Rise of the Darkness Tycoon

Chapter 7- The First Venture

Public Hospital

Dand City

May 5th

Year 2020

Calvin stayed in the hospital for a few more days so the doctors could monitor his condition, and his rapid recovery surprised them. Some began to wonder whether Martha had hired an Elementalist doctor to treat him with their abilities, given how quickly his body was healing compared to a normal patient.

They ran several checks on him, and in the end, he was cleared for discharge.

In the days following the rooftop incident, Rickey came to visit Calvin daily, and the young doctor’s friendly demeanour quickly made Martha warm up to him.

Calvin also didn’t mind having Rickey around, and with little to do whenever Martha wasn’t present, he started to look forward to the doctor’s visits.

On the day of his discharge, Rickey came by and escorted him and Martha out, even calling a taxi for them back to their apartment.

They lived in an old high-density housing district of Dand City, in a one-bedroom apartment. The monthly rent wasn’t high due to the district’s age, and it also turned out that the landlord was a regular customer at the restaurant where Martha worked, which earned her a small discount on the rent.

When Calvin was just born, Martha had been living with her parents in another district, but due to the discrimination she faced from her mother and other relatives, staying there was not suitable at all.

Once she managed to save enough money to rent a place of her own, she did not hesitate to move out with Calvin, partly to avoid her mother, who never allowed her a single day without reminding her she was the disgrace of the family.

Even so, life was far from easy for her as a single mother living alone, even with the occasional help of her twin sister, Irma.

Irma sometimes helped Martha look after young Calvin whenever she went to work, but there was a limit to how much she could do, since she had her own family and children to care for.

Even so, Martha had pushed through all those struggles and raised Calvin to the best of her ability.

Memories of the years the mother and son had spent in the house surfaced in Calvin’s mind as they stepped through the door.

He stood there in silence for a while, his gaze moving between the bedroom and the living room of the apartment, before heading toward the kitchen and bathroom.

After taking a proper look with his own eyes, he sighed heavily and made a small mental note.

‘First things first, I’ve gotta get us a new house.’

He glanced at Martha, who was already in the kitchen preparing a meal, then continued his thoughts.

‘I’ve also got to make sure she gets to enjoy the fruit of all her labour.’

Martha was just 40, and since she had dormant elemental powers, she was very likely to live a long life. If she awakened those powers, it would likely be even longer.

The woman had been single for 18 years, and despite the many admirers she had gained over the years, she had not married.

Even the men who claimed they didn’t mind her being a single mother had been unable to reach Martha’s heart.

‘She loved Calvin’s father that much, huh?’

When Calvin thought that, he froze as an incident buried deep within Calvin Carter’s memories surfaced.

Calvin Carter’s biological father was unknown to anyone, not even Martha’s twin sister. Whenever anyone asked her who the father was, she would simply say there was no point telling them, since the man was already dead.

All her family knew was that she became pregnant during her final year in college at just 22.

Luckily, she had been able to graduate before it became obvious that she was pregnant, and she had immediately returned home afterwards.

All members of the Carter family were shocked that Martha had become pregnant. It was beyond their imagination that their youngest would do something like that, and some had even tried to force her to abort the baby.

Martha, however, firmly refused.

Her father, despite pressure from relatives who feared the stigma of having a child born out of wedlock in the family, also refused to let her abort the child and instead took care of her in their family home until she gave birth.

Martha was finally able to work after giving birth to Calvin and tried to earn as much money as she could to stand on her own, but before she could reach that point, her father passed away.

His absence made Martha’s days in the family house even more difficult, leading to her eventual move-out with 5-year-old Calvin.

It was during that year that Martha missed a Parent-Teacher Conference, having taken extra shifts at work to keep up with their new bills.

‘He had been the only child without a parent present that day at school, and some of his classmates mocked him because of it.’

He had tried to defend himself by saying his mother was busy with work, but another child responded by asking why his father didn’t come instead if his mother was busy.

That was what led to the other children discovering that he didn’t have a father, and when Martha returned from work that night, Calvin cried and asked her why he didn’t have a father like the other children.

When the woman understood what had happened, she had only quietly apologised to young Calvin with tears in her eyes.

‘After that day, she never missed another PTA session…’

Calvin exhaled softly as he remembered this, glancing at the woman cutting carrots in the kitchen before looking toward their shared bedroom.

‘That night, she cried herself to sleep, and young Calvin had seen her holding a file with newspaper cuttings that had very concerning headlines.’

He already knew where that file was and wanted to find out what those newspaper cuttings contained, especially since Martha had taken them out after that incident.

‘It might be connected to this body’s biological father. I’ll search for it when she goes to work.’

“Mum, where did you keep your dirty clothes? I’ll do the laundry now,” he called out while moving the bag Martha had brought to the hospital into their room.

“Oh…I think I left them all on the floor in the corner of the room.”

Hearing Martha’s response, Calvin wordlessly scanned the 10’ x 10’ room before spotting a pile of clothes casually placed in a corner.

While he handled the washing, Martha finished cooking, and they had a lunch that was rather sumptuous, a small celebration for Calvin being discharged from the hospital.

After the meal, Martha wanted Calvin to rest, but Calvin had other plans.

If he wanted to grow his money and power, he had to start as fast as possible, not wasting a single moment available.

He stayed at home for only a few minutes before telling Martha he wanted to take a walk, then headed out with his ID and some pocket money he had kept hidden at home to prevent bullies from taking it.

During his conversations with Rickey, Calvin had asked a few questions to better understand how elementalists were managed in Dand City, and a particular place Rickey mentioned had caught his attention.

He took a public bus from his district into downtown, arriving in about 20 minutes, then got off and boarded another bus heading toward a busy market area.

This district was filled with a wide variety of stores, ranging from clothing shops and jewellery stores to electronics outlets, bookstores, and speciality craft stores, alongside equipment vendors, repair workshops, food stalls, and even weapons dealers.

From that last category alone, it was clear this shopping district catered to elemental products and was mainly designed for elementalists.

However, even those who weren’t elementalists could still make use of items infused with elemental power, so the area was frequented by normal people as well as elementalists.