Next day, 7:00AM—
With the sound of a metal being striked by a hammer, the sun rises as it follows along with the beat, the morning fog gathered like a falling clouds that carries water, plants and trees that was planted inside the town of Direwell got covered with steam that soon turns into water droplets and an abundant amount of people walked out of their house to began their daily routines, some goes to work, while others goes to the nearby well to grab some water in a bucket.
Amongst the hundreds of buildings that stood inside the walled town, one building in particular that was located at the middle of the town looked grandeur than the rest, it was made almost entirely out out cobblestone, and had multiple marble stones that was carved into the shape of a flower and even human figures.
This building served as the City Hall for Direwell, a place where the government, also know as the one that controlled and managed the town gathered for discussion, meetings, and businesses.
As the bright sunrays was reflected from the mirrors inside the building, a man appeared to be walking towards the City Hall wearing a fancy frilly clothes and a tophat. His figure was way too inscopicuous from the others passerby on the street, making him look like a gentleman and an important person.
After the man arrived infront of the City Hall building, he then walked through the gate, with two bodyguards already guarding the entrance to the building, they greeted the man with respect and bowed down.
"Good morning, chief." The two guards said.
"Good morning." The fancy man then responded by taking off his tophat for a few seconds before putting them back on and entered the building.
As it turns out, that man was the town's mayor, Marrick Gourhorn.
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9:00AM—
Still inside the City Hall building, Marrick sat on one of the chair in a room full of chairs and a long table, he took the furthest chair on the longer side of the table before saying his greetings.
"Good morning everyone." He said.
"Good morning, chief." Everyone that had been waiting for him in the room responded at the same time.
There are 10 people in that room, each of them sitting on their respective chairs, it seems like a meeting is about to happen.
"Then, let's start with the recaps, is there anything that happened yesterday or before?" Marrick said, with his voice being the starting point of the meeting.
After his initial question, the rest of the people in the room then began to explain one after another about yesterday's shenanigans, for the most part, they told Marrick that there hasn't been much of a change at the job that they've taken the responsibility for, one of them who was a man that took the role of the Head of Agriculture said that the crops and vegetables in the farmlands outside the town was growing steadily, however he explained that the amount of crops and vegetables that was gone due to pests had increased from a week ago.
Meanwhile, the one that took the role of the Head of Defense said that there has been an increase in foreign carriages that had arrived in Direwell, he explained that this could be a big opportunity if they can export some of Direwell's goods towards these merchants and have them brought it to other towns. Other than that, he also said that there was a guard killed by a group of rogue goblins outside of the town, he said that that guard was patrolling alone and seems to have gone too far from Direwell, he was found a few hours later with most of his body gone, most likely eaten.
Once everyone in the room had given their reports to Marrick, he nodded in approval and praised all of them.
"Good work, let's continue as it is now." He said before placing both of his hands on the table and crossing them.
"Then, let's talk about the current problems that is happening right now, do you guys know what im talking about?" He asked.
After a brief silence, one person in the room suddenly raised her hand with a slight hesitation.
"Is it the case of multiple disappearances that has been happening lately?" She said.
The girl that had raised her hand was the Head of Economics, one who supervised transactions that happened in Direwell along with handling all of the offers or businesses that came from other towns.
Upon hearing her answer, Marrick's lips formed a little smile and nodded.
"That's right, now– This isn't something that can be taken lightly, although Direwell's population is in the thousands, losing even one means we've failed our people with our promise of security, excluding the ones that unfortunately died outside the town..." He explained before handing out multiple piece of papers to everyone equally.
The paper was a poster for the disappeared person, and one thing that they noticed is that all of the missing victims are last seen inside of Direwell, meaning that they're most likely were kidnapped.
"Chief, didn't we launched an investigation about this? What happened to that?" One of the people in the room asked.
"That's.. We haven't received any result yet, at this moment our guards are looking into every nook and cranny in the town, i personally gave the permission to search into anyone's house, as this is an urgent issue." Marrick replied with a deep sigh.
"I believe this isn't just a normal kidnappings, if you look at all of the missing persons and their illustration, almost all of them are attractive in some ways or another, although there's a few men that have gone missing too, two of them had muscular body, while the other one had handsome face– Same with the women too, all of them looked beautiful in one way or another." The Head of Defense said while rubbing his chin.
"Do you mean—" Another person was trying to assume what the Head of Defense meant by his words, however he was suddenly cut off by Marrick who immediately told everyone what he wanted to say.
"It's a slavery operation, the culprit is most likely someone who owned a slave market and works in an underground society." He said, gritting his teeth as he couldn't contain all of the frustration that was boiling inside of him.
"Ugh!– If it's a slave market operation, then they could've already left Direwell.." The Head of Economics expressed her annoyance.
"There's still time, if you look at one of the poster in your hand, the most recent kidnapping happened literally yesterday- Someone realized that their adventurer friend disappeared and reported it immediately, if we're to connect it, most of these kidnappings happened at night, where security was at the lowest– Then, we'll just have to increase it—
"I doubt the culprit would be alone, they must've had a couple subordinates to be able to capture 6 people in just a few days, that's why, we'll tighten our patrolling unit and sent a warning to everyone in the town." Marrick wasn't going to play around with this problem, he suggested multiple orders to the people in the room, although most accepted it without any objection, some had a different idea than him.
"Chief, if we put a warning sign everywhere, wouldn't everyone be thrown into a state of panic? We might lose their trust if we let them know about this problem." The Head of Mining said while he raised his hand.
"Then we'll just have to regain it by capturing the culprits, and if we failed.. We'll make a public apology and give those who have lost their family or friends a compensation.. It won't be enough, but that's the least we could do, anything outside of Direwell is considered the wilds, and the kingdom laws doesn't apply out there." Marrick said with a heavy heart.
"Chief..." Everyone felt pity for Marrick as they saw their mayor falling into the hole of guilt, they who have worked with him for years knew that Marrick was a genuine person, he cared for everyone, unlike the previous mayor who seek to fullfil his own pleasure, Marrick was the one that overthrew the previous mayor's tyranny and gave Direwell a chance to revive, he was the one responsible for the exponential growth of Direwell, and he was also the one responsible for the growth of Demiria.