“It’s the prince’s car! The car carrying the prince and the Little Lady has arrived!”

Just then, she heard shouts that the car carrying Viett and Phenelity had arrived at the cathedral. Cecilia turned her gaze to the black car stopping in front of the cathedral. A guard hurriedly approached and opened the rear door.

Prince Viett, dressed in uniform, stepped out of the car first. After looking around with nervous eyes, he extended his hand into the car.

Phenelity, dressed in black, took his hand and emerged from the car. At that moment, the incredibly noisy cathedral area fell silent as if a mouse had died.

Cecilia unconsciously dropped the cigarette she had been smoking. Everyone, like her, stared at Phenelity in a daze.

“H-hey…… look over here! Your Highness!”

The newspaper journalists were the first to regain their senses. They began calling out to Phenelity loudly while hurriedly setting off camera flashes.

Phenelity climbed the cathedral steps escorted by Prince Viett. Flashes went off in all directions. The royal bodyguards and police hurriedly restrained the journalists, but all were unstoppable.

Phenelity lowered her head slightly in confusion, and Prince Viett’s pace quickened.

“It’s a more spectacular debut than expected. Congratulations, Pepe.”

Cecilia leaned against the terrace railing and burst into cheerful laughter.

* * *

The editor of the novel  watched the protest from within the crowd. The road was so packed there was no room to step, and her head spun from the suffocating crowd and boisterous noise. It was difficult to even catch a glimpse of the nobility, let alone the royalty.

At this rate, there was no point in having secretly slipped out of the newspaper office among colleagues rushing to the funeral.

“Argh! It’s deafeningly loud! Is this a state funeral or a battlefield?!”

The editor hunched her shoulders, suffering from the loud protest noise.

“Why did everyone come out instead of listening to the radio broadcast at home?”

“And why did you follow us here during your precious break time?”

A colleague fiddling with his camera retorted.

“Why? It’s a golden opportunity to see the protagonist of my novel with my own eyes.”

The editor grumbled while covering her ears.

“When would a commoner like me get to see the princess…… no, she’s the crown princess now. Anyway, when would I get to see such an esteemed person up close?”

“Viett hasn’t been officially appointed crown prince yet.”

“Was Minute crowned at an enthronement ceremony? He became crown prince simply because he was the eldest son.”

While bickering back and forth, the car carrying the prince and his wife arrived in front of the cathedral. Someone pointed at the car and shouted loudly.

“They’re here! That must be the car!”

“It’s the Little Lady and the royal troublemaker!”

Her colleague raised his camera high above people’s heads. The editor jumped up and down anxiously, trying to see the car carrying the Little Lady.

Through the gaps between people’s heads, she glimpsed a black car stopping in front of the cathedral steps. She peered from behind people, waiting for the prince and his wife to exit the car.

She had often seen the prince’s face in newspapers, and she could easily imagine the Little Lady’s appearance, described in the novel as resembling Hughey Gallant.

So she thought seeing them in person wouldn’t be particularly impressive…… but seeing their faces with her own eyes was on a completely different level from what she had imagined.

“W-what is that.”

A dumbfounded sound escaped her lips. The woman who stepped out of the car with Viett’s escort was a beauty with upturned eyes and an air of purity.

Her golden hair, neatly braided, was dazzling, and her white face had a bright, innocent glow.

The prince holding her hand was also unbelievably handsome. It was incredible that such a man had lived in his brother’s shadow for so long.

His sturdy physique, more solid than in newspaper photos, proved he was an officer from Desfield, notorious for its harsh training.

Seeing the unexpectedly beautiful pair, the editor momentarily lost her senses and stood with her mouth foolishly agape. Her colleague also stood with a dumbfounded expression, forgetting to press the camera shutter.

The editor was particularly amazed by Phenelity. She doubted whether this refined lady was truly the protagonist of the novel she was editing.

