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But to him now, it was merely something within easy reach.
"It enhances medical skills to an astonishing degree.
If a top doctor ate it, the vast majority of diseases in the world could be easily cured."
"Even Amber Lead Syndrome?"
Jora caught on immediately.
She ran the New White Sand Orphanage in Dressrosa and was all too familiar with that disease that spread through the bone marrow.
"That's right."
Rossi nodded.
"Even if ** has penetrated deep into the bone marrow, this fruit can eradicate it.
If, back then..."
He paused and said no more.
If the Roger Pirates had obtained it back then, the course of history might have been entirely different.
As for immortality?
An exceedingly faint sneer flickered at the corner of his mouth.
If everyone he cherished had turned to dust, and he lived alone through endless years, then that so-called "immortality"
-how would it differ from an eternal prison?
"Kid."
He raised his eyes and looked into the depths of the blizzard.
When Rossi turned, he noticed another figure at the rear of the group.
The boy was covered in bruises, stumbling through the snow and leaving tracks of uneven depth.
"You're free,"
Rossi told him, turning his head. "You can go wherever you want."
The boy tugged at the corner of his mouth, his smile like frost-cracked bark. "Sir, in weather like this... I won't survive alone."
His voice was hoarse, and his white breath quickly dispersed in the freezing wind. "Let me come with you. Just give me something to eat. I can do any kind of work."
Just what I wanted.
Rossi had intended that all along. Having the boy ask first saved him the trouble.
"Come here."
Jora had already crouched down, accustomed to caring for children. "Your name?"