“Heris!”

Seeing Pelena’s hand rising again, I shouted “No!” and rushed toward her, but she pushed my body away forcefully.

I changed the direction of my body as it was pushed toward the railing and threw myself toward the curtain that was hiding us, and with a crashing sound, I fell into the ballroom along with the curtain.

And then something beautiful like a jewel made a ting as it rolled and hit the floor, its lid opened, and a familiar voice began to flow out.

— Don’t make me laugh. There’s no way you have evidence.

It was Pelena’s voice, perfectly reproducing her past words.

Pelena, who had rushed toward me as I fell, looked around in surprise at the sound of her own voice.

But there was no way she could find the source of the voice.

This was Mafi’s invention that I was introducing to this world for the first time.

“What… what is this?”

People also looked around in confusion as two identical voices of Pelena were speaking.

The ballroom was gripped by fear, and people fell silent.

— Yes, I poured water on the young lady of Posilia and that girl.

As Pelena’s voice confessing her crime echoed through the quiet ballroom, her face instantly hardened.

“No, that… this……”

I got up from my place and picked up the jewel that had fallen near me, my face pale.

With a click, Pelena’s voice that had been filling the ballroom was no longer heard.

But people were still looking at Pelena and me with shocked expressions.

“What… what on earth……”

A lady standing at the front pointed at me and Pelena and asked.

And then, Heris appeared from the terrace with one cheek swollen from Pelena’s slap.

“Heris!”

The Brel couple rushed toward Heris when they saw her condition.

Heris smiled at them as if she was fine.

“What on earth is going on here!”

Lady Brel immediately began to scold me.

She seemed to think that Pelena, who was usually friendly with Heris, wouldn’t have hit her.

“Mother! It’s not Lady Rowenloa!”

Heris urgently shouted at her mother.

At those words, Lady Brel was startled and released my wrist that she had been holding.

“No… then… Lady Pelena Clevan……”

When Heris nodded to confirm, the lady turned pale and apologized to me.

“It’s alright. It’s natural that you couldn’t see anything else when your daughter’s face was injured and you were angry.”

Lady Brel looked touched by my words.

Then she slowly shifted her gaze toward Pelena.

“So… it was you, Lady Pelena? The person who made my daughter’s face like this.”

The ones who blocked Lady Brel as she slowly approached Pelena were the Clevan couple.

“Lady Brel! What are you doing! To corner someone without any evidence like this……”

It was then, as the Clevan couple was trying to defend Pelena with pale faces—

“You heard it just now.”

The Clevan couple looked nervously in the direction of the voice.

But they soon had to bow their heads in that direction.

Because it was the empress who had spoken.

“I think everyone in this ballroom heard Lady Pelena’s shouting voice just now, although I’m not sure where it came from.”

I couldn’t hide my surprise at seeing the empress continuing to speak, as I hadn’t expected the imperial family to get involved in this mess.

Noticing this, Heris approached me and pretended to fix my clothes while lightly patting my back, telling me to pull myself together.

“I apologize for raising my voice, Your Majesty the Empress. I clearly heard Pelena’s voice too, but her mouth was closed while that voice was flowing. So I can’t assert that it was Pelena’s voice……”

“No, that was indeed Lady Pelena Clevan’s voice.”

Everyone in the ballroom looked at me upon hearing those words.

“This thing in my hand is a machine that stores sounds.”

At my words, people tilted their heads and looked at the jewel-like object in my hand, then snorted.

“Look, Your Majesty the Empress. She claims that jewel stores sounds. Do you really think that can be considered reliable evidence?”

At Marquis Clevan’s words, I opened the bottom lid of the device again with a click.

— Look, Your Majesty the Empress. She claims that jewel stores sounds. Do you really think that can be considered reliable evidence?

Marquis Clevan was startled and stepped back upon hearing those words.

The faces of Lady Clevan and Pelena had turned completely pale.

“Do you still not believe me?”

Marquis Clevan bit his lip hard as if he had nothing to say.

Then I pressed a small button on the surface and opened the lid again, and once more, the words Pelena had said to me and Heris on the terrace began to flow out.

