Yeah, I can see the mangaka really cooking in this chapter with those panels. And I can see why MC and the girls are not disclosing his real race and letting those elves assumes he's a human. To advocate that not all humans are evil. Because if you think about it, they can easily get free-pass and respect if they reveal that MC is a Dragonman from the start, but they didn’t. Instead, they went with a roundabout approach, with drama and misunderstanding etc etc. I think that’s what the author want to convey to the readers.