Vale lifted his eyes toward the towering figure beside him. Korin's black coat draped over his frame like a night sky trying and failing to hide a mountain. The thick scarf wrapped around his neck gave him an oddly gentle look, but it didn't shrink his sheer presence. If anything, it emphasized it.
Curious, Vale narrowed his focus and reached out quietly with his senses. Korin's energy washed over him almost immediately. It wasn't smooth like Evelyn's or sharp like Rose's. No, Korin's energy churned. Chaotic yet strangely aligned. Like a river that had lost its path and, in its stubbornness, swollen into an eternal, restless lake.
He lingered on it perhaps a moment too long, because Korin shifted, looking at him with mild confusion.
"…What are you doing?" the giant asked, brows lifting.
Vale blinked and straightened with a small smile. "Oh, nothing. Don't worry about it." He paused, then nodded toward the hallway. "Shall we go?"
Korin followed his gaze down to his side, where Maelis was already waving him off with exaggerated enthusiasm. His expression soured the way exhausted older brothers often look when life gives them siblings far too energetic for their own good.
"Yeah, sure," he sighed at last, shoulders sinking, and followed Vale through the enormous library doors.
As they stepped into the corridor, Korin turned back and closed the doors behind him, slowly and carefully, every movement deliberate. Vale watched with interest. Even the way Korin's fingertips brushed the wood seemed measured, like he feared one misplaced ounce of force might crush the hinges or splinter the frame.
Korin glanced over when he felt Vale's gaze. "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing," Vale said quickly, though he kept watching. "Your movements are just incredibly precise. I wasn't expecting that. It's… impressive."
For a moment Korin held his gaze, then released a quiet, resigned breath. "I have to be careful."
He didn't elaborate, and Vale didn't pry. Something about the tone felt fragile, like tapping it might make it spill into something Korin wasn't ready to share.
They walked in silence for a stretch before Vale's curiosity nudged him again.
"Oh, right," he said, looking up. "Earlier you mentioned the… price of my plane? Could you explain what you meant?"
Korin's strides slowed. He rubbed his chin in thought, lips pressing into a thin line as he considered how to answer. After a full minute, he finally lowered his hand.
"Well," Korin began, "the 'price' or 'curse,' as most people call it once it manifests is basically a toll you pay for using power from your plane." His voice echoed lightly in the long hallway. "Some curses are small. Barely noticeable. Others…" He hesitated. "Others can be really bad."
Vale tilted his head. "Really bad how?"
Korin's eyes softened with something like pity. "Usually, when someone loses their memories, they keep some instinctive skills. Deep muscle memory. But the truth is… that's just a leftover, a shadow. Without your memories, every technique you learned during your trial is gone. Only the faintest residue remains."
Vale's chest tightened. It explained the gaps. The inconsistencies. Evelyn and Rose's concerned glances.
And Ember… the armor… the bone-like implant. Why none of it appeared in his memories before he awoke.
'Did all of them come with me somehow?'
He turned back to Korin. "Hey, Korin… sorry for bombarding you, but… is it possible to bring physical objects from your trial into the real world?"
Korin blinked, surprised. "Yeah. It's pretty common, actually. Relics, specters, artifacts, they're usually dormant, though. You need certain conditions to activate them." His gaze flicked toward Vale meaningfully. "Same goes for curses. They have conditions to remove them too."
Vale's eyes widened. "Wait, you can remove a curse?"
Korin nodded once. "Yeah. But the conditions are personal and… secret. No one tells you. No one even knows. People spend their whole lives searching and still die with the curse intact."
Vale rubbed his chin in thought. 'Interesting… and inconvenient.'
Another quiet stretch. Korin glanced at him now and then, awkwardly polite, while Vale sank deeper into thought.
Eventually Vale exhaled, long and soft. "Sorry. I'm asking too much, aren't I? I'm just… really curious."
"That's alright," Korin murmured, his shoulders relaxing slightly. "It's natural, I guess."
Vale studied him for a moment, this enormous young man who moved like he was made of glass, who spoke like the world had taught him to whisper.
