A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 110

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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 110.

Only one person came to mind who used the form of address “you.”
“Aiden at three in the morning.”
Why was the letter written in the speech pattern of someone who was merely an NPC? And did he even have that right?
Caroline was bewildered. Yet her mind worked quickly, searching for an adequate answer.
“And for Caroline, Caroline’s own life is what matters most. I attend the Academy, and I certainly have a life outside this Mansion.”
There was a memory she had merely let slip. She had never told Aiden at three in the morning that she attended the Academy.
“You’ve seen the same play more than ten times, Miss Caroline. Yet you still did that?”
Aiden knew of Caroline’s confidence. But the detail about having watched the same play more than ten times—she’d never mentioned it to him.
How could he know something she’d only told the daytime Aiden?
Her first hypothesis was that he possessed fragmented memories from the other personality.
Yet Caroline knew it wasn’t that. If it were, Aiden at three in the morning would have noticed James’s condition long ago. He could have detected what Ipros had done and acted more swiftly.
The second hypothesis was…….
Caroline’s hands trembled, and she gripped them together. Her heart pounded so violently she feared it might tear free and fall to the ground.
The second hypothesis was that Aiden was not an NPC.
‘How did I not see it?’
She should have found it strange from the beginning.
Could a specific entity in a game have the role of worrying about the Player?
A Player could lose Hearts without consequence, spend money to try again, and simply quit and leave if the game displeased them.
All Players, that is—except Caroline.
So he was not an NPC but simply a being who worried about Caroline. And that could not be explained if he were merely a game character.
And…….
“Why is this here?”
Caroline returned in her mind to the day she found Aiden’s Room after clearing three Missions. That day, when she obtained the Black Diary of the daytime Aiden, she was startled by the charm attached to its end.
Silver metal shaped like an open shell, and inside it a bright pearl rolling about.
It was remarkably similar to something she had once sent to Aiden as a gift.
‘But I can’t quite remember clearly.’
Although Caroline had it custom-made, countless fans of Aiden’s might have sent him similar things. And…….
“Hm?”
Caroline lowered her gaze with a sigh and went rigid.
The Platinum Ring fitted on her thumb caught her eye for the first time. She had thought it looked far more modest compared to what the great actor wore.
She had also found the pressed flower inside it unique.
Yet she had never examined it closely.
What lay within was a Gerbera. More precisely, a Mini Gerbera that had grown smaller as it dried. And long ago, Caroline had given Aiden a bouquet of Mini Gerberas in shades of red.
‘Surely not.’
Caroline wondered if she had gone mad, lost in hollow delusion.
Why would Aiden? Why would the great actor?
Taking a gift sent by a fan and crafting something, connecting it—that was not the sort of thing the daytime Aiden would do. Which meant it was the three-in-the-morning Aiden who had done it.
And he was specifically collecting things Caroline had given. He knew information about her. It meant he had been reading all the thousands of Letters she had sent him until now, and reading the contents within them.
Moreover, judging by the vocabulary in the Letters, it seemed he was the one who had called her.
‘Why?’
Then why had he called Caroline?
‘Because I’m a devoted fan, presumably.’
Because he thought she would know him well, and be able to clear the game skillfully.
Though she couldn’t fathom how Aiden learned in the first place that she possessed a Self.
‘But that doesn’t answer it.’
The fact that Caroline was a devoted fan was something Aiden at three in the morning could have learned from her Letters. Caroline sent all manner of things, chattering away—sometimes as many as ten Letters in a single day.
But that Aiden had deliberately called such a Caroline meant he believed he needed her. In other words, he had thought that only Caroline, who knew him so intimately, could come and save him.
For that to be true, Aiden would first have to recognize that he himself was the target of this game’s strategy, and that he was facing a crisis of dissolution if things continued as they were.
Only then could Caroline find her answer.
She was not the only one in this world who possessed a Self.
Aiden Christian Darvel also possessed a Self.
And that Self was Aiden at three in the morning.
* * *
The man gazed out the window, holding the Brooch that still seemed to retain its warmth, treasured in his grasp.
It pained him that he could not see what was happening within the Maze. Surely she was not struggling hopelessly within it.
‘Where would she be by now?’
He wanted to think about Caroline a little longer, yet hoped she’d escape quickly and reach safety. Then Aiden would disappear, just like this.
Without even noticing himself slip away.
‘I have no regrets.’
He’d written that letter to Caroline for two reasons at first.
First, before he vanished, he wanted to see her face one more time. Second, he’d thought—perhaps—that she might be the one to end this game that no one else had managed to solve.
Neither impulse sat easy with him.
Because of his choice, Caroline had withered a little more each day.
She couldn’t sleep properly, was terrified by the character personality, nearly died several times, and was even imprisoned. When he thought of what his own desires had wrought, he wanted to go back to the moment he sent that letter and stop himself. To stop this fool.
And yet this foolish man was someone Caroline called “my actor,” someone she loved. But if she knew what he’d done, she could never love him again.
“……Sigh.”
Aiden exhaled heavily and dragged the sofa toward the window, settling into it.
Dawn was breaking now, but it seemed Caroline still hadn’t made it outside.
She’d gathered everything. Was she lost in the maze? He wanted to run and help her, but as a Player, Aiden couldn’t be inside the maze at the same time.
Or was Caroline hesitating?
He didn’t know exactly what the maze’s second chamber looked like. But whoever had designed it—that cunning architect—would surely inflict emotional torment on her there.
‘It bothered me that she was thinking of me even before she left.’
He could only wish that she’d find freedom without guilt, without any sense of debt.
“Let me have one last cup.”
He brewed the tea Caroline often drank before bed—the kind that brought good sleep. Holding the steaming cup, Aiden settled onto the sofa.
It had been just over a week since he met her.
Most days he couldn’t see her face for even an hour, yet he’d been happy enough. When he talked with Caroline, when he saw her smile, when he felt how much she cared for him—each time brought a euphoria he’d never known in all his existence. A kind of rapture.
‘Because I was born as an actor, I could meet her.’
That gave his scripted life a measure of meaning.
Thinking this way, he closed his eyes and drank the tea, when a faint sound began to carry in from outside.
‘That shouldn’t be happening at this hour.’
Aiden tensed and rose from the sofa. Was the world surrounding his episode already beginning to collapse?
As he walked slowly toward the door, the sound grew louder. He realized then that it was the sound of someone running.
A servant? Was the servant coming?
Unable to decide whether to open or lock the door, his hand had only just reached out when—
Bang!
Aiden’s bedroom door swung open violently.

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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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