Preparation [6]

As Gio left the test chamber, the Old Lady watched him leave without a change in her expression. Only when the door closed behind him did she sit down at the desk and sigh.

'This kid really is too much.'

She was tired. Didn't he just tell her he wanted to hunt a Tier 5 beast? How was she supposed to react to that?

It took everything within her to not burst out in a fit of anger. 

How dare he have such ambitions at his age?! Was he suicidal?!

If she had her way, he would be stuck in Gastle without ever being able to leave.

'But that kid is too reckless.'

She remembered when something similar happened in the past. Gio wanted to go on an expedition to the edge of Haven because he heard that there was a ruin to excavate. She told him he couldn't and tried to keep him in the city. 

The result?

He almost blew up the front gate while he was trying to escape. In the process, he set his arm on fire and almost died. If she hadn't arrived in time, he would have lost at least one limb forever.

She wanted to punish him for it, but…

'...do I have the right?'

She wasn't his mother or his parent. She tried to play that role in his life, but he never accepted it. 

He tried to call her "Teacher," he tried to call her, "Master," he tried to call her "Ma'am," but he refused to ever see her as his mother.

That was how she ended up as his Aunt. It was the closest he would allow any other person to get.

It was only natural for her to be concerned. She had been his primary caretaker for so long, but even then, she didn't truly have much control over him or his decisions.

The best she could do was try to keep him safe as he followed the path of his desires. Perhaps in that way, he would start to open up.

"Haa…"

'I've become soft.'

She berated herself, shaking her head with a wry smile. 

Since when was she someone to show so much consideration? In the first place, wasn't he originally just some random child she found during her travels?

That would have been the case. No, that should have been the case. Only…

'They are exactly the same.'

The image of Gio in her mind overlapped with the visage of someone else, someone who existed as no more than a shadow in her mind. 

Right, she originally took him in for that reason, and maybe she started to care for him because of that. Perhaps the reason she allowed him to do as he pleased instead of disciplining him was because she felt guilty.

The Old Lady shook her head.

'All of that is in the past now. In regards to the future…'

Gio was one thing, and Gio's body was another. She looked back at the charts displayed on the holographic screen before her before waving her hand in the air. 

Several other screens opened around it, all of which contained different kinds of information. All of it was related to the Resistances and Weaknesses she'd been studying.

'After so many years, we've been able to determine a significant amount. For instance, we know that Resistances and Weakness are not determined by ancestry. Rather, they determine each other.'

They were polar opposites and appeared together. It was still unknown how they first started manifesting within the body, but it was hypothesized that they were birthed by the circumstances surrounding a person.

There were even wilder researchers who were trying to use them to prove the existence of "Fate."

The Old Lady didn't believe in those theories, but not all of what had been theorized was nonsensical. 

For instance, what she had confirmed through Gio. 

'Resistances and Weaknesses are connected. Each Resistance is matched by a Weakness, and if the two present themselves in an offset number, it is most likely because the strength of one can only be offset by two.'

In many cases, it wasn't that the one was strong, but that the two were weak. However, the Old Lady herself had seen examples of the opposite. 

'The Weakness of Healing is not a minor one.'

If he wanted to remain an ordinary person, it was more minor than anything else. The thing was, remaining ordinary was no longer the evolutionary path of humanity.

The race's natural path was that of a Sequencer. The number of people willing to walk it was smaller in comparison, but that didn't change the facts.

And, when that path was taken into consideration, the Weakness of Healing was an extreme one that essentially crippled one's ability to grow. 

'I haven't been able to discover what exactly his Resistances are. That's normal since he's reserved about them, but it would be abnormal if his Resistances were weak.'

If they were weak, it would be easy to draw them out and understand them. Since she hadn't been able to, she was certain that "Healing" was not the strongest of Gio's Resistances and Weaknesses, but the "Counter" for something else.

'I cannot predict what it is, but it has to be stronger than most Resistances I have ever seen in my life.'

She was desperate to research it. 

There was a man with a Resistance to "decomposition." When it was discovered and researched, cancer became a thing of the past.

There was a woman with a Resistance to "aging." When it was discovered and researched, it led to the eventual increase of the average human lifespan by 50 years.

If Gio also had something like that… If they could research it and use it to help the world…

'...it could truly be revolutionary.'

At this point, Gio was not a test subject, but a research partner. He was also aware that this was her goal, but he didn't reveal his Resistances to her. 

Back then, it was because even he himself didn't understand them. Now, it was because the time wasn't right.

Gio walked away knowing exactly why she wanted him to return to run tests. She felt like she was close to discovering the Resistance that countered the Weakness of Healing. 

'But that won't happen any time soon.'

If she saw what his body naturally adopted as its Resistances, he knew he wouldn't be able to leave the lab for the next decade.

When the time was right, he'd present her the information she wanted directly. That was enough to offset his hiding it for so long, wasn't it?

Unaware that she was thinking about such things at the very moment, Gio arrived in the main lab. It was a large dome-shaped room filled with equipment that Gio couldn't begin to understand. Just because he had [Memory Book] didn't mean he was all-knowing.

'I can't use most of the things she has in here, but I know how to use the machines I need.'

On top of that…

Gio turned around. Perfectly on time, a burly man with a scraggly beard arrived behind him, carrying a shopping bag full of materials. 

Everything he needed had arrived.

It was time to create the housing for a chemical weapon strong enough to cripple cities.