"Excuse me, do you happen to know where the 'Witch' lives?"
This was the tenth time Bardock had asked this exact question to a passing local.
"The 'Witch'?! What witch?! I've never heard of any witch living on this island! Now move, you're blocking the road!" The bundled-up civilian snapped, shoving past them in a hurry to escape the biting cold.
Bardock stood in the snowy street, completely speechless. He had assumed finding Dr. Kureha would be the easiest part of this island visit, yet he was getting stonewalled right out of the gate.
"Bardock, perhaps this 'Witch' keeps a very low profile," Robin suggested, adjusting her scarf. "Why don't we ask the local doctors instead? You mentioned she was a highly skilled physician. Even if the common folk don't know her, the medical community definitely would."
"How could the locals not know her?" Bardock muttered to himself, scratching his head. "She flies through the moonlit sky on a sleigh pulled by a reindeer! She lives with strange creatures! Wait... a reindeer... a monster..."
Bardock suddenly slapped his forehead. He had completely mixed up his timelines! The moniker 'Witch' wasn't widely used until after she took Chopper in and moved into the abandoned Drum Castle! Right now, he should be asking for her by her actual name.
"My mistake. We need to look for a woman named Dr. Kureha," Bardock corrected himself.
Sure enough, once they started asking for 'Dr. Kureha', they immediately got a hit. A local doctor pointed them toward a town in the north called Gyasta, mentioning that she lived in a peculiar house shaped like a giant tree on the outskirts of the town.
"So, who wants to come with me to meet a nearly 130-year-old female doctor? If you ask nicely, maybe she'll tell you her secret to longevity," Bardock smiled, looking at the crew.
"I doubt it's something easily replicated. Even if she told us the secret, we likely wouldn't be able to achieve it," Robin shook her head sensibly. "I'll stay behind and continue searching the local herds for that blue-nosed reindeer you mentioned."
"It's way too cold out here! I'm going back to the ship!" Perona complained, her teeth chattering. "Besides, Bardock, since you're leaving this town, your Observation Haki won't be able to cover the ship anymore. I'll go back and set up a ghost perimeter."
Perona absolutely hated the freezing weather of Drum Island. Every breath she took felt like inhaling icy needles. She vastly preferred the idea of curling up in her warm, cozy bed.
"Captain, I'd like to go with you!"
Surprisingly, it was Leo who volunteered.
Bardock nodded. "Alright. Mansherry, you should come too. Dr. Kureha's medical knowledge is legendary; this is a perfect opportunity for you to pick up some advanced techniques."
Daz Bonez and Sai both stated they were fine with whatever Bardock decided.
"Bonez, Sai. You two stay in this town and act as bodyguards for Robin and Perona. Don't let anything happen to them," Bardock ordered.
With the arrangements settled, Bardock rented a sleigh pulled by a large, sturdy snow-yak and set off toward the northern town of Gyasta with the two dwarves.
On the snowy outskirts of Gyasta, Bardock stood before a strange, hollowed-out tree house and knocked politely on the heavy wooden door.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The sound of footsteps echoed from within. The door swung open, revealing the exact face Bardock remembered from the anime, complete with the signature sunglasses and plum-colored coat.
"Hello, Dr. Kureha. My name is Bardock, from the West Blue. I apologize for the sudden intrusion," Bardock greeted her respectfully, holding out a large, premium bottle of plum wine he had purchased in town.
Dr. Kureha snatched the bottle of plum wine, inspecting the label with a satisfied hum. "Heeheeheehee! Let me guess... you've come to ask me for my secret to eternal youth?"
"Well, would you actually tell me?" Bardock chuckled. "Honestly, I am quite curious. I recently befriended a couple of Giant Warriors whose natural lifespans are three times longer than ours. It made me wonder what the absolute upper limit of the human lifespan really is."
While learning the secret to her youth wasn't his primary goal, he certainly wouldn't refuse the knowledge.
"Please tell us the secret! I want my grandmother to live a long, healthy life!" Leo chimed in earnestly, revealing his true motivation for tagging along.
