Author's Note:
Merry Christmas! It's been quite a while since the last update, but here we go. Mama has returned to Home. Also, I've posted a small announcement in the afterword. Please take a look if you're interested.
---
"So anyway, Mama turned out to be alive, so I picked her up and brought her back. End of report."
"'End of report' my ass... What kind of unexploded bomb did you go and dig up...? I mean sure, she might be a souvenir more valuable than any treasure, but still..."
"Given that the price we'll pay for this is guaranteed to involve having various things shaved away from us, we can't exactly be happy about it..."
Having recovered Mama, a.k.a. Sou, at Ape's Concert, we brought her straight back to Merveille. The ones waiting to greet us were Papa and Dr. Indigo, both already looking considerably worn out.
They'd been like that even before meeting her. Just from the survival report alone, how much mental anguish had they gone through?
"...Hey, did Grandpa get a little older?"
"She is the sort of person whose mere reminiscence leaves one weary... 'tis only to be expected."
"Yeah, well... We can totally see how that would happen, honestly. Even we learned that much from our brief time interacting with her."
So said the daughters.
Just as Leona pointed out, Papa and Dr. Indigo really did look like they'd aged about ten years compared to just a little while ago.
The moment they entered the room, they were clearly still half-hoping this was all some kind of misunderstanding. But the instant they saw Mama walk in behind me, they went, 'Ah, it's really her,' and got that thousand-yard stare.
The look in someone's eyes when all hope is lost and they sink into despair... seeing it in person, I understood exactly what that looks like.
"...No, look, I do think it's a good thing, okay? Really... It's not like I wanted her dead or anything, right? She was incredibly useful as a researcher, right? I always thought she deserved a better end than dying of some illness, right? ...But still, seeing your face again, it just brings back all those days when you were an even bigger source of stomach pain than the Marines or Roger..."
"...? I don't really understand, but it sounds like you've had it rough, Boss!"
"..."
And there was Mama, utterly oblivious to being the root cause of it all.
She genuinely didn't seem to have the faintest idea that she was the reason Papa was like this.
"So... Sou, you're saying you want to come back and work under me again?"
"I'd be so very grateful if you'd let meeeee! It's not like I have anywhere else to goooo, and there's research I've been curious aboutttt! Plus, I'd like to do follow-up observations on Sue-channnnn!"
Mama said this while glancing in my direction.
As a mother? Or because she wanted to check on the quality of her own Masterpiece?
I'd told her about how what she thought was a failure had actually been kicked awake by external factors and was evolving into a Superhuman, so she was probably curious.
"Well, in terms of ability alone, having you back would be reassuring... Fine. Dr. Indigo, set up a position for Sou in the Laboratory."
"Understood. What about her standing? Given her abilities, I don't think there would be any issue granting her a position of division chief or higher..."
"You're saying that on purpose, you idiot. Give this woman any extra authority and it'll just fuel her rampages. She's also the newest member here. Make her a rank-and-file researcher."
"Well, she'll probably rampage regardless of whether she has authority or not."
"...Right, she would. But if we hand her a legitimate mandate, there'll really be no stopping her. So keep her at rank-and-file for now... and we'll reassess once she's settled into the workplace."
"Agreed."
And so, just like that, Mama came back to Merveille.
Now then, she'd be working under Dr. Indigo as a researcher going forward, but... what kind of performance would she show us?
As she'd already demonstrated during the analysis of Ape's Concert, her intellect and skills were the real deal. A little scary, but... I was looking forward to it.
...I wanted to punch my carefree self from a few days ago.
Yeah... I'd underestimated Mama.
She was eccentric at a level that completely justified the state Papa and co. were in.
In both good ways and bad.
"Sue-chaaaaaan, I drew up a research plan so give me a budgeeeeet! And approval tooooo!"
"Already? You sure are energetic, Mama. Let's see... Wait, what is this!? The amount written here is about three orders of magnitude off from what I expected!?"
Higher than my bounty before it got revoked! Not even a shred of restraint!
And the volume was massive too... This was not the amount of work a new employee should be proposing. What was with this stack of documents? A phone book?
There were paper clips in multiple places, and... wait, was this all divided up by individual project? An absurd number of them.
"When I listed out everything I wanted to do, it came out to this muchhhhh! I kept coming up with ideas the whole time I was trapped in Ape's Concertttt! I'm confident I can deliver results, so please stamp itttt! Otherwise the accounting department won't give me any fundsssss!"
"There's no way I can approve this... Just at a glance, you've got like ten different research projects listed at once. We need to try them one at a time and carefully evaluate... At least narrow it down to one or two. Our budget isn't infinite."
