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To call it porcelain would be too high a level, and to call it earthenware, it was glazed with a blue color like the bricks that made up the gate. I picked up the well-made cup and drank the liquid inside.

‘…A little better than dishwater.’

I thought as I drank the tea Araya had served.

In my past life, the greasy food of the Central Plains and the aftereffects of alcohol were too much for my weakened body, and in reality, the only thing I could truly enjoy was tea.

My family used me as a useless scholar, but at least they weren’t stingy when it came to such pleasures.

Thanks to that, I had tasted almost all of the teas called the best in the world.

Bai Hao Yin Zhen, West Lake Longjing, Tieguanyin, En Shi Yu Lu, Huangshan Mao Feng, Da Hong Pao.

Compared to the teas that required special effort and labor for the ultimate taste and aroma, the liquid that was presented as tea this time was just water boiled with dried leaves.

I sighed with an ambiguous expression and put down the cup.

I feel uncomfortable stares.

“Did you not like it?”

The woman stuck to me as soon as I put down the tea with a dissatisfied expression.

“Weren’t you an aide to King Frigos? Is it okay for you to be doing this right now?”

“The King told me to treat our honored guest with the utmost care.”

Araya smiled quietly, exuding a somewhat seductive atmosphere on her innocent face.

I clicked my tongue inwardly. In the water in the cup, dried plants used as tea leaves were floating around.

Since meeting King Frigos two weeks ago, he had been sending me overwhelmingly friendly gestures.

After the monumental first official meeting between the Elf and humans, King Frigos brought precious foods, drinks, and treasures.

The problem was that his intentions were obvious, and food develops when you have the leisure to enjoy culture, so the simply greasy food was inedible, I had never drunk alcohol before so I was curious but refused, and I wasn’t very interested in gold or roughly crafted jewels.

He kept asking me if I needed anything, so I asked for the tea I used to enjoy in my past life, and that’s how it’s been ever since.

Perhaps because I directly said what I wanted, instead of them forcibly giving me gifts, they were very proactive.

They didn’t know if humans drank tea or what tea was, so I told them the characteristics, and they started collecting all the fragrant plants and boiling them one by one to bring to me.

‘…I need to find the tea tree first.’

I had only seen the finished product, and I didn’t know what the raw material, the tea tree, looked like.

In the first place, the flora of my past life and this world were different, so it was unlikely that they would look the same.

However, it was also a chore to keep drinking the unidentified liquid disguised as tea that they served me in different varieties several times a week.

‘It would be easier if they showed hostility.’

I recalled the events of two weeks ago that led to this situation.

I visited the palace at the invitation of King Frigos.

After talking with King Frigos for a while amidst the nervous soldiers.

When the atmosphere softened a little with my short travelogue, King Frigos asked me to demonstrate martial arts.

He must have been trying to steal the secret technique by calling martial arts a divine power.

I thought the trick was cute, so I used the sword’s cry with sound waves, as if telling him to try and steal it, and knocked out all the soldiers in an instant.

The problem started there.

Honestly, I was a little conceited after the demonstration of the sword’s cry, but I didn’t know that it would lead to the human king suddenly kneeling.

After a word, he suddenly hardened his face, knelt down, put his head on the ground, and asked me to teach him martial arts.

It wouldn’t be a big problem that I couldn’t even manage my expression at the time due to the unexpected turn of events.

Since then, the king has been acting humble and, to put it bluntly, begging for martial arts.

He wasn’t showing hostility, but rather showing goodwill by giving gifts that were precious to them, so it was quite annoying.

‘I was thinking of releasing the martial arts restricted to humans…’

I was planning to spread it gradually, adjusting the speed of propagation, but seeing the human king’s proactive attitude and radical way of thinking to the point of kneeling, it seemed that the spread of martial arts could spread rapidly.

‘Even if it’s difficult to control the spread, I can officially gain influence in the human world.’

The qualification of being the human king’s teacher.

In the Central Plains, wouldn’t that be equivalent to acquiring the authority of a Grand Scholar of the Inner Cabinet or higher?

Considering that there are no scholars like Confucius and Mencius in academics, and no teachers like Zhang Sanfeng, the Perfected Person, or Bodhidharma in martial arts, and no thinkers and great masters to serve as milestones, it might be even greater.

However, even if I had the talent as a useless scholar, I wasn’t particularly good at calculating political aspects based on the influence I had acquired.

That’s why I was still worried because I couldn’t make a proper decision.

I stopped the endless worries that had been swirling in my head for the past few days, got up from the table, and headed outside.

“Are you going for a walk? I will accompany you.”

I turned around to look at Araya, who was following me three steps behind, and pouted my lips.

“If the King’s aide spends the whole day accompanying me, other people will think I’m the king.”

“The King told me to treat and serve Araya-nim as if she were himself, so you’re not entirely wrong.”

Araya, who smiled brightly, never lost a word.

Based on my experience since Araya started accompanying me, I thought that I would only lose if I said more, and walked through the palace.

While wandering around the palace with my head empty, I felt a familiar energy and moved towards it.

“I don’t know what this is.”

