A Monodrama for Carolyn August - Chapter 99

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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 99
‘Another Settings Bar.’
That was the first thought to cross Caroline’s mind even before the relief of finally escaping the endless One-Stroke Drawing space could fully settle in.
She’d seen it before—both at the Academy and in the Underground Dungeon. It didn’t feel particularly welcome this time.
‘Still, there might be a function I haven’t seen yet.’
The Personality Affinity Display had been absent at the Academy but present in the Underground Dungeon. With that possibility in mind, Caroline stepped forward toward the Fountain.
And when she placed her hand on the Fountain,
[Settings Bar]
[Background Sound – ON/
OFF
Triangle Marker – ON/
OFF
Exclamation Marker – ON/
OFF
Aiden Tracking Permission – Disabled/
Enabled
Personality Affinity Display – Enabled/
Disabled
Aiden’s Perspective – Locked
System AI Version Setting – Locked]
“Nothing new, then?”
Were all the Settings Bars throughout the Mansion identical in content? Her gaze fell on the Background Sound option, which was still toggled on.
“I left that running all this time?”
She’d activated it exactly a day ago, before meeting Ipros. Somehow she’d forgotten about it entirely.
She must have seen it even when Will locked her in the underground dungeon, but she’d been too frantic to notice it then.
‘Now that I think about it, there was music playing.’
Had familiarity caused her to tune it out completely? Caroline tilted her head and listened carefully. A delicate blend of castanets and piano drifted through the air—so subtle that it had only been perceptible in the profound silence of the Underground Dungeon.
‘I don’t think I heard it during conversations with daytime Aiden or 3 AM Aiden either.’
Since it had no further use, she decisively switched the Background Sound setting to OFF.
“Why would this ridiculous game even install a Settings Bar in a place hardly any Player comes to?”
‘So the first section that young Aiden mentioned is finished? Is this where other people’s help becomes necessary?’
Caroline withdrew from the Fountain and looked around. Or rather, she meant to—but something caught her eye in the clear water of the Fountain.
“?”
For an instant, Caroline doubted her own vision.
Her next action was to roll up her sleeves and plunge into the water without hesitation.
Splash!
When she pulled her hand back out, she was clutching a glass box containing a deep blue velvet Diary.
“……That can’t be right.”
Friedman’s Diary here? If she’d kept postponing the exploration of the Maze, she never would have found both the Diary and the Key.
The Key was still missing, so she couldn’t open it yet. But Caroline tucked the Diary carefully into her bag with quiet elation.
“Now, where should I go next?”
She shook the water from her hands. As her gaze traced the ivy tendrils encircling the Fountain at a distance, a narrow gap appeared—just wide enough for a single person to slip through.
Coincidentally, it was precisely where the weeping boy carved into the Fountain seemed to be looking.
“……Ah.”
As Caroline moved toward that direction, she stopped short at the sight of the bare wooden core of the Yarn Thread. The distance she’d traveled so far matched exactly the length of the thread, leaving it taut and strained.
‘If I go any further, it’ll break.’
After a moment’s consideration, Caroline set the thread down gently and fixed the Doll’s House from her bag on top of it as an anchor.
Stepping into the gap between the ring-shaped bushes, the path transformed from a labyrinth into a straight corridor. A few steps in, a Blue Iron Door came into view.
‘A door?’
It wasn’t large, like the entrance to the Mansion.
Delicate and narrow, like a birdcage door, its lower half was square while its upper half arched in an elegant curve—a pale blue iron door just about Caroline’s height. Like a magical portal opening to an enchanted place, it fit snugly within the narrowed gap of the shrubbery.
“So you can exit the Maze to the outside?”
Caroline approached with quick steps and pulled at the door.
Clang!
But only the sound of metal striking metal rang out. The door remained firmly shut.
‘It’s locked.’
Crouching down, Caroline examined where the door was fastened.
No keyhole, no other locking mechanism visible. The device holding it shut must have been concealed on the inside.
‘There’s no way to open it from here?’
Caroline raised her head and studied the rest of the door carefully.
In the center of the blue iron door was a space, like a mail slot. Gathering my courage, I reached inside, but there was nothing to touch.
‘What is this?’
Could something placed here unlock it? I stepped back entirely and began to examine the door more carefully.
Then I saw things that hadn’t been visible before. The deep ocean-blue paint was uncommon, and the bas-relief decorations surrounding it—shells, oysters, wave patterns—conjured images of the sea.
And directly below the mail slot was a slightly weathered oyster-shaped bas-relief as well.
‘The Oyster Man?’
The name came to me naturally. I pictured a man with a rough face, a scar, dark hair slicked back with pomade.
Then I pulled out the blue velvet diary I’d just obtained from my bag.
‘Surely not.’
Even as I doubted myself, I pushed the thick, heavy book into the space in the center of the door.
Click!
“!”
A metallic sound echoed, and a keyhole hidden beneath the door’s lock mechanism appeared.
“Ah!”
“The maze is… effectively divided into two spaces. One where the path runs in a single direction, like a one-stroke drawing, and another you cannot escape without someone else’s help.”
“You need the assistance of many people. Strictly speaking, the objects they give you.”
Now I understood what young Aiden had meant.
It meant I could only escape with the help of Aiden’s alternate personalities and with the diary and key in hand. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t obtained Friedman’s key, so today was where I had to stop.
I reached into the mail slot and pulled the diary back out, and the moment I turned around—
“?”
I doubted my eyes.
Yarn thread was withdrawing from behind the Doll’s House, which sat vacantly in front of the Fountain, as though it were a living serpent.
“Wait… what on earth?”
The end of the yarn thread retreated steadily from the Fountain. I stuffed the diary and the Doll’s House into my bag and began to run.
I barely grabbed the thread’s end, and following it as it rapidly shortened, I found I had no need to search for another path.
‘What’s happening?’
Was someone pulling from outside? A servant?
My heart uneasy about what could have befallen the yarn thread, the moment I emerged from the maze’s entrance, I caught sight of Aiden standing with a bundle of yarn in hand, his expression serene. It appeared he’d been continuously pulling the yarn connected to a branch.
‘No, it’s not Aiden.’
The resemblance was close enough to confuse me, but it wasn’t him.
The coarse fabric of his shirt, the striped scarf tied at his belt. And particularly thick eyelashes and moist lips.
[□□□]
The one standing before me now was Ifros, marked with three yellow squares.
‘Why?’
That was my first thought. I looked up at the sky. The sun had begun to lower, its light turning red, but it wasn’t yet evening.
‘Will appeared before evening last time too.’
The night versions of Aiden’s personalities were breaking their schedule. What kind of change had occurred?
I was bewildered.
“Hello, Isaha.”
“…Hello.”
“You went inside that place. Somewhere I can’t enter, somewhere you shouldn’t enter recklessly either.”
I remembered the conversation I’d had the first day I met Ifros.
“A place where it’s hard to come out alive. If I went in, I certainly wouldn’t return, but you could still try to challenge it.”
3 AM Aiden had said Ifros could go anywhere, but that was wrong. He couldn’t enter the maze.
‘So there are things even he doesn’t know.’
In any case, Ifros looked deeply anxious today.
“I was worried. Afraid you might not come back out.”
“I’m out now. It’s fine.”
I answered flatly, the way Isaha would. But Ifros didn’t seem satisfied with just those words.
“…I waited the whole time. Because I wanted to see you.”
With a face so fragile it seemed ready to shatter, he opened his arms. The bundle of yarn he’d been holding fell to the ground with a soft thud.
“So please hold me.”

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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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