Rise of the Darkness Tycoon

Chapter 12- Living Proof of Change

“I’m…I’m sorry.”

Ashley was lost for words, not knowing what else to say, and seeing this, Calvin silently shook his head.

‘Oh well, at least her remorse is genuine.’

He exhaled softly, walking past her and patting her on the shoulder as he said, “Don’t worry about it. At least you tried to help, despite being in another class, unlike my classmates who either sat back and watched or even joined in.”

Calvin walked over to the fire elementalist on the floor and crouched in front of the man, and Ashley, turning around with a conflicted expression, said,

“Yeah, but even so, my act—? What are you doing??”

Her expression turned incredulous as she saw what Calvin was doing, and Calvin responded calmly, “Searching his wallet.”

Indeed, Calvin had gone through the pockets of the man on the floor and taken out all the cash inside his wallet.

“Even thugs like this have a few thousand dollars on them, huh?” he muttered. “Oh well, he’s an elementalist, so he’s likely killed a few monsters and gotten some money off their corpses.”

Saying that, Calvin tossed the wallet back onto the man’s body, and Ashley, snapping out of her shock, asked,

“Why are you taking his money?!”

“He attacked me with the intent to take mine. What’s more, he planned to use his elemental powers on me without knowing I was an elementalist. His actions could’ve left me seriously injured or dead.”

Holding up the cash in his hand, Calvin concluded, “This is the bare minimum he owes me as compensation.”

With that, he walked over to the earth elementalist, who could only wiggle and scream through a muffled voice due to the slabs of earth Ashley had created to restrain him earlier.

Calvin searched the man’s pockets, collected his money, and, while doing so, stepped on the man’s fingers, putting his full weight into his foot and crushing them. Then he tossed the wallet aside and frisked his body, pulling out all the earth elemental stones from inside his jacket pockets.

“F-Rank stones aren’t worth much individually, but they should still fetch a good price with this many of them.”

After putting the stones in his own pocket, Calvin turned to Ashley, who was staring at him in disbelief.

“What?”

“Are you really asking me ‘What?’?! You took their money and their elemental stones!”

“Again, they tried to take mine first,” Calvin responded. A moment later, a look of realisation appeared on his face, and he brought out the stones in his pocket, holding them out.

“Do you want compensation for your help?” he asked. “They may not have much energy since they’re F-Rank stones, but you have the same element, so you should still benefit from them.”

“Huh? No, I don’t need his elemental stones! Why are you acting like this? What happened to you in the past five days?!”

The ‘Calvin’ Ashley knew, and the current Calvin didn’t feel like the same person. The difference in attitude was so drastic that she was struggling to make sense of it.

Calvin chuckled lightly at her incredulous expression and replied with a shrug.

“Let’s just say I had a very rude awakening after having several pipes fall on my head, losing a lot of blood, nearly needing brain surgery and practically dying.”

He walked up to her, his obsidian eyes calm as he added, “They say a near-death experience can change a man. You’re looking at living proof of that saying.”

“But this is a bit too much of a change…”

“Don’t be surprised by just this much. This is only the beginning.”

Calvin collected the last of the small cash from the pockets of the four who had ambushed him, but as he bent down, his bangs fell in front of his face and over his glasses, so he had to push them back up when he stood upright again.

While he did that, one of Calvin Carter’s memories flashed through his mind, and then he turned to Ashley, who still had a faint guilty look in her eyes, and said,

“If I remember correctly, you used to say something about me taking care of my appearance and making myself look more confident, right?”

“Hmm? Yeah, I mean, part of the reason why Isaac and his goons went after you is because you look like such an easy target. If I were a bully, I’d probably pick on you too.”

Calvin chuckled lightly at that last line, thinking back to all the times Ashley had tried to help Calvin Carter.

Her ‘help’ hadn’t been limited to stopping Isaac and his group from bullying Calvin Carter. She had also tried to help Calvin himself, not financially, but in terms of behaviour.

She told him to stop walking hunched low, to stand upright and look more confident, clean up his hair, and get better-looking glasses that suited his face, much like the things Martha occasionally told him as well.

“About that haircut you mentioned,” Calvin said, grabbing his hair that had grown long enough for his bangs to reach his eyes and cover the top of his glasses. “Is that offer still on the table?”

At that, Ashley blinked, then her eyes widened as she exclaimed,

“Finally!”

She immediately walked up to him, grabbing his arm and pulling him along as she led him out of the alleyway and toward the main street.

Ashley brought him toward a black sedan parked nearby, with a man in a black suit standing by the driver’s door, waiting for her.

‘At least B-Rank.’

That was the first thought that entered Calvin’s mind upon seeing the man. He wasn’t surprised, though, since there was no way Ashley’s father would have allowed her to come somewhere like this without a strong guard.

The driver, on the other hand, was the one surprised by Calvin’s presence. He glanced at Ashley, but the young woman didn’t offer any explanation, only instructions.

“Take us to the Central Mall. I’m going to Aunty’s shop.”

The man nodded silently and got into the car, with Ashley pulling Calvin into the back seat. The moment she shut the door, the engine started, and the driver began to move.

“A relative of mine is a stylist with a shop in the Central Mall. She’ll give you a good discount,” Ashley explained, letting go of Calvin’s hand to pick up her phone and text that relative.

But just before Calvin could respond, he frowned, his elemental sensitivity picking up a huge mass of elemental energy approaching them.

Ashley and the driver noticed it as well, their eyes turning toward a trailer that was speeding down the express road at top speed.

The trailer was unmarked and had no plate numbers, but what truly drew their attention was that the elemental energy coming from it wasn’t from artifacts or other elemental tools but from living beings.

‘Elemental beasts!’

An unmarked trailer speeding down the express road while carrying elemental beasts was definitely not normal.

The driver quickly swerved to the side to avoid getting too close to the truck, but just as he did, the trailer sped past the red light at an intersection ahead, where a speeding van crossing from the adjacent road slammed into its rear with a thunderous crash.

The front end of the van instantly crumpled, and its windshield shattered from the impact, which caused the trailer to lurch violently to one side. Its sixteen wheels lifted off the ground before the entire vehicle rolled over and slammed onto its side, skidding across the asphalt in a shower of sparks.

The van fared no better, its hood crushed inward as it spun across the road and crashed into a traffic barrier.

As the trailer collapsed onto its side, the locks securing its rear doors shattered apart under the strain, and one of the heavy doors broke free from its hinges and tumbled across the road.