A Serpent's Tale
Chapter 227: Getting Some Maps

Chapter 227: Getting Some Maps

After submitting my form to the orphanage, I spent a small portion of the night meandering through the streets, trying to familiarise myself with the structure of the city without going too far from the main paths to avoid getting lost.

When midnight came, I went back to the guest villa and went and slept in my personal room.

It was a nice room with a bed large enough to get my entire body onto alongside some other furniture such as chaise’s, drawers and wardrobes as well as an on suite bathroom.

The bathroom wasn’t that large but it was large enough for me to clean myself off at least.

I did that and realised that it was quite late, and that I probably needed to get up pretty early in the morning the following day to do some stuff for the auction.

I didn’t actually know if I did or not but I assumed so. And the reason I’m assuming so is so that I actually wake up in the morning, otherwise I might just sleep in.

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Morning came and I got up, ready to go out and do my part for the auction, whatever it might be, even if it was nothing.

I still slept in late though and it was around ten in the morning when I arrived at the in house breakfast buffet, which was closing in half an hour.

I got a plate and filled it to the brim with food. By the time I had reached the end of the buffet, I had a few small mountains on my plate.

Nobody batted an eye as this was normal for us, eating swathes of food in one sitting. We were capable of eating whole people after all. It’s what we were made to do. Kind of.

Anyways, I sat down and enjoyed my breakfast, putting my plate into the pile with the rest of them and headed out of the villa.

After I left, I went over to the gate and inquired about the auction that would be set up and they said that it would take a few days to set up and that I should just wait for more news about it.

I told them that I was the one in possession of the worm and they seemed a little surprised but they had been informed of this so they weren’t that surprised.

I asked again about if there was anything that I might be able to do besides just waiting and they said no.

I also inquired about the worm and they said everything was in order, including keeping it alive and stationary.

So, that left me with a couple of days to myself to explore the city a bit more.

I knew that the form to be admitted to the orphanage would take time to actually go through before I could be admitted there.

And it was kind of sad to a degree as I would only have twenty years there, where I would be kicked out at two hundred to live on my own, which wasn’t that hard to be fair with the money that I had or would obtain.

But I would lose out on several other things such as free education and free catering. Provided I got accepted into the orphanage that is. And it would all go away once I became two hundred.

But, that was a future problem. Right now, I had to figure out what I wanted to do for the time being.

And I decided to go and explore the city some more. After all, I barely did that last night, plus, it was dark and only the main street was properly light at night.

And so, I ended up going to one of the stores near the gate that I was at. There were four in total and I came from the west one.

I went in to the shop and it was a dainty little store. A bit old and dusty, a tad run down too, but otherwise it was a quaint little shop.

A cartography shop to be exact. And I was hoping, with it being so close to the gates into the city, that it would have a map of it.

The floor was made of wood and creaked with each and every slide I made over them, signalling my entry to whomever ran this store. It was also a bit tightly packed but had just enough room for me to move around in.

I looked around and saw many different maps for sale. I saw ones of the desert, one of the human territories to the west of the desert and one of the arctic territories to the south.

I saw maps about several kingdoms and empires, but they mainly focused on the desert, such as the Naga Kingdom and the Serpentine Empire alongside the Scorpion Empire and the Feline Empire.

There were a couple other empires and several kingdoms as well. I mainly saw that the maps were more focused on the Serpentine Empire, which is to be expected.

And they took the majority because there were even maps of specific locations, like Krara city.

And, as a cartography store, there were stacks of maps everywhere. Some stacked as high as an entire unit, which the Krara city map was, and some only had a few copies left.

I picked up one of the Krara city maps, a Naga Kingdom map, a Lamia Kingdom map and a Serpentar Kingdom map all alongside a Serpentine empire map. I also picked up a few of the other maps of the nearby cities.

When I was done picking the maps that I wanted, I went over to the counter and rang the bell.

"Coming." A withered an exhausted voice rang out from the back of the store.

When the owner of both the voice and the store emerged, I saw that it was an old male Naga.

He had red scales like me, except unlike mine which were shiny and vibrant, his were pale and dull, a sign of his age. His skin had wrinkles and his hair was grey, and he even had a little goatee on his chin.

Another sign of his age was the fact that he was using a cane to hold himself up and prevent him from falling to the floor.

"Sorry ’bout this. I’m gettin on in years and is hard to keep this up." He apologised in an old wizened voice.

"That’s fine. I don’t mind. I wanted to buy some maps if that’s okay." I requested as I smiled brightly.

The old man just chuckled and said, "Lass, that’s what this store’s for. If you young’uns didn’t come in here, why I’d be outta business by now. Which maps are ya buyin anyhow?"

I presented the maps to him to him and he tallied up the cost.

"Tha’ll be eight an a half gold an twenty silver please."

I discretely got my Gold pouches out from my [Spatial Storage] and pulled out ten gold and gave it to him.

"Ah, this is too much lass. Here, here ya-"

But I cut him off before he could continue. "Please, just take it. I have enough money anyways and you seem like you could use it."

"Aww, bless ya heart for ya kind soul." He thanked.

"Thank you for the maps, sir. I’ll come back again in the future for more if I ever need them." I thanked back as I waved to him as I made my way out of the store.

"Haha! I might not be open by then, but take care anyways lass!" He cried jokingly as he waved back before going back into the back of the store.

When I left, I had put all of the maps, except for the Krara city one away as I intended to use that one to help me explore the city.

There were several locations marked in different colours for what type of establishment they were. For example; red was used for restaurants, orange was for things like bakeries, blue was used for clothing stores, green was for hotels and other similar places and gold was used for governmental or noble locations.

And if anything was left blank, then that mean that it was either someone’s personal home or had no assigned function because it was either being sold or was being repurposed.

I wasn’t sure which of these I should go to first as they were all spread out surprisingly evenly across the city for the most part.

The most popular places were all along the main cardinal direction roads, that being north, south, east and west.

And seeing as I came from the west gate, and I had no real plan, I decide to meander throughout the west road and all of it’s stores. I might pop in and have a browse of their wares, but mainly I just wanted to get familiar with the local layout.

I also noticed as I was wandering throughout the busy street that there were stalls dotted about the place as well, all selling different kinds of wares.

None of them caught my eyes however. Nor did many of the clothing stores. I only popped into one or two to get a look on how they do business and didn’t stay for long either.

And I didn’t go into any of the restaurants either as I wasn’t hungry.

Eventually though, I reached the city centre, where there was a giant silver statue of who I assumed was the duchess. And I was proven right when I found a plaque saying so facing towards the south.

Apparently, she lived towards the north according to the map I have.

And just as I was about to go and explore some of the other cardinal roads, I heard a commotion around me.

I looked around and saw that everyone was clamouring about something, or more specifically someone coming from the north.

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