"Whaaaaat, no wayyyyy!? The accounting officer told me the same thingggg! So I figured if I got a stamp from you as Admiral, nobody could say anythingggg!"
"If they turned you down, just take the feedback and revise it like a normal person!?"
She knew exactly what she was doing!
No wonder Mama, despite technically being a rank-and-file researcher, had brought a budget proposal directly to me. Normally these things get consolidated by department and brought up through the responsible supervisor. That's how organizational systems work.
But because she got turned down, she was planning to leverage her bloodline and connection to me to the fullest...
"...Alright, I'll approve one that looks useful. Show results with it. That'll build your credibility and make it easier to get more funding next time."
"Got itttt! Then I'll do this one, so please take care of itttt!"
"Yeah, yeah... Good luck."
"Thank youuuuu! I think I can have results in about three days, so just wait a little bitttt!"
"...I thought research was supposed to be a field requiring patience, where you methodically make progress over weeks, months, or sometimes even years...?"
Three days later, Mama actually delivered results.
The subject was enhancing the hardness and strength of Wapometal through alloy processing techniques.
I'll spare the complicated technical jargon, but testing based on Mama's proposed method confirmed a maximum performance increase of 1.7 times compared to conventional approaches.
Of course, the verification had been conducted in an objectively confirmable manner, involving other research teams as well.
...Incredible. This woman had just surpassed the "optimal application methods" that Dr. Indigo had spent considerable time researching and establishing, in a mere three days.
What's more, Wapometal was a metal that had only been discovered recently.
Meaning that for Mama, who had been trapped in Ape's Concert for over thirty years, it was a completely unknown substance she'd never even heard the name of. She should have been seeing it for the first time in this Laboratory... and she cracked it in three days?
And those three days included all the hands-on work. If you counted just the time from when she first encountered the existing data on Wapometal, discerned its properties, and drew up her plan... maybe half a day or so.
Amazing... She really was a genius.
...But for the sake of that verification, she'd burned through more than half the Wapometal stockpile all at once, forcing schedule readjustments in other areas. So I couldn't exactly praise her unreservedly.
Sure, we could just have Wapol produce more, but at least get permission first...
Oh, she did get permission? From the department supervisor?
But she'd pulled extra from storage just in case she ran short mid-research? More than the approved amount? ...Hey, that defeats the whole purpose of getting permission.
How much extra... Over four times the approved amount!? That's not "a little extra"!
Ahhh, so this was what Papa and co. had been dealing with... She did produce results, and the achievement more than compensated for the losses, so I couldn't even be straightforwardly angry about it.
Also... wait, was this going to keep happening from now on?
***
After that, Mama continued her rampage without pause, yet consistently produced results that matched or spectacularly exceeded expectations.
There were plenty of problematic behaviors, but even accounting for those, her sheer capability compelled everyone who witnessed it to acknowledge: this woman is a genius. She demonstrated that prowess thoroughly in the brief time since her return.
And her contributions weren't limited to things useful for the Golden Lion Pirates, like pharmaceuticals, Weapons, and materials. They extended to technologies useful in daily life as well.
For example, things beneficial to the agriculture Suzu was cultivating.
Crop breeding for plants adapted to Sky Island conditions. Pesticides and insecticides that were environmentally friendly with extremely low toxicity.
When it came to pharmaceuticals, this woman could whip them up in three days or so... and at her fastest, about an hour and a half. It really drove home just how far beyond ordinary she was. Those time units were clearly wrong.
And on top of that, the products worked as intended with no side effects whatsoever.
"Granny, you're amazing!" Suzu had been so impressed she'd taken right to her.
Now she was making full use of everything, having a blast growing crops at the farm.
...That said, I really wished Mama would stop skipping practically all the intermediate experiments and careful verification steps and jumping straight to implementation.
'It'll probably, surely, definitely be fine without testing or approval!' was not reassuring. If something had gone wrong and the crops or soil had been ruined, Suzu would have been in tears. And then even I would have gotten angry.
On top of all that, it seemed Mama had recently been making contact with Enel and discussing various things with him. It was probably only a matter of time before her pursuit of knowledge and technology extended into the field of weather Weapons, including Deathpiea.
Reassuring yet terrifying... terrifying, definitely.
Enel, too... that guy was actually quite the researcher type himself. He had extensive knowledge of engineering and meteorological technology, so the two of them were hitting it off pretty enthusiastically.
I was intensely anxious about whether this might turn into a "do not mix, danger" situation... maybe.
...Come to think of it, the other day, despite this being a Sky Island, Thunderclouds had suddenly spread across part of Merveille airspace, only to immediately clear up and vanish. A mysterious phenomenon.
I'd considered it might just be the crazy weather typical of the Grand Line, but now I wondered... Hey. No experiment application was filed, no report was submitted. And of course, no permission was granted.
