Dr. Clover's answer immediately proved that Mousse's demand had not been excessive at all.
It turned out that, to Mousse—an outsider who merely treated history as a tool, neither loved nor respected it, and was destined never to enter his circle—Dr. Clover had never wanted to teach him Ohara's true essence from the bottom of his heart.
Even when tempted by a Poneglyph he had never seen before, the old curator had taken advantage of the information gap between them and held things back during his instruction.
The techniques and tricks he had taught Mousse before were useful, but incomplete. They could indeed be used to decipher Poneglyphs, but translating them accurately required tedious steps and an extremely long time.
If Mousse truly followed those methods, deciphering just three Poneglyphs—including the one at home—would take one or two years, and the translations might not even be entirely accurate.
And if he wanted to translate even more Poneglyphs, the wasted time and effort would be even more terrifying.
That was with Mousse's knowledge and intellect far surpassing ordinary people's. If anyone else took such a detour, even a historical genius like Nico Robin might not have enough time in an entire lifetime.
"So you really did hold back. And not just a little."
Mousse glared at Dr. Clover with a dark expression and snorted. The reason he was accustomed to courtesy before force, and would not resort to coercion unless absolutely necessary, was precisely to guard against this. The information was hidden in someone else's head. Even if you forced them to speak, how could you know whether they had falsified anything or deliberately left things out?
But now that the man genuinely did not want to teach him, and they were not in Totto Land where he could rely on