Rise of the Darkness Tycoon

Chapter 15- Liquidating the Wreckage

The police sergeant at the head of the group immediately scanned the area, ordering the other officers to establish a perimeter around the wreckage.

The EMA agents also scanned the area with their elemental senses, and just as they did, they all flinched.

At that moment, Ashley’s driver stepped out of the car and calmly walked over, his presence surprising the D-Rank EMA agents who all instantly understood that the man was several Ranks above them in power, putting him amongst the highest-rank elementalists currently within Dand City.

The driver said nothing, simply stepping behind Ashley and standing there, making his position obvious.

The presence of an elementalist of at least B-Rank made all of them, both the police officers and the EMA agents, hesitate to approach the two teens to question them.

“Six minutes,” Ashley suddenly said, drawing all eyes to her.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest, tapping her foot against the ground as she spoke.

“That’s how long it took you to get here. A trailer carrying elemental beasts crashed right in the middle of the street, and the beasts within were released into an area full of civilians.

Yet it took the police and the EMA six WHOLE minutes to arrive.”

Her tone was filled with a mixture of disbelief and disappointment, and the officers immediately frowned at her words.

Ashley naturally noticed their changing expressions and narrowed her eyes.

“Why the hell are you frowning? Your job is to protect civilians. People were in danger, and you took six minutes to get here.

What if we weren’t here? How many people would’ve died in that time?

There were two D-rank elemental beasts in that trailer. Those things can bring down buildings with just their bare bodies, you know?”

None of them had anything to say in their defence, especially with Ashley’s driver just silently watching them with calm eyes.

Clicking her tongue in irritation, Ashley muttered, “I mean, I know they weren’t the best, but they weren’t this incompetent before.”

The moment she said that, Calvin, who had finally finished sorting the elemental beast corpses, turned toward her and spoke, “Careful now, Ashley. Those words of yours could be misread politically, especially since you’re the former governor’s daughter.”

As soon as he said that, the eyes of the police sergeant leading the responding squad widened in shock.

‘That’s why she looked familiar!’ he thought. ‘She’s Ashley Simon, the former governor’s daughter.’

Dand City was the capital of the state it belonged to, and Ashley was the daughter of one of its richest men, as well as the former governor of that state, who had only recently stepped down after two terms in office.

While the police officers were still reacting to her identity, Ashley turned her attention back to Calvin and stared at him in silence for a moment before speaking with her usual smile.

“Are you done sorting out the corpses?”

Calvin nodded calmly.

“Yeah, I am. Also, mind breaking these off?” he said, gesturing to the earthen gauntlets still covering his hands. Ashley snapped her fingers, and the earth cracked apart and crumbled away.

With his hands finally free, Calvin dusted them against his trousers, then looked toward the police officers and spoke again.

“Although they were late, they can still redeem themselves by properly investigating this matter and explaining why there was a trailer carrying caged elemental beasts moving through the streets, why that van crashed into it, and why,” he paused, pulling out a handkerchief to pick up the gun on the ground and raise it, “the driver of that van had this in his possession.”

He tossed it toward a gloved officer beside the sergeant, who caught it reflexively.

“This weapon was what killed both D-rank elemental beasts,” Calvin explained. “I’m fairly certain a driver from an electricity company wouldn’t have a salary high enough to afford something like this artifact.

So why was he carrying it? Why was that truck with elemental beasts even on the road?  Was this crash really a coincidence?

These are questions that the officers and EMA agents here need to answer.

When you consider that this incident put the former governor’s daughter in danger, I’m sure you understand how serious this is.”

By the time Calvin finished speaking, Ashley’s gaze on him was completely different.

‘He’s too different, way too different.’

However, since his words were clearly helping her position, she didn’t comment on this difference and instead reinforced his statement.

“He’s right,” she said, looking toward the police sergeant. “I trust you’ll properly investigate this matter and provide my father and me with a clear explanation of what truly happened here this afternoon.”

She had only acted in the heat of the moment to save people, but now that things had calmed, she could see how unnatural the entire situation was.

Transporting live, caged and chained elemental beasts in an unmarked trailer through major city streets that unpowered civilians also used was not legal in any sense of the word.

There was definitely something wrong with the situation, and she would also have her father look into it when she returned home.

The police sergeant, seeing a chance to redeem their response, quickly bowed. “Rest assured, we will provide a full report of our investigation.”

“I hope you do,” Ashley replied.

After that, Calvin clapped his hands once and turned to her. “Oh yeah, Ashley, do you have any special enchanted storage bags with you? I’ll need a few.”

Ashley blinked in mild confusion.

“Uh, yeah, I do, but why are you asking?”

“It’s for the corpses,” Calvin replied. “First responders to elemental beast incidents like this can claim ownership over the beasts they defeat. We defeated these ones, so they belong to us, including the elemental cores inside them.”

Ashley was about to respond, but Calvin continued, turning his gaze toward the EMA agents.

“That said, I don’t really have any use for a pile of beast corpses. I’m not in the artifact business, and I’m not a weaponsmith, so they’d just sit around gathering dust…unless someone buys them from me.”

It was obvious to everyone that he wanted the EMA agents to buy the corpses. The problem was that they also could not simply refuse.

In situations like this, the police couldn’t just seize the bodies under investigation claims, since Calvin and Ashley were elementalists who had ‘risked their lives’ to defeat the beasts.

What’s more, the Elementalist Management Association was also in urgent need of as many elemental beast corpses as they could obtain, especially since the major elementalist guilds in the city had monopolised nearly all nearby rifts and the resources from those rifts, leaving the EMA somewhat understocked on elemental beast corpses and elemental cores.

Calvin knew this, having had Rickey find out the situation between the guilds and the EMA during the 5 days he spent in the hospital.