After returning to the Sabaody Archipelago, Austin stayed there for quite a long time.
He finally took on some of the responsibilities of being the Boss again, presided over Tesoro and Stella's wedding, and inspected the development of the various forces under his command.
He approved an enormous amount of funding for Tesoro's application to build a golden ship.
He visited Umit's maritime shipping fleet and offered important guidance.
Doflamingo's family development, the quality of the Red-Light District staff under Stussy, Feld's cash flow, Giberson's warehouses, Piekro's assassin teams—
And, of course, Morgans's news-delivering gulls. He made a point of commending Seagull King.
Austin gave it a try, but for some reason, Conqueror's Haki really could not knock her out.
The main reason was that he never stayed long whenever he came back. This time already counted as an extended stay, enough to soothe the lonely hearts of the young women and married women under him.
Mihawk spent every day living like an aristocrat and practicing his swordsmanship, while Crocodile visited casinos in her spare time between training.
Austin was more or less the same. He had just returned from an inspection today.
With nothing better to do, he went to Sammy's office.
"Come to think of it, Sammy, do any of my businesses sell mermaids?"
Austin stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down over the islands and the distant sea, especially the ships that had been coated and were slowly sinking beneath the waves.
"Mermaids..."
Sammy was writing documents. Hearing Austin's question, she gave it some serious thought.
"There definitely are, and the scale must be quite large. After all, more than half of the underworld falls within our reach. Someone is bound to do this kind of dirty work..."
Among Austin's gray-market industries was some human trafficking.
It