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Chapter – 07
While Ian carefully listened to Oliver’s explanation, Arhen stepped back slightly and observed him.
Only after hearing the name Ian Fernandez did she finally understand why the boy felt strangely out of place.
For quite some time, high society had buzzed endlessly about that boy, enough that even the previous Arhen—who knew nothing about politics—had heard of him.
“…Ian Fernandez? The commoner mage Duke Fernandez adopted this time?”
“Yes… He got caught in a conflict between parent and child, so his situation became complicated.”
The hushed whispers exchanged behind fans at ballroom parties resurfaced in her memory.
That was all Arhen knew.
Even in the original story, Ian Fernandez was merely a minor supporting character whose name appeared for a single line before disappearing.
There hadn’t even been any mention that he was this beautiful, much less details like his hair or eye color.
‘Still, if he looked this good, they could’ve at least hinted at it.’
He gave off a calm and tidy impression. His porcelain-like skin even created the strange illusion that if someone slashed him with a blade, not a single drop of blood would spill.
Was he one year younger than her?
Just then, Oliver finished explaining the situation. When dealing with Ian, Oliver’s attitude was unusually stiff for him—as though he had encountered someone he absolutely shouldn’t have met.
Ian tilted his head slightly, looking troubled.
“This is a problem. I was actually on my way to the hunting tournament as well.”
“I didn’t realize the Fernandez ducal house would be participating.”
“Ah. His Grace the Duke gave strict orders that I absolutely had to achieve results at this tournament.”
Ian said it like a joke.
But as always, there was no smile accompanying his words, despite the faintly gentle tone.
Even though he referred to the duke—his adoptive father on paper—as “His Grace,” no one objected to it. It was a strangely awkward scene.
Unlike Arhen, who had traveled with an entire knight order, Ian had come alone with only a single horse. That alone made it obvious how he was treated within the family.
Ian Fernandez had originally been a commoner mage living within the Fernandez duchy’s territory. Then, after catching the duke’s eye, he had supposedly been adopted.
It wasn’t uncommon in the Empire for a talented commoner mage to become the adopted child of a noble house.
Especially not someone at Ian’s level, praised as a “genius who would go down in history.”
But things became more complicated when it came to the Fernandez ducal family, relatives of the imperial family itself.
There was no chance he would ever be selected as heir.
There were likely all sorts of tangled circumstances behind the scenes, yet Ian himself only resembled a calm lake without a single ripple.
“So the daughter of Marquis Mercedes was also on her way to the hunting tournament.”
Dark eyes turned toward her.
‘So he knows who I am.’
Arhen widened her eyes slightly before nodding.
“Yeah. Things got pretty complicated.”
“Please lower your speech. I’m not a real Fernandez, so there’s no reason for the Marquis’s daughter to speak formally to me.”
“Ah…”
Was that humility, or sincerity?
Unable to tell, she quickly searched through her memories.
“Surely we don’t have to treat him with full noble honorifics, right?”
“No matter how much he’s the duke’s adopted son, commoner blood still runs through him. We can’t exactly address him as a true noble.”
It was something someone had said at a ballroom gathering.
Apparently even among nobles, his proper form of address had been an awkward issue. In the end, Ian himself declined the formal treatment, and everyone naturally settled into speaking casually to him.
“Then I’ll do that… no, I will.”
As if accustomed to situations like this, Ian simply accepted it with a polite nod before quietly adding,
“I thought Young Master Daniel Mercedes would participate in this tournament as usual. He always has before.”
It could have been considered a rude question, but Arhen was far too exhausted to get prickly over every little thing in a situation like this.
She decided to just laugh it off.
“Well, things happened somehow. In any case, it doesn’t matter anymore since we can’t participate now.”
Ian stared at her silently for a moment, then tilted his head slightly as if something felt strange before turning toward the forest blocking the road.
“You don’t necessarily have to give up so quickly.”
He carefully examined the thick brush ahead and took a few steps forward.
Arhen followed his back with her eyes.
“Maybe… there’s a way to solve this.”
“Hm?”
Arhen’s eyes widened.
“These kinds of transformed trees usually block only the entrance and exit first to buy time while restoring the inside. Then they cast illusion magic over the surface so people won’t notice.”
The explanation flowed naturally from his lips without even a moment’s hesitation.
His eyes remained fixed on the forest ahead.
Arhen looked at Oliver.
Even he seemed to be hearing this for the first time.
Still, there was no reason not to believe Ian.
“But is there a reason you want to attend the hunting tournament so badly?”
The unexpected question caught Arhen off guard, making her react a beat late.
“…Huh? Why suddenly ask that?”
“I happened to overhear the two of you earlier. You sounded so desperate to go that I wondered if there was something you absolutely had to find there.”
“……”
“I was just curious.”
While Arhen searched for an appropriate answer, his quiet voice continued.
“You don’t have to answer. I’ve just found one myself.”
“Found what?”
“A reason I absolutely need to go there.”
The moment he finished speaking, Ian casually grabbed one of the thick branches jutting out from the brush before anyone could stop him.
Then he muttered softly,
“If you properly figure out the weakness like this…”
At the same time, the branch—thick as an adult man’s arm—snapped free with a loud crack.
At that instant, Arhen saw it.
A faint purple mana briefly wrapped around the boy’s forearm before disappearing.
‘Huh?’
It happened so quickly that nobody but her seemed to notice.
But that was the body enhancement magic Arhen had brought forward by twisting the original story’s timeline.
“What if we infused mana directly into the muscles? My arms can’t pull the bowstring at all.”
Oliver had been extremely shocked by the idea.
He had said nobody had ever thought of something like that before.
Only then had Arhen remembered that “body enhancement magic” wasn’t originally developed until the middle of the novel.
She had secretly planned to use it because she was worried about distorting the story too much.
So why was this boy using the same magic too?
That would mean Ian, like Arhen, had secretly developed this magic ahead of time and hidden it.
In the original story, the first person to develop body enhancement magic had been the protagonist.
‘…Something’s strange.’
At that moment, Ian turned around and looked directly at Arhen.
Their eyes met briefly.
At the same time, the dense forest obscuring their view vanished all at once.
Left behind was only a shabby barricade roughly piled together from branches and grass.
“My goodness!”
Without realizing it, Arhen covered both cheeks with her hands.
For now, she shoved her questions aside.
Emotion surged through her so strongly that she could feel blood rushing to her face.
‘We can go!’
They could participate in the hunting tournament!
Which meant Arhen’s survival had just moved one step closer.
She clasped both hands together and thanked him.
“Thank you. You seriously saved us.”
“We were simply headed to the same destination. You don’t need to thank me so much.”
Ian accepted her gratitude quietly, without the slightest trace of pride.
His attitude was so clean and composed that it was hard to believe he had just accomplished something so incredible.
Oliver’s expression remained somewhat stiff, but every other knight stared at Ian as though he were an angel descended from the heavens.
Even the Mercedes knights hadn’t recognized the magic involved, so Arhen could finally understand why Ian Fernandez was called a genius destined to be remembered in history.
‘The original story did say he was an exceptional mage, but to this extent…’
The Fernandez ducal house barely appeared in the original novel, so she’d never realized.
More importantly, if her guess was correct…
Not long after the original story began, Ian was supposed to die after becoming entangled in the Fernandez family’s internal affairs.
A strange feeling washed over her.
She simply couldn’t imagine that boy dying such a meaningless death.
“Shall we go, Lady Arhen?”
Even amidst the flood of grateful voices from the knights, Ian extended his hand toward Arhen with a faint, unfamiliar smile.
