Rise of the Darkness Tycoon

Chapter 10- An Unexpected Intervention

Calvin got up and continued walking, taking long detours through crowded areas and glancing at reflective surfaces to see who else was following him.

Eventually, he decided to head into an alleyway with very few people, and the moment he entered, a group of four men rushed out from the main street and immediately surrounded him.

‘Oh, only two were E-Rank elementalists? Guess sensing their actual levels from a distance is a bit hard for the current me.’

While Calvin had those idle thoughts, the few people in the alleyway scattered, having no desire to get involved in what was about to happen.

“Brat! Why the hell were you moving around so much?! You wasted our time!”

The familiar gambler immediately shouted, his nostrils flaring with anger and releasing faint traces of steam.

As Calvin calmly noted that small detail, the second of the four, a man with dyed blonde hair and piercings, stepped forward and spoke.

“Look, kid. We know you made a lot of money selling that elemental stone earlier. Just hand over all that money or we’ll teach you a lesson.”

He lightly punched his empty palm after speaking, faint elemental energy gathering around his skin and forming a layer of stone over it.

Calvin narrowed his eyes in silence, the shadows beneath his feet trembling as he stealthily fed energy into them.

‘The moment he comes closer and our shadows intersect…’

Placing a hand in his pocket, Calvin acted as though he couldn’t care less about the man’s threat.

“Teach me a lesson? I’m afraid you’re not qualified to teach me...,” he paused, scanning the man from head to toe before continuing. “Anything.”

His words shocked the man, and immediately his expression contorted as he stomped forward and shouted.

“Ha! You think you’re a smartass, huh?! Don’t think anyone’s gonna help you.”

Just as he spoke, the gambler from the store immediately shoved him aside and reached out to grab Calvin.

“You’re talking too much. Just beat him up already! He’d cough up his money on his own!”

With those words, he pulled Calvin by the shirt and dragged him close, but before his other fist could slam into Calvin’s stomach, his eyes widened in shock.

‘The heck? Why is he smiling?

Confusion coloured the man’s expression, and in that instant he stalled, Calvin manipulated the shadows of the two men in front of him, making them crawl up their bodies and restrain them.

Then, Calvin’s own shadow wrapped around his body, his fist turning black as he unhesitatingly threw a punch straight at the first man’s face, the impact of the darkness-enhanced blow breaking his nose and spilling blood.

The man screamed in pain and immediately let go of Calvin to hold his nose, but he couldn’t even stagger back since his legs were still restrained by Calvin’s shadow, causing only his upper body to bend backwards awkwardly.

Calvin immediately followed up with another punch to the man’s chest, then ducked to avoid a fist from one of the two behind him, which continued forward and hit the other man in the face instead.

In the same instant, Calvin released the shadow bind, allowing the impact to send the man’s body flying backwards.

Calvin quickly rolled to his left, and as he looked up, he saw the eyes of the blonde earth elementalist widen in shock.

‘He noticed. Oh well, it’d be weirder if he didn’t.’

Indeed, the blonde man had realised Calvin was an elementalist, having seen his fist wrapped in darkness and noticed Calvin’s shadow moving unnaturally.

The man poured elemental energy into his legs to break out of Calvin’s shadow bind, then immediately threw a kick with his energy-enhanced foot, forcing Calvin to jump back to avoid it.

The blonde earth elementalist stepped forward the moment Calvin created distance, his foot grinding against the ground as elemental energy poured into his legs. The ground beneath him cracked faintly as he lunged forward, his fist already drawn back before he fully closed the gap.

Calvin quickly sidestepped, tilting his head to avoid the man’s incoming fist, before countering with a punch to the man’s ribs.

The sensation he felt on impact, however, was unlike hitting flesh and bone, instead feeling like striking hard rock, and he immediately realised his opponent had used elemental energy to reinforce his body beneath his clothes.

Although he was pushed back by the force, the man quickly regained his footing and swung another punch at Calvin, this one faster than before.

Calvin raised his left hand to block and redirect the punch upward, his arm trembling from the force. He gritted his teeth and countered with a right straight to the side of the man’s head, then followed up with another punch to his shoulder, breaking his stance.

From the side, one of the remaining two F-Rank elementalists condensed energy in his palm and fired a cluster of jagged rocks toward Calvin, forcing Calvin to duck and roll aside to avoid them.

As the rocks slammed into a wall and cracked it, Calvin rose back to his feet, just in time to see the approaching fist of the second F-Rank.

Calvin clenched his left fist and moved his hand to the right, the man’s shadow sliding up his arm in a flash and altering the angle of his strike mid-swing, redirecting his punch toward the blonde earth elementalist’s jaw instead.

“Wha—?!”

The blonde man staggered back half a step, his expression snapping into anger as he grabbed the attacker by the collar.

“You fuool! Get the hell out of my sight!”

He shoved the F-Rank aside without hesitation, but in that moment his attention was taken, and Calvin closed the distance and threw a high kick, his leg whipping through the air too fast for the earth-elementalist to avoid, landing a clean hit to the side of his head that knocked him to the ground.

Calvin didn’t immediately pursue, his gaze shifting toward the other earth elementalist who had fired rocks at him earlier, but before that man could even charge up another attack, someone dashed in from the main street and immediately punched the back of his head, the impact sending him flying forward and crashing at Calvin’s feet.

The F-Rank who had been shoved to the ground tried to stand, but the earth beneath him cracked, and a flat pillar erupted, smacking his forehead and instantly knocking him out.

Calvin looked up at the one responsible with faint surprise, but before he could say a word, the ore-gambler he had knocked down at the start of the fight got up and charged from behind.

“Behind you!” Calvin warned, trying to manipulate his shadow, but before he could finish imbuing it with energy, his helper calmly raised their right hand, forming a pillar of earth that lifted the ore gambler into the air with force.

They snapped their fingers, and a horizontal pillar rose from the nearby wall, slamming into the airborne man and sending him flying across the alley, crashing into the opposite wall with enough force to send cracks spiderwebbing through it.

His unconscious body dropped to the ground, and the one responsible snapped their fingers once more, the cracks in the wall fading away with a faint wisp of elemental energy.

Raising a leg, they stomped on the back of the elementalist they had knocked to the ground, looking at Calvin with a smile as they called out.

“Hey there, Calvin.”