A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 48

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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 48.
‘Why? Did I do something wrong?’
Caroline examined the mannequin carefully.
The next instant, the mannequin made a click and its mouth fell open.
“Eek!”
With a metallic screech as if its throat were rusted, the mannequin began to recite a riddle.
[I am fragile to you. If you strike me and push me away, I will shatter. Yet when you weep, I weep the same tears, and when you smile at me, I smile in return.]
As it finished speaking, a note tumbled from its mouth.
It was the riddle it had just recited.
“How creepy.”
Shaking her head, Caroline picked it up.
‘What could it be?’
The riddle had an oddly solemn tone.
Caroline held two papers in her hand and waited for the next mission.
[Now, let us return before James’s wardrobe.]
Caroline returned to the second room with the green-patterned wallpaper.
Following the system’s instruction, she opened the wardrobe and found grooves carved into its floor that she hadn’t noticed before.
Three circular indentations in succession.
And on the third circle lay a note.
“Are these riddles?”
[Yes, Caroline.]
[From now on, please place the answers to the first, second, and third riddles into each circle. When you close the wardrobe, Answer Verification will proceed.]
“What happens if I get it wrong?”
[You will lose one Heart.]
If that happened, she would have only one Heart remaining.
‘There would be nowhere left to retreat.’
“I can’t give up halfway, can I?”
[You will lose a Heart even then.]
“I see.”
Caroline nodded.
There was no turning back now.
<What can fill a room yet occupy no space?>
The first riddle.
<I am fragile to you. If you strike me and push me away, I will shatter. Yet when you weep, I weep the same tears, and when you smile at me, I smile in return.>
The second riddle.
Caroline picked up the paper resting in the last circle.
<It runs all its life yet never moves a step from where it stands.>
‘All right.’
Let me solve them in order.
Caroline was not someone versed in every riddle under the sun.
But she had years of experience.
‘<What Happened on Cambell Cruise> — I solved riddle puzzles in the bonus magazine and won some of Aiden’s collectibles.’
The first riddle was easy enough.
“Light.”
What can fill a room yet take up no space.
This had appeared in the story before.
“What do I put here?”
Caroline looked around the room.
Fortunately, a small Lantern hanging on the corridor wall outside the room cast its glow inward.
Without hesitation, she brought it and placed it over the first indentation.
Next.
‘When you cry, it cries. When you smile, it smiles.’
If you push it away, it shatters.
“Does ‘shatters’ mean it literally breaks that way?”
Caroline began scanning the room for objects that would break if dropped.
A Vase painted with a lovely picture.
A delicate Wooden Chair with thin legs.
A Water Bottle and a Glass Cup.
And…….
A Hand Mirror.
Caroline’s gaze found her own reflection in the mirror.
Her eyes in the glass followed every movement her real self made.
‘Smile, and the reflection smiles.’
Caroline forced a smile at the figure staring back at her.
‘Weep, and the reflection weeps.’
She’d found the answer to the second riddle.
But there was one problem: the vanity mirror was far too large to fit inside the wardrobe.
Caroline searched the room methodically.
The vanity drawers, the wardrobe and its compartments, the spaces around the bed—everywhere.
No mirror small enough to store away appeared.
‘Something like a hand mirror.’
“Do I have to find the answer inside James’s Room specifically?”
[Not necessarily. Didn’t you already retrieve the Lantern from outside the room?]
“Oh.”
She’d forgotten that she’d brought the Lantern from elsewhere.
Caroline scratched her head and stepped out of James’s Room.
Will was the first character who would likely have a hand mirror.
Not only did he take care with his clown makeup, but the host Will himself was also the kind of person who attracted attention through his distinctive appearance.
He was diligent about maintaining his refined looks, and thanks to that, he had countless noble lady admirers.
‘That’s probably how he got invited to the Cambell Cruise in the first place.’
It had to be in his room.
Caroline began searching his quarters with that conviction.
The headboard of the bed, the area near the pillow.
Nothing appeared on the makeup table crowded with cosmetics.
‘Where could he have put it.’
There was a scene where Will, dressed in a Tailcoat, wore a fastidious expression as he checked his appearance in a hand mirror.
He must have one.
Caroline examined the wardrobe where she’d placed the Mannequin earlier.
She deliberately turned her gaze away from the silent figure within and looked instead at the man’s blue Tailcoat.
The Tailcoat trousers.
‘Not here.’
She checked the pockets, but they were empty.
Then the Tailcoat jacket.
‘The outside pockets are empty…’
“Ah!”
Caroline exclaimed, pulling her hand out.
Cold metal had brushed her fingers from the inside breast pocket of the man’s Tailcoat.
A gleaming rectangular folding mirror.
There it was.
With an excited stride, she returned and set the object on the second indentation, then paused with a sudden thought and asked a question.
“But there’s no time limit this time.”
Is there no time limit because the chance of solving it is high even without one?
[That’s correct. The difficulty is quite considerable. If you were anyone but Miss Caroline, no one would solve it. In fact, no one has ever made it this far.]
“Your tone makes it sound like you’re sure I’ll solve it anyway. I’m starting to feel confident.”
Yet even as she spoke, Caroline felt her body temperature dropping steadily.
<It runs forever, but it does not move a single step from its place.>
No matter how hard she thought, the answer wouldn’t come.
‘It can’t be a ghost…’
How could something run forever yet never move at all?
Caroline bit her lip hard.
When she thought about it, the absence of a time limit actually seemed like a bad thing.
Since she had to stake a Heart, she couldn’t abandon the Mission midway.
But if she answered too quickly and was wrong, she’d lose the Heart; if she answered carelessly, the result would be the same.
She was trapped in a state of endless deliberation.
Yet the absence of a time limit didn’t necessarily mean indefinite postponement.
“How long can I continue the Mission?”
[Strictly speaking, as long as you are capable. However, Aiden, who is not in Role State, cannot protect you from the servants.]
“!”
So she couldn’t just stumble through indefinitely.
‘What should I do.’
Anxiety crept in, coiling around her chest.
No matter what she did, she’d lose the Heart.
Whether she failed to find the answer and held on, or even if she encountered the servant who’d seen Caroline on the 3rd Floor,
whether she wrote down a wrong answer or gave up halfway—
she felt like trapped prey in a snare.
Fear set her heart pounding, each beat thrashing against her ribs.
Her heart pounding.
Beating.
‘Wait.’
Caroline murmured the third riddle silently to herself.
There had to be a reason it said ‘beating’ rather than ‘running’.
And the heart doesn’t run—it beats.
It stays in one place its whole life, never moving, only beating.
“The heart!”
Caroline cried out, overcome with exultation.
“It’s the heart!”
At last she’d found the answer.
“But wait……”
What was she supposed to place there?
‘A heart?’
Caroline felt her mind drain to white.
How was she supposed to place a heart?
‘Whose heart am I supposed to place……?’
Could the answer really mean to place an actual heart?
‘Surely it doesn’t mean cutting open a living person’s chest and placing their heart.’
Should she place an animal’s heart instead?
Was she really meant to do such a thing?

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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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