The Substitute Healer (BL)-Chapter 98: “How… peculiar,”

And just like that, the days in the encampment continued, flowing forward with the same structure, the same duties and the same sounds of clashing metal and marching boots.

Yet beneath the routine, there lingered something subtle... something that’s difficult to name.

It was not disorder, nor was it grief openly acknowledged. Rather, it felt like a quiet absence, like a space no one admitted had once been filled.

Kent, Justin, and Louie carried on with their responsibilities as usual. Their schedules remained unchanged but conversations between them had grown shorter. Where there had once been casual remarks or passing complaints, there was now mostly silence.

None of them mentioned Soren directly, yet his name seemed to lingered on their minds, unspoken between pauses.

Hector and Melissa, on the other hand, appeared untouched by the shift.

Now openly in an official relationship, they moved through the camp with an ease that made them seem separate from everything else. Laughter came easily to them, and stolen moments together were no longer hidden. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

To outsiders, they looked like proof that life in the encampment remained lively and warm but even their happiness sometimes felt strangely loud against the quiet that lingered elsewhere.

Caelius also remained exactly as he had always been, absorbed in his own affairs. Whether someone stayed or left seemed to make no difference to him. He healed, reported, and carried out his duties with the same calm indifference, as if the encampment itself were merely a passing backdrop to whatever truly occupied his mind.

Except that his mind sometimes thinks of where Soren could be at the time.

Irlian, however, had grown more restless.

He moved with careful steps with his gaze constantly shifting as though expecting to be summoned at any moment. The air around him felt tight with anxiety. If someone could disappear from the mission so suddenly... if someone could be removed so completely... then who was to say he wouldn’t be next? Every command he received from a superior and every whisper among the knights made his chest tighten with unease.

The encampment functioned exactly as it always had.

And yet... it didn’t quite feel the same.

In the end, the knights who had been ordered to gather everything that once belonged to Soren returned with only the gold pouch in their possession. The rest of his belongings had already been cleared away, packed without ceremony, as though erasing traces of him had been just another routine task.

Though they brought the pouch back to Alaric, at that time, he was far too occupied with preparations for the High Priest’s arrival to pay it any real attention letting the camp thrown into a frenzy of order and discipline until nothing could possibly be out of place.

So, the pouch remained where it was left, untouched and forgotten.

It was only four days after Soren had already departed from the encampment that Alaric finally found the time to notice it again.

By then, Soren was long gone.

Looking at the gold pouch now resting quietly on his table, Alaric felt an inexplicable heaviness settle in his chest. It was the same pouch he throws on Soren’s face days ago. Actually, there was really nothing remarkable about it, nothing that should have drawn his attention for more than a passing second.

And yet... his gaze lingered.

Slowly, almost absentmindedly, he reached out and picked it up letting the weight of the coins shifted softly inside while producing a muted. Then, his fingers traced the fabric with his thumb brushing along its rough surface, as if trying to confirm that it was real... that it had truly been left behind.

And just like that, his thoughts drifted back.

He remembered Soren standing there, then bent slightly as he picked the pouch up from the ground. There had been no greed in his movements and no hesitation either. In contrary, Alaric felt as though Soren doesn’t want to received anything from him even if he worked hard for it.

That was what unsettled Alaric the most.

It didn’t feel like Soren was simply refusing the money. It felt like he didn’t want to receive anything from Alaric anymore even if he had worked hard for it and deserved it.

As if Soren wanted nothing to do with him at all.

Not even as his employer.

Thinking back about it, Alaric’s brows slowly knitted together along with the memory tightening something inside him.

"How can he refuse such an amount?" he muttered under his breath with his voice edged with irritation that sounded harsher than he intended. Then, his grip around the pouch tightened as the coins inside was pressing against his palm. "Does he really think he can earn this much anywhere else?"

The words left his lips easily mockingly.

But his chest didn’t feel convinced.

His mind replayed Soren’s face at that moment but he couldn’t quite picture it out making Alaric swallowed hard. And for reasons he refused to examine too closely, that memory made something twist painfully beneath his ribs.

A dull, throbbing pressure spread through his chest.

Guilt.

The realization surfaced before he could stop it and just as quickly, he tried to shove it away. As if cornered by his own idea, his fingers curled harder around the pouch until the fabric wrinkled beneath the strain.

