A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 32

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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 32.
It was strange.
The trembling in her body, which had been shaking moments before, stilled instantly when she drew close to Aiden—or rather, Will.
The two of them stood pressed together in the same posture they’d danced in at tea time.
Caroline looked up at him, then turned her gaze to the servant who had pursued her so terrifyingly just moments before.
He could not enter this space.
Only to the threshold—no further.
‘He can’t come in here?’
Or was it because Aiden was here?
“My apologies for interrupting your Acting, sir.”
The servant, whose eyes and teeth had been invisible before, had returned to his ordinary expression.
Then, with deliberate courtesy, he bowed and walked away at his normal pace.
‘It’s because of Aiden.’
The servants could not touch him while he was in a Character Role.
And Caroline, so long as she remained beside Aiden while he was acting, was safe.
‘I’ve learned something crucial.’
If she knew where Aiden was, Caroline could slip into his vicinity whenever danger threatened—as reliably as swallowing medicine—and find safety from the servants’ reach.
‘The question is how to find out.’
In that very moment of thought,
the man lowered his arms and stepped back, clasping his hands behind him.
“I noticed that ruffian pestering you from the moment we sat down to dinner earlier.”
Will shook his head, his expression one of disdain.
“At last he’s withdrawn.”
‘It’s the script.’
Caroline understood this part.
It was the scene where she—a commoner subjected to unseemly conduct by a nobleman—was dragged into Will’s quarters by him.
There was already a missing nobleman aboard the Cruise.
Jane, who suspected everyone, found him particularly unsettling and distrusted him.
“Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it. One must help others to survive.”
“Is this space prepared especially for you?”
Caroline delivered Jane’s line while surveying her surroundings.
She had already come here on a Mission before, so she knew it; yet in the play, Jane was entering Will’s space for the first time.
Not his cabin, but a special preparation room created for him as a jester.
“Yes, it is.”
The Gacha, which had been Mission equipment.
Darts and Batons, balls—props for his tricks.
Various costumes and the animals that accompany Will’s circus.
Of course, there were no animals in this room.
Only a cage large enough for a sleek cat and a perch fit for a small parrot.
Nothing more.
‘And that parrot will help Jane become certain that Will is the culprit.’
In the original script, the next lines were meant to express wonder at seeing the animals.
“Do your two friends go wherever you go?”
But Caroline forgot to deliver that line as she looked at the empty containers.
It was because she thought Aiden wouldn’t speak his next line either.
“Would you like to say hello to Caitlyn and Abel?”
Yet he did.
“?”
Caroline stared at him, bewildered.
The man reached toward the empty cage with an unflustered expression.
“Hello?”
“Yes. Let’s start with Caitlyn.”
And he opened the cage door.
“Say hello, Caitlyn. This is Detective Jane.”
Caroline swallowed.
The man was speaking to an invisible cat.
“U-um, hello.”
It wasn’t quite Jane’s manner, but…
She managed to greet the empty space, at least.
“Abel, you should greet her too.”
Caroline waved her hand toward Aiden, who tapped the forehead of a parrot that didn’t exist and spoke.
‘Normally, the parrot should be the one delivering a line.’
Beautiful lady!
That’s what it would say.
“Ha, he’s got quite the eye, doesn’t he?”

And Aiden—or rather, Will—continued his performance as though the parrot truly existed and had actually spoken.
Caroline gritted her teeth to keep her composure.
‘He even matches the rhythm perfectly.’
Aiden must have rehearsed his craft in exactly this manner all along.
Since animals only appeared onstage, he would have had to speak to empty air and mime caressing them just the same.
‘And not just when playing Will, either.’
A space dressed up to mirror the play as closely as possible.
With no scene partner and few props to work with, he would have thrown himself wholly into each role.
‘Dismissing the given circumstances and environment—surrendering entirely to the character.’
So it made sense that he’d slip suddenly into character even in ordinary moments, as though he were that person.
And perhaps that’s what had made him contemplate death.
“Meeting like this is fate, isn’t it? You looked rather startled, so I’d like to offer you a light drink.”
Aiden, wearing Will’s guise, said this and walked toward one side of the room.
A cabinet stood there.
“I’d like that.”
Caroline answered as the script demanded, watching his back.
Will was a man of many talents.
He excelled not only in physical ability and magic, but also possessed remarkable wit and striking good looks.
And he could make cocktails—a skill that had made him popular aboard the Cruise, among other things.
It had also become the means by which he’d committed murder with ease.
“You’re quite skilled at making cocktails too.”
She’d thought it was just part of the act, but the space genuinely contained all the materials needed for cocktail-making.
Caroline watched as Will measured and poured each ingredient with care.
‘Will I actually drink the cocktail that appears in the play?’
In this scene, Will never reveals to Jane what the drink is.
It’s only later that he confesses the drink’s name: Corpse Reviver No. 2.
‘Resurrecting the dead’—a drink chosen to mock Jane, who’d come suspicious and searching for him.
“It’s made with gin, lemon juice, Cointreau, and a touch of absinthe. It has a very fresh bouquet.”
Caroline gazed at the wide glass placed before her.
Citrus notes pricked her nose with a sharp, clean scent.
“Thank you.”
Caroline took a careful sip.
It didn’t taste like liquor—glancing at the cabinet, she saw he’d substituted the gin with sparkling water and herbs.
‘So Aiden even practiced making cocktails?’
The moment that thought crossed her mind, Will pulled out the chair beside Caroline and sat.
The distance between them closed in an instant.
‘Something feels strange.’
Her heart quickened at the mere fact of Aiden’s presence before her.
Especially since he wore that self-assured, charming expression befitting the handsome Will who had so many admirers—and it drew her in all the more.
Yet Caroline sensed a subtle fear creeping over her.
Will was merely a character role, but the very fact that he threw himself so completely into it made Caroline wary.
“How does it taste?”
“It’s delicious. Quite tart.”
‘I want to say it’s absolutely delicious, to ask how he’s mastered even this.’
But that wouldn’t be something Jane the detective would do.
Caroline clenched her teeth and forced back the urge to fawn over him.
‘I wish I could’ve met him as just a fan.’
On the first day, when she’d seen him after his shower, he’d called her “sweetie”—
the way the host Will addressed his own fans.
So he’d seen her as a fan then, but now at first sight, he clearly thought of her as Jane.
“I understand you have to make a lot of cocktails. People are searching for you all over the place.”
Caroline delivered the next line in a flat, measured tone.
“Yes, everyone seems to have grown fond of my cocktails.”
“Doesn’t it exhaust you?”
“It’s quite alright. Making people happy is my profession, after all.”
With those words, Aiden flashed a disarming smile.
Most people would have fallen for the performance.
But he delighted people first, then ensured they delighted him in return.
By killing them.
‘A frightening man. Aiden certainly knows how to act.’
Caroline suppressed the thought and continued with her next line.
“I find myself exhausted by people’s mere attention. I can hardly afford to be overly animated in your presence.”
“Ha, that’s quite all right with me.”
“All right with you?”
Caroline looked up at him, her expression light.
Aiden was a man skilled in reading people.
He had positioned himself slightly closer to her than before.
He was employing a strategy on the ship’s most dangerous person—the detective—to make her feel a kinship with him.
Working his angle.
“A detective’s stories are always welcome. In a place like this, surrounded by nobility, it would benefit us greatly to rely on one another.”
Caroline studied him quietly.
Aiden wondered whether Jane suspected him, how much she already knew.
He was drawing close to gain information, to build trust—
But as long as she wasn’t Jane herself, Caroline didn’t concern him.
And so Caroline opened her mouth.

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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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