Crystal Magi didn't think the power that the higher vampire gained from killing its people and the power that he gained from killing the higher vampire was worth all of these. So he was dejected as he scanned the city.
Kelvin, who was with his soldiers, felt it when the higher vampire that he had his eyes on died. He didn't think the vampire had committed suicide, and he also felt the powerful mind of Crystal Magi roaming about, so he had an inkling as to what could have killed the higher vampire.
He had hopes of using the ability gained from a higher vampire created from a librarian as the link to fuse Life Domination and Mind Overseer. That way, he might finally be able to enslave people against their will.
Higher vampires can't enslave people, but they have mental abilities such as Mental Siphon, Charm, and Illusion.
Librarians can't enslave people either, but they have powerful minds that they can use to communicate with people, see without their eyes, and attack people's minds.
Librarians remind him of the cocky guy that tracked him down and wanted to kill him. He had lost that man's ability to see emotions and attack people's minds when the man committed suicide and took down a hundred thousand people with him.
If he could get these mental abilities, especially Mental Siphon, and fuse them with his Mind Overseer or Life Domination ability, it could be what he needs to finally align mental abilities and life for these two abilities to fuse.
He couldn't attack Crystal Magi since he was an ally, and he might not be able to defeat him even if he could attack, so he had his mind on this librarian. Yet, Crystal Magi interfered and took away what he was looking forward to.
He was unhappy with the development. He felt like reaching out with Mental Overseer and placing a mark on Crystal Magi's mind to use it to communicate with him.
But then he remembered that he was supposed to be hiding his abilities from his allies and enemies so that he wouldn't be targeted like he was last time he was made a leader. So he sighed and decided to pursue the matter himself.
He thought to himself, "I guess I have to be faster next time. Or maybe I should wait until after the expedition."
He hasn't given up on the dead librarian, though. He will just act like he doesn't know about the death of the target librarian yet. Then he will question Crystal Magi later when he can't find the higher vampire.
In the meantime, he continued to lead his soldiers to kill the vampires. A few hours later, they reached the core and found it absent.
The other soldiers didn't know what had happened, so they only felt that the librarian had escaped while they were busy with the lesser vampires.
They didn't feel anything out of place and were tired. They just wanted to rest after fighting nonstop for 22 hours and would have let things go if Kelvin hadn't pointed out the red dust on the ground.
The dust itself was unremarkable. It was red and fine like silt. What was odd about it was that it was piled on the ground in the shape of something.
The soldiers had seen this type of red dust and the form it created on the ground. They didn't know it before they began this expedition, but they have seen it several times in the past hour.
Whenever vampires die, they leave the red sand behind. The soldiers had seen it happen several times recently, so they were able to come to this conclusion easily.
Even then, they could only be sure that a certain vampire had died here. They couldn't be sure of the identity of the vampire that died and the identity of the person who killed it. So there were a lot of questions that needed to be answered before they came to the conclusion that their ally had killed the librarian.
Not that there was anything wrong with their ally helping them. But if the soldiers knew that it was Crystal Magi who had killed someone from his position at the center of the wayfarer, they would become more wary of the seemingly innocent librarian.
Kelvin knew what had happened, but he didn't make a fuss or inform his soldiers so as not to scare them. But he did inform command of the development. He also confronted Crystal Magi about it.
He didn't shout out his question. Instead of doing that, he waited until the soldiers had cleared out their things, such as the chemical lamps and the noise box. He waited for them to return to their moving base before he went to ask Crystal Magi about the death of the wayfarer.
He didn't ask Crystal Magi if he had killed the higher vampire. Instead, he asked Crystal Magi if he knew who did it.
He had the right to ask that question because Crystal Magi's perception was supposed to be covering the whole target wayfarer and informing them of anything out of place. So Crystal Magi ought to know if the higher vampire was present and if it was the one that died.
Crystal didn't deny it. The librarian told him that he was the one who killed the higher vampire.
He said, "It wanted to attack you, and I helped you resolve it. I didn't want the wayward librarian to injure my precious allies."
Kelvin didn't believe what the guy had said because of his instinctive distrust of people, but he didn't press the issue.
Not even the fact that Crystal Magi had grown stronger since the last time they met made him press the issue. He felt that his life wasn't worth it to unveil any secret that Crystal Magi was hiding.
He simply thanked Crystal Magi and left. But he did inform Command through the mark on his arm about his observations.
He was rewarded with merit points for clearing out the target. The other soldiers got their merit points too.