No. That wasn’t it.

There was nothing to feel guilty about. He had offered compensation, and it’s a fair compensation. More than fair but Soren had made his own decision.

That was all there was to it. And yet...

The image of Soren quietly putting the pouch back would not leave him.

It lingered like an accusation that had never been spoken aloud making Alaric exhaled sharply while dragging a hand down his face before gripping the pouch again, almost as if grounding himself through the pressure of it.

"...Fuck." The word came out low and rough while it’s slipping past his lips before he could stop it.

He didn’t know whether it was frustration... or something else entirely.

When the knights gave their report, Alaric learned something else that made his expression darken.

Soren hadn’t taken the fur robes either, the ones the Davenmore family had personally given him. Not a single piece was missing. They had all been left behind while neatly folded and untouched, as if they had never belonged to him at all.

It was as though Soren had walked away without claiming ownership of anything.

It was as if Soren had erased himself completely while leaving nothing behind that could tie him to them or to Alaric.

And that, more than anything, stirred an anger in Alaric that burned sharper than usual as he could not accept it.

He refused to believe that not all commoners would reach greedily for wealth and comfort when it was placed before them. To him, that had always been their nature, something certain and proven time and time again.

Ever since his mother’s death at the hands of commoners, and Torin’s fate that followed what he had long believed was their selfishness, Alaric had carved that belief deep into himself. He had lived with it for years, letting it shape how he judged and understood the world.

But Soren’s actions stood in complete contradiction to everything he had convinced himself was true. The man had walked away from luxury without hesitation, leaving behind even what he had rightfully earned, as if none of it held any value to him.

And Alaric could not understand why.

The more he thought about it, the more unsettled he became along with his frustration that’s growing harder to conceal because if Soren was different, then the certainty Alaric had clung to for so long was no longer as unshakable as he once believed.

After gathering his thoughts and pushing aside the restless weight in his chest, Alaric made his way to the High Priest’s tent. Duty came first, as it always did. Whatever thoughts he had about Soren were locked away behind the same composed expression he wore in every formal meeting.

Their discussion centered on official matters especially the situation in the North with the current state of the mission, and the growing uncertainty surrounding the beasts.

It had also been the High Priest himself who once advised Alaric, in his role as Duke and commander of the Northern Mission, to limit the number of healers brought along during their yearly deployment. For many years, that decision had seemed reasonable since the beasts in the North had rarely grown truly berserk, and their operations followed a steady, predictable pattern.

Missions were conducted twice a year with each lasting roughly six months, and that had been more than enough to maintain control.

But this year had been different.

Without warning, their mission stretched beyond its usual duration from six months becoming eight, with no clear end in sight. The shift alone was troubling, but what unsettled Alaric even more was what followed.

Just as signs suggested the beasts should have entered one of their violent, frenzied cycles... they vanished.

Not completely but enough to disrupt every tracking effort.

Alaric and his knights searched relentlessly, yet the beasts refused to surface, engage and refused to be found. It was as if something unseen lurked beyond their reach and something that kept the creatures in hiding, something that made even monsters hesitate to emerge.

And that... was far more disturbing than any berserk rampage.

Yet what the High Priest said before the four of them only deepened their confusion. Around the tent, the air hummed with quiet authority and tension with Cael, Sylas, and Lyric stood nearby along with their equally unreadable expressions as they observed the exchange.

"How... peculiar," the High Priest murmured. "Were you truly unaware that this encampment has long been enveloped in restorative divine magic? You may regard it as one would a mantle of mana, a sanctified barrier of sorts... or, if you prefer a simpler image, something akin to a presence the beasts find profoundly repulsive, as though it were sustenance that offends their very nature."

Then, his gaze swept deliberately across the group with Alaric and the four before him, but also lingering for a moment on Cael, Sylas, and Lyric while measuring their comprehension.

"Surely you must have observed the signs. The condition of those stationed here were unusually vigorous and remarkably free of ailment with their endurance far exceeding what is ordinarily expected under such harsh circumstances. These are not coincidences."

He paused briefly, letting the weight of his words settle before inclining his head with quiet finality.

"Hmm, ahem.. Then, let us proceed in a manner that leaves no room for doubt, My Lords. Summon every healer under your command. Once they are gathered, I shall reveal the truth of what is truly unfolding within this place."