Part 50: The Lady Knight and the Finest Act of Shoveling in All the Land

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?

To Catria’s terrible regret, she realized Lithisia had probably been there since the beginning. She had likely seen everything. Lithisia of all people had seen what Catria did to Alan. All that good, deep shoveling. Princess Lithisia.

Right now, said princess sat on her knees in front of Lancelot. In other words, she had the best seat in the house to keep watching Catria and Alan.

“Pr-Princess?!”

Lithisia’s gaze was more businesslike and focused than any Catria had ever seen on her before. “Now then, Catria. You must show everyone your Shovel Form as captain of the Holy Shovel Knights!”

The princess clenched her fists and kept her eyes glued to the pair as best she could, though eventually she began to anxiously rub her thighs together. Then she brought her hands to her ears and rubbed them lightly.

“Ah…”

She was extremely jealous.

“Lithisia?” said Alan.

“I-I’m fine, Sir Miner. Pl-please focus on Catria!”

“But—”

“A-as her mistress, I must burn her magnificent form into my own eyes!” Lithisia insisted, fire in her gaze.

“Mm.”

“This ritual must be seen through so Catria can become the leader of the Holy Shovel Knights!”

Lithisia’s deep understanding of her obligations as Catria’s mistress enabled her to keep her jealous maiden’s heart from doing anything rash. She was trying her very best. In any case, this also meant that even now she still recognized herself as the knight’s mistress, and she considered herself beholden to her duty in that role.

That meant Alan could not intervene. He had to focus himself entirely on getting shoveled by Catria! “You heard the lady, Catria. Keep going.”

“I heard her, but that doesn’t mean I understood her!” However, in the end, the scabbard-tentacle was scary, so Catria had to commit. “Eeek…”

And so the lady knight continued to clean Alan’s ear as Lithisia jealously watched on alongside the vice-captain of the knights, whose eyes glistened.

Catria continued her duty until she had finished, then blew gently into Alan’s ear. Upon this, Lithisia ordered Catria to massage his ear. Catria cried the entire time, but she never stopped moving her hands. She managed to withstand the intense gazes of one shovel (the princess) and one hundred men. She did it, and she continued to do it up until the moment she completed her task.

“I-I’m done…” she huffed. Catria nearly fell over. Her cheeks burned crimson and her thighs were covered with sweat.

Once again, the other knights had their way with commentary.

“That was the most amazing ear cleaning I’ve ever seen.”

“It wasn’t ear cleaning. It was Ear Shoveling.”

“Dragon Slayer Catria’s Ear Shoveling.”

“All hail the Ear-Shoveling Hero, Catria!”

As usual, their comments became increasingly compromised by the shovel as time went on, but for once, Catria could pay them no heed.

I did it! I did…something? I’m not exactly sure what I did, but I feel like praising myself!

“That felt great, Catria,” said Alan, and he hummed to himself with pleasure.

“Ah.” Warmth built in the lady knight’s chest at Alan’s compliment. He had recognized her ability. Alan of all people had complimented her shoveling of his ear. Wait, this is weird… No, just leave it alone, Catria. Soak in the feelings of happiness!

Catria smiled brightly and Alan returned the expression.

“I’m counting on you for the other ear,” he said.

“E-excuse me?”

Ding, ding, ding!

As if on cue, the Sacred Scabbard Arcadia’s warning booted up.

“I had a feeling that one ear wouldn’t be enough,” Alan explained.

“H-huh?”

“Your Shovel Power is weaker than mine, so you’re going to have to do a little more digging.”

“Pardon?!”

“I said it before, didn’t I? This was gonna take more time if you did the digging.”

Take. More. Time.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Catria tearfully wailed with all of her might. But it was to no avail.

In the end, Catria found herself cleaning Alan’s other ear, swabbing his nose, and even brushing his teeth. Her trials didn’t stop there either. Even though Alan let out a pleasured, “Aaah,” the scabbard’s warning didn’t go away, and she had to shovel his stomach. Still, the warning persisted. In the end, Catria could only make it stop by wearing Alan’s shoes for a moment.

“Ugh… They’re all warm…” Catria lay flat on the floor like a shovel that had just completed its objective.

Nearby, Lithisia’s face was covered in sweat as she staggered over. Despite her current condition, as Catria’s mistress, she somehow managed to bust out a smile. “C-Catria… Well done…”

She wasn’t even adding “shovel” to the end of her sentences. Seeing the princess in such a state, Alan couldn’t help but rise to take her in his arms.

“You did well too, Lithisia,” he said as he patted her head.

Tears spilled down Lithisia’s cheeks until she began to breathe quietly and fell fast asleep.

The ritual was complete, and the only ones left conscious were Alan and the knights.

“Shovel, Catria, shovel, Catria, shovel.”

They chanted this over and over again.

“Sir…Alan…” Captain Lancelot, the only knight who still retained some semblance of his consciousness, tried to ask Alan for clarification. But even as he did, he held his head, trying his very best to maintain his sense of self. The Shovel Ritual had nearly dug out the entirety of his brain. “Wh-what exactly did we just bear witness to…?”

“Is it not obvious?” Alan responded with full confidence. “You watched the greatest knight in all the land, Catria, perform the finest act of shoveling this country has ever known.”

Lancelot’s consciousness snapped and he fell to the ground. By the time he next woke, he would be but another dutiful shovel alongside the rest.

This was how Catria formally became the captain of the Holy Shovel Knights.