Finally with a destination on handy Lina and the others prepared for their upcoming journey that was going to start the next morning.
Lina was still grumbling about having to go so far to look for the key. Especially since she didn't know if it was a trap or not. So that's why Lina made sure to have everyone to head over to the libraries to go look up information about ruins of the Galorie Kingdom.
But the problem with looking up information on an ancient place such as it was, it's hard to find any information at all. The information that they did find was what Lina expected to find, that the Galorie Kingdom had been a huge and powerful kingdom that was destroyed by a war many years ago. Other then that, they didn't find much.
Zelgadis sighed as he closed another book. Nothing useful again... He put the book back on its' shelve and pulled out another on. Zelgadis was in one of the libraries on the western side of Sailune. He like everyone else had been assigned different libraries to look through. Unlike before they didn't go in pairs, instead they all went by themselves to the different libraries.
Zelgadis scanned through another book and again found nothing. He was really starting to get frustrated with it. I wonder if everyone else is having any luck. Zelgadis thought and looked up to see Xellos staring right at him from his chair across from Zelgadis. Zelgadis glared at the monster. "What are you doing here Xellos?"
"Why I just wanted to go and see how you were doing with your search was going. So who is it going? Found anything useful yet?" Xellos grinned and tried to get a look at the book that Zelgadis had been looking at.
Zelgadis closed the book. "Well just so you know I haven't found anything yet so you can leave now and stop bothering me."
"Ne Zelgadis you're so cold." Xellos frowned with a fake hurt look. "Does my presence irritate you so much?"
"Yes. Now go away you're distracting me from what I'm doing." Zelgadis pulled out another book and started to leaf through it while ignoring Xellos. Maybe if I ignore him he'll go away. Zelgadis looked up and saw very clearly that Xellos was still in the library and still staring at Zelgadis. "Don't you have something else better to do?!"
"No not really."
Zelgadis was very tempted to take the books around him and start throwing them at the trickster priest but he refrained from doing so. "Well do you know any information about the Galorie Kingdom?"
"Perhaps."
"Well?"
"Or maybe not." Xellos grinned and went to go and pick out a book of his own to read.
Zelgadis rolled his eyes and went back to reading. Why me?
A few hours later everyone met back at the castle to tell what they learned. And everyone was there except Zelgadis.
"Where the hell is Zelgadis?! He's never late for anything! And I specifically said we meet back here in three hours!" Lina huffed while stomping her feet and pacing around.
"Well I'm sure Mister Zelgadis has a very good reason on why he's late Miss Lina." Amelia said in a confident voice while her eyes darted around following Lina's pacing.
A few moments later Zelgadis came storming over to them with his face displaying his obvious bad mood.
"And where the hell were you?!?" Lina yelled at him. And he glared at her in return.
"Where do you think I was?!?!" Zelgadis yelled back at her.
"Zelgadis you really shouldn't yell at your friends." Xellos phased in floating upside-down.
"AHHHH!!!! LEAVE ME ALONE YOU FRUITCAKE!!!!! He's been bothering me for the past two hours!!!!!" Zelgadis fumed.
"Oh so that's why." Lina nodded her head in understanding and then threw a nicely aimed fireball at Xellos sending him flying.
"Miss Lina! That wasn't very nice."
"Do I really care Amelia? Anyway Zel you're off the hook this time. Anyway now that everyone is here how about we get started on what we all managed to find about the Galorie Kingdom. And just to deal with the most annoying one first, Gourry what did you find out?"
Gourry nervously laughed while rubbing the back of his neck. "I kinda fell asleep in the library and they kicked me out."
Everyone sweatdropped but had expected an answer like that.
"Amelia?"
"Just that it was an old kingdom that was very powerful and was destroyed while a war was going on with the Galorie Kingdom and a neighboring kingdom."
"I managed to find the name of the other kingdom that the war was with, it was the Khal Kingdom. Apparently the war started over a trading dispute where a scheming merchant that worked for the Galorie Kingdom was supposed to deliver some goods to the Khal Kingdom for money. Only the merchant took both the money and the goods and ran off." Sylphiel spoke up.
"Hmm... from one book I looked at it said that it was a natural disaster that wiped out the kingdom. Another went with the war that you mentioned. The last story I found was that it was some monster or evil creature that destroyed the kingdom. What about you Zel? You find anything useful?"
Zelgadis sighed. "Not really. I know for a fact that the fruitcake knows something but of course he's not going to tell me anything. What I found out was the merchant was really a monster that posing as the merchant and it was the cause of the war. But it really makes no difference about how the place was destroyed, that's not going to help us when we go there."
