I swallowed a sigh as I jumped over the railing, whose purpose was to prevent me from falling yet ultimately became useless against my irrationality.
The robots had their behavior return to normal as if the 'intruder' was just a pigment of their imagination.
***
My body fell rapidly at high speed and my eyes quickly began searching for a nearby spot where I could use to lessen the impact of my fall.
'Where... Where... There..!'
My pupils dilated once I saw a short house with a thick enough rooftop to prevent me from easily crashing through.
***
"Honey, did you hire a chimney sweeper yet?"
His wife's voice called out to him from the kitchen as she was busy making dinner for their family. The man groaned as he scratched his head and responded to her question.
"Erm... No, not yet. I'll find one tomorrow."
"That's what you told me yesterday too. Hon, if we don't get our chimney cleaned who knows what kind of pests will start breeding up there?"
Her husband scratched his head once more as he prompted himself to stand up from the couch and he made his way upstairs. The woman heard this and asked him to call their daughter in her stead.
"Since you're going upstairs could you tell Miranda to come down? The dinner is going to be ready soon and you know how long she takes to get here."
"Yeah, got it..."
Contrary to what she asked for, the first place he went to was the telephone stand at the end of their hallway on the 2nd floor. He grumbled under his breath as he dialed a specific order of numbers.
"Chimney sweeper this, chimney sweeper that. We haven't had pests in ages. Its not like a new species will be born from not cleaning a damn chimney for 3 months..."
CRASH!!!
The entire house quaked as soon as he was finished with his rant. It was as if the world wanted to convey to him a message by showing him that a new species would most definitely form if their chimney wasn't cleaned on schedule. His hands were shaky as he hurriedly dialed the numbers.
[Hello, this is the cleaning service department; how may we be of service to you?]
"Y-Yes, um, I would like to schedule an appointment for a pest removal... And please dispatch your best chimney sweeper."
[Understood. When would you like to make your schedule?]
The sound of a creature's heavy footsteps from above could even be heard by the person over the phone as they worriedly asked.
[Sir..? Is everything alright-]
"Now."
[Huh? Pardon me, but I think I must've misheard you-]
"Send the pest control. Now."
His wife ran upstairs to inform her husband about the strange noises coming from their rooftop.
"Honey, there's something moving on top of our house!"
"Hush. I know..."
"I told you so many times that we needed to get our chimney cleaned!!"
He was forced to listen to his wife's scolding while also having to simultaneously convince the man over the phone to accept his request.
***
CRASH!!!
Luckily for me, the tiles protecting the rooftop were quite dense, thus making my calculation to be correct. The only problem was due to the recoil caused from roughly landing; the tiny robot's head was now dangling out of my arms as the circuits connecting it were the last support it had to prevent its head from getting detached from its body.
I made my attempt to repair it, but now the robot looked as if its head was a meatball and its wiry neck was similar to fresh spaghetti strands. I sighed as I placed it down, but all of a sudden its eyes lit up and projected something in midair.
The projection resembled a mini map. The kind you would normally see in video games where you had to do a stealth mission in order to clear that certain level. The background was blue and there were a few green symbols that stood out. The green arrow located in the middle had two words floating above it saying 'Your Location'. There was a green 'X' symbol that seemed as if it would fall off the edge of the map at any moment. The robot zoomed in on the spot were the green 'X' resided and a title appeared above it.
{Repair Shop}
It was obvious that the robot was giving me directions on where to find the mechanic whom I needed to meet in order to fulfill the mission that was given to me by the scroll. Whether it was a built-in function or because the robot was thoughtful enough to aid me, I patted its head to show my gratitude for making my mission a little easier.
The robot's eyes turned pitch black as it immediately shut down to rest for a while. I decided to wait until sunrise as I allowed the robot to hibernate.
***
The cleaning service department arrived early in the morning due to their client's concerning insistent attitude. Both the husband and wife were not able to get a wink of sleep that night since they were too nervous about the possibility of the strange creature trespassing their house. Their daughter on the other hand, slept like an undisturbed baby the whole night.
They both came out of the house to greet the workers as they got straight to the point.
"Thank you for bearing with us. We just couldn't relax after knowing that we had a large pest living on our rooftop."
"It's alright, sir, ma'am. Our job is to serve those in need of our services."
