Rise of the Darkness Tycoon

Chapter 26- What Are You Gonna Do About It?

“Damn you,” Mark shouted. “Let go of me!”

Calvin naturally didn’t comply. He just stared at Mark in silence, still deciding what exactly he was going to do with him, slowly increasing the pressure in his grip while turning his hand like he was turning a doorknob, twisting Mark’s arm in the process.

Mark grabbed Calvin’s arm with his other hand and tried to pull it away while shouting, but Calvin didn’t move an inch.

Within a minute, the expression on Mark’s face changed from anger to fear.

Finally, after a minute that felt like an hour to Mark, Calvin spoke.

“Mark, was it? I don’t think you and I have ever had any conflicts before, so why don’t you just stop it with this...” he paused, glancing at Mark’s friend, then back at Mark before continuing.

“Bullying?” he said, his tone slightly questioning.

“Besides, did you really think I’d just sit back and do nothing when you dared to insult my parent right in front of me?”

After saying that, he stood up and lifted Mark’s body slightly before tossing him lightly. However, for Calvin, who had near-peak human levels of strength, that ‘light toss’ sent Mark stumbling backwards and landing on his backside.

And just as that happened, a group of friends who had just walked up the stairs heard the sound of him falling and turned over, surprised when they recognised Mark.

“Mark? What happened?” a girl among them said as she rushed over to him.

When she saw that the side of Mark’s face was swollen from the hit he had taken from Calvin earlier, she blinked in shock.

As for Mark, he had no words for the girl who called out to him, only glaring at Calvin with a mix of fear and anger.

Calvin’s strength just now felt unnatural, and it terrified him.

The girl, following Mark’s gaze, saw Calvin standing there, and her eyes widened in surprise.

“Calvin?!”

Seeing one of Calvin’s hands still held in a clenched fist, she quickly put the pieces together and shouted, “How dare you hit Mark? Are you insane?”

“What? Calvin hit Mark? That’s ridiculous,” a guy who followed close behind said, his shock clear in his voice.

“What’s Calvin even doing here in the first place?”

The girl’s friends came closer and were all surprised to see Calvin and Mark, with confused expressions on their faces when they noticed Mark’s friend still sitting silently and glaring at Calvin.

Calvin ignored them all and focused on the girl and the guy closest to her, a soft sigh slipping from his lips.

‘Of all possible places.’

He sighed in exasperation, raising his hands and crossing them in front of his chest as he looked at the two biggest bullies in Calvin Carter’s life.

His cousin, Florence Carter, and her boyfriend, Isaac.

They had come here with their group of friends after being invited by a classmate who was an elementalist and had also attended the same auction Calvin and Ashley had just been to.

Seeing Calvin here and hearing that he had hit Mark were completely outside their expectations, and the second part sounded unbelievable to them.

They all knew what kind of person Calvin was. He was always weak, quiet, self-abased, and never even dared to speak back to them.

It felt impossible that he would hit someone, much less Mark of all people.

But the Calvin standing before them wasn’t the same Calvin they knew before.

“Yeah,” he responded to Florence. “I hit him.”

Raising his right hand and forming a fist, he added, “To be specific, I punched him in the face.”

Lowering his hand again, he raised an eyebrow and asked, “So what? I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

Hearing his casual admission, Isaac and the rest of them were stunned.

‘What? He really hit Mark? How is that even possible?’

Florence was completely taken aback, unable to understand how Calvin had managed to land the hit.

Isaac, on the other hand, frowned deeply as he stepped forward.

“You hit my friend, and you’re asking how it’s my business?”

Calvin shook his head at this, a disappointed look on his face.

“For starters, I was asking that question to Florence, not you, Isaac,” he said. “Secondly, even if I did hit him, what are you gonna do about it?”

Calvin’s question stoked the flames of anger that had already been burning in Isaac’s mind. Clenching his fist, he said,

“You’re going to have to pay for what you’ve done.”

It looked like he intended to hit Calvin in return, and Calvin, calmly glancing at his fist, waited for him to throw the first punch.

But just as Isaac stepped forward, Calvin turned his gaze to the side and looked away from him. His action seemed to completely disregard Isaac, and that only made Isaac angrier.

“What the hell do you think you’re looking at?!” he shouted, reaching out to try to grab Calvin, but before he could, a voice familiar to him echoed in his ears.

“And exactly what is going on here?”

Isaac froze and turned his gaze toward the direction Calvin had been looking, and his eyes widened in shock when he saw a familiar chocolate-skinned girl standing there with her arms crossed in front of her chest and her left leg quietly tapping the floor.

“Ashley,” he muttered, and immediately Ashley’s eyes snapped toward him.

“That’s ‘Lady’ Ashley to you. I don’t recall giving you permission to address me without that title.”

Her voice was calm, but there was an intensity in it that made Isaac step back slightly.

One of the waiters at the restaurant, who had been about to step in to stop what looked like a fight from breaking out, was also surprised to see Ashley there.

Not because he immediately recognised her as the former governor’s daughter or anything like that, but because he could sense the elemental energy from her and could tell she was a D-rank elementalist and among the stronger D-ranks around.

As for Isaac and Florence’s friends, they all instinctively stepped back.

The emotions most people had toward Ashley were fear, admiration, or envy.

For Isaac and his group, who had bullied Calvin, the fear was far stronger than the rest. After all, Ashley had repeatedly interfered with them and had even gotten them scolded by teachers.

“So,” Ashley repeated, “can someone explain to me what’s going on here?”