The Last Lesson

The three of them arrived at a wide, open clearing.

This place was a great distance away from home, so there was no need to worry regardless of what kind of commotion they kicked up.

"Duncan, are you serious?"

Galan stood at the edge of the clearing, a trace of hesitation still lingering on his face.

This was the third time he had asked this question.

When Duncan proposed conducting a mage duel,

not only Lia,

he too had frozen in place.

No one had told him beforehand that there was going to be such a development.

After all, this was Duncan.

Even if he was not currently at the peak of his life,

he was still not someone a fledgling mage like Lia could handle.

That gap in experience was not something other things could make up for.

Even though the total amount of mana Lia possessed far exceeded Duncan's,

facing such a seasoned mage,

she could hardly bring her own advantages into play.

"She has to gain real combat experience. This is the only chance. You can understand why that is, right, Galan?"

Duncan turned his head and shot him a meaningful look.

"Neither you nor I can protect her by her side forever."

He turned back around.

At that moment,

Duncan's face put on that serious expression once again.

It was as if the girl standing before him was not the disciple he had accompanied all this time,

but some unknown, hateful Demon.

Galan could tell

that the aura radiating from him

did not look like a joke at all.

Duncan intended to make his move seriously.

Mana without any reservation erupted from Duncan,

filling this space with the oppression of mana.

Even Galan, who was watching from the side, felt that terrifying might that could erupt at any moment.

The last time he saw Duncan like this

was when the three of them faced Charas together...

He was forcing Lia to make a move.

Facing her teacher, she still held some psychological resistance after all.

She just stood there at a loss,

her face written all over with hesitation and her mind in turmoil.

Swish----

A white light flashed,

and a beam shot forth from Duncan's staff,

shearing off a section of golden hair fluttering by Lia's ear.

The severed strand of hair drifted slowly down through the air.

Meanwhile, her eyes widened slightly in surprise,

as if she had failed to react at all.

"Don't hesitate—that's a fatal mistake! If this were facing a Demon, you'd already be dead."

Duncan's face remained completely devoid of ripples.

The hand holding the staff was extremely steady, and his strike was thoroughly decisive.

He was a disciple raised by the strongest of the Demons, the [Seven Sages of Destruction] Macht, and a member of the Empire's Court Mages.

The hardships and trials he had experienced up to now were beyond what ordinary people could imagine.

He was one of the most outstanding individuals among the younger generation of human mages.

Precisely because of that, he would never let his disciple

----even if she had only been his pupil for a few months----

go out to face her future life like a rookie with zero practical combat experience.

It was not that he did not trust Galan,

but Lia had to possess sufficiently strong self-preservation abilities.

An elf's life would be unimaginably long.

When the people around who could protect her vanished from this world one after another,

the only person Lia would be able to depend on was herself.

"Move! Are you afraid you'll hurt me? I am your teacher, after all."

Hearing those words,

Lia finally banished that trace of worry from her eyes

and snapped out of her initial daze.

The mana cultivated over three hundred and some years surged forth, crushing the force field Duncan was radiating.

With this kind of total mana amount, even among Demons, one could hardly find a single person of the same generation who could overpower her.

"Now this is more like it..."

Unnoticed,

the corners of Duncan's mouth curved up slightly.

"[Flawless Wind]"

As the Ebony Staff swung smoothly,

the air around Lia writhed as if it had life.

Centered on her, it turned into a powerful vortex.

Countless wind blades were born from within it, flying toward Duncan from every angle, carrying the momentum to slice through all things.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The ground that suddenly rose up formed a sturdy stone wall, blocking in front of Duncan.

The sharp wind blades left deep cuts upon it one after another, being intercepted without exception.

"[Earth-Controlling Magic]"

That was Reed's move!

Galan, who was watching the two of them nervously from the side, could not help but cry out.

Seeing this familiar magic, he could almost see that motor-mouthed middle-aged uncle talking eloquently right in front of him.

That was something Duncan learned by asking Reed for instruction after the great battle against Charas ended.

Although he could not yet wield it as proficiently as Reed,

the fact that he could rapidly put it to use in combat within this short amount of time

was enough to show the strength of Duncan's judgment and imagination.

In front of sufficiently strong [Quality Magic], it was very difficult to break through the opponent's moves using only [Elemental Magic].

Lia sidestepped nimbly to dodge the offensive magic shot from behind the stone wall,

then extended her hand

to deploy a [Defensive Magic] of extremely small area behind her,

blocking that attack which had missed its mark and then curved back to launch a sneak attack from the rear.

The Ebony Staff swung out rapidly,

and five magic circles formed around her body at an astonishing speed.

Soon—

truly quite soon.

Having gone through this period of training,

Lia's proficiency in casting magic had advanced to an even higher level,

and her spellcasting speed nowadays could almost be called a generation-defining existence.

Among the mages Galan had seen up to now, there was no one who could cast faster than her

----not even Duncan.

Duncan, who had originally flown into the air and intended to unleash large-scale offensives to stabilize the situation,

was also caught off guard by these five sudden [Attack Magic] spells.

There were several more battered tears on his robe.

A shallow wound was also left on his shoulder.

His gaze lingered on the wound for only a brief moment,

but having personally experienced Lia's spellcasting speed, he immediately changed his strategy.

Returning to the ground from mid-air, he summoned several more stone pillars once again, obstructing her line of sight.

Behind the stone pillars, in Lia's blind spot,

Duncan was performing a long incantation, preparing to cast magic to break the deadlock.

"[Tornado Magic]"

After many launched attacks failed due to the cover of the stone pillars,

Lia flew up into mid-air and released this large-scale magic from the sky,

intending to force Duncan out with it.

Boosted by the staff, the ferocious tornado's might even surpassed the tornado Duncan had previously summoned.

To Galan, this strategy was undoubtedly correct.

After all, the purpose of Duncan's choice to fight a "positional war" was to unilaterally exhaust his opponent.

If she could not force him out, no matter what methods she deployed, they would be dodged effortlessly by his flexible movement among the stone pillars.

She ought to have been a fledgling, yet the way Lia presented herself was by no means like a student who had just received magic education.

When all was said and done, the two of them had actually overlooked one point.

How could an elf who had lived until now by her own accord, possessing over three hundred years of life,

possibly be a vase who knew nothing whatsoever about combat?