Suspected Necromancer

Chapter 18 – Luna and Logan

“What is the condition?”

Luna only got bad vibes from the eccentric old man’s statement.

“Fight me. Seriously. Even after becoming my disciple, I want you to fight me once a month.”

Logan responded with delight.
Fight? With this old man? Luna was puzzled.

“Um, I’m an Immortal King, so I think I’m pretty strong. If I’m not careful, you might die…”

Luna’s current power was formidable. She wasn’t sure if she could hold back.

“You fool, it’s obvious I’m stronger, right? Who do you think I am? I’m the legendary archmage! They write about me in all the magic textbooks and stuff, you know?
And here you are, getting all cocky just because you became some little vampire. You’ll probably end up on some vampire subjugation list. Fool~, fool~.”

His attitude was truly infuriating. Luna hadn’t chosen to become an Immortal King willingly. She had given up many things, endured hardships, and finally made it this far.
Luna’s body trembled with anger.

“…You want to fight right now?”

Luna thought, ‘I’ll beat him to a pulp’.

“Sure, why not? Come at me.”

Logan moved his index finger twice in a beckoning gesture, taunting her.
Seeing that, Luna charged at Logan. In a single leap, she closed the distance and struck him on the head as hard as she could.
The small old man was propelled by the force of the blow, bouncing twice on the ground before coming to a motionless stop.

“Huh? No way? He was acting all high and mighty, but he died just like that?”

Luna was dumbfounded, not expecting Logan to be defeated so easily.

“What a shame, so you’re the type that doesn’t take care of the elderly? The type to bully their old father-in-law after getting married?”

A voice came from behind. When she turned around, Logan was pointing a staff at her.

“Too bad, that was an illusion. Did you enjoy it?”

With those words, Luna was slammed by a powerful impact, her body arcing through the air.
Her body rolled onto the ground, and an intense pain she had never experienced before coursed through her body.
However, as an Immortal King, Luna was resilient. Grimacing from the pain, she managed to stand up quickly.

“Oh, impressive, as expected of an Immortal King.”

Logan was quite pleased.

“…Why are we fighting? Did Master… Did you fight with Khan?”

Luna asked while pressing down on her body where she got hit.
Khan wasn’t the type of mage who enjoyed combat. It was hard to believe he would have studied as a disciple under Logan in this way.

“Khan? He’s such a serious guy, I probably had to be paid to take him as a disciple. Maybe I received money or some other stuff, who knows. I don’t remember. So you know Khan?”

“Khan was my master. If he paid you to be your disciple, then I shouldn’t have to fight you for it, right?”

Luna didn’t particularly like violence either. It’d be better if she could become Logan’s disciple in a normal way.

“No way. I finally got an opponent I can fight with my full power, so of course, I want to fight.”

Logan stuck out his tongue, rejecting Luna’s request.

“With your full power? What do you mean?”

“You’re slow on the uptake. An Immortal King is literally ‘immortal’, it’s in the name! In other words, no matter how much of my magic you eat, you won’t die. There’s no better plaything than that, right? So I want to fight you.”

In essence, he wanted to test his magic on her. He was truly an unreasonable old man.

“Understood. If that’s what you want, then make me your disciple.”

Luna declared.

“And someday, I’ll definitely beat you.”

──

Logan’s training turned out to be surprisingly helpful.
He emphasized the basics and meticulously guided Luna through the processes of each individual spell.
Luna focused primarily on adjusting her magic power output.
She constantly reminded herself not to use her magic at full throttle, but rather be conscious of using an appropriate amount of magic.

“If you only need a cup of water, you shouldn’t use enough water to fill a whole bathtub.”

Logan would say, instructing her to use as little magic as possible.
For Luna, who had believed that stronger magic was always better, this required a change in mindset.
Additionally, becoming an Immortal King had made her magic power excessively strong, making controlling it a challenging feat.

Nighttime still brought about the torment of bloodthirst. Sometimes, unable to endure it, she would attack Logan, only to be easily repelled.

