Chương 251: Quality Time

Vale studied Drago in silence, his gaze steady and searching, as if pressure alone might force out what the old man was withholding.

"You really can't tell me anything?" he asked at last, skepticism threaded through his tone. Drago didn't react. He kept sorting ingredients with unhurried precision, as though the question had been placed somewhere slightly outside the conversation.

"I didn't say I can't," he replied evenly.

"Only that hearing it from me won't carry the same weight as hearing it from them." Vale exhaled through his nose, rubbing a hand down his face.

"That explains nothing," he muttered, then straightened, shifting tactics rather than persistence.

"Fine. How many of these 'sages' are there?" Drago paused, not abrupt, just deliberate, and regarded him for a long moment. His expression stayed unreadable, neutral to the point of concealment, before he answered.

"Five are currently in service," he said.

"By their account, there were seven originally." Vale's attention sharpened.

"Two are unaccounted for within the tower," Drago continued. A faint pause followed.

"Curiously, they should be the easiest to locate, at least in theory."

"Why?" Drago's gaze drifted back to the counter, as if the answer didn't warrant emphasis.

"Because not all of them are human," he said.

"The missing two, Tyrus and Equinox, are something else entirely. From what I've been told, both are… enormous in scale." Vale let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh.

"Of course. The biggest ones disappear." A faint chuckle left Drago.

"On that point," he said, "we agree." The exchange settled, and with it the tone shifted. Drago set a mixing bowl down with quiet ring.

"Now then," he said, "shall we begin?" Vale's expression eased, a small smile returning as he stepped forward.

"Yeah. Just tell me what to do." That earned him a look. Drago's composure shifted almost imperceptibly, less present, more distant, as though a different weight had surfaced beneath it. Vale noticed immediately, his smile fading.

"…Did I say something wrong?" he asked. Drago didn't answer at once. His gaze lingered on Vale, not assessing him, but something beyond him, before he turned back to the counter.

"For all my knowledge," he said at last, voice low and steady, "I have always regretted my life." No embellishment, no defense was within his voice. Just admission.

"I am responsible for where it led," he continued, "though that isn't entirely accurate." A brief pause.

"My actions brought me to my end, yes, but they weren't the origin of it." Vale leaned back slightly, arms folding.

"What are you actually trying to say?" Drago turned again. This time, his expression had softened, tired, but unguarded.

"I would like a moment," he said simply. A beat followed.

"I never had the chance to raise my daughter." This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. The words didn't echo. They settled.

"So," he continued, "if you'll allow it, I'd like to spend some time like this. Consider it… a small compensation." Vale blinked, momentarily thrown off balance. He didn't respond immediately. Then he exhaled, something in his posture easing, not sympathy, not pity, but recognition settling into place.

'So even he carries that.' When he opened his eyes again, the tension had gone out of his shoulders.

"Alright," he said simply, stepping back into position. His gaze flicked over the ingredients, then to Drago.

"Where do we start, old man?" Drago let out a soft chuckle.

"I'm not that old," he replied.

"Not in any meaningful sense, I'm effectively immortal." Vale arched a brow, already reaching for flour.

"Then why keep the look?"

"Because I choose to," Drago said. His smile thinned into something deliberate.

"My form, my age, they're variables. I adjust them as easily as breathing." His gaze drifted past Vale, unfocused for a moment.

"My true state is less… contained. If I were to assume it here, this library would not survive the transition." Vale glanced at him.

"That's convenient," he muttered.

"Dangerous, but convenient." Drago didn't disagree. For a while, the work settled into a quiet rhythm. Flour was measured, bowls aligned, utensils passed between hands with practiced efficiency. The repetition dulled the edges of thought, just enough for something else to slip through. Vale paused, one hand resting on the counter.

"Do you know anything about… losing a soul?" Drago stopped at once. Not dramatically, just completely. The ease in his posture dissolved into stillness, attention sharpening like something re-centered. When he spoke, his voice had changed.

"A soul is not merely essence of ones being," he said.

"It is their signature, an anchor that binds identity, perception, and existence into coherence." He folded his arms, measured rather than expressive.

"Remove it, and what remains is incomplete. The body persists, but structure collapses. In most cases, such beings lose reflection, shadow, and their registration within systems that acknowledge existence. To the world, they become partially absent. Only living minds perceive them as continuous." Vale listened, but not as if hearing something new. It matched too closely.

'Ali was close,' he thought.

'Not wrong. Just not right either.' His model described his condition as fragmentation: five discrete soul pieces dispersed across unknown vectors. He held two. The remaining three were unaccounted for, neither destroyed nor absent, but unlocatable, as though reality itself had lost indexing. So it wasn't absence. It was displacement. He exhaled slowly and leaned back slightly, head tilting under the cabinet edge above him.

The kitchen remained still, warm stone, muted light, the quiet persistence of ingredients laid out mid-process. The normality of it contrasted sharply with what they were discussing, as if the concept itself didn't belong in the room but had been placed there anyway. Drago watched him for a moment before speaking again.

"You suspect your soul is incomplete," he said, not as a question. Vale gave a faint, almost dry smile.

"You don't waste time." A nod.

"From what I understand, it's fractured. So yes."

"Then your symptoms align with that assumption," Drago said simply. Vale rolled an apple across his palm, catching it once, twice, an idle rhythm to keep thought from tightening.

"So I'm guessing everything I've experienced traces back to it."

"Possibly." The answer was careful. Noncommittal. That restraint mattered more than certainty would have. Vale tossed the apple once more, caught it again.

"I don't think I'm meant to know the full answer yet," he said.

"Feels like something that would break the shape of everything if I understood it too early." He bit into the apple, speaking around the thought rather than finishing it.

"So I'll figure it out properly. Slower, if I have to. Otherwise I'll just build the wrong conclusion." Drago studied him in silence for a moment, long enough to suggest recognition of a familiar pattern.

"Curiosity, restrained?" he said quietly.

"That is uncommon."

"It's just practical," Vale replied. Drago didn't respond. Instead, he shifted slightly, as though setting that thread aside rather than closing it.

"Tomorrow," he said, "come to the coliseum with me." Vale paused.

"The coliseum?"

"Yes." A slight emphasis, controlled.

"You'll understand more by observing it directly. Especially why Irea is defended the way it is." That, at least, felt consistent with everything else. Vale considered it, eyes drifting briefly toward the unseen city beyond the library walls. Life continued out there, structured, unaware of how many unseen systems held it in place. He nodded.

"Alright." A beat followed once again. Then another thought surfaced.

"Will Eskar be there?" The atmosphere shifted, not sharply, but enough to register something was off. Drago's eyes flickered, something brief and unreadable crossing them before settling again into control.

"He didn't tell you." Vale straightened slightly.

"Tell me what?" A pause followed. Measured. Intentional. Then Drago exhaled.

"He left," he said.

"After your return. Said he needed a way out of this place." Another pause followed.

"For all of you."