Chapter 7: Confrontation
"Please, Mayor, send people to search for my son. Kel has been missing since yesterday," Liam pleaded to the elderly man. Liam looked around forty, with a thin mustache and a neatly trimmed beard. His voice trembled with anxiety, surrounded by fellow townsfolk, men and women alike, each clutching farming tools and dressed in worn-out clothes.
"Yes, Mayor. It's dangerous out there now with all the goblins roaming around," another man added. "I can't imagine what might've happened to him. It's already sunset, this will makes it two nights he's been gone."
"I agree, Mayor."
"Yeah..."
"Poor little Kel..."
Voices of concern echoed throughout the group.
At the center of the gathering sat a middle-aged man in a wooden chair, calmly puffing on a pipe. His eyes were half-lidded, his expression unreadable behind the smoke curling in the air.
"I understand your pain, Liam," he finally said, his tone slow and measured. "But we must be realistic. Kel's been gone for nearly two days. With that little body of his, his chances of survival are... slim. I won't risk sending you all into the forest without knowing what you're walking into."
He took another drag from his pipe, letting the silence and smoke fill the air.
"But Mayor, he's our only child. What am I supposed to tell his mother?" Liam's voice cracked. "She hasn't eaten a thing since Kel went missing. At least... if we can't save him, I want to see his remains. I want to bury him properly. I don't want his body scavenged by those goblin bastards."
He clenched his fists, his eyes filled with despair.