But Alan did not wait, and he did not hold on. “Shovels of the deep ground, assemble!”
Upon Alan’s order, the shovels lying about the dining hall—had they always been there?—came together as if magnetized. Simultaneously, words were being carved into the handles of the shovels at hyper-speed, the same two words, over and over: “Demon Shoveler.”
At last, the silver shovels shone beautifully in the light. Alan thrust one of those shovels into the wall as he yelled out, “DIG!”
At his command, the shovel burrowed through the wall, revealing a lurking demon spy. The second the tip of the shovel made contact with its target, the demon evaporated in a flash of white.
“They’re mass-produced models, but they should work well enough. Odessa, how does a hundred thousand of these things sound? Would that be enough?”
“Wait. Seriously, please, just wait a—WHOOOAAA?!”
Odessa had to believe she was dreaming. Shovels were resurrecting people left and right, and now they were killing demons. How could something this convenient just pop up out of nowhere?
But the reality of the situation was that this man, Alan, was creating new weapon after new weapon before her very eyes. The dining hall was filling up with shovels.
“Okay, so when you want to use a shovel, you have to focus and think, ‘I’m gonna dig!’ as powerfully as you can…” Kuronono explained as she doled out Demon Shovelers to the resurrected resistance.
“This is…crazy,” mumbled Odessa.
Madness. This was impossible. How could this be happening?
“How could something straight out of a fairy tale possibly occur…?”
Alerted by the clamor of people and shovels, demons charged into the room, only to be eradicated by Alan after he shouted “DIG!” and fired off a beam of light.
The resistance members gazed as one upon this man and all of a sudden began to chant.
“ALAN! ALAN! ALAN!”
It was as if they were offering prayer to a deity who had just descended to the underground.
“Ah…” Odessa’s mouth worked silently.
Alan decimated demons in an instant. Maybe he really was a deity? Perhaps this shovel man was the god who would repel the despair settling upon the Kingdom of Darkness.
No, this is impossible. But, but! I want to believe!
“All right,” said Alan. “Last but not least, you needed the morale to stand against the demons, right?”
“Sir Alan! In that case, you can leave it to me! Lady Lithisia taught me everything I need to know!” declared Kuronono.
“She did…?” asked Alan. I have a bad feeling about this.
But Kuronono’s eyes were twinkling, and as her teacher, he wasn’t about to tear her down when she was motivated.
“All right, yeah. Give it a shot. I’ll help however you need me to.”
“Thank you!”
And so within moments a shage was erected in the dining hall. That’s right, a shage, a stage made using shovels. It took only a handful of seconds to build thanks to Alan’s Shovel Construction skills. It was about ten feet tall with sheekers (a variant of speakers; releases sound through the dirt) and a large scooplight up above.
Alan dug up and collected spectators from all across the underground. He was able to gather three thousand people with no great deal of trouble.
“Thank you all so much for gathering here today!”
In the center of the shage was Kuronono, still clad in her pink micro bikini, her cheeks bright red from exhilaration and nervousness. Despite her appearance, she did her best to smile as she brought her shovel close to her mouth. “Let’s get this underground Shovelive started!”
The crowd Alan gathered raised their voices.
“What is that?”
“A concert?!”
“Is Kuronono gonna sing?”
“Holy bajeebus, she’s dressed so weird!”
“Weird but cute!”
“I LOVE YOU, KURONONO!”
The passion in the crowd was infectious.
“KURONONO! SHONONO! SHOVEL! SHOVEL!”
Behind the princess was a man with a shovtar and a man with shovdrums. Kuronono hugged her shovel to herself, knees shaking as she struggled to find the courage to carry out Lithisia’s plan.
Lithisia’s idea was to hold a “Shovelive.” Yes, a “a Shovel Live Performance.” Kuronono would raise the troops’ morale by dancing and singing in a micro bikini. However, she was soon overwhelmed by the intensity of the entire scenario and was now just kind of wriggling around with the shovel. All the movement caused the strings of her bikini to loosen, which made her panic and cover up.
The crowd cheered even more. The concert was a resounding success.
“U-um, please don’t shake the shage too much, or it’ll come off!”
“WE LOVE YOU! KURONONO IS LOVE. LOOOOVE!”
“Eeeeek!”
The shage shook even more violently as the crowd stomped their feet with glee.
Meanwhile, Alan and Odessa watched this all take place from backstage.
“I have questions about the method, but…group morale has most certainly gone up, Odessa.”
The aforementioned Odessa was on the verge of blacking out. She had a hard time reconciling that she was actually experiencing any of this. The last ten minutes had caused her brain to go into overload; it felt like the insides of her skull had been run through a blender.
Amidst the white void that was her mind, she remembered her own words from not too long ago.
“How could something straight out of a fairy tale possibly occur…?”
Kuronono was wearing a bikini, clinging to a shovel, and dancing before Odessa’s very eyes. Each time her bikini threatened to come loose, the crowd erupted into cheers.
As Odessa listened to those excited voices, she realized something important. What was happening in front of her was all too real. And it was no fairy tale.
“E-everyone! Do you really love me that much?!”
“LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Indeed, it was no fairy tale. In fact, it was something much darker. Much worse.