Rise of the Darkness Tycoon

Chapter 21- The Fourth Agenda

“There are coincidences, and then there’s whatever the hell this is…”

What were the odds that he had ended up in the body of the son of the man whose death he’d indirectly avenged?

Calvin felt that the chances of this entire situation being random were far too low.

‘But is this really some grand scheme of fate, or am I just reading too much into a coincidence?’

Calvin continued searching through the box, hoping to find some trace of Calvin Carter’s biological father that could help him reach a conclusion, even something as simple as a name.

However, there was nothing inside. Not a single photo, nothing at all.

He did find pictures of a younger Martha, pictures that had clearly once included someone else besides her. In the background of one of those photos, he noticed a signboard for a college in Dand City that he recognised, the same college Calvin Carter had applied to and the one Martha had attended 18 years ago.

However, every single one of the dozens of photos had the other person completely cut out of them.

‘Why go this far to hide his identity?’

Martha had used scissors to remove every part of the pictures that contained anyone other than herself, completely erasing all traces of that person from the record.

Even some of the bills at the bottom of the box alongside the photos had portions torn away, specifically the sections where names were supposed to be written.

Calvin sat on the floor, staring at the box in front of him as he thought everything through before shaking his head.

‘Calvin Carter’s original father was definitely not an ordinary person. Otherwise, there’s no reason for Martha to go this far just to erase all traces of his identity, or for her not to have told her twin sister that she’d been involved with this man for several years before she became pregnant.’

The pictures Calvin had seen had dates printed on their bottom right corners, and for some of those photos where Martha was positioned on the right side, he could see dates reaching back to Year 1999, indicating that Martha had known this man for at least three years before she became pregnant for him, and had most likely been in a relationship with him during that time, especially since the backgrounds of several of those pictures showed luxurious restaurants that looked like prime date spots.

“I guess that’s one more mystery I have to solve,” Calvin said. “One more thing on my agenda.”

Getting vengeance against the Osborn family was the number one goal.

Rebuilding his business empire was the second.

Repaying Martha on behalf of Calvin Carter for raising him was the third.

And discovering who Calvin Carter’s biological father was had now become the fourth.

Calvin returned everything to the box, placed it carefully back inside the wardrobe, closed it, then went back to the kitchen and washed his dirty plates.

He stayed there afterwards, pulling out his new phone and scrolling through it, silently thinking about whether to log into his emails as Calvin Osborn.

The problem was that he didn’t know if the Osborn family was monitoring his accounts for any activity.

After all, even though he had disrupted their chances of acquiring the assets his mother had left for him, they were fully aware that her loyal servants managing his affairs in other parts of the country were still active, and they also knew those people wouldn’t simply sit back and do nothing.

Calvin considered reaching out to those loyal servants, but there was an issue with that.

Calvin Osborn’s corpse had already been discovered, and there was no way they hadn’t heard about it.

To them, Calvin Osborn was dead. If an unknown number suddenly contacted them claiming to be Calvin Osborn, how would it appear from their perspective?

“Most of them definitely won’t believe me,” Calvin muttered.

Exhaling softly, he chose to log into a different email account, one not linked to his name, and sent out a few messages to contacts on that account.

‘The problem now is that I can’t access any of the money tied to this account because I set biometric locks on everything. Smartass decision.’

Calvin clicked his tongue lightly, locked his phone screen, and got up, heading toward the bathroom.

“All right, I’ve got a busy day ahead of me. I need to understand the relationships between the major corporations in this city, check the stock exchange, study the power balance between the elementalist guilds here, and figure out how to make more money from elemental beasts and elemental stones within nearby rifts.”

He had far more to do than spend time regretting a decision he had made in his past life, one that couldn’t be changed now.

Besides, it wasn’t like he couldn’t still access any of the money from his previous life. He had some assets stored in safehouses outside the country, and he very much planned to reach those assets eventually.

Calvin showered and left home, first heading to the Central Mall to buy what he couldn’t get the previous day: a watch.

He went to a different store from the one he had visited the previous day, and after buying three more designer watches beyond his original plan, he left the shop with a VIP customer card in hand.

After that, he entered an artifact shop and purchased a spatial storage bag that could hold far more than its external size suggested.

It was a cross-body bag he could easily sling over his shoulder, and once he had it, he headed toward his first main destination of the day, the stock exchange building.

It was time to see which companies were worth investing in.

◇　◇　◇

The stock exchange building was the tallest structure in the centre of the city’s financial district, glass and steel reflecting the morning light as streams of people moved in and out with urgency, most of them having the kind of focus that came from dealing with numbers that decided the direction of entire companies.

Calvin calmly stepped through the entrance, dressed in one of the few suits his current body owned, his hands in his blazer pockets.

His gaze moved across the interior, scanning the layout, the large display screens showing fluctuating charts, company names, indices, and live transaction data that changed every few seconds, reflecting the constant movement of capital within both the city’s economy and the nation at large.

He didn’t head straight for any trading desk, nor did he make any immediate inquiries, instead, he simply observed, standing in a position that allowed him to see multiple screens at once while also noting the flow of people between different sections of the hall, analysts speaking in low tones, brokers negotiating through secure calls, and assistants moving between offices with files and tablets in hand.

‘Major corporations in this city… relationships between them…’

He internally repeated one of his agendas for the day as his eyes traced the repeating names that appeared across different indices, noticing how certain companies were consistently linked through joint ventures, shared supply chains, and overlapping ownership structures that only became visible when viewed from a broader angle rather than isolated listings.

A few names appeared more frequently than others, dominating multiple sectors at once, their influence extending beyond a single industry into logistics, energy distribution, raw material acquisition, and even financial services.

It all formed a web that tied large portions of the city’s economy together in ways that were not immediately obvious from surface-level data.

Calvin moved closer to one of the central information terminals, silently reading the publicly displayed summaries, cross-referencing company performance histories, merger records, and recent acquisition announcements, mentally sorting them into tiers based on influence, liquidity, and structural reach.