A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 14

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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 14.
When tea time ended, the two of them left the room.
“Then, I’ll see you at dinner.”
The moment the man turned to leave, speaking in that gentle tone, Caroline hastily stopped him.
“Wait, Aiden!”
“?”
Aiden blinked slowly.
“May I tour the Mansion during my free time?”
Now that she thought about it, until now she’d done nothing but shuttle between the places where he—the Mansion’s owner—summoned her, the Dining Room, and her bedroom.
But this was a sprawling Mansion shaped like the letter D, and it had three floors besides.
‘There have to be clues hiding somewhere if I explore enough.’
She needed to map out various spaces in the house, even if she had to do it quietly.
But her worry proved needless when Aiden simply nodded.
“There are many carefully maintained spaces here. Feel free to use them whenever you wish.”
‘Thank goodness!’
It was the moment Caroline felt relief wash over her.
“Everything is open to you, except for the locked rooms.”
‘Locked rooms?’
After speaking as genuinely as a gracious host, Aiden vanished without hesitation.
Caroline stood motionless in the space where he’d been.
‘I haven’t come across any locked doors yet, but it sounds like there are more than one. Could it be…?’
That key she’d found on the Yacht yesterday during tea time.
It had existed as though waiting for her—could it possibly be meant for one of these locked rooms Aiden mentioned?
‘I should search for them.’
She hadn’t brought the key with her this time, but her plan was just to locate them now and come back later.
If she lingered too suspiciously, that red triangle might appear again.
With that in mind, Caroline began to walk.
‘But with this many rooms, do I really have to search them all…?’
She hadn’t walked far down the Hallway before several rooms came into view on either side.
Especially since this was the First Floor, the space was wider than the Second and Third Floors, where stairs took up room.
‘First, let me look for the locked rooms.’
The rooms she’d seen so far had no separate locks; turning the handle would simply open them.
As she walked, wondering if there might be some specific lock or mechanism somewhere, Caroline stopped short when she spotted a room with its door completely open.
‘No.’
The door wasn’t open.
More precisely, there was no door at all.
As if someone had deliberately removed it, the room interior was fully exposed through the smooth frame.
“My goodness.”
Caroline gasped and stepped inside.
“This is practically… a film set, isn’t it?”
Practically was an understatement.
Caroline remembered that the set backdrop for a play called , in which Aiden had starred as Ipros, a mechanical being made strikingly similar to a human, looked almost identical to this.
‘How could something this identical exist in the Mansion?’
It was an oddly placed location.
Even though Aiden had performed in that play for years, why would he have a set built in the Mansion?
featured a Garage identical to this one, and it was now crammed with mechanical parts and assembly tools.
This was where the female lead, who assembles machines, and the male lead, who is a machine, met most often.
The moment the entranced Caroline took another step forward,
[!]
A Yellow Exclamation Mark appeared below the three hearts in the upper right.
‘What?’
Startled, Caroline stepped back toward the exit and turned her body, and the Exclamation Mark vanished instantly.
After repeating the same motion several times, Caroline finally realized that the object in front of her was the cause.
“This is…”
A small, humanoid-shaped Mechanical Android Sample hung on the wall, surrounded by numerous Tools including a Spanner, Hammer, and Screwdriver.
Each time she looked again, the Yellow Exclamation Mark remained.
[Complete the Mission!]
‘Complete what mission…?’
This blasted game couldn’t explain anything properly.
No wonder Players were dropping out.
Caroline frowned and crouched down.
‘So they want me to do something with this doll using tools?’
That seemed to be it.
‘Then what I need to do is simple: use the tools in order and open up the mechanical android sample.’
Caroline had never handled such things before, but she had watched the female lead Isaha operate a Mechanical Android Sample several times in the play that Sylvia had left behind.
That gave her the confidence to follow her method.
‘If someone who didn’t know the play tried this, they’d fail for sure—they wouldn’t know the order or the technique.’
She understood perfectly why players had given up on the game.
Thinking as much, Caroline picked up the mechanical sample in front of her just as Isaha would have.
‘Isaha always started by loosening the mechanism.’
Before opening the chest panel—the center of the mechanism—to inspect it, she had to loosen the bolts on the limbs and head to prevent errors.
Caroline picked up the spanner, just as Isaha had done first.
Then she lightly unscrewed all the bolts on the mechanical doll’s body, which was only about the size of her upper torso.
‘And then she lifted the chest panel.’
Next, Caroline took up the pry bar and wedged it into the gap of the doll’s chest panel, just as Isaha had done second.
Using the principle of a lever, she lifted gently and the metal panel separated smoothly.
Beneath it, set a bit deeper, she could see another small metal square.
‘And then she just had to unscrew the bolts.’
Caroline picked up the screwdriver and unscrewed the four bolts on the inner metal panel one by one, just as Isaha had done third.
[Clear!]
The moment she finished, a window appeared before her eyes.
“Oh, my goodness!”
Startled, Caroline struggled not to drop the mechanical android, then clutched her racing heart.
For Caroline, following the female lead of the play had been a simple process.
But this mission had required using just three out of a dozen or so tools hanging on the wall in the correct order.
‘It was harder than I thought.’
With that thought, Caroline gently pried up the metal panel with the loosened screws using her fingers.
And inside it was—
“Huh?”
A small paper fragment.
‘What is this?’
She thought it was important, but was it a joke?
Frowning, she inserted her fingers, pulled out the paper, and unfolded it.
And at the sight of the familiar ink color, Caroline’s eyes went wide.
[Fifth. Should Aiden Darvel whom you meet at the Mansion seem markedly different from his usual state, do not be too alarmed. Do not respond to his words. Instead, call out Aiden Darvel’s name and tell him to come to his senses and return to reality. Then he shall swiftly return to normal.]
‘It’s an instruction.’
The familiar tone and handwriting, and the precise numbering as fifth.
It was clearly additional content to the instructions that had been given—only three of them.
‘There were definitely only first, second, and fourth. Just how many are there in total?’
One thing was certain: the third was missing.
‘I need to find at least one more.’
Having resolved this, Caroline studied the instruction again and tidied up.
She returned the mechanical android to its original state and hung the tools back where they belonged.
Setting aside her original goal of finding the locked room for now, Caroline returned to her own room to organize the instructions.
‘If Aiden seems different from usual, it sounds like he’s talking about the things I’ve already witnessed.’
James standing in the rain.
Friedman gripping another player’s neck.
Him, in character makeup, doing things that the normal Aiden couldn’t remember.
‘I’m grateful I have these instructions.’
Before, if she encountered him again, she wouldn’t have known what to do.
Now she just had to make him aware of reality by calling out his name while he was in character costume.
‘But does Aiden have some kind of mental problem?’
The need to call his name repeatedly so he could become self-aware was not normal.
‘Could it be Alzheimer’s, dementia?’
She worried it might be a serious condition, but the fact that simply informing him would suffice eased her mind somewhat.
Caroline gave thanks for today’s findings and carefully wrote down the new instruction alongside the others.

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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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