And So He Became a Teacher

The autumn morning light filtered through the woods, spreading across the ground like a golden carpet.

Birds perched on the branches, looking around and occasionally hopping about as they chirped and chattered.

Mushrooms of all colors could be found around the roots of the trees, growing well under the shelter of their shade.

But before one mushroom could properly enjoy the fresh morning air, someone plucked it out with a muttered curse.

"This one, and this one's edible too."

Dressed in a practical tank top and shorts, Galan jogged through the woods for his morning exercise, sweating profusely as he searched for things to eat in the wild.

He still carried that burlap sack on his back. Besides the mushrooms he had just picked, it held quite a few wild fruits, all bouncing up and down as he traversed the uneven ground.

To save money on ingredients, he had spent the past few days gathering whatever he could find during his morning workouts. Whether it was edible or not, he would take it home and see.

He wasn't quite that poor yet, but Lia mercilessly ruined a large amount of food every time she practiced cooking, making Galan think he had to tighten their budget—he had to make her understand how much work went into every grain of food.

Every time he watched her cook, he got the impression that groceries didn't cost anything. If something tasted even slightly wrong, she would dump the whole pot and start over...

His fifteen-kilometer morning run ended just as he neared home. He gradually slowed down and caught his breath, letting his heartbeat settle before starting on push-ups.

He didn't know exactly how a warrior was supposed to train. He didn't seem to have seen any specific training methods in the manga and anime he had watched before, and Duncan didn't know much about it either.

But in any case, these exercises from his previous life could at least help improve his physical fitness to some extent.

After everything that had happened, Galan felt that his physical training and control were woefully inadequate. He couldn't even draw out this body's original strength yet.

Simply put, as a warrior, what he needed now was to constantly hone his body and all aspects of his physical ability.

He hadn't had a clear grasp of his own strength before, but after fighting Charas, he understood that without greater combat strength, he wouldn't even be able to flee when faced with a powerful demon.

This world was dangerous after all, especially in the northern reaches of the Northern Countries, where he lived.

Compared with the inland regions, this area was closer to the Northern Plateau, where monsters and demons were more likely to appear. Without the strength to protect himself, he could very well die for no apparent reason one day.

Although the Demon King had been slain by the hero Himmel and his party decades ago, remnants of the Demon King's Army and some greater demons still roamed the world.

Especially recently, the remnants of the Demon King's Army had been appearing far more frequently in the Northern Countries and the Northern Plateau. Many villages and small cities had been massacred, forcing the Northern Countries to form a united army to hunt them down.

"What a restless bunch..."

Galan counted as he pondered.

Next year, once I've gotten a little stronger, I'll take Lia to the Central Lands.

Come to think of it, there are a little over four years until the next Half-Century Meteor Shower. Going somewhere livelier to celebrate might be a good idea.

Rogley was a major city famous in the surrounding area, but it still fell far short of the imperial capital, Eisberg.

Although the Shadow Warriors Organization operated there in secret, giving him some cause for unease, he still thought the inland regions would be safer than facing the cold-blooded, ruthless demons.

He only had to hide well enough to avoid being discovered. He knew just how perceptive those people were, but as an outside operative whose information had already been destroyed, he shouldn't attract anyone's attention.

Unless there was still someone who knew him, but aside from his original commander—who, as he recalled, seemed to have died long ago—there couldn't be anyone left who recognized him.

"198... 199... 200!"

He rose slowly from the ground, the aching sensation in his muscles leaving him momentarily dazed. But then the feeling of being able to command every inch of muscle in his body as he pleased sent him soaring.

It seemed he really had been neglecting his training. All it took was one workout to get his body going, and the original owner's terrifying physical abilities were on full display.

As expected of a member of the Shadow Warriors, he had probably been an elite in the organization.

If he had still had his body from his previous life, he wouldn't have dared imagine doing so much exercise in one go without feeling tired.

He swung his arms and stretched his body.

After brushing the dirt off himself, he picked up the burlap sack and headed home.

"Swish—"

A brilliant beam shot from the cliff, strikingly conspicuous in the air.

The Ordinary Offensive Magic, or rather, Killing Magic, that Lia had cast flew straight toward a huge boulder on a distant mountaintop.

But before it could reach the boulder, it had already lost more than half its power. Her control over the beam also gradually slipped, and its trajectory slowly veered off course, until in the end it failed to leave much of a mark on the rock.

"You're tired. Take a break. Your concentration is already slipping badly, and you can't control your magic precisely like that."

Duncan's tone was as calm as ever, but he really did look like a proper magic teacher.

Although Galan had tricked him into coming, once he had agreed, he had taught Lia conscientiously, making Galan feel guilty as he watched.

Sure enough, you can't screw over a friend like this and still have a conscience.

Lia lowered the fire poker and crouched down on the ground, looking a little tired.

These past few days, whenever Galan got up early to exercise, she had struggled out of bed too, rubbing her sleepy eyes.

Then, under Duncan's guidance, she used the charred wand to practice simple Defensive Magic and Ordinary Offensive Magic.

Even though, at over three hundred years old, she would still be considered no more than an adolescent among the elves, she possessed an amount of mana that human mages could never hope to reach.

After all, increasing one's mana required years of training, and long-lived races had an inherent advantage in that respect.

Lia had not only attained a very high level in training her mana, but her talent also far surpassed that of an excellent mage like Duncan. He had admitted this himself on his first day teaching her.

As expected of an elf. If Reed were here, he'd surely be drooling with envy.

Still, it was hard to imagine how intensely she must have trained to exhaust enough of her vast mana in that time to leave herself tired.

She's really working hard. I only mentioned the idea of training in magic in passing before.

But she seemed to have a great enthusiasm for learning magic to begin with. Even before Duncan arrived, she had studied "A History of Magic" in her spare time and done all sorts of magic training on her own.

Come to think of it, shouldn't I get her a more decent wand? That fire poker is a little too shabby...