The Substitute Healer (BL)-Chapter 105: He simply endured… and then left.

When the truth finally came out that Soren had been protecting the entire encampment all this time without anyone knowing, it did not feel like revelation.

It felt like something heavy collapsing inside them.

Lyric didn’t even remember deciding to leave.

One moment he was standing there as the High Priest’s words still hanging in the air, and the next he was already on his horse, already riding hard enough that the wind stung his face and blurred his vision.

Someone called his name, maybe Alaric or Sylas but it barely reached him. All he could hear was the pounding in his chest and the sound of Soren’s voice in his memory. Lyric remembered the way he looked at him back then as if Soren’s pain was nothing more than a nuisance.

And now that memory burned.

Soren had been standing there while silently bearing everything, even protecting them... protecting him... while Lyric repaid that quiet devotion with cruelty he never once questioned. The suffocating and painful guilt came all at once like he couldn’t draw a full breath anymore.

If he could just see Soren, just once, he would apologize, he would take back every word, how he looks at him and every moment he made Soren feel small.

But Soren was gone, and that thought alone made Lyric urge his horse faster, like he was racing against something he could never outrun.

On the other hand, back at the encampment, Cael remained where he stood but stillness did not mean peace. His mind kept searching for something sensible to hold onto, some explanation that would make everything feel less... unbearable.

He was still feeling in denial even though, at the back of his mind, he knew that Soren had given everything and asked for nothing, stayed without recognition, endured without complaint and Cael... had never once truly looked at him.

Never once wondered what it meant that someone so quiet never asked for anything at all. The realization settled heavily inside him while turning every memory of Soren’s silence into something that now felt painfully misunderstood.

Sylas, for once, had no words as the High Priest’s disbelief still echoed in his ears while saying that Soren has healing magic so powerful that even poison could not exist within it. A protection so absolute that even the Temple had never recorded anything like it.

And Soren... had carried that alone quietly, without pride.

And now that he’s realizing how foolish he had been, Sylas remembered every insult he had thrown at him, every mocking word and every moment he reduced him to something insignificant. And now the truth stood before him that’s impossible to deny that the one he treated as worthless had been the reason they were safe every single day.

The weight of that realization pressed down hard, suffocating.

Because Soren never defended himself, never revealed the truth and never demanded for them to see him differently.

He simply endured... and then left.

And now none of them knew where he was. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

None of them had even understood what they were losing... until he was already gone.

Alaric, more than anyone, was still trying to understand what exactly had just been placed in front of them.

He stood there quietly with tangled thoughts in a way he wasn’t used to.

He had always believed he was fair to Soren. He’s distant, perhaps, but never cruel. He hadn’t mocked Soren the way Sylas did. He hadn’t spoken harshly the way Lyric had. In his own mind, he had remained neutral... untouched by whatever resentment or disdain the others carried.

That was what he believed.

And yet, none of that helped him make sense of what they had just learned.

How could someone like Soren be carrying something so immense? How could the person they barely regarded... be the very reason their mission had not fallen apart from the beginning? They were the ones tasked with overseeing everything, the ones responsible for the success of the expedition... and yet something this overwhelming had existed right beneath their watch without any of them realizing.

It didn’t feel right, didn’t even make sense.

And that confusion sat heavily in his chest while refusing to settle.

He kept replaying the High Priest’s reaction during their inspection earlier that day which the memory remained unsettlingly vivid.

They had been surveying the areas where the beasts had grown unusually aggressive, expecting traces of corruption, lingering malice, or signs of damage that required cleansing but instead... there was something else entirely.

The High Priest suddenly had stopped walking with eyes widened in open disbelief as his gaze fixed on the air itself. As if he were staring at something none of them could see. And perhaps he was because slowly, almost reverently, he reached forward with fingers trembling faintly as though afraid to disturb what lay before him.

Later, he explained what only he could perceive.

Around was a healing magic. It’s dense, radiant and overwhelmingly pure.

It spread across the land in a soft green glow, alive. It shimmered faintly like light caught in drifting mist, delicate yet impossibly powerful. To ordinary eyes, there was nothing there, just empty air but to someone blessed with divine sight... it was unmistakable.

It looks sacred, gentle... yet absolute.

The High Priest had spent his life witnessing divine power while serving as one chosen to perceive blessings that others could never see. That alone was proof of his closeness to the Goddess, a grace few were ever granted.

And yet even with all his years of devotion, all his experience... he had stood there stunned.

Because what surrounded them was not ordinary healing magic.

It was vast, continuous and seamless. Like an unseen sanctuary stretched over the entire encampment and beyond. It’s not even flickering and fading. It was simply there, steady and unwavering as if it had always been there... quietly holding everything together.

And that... had been Soren.

The realization settled slowly, heavily, into Alaric’s mind. Then, a quiet understanding that something extraordinary had existed beside them the entire time...

And none of them had truly seen it.