Rise of the Darkness Tycoon

Chapter 29- Let’s Skip School Today!

Calvin spent his Sunday between a gym near the artifact market, one that catered towards body building for elementalists with superior physical capabilities.

He did have some issues getting a membership and had to settle for a temporary membership since he wasn’t an officially registered elementalist, but that was a minor issue that was easily smoothed over.

He divided his time between some basic workouts, not enough to stress this body that hadn’t ever stepped foot in a gym before, and absorbing the energy from the elemental beast cores from last Thursday’s incident.

Currently, Calvin had a total of 3 D-Rank Elemental Beast Cores, enough to improve his current strength and push him to the higher ends of the E-Rank.

Becoming D-Rank, however, would require a lot more than that to completely break that Rank barrier and upgrade his physical body and elemental energy capacity to the level required to be considered D-Rank.

It was from there that he could truly be considered superhuman.

He stayed at the gym until closing time, then returned home and slept, waking up the next morning with light muscle cramps.

Like usual, Martha had already gone to work before he woke up, and she left some food for him to take as breakfast, as well as some cash for him to use for lunch in school.

Calvin sorted through his stuff, scanning his memories to remember his timetable and carry the appropriate books.

After tossing everything into his cross bag, he was about to start turning off the lights and fans in the house to save on electricity when he sensed a presence right outside the door.

Calvin froze for a moment, then he sighed and walked up to the door, opening it just before the person on the other side could press the doorbell.

The young woman standing there smiled upon seeing him, opening her hand and waving as she called out cheerfully.

“Hey there, Calvin!”

“…what the hell are you doing here, Ashley?” Calvin asked, a trace of exhaustion in his voice.

This scene was a repeat of Saturday, when she’d come to take him to the auction, and Calvin was already prepared to hear something out of the ordinary from her.

And truly, Ashley didn’t disappoint.

“Let’s skip school today!”

“…”

Calvin just stared at her in silence for a few seconds, then closed the door and went back to switching off the lights in the kitchen.

After that, he headed back to the door, opened it again, and, unsurprisingly, Ashley was still there.

“Why’d you shut the door on me? That’s rude, you know?”

Calvin ignored her, locked the house, and tossed the key into his bag before heading down the hallway.

“Calvin? Hey, why’re you ignoring me?”

Despite Ashley calling out to him repeatedly, Calvin didn’t answer. In fact, he opened his bag and pulled out a pair of earbuds, about to place them in his ears, when Ashley finally had enough and rushed in front of him, grabbing his hands.

“Calvin!”

Sighing heavily, Calvin clipped the earbuds case shut, crossed his arms, and asked, “So? What genius reason do you have for suggesting we skip school?”

“Do you really have to sound like that?” Ashley responded in a slightly pouty tone, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, I have to respond like that when you show up at my doorstep by 7:30 a.m. on a Monday and tell me to skip school,” Calvin shot back.

“I mean, you’ve already skipped an entire week. What’s one extra day?” Ashley said with a shrug. “Besides, these days, most of what we have are usually self-study periods, so we only have like two actual classes throughout the day.”

Calvin, however, wasn’t ready to hear her analysis of why his skipping a day of school wasn’t going to be a big issue.

“Ashley, can you go on with your reason now?”

When he said that, she exhaled softly and lowered her voice before answering.

“The results from the investigation of Thursday’s incident are out, and well, things are bigger than we thought.”

“I don’t recall having told you what I thought about that incident,” Calvin said, and then his expression turned incredulous as he continued, “And also, why didn’t you start with that?”

If Ashley had said from the start that the results from Thursday’s incident investigation were out, Calvin would’ve been more than willing to listen to her, unlike her showing up at his doorstep and immediately telling him to skip school.

“What? I didn’t want to bring up the heavy news first. I wanted things to be a little bit light-hearted.”

Calvin just rolled his eyes at her response, deciding to focus on the main topic.

“So, what are the results of the investigation and how does that relate to me skipping school?”

“Well, the police and the EMA agents wanted to talk about it, and so I told them that I’m going to come over to the station, bringing you along,” Ashley replied. “It’s going to take a while because of how serious things are apparently and the potential people of power involved in this.”

“People of power, huh?” Calvin muttered. “Are you sure that’s something you want to get a random civilian involved in?”

His question made Ashley glance him over from head to toe, then she scoffed.

“You? Random civilian? Did you forget the part where you joined me to take down the elemental beasts that were in that trailer that day? You’re already involved in this, Calvin.”

Her words held true. Calvin was already involved in the matter, so there was no point in acting like he wasn’t.

Exhaling softly, he nodded and said, “Fine, but what are we going to do regarding attendance? I’m supposed to report back at school this morning, and if I don’t, my mother will be informed. I really don’t want to have to begin explaining to her about the incident on Thursday, at the very least, not yet.”

Upon hearing this, Ashley blinked lightly and asked, “I mean, I already kind of guessed it, but your mother doesn’t know you’re an elementalist on this, does she?”

Calvin nodded silently.

Ashley slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out her phone, scrolling through as she said, “I’ll just contact the principal and let him know that you would be out with me on very important business.”

What she wanted to inform the principal sounded vague, and Calvin didn’t really think that was going to be enough to excuse his absence. This perhaps showed on his face, and Ashley, looking at him, added, “The principal knows better than to pry whenever I say that I’m dealing with very important business.”

The way she said it made it sound like this wasn’t the first time she’d done something like this, so Calvin didn’t say anything else and let her handle the matter.

After sending the appropriate messages to the principal, she locked her phone and pointed over the balcony of the apartment complex.

“Car’s downstairs. Let’s go.”

The ride to the police station was quick, and since Ashley had already informed them earlier that she was on the way, there was an officer by the main entrance waiting to receive them.

Calvin remembered them as one of the officers who had been on the scene last Thursday, specifically the one who had caught the gun he’d thrown.

They were led up to a private room, where they were greeted by the police sergeant they’d seen on Thursday and another plainclothes officer, whom Calvin assumed was the detective in charge of the case.

“Good morning, Lady Simon. I failed to properly introduce myself last Thursday. I’m Sergeant Morris,” the uniformed sergeant said as he rose to his feet the moment they entered.

Gesturing to the man beside him, he added, “With me is Detective Bruce. He’s been working with me on the investigation.”

Ashley acknowledged their introduction with a nod, then yawned as she sat down at the other end of the table.

Noticing this, Calvin took a seat beside her and leaned in, asking, “You haven’t slept in days or something?”

“Just three,” she replied with another light yawn. “Been a bit busy.”

Her response left Calvin slightly surprised. He wondered what exactly she’d been doing that she hadn’t slept in three days, including the Saturday she’d come over to take him to the auction, and how she still had the energy to be as chipper as she had been a few minutes ago.

“You should get some sleep soon. Even superhuman bodies can break down from overwork,” he advised.

Ashley just nodded lightly, rubbed her eyes a bit, and looked toward the police officers in front of them.

“So? What have you discovered?”

Given the nature of the incident, the investigation was expected to determine several things, including the origin of the trailer, how it obtained the elemental beasts, where the beasts were being transported to, and how the electricity company van was involved.