“No matter how charming I might be, resorting to force is not the way.”

He would say every time she attacked, leaving her to taste humiliation. While the statement wasn’t technically incorrect, it still left her with a deeply uncomfortable feeling.
Nevertheless, she was provided with a magic recovery potion every three days, allowing her to avoid extreme physical exhaustion.

The training continued for years, gradually allowing her to control her magic power better.
As a result, she began to sense the flow of magic power within her body, and then she could grasp the flow of magic power outside her body.
She finally understood the meaning of Logan’s words, ‘magic is everywhere.’
She started needing the magic recovery potion less and less, eventually only needing it once a month.
However, it took Luna 20 years to reach this level of mastery.

──

In the wilderness, a bit removed from Banukut, Luna and Logan stood facing each other.
Today was the day of their monthly showdown.
Behind Luna stood a multitude of undead. Led by dozens of Grim Reapers, they were a diverse assembly of creatures turned into zombies, skeletons, and more.
These undead were Luna’s amassed army gathered from the surroundings to defeat Logan. They were growing more powerful day by day.

With a snap of Luna’s fingers, the undead dispersed and surrounded Logan. This tactical maneuver prevented him from using magic to annihilate them all at once.
And then, they attacked in unison. Logan remained composed. He tapped his staff on the ground, causing cracks to spread from that spot as the earth began to split open.
The undead were swallowed one after another into the crevices, but undeterred by and unafraid of death, some of them marched forward and reached Logan.
A Grim Reaper swung its scythe down, but Logan leaped into the air and hovered. The ground where he had stood moments before collapsed completely, and the remaining undead were obliterated.
However, there was something else aiming for Logan in midair. A bone dragon.
Despite not being designed to fly, it soared with bony wings and attacked Logan with its exposed fangs.
This bone dragon was a creature Luna had spent months locating, and it was the trump card for this battle.

“Where did you manage to find something like this?”

Logan said, wielding his staff and lightly tapping the approaching creature’s head. The bones of the dragon shattered into pieces, dispersing and falling to the ground. Logan had dispelled Luna’s spell.
Luna was nowhere to be seen on the ground. She had leaped above Logan without him noticing and delivered a powerful kick.

“Ha!”

With swift movements, Logan received the kick on his staff, causing Luna’s body to come to an abrupt halt in midair.

“Too bad, better luck next time.”

With those words, Luna’s body suddenly grew heavy, plummeting at a tremendous speed. The ground rippled like water as she crash landed.

“I win again.”

Logan softly smiled. Luna remained buried in the ground, gazing at the sky as she thought.

“And I lost again.”

Luna had never defeated Logan even once.
Despite coming up with innovative spells, refining tactics, and engaging in countless battles, Logan remained undefeated.
He freely taught Luna the magic he used, yet even after understanding his techniques, Logan always had a variety of different strategies up his sleeve, ready to apply them in versatile ways.
In terms of magic power, they were evenly matched- no, Luna had the edge. However, the gap in experience was what held her back. This gap remained unbridged no matter how much time passed. This was because Logan, in their battles, constantly devised new spells and tactics. He truly loved studying magic.

However, Luna found something peculiar. Logan was an old man when she first met him, and he hadn’t changed a bit. It had already been 30 years since she became his disciple.

When she asked Logan about this, he replied.

“Just like magic power, life force is consumable. If you avoid wasting it, you can live longer.”

Essentially, if you did nothing and spent no life force, you could live indefinitely.

“Well then, wouldn’t you live even longer if you didn’t teach me magic or fight with me?”

Luna tilted her head.

“Are you an idiot? If that were the case, what would the point of learning magic be? Magic is enjoyable because I get to use it. There’s no meaning in learning magic you won’t use. I became a mage because I wanted to use cool, flashy magic. It’s the joy of being a mage.”

Luna thought it was a very Logan-like answer.
And so, more time passed.