Why had he been growing my cells in secret? And why was he testing them to study their reactions? Doing that to a person’s cells without their permission had to be against some ethical or legal code. There was a lot that bothered me about this, but I decided to hear him out for now.
“My experiments have revealed a remarkable discovery! Your cells contain an inhuman adaptability which enables them to develop tolerances to various threats!”
“They can build up…tolerances…?” I asked, unsure what he meant by the word.
“Precisely!” Dr. Happ said, nodding enthusiastically. “If your cells are poisoned, they create antibodies! If I burn them with intense heat, they develop heat-resistant properties! If I chop them up, they join together and harden! To put it simply, you grow stronger every time you’re injured, and there seems to be no limit to this!”
Dr. Happ’s breathing grew heavy with excitement. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Have you had similar experiences in combat? Do you remember attacks that injured you the first time but, for some reason, were ineffective after that?” he asked.
“Oh, now that you mention it…”
Whether it was Lia’s flames, Claude’s bombs, or most recently, Von’s sand whales, there were many attacks that had hurt me the first time and barely scratched me after that. If what Dr. Happ said was true, I hadn’t just felt like those attacks were hurting me less—they actually were.
“There was one other thing that caught my attention. Would you please grip this for me?” Dr. Happ requested, pulling out a sturdy hand dynamometer. “Squeeze it as hard as you can!”
“O-okay…”
Unsure of the point of this, I squeezed the dynamometer, which made a worrying crunch.
“…Huh?”
“Oh-ho…!”
I looked down and saw that I had completely crushed the handle of the machine. It was broken beyond repair.
“S-sorry. I think I broke it…”
I had spent a fair bit of money sightseeing in Cherin, so I didn’t have much left. How much does a hand dynamometer cost?! Isn’t hospital equipment really expensive?! I panicked as I considered the possibility of taking out a loan to pay for the damages.
“Your strength is immeasurable… Incredible! That hand dynamometer was designed to be extraordinarily durable, and you crushed it without any effort! Your physical power surpasses my wildest imagination!” Dr. Happ exclaimed, his eyes shining. It sounded like he had half expected this result.
“Umm, Dr. Happ…?” I began, intending to ask for an explanation.
“Oh, sorry,” he said, smiling. “I actually discovered something interesting during your examination! Your muscle fibers are one hundred times denser than the average person’s! You have what we in the business call a ‘unique constitution’!”
“Huh…?”
“It means that the makeup of your body is different from that of other people. Let’s see… Shido Jukurius, with whom you shared an intense duel at the Elite Five Holy Festival, also has his own unique constitution!”
Shido Jukurius was a prodigy who attended Ice King Academy.
“I guess you’d could say Shido’s idiosyncrasy…is his flexibility! I examined him after he was gravely injured during your duel and was amazed by the flexibility of his muscles! I told him his skin was as soft as a girl’s, which he did not take kindly to… Oh, that punch was so wonderful…” Dr. Happ blushed, a look of ecstasy painted across on his face. “You’re the polar opposite of Shido. If he’s ‘softness,’ you’re ‘hardness.’ Your muscles are like steel! They’re uncommonly dense. I can only remember one swordfighter whose muscles even came close to yours!”
Dr. Happ continued, his eyes wide.
“She was a stunningly beautiful girl who, along with Black Fist Reia Lasnote, carried Thousand Blade in its Golden Age! Her name was… Err, her name was… Gah…! Oh, confound it. It seems I’ve forgotten her name over the last decade. Don’t grow old, Allen.”
“You said this person was a girl?” I asked. I would have expected a person with muscles of steel to be a guy.
“Yes. She was this sweet little girl with a petite figure. Her nickname was Ironblood! She suddenly disappeared from public view after winning the Sword Master Festival! Oh, the mystery!” Dr. Happ cried out passionately. “Thousand Blade was so unique at the time! All three of the swordswomen responsible for its Golden Age fought barehanded! Their decision to forgo swords at a school specifically dedicated to swordcraft spawned a bit of a Swordless-Style craze at the time!”
The doctor rambled on, telling me all about Thousand Blade’s rivalry with Ice King, the history of the Shadow Thousand Blade Festival and other insane events, anecdotes from the Golden Age, and more. It turned out he was an alumnus of Thousand Blade himself. He said he had graduated seventy years ago and decided to pursue medicine once he accepted that he would never be a great swordsman.
When the conversation had died down, Dr. Happ sighed softly. “I’d love to ask you to let me follow you around and monitor you for a full twenty-four hours…but I’ll refrain for now.”
“Umm… Why?” I asked.
I was surprised. Forget twenty-four hours—this man seemed curious enough to want to follow me around for a full year. Why was he letting me go so quickly?
“I have my reasons, though they don’t particularly relate to you. Hmm… Well, why don’t I show you? Foretell—Enlightenment Crystal,” he said, suddenly summoning his Soul Attire.
“Wh-what are you doing?!”
“Ha-ha, relax. Enlightenment Crystal is meant entirely for support rather than combat. It’s a Soul Attire that can divine a person’s fortune.”
“It can?”
“Yes. Unique, don’t you think?”
“Y-yeah.”
I had never heard of such a Soul Attire. That had to be a rare ability.
“I once aspired to be the greatest swordsman in the world, so I was quite disappointed when I manifested a Soul Attire unrelated to combat…but now I think it was for the best. This ability has helped me through many crises during my life.”
Dr. Happ held Enlightenment Crystal—which resembled a clear gem—in the middle stance.
…It’s beautiful. His stance was natural and refined; I could tell he’d gone to Thousand Blade.
“You know what they say—‘A picture is worth an early worm.’ It’ll be over in a flash, so watch carefully,” Dr. Happ said.