Mafi had quickly developed this sound-storing machine in just a few days.

He had divided the sound-capturing areas to store up to three different sounds at once, explained that opening the top lid would store sounds while opening the bottom lid would release them, and warned that each sound could only be replayed three times…

Mafi had excitedly explained various things to me, and I couldn’t help but be amazed once again by his talent.

A machine so beautiful that no one would suspect it even if worn as an accessory on a dress, with a function never before seen in this world.

Mafi, you’re about to be sitting on a pile of money.

The nobles were looking at Pelena Clevan, hoping for an explanation of this situation.

But there was no way she could explain this situation herself.

The only escape she could find from this situation would be the person who had ordered her to do this.

“I… I did it……”

Naturally, Pelena’s gaze turned toward the person who had ordered her to do this.

And of course, at the end of that gaze stood Leila and Bershua.

They panicked when their eyes met Pelena’s and fumbled around, then Leila averted her eyes.

Whether angered by this fact, Pelena trembled with her fists and then spat out the words I most wanted to hear.

“I only did what I was told to do!”

The ballroom began to buzz again upon hearing those words.

The Clevan couple sighed as they looked at Pelena.

It was then, as they approached her to stop her…

What kind of madman would order someone to pour water on the young lady of Posilia and the young lady of Marquis Masipacius?

“The rumors circulating in the academy, pouring dirty water on Rowenloa, I did it all because Leila and Lord Bershua told me to!”

People focused on Pelena again at her desperate cry.

“Leila and Lord Bershua! You said I would never get caught!”

People’s gazes turned to shock, and then those gazes turned toward the two who were mixed among the crowd.

They couldn’t hide their bewildered expressions and could only look at people while breathing heavily in their confusion.

And then, Grace shouted in a booming voice.

“What? The rumors at the academy that my brother and Rowenloa had a dirty relationship, the rumors that Rowenloa tried everything to get into the higher class to meet smart men, were all spread by Rowenloa’s family members, Leila and Lord Bershua? They even poured dirty water on me?”

People’s gazes began to move from shock to contempt.

“I… I never……”

“You! How dare you try to pin your crimes on someone else!”

Father seemed to be racking his brain to salvage the situation, but finding no solution, he quietly muttered curses and walked out of the ballroom.

Brother Rembro also looked at Leila and Bershua with bewildered eyes before following Father out of the ballroom.

“Sob……”

As I showed tears, the situation reached its climax.

Leila pretended to faint and fell backward, unable to bear the gazes, while Bershua caught her and buried his face in the ground.

“How could they do such a thing to their own family……”

“I know. Especially since Lady Leila hasn’t been adopted into the family for long… I wonder how much the marquis spoiled her?”

Veltune, who had been helping them, only looked at them without extending a helping hand as he had done before.

Because of the cursed class system, a single word from him, a member of the imperial family, could have greatly alleviated public opinion, but he didn’t do so.

In the end, it was the empress who ended the situation.

“It seems we cannot continue the ball under these circumstances.”

With that, the empress coldly passed by the Clevan family and approached me and Heris.

“You two seem to be injured, so take the carriage I’m sending and come to the imperial palace. We have a skilled physician there.”

While Heris and I were busily rolling our eyes in surprise at those words, the emperor and empress quickly left the ballroom, and the crown prince also bowed slightly to me before disappearing after them.

Grace and the duchess rushed to me and Heris, busy asking if we were hurt anywhere, and some nobles left the hall saying they had lost interest.

But some nobles remained in the hall, continuing to glance at me.

“…Did people’s voices come out of that thing earlier?”

“A machine that can store sounds like that… I’ve never heard or seen anything like it.”

“If such an item existed, information would have reached our side, which deals with trading companies….”

The moment the duchess and Grace left briefly to bring cold water to cool Heris’s cheek, many nobles rushed toward me.

“Lady Masipacius! Could we see that object from earlier once more?”

“May I ask where you obtained it?”

“What is the name of that object?”

And only then did I realize that I hadn’t decided on the most important thing.

“Ah… I haven’t decided on a name for this device….”