Felix stood rooted on the spot as he speechlessly stared hard at the map in his hands.
"Fucking Hell..."
That was all he could utter as he cursed himself for getting lost in the new City.
He fully opened the map and searched for any clue he could find.
"The location of the guild is marked on the map, that's alright..."
"But the question is....where the hell am I?"
There was no point or indicator showing his location on the map like on a smartphone, so he could not find his position there. He tried hard to look for any way to get the location right, but it was of no use.
"After getting the lost kitten back, is it my turn now??"
He ridiculed himself shaking his head at the dead joke.
"What do I do now?"
Glancing around, he saw the bridge where he found the kitten. But he didn't know the way back to the fat lady's house as he was too occupied with using the skill on the way and thus did not remember the path they came from.
Many people walked by him as he stood at the place with a large map of the city in his hand. Some were curious about what he was doing but nevertheless, they ignored him and went about their daily tasks.
He considered asking a passerby for directions and went toward an amiable old man walking on the street with a stick.
"Umm...Excuse me, do you know what place is this?"
The old man with short white hair stopped and turned to him surprised at the question, as he intently looked at the boy who was asking for directions.
"Boy, did you get lost on the way home?"
He asked as he rubbed his beard while narrowing his eyes to take a good look at the silver-haired boy.
"Ehh it's not that I got lost. It's just that I wanted to find a place to go and couldn't find it."
Felix lied without changing his expression as he pointed to the map in his hand.
"Can you please help me point at where we are, then I'll be able to find my way."
The old man gawked at the map as not many had a detailed map in their belongings. It could be said that such a map was very rare and only high-ranking people had them.
He speechlessly looked at the boy who did not know the value of such a map. Shaking his head, the old man studied the map and pointed to a street drawn on it.
"This is where we are, at Erling Street. You can check the map and find your way back."
"Oh thank you very much, senior. I very much appreciate your help", Felix thanked him happily.
"Haha, it's not a problem, at least these old bones could help you with something."
The old man chuckled and joyfully accepted the young boy's gratitude.
"I'll be going now then."
Felix waved at him and walked away holding his map and searching the way back to the guild.
The old man looked at the retreating figure of the boy and sighed.
"Sigh...it's really good to be young."
He shook his head as being old made him regret a lot of things that he didn't do when he was still young.
"Grandpa! Where were you..?"
A man around 22 years old came running as he saw his grandfather walking in the street again forgetting the way.
"Grandpa! You got lost again. This is Denise Street, not the Erling Street where we were planning to go."
"Hmm? What did you say?"
The old man shouted as he couldn't believe his grandson saying that he got lost.
"There's no way I got lost. Maybe they changed the name of the street but there's no way I'm old enough to lose my way."
The man sweated as he rubbed his forehead at his grandpa who had dementia and always lost his way, but he never accepted the truth and just argued with them.
"Yes Yes Grandpa, maybe they changed the name. So, how about we go back to where we were?"
"Hmm, let's go. I'm tired from all the walking."
The old man and his grandson went about their way as Felix went in the wrong direction the eccentric grandpa gave.
*****
A few minutes later.
Felix stood in front of a random building as he looked back and forth between the map in his hand and the spot.
"What the fuck?? Did I get lost again??"
Felix exclaimed as threw the map down and squatted on the ground, not believing that he became directionally challenged after reincarnating.
"Is there something wrong with the map? But it was worth 200 tahl! There's no way Miss Elsa sold me a counterfeit map right?"
He sighed, grabbing the map back and keeping it away as it had no use to him now.
"What now?"
It appeared that he was in an alleyway where there was hardly any public. The dark shadows of the houses and the buildings hindered his eyes from seeing much.
He started going deeper into the alley to look for a way out.
Traversing through the narrow passageway, he crossed many diverging paths but still remained on the main alley.
Now, it was pure silence. He could not hear anything except for his footsteps.
There were no living beings to be seen as he slowly trod forward into the dark alleyway.
"This is getting scary...."
Felix cautiously gazed around him as he felt quite scared at the growing broken buildings that he met on the way.
It seemed he was entering some kind of ghetto of the city, but he could still not find anything or anyone.
Suddenly, he heard a distant sound of a melody.
♫~~~♫~~~♫~~~
It appeared to be a welcoming song, but it was more of a soft type that made people feel relaxed and sleepy.
"What's this music? It sounds really suspicious..."
Nevertheless, he followed the faint music and searched for the source. Finding the place it was coming from, he hid behind a wall and peeked at it.
The place appeared to be a dome-like tent made up of different colors. The tip of it was pointed toward the sky and a small opening of the tent made the music faintly escape out.
"A circus? Seriously..."
Felix was dumbfounded at what he found. He did not imagine there could be something like a circus in the fantasy world.
'Maybe I'm only thinking about all those anime and web novels that I forgot that this is an actual world. I should stop comparing this world to those stories.'
He gulped at his naivety and ignorance that could one day make him regret ever believing in his stupid fantasies.
'There's so much that I do not know about this world. If I remain clueless and unaware of the things here, then I'll be just digging my own grave.'
Felix took a deep breath and shook away his stupid tendencies to make fun of things. He stared seriously at the circus tent and contemplated to himself.
'So, should I go back or....."
He gazed forward with a piercing glare and finally made his decision.