When we left the elder hall, the attitude of the blonde elves had completely changed from before.
Before, they would always look at me with disdain, but now…they were treating me with respect.
As we walked through the village, I could even see them peeking back at me from time to time and whispering a few things.
I would have asked Moon about this if it was before, but now…she had also changed.
Moon was following close behind me and she was looking at me with a strange look.
With the way that she looked at me, I didn't feel like I should disturb her thoughts.
At the very least, the way back wasn't that far, so we were able to reach our residence quite quickly.
To my surprise though, the blonde elves took the initiative to ask if we needed anything.
If this was before, they would have left right away without even sparing a glance.
Then when I told them that we didn't need anything, they only revealed disappointed looks before leaving.
But there was another problem.
Moon was still here.
She didn't leave with the two blonde elves and had been there staring at me the whole time.
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and asked her, "What are you doing?"
It was only then that she snapped out of her daze and realized what she was doing.
So with an awkward and unwilling look, she left as well, finally leaving us humans alone.
Taking this time, I told everyone what had happened. Of course, I made sure to leave out a few things that I didn't feel like they needed to know.
They were very curious about the Mark of Life that had appeared, so I had to show all of them the mark and they all crowded me, but it was different from how the elders had done it. After all, they were concerned about me unlike the elders who only cared about the mark.
So the way that they looked at me felt different from when the elders were staring at me.
It was endearing rather than feeling strange.
This process took all the way to the late afternoon and it was at that time that the two blonde elves came back to pick us up.
They came to bring us to the banquet that had been prepared.
The strange thing was that as soon as they arrived, Moon also appeared out of nowhere.
It was almost as if she had been waiting around the area the whole time…
And as soon as she arrived, she went to the same position as before where she stood behind me, staring at me the whole time.
It was a very uncomfortable experience…
But at the very least, this only lasted until we reached the banquet in the center of the village.
We found that all of the elves of the village were already waiting for us, but they were only staring at one person…me.
It was as if they were all waiting for something as they stared at my forehead.
I could also see the elders looking at me with expectant looks.
So without a choice, I called out the Mark of Life on my forehead.
The moment that it appeared, all of the elves let out shocked gasps and started staring at it with passionate gazes.
This once again made me feel like I was an animal in the zoo that was being stared at, but I had no choice in this matter.
Once they had their fill, they invited us to sit and the banquet began.
The elves were acting completely different from before.
This time, they were filled with friendliness and enthusiasm towards me. This also rubbed off a bit on the other members of our group as they treated the other humans much more warmly compared to before.
It seemed that this Mark of Life did have an effect on these elves, but I was also worried about the cons that would come later…
After the banquet had been ongoing for some time, the green haired elder suddenly called for everyone's attention.
All of the elves immediately stopped what they were doing and turned in that direction. Our group of humans also stopped everything and turned to look at the elders.
Once the green haired elder got everyone's attention, she raised a cup and said, "I would like to call for a toast. Without the help of our human friends, there is no doubt that our forest would have been tainted by the plans of the demons and we would have lost our home."
After she said this, all of the elves couldn't help revealing sad looks, but those looks quickly disappeared. They all lifted their cups and joined in the toast.
Since this was a toast to us, we naturally also lifted our cups and joined in.
After the toast, the green haired elder continued by saying, "I would like to announce that from now on, we will be entering a new relationship with our human friends. They have offered to help us connect to the outside world and after long negotiations, we have agreed to enter a trading relationship with them. So if there is anything that you want from the outside world, please feel free to talk to our human friends about this."
The elves were visibly surprised when they heard this and they couldn't help turning to look at our group.
I had already told everyone about this, so we weren't surprised by this as much as the elves, though there were a few people that were still surprised by this.
However, this wasn't the biggest surprise that came today…
After a pause, the green haired elder continued by saying, "I would also like to announce that in order to deepen our friendship with our human friends, we will be sending a group of envoys to their town to understand humans better. If there is anyone that is interested in this, please talk to Moon as she will be leading this group."
All of us humans couldn't help revealing shocked looks since this was the first time that we were hearing about this.