Chapter 15 - Leaving The Bedroom For The First Time
Lucius's guess turned out to be true, as one of the servants really brought a wheelchair for him. He looked at it and found it to be rather exquisitely made. The wood was finely polished and a soft seat along with a back pillow had been attached to it.
It had handles at the back so that others could push it. The only difference was that the wheelchair had three wheels instead of four. It had two small wheels at the front and one large one at the back. Lucius would have avoided sitting on the wheelchair and would have thought it to be unstable had it not been for the fact that the back wheel was broader than normal, which enhanced its balance.
"We can make do with this old one for now, I'll ask madam to commission the artificers to make you a better one later on," Kiana spoke.
'Oh, so it is an old model.' Lucius thought, feeling a bit intrigued.
"Alright then! Let's go meet the madam and ask her for permission." Kiana said before bending to put her hands below Lucius and picking him up.
Lucius had not expected that she would be able to pick someone like him so easily. He could estimate that he weighed at least seventy kilograms and for a woman like Kiana it seemed rather unusual to be able to lift so much weight, unless she had practice.
"There you go," Kiana said as she corrected the clothes of Lucius.
He was wearing a pair of everyday clothes that were rather comfortable. He could tell that they were made of high quality cotton and seemed to be hand made.
After that, Kiana started pushing the wheelchair, and they left the room. This was the very first time that Lucius was seeing something other than his room in this mansion. They were in a corridor currently that was illuminated by the sunlight that was coming from the windows.
The windows were rather wide, which allowed the sunlight to come in at all times of the day. Only at night would one need lamps to see things.
'Hmm… so they use normal lanterns and lamps here and not the artifact like I have in my room. I guess I can estimate the level of wealth of this family from that. While it is not extremely opulent, it does have sufficient resources that can help me in my research, it seems.' Lucius thought to himself, learning a new point about the Inanis family.
He looked down at the floor and saw that it was made out of flat stone tiles that were chiseled to perfection. The wheels of the wheelchair were made of solid wood and had no suspension or shock absorption, and yet he didn't feel much discomfort.
Otherwise, if this was some other medieval building from his past world and he was in a wheelchair like this, he would have been rocked all the time while traveling. After coming to the end of the corridor, they reached the set of stairs that went down.
'How is she gonna take me down now?' Lucius wondered.
"SERVANTS!" Kiana called out.
Not even ten seconds later, two men came rushing up from the stairs and brought a plank with them.
"I thought I already asked you to keep the ramp ready?" Kiana asked in a stern voice.
"Sorry miss Kiana, it took us longer to get the proper sized plank." The servants spoke.
"Humph, it is not me who you should apologize to. Did you forget who you are standing in front of?" Kiana spoke, this time with a hint of anger in her voice.
It seemed like the servants had forgotten that they were here to serve the lord Asher in their hurriedness, and perhaps his current condition had also contributed a bit to it. Lucius could understand their thinking as people would often find it hard and may end up ignoring people when they were not in a normal condition.
"We apologize, lord Asher." The servants said in a slightly scared voice.
Lucius merely rolled his eyes as it wasn't like he could answer them, anyway. Kiana harrumphed again and gestured for them to set up the plank to make a ramp.
The two servants placed the plank against the stairs and then put a wooden wedge at its side to make it from sliding. One of them tested it for its stability before nodding to Kiana.
"You can use it now, lord Asher." The servant assured.
Kiana gently paused the wheelchair forward, and they were down the first flight of stairs. Lucius finally saw the rest of the flights of stairs at the turn and sighed internally. There were about seven more to go and none of them had ramps.
The two servants repeated the same thing for each flight of stairs, and Lucius was brought down bit by bit. In the end, it took them fifteen minutes just to climb down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, Kiana looked at the servants and spoke.
"I want the ramps ready before we come back to the mansion. You have three hours at the most." Kiana ordered.
"Yes, miss Kiana. It shall be done." The servants spoke in a respectful tone.
'So she has a higher status among the servants, huh? Wonder how it is exactly decided, not to mention that her behavior with me is also rather liberal, which would be unbecoming of a master and a servant.' Lucius wondered.
After getting to the bottom floor, Lucius got a view of a broad hall. There were tapestries hanging from the walls that depicted the crest of the Inanis family, which was a shield with a three tailed dragon on it. Looking at it, Lucius found it to be a bit familiar but couldn't exactly remember where he had seen it before.
'Hmm… did I see it during my dimensional travel or in my past world?' Lucius tried to remember but could not.
"Ah, you're finally here, son!" Lita's voice echoed from the other end.