Part 4:
The Miner Saves Catria
AFTER EXITING THE TUNNEL, the pair traveled across a field of green for a time before Lithisia alerted Alan of their location. “Sir Miner, we’ll be arriving in one of the border towns momentarily.”
Alan took another look at Lithisia. Despite the amount of time she spent in the tunnel, her white dress was as radiant as ever. It was as if it had a kind of dirt-dispelling magic applied to it. Her beautiful golden locks, refined mannerisms, and perfect figure announced to anyone looking that she was royalty. She’d stick out like a sore thumb. They would have to get her some kind of disguise.
“There’s a military fortress there, yeah?” Alan said. “We’ll have to make sure you don’t get spotted.”
“Um, Sir Miner? Wh-when you keep staring at me like that, I…” Lithisia squirmed and covered her breasts with her arms.
“My apologies.”
“No, no! It’s fine! I was just surprised is all! You can look as much as you want!” Lithisia quickly added. “Since we’ll be ‘shoveling’ together in the future, I-I’d rather have you look!”
What did shoveling and staring at her have to do with one another? Alan had questions, but opted to put them aside. The key to dealing with the princess was to not think too deeply about anything she said. “Anyway, you said there’s a fortress in the town we’re coming up on, yeah? What sort of numbers are we talking?”
“Um, there are a hundred and eight soldiers in the border squad of the Knights of Rostir.”
“Well, aren’t you a font of knowledge?”
“W-well, I am royalty.” Lithisia looked happy to receive the compliment. She scratched at her cheek, slightly embarrassed. “B-because I’m a princess, I have a friend in the Knights of Rostir. She’s a very talented knight with a bright future ahead of her. She even vowed to dedicate her life to me!”
“Huh. Sounds like a keeper.”
“She is! If you ignore her two problems, she’s the perfect knight.”
“Problems?”
“She’s…kind of lacking in ability.”
“Er, isn’t that usually fatal when it comes to being a knight?”
“Actually, it pales in comparison to the second problem she has.”
“Which is?”
“She wields a sword, not a shovel.”
Alan considered saying something, but opted to keep his mouth shut.
“But…” Lithisia visibly grew a bit sullen. “I’m most certain that she’ll see me as an enemy now.”
The Lithisia in the palace was fake, and the one here was real, but Alan was the only person who believed that. “Hrm…then for now, we should be careful not to draw the attention of these knights.”
“Understood.” Lithisia nodded her head.
Just then, the high-pitched sound of metal colliding with metal rang out.
Alan narrowed his eyes. “Looks like someone’s fighting.”
As the sun began to set on the grasslands, a fierce battle was taking place. It was still far in the distance, but miners had excellent vision—especially Alan. In fact, he could see the radiant shine of a jewel from over six miles away. This was a talent expected of all jewel miners.
It was with this exceptionally sharp sight that Alan made out three men and one woman in the distance. They all wore the same shining white armor.
“Knights. A red-haired female knight is being attacked by the others.”
“Huh…? Red hair? Could that be Catria?!”
“Your friend?”
“Yes! The very same knight I was telling you about earlier! Ah, Catria!”
Alan nodded in response and drew his shovel.
“Sir Miner, we must run! We have to save her!”
“There’s no need to run.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
Instead of explaining, Alan rested his shovel on his shoulder and targeted the knights in the distance.
Alan’s shovel was the strongest close-range weapon imaginable. Alan had come to that conclusion when he conquered the Shrine of the Ancient Titan on Layer #555 of the mountain. The king of all titans wielded a giant axe, but the miner was able to split it in two with one slash of his shovel. It was then that he realized just how powerful his shovel was.
His thoughts on the matter were different now. Not only was the shovel an amazing close-range weapon…
“No worries. I can reach them from here.”
The shovel was also the most powerful long-range weapon in the world.
✦ ✦ ✦
Catria was a knight because she’d had no other choice but to become one.
She had two older sisters, both of whom were tremendously beautiful. But her family, House Eugenohl, boasted a generations-old lineage of proud knights, and they couldn’t keep up that tradition with only daughters. Her father had prayed every day, rain or shine, to the Earth Goddess for a boy.
His prayers were answered with a firm “no” when Catria was born. When the young girl heard this tale from her nanny, she wept. She finally understood why her father looked upon her with such sad eyes. She sobbed, and sobbed, and when she had finally grown tired of the tears, Catria gripped a sword in her hands. “I will become a knight,” she vowed. A knight her father could be proud of: a Holy Knight, the highest-ranking knight of them all.
Ten years passed. Catria had practiced until her arms were swollen and her feet were blistered beyond belief, and somehow, she’d managed to get a shot at the entrance exam for the King’s Knights. In a one-on-one duel with a knight’s apprentice, she came out victorious. She was beyond excited. Maybe now her father would be proud of her!
But mere minutes later, Catria overheard something in the crowd she shouldn’t have, and her smile shattered.
“It must be so frustrating to lose on purpose. Just what is that Eugenohl girl thinking?”
Catria fled, her heart shattered once again upon overhearing those words. Of course the knights would lose on purpose to someone who outranked them. She wept and wept, knowing she would never truly be a knight on her own merits.
But as fate would have it, Princess Lithisia had been observing the Knights of Rostir on that day.
✦ ✦ ✦
“I want her as my bodyguard.” Lithisia said upon seeing Catria. She had been inspecting the fortress when she made that declaration. Quite frankly, Catria had no idea why she’d been picked. If the princess simply wanted a woman by her side, there were other, better options. At first, she thought that maybe she was chosen because she was of House Eugenohl, but Princess Lithisia didn’t know what she looked like, and couldn’t have picked her out on sight. So, was it her ability as a knight? That couldn’t be it, either. She was the weakest of the knights.
Eventually, Catria asked Lithisia that very question.
“It’s because your eyes shone the most out of anyone’s!” Lithisia had told her. Catria didn’t know what to say to that. Her eyes had been glistening because she’d been crying.
“By the way, Catria,” the princess went on, dramatically, “it seems to me like you’re not very good at swordplay. But don’t worry! One day, you’ll be the greatest Holy Knight on the continent. “Why? Because I said so, and what the princess says, goes! That’s a fact!”
Catria was in shock, but Lithisia simply smiled. “Hee hee. Got it, Catria? Become an amazing Holy Knight and protect me, okay?”
Lithisia winked at her.
To Catria, she looked like a brilliant beam of light. This princess had what she didn’t, and yet she expected great things from her.
It was on that day that Catria swore absolute fealty to Princess Lithisia.