So I arrived in Seyruun rather quickly actually by traveling the Astral Plane, I strolled up to the entrance of the city as I took my normal priest form on the physical plane. I just hope this visit isn't fruitless and Miss Amelia can give me some clues as the whereabouts of Miss Lina. My eyes glanced at the talisman affixed to my wrist, as I had put them back on the way I used to wear them before I sold them to her. Whatever trouble could she have gotten herself into? And why did it just so happen she got into such trouble as my Mistress orders me to find her? Did Lord Zelas know this? Or was she really only trying to figure out by mere curiosity? And what exactly did she want with Miss Lina? I highly doubt this was really all about a human's health, even if she is worried about our pride. I would think after Lord Hellmaster's result of using Miss Lina ended with his death my lord and master would never try something so foolish, in fact she was the one that advised against his ideas when he asked to borrow me for service. These questions continued to tug on my mind as I arrived.

But that's when I saw the castle guards on horseback escorting someone out of city, and from what I could tell it was Prince Philionel riding the white horse in the center. I had only met the man once before, but I knew enough about him from Miss Amelia. I strolled up to the guards, who immediately tensed up, some of them raising their swords at me. My quite the jumpy ones these guards aren't they?

"Prince Phil." I spoke calmly, ignoring the men ready to stab my throat if I took another step. "It is pleasant to see you again, is something wrong that you are leaving the palace with such heavy guard?"

The messy black haired prince pulled his hood down to look at me with a confused face. "Do I know you…?" Well considering he was unconscious half of the time during that incident I suppose it's normal he doesn't remember.

I nodded. "I am Xelloss. We met once during the betrayal of your nephew Alfred, I'm a friend of Miss Lina and your daughter."

"Oh yes you! I remember my daughter saying that I owed my life to your assistance." Phil cried. "What brings you to our nobel city?"

"To tell the truth, I'm here to see Miss Amelia." I answered with a shrug. "You see I need to get in contact with Miss Lina and cannot locate her, so I thought I'd ask your daughter."

Phil tensed up at that, his head lowered. "I'm afraid Amelia is away at the time, but I will let her know you are looking for her." For some reason he clutched a scroll in his hand. "I'm not sure where she is at the time, as she left on one of her many travels for justice you see." He quickly added before I could ask where.

I sensed a deep, sorrowed emotion in him, along with urgency to get moving. What could be going on? "I see, very well then."

"Sir we should be moving if we're going to make it in time." One of the guards spoke.

"I know. I am sorry I must leave so quickly Mr. Xelloss, but there are matters I must handle." Phil said, tugging the reins on his mount. I then noticed he was wearing one of Miss Amelia's wrist bands on his hand. Why would he have that?

I twisted my mouth, something was going on here I could sense such fear in some of the guards and extreme worry from the prince. Whatever could that be? "I'll let you be about your business prince." I merely said, allowing them to pass. I quickly shifted to the Astral Plane to follow, for some reason I just didn't like his answer that perhaps this could be useful for me to find out. Well it's not like I have any better leads right?

I followed them for several hours, until they came to a clearing in the forest, far away from the main road. Why would they come here? This area was well known for bandit attacks… I kept myself hidden, taking my human form up in a tree just in case I decide to show myself. I sat cross-legged on a branch, my staff resting on my lap as a I placed a hand over my chin.

"Prince Phil, do you really think they will show?" one of the guards asked.

"I still say we should have delivered the ransom ourselves, what if this is a trap?" another asked.

Phil shook his head, unraveling the scroll. "The instructions were that I must personally bring it… Or they'll kill her for sure. Besides the fact that I want to bring these men to justice myself!" he balled his fist as he spoke.

Ransom? Was Miss Amelia abducted by bandits? That would explain his urgency to leave and why he tried to avoid my questioning. Hmm, this could work in my favor…

I noticed then a few men approach them, of course thanks to my extra sight by checking the Astral Plane, I could see there were plenty more men gathering around, hiding behind the trees. Oh yes, that one guard's concern was right, this was most likely an ambush by what I could best guess were bandits. Foolish humans, when will they learn? They can trust each other less than we Mazoku can trust the Shinzoku. I then noticed Miss Amelia among the men hidden with the cover of the trees but something was different about her, her astral seemed a bit larger and her abdomen swollen… Was she with child?

"So you came after all, Prince Philionel…" the man who I assumed was the leader spoke. He was a rather tall man with short blond hair, he was dressed in robes that seemed to conceal the sword he was holding.

"Of course I did, now where is my daughter?" Phil demanded.

"The money first, then you can see your princess." The man insisted.

Phil nodded to his men, each unloading the sacks on the sides of the horses. Ahh so that's why so many horses not just for the extra guards but to conceal the fact they were transporting a large amount of goal. Clever on Phil's part I must say, most ransom deliveries I've seen most humans keep it in one large bag which attracts attention of bandits.

