Part 56: The Miner Builds Shoveland

Part 56:
The Miner Builds Shoveland

 

AT THE END of the first day of their campaign, the Holy Shovel Knights ended their military exercises for the day and made camp by a local farming village.

On Lithisia’s orders, their route on the first day took them on a rectangular path. In other words, immediately after setting off, they simply did a tour of all the villages in the area. From the perspective of a strategist, this route made no sense whatsoever, but at this point, the Holy Shovel Knights only employed shovetegists. In other words, the only opinion on the subject was, “Shovel!”

In other-other words, a squad of shovels whose heads had been messed with by shovels shoveled in a shovel in order to shovel the shovel.

However, oddly enough, Catria’s head hurt like the devil for reasons other than this.

“All hail Princess Lithisia!”

“All hail the Rostir Liberation Front!”

The problem was that this strategy had actually proved pretty solid.

As night set in, Catria screamed in the center of the village. “How do we have more soldiers?!”

“If you put shovels in the hands of youngsters, they’re basically already soldiers, shovel.”

Zeleburg’s minions lurked in every village, which meant the villagers were always on the verge of being sacrificed. But thanks to Alan and Catria’s Wave Motion Shovel Blasts, those minions had been obliterated in an instant. In this way, they’d liberated eight villages today alone. The folks they freed were then handed shovels, raising the Liberation Front’s Shovel Power.

Basically, this route had allowed them to liberate the nation piece by piece while simultaneously amassing more military might.

“Well done, Lithisia. Way to think ahead,” Alan said, nodding.

After all, Lithisia had come up with this plan.

“No, there’s no way she was thinking ahead. She was definitely just thinking about shovels…” Catria moaned. But she didn’t have the energy to argue the point. The facts were the facts. Lithisia’s madness had panned out, intentionally or not, and the knight was in no place to complain.

As for the princess in question, she was in the village square chatting with some children.

Crap, there’s no way she isn’t brainwashing them with her shovel nonsense, Catria thought.

As they approached, Lithisia turned around.

“Um, Sir Miner, er…” Her long golden hair blew in the wind and she looked quite concerned. “Sir Miner, are you at all familiar with growing shrops?”

“Crops?”

“Please don’t translate her.” Catria didn’t realize she herself had also understood Lithisia’s words.

Nonetheless, the princess explained. The children she was talking to were the sons and daughters of farmers, and lately the fields had given forth no crops to speak of. Even though the Holy Shovel Knights had driven out the demons, if nothing changed, everyone would soon die of starvation.

Alan gave it a moment of thought, then shook his head. “I’m a miner, not a farmer. I’m afraid I’m not the specialist you need.”

“Is that shovel? Aw, I really want to do something for the people here…” Wearing a grave expression, Lithisia lost herself in thought.

Needless to say, Catria was stunned; every time the princess displayed some remotely human emotion, she was taken aback.

“I’ve got it!” shouted Lithisia, and a radiant smile spread across her face.

At the same time, Catria felt a chill. She had that same bad feeling she always got, and she could already imagine what was about to happen.

“Sir Miner, you designed and built the World Tree Castle, which means you’re extra good at construction!”

There was little doubt in Catria’s mind that Lithisia was about to ask Alan to craft a shovel statue.

“What do you want to make?”

“Well, you see, there’s a nice, open field right here.” Lithisia clapped her hands together. “Let’s build Shoveland right here! A tourist attraction!”

 

Catria was only off in terms of scale, and in terms of that, she was off by a lot.

 

***

 

Shoveland, as described by Lithisia, would be a Shovel-Themed Shovelpark that everyone from kids to couples to families could come and shovel at and enjoy. Its catchphrase would be, “Even a human can become a shovel.” By bringing in tourists from all over the continent, the village would see financial success and they’d be able to spread the Shovel Faith. Two birds with one shovel.

“What are you going on about, Your Highness?” Catria whispered in response to the shovel words piercing her ears.

But Lithisia wasn’t listening, of course. “Please, shovel! Build Shoveland, Sir Miner!”

“I’ve never built a tourist attraction before, but it sounds interesting. I’ll do it.”

Alan generally listened to any and all requests from Lithisia, so he got to digging up the field at unbelievable speed.

Clank, clank, clank! The trails of his shovel moved at light speed as the arid field became host to an enormous theme park even larger than a palace garden.

It was surrounded by adamantine walls, within which a massive trolley track pierced the mining mountain, and shovel-shaped horse carriages moved in time with a shovel-shovel melody. Standing like a spire in the center was Castle Shoverrella (named by Lithisia), shaped like a shovel.

