With this compromise made, they quickly started gathering everyone.
Not a single member that was summoned hesitated or delayed since they knew how important this matter was for the elven village.
There were two schools of thought about taking the humans along though.
One was that they shouldn't be bringing the humans along since all that would mean is more danger for them.
These were the warriors that were led by Apollo, as well as a few of the hunters led by Moon.
The other school of thought was that they should trust the humans and bring them along as helpers.
There were the hunters that were led by Moon, but not all of them. Just the ones that had gone with them this afternoon to search the area and had seen everything that Haley had done.
They had to admit that she was quite handsome when she had answered all the questions that the elders had.
But no matter what school of thought they were, they had no choice but to bring the humans along since both Moon and Apollo endorsed this.
Once they had finished gathering, Apollo took the lead by saying, "We will now head into the forest to find the ones that are responsible for defiling our beautiful forest."
As he said this, his eyes couldn't help turning to our group.
It was almost as if he was saying…that we were the ones that were responsible for all of this.
In response to this, there were a few pairs of eyes that turned to look in our direction.
However, what was surprising was that most people ignored this and kept looking at Apollo, as if they were focused on the mission. It was as if they weren't interested in playing the blame game right now.
But when one thought about how important this mission was for the elves, they couldn't be blamed.
This was the destruction of their home that they were trying to solve, they didn't have time for petty things like this.
After he finished giving his speech, Apollo gave a wave of his hand for everyone to follow before heading out into the forest.
This time, the air around him had also changed.
Unlike before where he was rude and flippant, he now had the determination and seriousness that a head warrior should have.
It seemed that he was the kind of person that acted the way he wanted most of the time, but he got things done when he was needed.
As we headed through the forest, Moon moved closer to our group.
There were also a few of Apollo's warriors that stayed near, but they didn't come as close as Moon and her followers.
After she came close, she said with a sigh, "I'm sorry, this was the only way."
I shook my head and said, "As long as we can accomplish our goal, it's a good method."
As for what she was apologizing for, it was letting Apollo be the leader for this mission.
After all, this was the only way that she could get him to compromise to let them come along.
Moon had grown up with Apollo, so she had a good idea of what kind of personality he had.
He was someone that wanted to stand out and wanted to be the leader, so she used this against him. By offering him the role of leader instead of having to watch over the humans, he had backed down and let her take care of this matter.
But the problem was that he was the leader.
In a situation like this where anything could go wrong, a leader was a very important thing. Especially a leader that would be able to make calm and unbiased decisions.
This was a matter that involved everyone's lives, so an incompetent leader would mean trouble for everyone.
While Apollo wasn't an incompetent leader since he was the head warrior of the elven village, he was far from being unbiased. He wouldn't be able to act impartial when things became tough, so it would be hardest on…the humans.
That was the main reason why Moon had apologized in the first place.
She knew that this would just put them in even more danger.
But I knew that this was the only way.
There was no way that Apollo would have accepted this arrangement if there wasn't anything in it for him, so this was for the best.
I also had something that I was hiding, so in a sense, it was balanced.
Moon still had an apologetic look on her face, but she didn't say anything else. She just made sure that she stayed close to our group while we were moving through the forest.
This was her way of making it up to us.
As long as she was here, then Apollo's subordinates wouldn't do anything.
After traveling for a while, we arrived at the spot from this afternoon.
This was the area where we had found the tracks.
But before going in, the elves took some time to adjust themselves to the area devoid of magic power. If they rushed into it, they would have all collapsed just like Moon had done this afternoon.
Once we arrived and we showed Apollo the tracks, he had a few choice words for us.
"These are the tracks that you've found? These are nothing more than scratches on the dirt!"
Though the other elves didn't say anything, it was clear by the looks on their faces that they didn't believe this.
Even some of the hunters who hadn't been with us this afternoon had the same looks.
But Moon came forward and said, "I've already checked this and have confirmed that these are indeed tracks."
Since it was Moon that spoke, Apollo's tone softened as he said, "But this is just some markings, it can't mean anything."
Hearing this, Moon narrowed her eyes to look at Apollo before saying, "Then do you have any other clues? If you do, we can follow them."
Apollo revealed a bitter smile for the first time before saying with a sigh, "Alright, we'll follow these tracks."
If it was anyone else, he would have never backed down like this.
It was only with Moon that he would do this.
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