It was cellular metabolism that caused PYROBROIN to break down, raising the difficulty of the research by several levels at once. However, Charlotte Mousse had some ideas, and this gave him another new thought:
"If all living things can break it down, that means there's some shared mechanism behind it. You can base your research on that. Also, if cells are paying the price to break it down, then the more active the cells are, the stronger their ability to break it down should be, right? And the most active cells are..."
"Cancerous cells!" Vegapunk's eyes immediately lit up, but he promptly frowned again as he thought of a problem:
Cancerous cells could only display their activity while inside a body. Once cultured outside the body, they lost the key trait that allowed them to multiply rapidly. If that problem could not be solved, they might as well use any random cells for the experiment!
However, Charlotte Mousse then proposed an idea that sounded utterly fantastical:
"Doctor, does cancerous tissue count as a living organism? If it does, then maybe Mom can turn it into a Homie! Look, it isn't a corpse, it has no intelligence, but it really is life that needs to absorb nutrients from the outside world to survive. Just like an animal, it completely meets the requirements for making a Homie! It may be hard to study now, but maybe it'll become possible once it's turned into a Homie!"
Vegapunk's eyes immediately lit up upon hearing this, and he at once prepared to collect samples from himself:
Cancerous cells did not exist only in people with cancer. They became cancer only when they were produced so quickly that the body's immune system could not clear them away in time, allowing them to accumulate until they spiraled