Rise of the Darkness Tycoon

Chapter 16- A CEO’s Old Habits

Pointing at the three corpse piles, Calvin said, “F-rank corpses over there, a total of 23. E-rank corpses next up, a total of 14. D-rank corpses, lastly, a total of 2. One of the D-rank corpses is missing its elemental core, and so are 6 of the E-rank corpses and 15 of the F-rank corpses.”

“Considering the good condition of their bodies, most of which were taken down with a single strike from our resident D-rank over here,” he continued, gesturing toward Ashley, “I’ll take 200k for each F-rank, 400k for each E-rank, and 800k for the D-rank. For the D-rank without an elemental core, I’ll take 300k. Is that alright with you?”

Calvin asked this with a faint smile, though it wasn’t visible since he was wearing a face mask that covered almost half his face.

His glasses fogged up slightly, so he used his handkerchief to wipe them before meeting the eyes of the government elementalists again, all of whom had somewhat strained expressions.

Calvin had casually named standard market prices for all the corpses present, and any chance to haggle didn’t seem to be on the table with the way Ashley was calmly staring at them, tapping her foot against the ground repeatedly, as if waiting for their unconditional acceptance.

“Please, let us contact our superiors,” one of them said before pulling out his phone to make a call.

Seeing the phone, Calvin scooted closer to Ashley and leaned in as he whispered, “Oh yeah, Ashley, what phone brands are popular in this city? I need to get a new phone for myself and my mum.”

Ashley glanced at him and asked, “Already making plans with money you haven’t even gotten yet?”

Calvin shook his head.

“Oh no, I already have the money for the phones. This is extra income for something else. Besides,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his old phone, “I can’t keep using this thing.”

He slipped the phone back into his pocket and added, “Also, I don’t want my name on their record, so can I have them transfer the money to you, and you can give me my share afterwards?”

“Huh? Your share?” she asked.

Calvin looked at her in disbelief. “Um, did you forget you killed some of these things too? Even more than I did? Of course you have a share of the money.”

Ashley just looked at him in silence for a moment, then chuckled. “Yeah, sure. Let them transfer it to me. I’ll give you your share later.”

“Good,” Calvin said, giving a light thumbs-up.

Just then, the elementalists finished their call and turned back to Calvin. “Yes, we will purchase the corpses for the prices you stated.”

At that, Calvin smiled brightly, though it was still hidden by his face mask, and clapped his hands once.

“Wonderful. Now then, please transfer the money to Lady Ashley here, and you can take the elemental beast corpses. Stuff them, cut them open, harvest them for parts—I don’t really care anymore. They’re all yours, after payment, of course.”

Ashley just chuckled lightly at his actions, then slipped her hands into her pockets, only to realise she had left her phone in the car.

Before she could say anything, her driver silently passed it to her. She thanked him, unlocked it, generated a QR code through her banking app, and held it out toward the elementalists.

After the 8,060,000 transfer was completed, Ashley headed back to the car first, while Calvin once again looked around as though trying to imprint the scene into his memory before following after her.

He noticed the driver’s gaze had been on him for quite some time, so as he passed the man, he stopped for a moment and said, “Calvin Carter.”

He then continued walking, and when the driver looked at him in confusion, Calvin added, “For your report to your boss.”

Without saying anything further, he stepped into the car after Ashley, leaving the driver standing there in silence for a moment before the man finally returned to his vehicle, started it up, and drove off.

◇　◇　◇

Despite the long delay, Calvin still very much wanted a haircut, so the driver took them to the Central Mall like originally planned.

They first went to a phone store, where Calvin proceeded to buy a new pair of phones, the latest flagship models from the biggest brands sold in the city, costing him a total of 5,000 dollars.

The amount was something that, with her current salary, Martha would not dare spend on a phone, but even setting aside the money Calvin had made from the elemental beasts in the trailer, the stone he had sold earlier that day was more than enough to cover that kind of expense.

When they stepped out of the phone shop, Ashley noticed something that caught her attention and told him to hold on before quickly running into one of the nearby shops.

Calvin was about to follow her, but the moment his eyes landed on the shop logo, he paused and immediately turned back without another word.

‘Yeah, no way I’m stepping into a women’s underwear shop. Definitely no way.’

To pass the time, he decided to look around the nearby stores instead.

While doing so, he started a file transfer from his old phone to the new one, moving everything from Calvin Carter’s old device onto the new one so he could go through it from start to finish without waiting several minutes for pictures to load in full quality or videos to buffer completely.

He put the new phone into his pocket and held the old one in his hand as he looked around the mall, his eyes eventually landing on a watch store belonging to a brand he liked.

‘Come to think of it, I don’t have one. Calvin Carter’s bullies broke the one Martha bought...’

Exhaling softly, Calvin decided to head toward the watch store.

In his previous life, Calvin had owned a luxury watch collection, and that was one of the little things that CEO Calvin Osborn was known for.

He was always changing watches, rarely wearing the same one more than twice, and at company events and galas, people would often look at his wrist to see which brand he was going to wear.

It had even reached the point where some brands secretly offered him deals to promote their watches, with some paying him millions just to wear their products to events more than twice.

He recalled those times as he stepped into the store, but he hadn't gone very far inside before he heard a loud voice.

“Wow! Isn’t this Calvin? The hell are you doing here? You’ve got the guts to walk into a branded store when you don’t even have enough money to feed yourself?”