How 'bout

sub drill_down {
    my $i=@_/2;
    @_[ @_%2 ? $i : ($i-1, $i) ];
}
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instead?

Also, in various order:

• No need for those scalars as == will impose scalar context anyway; to be sure

  return @_ if @_ < 3;
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  would have sufficed in both cases;
• you may just do:

  drill_down(@sorted);  # as the last statement in your sub
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  instead of

  my @middle = drill_down(@sorted);
  return @middle;
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• while it is perfectly legal to define the drill_down sub inside the Return_Middle one, they will be "global" anyway, and to do so would have some sense only if the former were a closure around some variable(s) lexically scoped to the latter, which is not the case.

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