I couldn't help taking a step back when I heard this, but that just caused the green haired elder to come forward.
She quickly grabbed my shoulders and moved her face towards mine.
But of course, she wasn't planning on doing anything as her eyes were completely focused on my forehead.
With the way that she was focused on my forehead, it was almost as if her gaze was about to burn a hole through it.
I just revealed that same bitter smile as I waited for her to finish.
Finally, the green haired elder asked, "Where did that mark go? You need to understand just how important this mark is and the disappearance of a single one of these marks is a very important matter!"
I was about to say something, but then the same voice rang out through my head saying, "You can make it appear again."
I was surprised to hear this, but I didn't waste any time doing this.
With a thought, the mark appeared on my forehead again.
When the green haired elder saw this, she looked at this mark on my forehead with the utmost focus before saying, "How? How did you do this?"
As she said this, she grabbed me and pulled me in even closer than before to carefully look at the mark on my forehead.
I just gave a bitter laugh before saying, "I just thought about it and made it disappear. Then when I wanted to appear, I just thought about it and it appeared again."
The green haired elder revealed a very strange look when she heard this.
After a long silence, she finally said in a strange voice, "It…it can do that?"
I didn't know what to say since I knew even less about the mark than her, but I still gave a nod in the end.
The green haired elder just stared at the Mark of Life on my forehead for a long while she muttered, "Well, no one has ever tried something like this before, so it could be a feature of the Mark of Life. After all, no one would want the Mark of Life to disappear since this would mean that one was no longer blessed by the Goddess of Life…"
She kept muttering about all kinds of different things that I didn't understand.
Finally, she slowly let go of my shoulder and took a step back.
Seeing that she was calming down, I asked, "What is so special about this Mark of Life?"
The green haired elder was pulled out of her thoughts and she looked at me with a confused look before suddenly saying, "It's the mark of a god, isn't that special enough?"
I opened my mouth and revealed a surprised look, not knowing how to respond to this.
After all…she was right!
This was a mark that was received from a god, so that alone made it special enough…
But that wasn't what I meant.
The green haired elder also understood this, so she continued by saying, "It isn't that special among the humans, but among the elves that worship the Goddess of Life, it is a very important matter. There aren't many that are blessed by the Goddess of Life in the first place, so those that do are usually regarded as the envoys of the goddess."
Her expression became even more strange as she looked at me and after a pause, she added, "Even if you are a human, just by receiving this mark, you will be regarded as an important person in our elven society."
I couldn't help knitting my brows when I heard this.
This was something that had both good and bad implications.
The good implication was that in future dealings with the elves, there was no doubt that this would help me make a good impression on the elves. With this mark, I would certainly be more welcomed by the elves.
And there was no doubt that I would have more dealings with the elves after opening trade up with this elven village.
The bad thing was that there was no doubt that I would be dragged into elven politics because of this.
Even if the elves lived a free life, there was no way that they would be able to resist the other races if they just kept acting this way.
The only way that they would have the power to resist the other races is if they formed some kind of united front, which was what the elven kingdom was.
The elves were still allowed to move freely, but it was the influence of the elven kingdom that allowed them to move across borders like this.
So no matter how free the elves were, they had no choice but to form a government that involved politics.
With this mark, I would surely be dragged into those elven politics…
There were ups and downs to each side of this decision.
But at the very least, I would be able to hide this and slowly make a decision.
After thinking this through, I made the decision to make the Mark of Life disappear.
When the green haired elder saw this, she gave a sigh as if she was acknowledging my decision, but she didn't say anything about it.
She just said, "We have to announce this to the village at least."
I looked at her for a bit before giving a nod.
This would make it easier for me to negotiate with the elves in the village which would help open up trade between our two sides.
Though there was the risk of exposing this to the other elves, the benefits that came from it were much greater than the risks.
I didn't oppose going along with this.
With this settled, the green haired elder gave a satisfied nod before turning to lead us back to the village.
As I left, I couldn't help feeling that there was something that was watching us.
But then again, when I thought about it, there was something that was watching us.
This was the territory of Vivrum, so of course she was watching over us.
So as we left, I waved behind me to say goodbye.
I didn't know why, but it felt like there was something waving back to me.