The leader looked at the gathered loot and smirked. "Dismount your horses and send them off, I don't want you trying for a quick getaway. Then disarm yourselves."

"I want to see her first!" Phil snarled. "How do I know she is even still alive?"

"Very well." The leader snapped his fingers.

One of the bandits came out of hiding, holding Miss Amelia with a dagger near her throat. "DADDY!" the girl's scream made the prince nearly bawl out in tears.

"DAUGHTER! Are you alright?!" Phil was nearly hysterical seeing her, a nice little meal I got off his emotions.

"Daddy don't trust them!" Amelia shouted out, but the man holding her quickly silenced her by covering her mouth. There was an immersive amount of sorrow and anger coming from her, usually I couldn't stand be around his human for more than a few hours, but I didn't sense one drop of positively out of her… what had happened?

"Alright you've seen we haven't killed her, now dismount and disarm." The leader ordered.

Phil did as told, his guards giving their horses a smack as the animals dashed off towards the palace. They must had been trained to do so. After which they dropped their swords to the ground.

The leader stepped forward, smirking as he summoned his other men out of hiding, all having their swords pointed at Phil and his guards. "Do it men." He ordered, and in mere seconds all of the guards surrounding the prince had their throats cut by the bandits before they could even flinch. What a pathetic death for them, they couldn't even fight back. Normally I enjoy watching a good carnage for the emotions humans radiate, but this was far too quick and rather annoying for my taste. So this is how the great country of Seyruun is going to fall?

Of course Phil didn't die as easily, he actually caught the sword of the one near his throat with his bare hand, which began to get covered by crimson from his skin being cut. A foolish act but at least they didn't claim his life as stupidly as his guard's were.

"You have your money, let my daughter go!" Phil growled.

"Now why should I do that?" the leader snickered. "I have here the prince in my hands. I could kill you, wait until this whore gives birth and claim she died during childbirth, then come in with the next in line for the throne! I'm sure an 'accident' can be arranged for the king…"

"Y-you! What did you do to Amelia?!" Phil's eyes were flashing red with anger at this, obviously from the distance he couldn't tell that his daughter was pregnant. My best guess was that she was not even 6 months along, so I guess it was hard to tell due to the distance.

"Oh before you get some stupid ideas prince, we weren't the ones that knocked her up, we bought her that way." The leader explained. "I figured out who she was when we found her on the slave market. But I must say your precious little daughter makes such a wonderful cock sucker, they trained her good."

I opened my eyes at that, so that was the overwhelming sadness and anger coming from Miss Amelia. She had been raped obviously repeatedly and sold off by her abductor.

"So the question is do I have you turn the kingdom to me alive, or kill you now?" the leader mused. "You saw how quickly we dealt with your guards, of course had you taken us seriously you would have brought more than 15 guards."

Phil grit his teeth, his emotions on a roller-coaster by this point. The dam broke though when the bandit holding Amelia pushed the knife closer to her throat again, he lashed out with his fists. "PACFIST CRUSH!" he shouted as he hit the two bandits near him, a loud snap told me their necks were broken as they hit the floor. Hmmm, who knew that someone that spouted justice so much could be so cruel and murderous? I could enjoy watching this but then I saw one of the bandits had an opening to stab the prince and end this quickly. The one holding Amelia looked ready to threaten her life again.

Ho-hum, I guess I'll have to do something about this as I can't have Miss Amelia killed, I need to question her about Miss Lina after all, otherwise I couldn't give a damn about the fate of Seyruun. And if I were to save her father she might just be more incline to help me. Snapping my fingers, I summoned a few pieces of my astral form, several tiny awls that struck each man in either their arm or hand, disabling their use of a sword.

"What the hell?!" the leader backed up. "W-what kind of magic is this?"

That's when Phil punched square in the face the leader, his rage turning to the one holding Amelia with his uninjured arm but around her throat now, threatening to snap it. "C-come closer and I'll do it!" he cried.

Suppose that's my que, I jumped down and teleported behind the man, smirking as I spoke in his ear. "I think if you value your life, you'll let go of Miss Amelia right now."

"M-Mr. Xelloss!" Amelia gasped as the bandit loosened his grip on her from the shock of seeing me behind him.

I smacked the man in the head with the base of my staff, making him drop to the ground. I reached out a hand and caught Miss Amelia before she lost her balance, then quickly spun my staff around to hit the bandit that tried to hit me from behind. "Oh dear, don't you know it's rude to attack someone from behind without announcing yourself?" I taunted, lifting my leg to kick the next one that came near. "But after all you all can't even take on a prince and his small amount of guards without outnumbering them and disarming them. Perhaps I need to teach you how numbers are useless in some situations." I snapped my fingers and more of my awls came crashing down on the bandits, hitting them all in various places as they dropped to the floor to whale in pain. It had been a while since I got this much energy at once from anger and pain, and I must say it was slightly amusing.