"Oh? You have Giant friends and Tontatta companions? You're quite the interesting young man," Kureha remarked, taking a swig straight from the bottle. "Actually, my secret to eternal youth is incredibly simple! You just need to possess peerless, god-tier medical skills like I do! Or... you need a doctor like me constantly monitoring and adjusting your health! Heeheeheehee!"
Kureha burst into a fit of cackling laughter. It had been a while since anyone had actually walked up to her house and asked about her secret.
Bardock just shrugged. It seemed that all highly skilled, elderly doctors in the Grand Line shared the exact same eccentric, trollish sense of humor. Crocus was like this, and Kureha was no different.
"Dr. Kureha, are you interested in a panacea? A genuine cure-all?" Bardock asked, pulling a Blood Dandelion out of his pouch and offering it to her.
Kureha reached out to take it casually, but the moment her fingers brushed the glowing spores, her expression instantly sharpened into pure, professional seriousness. "This... this is the byproduct of a Devil Fruit ability, isn't it?"
"Your eyes are incredibly sharp, Doctor. Yes, this was created by a Devil Fruit user. It possesses miraculous, nearly instantaneous healing properties," Bardock explained. "I wanted to consult your expertise: theoretically, could something with this level of healing potency be synthesized through conventional medicine or modern science?"
If the Blood Dandelions could be mass-produced or reverse-engineered by scientists, Bardock needed to know so he could strictly control their distribution. If one of these fell into the hands of the World Government, Dr. Vegapunk would undoubtedly dissect its properties and potentially replicate it.
If they were completely impossible to replicate, however, Bardock could afford to be much bolder, using them as high-value bargaining chips to secure rare resources.
"Science? Hard to say. I'm not a mechanic," Kureha muttered, carefully examining the glowing flower. "But based purely on medical science? It's impossible. Or rather, it's impossible with the current level of global medical knowledge."
"Modern pharmaceutical research focuses entirely on highly specialized, targeted symptom relief. A single drug designed to cure every disease isn't actually 'curing' the illness—it's forcefully repairing the body at a fundamental, cellular level. That kind of supernatural regeneration defies the laws of biology," Kureha concluded, tossing the Dandelion back to Bardock.
Bardock caught the flower but didn't put it away. "I'm willing to offer you a steady supply of these Dandelions as payment. In exchange, I'd like you to help me research how to force an Animal-type Devil Fruit to unlock additional, unnatural transformations. Are you interested?"
He was obviously referring to Chopper's Rumble Balls.
"Hah? I can't research that. I'm not a Devil Fruit user," Kureha snorted, rejecting the offer instantly. "Unless you have an Animal-type user willing to sit on my examination table and let me run experiments on them, it's impossible. And frankly, I have absolutely zero interest in Devil Fruit research."
"In that case, how about you take my ship's doctor under your wing?" Bardock countered smoothly, pointing to Mansherry. "Teach her how to elevate her medical knowledge to the absolute pinnacle of the sea. The payment remains the same: a steady supply of these miraculous cure-alls."
Bardock refused to leave without spending the Dandelions.
"Her?" Kureha looked down at the tiny Tontatta Princess, adjusting her sunglasses. "She certainly looks like she has the temperament for it. Tell me, little one. What are the absolute necessary requirements to be a good doctor?"
Mansherry thought for a moment, recalling the extensive medical journals she had read from Crocus. "A compassionate heart dedicated to saving lives, vast encyclopedic knowledge, and peerless surgical skill."
"Leave her with me for three days," Kureha ordered, a satisfied smirk on her face. "Come back to pick her up then. I'll teach her what it truly means to be an exceptional doctor."
Mansherry's answer perfectly aligned with Kureha's own philosophy.
"Thank you. I'll leave Leo here as well. He can run errands for you and help around the clinic," Bardock added.
While he trusted Dr. Kureha implicitly, he absolutely refused to leave Mansherry unprotected in a strange town. Leo was her sworn bodyguard. With his insane speed and strength, no one on Drum Island could possibly harm the Princess while Leo was around.
"Do whatever you want. Now get out. I have a student to teach," Kureha waved him off dismissively, turning back inside.
Bardock handed over a small pouch of Dandelions, gave Leo and Mansherry a few quick instructions, and headed back outside. Now, he needed to see if Robin had found Chopper.