Lancelot nodded, tentatively at first, and then with greater certainty. He began to explain, as best he could, what had happened to him and the others. About how dark clouds had covered Rostir, and how his own investigation had led him to discover that Prime Minister Zeleburg was behind it all. Finally, he described how he had attempted to take down the man himself only to be defeated and subsequently brainwashed, sent out to capture Princess Lithisia under the watchful eye of a demon handler.
“Gaaah!” The moment he finished explaining everything, Lancelot gripped his chest in pain.
“Captain?!”
“I’m quite surprised a mere human could see through my control.” A creepy voice echoed throughout Catria’s mind, and it sure as hell wasn’t Alan’s.
Catria scanned her surroundings and found another robed man in the crowd of knights. He looked like a court mage, but the murderous intent radiating from him was anything but normal. Perhaps most obviously, two horns stuck out from his head.
This demon was the captain’s handler, and his power far exceed that of the demon from earlier.
“You! You’re one of Zeleburg’s stooges!” Catria instinctively gripped her Holy Knight Blade.
The court mage floated into the air. “You are a threat. And as such, I must use all the power at my disposal.”
The demon’s hands drew complex patterns in the air, summoning a dimensional slit far above him in the sky. A crimson mountain emerged from the opening—or at least that’s what it looked like to Catria. The living creature entering their dimension was so large that nobody could be faulted for thinking it a geographic wonder unto itself.
It was, in fact, a colossal red dragon.
“SUMMON DRAGONLORD!” cried the demon.
GRRRROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAWWWRR!!!
The dragon roared into the air.
“Wha?!”
<Catria, it’s coming! Prepare yourself!>
At Alan’s warning, Catria raised her Holy Knight Blade. The dragon’s evil aura swept through the air as it flapped its wings. No doubt it would soon unleash its dragon breath, but would Catria be able to dodge in time? Even if she escaped, the rest of the knights would fall.
Her only option was to defeat the dragon, just as Alan once had in the desert.
Can I really do something like that?
The dragon readied its fierce breath as its tremendous wingspan blocked the very sky.
“Grr, what incredible force…!”
This was bad. Catria already feared victory impossible to achieve. She now faced a dragon, after all. Humans couldn’t beat dragons. On instinct, Catria turned to Alan in the hopes that he would step in to save her, but her gaze fell upon the set of shoes and the entire lack of visible man filling them. Even they seemed to tremble faced with the beast’s immensity.
Crap! That’s right! He doesn’t have a shovel on him right now, just a pair of shoes. Useless—no, wait.
A chill ran down Catria’s spine as dread washed over her. Alan had told her that he was, at present, powerless. It was certainly a fact that all he seemed to have on his person were a measly pair of shoes. Easily destructible shoes, no less.
Did that mean that, if Alan took the dragon’s breath head-on, the shoes would be destroyed and he would die?
“UGH!!!”
Just as Catria imagined this, the dragon let rip a torrent of fiery breath, a storm of flames.
The lady knight lunged between Alan and the dragon and held her blade before her. She now knew what she had to do.
I’m the only one who can fight back!
“JUSTICE STREEEAAAM!!!”
Catria fired a massive blast of energy from her Holy Knight Blade, and it collided with the dragon’s flaming breath. The two energy waves struggled against one another, pushing back and forth, but all too soon, Catria’s blast began to lose ground.
She needed more power. She gripped her blade even more tightly, but it wasn’t enough; Catria couldn’t control the wave blast’s recoil.
Nonetheless, she grit her teeth.
I have to do this. I promised myself I’d protect them. I made that promise!
<Catria, your scabbard!> Alan called out.
My scabbard? She gasped. “That’s right!”
Catria reached to the Sacred Scabbard Arcadia at her back and touched it. “INVINCIBLE!” she howled.
With this power, she could negate all damage she took for thirty seconds—and just like that, the Justice Stream’s recoil felt like nothing at all. Catria poured even more power into her energy blast and shoved back the dragon’s breath.
I’m going to be the protector this time!
“I’M GOING TO PROTECT ALAN!!!”
KA-CHOOOOOOOOM!
The flow of energy tore through the sky, through the dragon breath, and enveloped the dragon in its entirety, almost as if a second sun had sprung to life over the planet. Catria thought this a familiar sight; it resembled Alan’s Wave Motion Shovel Blast, one to one.
“Ngh…”
After a few seconds, the second sun dissipated. The dragon and the demon had been completely obliterated, leaving behind only a clear sky.
Catria simply stood in place. She had yet to fully comprehend what she had accomplished. Every member of the knight brigade stared straight at the lady knight…until one of them quietly whispered her name.
“Catria…”
Suddenly, her name spread throughout the crowd of knights, whispered ever more excitedly, until someone cried out.
“ALL HAIL CATRIA, THE DRAGON SLAYER!”
“Ah… Huh? What…?” Catria couldn’t quite make sense of what was happening.
Alan (still in stealth mode) made his way to her, and she felt him pat her on the back. She stiffened. For some reason, she got the feeling he was smiling.
<You did well, Catria.>
“Ah… Mm…” Warm tears streamed down Catria’s cheeks as she quivered. “Alan, I…”
Catria welled with the desire to embrace the invisible Alan, but her heart warned her against it. Humans did not embrace things they could not see with their own eyes. That was the act of a shovel.
Would she dare bend the knee to the shovel?
Yet despite her heart’s warnings, the desire to do so only grew. She could no longer stop herself.
Why should I? I mean, I’m a hero now. I worked so, so hard to overcome all the trials presented to me. It should be fine to do a little shoveling now, right?
“Alan!” Catria dropped her sword to the ground, and just as she was about to embrace the invisible man whose presence was indicated only by a pair of impossible shoes—
Ding, ding, ding!
“Huh?”
The Holy Scabbard Arcadia rang its warning alarm.
SLUUUURP!
Suddenly, a shovel-shaped tentacle writhed out of the gemstone in the scabbard.
“Huh?”
<Hrmph, this must be because you used up its Anti-Shovel Power.>
“No, wait, pl-please! W-wait!”
But the tentacle did not wait.
With its shovel-shaped head, the tentacle began to prod at Catria’s clothing. Out of the corner of Catria’s eye, she glimpsed Captain Lancelot, eyes wide.
Catria’s cheeks turned bright red, like they were about to explode. “N-no! Please, st-stop…!”
At this rate, she would be shoveled in front of some one hundred knights. A public shoveling. Anything but that!
But because Catria had used all of her power, she couldn’t move fast enough to get away. Tears of despair filled her eyes.
“Catria!” shouted Alan.
The lady knight turned weakly to find Alan was no longer invisible. He held his ridiculous shoes in his left hand, and, focusing his power in his right, he fused the concept of the letter “V” and the letter “L” back into the footwear.
As Catria stood listlessly, Alan scooped her up like a princess. “Don’t worry. I won’t let that thing touch you.”
His words pierced Catria’s chest. Oh, so he’s going to save me? I knew I could count on Alan!
“The only one who can shovel Catria…” Alan raised his shoes triumphantly in the air. “Is me!” he declared.
It would take some time before Catria realized the fate that awaited her.
“NOOOOOOOOO!!!”
No matter how she struggled, Alan wouldn’t release her.
It was in that moment that Catria’s true trials began.