A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 20

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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 20.
At Caroline’s question, Aiden burst out laughing.
No red triangle appeared, and he waved off her last question as a joke, chuckling it away.
‘The Mansion does feel a bit eerie, I’ll grant you that. But I’ve lived here nearly twenty years and never seen anything like it.’
Caroline had hoped he might know something, but he clearly had no information about the child.
‘Well, first let’s check the final instruction.’
She must not allow the made-up Aiden to become aware of his true identity as Aiden Dearbell.
‘So that means I’m supposed to keep him in character, just as he is.’
Like James yesterday.
Then Caroline remembered the last thing the System had said before they parted ways.
[If you happen to meet someone unexpected, play along enthusiastically, Caroline. That should be enough.]
‘Play along?’
That was asking her to do something far more active than simply leaving things as they were.
She was meant to help him immerse himself in the character he was playing.
‘Should I feed him lines?’
Caroline decided to wait for the made-up Aiden to appear so she could verify this.
Come to think of it, James had appeared twice so far, and Friedman once.
All of them had appeared after dinner, though there were variations in timing—some before midnight, some after.
‘So they definitely appear after dinner.’
Caroline resolved to wait outside her room, waiting endlessly for the character to appear.
After finishing her meal, she first made a circuit of the Garden.
She was somewhat nervous, having met James here four days ago, but found nothing.
From eight o’clock onward, she decided to work her way down from the Third Floor to the First Floor.
Caroline fingered the Key in her pocket, considering whether to explore the room she’d seen yesterday, but feared she might miss the made-up Aiden, so she abandoned the idea.
She circled the Third Floor from east to west with no luck.
She circled the Second Floor, where her own room was, from east to west with no luck.
On the First Floor, she wandered leisurely among the hurrying servants with no luck.
She did discover two more rooms on the First and Second Floors, each set with backdrops from “A Quiet Graduation” and “Oyster Man,” but she never encountered Aiden.
‘At this point, maybe I’m the ghost.’
Caroline found herself seriously wondering whether she was gradually becoming a specter, silently circling the same spaces. She turned back toward the Garden.
‘That place before—you said it was Aiden’s mother’s room.’
Why had he said the boy would vanish if placed there?
And why had he been so frightened?
‘He said he’d gotten into trouble for stealing something. Could he have stolen something from there before?’
Lost in thought, Caroline found her feet moving without her conscious direction.
That instant.
“!”
A large figure rushed toward her and collided with her body.
Gasping, Caroline stumbled forward, realizing it wasn’t a simple collision.
It was more like he’d lost control of his own body and come hurtling at her, gathering her in his arms.
“……I missed you.”
‘Surely not.’
A man’s voice she knew well was speaking tenderly, holding a woman smaller than himself at the waist like a child, pressing his cheek against her neck—affectionate as a cat nuzzling for attention.
Caroline forced her rigid body to move and slowly turned her head.
“You can’t go that way, Isaha.”
He was speaking in character, living up to the role of a mechanical doll.
The man had made his lashes fuller with mascara, his lips doll-like with gloss, and he whispered softly against her.
It was Ifros.
“…….”
“Are you angry? Why aren’t you saying anything? I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
The man bowed his head like an affection-hungry animal and nuzzled against Caroline’s shoulder, his well-textured caramel-gold hair rustling softly.
Yet Caroline could say nothing, only stood there with her mouth hanging open.
‘Ifros.’
The first shock was the realization that it was Ifros.
To help Aiden sink into the role of Ifros, wouldn’t she have to play Isaha and support him?
But she couldn’t bring herself to act like Isaha—treating Ifros as a mere machine, finding him tiresome, using his body for physical contact.
‘He’s hugging me!’
The second shock was the sudden contact.
Her face flushed peach-pink, and she felt her heart racing wildly.
She could feel the blood surging through her entire body.
‘He’s holding me! He’s actually holding me!’
Her mind wasn’t working properly.
The actor she adored had his arms around her, and he was even playing up the charm.
Of course, he was only staying true to his character role, but Caroline’s world was spinning so fast she couldn’t regain her footing.
“Isaha?”
[▲]
When her senses returned, it was the moment a red triangle appeared in her vision.
‘Right!’
It felt like a hard flick to the forehead, snapping her foggy mind into focus.
Because Caroline wasn’t reacting at all, Aiden’s immersion in his character role seemed to be faltering.
As she collected her thoughts, another triangle appeared.
[▲▲]
Ifros usually wore a docile, almost animal-like expression around Isaha.
But if she failed to understand his feelings, he’d turn sharp and irritable as an angry cat.
The current Ifros—or rather, Aiden—was staring at her with a blank expression.
‘This is frightening.’
It wasn’t hostile, but the eerie calm radiating from him felt like it presaged something terrible.
One more triangle and her heart gauge would vanish. Knowing the pattern, Caroline squeezed her eyes shut.
“Why did you take so long to come?”
Her voice trembling slightly, she mimicked Isaha’s cool manner of speech.
Then she reached out and stroked Ifros’s hair.
A moment of silence fell between them.
“……?”
Caroline slowly opened one eye, then the other.
[▲]
The triangle had reduced to a single one.
And Ifros, who had been watching her with that cold expression…….
“Mm.”
He quietly bowed his head, accepting her touch.
‘So it really works.’
Contrary to the rules.
By playing the other character, she was helping him deepen his immersion in his role.
Caroline spotted the last remaining triangle and carefully considered what Isaha would say.
“……Why did you come all the way here? I told you to stay in the storage and finish repairing the communication device.”
In Ifros’s mechanical mind lived the technical knowledge of Sylvia, Isaha’s mother—the very woman who had created him.
That’s why, during their adventures, Isaha usually handled gathering and hunting and combat, while Ifros took charge of machinery repairs, detection, and communications.
“I thought you were leaving me behind.”
The moment he finished his line, the last triangle vanished.
Just as Caroline had anticipated, Ifros’s dialogue had done exactly what was needed.
In the story, Ifros worried constantly that Isaha might abandon him.
The slightest distance unsettled him, and he’d abandon whatever task was at hand to chase after her.
“And I can’t go in there without you. If you go in there alone, I won’t be able to follow.”
Ifros pouted with a disappointed air and pointed ahead with his hand.
Caroline followed the direction of his gesture.
‘Huh?’
Lost in thought, she hadn’t noticed how far she’d walked.
She had crossed beyond the garden’s edge and arrived at the entrance to the Maze—the threshold of towering hedges that rose more than twice a person’s height.
‘I’ve never been here before.’
After taking in the sight of the Maze, Caroline studied Ifros’s expression.
“You can’t go in there?”
Ifros nodded while keeping Caroline pressed against him.
‘Why?’
She did remember that there were several things Ifros couldn’t do without Isaha’s help.
‘Was there something in the dialogue about a place he couldn’t enter?’
She couldn’t recall it clearly, though it wouldn’t have been surprising if it was there.
It might simply not have been emphasized as a major plot point.
‘But what could be in there, really?’
Was Aiden simply pointing to the location mentioned in the script for Ifros?
Or was there actually something waiting inside?
“No, you can’t.”
The moment Caroline took a step forward, pulling the clinging Ifros toward the edge of the Maze—
[▲]
a red triangle appeared once more.

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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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