Part 50:
The Lady Knight and the Finest Act of Shoveling in All the Land
NOW ALAN STOOD in the windswept field, holding Catria like a princess.
“No, no, no!”
She was panicking like a small child, repeating herself over and over again. However, in order to replenish Arcadia’s Anti-Shovel Power, she had to be shoveled by Alan, and in front of the elite squad of knights led by her captain, no less. A public shoveling. The gaze of one hundred male knights settled on her.
“What’s going on?”
They seemed puzzled but intrigued.
Driven by instinct, Catria tried to hide her body with her hands. No, I don’t want to be seen! I don’t want to be seen!!!
“Please, Alan, no!” she begged. “Don’t do this to me! Don’t shovel me here! I don’t want it!” Catria’s cries grew more childish by the second.
Alan simply nodded. Her embarrassment and fear had gotten through to him. Catria usually protested shoveling, but a part of her clearly always took pleasure in the attention, and the two of them had developed a sort of silent agreement. Just as clearly, this time was different. The miner would never, ever do anything to Catria without her consent.
“Hm, but how should we handle this?” After all, Alan couldn’t just do nothing. If he abandoned Catria now, the tentacle would have its way with her. “All right. Fear not, Catria. I have an idea.”
“Eh? Alan!” Catria’s expression turned to one of joy and relief. Amazing! Alan’s amazing! He really can do anything!
“Let’s do the opposite.”
“Excuse me?”
Catria blinked rapidly while Alan reached down. He hefted her Holy Knight Blade off the ground and handed it to her.
“I’m not going to shovel you. You’re going to shovel me.”
ZING.
A lukewarm breeze blew through the field.
✦ ✦ ✦
Alan’s logic was as such: In order to charge the Sacred Scabbard Arcadia’s Anti-Shovel Power, one had to resist the power of the shovel. However, these days, people other than Alan could wield a shovel—Catria herself, for example. In other words, if Catria shoveled someone else, she could still build resistance by fighting against her own Shovel Kickback. She only required a partner, as, if she tried to shovel herself or an object, the effects would balance out and come to nothing.
“I do think this is going to take longer than if I simply shoveled you, though. Are you okay with that?”
Catria nodded, her expression frantic. She really didn’t understand much about what Alan had just said, but she at least understood she had to shovel him. Catria also clung to the knowledge that she wouldn’t have to have her mouth, nose, ears, or other places shoveled publicly. In other words, it wouldn’t be that embarrassing at all!
Three minutes later, Catria found herself sitting on her knees, Alan’s head resting upon her soft thighs. This time, she was the one cleaning his ears.
“Er, ah, um. Wh-what big ears you have…” Catria’s trembling hands continued to clear out Alan’s ear.
Swoosh, swoosh.
“Mmph, yeah, right there. Ooh, you got a big one. This feels great, Catria.”
“I-It does? Good, good…”
First hold Alan’s head in your lap, then clean his ears… Simple enough, right? But for some reason Catria’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding.
She’d be fine, she just needed to calm down. Plus, she was in control this time. No big deal. There was nothing embarrassing about this. Especially considering that, last time, she had been on the receiving end. But today, she wasn’t being shoveled, and therefore, everything was totally fine.
“Haaah, haaah, haaah.”
Badump, badump, badump.
“You’re breathing heavily, Catria.”
“I-It’s nothing!”
Occasionally, Alan’s breath ghosted over Catria’s skin, but it was totally fine and no big deal at all! She was just sitting under the blue sky in an open field, Alan’s head resting on her thighs as she shoveled him. Completely cool and whatever!
Something snapped within her.
Of course this is freaking embarrassing!
Catria had hit her limit (for the second time in two days.)
Meanwhile, the other knights kept saying the first things that came to their minds.
“Look how lovey-dovey they are.”
“Jeez, way to rub it in.”
“But why now?”
“I haven’t the slightest. She just suddenly started cleaning his ear on the battlefield… Like a true hero.”
Shut up!
But despite Catria’s internal pushback, she couldn’t argue with their point. No matter how you sliced it, she and Alan looked like a fawning couple. This was not, fundamentally, all that different from if she were being shoveled herself. In fact, it might actually be even more embarrassing that she was the one servicing Alan!
“AAAAGGGGHHHH!”
Tears took shape in her eyes as her thighs tensed up.
Alan didn’t miss a beat. “Are you okay, Catria?”
“Like hell I am! You big, dumb, stupid, dumb dummy!” Catria protested tearfully. But she didn’t stop cleaning his ear. If she did, the scabbard’s tentacle would come at her.
“Hrm, is this not working? I could always switch places with someone else.”
“What?”
“You know some of the knights over there, don’t you?”
Catria glanced at the knight brigade, every one of them a proud noble of Rostir. Catria had looked up to them all her life, which was what had prompted her to join the order in the first place.
But.
Catria gripped Alan’s clothes. She didn’t want anyone else. It had to be Alan.
She couldn’t say as much, but her attitude made it clear. Being watched by the knights already embarrassed her so much that she could die, never mind letting any of them touch her bare skin.
“Men!” All of a sudden, Captain Lancelot rose to his feet. “Cover your eyes and ears!”
“Huh?”
“It is unbecoming of a knight to fail to give two lovers their privacy!”
Obeying their captain’s orders, the entire brigade immediately covered their eyes and ears. In her heart, Catria protested: She and Alan weren’t lovers—they all had the wrong idea! But at the end of the day, she was too relieved. Now it wouldn’t be quite as bad—
“Shovel (anger).” Just then, a voice rattled through the air, almost as if it had pierced space itself. “Lancelot, I would kindly request that you not issue orders you are not qualified to give, shovel.”
“Excuse me? Who—Princess Lithisia?!”
Lithisia stood there among the knights. Nobody knew when she had appeared, but she was now right next to Lancelot. For some reason, she held a military flag decorated with an unfamiliar crest: the image of a knight wielding a massive shovel and riding another while bellowing “SHOVEL!”
Handmade, of course.
“This ritual marks the birth of the Holy Shovel Knights,” Lithisia declared. “We must watch no matter what.”
“Er, what?” said Lancelot.
“Catria is your captain. As the vice-captain, it is your duty to see this ritual through to the end.”
“Let me repeat myself: er, what?”
Lithisia brushed aside Lancelot’s confusion and smacked the ground with the haft of her shovel. When she did, every knight present stood at sudden attention, like they were the shovels that had been jabbed into the dirt.
“Urrrrrrgh, I-I can’t move my eyes!” Lancelot too was being controlled by the shovel.
“Once you have seen this ritual through to its end, you will have become respectable Shovel Knights,” said Lithisia.
The brigade’s gleaming eyes locked on Catria, unmoving.
This was literally the worst! The lady knight wanted to once more break down in tears. What was wrong with her mistress? And when the heck had she even arrived?