It was sunset before the entire board arrived. The first member to arrive was Philip, who got there after about 30 minutes. The second member to arrive was Sarah, who got there 15 minutes later. The last two, Mark and Sean, got there within 5 minutes of each other. Mark came in first, about 40 minutes after Sarah arrived. When Sean finally arrived, Philip looked at Noah and said, "So let's get your report started."
After closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Noah softly said, "I couldn't do it."
"Could you speak up, I didn't hear you." Sarah asked and the rest of the board nodded.
"I couldn't do it." Noah said, louder this time, on the verge of tears. And excruciating silence that felt like it went on for an eternity ensued as the other people in the room processed what Noah said.
"I'm sorry, could you say that again? You couldn't do it?" Philip asked, very confused. Noah nodded in response, which caused Philip to sigh. Noah was staring straight at the ground, because he was too nervous to meet the gaze of anyone in the room.
After an awkward silence that felt like it went on for a lot longer than it did, Owen said, "I suppose this is what we get for trusting a teenager to be able to kill Nightmare."
"I tried to tell you but you didn't listen to me." Philip said with Noah clutching his head and started to shake. Sean noticed this and tapped Noah's shoulder, causing Noah to look up. Sean pointed towards the door, signaling that he wanted to go outside and talk. Noah got up and followed him outside and felt the stares of the other people in the room.
Once they got out of the room, they moved over to the opposite wall. Noah started straight down at the ground and Sean placed his hand on Noah's shoulder and said, "Listen son, what you did was the best thing you could've done. The mistake was on us, not you. We shouldn't have let you go on that mission. I should've given it to someone with a lot more experience."
"And who's saying the same thing wouldn't happen!?" Noah snapped, looking up, his voice shaking, "If this mission taught me anything, it taught me that no human here can kill Nightmare! Hell, no living being can kill that monstrosity and an actual guard would be able to figure that out a lot faster than a coward like myself did. How was I even let on that
mission, and why did I think that I could kill Nightmare. I'm not even able to scratch him."
"Hey!" Sean said and slapped Noah. "I let you on that mission because you were our best bet at that moment. You had the book on dragon anatomy and had the determination to see your mission through. You're also no less of a guard than I am. You have the skills to match me and a burning desire to protect your town. That is what makes a true guard."
Noah took a deep breath, looked back down at the ground, curled his hands into fists, and said, "Alright, can we stop talking about this?"
"Alright then, just know that I'm proud of the reason you came back. You're the best son I could ever ask for." Sean said, "Let's head back in." Noah nodded in agreement, taking another deep breath to calm himself down. Sean walked over to the door, opened it, and motioned for Noah to go back in. While Noah was walking through the doorway, he heard what sounded like the door to the reception area opening. He didn't think much of it however.
When the two of them got back inside Owen's office, Noah went right back to his seat and Sean went back to where he was standing. After Noah sat down Owen asked, "So now that you two are back, what are we going to do about this?"
"Well, right now we have three major options: keep quiet and stay how we are, we can attempt another expedition to try and kill Nightmare, or we can find something new we can do to improve our situation." Philip said.
Sarah was the first person to speak up saying, "Well we can't just stay like this, we're running out of money. And, unless any of you have any genius plans right now, we don't have time to find something new. We have only about three months left until we're out of money if things keep going the way they are. If we aren't going to kill Nightmare , we're going to need to move out of this region."
"That's not going to happen." Owen responded quickly, "I would love to be able to just pack up this town and leave this region for good, as I'm sure the rest of you want to do as well." The other people in the room nodded in agreement except for Noah, who was lost in his own thoughts and only half listening to the conversation. "The people who are currently in this town are in it because they have a personal connection to this land. Whether it be that they lived here their entire lives, don't want to deal with the competition in the cities, or don't want to restart their lives from scratch. Everyone who wanted to leave has already left."
"And there still are problems even if we manage to convince the town to move." Sean spoke up suddenly with a thoughtful expression on his face, "We wouldn't be able to convince them to go to the northern kingdoms, the only places we can live there are established cities. The best place to move to is the newly discovered continent in the South, and the people here are used to the climate there. I also don't know how Nightmare will react to an entire town moving out of the region. I can imagine that he wouldn't be too happy with losing money." The rest of the board members nodded in agreement.
"So that makes our only option to go and kill Nightmare." Owen said with a sigh.
"I'm afraid it does." Sean responded with a nod.
"So before we make a plan, Noah, can you give us a detailed explanation on what Nightmare can do?" Owen asked, turning to Noah.
"What?" Noah asked, jolting upright. He had zoned out and stopped listening to the conversation because he thought that the conversation was going in a direction that wouldn't apply to him.
"Could you give us a detailed explanation on what Nightmare can do?" Owen repeated.
"Oh, alright then." Noah said and thought, 'I already told you in my report.' He shot that thought down quickly however and said, "Well, as I
said in my report, he destroyed an entire bandit camp and managed to scare away most of the wildlife in the area."
"Could you go into more detail about the bandit attack?" Sean asked, "How long was the attack, and what were some of the effects of it?"
Noah sighed and nodded, saying, "Well, the attack lasted less than a minute, but the flames stayed ablaze for about 7 minutes afterwards." Noah paused as he remembered the destruction caused by the attack, "The entire clearing was turned to ash. The buildings were gone, the metal rings of the barrels were so hot that a blacksmith could've used them for forging, and the skeletons of the bandits were so charred that just stepping on them caused a massive hole in it. If Nightmare can just pull an attack like that out anytime, I don't think it's possible for us, no, anyone to kill him. That's why I came back."
The people in the room were quiet after that as they were lost in thought, but suddenly the door burst open and William Shield barged in, looking around, and headed straight at Noah and nearly shouted, "You are nothing but an honorless coward." The people were shocked and very confused, Noah even more so.
Philip was the first person to recover and snapped, asking, "What are you doing here young man?"
"I'm here because I heard that Sean was here and I wanted to ask him about my graduation test, but I can't stand a coward like him getting so much attention." William angrily responded, and then he turned to Noah, "What do you mean you came back from your mission! Nightmare isn't immortal!"
At this point Noah went from being shocked and confused to being extremely furious. He stood up and faced William, and also nearly shouted, "What do you know! You didn't watch him scorch an entire bandit camp to ash! You didn't hear their screams as they died! I came back because I didn't want the possibility of Nightmare coming here and having the people here share the same fate!" Noah snapping like this
shocked the members of the board. Noah was very similar to his father in that he kept calm in most situations, but alas, he was still a teenager.
"Most people here would rather die than continue to live under him! You didn't have your father get killed by that bastard, so what do you know! Don't pretend you care about the people here more than your own life; you ran away from killing their biggest threat." William responded, the volume of his voice rising. Sean quickly moved in between them with his arms outstretched in case a fight broke out.
"You two need to calm down." Sean calmly said, looking at the both of them with a stern gaze.
Noah didn't hear him however, or he just didn't care. He took a step towards William, his chest hitting the hand of his father, and said, "I came back so that Nightmare couldn't trace me back to here after I would've been killed."
"Who's saying that Nightmare would've managed to trace you back here? Who's saying that you wouldn't have killed Nightmare? He's not immortal!" William responded, also taking a step forward.
"He may not be immortal, but sure as hell nobody can kill him." Noah responded. After a short pause he added, "If you want to go kill yourself trying to kill Nightmare than go right ahead! Just don't lead him here!"
"You know what! I'll go do that right now because I'm not a coward!" Willam said, shocking everyone, then he turned around and headed out the door, slamming it behind him.