“That’s the deer that Elf was carrying around. Araya-unni and Frigos are treating her like they’d give her their liver and gall, so we have to do something too.”

“Even so, do we have to take care of feeding the animals?”

They were maids, or rather, Araya’s sisters, Succubi (that’s what they call bat-humans).

Pak!

“Ack! This beast won’t eat again!”

“Kyaa! It licked my chest!”

“…Should I kill it?”

“Hold on. Araya-unni will kill us if we kill it.”

“…It was eating soybean leaves well until recently.”

“What else can a deer eat?”

“Does it eat bamboo shoots?”

“Maybe it will?”

Some were quietly moving around, but the Succubi, who were throwing away soybean leaves and bringing bamboo shoots to split, were so distracted that they didn’t seem to notice that we were watching.

I sighed as I looked at Rudolph, who was being picky about the food the Succubi brought with a haughty face.

When he was traveling on the road, he ate everything without being picky, but as soon as people started treating him a little better, he started acting up.

He was a sly guy for a deer.

“I’m sorry.”

“No. It would be enough if Araya-nim’s annoyance is lessened even a little.”

I sighed and started walking again.

After walking for a while, I arrived at an area where I could feel the commotion again.

“This! Is the secret training method of the Elves!”

“”Ooh…!”

“Everything starts with the basics! You must properly feel the sensation in your quadriceps and glutes!”

“…What is that guy doing there?”

Judging from the materials laid on the floor in the palace’s open space, it seemed to be a space that served as a training ground.

And what I saw was soldiers taking a horse stance together, following the boy who was demonstrating in front.

The boy who was demonstrating was Duber, the gambler from the former Edral family who I had left in the accommodation when I was invited by King Frigos.

I felt absurd at the sight of Duber teaching the horse stance to the soldiers, and as I approached the training ground, the soldiers’ gazes focused on me.

Unlike the soldiers who froze as soon as they looked at me, Duber, who noticed me when he turned his head because the soldiers’ expressions were strange, released his horse stance and ran to me.

“You’ve arrived! Mas.ter.!”

“…Master?”

I was taken aback by the way he was treating me with such respect, even though he had said he didn’t need to be taught martial arts when I said I would teach him, and he had grumbled when I made him do the horse stance.

“…Okay, what’s going on here?”

When I asked in a suspicious voice, Duber puffed out his chest and said in a loud voice, as if he wanted others to hear.

“The soldiers were curious about martial arts from me, your dis.ci.ple., so I was teaching them the basics of martial arts. Me, your dis.ci.ple.!”

I felt a headache coming on instantly.

Since when did he become my disciple?

All I’ve taught him so far is the horse stance and the basic grip for assassination techniques.

The soldiers were glancing at me, looking somewhat proud, and the soldiers were taking the horse stance, but looking at him with somewhat envious expressions.

I could roughly guess.

I was being treated with the utmost respect by King Frigos, and the soldiers were treating him with respect because he said he was my disciple, so he must have become conceited.

Maybe they’re trying to extract secrets through Duber.

The problem is that he hasn’t taught them anything yet.

A horse stance, really.

In Duber’s case, it was absolutely necessary because he had an abnormally developed, deformed form with only his arms, but the soldiers had experienced quite a few battles, so their upper body muscles were a little more developed, but their overall balance wasn’t bad.

Of course, it would be good if their lower body, which is the foundation, was strong by doing the horse stance, but…

The soldiers were being deceived by my halo and following an immature brat who was far inferior to them, as if it were a great secret containing great principles.

‘…Should I teach this guy martial arts?’

I don’t really care about his love for martial arts like Shadow Step or the wrong methods being established among humans, but if the fact that I took in such a fraudulent guy as my disciple goes down in history… I’d honestly be embarrassed.

Duber stretched out his neck towards my right ear and whispered.

‘Master, shouldn’t I learn proper martial arts soon?’

‘…You said you didn’t want to learn before.’

‘I’m still your disciple, aren’t I? I’m the disciple of the master who even King Teacher respects, so how can I not be able to use proper martial arts?’

I ignored my words and placed my palm on Duber’s solar plexus, only saying what he wanted to say.

King Teacher? Respects?

‘Duber. He’s my disciple.’

Duber smiled brightly, as if he remembered me placing my palm on his vital points and taking care of his body at the accommodation.

“Yes! Master!”

“You need mental training first.”

“Yes? Keok——————Heukeok”

Taang!

Duber, who felt something strange on my face that hardened for a moment and tried to pull his body away, was hit by the shockwave that spread from his solar plexus and flew all the way to the center of the training ground.

The soldiers looked at Duber, who was sprawled out in the center of the training ground like a trampled frog, then looked at me and started clapping one by one.

“”Ooh…!”

“…Let’s go back to the room.”

I said to Araya, stroking my forehead because of the throbbing headache.

Araya, who understood the atmosphere, followed quietly without saying a word.

‘…I’m the one who’s lost and worried, but other guys are having fun.’

On the way back to the room, I gave the arrogant deer, who was chewing on the bamboo shoots prepared by the Succubi and snickering, a feeling of flying in the sky.