A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 30

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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 30.
The handle was perfectly defined, the length suggesting it could never fit within an adult woman’s pelvis.
It was a whip.
‘Why would this be here?’
No matter how she considered it, she couldn’t view it as mere decoration. Had it been used for discipline in the past?
“Hmm…….”
‘How much am I allowed to know?’
She was in the midst of completing a quest the system had given her.
Yet the feeling of being a petty thief breaking into a dead woman’s room weighed heavily on her conscience.
‘Coming into this room in the first place was already wrong, though.’
Caroline shook her head.
Her room was connected to a terrace and contained two smaller chambers within.
A bedroom overlooking the terrace, and a dressing room where belongings were stored.
‘Which one should I search first?’
After deliberating between the two, Caroline chose the bedroom.
“Pardon the intrusion.”
The well-oiled doorknob turned smoothly.
“Wow.”
The space that revealed itself was truly exquisite.
Bedding of pure white symbolized power. A canopy bed elaborately adorned with lace, fine wooden furniture of the highest quality.
Caroline marveled at the space, arranged like a theatrical stage.
“?”
Yet there was one exception.
Caroline had gasped at the elegant atmosphere and lifted her gaze, but now she froze in place.
‘That on the ceiling, that…….’
A human face was affixed there.
More precisely, an enormous photograph of a face.
“It’s Aiden…….”
How could a mother be so attached to her son that she would want to see him even while sleeping?
Caroline hesitated for a moment, considering leaving the room, but then narrowed her eyes and looked at the photograph again. But upon closer inspection,
“It’s not him?”
The man in the photograph was not Aiden.
Curly caramel-colored hair, eyes that opened wide and bright, lips curved upward in a shape designed to inspire affection.
A subtle warmth flowing from the depths of his gaze.
Though bearing strong resemblance to Aiden, this man’s eyes were a vivid blue. A color that could never appear even if green were somehow misshot in the photograph.
Caroline instinctively knew he must be Aiden’s Father.
“They really do look alike.”
The mistake had been easy because not only were their faces similar, but Aiden’s Father in the photograph appeared remarkably young.
So young one might mistaken them for brothers.
But why had Michelle Bellota Dearbell attached him to her ceiling?
‘She must have had circumstances that prevented her from marrying, that forced her to pass on her name instead.’
And those circumstances would be a deep, clinging story of affection—deep enough to warrant keeping his face on the ceiling.
Caroline crossed the bed, hoping to find something else.
Had she been maintaining her appearance right up until recently?
Beside the bed, she spotted a face mask bottle that she had used.
One made from honey, lemon, and various other ingredients.
‘She was quite a singular person.’
Thinking this, Caroline moved toward Michelle’s small desk.
A notebook the size of a palm lay open.
As if it were her final will, a single line was written in magnificent golden ink.
I’ll follow soon, my love. It seems we can only meet again in death.
“…….”
Caroline wondered if she should leave this bedroom immediately.
She didn’t wish to desecrate the dead, but something about her frightened Caroline.
‘If she’s calling him “my love,” then it’s the face of Aiden’s Father that’s affixed there?’
If so, was that portrait a memorial photograph?
Had he died young in some unforeseen accident?
‘Is that why she never held a wedding or was never acknowledged as his wife?’
There was more she ought to uncover, but let’s assume that for now.
What Caroline couldn’t understand was why she herself needed to know this. How could any of this possibly connect to Aiden’s death?
‘Did the absence of his father seep into her acting?’
Turning the thought over, Caroline rifled through the remaining objects on the desk, but found nothing suitable.
She flipped forward through the notebook where the will was written, and saw it—countless words scrawled like curses across the pages.
The characters overlapped so densely that their meaning was impossible to discern. That alone was all she could make out.
But Caroline squeezed her eyes shut and closed the notebook.
The space itself felt far too bleak and frightening to her.
‘What on earth happened to Aiden’s mother?’
What kind of person had she been?
From this brief tour of the room, Caroline had gleaned far more than trivial impressions.
To Aiden, what sort of mother had she been?
‘Perhaps I’m overstepping.’
There was nothing more to find on the desk.
No exclamation mark appeared, and the quest log didn’t budge.
Feeling as though the photograph of the man affixed to the ceiling continued to watch her from behind, Caroline moved toward the white wardrobe pressed against the wall where the door was.
It was as tall as Caroline was when standing.