They all nodded in agreement. "Oh well, so what do you guys want to do now? Head out now or stay another night Sailune and leave in the morning?"
Everyone thought for a moment.
"Well we have been kinda outstaying our welcome so maybe it might be a good idea if we left today."
Lina would have liked to stay another night but she had to agree with Sylphiel. I've been delaying this so much anyway so we might as well leave today. "Okay then let's get ready and go!"
They went back into Sailune castle and started to pack up all the supplies that they had ready the day before. Only Prince Phil wasn't making it easy for them to leave.
"Oh come on, why don't you guys stay for one more day? You could get up fresh the next morning and get a good start on your journey. And we could also have a grand feast tonight." Phil said with a large warm smile.
"A grand feast?"
"Yes with lots of fantastic and exotic types of food. So much that you wouldn't be able to finish it all."
Lina and Gourry almost had drool hanging from their mouths just thinking of it.
Sylphiel, Amelia and Zelgadis sweatdropped.
"Thank you Daddy, but we really need to get going today." Amelia patted her father on the back.
"Are you sure Amelia sweety?"
"Yes I am. And you don't need to worry about me one bit!"
"Yes that's right because Lina Inverse champion of justice is going to be with you! And justice always prevails over evil!"
Amelia and Phil cheered and started to get into another heart filled justice speech with both of them doing it, but Gourry, Sylphiel, Zelgadis and Lina chose this time to tune out both of the Sailune royal family members and resumed packing.
There was many people waving them goodbye as they left Sailune to go on their little quest to the Galorie Kingdom, or rather there was a lot of people waving Amelia goodbye.
"Take care Princess Amelia!"
"Kill a whole bunch of bad guys!"
"Have fun on your journey Princess Amelia!"
Lina grumbled glaring at the townspeople. So what are we? Chopped liver compared to Amelia? Grrr....
After making their way through the crowds of people Lina and company finally left Sailune.
"So Miss Lina which way do we head?"
Lina pulled the map out of her cloak and took a look at it. "Well we could take the west road from here I guess. There's supposed to be a town not far from here and we might be able to make it there before nightfall."
So they took the west road and headed off. Normally in a situation like this Lina usually would be the one leading with the others following her lead. Only this time Sylphiel, Amelia and Gourry were in the front talking, Zelgadis was behind them staying out of the conversation and Lina was farther back in the group behind Zelgadis.
Zelgadis didn't think much of this until he looked back and was puzzled. He slowed down his pace till he was walking next to Lina. Lina was so deep in thought that she didn't even realize Zelgadis was walking next to her.
"What are you thinking about Lina?"
Lina blinked a few times and looked over at Zelgadis blankly. "Huh? Oh hi. What am I thinking about? Um well I was just thinking about the map that Kilana gave us. Have you looked at it yet?"
"No I haven't had the chance yet. Why?"
"Take a look and see for yourself." Lina pulled the map out of her cloak again and handed it Zelgadis.
Zelgadis took the map and unrolled it to take a look at it. "Hmm... well it looks like a very well drawn up map with a lot of detail."
"Yeah well don't you think it looks a little too perfect?"
Zelgadis raised an eyebrow at Lina. "What do you mean?"
"Well everything is so nicely and clearly drawn up with very precise detail. The map itself isn't torn, worn or messed up in any way. It's in perfect condition and as far as I know there's no one that could make a map like with that sort of detail."
Zelgadis frowned. "I can see what you mean. It doesn't look like any human could have made this by hand. You think this map might be a fake?"
"That's one of the reasons why I wanted to check out the Galorie Kingdom to see if it really existed. Because I've traveled around this area I know lots of the places here. And in all my traveling I had not heard of these ruins of this old kingdom that we're heading to. I also cross-checked to see if the other locations on the map were correct with other maps of the area in the libraries."
"And?"
"And the map seemed to be accurate." Lina frowned. She had been hoping to find a least a few flaws in the map something that could prove that it wasn't trustworthy. But the she couldn't find anything wrong with it. The map was seemingly perfect.
"Hmmm... This is still pretty strange."
"Yeah I know."
The two of them walked silently for a few moments. They both looked ahead at Gourry, Sylphiel and Amelia. Sylphiel and Amelia laughed at something that Gourry said and Gourry just looked at them both in confusion.
"Lina what are we going to do about them? None of them know about those shadow creatures."
"I don't know. I know that Sylphiel has been having those weird dreams but I don't know about Gourry or Amelia. I guess unless the shadow creatures involve them with it there's no sense in telling them about it now. Besides we could tell them and make them all paranoid for nothing. We don't even know why those things are after us anyway."
"Yeah I guess."