Part 42:
The Princess Fires a
Wave Motion Shovel Blast
✦ ✦ ✦
By the time Alan arrived at the City of White Mythril, Catria’s eyes were dead. Upon seeing Alan’s shovel, she yelped and shuddered, then shook her head as if to force out some unseen thing. She could be heard whispering to herself, “No…th-that’s impossible… I haven’t lost to the shovel…I haven’t…!”
Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Was she crying? Over some kind of “defeat”?
“Odessa, what happened?”
“Something terribly, terribly difficult…”
“I see…”
Odessa’s attitude told Alan she didn’t want to talk about it, so he decided to keep his hands off the situation. Anyway, one of Catria’s best qualities was how snappily she was able to recover from this sort of thing. She’d be back to normal in no time.
“Then let’s catch up with Lithisia.”
Lithisia was in the middle of a liberation mission with Alice. According to her regular Shovel Communication report, the mission was going swimmingly.
“But it’ll be bad if we let her work on her own for too long,” said Alan. “Let’s hurry.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Absolutely. The entire world could be buried.”
“Um, Alan, are you sure you’re not talking about yourself?”
“I’m just a miner. But Lithisia isn’t just a princess.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a lie.”
“I promise you I’m not lying.”
Odessa followed along after Alan as he made his way through the cave.
She just doesn’t know yet, Alan thought.
Indeed. Odessa didn’t yet grasp that not only was Lithisia not just a princess, she wasn’t even a member of the human race.
✦ ✦ ✦
Meanwhile, Lithisia and Alice had advanced on the Seat of the Black Iron King. This was both a spot for mining black iron as well as the king’s throne room. In other words, it was the deepest point in the entire country.
Of course, this also meant that demons were all over the place.
“Mwa ha ha ha ha! Go forth, my Neo Alice Army!”
The formidable undead army pressed forward. Alice had used her necromancy to summon powered-up skeletons and specters numbering in the tens of thousands. How? Well, she had taken the orbs from the Mage King Farshinal in Rahzelfo and was making great use of them.
Under normal circumstances, the undead stood no chance against demons, but…
“Hee hee hee, I’m amazing! This is a slaughter!”
Alice was on cloud nine as she watched her army charge. They were extremely capable. The skeletons’ swords, shining a radiant blue color, were powerful enough to cut through the demons’ Hell Breath. Likewise, the specters wielded staffs with brilliant blue auras, and they completely overwhelmed the demons’ black magic.
My magic can best the demons of Hell! Hee hee hee, I’ve gotten stronger since doing battle with Alan. I knew it! I’m not just some naked girl who’s only good for being scooped! I’m invincible!
Just then, a voice came from behind.
“Alice! It’s about time we recharge our Shovel Power!”
“EEK!”
Alice was invincible to all but Lithisia and her shovel.
“W-we’re in the middle of a mission! Get back!”
“Now, now. Don’t be like that. If we don’t recharge, we’re going to lose, shovel!”
“That doesn’t make sense!”
Lithisia tilted her head, puzzled. “Without Shovel Power, your ‘shoveltons’ and ‘scoopters’ will go back to normal.”
“THAT’S NOT WHAT THEY’RE CALLED!”
“Shoveltons” and “scoopters” weren’t any kind of undead Alice was familiar with.
“Oh, did you not notice? I strengthened them with my shovel, shovel!”
“How?!”
“What’s a few letters in the face of a shovel?”
“You literally just replaced huge chunks of their names!”
This was nuts, but the truth was Lithisia had indeed strengthened Alice’s forces. Actually, they were way too strong. Hell, the skeletons were firing off blue beams from their swords like it was no big deal. Alice realized with a sinking feeling that she knew of no skeletons capable of doing such things. But she did know of shovels that could.
“So that’s that! Scoopy, scoopy, scoop!”
Lithisia embraced Alice from behind where she sat on her skeletal palanquin. With her own legs, she locked Alice’s in place. It was the usual scooping stance.
N-no way! She’s seriously going to do this now?! Stop it, stop it, stop it, PLEASE!!!
Lithisia rubbed the undersides of Alice’s feet with her silver shovel.
Scoopy, scoopy, scoop!
“EEEEEEEK!”
Scoop, scoop, scooooop!
“SCOOOOOOOOP!!!”
As Alice writhed, her skeleton army grew more and more excited.
“S-stop this at once!!! Why is that shovel so tingly?!”
“Because it’s my special ‘Aliscoop’!” Lithisia smiled as her silver shovel shone in the light.
“Aliscoop?!”
“It’s short for Alice-Exclusive Scooper!”
That didn’t explain a thing! Alice tried her best to resist, but as she flailed—the silver shovel fell from Lithisia’s grasp and clattered down a crevasse.
CLANK!
“EEEK!”
The shovel tumbled end over end into the Kingdom of Darkness’ labyrinthine tunnels.
“Aaaah! My Aliscoop! I have to go get it!” cried Lithisia.
“Haaah, haaah. I’m saved! What a diabolical tool…”
“You’re going to be Shovel Punished later!”
“WHY?!”
And so Lithisia went after her Aliscoop, descending deep into the earth and following its presence all the way to a ten-foot-tall metal door. Judging by the layout of the underground, the hole her Aliscoop fell down connected to the room behind this door.
“Haaah, haaah, it’s finally over…!” Alice was in tatters after receiving her Shovel Punishment on the way down. Even without her Aliscoop, Lithisia still had her little red shovel.
The princess went to open the grand door but stopped in her tracks. “That’s odd…I’m not feeling any Shovel Presence other than the Aliscoop from beyond this door.”
“It’d be weirder if you did. There’s probably a demon on the other side.”
“Even if there was, I’d still feel some kind of Shovel Presence. Did you know all demons have sharp horns on their heads? Their sharpness is a lot like the sharp tip of a shovel. In other words, they’re shovels.”
“That makes no sense. Don’t even bother trying to explain it.”
Shovel corruption was spreading even to the demons. The end of the world was nigh.
“Alice, be scoopful.”
“But I refuse.”
“In the common tongue, that means ‘be careful.’”
“If you have to explain it, don’t bother saying it in the first place!”
“Absoscooply not (absolutely not).”
Trying to communicate with this princess was more difficult than attempting to reason with a demon.
“That said, I’m also getting a bad feeling about this,” Alice admitted. “What do you want to do? Call Alan?”
The miner would arrive in three seconds should they summon him. Even if they didn’t, he’d probably turn up if they were in a pinch. But after thinking for a few seconds, Lithisia shook her head.
“No, we’re going to do this together.”
Conquering the Kingdom of Darkness was one of the tasks required to scoop (read: conquer) the world, as Lithisia had discussed with Alice. Furthermore, there was Catria’s solo defeat of the Mage King to consider. As Catria’s master, Lithisia was therefore also compelled to prove the power of the shovel she had received from Alan.
“It’s scooping time.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
It wouldn’t be long before Lithisia discovered her choice was absoscooply not the right one.