Though antiquated in style, the wardrobe exuded such an oppressive aura in keeping with the room’s atmosphere that she had no desire to open it.
And yet.
[!]
As she stood before it, a yellow exclamation mark appeared.
‘I really hate this.’
A chill ran down her spine.
Though she knew it impossible, Caroline felt certain that something inhuman would burst forth from within.
After taking a deep breath,
‘Open it. One, two,’
three.
The moment she gathered her courage and pulled,
Click!
The wardrobe didn’t open.
“Why?”
Bewildered, Caroline stood helpless until a golden arrow materialized in the air, as if to comfort her.
[↙]
It pointed to a latch beside the handle in the middle of the wardrobe.
“Oh!”
Looking closely, she saw an elongated four-digit numeric lock affixed there.
[↗]
Once Caroline confirmed it, the arrow shifted direction, now pointing toward the Dressing Room beyond the door.
A lock she couldn’t solve at present.
Perhaps the clue to the numbers that would unlock it lay in that direction. Caroline moved as the arrow indicated.
‘What else could be in here.’
In that moment, the loneliness of being alone weighed unbearably on her.
Yet gritting her teeth, when Caroline opened the door,
“……!”
She reflexively squinted, forced to shield her face with both arms.
Her eyes even began to water. Only after blinking repeatedly for a time could she lower her arms and see ahead.
‘What in the world is all this?’
Nothing but radiance.
Within a glass display case lined with black velvet, light blazed forth with an almost aggressive intensity. And every source of that brilliance was gemstones.
‘Necklaces, tiaras, rings…….’
Even Caroline, who knew little of jewelry, could tell these were extraordinarily fine pieces. They looked difficult to craft, and their value seemed astronomical.
Within the rectangular display case positioned in the center of the spacious Dressing Room lay well over thirty gemstones.
Around it, clothing racks held an array of elaborate, voluminous dresses, shawls, hats, and other finery.
‘Good heavens. I knew Aiden earned well, but…….’
She had never imagined he would purchase things of such magnitude. Were all the expensive artworks filling this Estate also his doing?
‘Yet for all that…….’
The clothes Aiden wore.
And the rooms that served as his acting practice spaces.
None of them appeared nearly as ostentatious or expensive as what she saw here.
‘Did he live frugally while withholding nothing from his mother?’
The gemstones visible through the glass—cyan, violet, amber, and countless other hues and cuts—shone so radiantly that no desire to possess them arose within her.
Only admiration remained.
It had been a while since Michelle Bellota Dearbell passed away. Caroline had wondered why Aiden hadn’t yet cleared out her things—a mystery solved by the sheer abundance of exquisite objects surrounding her.
‘I doubt I myself would have dared touch something like this.’
Caroline proceeded methodically through the glass display case, examining each gemstone one by one.
About halfway through her inspection, she spotted something familiar.
[!]
And in that same instant, the exclamation mark echoed in her mind.
A necklace strung with flattened oval pearls, each one perfectly uniform.
“This is….”
The limited-edition merchandise from Oyster Man—a necklace made from genuine sea pearls.
There had been barely three in existence, and the price had rivaled that of a car. Caroline had never managed to acquire one.
Yet….
The necklace bore additions to the design she knew.
It was an unbalanced design. Beautiful charms set with diamonds had been woven throughout the necklace at various points.
But….
“Hmm….”
Even to Caroline’s untrained eye, it lacked aesthetic refinement.
The charms themselves were poorly finished; the ring they hung from had even begun to come undone slightly.
It was wholly out of place with Michelle Bellota Dearbell’s collection.
Turning the situation over in her mind, Caroline realized this was a hint about the code.
A necklace difficult to find unless one knew Oyster Man, and charm hints that could only be deciphered by knowing the original design.
There were exactly four charms.
Counting from the left, using the ring that fastens the necklace as one’s reference point.
‘One charm right before the first pearl begins next to the ring, one at the second, one at the eighth and ninth.’
Converting the positions of the charms into numbers: 0, 2, 8, 9.
‘Should I simply input them in this order?’
Caroline held the necklace closer, searching for any detail she might have missed.
As the light caught its shine, she noticed that each charm differed in size.
The one at position 0 was the smallest.
Next was position 8.
Then 2 and 9.
‘Then….’
Caroline withdrew her hand from the glass display case and turned back toward Michelle’s bedroom.
Her heart trembling in her chest.
When she pressed the numeric lock in sequence—0, 8, 2, 9.
Click.
The door swung open.

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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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