And naturally, Mama was also enthusiastically diving into research in her true home territory: medicine, human body modification, and Lineage Factor studies.
She'd been devouring Dr. Indigo's research materials and papers one after another, absorbing knowledge. On top of that, under the banner of "follow-up observation" on me, she'd put me through all sorts of examinations.
The case of something she'd thought was a failure turning out to be a success, or at least trending toward success, had piqued her interest in particular. Blood, sweat, saliva, skin samples, hair... she even took a urine sample. That was a little embarrassing, honestly.
I'd appreciate it if she didn't start talking about further modifications from here...
...Also, she appeared to have taken a great interest in TABOO as well.
The Artificial Human-Human Fruit was already performing at a level well beyond standard specs... but perhaps the time would come when it would demonstrate Powers at an even higher stage.
...Now, while Mama had been living these extraordinary days, the thing that surprised me the most was, after all...
"Ah, here it is, right hereeeee! It's still just the way it was back thennnnn!"
With those words, Mama led us to the document room she used to use.
The room I'd practically lived in when I first came to Merveille, reading through everything. The room where I'd found and read Mama's diary.
We stood before something vault-like deep inside the room.
Well, not so much "vault-like" as just a straight-up Vault. It was just unusually large and imposing.
The three of us were here: me, Dr. Indigo, and Mama.
"My most important research materials are stored in hereeeee! I'm so glad they were properly preserveddddd!"
"Well, combined with all the materials in the room, there was such a massive volume that organizing it all was quite the task, so we left it as it was. But... I don't believe there were any particularly important-looking materials inside..."
'True enough...'
Dr. Indigo said as much, and I silently agreed, because we'd both already seen the contents of this Vault.
There had been research materials and specimen-like objects inside, sure, but nothing that seemed especially critical.
They were records of important research processes, no doubt about that, but I didn't think any of them contained groundbreaking revelations, summarized some monumental theory, or served as foundational evidence for one.
As for why Dr. Indigo and I had been able to open this Vault and see inside in the first place... it was simply because Dr. Indigo knew the code.
"Huhhhhh? You two already know what's in hereeeee?"
"Well, yes... After you left, we went through and organized things. And when Miss came here, I showed it to her while giving her a tour. As for the code... you never made any effort to hide it, so I knew it."
"Is that sooooo? Well, there's nothing in there I'd mind people seeing, so that's fineeeee! Besidesssss... I have my doubts about whether you actually saw everything properlyyyyyy!"
"?"
"?"
Saying something slightly cryptic, Mama turned back to face the Vault and began entering the code.
"The code! Five! Nine! Six! Three! Go-ku-rou-SAAAAAN!!"
"...This is exactly why it got out. She'd shout it every single time she opened or closed it. Sou was the only one who used this room, but it could be heard clear out in the hallway and adjacent rooms, so everyone knew it."
"What's even the point of a code..."
While we were standing there in exasperation, there was a click, and the Vault door swung open.
Inside were the research materials and specimens we'd seen before... or so I thought. But then.
Mama reached up toward the ceiling area inside the Vault, and for some reason, pulled hard on something...
Clunk!
"Heave-ho!"
"...Huh!?"
"...Huh!?"
What turned out to be a double door, rather than a double bottom, swung forward, revealing another space hidden even deeper inside the Vault. Wait, what? I'd had no idea.
Glancing over, Dr. Indigo was shaking his head vigorously. He hadn't known either.
"M-Mama? What is that?"
"The fact that you're asking 'what' meansssss you really didn't find this storage compartment after allllll! This is my real storage, The Real Deal!"
"Impossible... There was no such space when I examined it before..."
"The lock on this space usesssss a special key I developeddddd! It's not just entering the codeeeee. It won't open unless the code is entered 'in my voice,' 'above a certain volume,' while 'reading it aloud'! The front compartment that opens with just the code is a dummyyyyyy!"
Seriously... No way anyone could have figured that out.
The Vault itself was embedded into the wall, so there was no way to tell a dead space like that even existed.
Voiceprint authentication combined with volume and content recognition... That was indeed a highly effective security mechanism.
It might seem like over-the-top technology, but... well, the One Piece World had plenty of that sort of thing. The Pacifista units apparently had facial recognition for Government Officials and Bounty Targets built in, based on what we'd seen.
And so, Mama's Real Deal research materials, kept under such tight security...
"You can go ahead and look if you wanttttt!" she said, so Dr. Indigo and I examined them together.
"...Oh no..."
In every sense of the word.
And using these materials, Mama would proceed with her research going forward... research that would later shake the world, change it dramatically, and escalate into all manner of extraordinary developments.
To be continued...