Miss Amelia didn't speak as she just looked at me rather scared. Did she forget again that I'm a Mazoku? "Don't worry Miss Amelia, I mean you no harm." I turned to her with my usual smile. I turned to Phil who was still attacking any of the bandits still standing. If only this man was just a biiit more confident fighting he could have handled this alone, just he's very reckless with where he throws his punches, leaving his wide open. For example just now, that idiot leader got up and grabbed one of his fallen men's swords.

Too bad for him I'm here, I released Miss Amelia and drove my staff right into the belly of the leader, my eyes open as I spoke to him directly. "Normally I would send you off with a warning as I like to avoid violence, but you made the mistake of threatening someone I have business with. You have your own greed to thank for that, had you just taken the gold you'd still have your life now, wouldn't you?"

"W-what are you?!" the leader gasped, grabbing at my staff that was still lodged inside of him.

"A monster." I answered, with a glow from my staff his body erupted into flames. With another snap of my fingers and a wave of my staff, the rest of the bodies burned along with him. Better to not leave evidence behind of me helping humans, even though I could easily chalk this up to a recharge session, Mistress always likes it when I knock off a dozen humans or so, just I don't like to leave corpses lying around, the least I could do is clean up the mess.

Amelia was still shaking with her blue eyes wide in shock. "DAUGHTER!" Phil came running over and pulled her into a hug. "Thank the lord you are safe!"

"Daddy…" the wetness built up in the princess's eyes until it exploded. "Oh daddy! I'm so happy to see you again!" for being happy about it, she sure was radiating a lot of sadness.

I just stood there ignoring their little family reunion as I cast a quick spell to take care of the flames. I then approached the royal family with a bow. "It is nice to see you again, Miss Amelia."

"Mr. Xelloss how can I thank you?" Phil exclaimed. "My men… Had you not been here myself and my daughter might had shared their fate… If only you had gotten here sooner maybe they would have not been sacrificed as well."

Yeah…. I'll just let him believe that. After all had I joined in while the men were alive he wouldn't have realized the sense of danger he was in, so it was best to allow those deaths to further assist me in getting their debt to myself.

"Amelia I am so sorry this ever happened to you." Phil sniffed, holding her tightly. "We are just lucky your friend here came at the right time to help." He motioned to me of course.

"B-but Mr. Xelloss…" Amelia turned to face me. "… What brought you here?"

"Actually I came here wondering if you could tell me where Miss Lina is." I shrugged my shoulders, motioning to the talismans affixed on me. "I found the talismans sold to a shopkeeper in Ruvinagald, don you know anything about it?"

Amelia tensed up at the mention of Lina's name. Her emotions turned to extreme sadness and worry. "… Miss Lina… Oh Miss Lina is." She bawled out crying again. Hrpmh, this is getting me nowhere fast…

"Oh Amelia, perhaps we need to get back to the castle and rest first." Phil stroked her hair softly. "Please Mr. Xelloss, can this wait until then?"

I crossed my arms in minor annoyance. "Very well, stay with me in the event we get attacked again." But by the sound of Miss Amelia's voice she may just know something, hopefully the information I need to know to complete my mission.

Of course the situation Miss Amelia was in makes me wonder, did these bandits that captured her first also capture Miss Lina and the rest of her friends, then sold them off to different gangs? That leader said he bought her off a slave market, perhaps if I find out from Amelia where this market is, Lina could be there? Or was it from that market that the man who sold the talismans came from? Also how did they manage to get past Lina Inverse? And if Amelia was raped like it most likely seems… Did Miss Lina go through the same treatment? Possibly with child as well? For some reason the thought of that rather disgusted me. Seeing how it has traumatized Amelia here she doesn't even appear to be the same girl, normally my acts as a Mazoku didn't shock her so badly, she'd merely start a justice speech at me about changing my ways, not look…. Afraid of me. Would Lina be changed like this too? Just the thought of that made me nearly think about a slow torture I'd give her captors if I find them, to destroy the one human who's fire was unlike any other I've known? I'd hate to think of her will collapsing so easily like most humans but… She IS human after all, and if anyone were to break her I wanted to do it myself, for the pleasure of the conquest… Though in a way I'd miss her if I did, hence why I always feared when Lord Beastmaster would ever order me to destroy her. And what of Mr. Gourry and Mr. Zelgadis? Obviously they wouldn't slate these male bandit's needs so were they sold elsewhere or… Disposed of? At this point I knew I had even more questions than answers for now… But I highly doubt Miss Lina is dead, she wouldn't disappoint and die that easily. But the question remained… Where is she?