A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 103

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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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Chapter 103.
Even without finding a hint about the key, I shouldn’t have followed Ifros.
The real mistake was continuing this game at all. I should have run when Aiden told me to—the version of him that visits at three in the morning. I wanted to go back and punch my past self for stupidly spouting confidence about a future I knew nothing about.
I’d stepped forward swearing I’d save Aiden at any cost, and now it looked like I’d lose my life instead.
‘If only there were some way to quit this game right now.’
No such thing existed.
Caroline wedged herself into the deepest corner of the cell and tried to sleep again. Time slipped away—how much, she couldn’t say.
“……Caroline.”
The whispered voice pulled her awake. Through the iron bars, she saw a man holding a lantern—crouching low to peer at her in the cell. It was Ifros.
“!”
Fear seized her and she recoiled instinctively. In that moment, the man’s face twisted in pain.
“Caroline, it’s me.”
The way he said her name, the gentleness in his voice.
A man in blue pajamas, his golden hair disheveled, gazed down at her with worry. Only then could Caroline understand.
Aiden had come looking for her—the Aiden who visited at three in the morning.
For a moment, she thought she was dreaming.
But when the man set down the lantern and moved to open the door, the sound of metal grinding against metal told her it was real.
‘How…?’
While Caroline sat frozen, unable to process what was happening,
Aiden opened the basement prison door and walked toward her. When he saw the handcuffs around her wrists, his expression darkened, and without hesitation he removed them.
“Did Ifros do this?”
He looked angrier than she’d ever seen him. The moment he asked, Caroline threw her arms around his neck. The tears she’d held back came pouring out.
She couldn’t name what she felt—a tangle of emotions. Joy, relief, gratitude, shock…….
‘I’m alive. Aiden came.’
Finally released from everything, Caroline buried her face in his chest.
The man stood stunned for a moment, arms spread open, then wrapped them around her. Tighter and stronger than her own grip.
Aiden’s large hands cradled her back, stroking it slowly. Like a mother soothing a child to sleep.
“It’s alright. I’m here.”
He was someone who had comforted others many times before. He whispered in that gentle tone while holding her close, his palm moving softly across her spine.
Caroline collapsed into his arms like she was falling into a soft bed, sobbing there for a long time. Cold and dark as the basement was, just his presence made it feel like the safest place in the world.
Eventually her sobs quieted and her breathing steadied.
Then shame crashed over her. What a pathetic sight she must be presenting to Aiden.
‘I’m losing it!’
Caroline hastily pulled herself up. The movement was so abrupt she nearly headbutted his jaw, but she turned away and wiped her tears as if nothing had happened.
“……How did you know to come?”
It was a deflection, but Aiden played along gently and answered.
“You told me yesterday that you’d see me again today.”
“I’ll find something new tomorrow and bring it to you.”
Caroline vaguely remembered saying those words yesterday. She was surprised that this man had believed them when even she could barely recall them.
“Those words stayed with me. You might not have come, of course, but I had the feeling you would—that you’d really show up with something new today. But as time passed and you didn’t appear, I walked around the Mansion grounds for exercise. And then I found something.”
As Aiden recalled what happened next, his lips pressed thin. The shock he’d felt then transmitted itself to Caroline.
“Your room light was on. Even after I’d circled the entire garden, I knew you must have come. I started searching the Mansion to find you, and here you were. I’m glad I came quickly enough.”
“So when you saw the light, you thought something had happened to me?”
“It was strange, and I wanted to see you. So I began searching everywhere in the Mansion just to meet you—I’m fortunate I found you in time.”
As he spoke, Aiden’s fingers combed through her short hair, brushing it back behind her ear.
In that moment, Caroline felt as though their dynamic had reversed. The man before her was the great actor who had her as his fan, receiving passionate love. But now it seemed she was the one receiving his deep affection.
Then something sharp twisted in her chest.
‘I need to tell him I’m quitting.’
Now that Aiden was looking at her with such tender eyes, the words she was about to speak felt even more painful.
“……Aiden.”
“Yes.”
“I want to stop.”
The lips forming those words didn’t feel like her own.
Caroline watched his reaction carefully. The man, his brows furrowed with concern, studied her face thoughtfully and then nodded.
‘Why does he look relieved?’
He seemed to have become more at ease from her words. She couldn’t understand his psychology.
“Ifros…… gave you quite a fright.”
“It wasn’t only Ifros.”
Caroline told him everything that had happened.
How she’d gone to the Academy for a time and realized there how precious her life outside the Mansion was.
Friedman’s emotions nearly escalated into danger. Will locking her in the basement prison.
Nearly drowning in the lake during a boating excursion—she’d almost died there too.
As she recounted each peril she’d endured at the Mansion, each one she hadn’t mentioned to Aiden, the man’s face grew paler. He looked as though it were he who had faced those crises, not her—his expression twisted with anguish.
“You never told me about any of this.”
“I was afraid I’d fall apart. Afraid I’d want to quit the game. I kept trying to hold on somehow, but I can’t anymore. Until you came today, I was so terrified. So, so terrified.”
Aiden’s face was shadowed with guilt, as if he blamed himself for not having arrived sooner to help her.
“Don’t look like that. It’s not your fault.”
“But—”
“Just hold me again.”
Caroline exaggerated her composure, spreading her arms wider. She felt Aiden reluctantly wrap himself around her, drawing her close against him.
“It’s strange. I’ve never been held by anyone at the Mansion before. It’s incredibly steadying—I can almost feel sleep coming.”
“I wish I could have held you like this earlier.”
“Really?”
Caroline lifted her head with a playful look.
She’d expected Aiden to smile back teasingly, but instead he offered only a faint smile. His hand rose, fingers brushing her cheek with surprising gentleness.
In that moment, Caroline became acutely aware of how little distance remained between their faces. Close enough that one movement—just one—would bring their lips together.
As she stared up at him in a daze, Aiden seemed to register the fact as well. His pale green eyes grew distant, and beneath them his aristocratic face began to flush.
It was time to change the subject.
“Um. Right. So—tell me how to get out. Since you’re giving me the mission now instead of the system, you said I can’t just leave like before, right?”
“That’s correct.”
Both of them withdrew, as if nothing had happened. Yet Caroline remained acutely aware that she was still sitting on Aiden’s firm thighs.
‘There’s nothing I can do about it.’
If she made a fuss about getting down now, it would only make things more awkward.
“I had you collect the diaries and keys from four personalities, yes? At the End of the Maze, there are six doors in sequence. When you insert the diary and key of the corresponding personality into each door, it will open. Once you open the sixth door, you’ll be able to leave the Mansion.”
Caroline recalled the blue iron door she’d seen today. Aiden was speaking of that now.
“The first door belongs to Friedman. As for the remaining five, I don’t know the order. But since they correspond to your four personalities, myself, and Daytime Aiden, it shouldn’t present any real difficulty.”
“There’s a door for you too? But you don’t have a diary.”
“I have neither diary nor key, but this will be necessary.”
As Aiden spoke gently, he removed a ring from his left hand—one Caroline hadn’t even noticed he was wearing, so focused had she been on his face.

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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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