Kasou Ryouiki No Elysion

Volume 2: Chapter 3

Resolution to Confront The Past

Part 1

"Fuu..."
Inside of a dim room from which light had already disappeared from, Shio slowly opened her eyes.
Her mind was still agitated after she experienced an entertainment structure for the first time, smouldering heat was leaving her body and she took deep breaths repeatedly.
Shio waved her arms lightly to clear her thinking. In conjunction with her movements the lights were turned on, at the same time the Arclight was turned off.
"...I sweated a lot."
Although that was in the Elysion, it was because she wasn't used to moving that much. Her camisole was drenched with sweat, sticking to her skin, and her skin colour could be clearly seen through it. Although she wiped her entire body with the towel she prepared, she still felt discomfort.
I'll take a bath first, then have a lunch.
She was alone in her broad room.
There was an Arclight and a bed, it was a simple room with minimum furniture. That was the place she was living in.
——One corner of the four major cyber-related corporates, 'Karasuba'.
Even if there were people who still didn't know Kiritou's name, there were no people who didn't know the name of Karasuba. That's how large of an enterprise it was. Karasuba Shio was the granddaughter of its company head and the second daughter of its current president.
Unlike Fuyuki who was an adopted daughter using the Karasuba name, she was a daughter descending from a 'Noble Lineage'.
Shio changed into appropriate clothes and draped a coat on her shoulders before she left the room.
Karasuba owned grounds was the size of a small town and her room was inside of the head family's manor.
Through the window there were several visible buildings serving as research facilities and behind those buildings were huge headquarters towering over them.
It wasn't visible from where Shio was looking now, but on the other side there is the reception hall of the internal education facility 《Bird Cage》 and its various facilities that were dispersed.
Partially because it was a holiday, but there were less people in the mansion than usual. Judging from the appearance, Shio was the only one from the head family in there, everyone else there was a servant.
"My lady, Princess Shio is staying at home again... even her other siblings are all at laboratories researching..."
"Master and mistress are going to scold her again..."
Along the way, she heard the servants chatting. Shio shut her heart ignoring the negative chatter.
Aren't they getting bored of repeating the same thing every time...?
Again and again and again and again, that talk continued on a daily basis, these words no longer hurt her but still, somewhere in her heart she felt worn out.
Shio had an older brother, older sister, and a younger sister.
The three siblings besides Shio were already acting as researchers and have attained remarkable achievements——they were being called 'Geniuses'.
Children of Karasuba didn't play like normal children would, they don't attend school. To become people that stand above everyone else, they are subjected to special thorough education from a young age.
They were trained in different subjects. But what was the most important among them was the cyber technology. The only thing that mattered was that they had to have excellent results, that was all.
From a very young age they desperately polished their techniques at the expense of everything else.
———And despite all of that, Shio had no talent at all.
It took her siblings only a week to learn what she had to study for three months. No matter how much effort she put in, she couldn't even see her siblings' backs.
And then, the place 'Karasuba Shio' belonged to slowly faded away.
Shio entered the dressing room, quickly undressed and entered the absurdly huge bathroom.
Her other family members settled on just using the shower, the only one who used the bath on a regular basis was Shio. It turned into a situation where the bathtub was exclusively hers.

"Hafuu〜...this is really calming〜"
She soaked in hot water from which white steam rose, and let out a voice.
The warm water was not only pleasant. She also had a sense of freedom no one else knew, it was healing Shio's heart.
She relaxed her body releasing all her strength, and floated as the watery sounds filled the air.
For just a moment Shio felt an unbearable weakness no one knew of. All the unpleasant feelings melted away in the hot water and her head became empty——is how it should have been. That's how it normally was.
...it turned out really weird.
She thought about her first time in 《Aries》, reminded of how she was travelling with the boy who claimed to be Fuyuki's brother.
Even now when she closed her eyes she was reminded of the feeling she had as she released an arrow from her bow, she recalled the sight of arrows flying straight and penetrating through monsters.
It was supposed to be a way to kill time. She obtained a free pass by chance (or rather it was forced on her). She didn't throw it away because it would be a waste, that's all.
But because of that whim, she was reunited with a friend from her past.
I wonder if that was fate...
Even though the hot water should have warmed her up, her heart was cold.
She wanted to ignore all of these feelings, but she couldn't get accustomed to pain that easily.
The pain she felt in her heart seven years ago as her dreams and hopes were all shattered, it encroached her body slowly, like poison.
Ever since then she didn't expect anything, she wasn't entertained by anything, she just lived her life while remaining idle. She thought her own life had no value, that's how it was. However...