A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 100

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 100.
He wore the face she loved most and looked so pitiful with his arms spread wide that Caroline had no time to hesitate. As if entranced, she approached and drew Ifros into an embrace.
Though the difference in size meant she was the one doing the holding, Ifros rubbed his hair against her shoulder like an affectionate cat.
“You have to stay with me forever. You can’t leave.”
“I won’t leave.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Even pressed almost beneath his weight, her hasty promise seemed to please him—he let out a soft laugh. Caroline found herself cradled in his arms, her head pressed firmly against his solid chest. Beyond it, she felt his heartbeat, racing slightly faster than normal.
‘Does Aiden’s heart beat faster and slower when he’s acting?’
It was the rhythm of a heart truly holding something beloved. Aiden’s entire body had become Ifros, expressing happiness at meeting Isaha.
But she wasn’t really Isaha. Caroline felt something strange stir in her as she received such fervent affection.
It was already embarrassing to be holding Aiden, an actor she adored, yet Ifros seemed even happier than she was, nuzzling and rubbing his hair against her so insistently that her cheeks grew warmer and warmer.
‘This is dangerous.’
Not for her—for Ifros.
How lovely he was, doing nothing but pretty things. She wanted to shower kisses on the crown of his head right then. No matter that he was artificial, how could Isaha have used such a being as a tool for nighttime amusement? Resentment flared in her.
“Well, now that we’re attached,”
Caroline patted his chest and carefully pushed him away.
Whether this amount of contact satisfied him or not, Ifros withdrew his body without resistance, his expression turning pouting.
“Let’s go eat. I need to use the restroom first.”
The sun was setting now, the world growing dark. Surely dinner would be ready.
Caroline took Ifros’s hand toward the Mansion, then left him briefly on the pretense of using the restroom. After allowing enough time for him to return to his daytime self, Aiden, she walked into the Dining Room.
“?”
Ifros sat at the table with the same mascara applied and lip gloss worn.
‘What’s happening? Can I no longer have dinner with the daytime Aiden?’
Caroline hesitated, then decided to eat anyway.
The moment she settled into her seat, hesitantly,
“Welcome, Miss Caroline. Today is said to be the longest night of summer. I’ve prepared a bountiful meal to match the occasion.”
“!”
The voice addressing her did not belong to Ifros. It was the unmistakable manner of the daytime Aiden, complete with the title “Miss Caroline.”
He wore Ifros’s appearance but existed as the daytime Aiden.
‘What on earth is happening?’
Bewildered, Caroline steadily brought food to her mouth. After wandering the Maze for so long, she was hungrier than ever.
The Aiden before her was also eating, which meant he wasn’t in Ifros’s state. So makeup alone couldn’t determine his personality? How was she supposed to distinguish between his personalities?
“Aiden. Ifros?”
[▲]
Caroline called his name softly, then tried calling Ifros as well.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, never mind. It’s just that your appearance today seems so much like Ifros. Your clothes and everything. Even your eyelashes look like you have mascara on, like you’re about to take the stage.”
[▲▲]
“……Is that so?”
The moment she spoke, Aiden’s face went rigid. Two red triangles appeared in her vision—a bonus to the moment.
Aiden didn’t merely freeze his expression and posture; he gestured to a servant nearby. When the servant approached, he whispered something, then accepted a Mirror the servant brought.
He examined his own reflection carefully within it.
“I haven’t applied anything to my eyelashes today, so they seem no different from usual. And these are the same clothes I wore at teatime…… Are you saying the style of these clothes alone feels distinctly that way?”
For a moment, her breath seemed to catch.
[▲▲]
Caroline stared at the red triangles still hovering in the upper right corner. She couldn’t afford to lose a heart here.
She barely suppressed a catch in her throat and forced her increasingly stiffening lips to move.
“……Yes, that’s right.”
“Hmm, now that I hear it from Miss Caroline, I do see it that way.”
[□□□□]
The instant he spoke those words, four black squares appeared above his head.
He had applied mascara to his eyelashes and changed his clothes to Ifros’s. Yet he saw himself, believed himself, to be the daytime Aiden.
At this point, Caroline wanted to doubt her own eyes. She felt as if she were going mad. She almost wished she were.
‘Has Aiden’s condition worsened?’
The nighttime Aiden was emerging before evening had even arrived, and the daytime Aiden was appearing while wearing makeup. His dissociative identity disorder symptoms were undoubtedly intensifying.
‘If this continues, will I no longer be able to distinguish his personalities by makeup alone?’
A sudden chill ran through her. Makeup and time—those had been the markers that let her navigate Aiden.
If all of that vanished, what was Caroline supposed to do?
Even now, Aiden sat eating, utterly convinced he was the daytime version. Caroline noticed something rattling beneath her.
Her hands trembled uncontrollably—a situation that her waking mind could not catch up to.
‘I’m afraid.’
The way Aiden perceived her, divorced from reality, was not merely frightening.
What lay ahead of her felt suffocating. Caroline finished her meal with a sensation of her insides turning over.
* * *
What reaction would the three o’clock Aiden have if she confessed this to him?
If he came to realize that he had completely lost his mind, would he suffer? Perhaps he would be indifferent. He seemed to treat the daytime Aiden as a complete stranger. Perhaps it was because the daytime Aiden was a conquest target for the Player, while he himself was an NPC helping the Player.
Caroline pressed a hand to her startled chest and wrote down today’s discoveries in her Notebook.
First: Even when disguised, Aiden sometimes perceives himself as the daytime version.
Second: I found Friedman’s Diary. I now have all four characters’ Diaries, and only need to collect the Keys from Friedman and Ifros.
Third: Past the twisted section of the Maze, there is a Settings Bar at the Fountain.
Fourth: Beyond the Settings Bar, the path straightens, and there is an Iron Door that opens only when both the Diary and Keys are inserted.
‘What lies beyond that?’
The three o’clock Aiden didn’t know. When she saw him today, she would ask. For now, she set out to find the two remaining Keys.
And at the threshold of the Second Floor Staircase, she encountered someone unexpected.
“Ifros?”
The man whose appearance had not changed. She asked hesitantly, and the triangle didn’t come to mind.
In other words, it was Ifros.
‘So the daytime Aiden has shifted back to being Ifros, with not a trace of makeup change.’
His utter lack of pattern left her breathless.
Yet it wasn’t truly difficult to tell them apart. The daytime Aiden and Ifros carried themselves differently. This man maintained a mechanical, stiff upright posture, yet his fingertips fidgeted with a nervous air about them.
Just by looking at his eyes—brimming with affection and dependence toward another—Caroline felt she could tell them apart in an instant.
“Yes, Isaha. I came to see you,” Ifros said.
“To see me?”
“I’ve found a new hideout. I wanted to show you. Will you come with me?”
As he spoke, Ifros extended his hand. In that moment, why?
The conversation from tea time flashed through Caroline’s mind.
“Of the four characters, Ifros is truly the one you can’t predict. According to the details I’ve written, there’s no telling how far he’ll go. In that sense, it seems accurate.”
“So you’re saying he has those tendencies common in love triangle dramas—obsession, kidnapping, abduction?”
“Precisely.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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