Could this seemingly gentle beauty really be the same person as that tomboy who used her mouth like a machine gun?

The editor blinked with a bewildered face. Her colleague, standing with a foolish expression, murmured vacantly.

“Is that a body double……?”

“Are you sleep-talking with your eyes open? What body double, you idiot.”

“But…… it’s hard to believe that such a beauty and the loudmouth in your novel are the same person.”

“……No.”

The editor shook her head, watching the prince firmly holding the woman’s hand.

“That’s her. That woman is definitely Little Lady Pepe.”

The prince’s shoulders were stiffly rigid. He was visibly tense. The woman looked up at him and whispered something. Then he relaxed and began calmly ascending the cathedral steps.

“The ill-tempered royal troublemaker would trust and depend on only one woman in the world to that extent.”

The editor stood on tiptoes and looked around. The people gathered on the road were also staring at the prince and his wife in a daze.

Even the protesters had stopped chanting their disgusting slogans and were blankly staring at Phenelity.

She turned her gaze to the sentence her colleague was scribbling in his notebook. After reading ‘A pair like a masterpiece painting,’ she looked at the journalist with a contemptuous gaze.

“Don’t tell me that’s your headline?”

“It is.”

“How tacky!”

The editor nudged her colleague’s notebook closed and turned around.

“What? You’re leaving already?”

“I’ve seen their faces, so I’m good. I need to get back before Sir Gallant discovers me. I’m going ahead.”

The editor barely made her way through the crowd and returned to the  headquarters.

Brushing off colleagues who pestered her about whether she had seen the Little Lady and the prince, she entered her personal office tucked away in a corner of the corridor. She sat blankly for a while, recalling Phenelity’s face.

“No wonder everyone talked about Hughey Gallant……”

The Little Lady she had witnessed with her own eyes did indeed resemble Hughey Gallant. Everyone at the cathedral must have momentarily thought of the missing great actor.

Now that her status had been elevated from a mere prince’s wife to crown princess, Phenelity was likely to have her face frequently exposed in the media.

Then, people would mention Hughey Gallant more often when seeing her…….

“So should I continue to include Hughey Gallant’s name in the novel?”

The editor scratched her head, recalling the editorial request to use Hughey Gallant’s real name in the novel.

It was a strange request whose reason she couldn’t even guess. She also recalled the advice Sir Gallant had casually added.

‘……If you’re really curious about the reason, you could refer to the editorial guidelines.’

The special reason for allowing the use of Hughey Gallant’s real name. He had said if she was curious about that reason, she should search the editorial guidelines more diligently?

The editor opened her desk drawer and rummaged through the miscellaneous items. A notebook with a worn cover covered in fingerprints was discovered at the bottom of the drawer.

It was the editorial guidelines left by previous editors. She hadn’t taken it out once since her first day on the job.

She blew hard on the notebook cover to clear away the pencil dust, then quickly flipped through the pages. Then she discovered something strange.

Several pages at the very back were hidden inside the back cover of the book. It was suspicious how they had been forcibly stuffed in so others couldn’t see them.

The editor painfully extracted the densely packed loose pages from the back cover. There were four crumpled pages in total, all filled with writing. Her eyes widened as she read what was written on the first page.

“W-what is all this……?”

They were all notes left by previous editors. Moreover, each had different handwriting. It was clear that each past editor had left at least one note.

The editor cursed her own insensitivity for only discovering this now and read through the notes.

「Why does Sir Gallant want Hughey’s name to appear exactly as is in the novel?」

Below the memo that appeared to have been written by one of the previous editors was text in a different handwriting. It seemed like a note added by another editor.

「It’s not just Hughey Gallant! I just received information that an Eastern spy’s name was also EXACTLY! recorded in the novel. This comes from my mother’s friend’s daughter’s roommate who’s a die-hard fan of , so you can trust it!」

「Your mother’s friend’s daughter’s roommate? That’s practically a stranger, isn’t it?」