Chapter 20

Lia Pov:

I enter the residence that the receptionist directed me to. It was a well constructed mansion; the only oddity was that there were no stairs; even the entrance to the front door is a long gentle slope that looked newer than the rest of the house. I climb the slope and press the doorbell and wait to be let in. The door is opened and on the other side I see a young woman dressed in slightly baggy clothes, though not baggy enough to hide the strength in her body.

"May I ask your reason for being here?" She asked, judging my strength with her eyes.

"I am here to investigate the request posted from here."

The girls eyes give a quick shine and she open the door wider, giving me a large smile

"Please follow me, I will bring you to the client in that case. I enter the mansion and see a grand staircase greeting me. The girl leads me up the staircase and through the halls and as we get closer to where I guess we are going the walls begin to be covered in architectural drawings of the capitals building lining the walls.

The girl leads me to a door which opens shortly after we arrive. The girl takes a few steps forward and gives a short bow

"My lady, an adventurer, has come to inquire about your request!"

From inside I hear a women's voice say

"Let them in."

The girl motions for me to enter.

I step inside and look around the room for the owner of the voice. There I see a girl in a wheelchair roughly my age. Along the walls are countless cabinets, and behind the girl is a artest's desk. She give me a short bow

"Hello, I'm Mara Atailan current head of the Atailan household. You would like more information on my request?"

"Yes, why do you want the Anima Fruit?" I had a strong guess but I had to know for sure. Her hands clench on the arms of her chair and she looks down sadly, saying in a low voice "I want my legs back."

For some reason seeing Atailan like this pained me so I try to say gently "Ok. Give me a week. I'll let you know if I will then."

She nods and though it for some reason pained me, I knew not to overstay my welcome. For the next few days it continued on like I had never met Atailan, but on the fourth day my walk to the adventurers guild was interrupted by a commotion. I push my way through the crowd and find a partially collapsed building in front of which I find a bunch of stunned adventures and Atailan. While the adventures stand around Atailan gave orders to the girl from before. With the girl's help she quickly creates a system to lift the rubble off a good number of people, upon completion a rope is given to the adventures with Atailan at the head. The Atailan pulls but the adventurers are still stunned just standing there dumb. The rubble moves slightly enough for the girl to pull one or two people out but not close to enough to get them all. "For the Dungeon's sake are you adventures or chunks of wood! Pull you idiots!" This seems to snap the adventures out of their daze. On the next pull the rubble lifts up and slides off to a side clear of people allowing the girl to rush in and start pulling the victims out without fear of another collapse. Atailan drops the rope and also rushes in, carefully navigating the rubble they find those she could carry and brings them to the makeshift first aid area. Once the victims were out of the area Atailan head over to another spot of rubble and quickly forms a makeshift stint with Atailan keeping everything together, being in if I had to say, the most dangerous spot. Atailan orders the girl to head through and get the victims out from the inside. At this point I can no longer stand by I push through the last of the crowd and run past the young adventurers who returned to their dazed state after once again hearing the pain filled screams around us. I quickly follow the girl and find about 14 or 15 people partially conscious in a semi intact room. The girl picks up one and I grab another. We continued this until the last person was carried out by the girl as I followed behind. I had just exited a few steps when I hear movement, 'I have a bad feeling about this'. I turn around to see the rubble held up by Atailan's wheelchair just about to collapse on them. I quickly grab Atailan who was way too calm, and pull them out of their wheelchair jumping backward and nearly tipping on my back as I slow to a stop. I am pissed.

"I was going to ask this later but now seems like a good time. Why in the nine hells did you use yourself as lynch pin of that thing." I say my anger breaking my usual monotone.

"It was the most logical decision, my wheelchair was made to stay stable and balanced in all situations making it the best choice at the time, plus I knew that Aria could get most to all the people out of there in a short time, allowing for the lives saved to be greater than the lives lost." They took a short breath " And I didn't expect a collapse of that kind. I must have miscalculated something." Atailan says much too calm. I am going to kill this one someday I swear.

I walk over to the girl no Aria and ask, "Does Atailan have wheelchair at that mansion, if they do I'll bring them to go get it."

Aria nods "Yes the first room on the left by the stairs."

Atailan seems shocked "Aria!"

I nod again after Aria waves to Atailan. I quickly make my way back to the Atailan residence and place Mara into the now in use wheel chair. As I put them down I say "I'll help you find the Anima Fruit."