One of the workers reached inside their backpack and held out a retractable ladder as they unfolded it and placed it against the house's wall.
***
"How big did you say the pest was exactly?"
"We've never really seen it yet. We've only discovered about its existence the night before."
"We'll pay you as much as we can just please get rid of that thing!"
I heard a couple of people discussing below me, and the sound of a person's footsteps climbing up a ladder grew closer. Although the robot still hadn't woken up from its hibernation mode, I decided that it was best to cut our losses and leave the rooftop. I jumped down together with the unresponsive robot in my arms and I sneakily walked away from the scene that I had caused.
***
The bridges were quite sturdy, yet this fact did not allow my doubts to ease one bit, since I had an irrational fear related to heights. My feet were quick yet careful as they swiftly ran across the bridge, which seemed like a death trap.
Stepping on the other side, I was once again amazed by this dimension's worldbuilding.
The sidewalks were like treadmills that only required people to stand on them and they would automatically move you forward to your destination, also giving you the freedom to step off whenever you felt like it. The buildings everywhere all had automatic doors that permitted entry once you stepped on the platform in front of it. Some of the high floating buildings would form a mechanical staircase if a person pressed on the button stand nearby it. The inhabitants wore all sorts of different clothing. From formal and tidy to stylish and unique. The vehicles driving on the road caught my eye the most. They looked like they could fall apart by just a single touch, but they were definitely more durable than the vehicles back in my original world. A couple of gears were purposely designed to be shown on the outside as they grinded and occasionally huffed out smoke.
I removed the unnecessarily lengthy coat covering my body and draped it over the damaged robot in my arms to avoid getting looks from the bystanders close by. I reluctantly stepped on one of the moving sidewalks, nearly causing me to trip over. It wasn't my first experience riding on a moving platform; no, it was just unexpectedly fast-paced as it continuously advanced forward.
'If I recall the details of the mini map, the direction in which the repair shop would be located must be around this area.'
In reality, I was actually heading towards the opposite direction. I was the type of person to get easily lost even when I was given a proper guide. Unless someone had a leash on me while simultaneously dragging me along with them, I would continue being the navigation idiot I still am despite possessing another person's body.
Concluding my thoughts, I faced my head up, only to notice that several people had their gazes intently fixated on me. I bowed my head to avoid them as I found it to be troublesome if people recognized my face in the distant future. It had only been a couple of minutes when suddenly every single person now gained interest in my presence as they stared daggers in my direction.
I just about had enough of everything as I attempted to step off the moving sidewalk. Out of nowhere an unknown hand landed on one of my shoulders and I glanced to see who its owner was. A woman dressed in extravagant clothing wore a smile that spelled out the letters 'business' and she spoke to me with a professional tone.
"May I ask for a moment of your time please?"
She ignored my baffled expression as she continued to speak.
"I'm Lousianne Hue. From the famed fashion brand otherwise known as V.C.U! If you don't mind, I..."
The rest of her words became a blur to me as I internally panicked in my mind.
'What does she want from me? Fashion brand? But why me? Is she a cop in disguise..?'
Before I could get her to release her rip on me, another person appeared from behind her and they started an argument.
"Look at his face. You're obviously making him uncomfortable."
I was about to thank the man, but that thought was immediately parried by his next words.
"Watch here, see. Good Morning, young sir! Might I interest you to work with our company? You see, we've been searching for potential models to promote our fashion design and-"
"Okay, now you're coming on too strong! What happened to 'setting the mood', huh!?"
Out of nowhere, more and more people began crowding around me, offering me a deal to work as a model in their industry. This caused me to think that they were blind as I assumed that my facial appearance wasn't that great to attract this many people.
'What's up with the standards of the people in this dimension...'
An imaginary lightbulb lit up in my head as I lowered my gaze to see the clothes I currently wore.
The pants were quite elegant and stylish, which definitely looked costly enough to make people cough out blood after seeing the price tag. The long sleeved polo I wore was embroidered with silver thread and the cufflinks binding the sleeves contained a lovely colored crystal in the center. My judgment came to a conclusion as I understood that these people were probably attracted to the fancy clothing style I had.
The people were too riled up from arguing with each other that they hadn't realized that the man they wanted to hire had already disappeared without their notice.