under the gaze of her seniors, lifted her head at that voice. Megara answered with sparkling eyes.

“We were eating breakfast when we heard such shocking news that we came right away. We hesitated, worried we might be disturbing the seniors for no reason… But we thought you really should know.”

“Is that so? What is it?”

“Well……”

Megara shifted her gaze from Nelrysion and glanced at Abelus. Abelus, who had been watching their conversation without much thought, felt his mood improve slightly.

No matter how much Abelus liked beautiful women, Megara Likeandros was still too young. So it wasn’t that kind of excitement.

But when all the women in the world showed favor to the kind and handsome Nelrysion, here was someone, even a child, looking at Abelus first instead of Nelrysion in this situation?

Though he didn’t show it, not wanting to appear petty as the crown prince, Abelus didn’t like the fact that Nelrysion was handsome.

Even though he was just the son of a duke, nothing special in front of the crown prince, Nelrysion was strangely popular, perhaps because of his smooth looks and kind smile.

Young Megara was not only clever but also had good eyes. Hadn’t she recognized Abelus as more manly and dignified? Even kids know who’s more reliable.

“Go ahead, Miss Megara. If you want to tell me, speak.”

Because of that series of thoughts, Abelus urged her on pleasantly. Megara blinked her clear purple eyes and looked up pitifully at Abelus across the desk.

Then, as if telling a great secret, she lowered her voice and put her hand to her mouth, suspiciously looking around.

“I heard the exam papers went missing last night. I think I might know who did it.”

The faces of the student council members showed various reactions.

Nelrysion stared at Megara with unreadable eyes, while Natasha raised an eyebrow. Abelus slightly raised his chin.

“Who might that be?”

“It feels a bit wrong to speak this way about a classmate, but given how serious the situation is, I thought it would be better to tell you.”

Despite setting it up like that, no one believed Megara’s words.

Running here first thing in the morning to make an accusation, what nonsense. Nelrysion seemed to know whose name would come out of Megara’s mouth. His gentle smile stiffened slightly.

Megara spoke with an expression of utter regret.

“Neris Trude.”