After moving in front of Haley, Moon raised her hand as if she was protecting Haley.
Apollo couldn't help revealing a surprised and confused look, but then he opened his mouth as if he was about to say something.
However, before he could say anything, Moon said, "We were there as well and we saw the whole thing."
Apollo's mouth froze and then closed as if he was swallowing his words.
Perhaps he could be cold and uncaring to others, but he couldn't treat Moon the same…
So after taking some time to gather his thoughts, Apollo said, "Even if you saw those marks, they could have been left there by the humans,"
Moon raised a brow and said in a voice filled with doubt, "The humans left them?" Then in a colder voice, she said, "How did you expect them to make it into our forest without us noticing and leaving these marks?"
Apollo opened his mouth, but he wasn't able to say anything.
After all, there wasn't anything that he could say in response to this.
If he said that they snuck in, then that would be like admitting that his group was incompetent in their jobs. They were the ones that were in charge of patrolling the forest to make sure that no one snuck in them after all.
But if he were to admit that he was wrong…especially in front of these humans…
He would rather die than do something like that.
So he was stuck in a hard position.
But in the end, he just gave a snort and said, "I don't know how they did it, but it must be a trick that the humans are playing on us."
It was a clever trick to get himself out of this situation, but he was still avoiding the problem which hurt his reputation.
But Moon didn't rub this in and instead said, "We need your help following these tracks. Will you help?"
Apollo once again knitted his brows when he heard this.
This was a request from Moon, so he was inclined to accept.
But at the same time, by accepting and going along with this, it meant that he would have to cooperate with the humans.
This was something that was very hard for him to do…
So instead of simply accepting, Apollo suddenly said, "Even if we do go, we should make sure that the humans are detained during this time." He turned back to look at our group as he said, "There's no knowing what these despicable humans will do while we're gone."
But once again, Moon shook her head and said, "They'll be coming with us."
Apollo's chin couldn't help dropping when he heard this.
He looked at Moon like he couldn't believe what he just heard and seeing that she was looking back at him with that serious look, his expression changed.
He revealed a serious look as well as he said, "That is out of the question. How can we possibly be expected to do what we need to do when we need to guard our backs as well? If we let these humans come along, there is no doubt that they will stab us in the back."
Moon just calmly looked at him and said, "They were the ones that found the tracks in the first place. If they weren't there, we wouldn't have even known what a Sprinting Bird is. We'll need them to come along for that knowledge and just in case something else happens that we don't know about."
Apollo shook his head the moment that he heard this before reiterating, "Does any of that matter when we have enemies right behind us? If we can't even search in peace, how will we be able to accomplish anything?"
He still firmly insisted on his point of view.
But this did make one thing clear…
Even though there were no indications that it was true, he had already taken us as the enemy.
Without even getting to know us, he was already declaring that we had bad intentions towards this elven village.
There was no doubt that he would be planning on taking care of us in the future…
But that was for the future.
Seeing that he wouldn't be convinced with just these words, Moon chose to use her final trump card.
"If we leave the village with all of the warriors and hunters to take down the culprits, then who will be left to watch over them if we detain them here?" Moon said in a very calm voice, almost as if she wasn't affected by this at all.
But it was different for Apollo.
The moment that he heard this, his chin couldn't help dropping as he realized that she was correct.
If they did take everyone with them, then there wouldn't be anyone left in the village that would be able to stop them if the humans did want to do something.
There were a few changes that happened with Apollo's expression until he finally revealed a complicated look.
He took a deep breath and gave a sigh before opening his mouth.
But even then, he wasn't able to say what he wanted to say.
He opened and closed his mouth a few more times before finally saying, "They can come with us, but I'll have my men watching them carefully."
Moon shook her head and said, "I'll watch them personally. That way, you can focus on leading the way."
Apollo was surprised to hear this, but he gave a nod in the end.
After all, she was even saying that he should be the leader of their group, so there was no reason why he shouldn't accept this.
As for watching over the humans, he was fine with leaving this job to Moon.
He might not trust other elves with this kind of job, but it was different for Moon.
After all, there were his personal emotions that were clouding his judgement when it came to this decision.