"Well, Korin," Vale said, "what about you? Can you tell me something about yourself?"
Korin stiffened almost comically, hand flying to scratch the back of his head. His cheeks flushed faintly, an odd sight on someone who looked like he could uproot a tree with one arm.
"I, uh… well. I'm not very interesting."
Vale waited patiently while Korin searched for the right words. The giant's brow furrowed as if he were rearranging a library of thoughts inside his skull. A couple of minutes passed like that quiet, heavy and contemplative.
Finally Korin exhaled, his shoulders sinking.
"Well… I guess I'm Korin," he said, his voice heavy but controlled. "I'm a member of Class 10X because of my status as an anomaly. I like to read, and I like animals. They're easier to talk to than people." The corners of his mouth lowered, and something in his tone wilted. "Though I suppose I can't blame people."
His gaze drifted toward Vale with a tired quietness, as if expecting to be judged. "That's all… I guess."
Vale regarded him for a moment. Korin's size was the first thing anyone noticed, but there was something gentle curled beneath it, something that didn't seem to know how to inhabit such a massive frame.
"Well," Vale said, adjusting his posture, "I guess I should introduce myself too."
That earned him a flicker of surprise from Korin, eyebrows lifting just slightly, like a door cracking open.
"My name is Vale. I'm seventeen. I like learning things… and making new connections." He drew a small breath. "And… it's likely I'll join Class 10X as well. Because of my anomaly status."
Korin nodded once, slow and thoughtful.
Vale hesitated just a heartbeat before speaking again, his voice tempered but direct. "So, Korin… would you like to be friends?"
A strange shift passed over Korin's eyes. Not rejection, something closer to caution, or realism. He looked away, gaze drifting over the tall windows lining the hall.
"I don't think friendship works instantly," he said, not unkindly. "Real ones don't, anyway. And from what I've overheard, you'll probably get a private mentor for a while. So we… probably won't see each other much."
His tone held neither bitterness nor disappointment, just a steady, pragmatic understanding of the world.
Vale blinked. The boy's insight startled him; Korin hadn't been told any of that, yet he pieced it together with unsettling ease.
Before Vale could linger on it, Korin added, "But… I could give you my number. So we can stay in touch."
This time his face brightened, just a little, the shadow lifting.
Vale tilted his head. "My… number? Do you mean my subject number?"
Korin stared at him, baffled. "No? Why would I need that?" He reached into his coat and pulled out a metallic device the size of a small brick, scaled up for his enormous hands. "I meant your phone number."
Recognition clicked in Vale's mind. Bianca had given him one earlier, called it a phone. Korin's version looked like someone had taken the concept and stretched it to match his anatomy.
"I see," Vale murmured, retrieving his own, much smaller device. He held it out to Korin.
Korin raised a hand, gently pushing it back. "It's better if you do it yourself."
Vale froze, then looked away with awkward embarrassment. Before he could form a response, Korin narrowed his eyes slightly.
"…You don't know how to use one, do you?"
Vale's shoulders tensed. "Yes," he admitted in a small voice.
Korin let out a soft warm chuckle, not mocking and began explaining. Slowly, patiently, step by meticulous step. Vale absorbed everything, and after a few minutes they had exchanged numbers.
Vale turned the device over in his hand, examining it with quiet fascination. "These little things are surprisingly useful," he whispered, as if speaking to an artifact rather than a tool. Then he tucked it back into his pocket.
They walked on in companionable silence. Not the fragile kind, but the kind that two people choose when neither feels the need to force words into the air. Korin occasionally glanced at Vale, and Vale occasionally drifted into his thoughts, yet neither disturbed the other.
Eventually they reached a wide corridor where a large door waited ahead, arched and etched with curling patterns like vines caught mid-bloom. Korin slowed his pace and stopped a few meters before it. Vale mirrored him.
"Why did we stop?" Vale asked.
Korin stepped forward, resting a massive hand on the ornate handle. "Nothing," he said. "This is the door to the garden."
"Oh," Vale breathed, an easy smile tugging at his lips as anticipation lifted his chest. "I see."
He had finally reached his destination.