Mosen's guess wasn't baseless. In the original story, Kuma had also undergone modifications by Vegapunk—and his mechanization had been far more thorough.
In the end, Vegapunk turned Kuma into a cyborg much like Queen. Kuma's memories and emotions were erased, while Queen had kept his own.
Mosen guessed that the Mechanized Heart was part of Vegapunk's experiments in mechanizing the human body.
Before they underwent the Lineage Factor modifications, Vegapunk had said that their hearts needed to be modified because ordinary hearts couldn't withstand the power of the Lineage Factor. Their hearts' functions and durability had to be enhanced.
Thinking about it now, that reason was probably only part of the story. Vegapunk had used the Mechanized Heart mainly to test his human mechanization process.
And compared to the Lineage Factor modifications, the mechanization process seemed to have been a success.
The fact that Mosen and the other seven people who had received the Glint-Glint Fruit's Lineage Factor modifications were still alive was the best proof.
Vegapunk had confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the Mechanized Heart. It was a hugely important discovery for him, and from then on he could research human mechanization with even fewer restraints.
Besides that, Vegapunk had made another discovery: the Lineage Factor of the Glint-Glint Fruit was much gentler than that of other Devil Fruits.
It was fair to say that Vegapunk's experiments with the Lineage Factor had paved the way for him to develop the Pacifista.
At the thought, Mosen sighed. He remembered that only forty-nine people had been selected for the experiment at first—exactly seven groups of seven. He'd been added at the last minute.
"I was wondering why there were fifty people! Forty-nine would've been just right!" Mosen muttered.
Then he returned to Extreme Cold Hell with even more food than last time.
As soon as Mosen got back to Extreme Cold Hell, he heard a prisoner's screams.
He glanced in the direction of the sound and saw a pack of Military Wolves attacking a prisoner.
Mosen had been in Extreme Cold Hell for nearly two months now. He'd grown used to seeing things like this.
Generally, the Military Wolves didn't attack the prisoners unprovoked. The prisoners were another matter. Cold and hungry in Extreme Cold Hell, they had to find food if they wanted to survive.
Even the most vicious prisoners rarely resorted to cannibalism, so the Military Wolves were their only targets.
But the Military Wolves usually moved in packs. It was impossible for one prisoner to kill a wolf and get away unscathed.
A group of prisoners working together, though, could do it.
That was why the prisoners banded together. Only by working together to hunt Military Wolves did they have a chance of surviving.
Of course, some prisoners weren't accepted into any group. Mia and the other three were an example. Before they were caught, none of them had acted like a real pirate. Their hypocritical behavior naturally made them outcasts.
Prisoners who were too weak were also excluded. The strongest prisoners in Extreme Cold Hell had bounties of over 300 million Beli.
A bounty didn't necessarily reflect a person's strength, but many prisoners still chose their companions based on the size of their bounties.
Naturally, prisoners with bounties of just over 100 million Beli couldn't fit in with those groups.
Of course, prisoners with low bounties formed groups of their own. But compared to groups made up of high-bounty prisoners, it was hard for anyone in a low-bounty group to make the others fall in line. Those groups were prone to arguments, which could even erupt into fights.
So many low-bounty prisoners would rather fend for themselves than join a group of other low-bounty prisoners.
And the result of going it alone was, more often than not, the same as what had just happened to the prisoner Mosen heard screaming: getting torn apart by Military Wolves.
Mosen had never understood why the Navy didn't just kill pirates once they caught them, instead of sending them to Impel Down.
Now he understood. For one thing, some pirates hadn't done anything particularly heinous. They'd gone to sea because they were desperate to survive, and could still be useful in other ways—as test subjects for Vegapunk, for example, or as slaves for the Celestial Dragons.
And for another, being kept alive in Impel Down was far more torturous than being killed outright.
In the end, Mosen didn't step in to save the prisoner. He sighed and headed toward the hut with the food.
When Mosen returned, he saw Paddy hoisting a prisoner over her shoulder and throwing him aside. Other prisoners lay sprawled in front of the hut.
"What happened? I was gone for just a few hours. How did you end up fighting?" Mosen asked with a frown.
"Guard, this has nothing to do with us. Those guys came looking for trouble," Mia said.
"Looking for trouble? With you?" Mosen asked.
"They think our siding with you is a betrayal, so they wanted to take care of us while you were gone," Ian, the One-armed Pirate, said.
"So you just took them out instead?"
"Yeah. Mostly Paddy. The three of us just watched," said Michael, the One-eyed Pirate.
Mosen looked calm, but inwardly he was in turmoil. Just how strong was this pirate woman named Paddy?!
He'd taken one look. Every one of the men who'd come looking for trouble had a bounty of over 200 million Beli, and none of them wore Seastone Handcuffs.
Paddy had beaten them all by herself, even with Seastone Handcuffs on. That was absurd.
Mosen seriously wondered whether, without the Seastone Handcuffs, this woman could fight her way through all of Extreme Cold Hell and escape.
"Paddy, how did you get caught?" Mosen asked tentatively.
"My pirate crew used to be part of the Flying Pirate Group, right? After Lord Shiki was captured, the Navy hunted down all of us affiliated crews in force.
"I managed to fight my way through them and was getting ready to return to my hometown, change my name, and live out my life in hiding. But just as we got near the harbor in our home country, we ran into the Navy, who'd been lying in wait.
"The one leading them was Kuzan, one of the three rising monster Vice Admirals in the Navy.
"Kuzan and I fought for two days and two nights. We both ended up badly hurt, but he had several times more men than our crew.
"By the time I'd finished fighting Kuzan, I didn't have the strength to move anymore. That was when they caught me."
After hearing Paddy's story, Mosen sucked in a sharp breath. Damn, this woman could go toe-to-toe with Kuzan at that point in time! With strength like that, why hadn't they sent her to Level Six?
"Paddy, what was your bounty again?" Mosen asked.
"170 million Beli."
"Only 170 million? With strength like yours, how come your bounty is so low?"
"I don't really like fighting. My bounty only got that high because my crew joined the Flying Pirate Group," Paddy replied.
"Paddy, I remember you said you were good at Armament Haki. Yours must be pretty powerful, right?"
"I guess so! Lord Shiki used to say my Armament Haki was pretty good," Paddy replied uncertainly.
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