Do You Want to Defect, Kuzan?

"Long time no see, Kuzan."

Not long after Dante was born, Austin left Cake Island. After all, he was still a Marine; he couldn't exactly keep mingling with pirates forever.

And Big Mom wouldn't want him to leave the Marines and become a pirate either,

because she was afraid he would fight for Dante's custody.

But Austin had no such intention at all. Since Big Mom was so eager to raise the child, Austin might as well do her a favor and reluctantly play the role of a "scumbag."

The kind who left the child with the mother and continued living freely out at sea.

Thus, with nowhere else to go, Austin secretly returned to Marine Headquarters once again.

Before leaving, he also reminded Big Mom,

"Don't let the World Government find out about this child too early. Otherwise, I believe those old bastards are capable of anything~"

Yes, Austin was talking about the Five Elders.

The World Government might look down on everyone else and act high and mighty on the surface, but they had done no shortage of filthy things behind the scenes.

Mother Carmel's work as a human trafficker was really just selling children to the World Government, which then trained the talented ones into enforcers.

No matter how confident Austin was in Dante's will, he was still somewhat worried that the World Government would brainwash the child into a lapdog like Lucci.

If it really came to that,

it might become a little difficult to stop.

So at least until Dante reached his teenage years, they had to keep him hidden as tightly as possible and not let the World Government's agents sniff him out...

Big Mom naturally understood that as well, and she impatiently drove Austin away.

She truly put on quite the performance,

completely