“Hrm, done.”

It took approximately thirty-seven minutes.

Alan wiped the sweat off his brow.

Catria stared on in defeated silence.

The village youngsters stood with mouths agape in similar silence, their eyes wide, pupils expanding. They couldn’t be faulted; a massive theme park more beautiful and grand than a palace had suddenly appeared in front of their very eyes, after all.

The only people whose eyes were normal were Alan and Lithisia.

“Shovestruction shofection! (Sir Miner’s shovel construction is as shovelly perfect as ever!)”

“This is my first time creating a place specifically for recreation. We’ll have to try it out to be certain of its effectiveness.”

“Which means we all get to go on a date in Shoveland! In other words, a shovedate!”

“Hold. Your. Horses.”

Of course, Lithisia did not in fact hold any horses. Rather, she pulled Catria along and wrapped her arm around Alan’s, entering the theme park.

“Oh, right! The Ferris wheel fits four, so let’s get someone else!”

“Good idea. Let’s call Alice.” Catria threw Alice under the bus without a shred of guilt; she refused to take the brunt of the upcoming shovel suffering.

“You damned traitor!”

Catria felt like she could hear the Undead King cry out and curse her name, but she probably just imagined it. Arguably, she had lately begun to enjoy the shoveling in her own way, so it was feasible that she was actually pretty content right now.

“No, let’s call Lucy. I want to go with Alice alone… Hee hee.” The princess giggled as she glanced sidelong at the Shotel (Shovel Hotel) in the center of Shoveland. No doubt, Alice would meet a terrible fate there. “Which is why we should call Lucy, shovel!”

Alan twisted his shovel, and a moment later, a winged angel dressed in pure-white robes appeared. “Huh? Wha? Where am I?!”

“Shovel Summon. You’re a shovel angel, after all,” said Alan.

“No! No more shovels! Catria, please! Save me!” Lucy wailed.

“Let us combat the shovels together,” Catria agreed.

“Noooooooo! I wanna go back!!”

Either way, as long as there were more folks to share the shovel suffering, it was all good in Catria’s book.

“Welcome, shovel!”

The park gates were built of wood, not unlike the entrance to a mine. A Shovel Soldier at the gates asked to see their tickets. Lithisia showed the soldier her shovel.

The soldier nodded. “Anyone with a shovel gets in for free. Enjoy your shovel time.”

What a polite soldier, thought Catria, because any other thought was too dangerous to entertain.

“First thing up is the Merry-Go-Shovel,” said Alan. “It’s two people per seat, so let’s split up.”

“Since there are four of us, we’ll compete for the right to ride with Sir Miner!”

“No, thank you. Please, Your Highness. Feel free to ride with Alan. I’ll stay with Lucy here.”

Lucy nodded fervently, trembling in fear.

If either of them risked going anywhere alone with Alan in this strange space, their brains would be in real danger of total corruption.

“Shovel?!” Lithisia’s eyes lit up for a moment. But she soon shook her head. “This is the shovel nation of dreams, Shoveland! Everyone is equal here, shovel!”

Lithisia’s logic made no sense, but she meant it. And so the princess recommended a sholottery (they would dig into the ground, and the first person to dig up the lottery ticket would be the winner).

“Sir Miner, please grant your Shovel Blessing upon me…”

Sadly, Catria ended up the victor, and in a matter of seconds. She tried to hold back, but her body moved on its own. “This was a conspiracy!” she moaned. “A conspiracy, I tell you!”

“Grr… I’ll step aside this once, Catria.”

The outcome left both Lithisia and Lucy tremendously disappointed and on the verge of tears, if for entirely different reasons.

“Fine. Let’s just ride this thing and be done with it,” Catria muttered.

“Shall we, Catria?” said Alan.

The Merry-Go-Shovel came equipped with shovels shaped like horses that could seat two at a time. The background music played a truly mind-numbing song to the tune of: “Shooovelll! Sho, sho, vel! Shovel!”

Lyrics: Lithisia. Arrangement: Alan.

Needless to say, this ride was not designed for human enjoyment.

“D-damn you, Alan,” Catria muttered.

He sat behind her on the horse (shovel?), holding her hips. His face pressed into her back, and she could feel his breath. Catria was so embarrassed she fully expected herself to just up and die. Her chest burned red-hot.

“Hmph… Why did Catria have to go and dig up that one spot?” Lithisia whined.

Meanwhile, Lucy sat pale and stiff behind Lithisia, saying an awful lot of nothing.

The princess’s intense gaze dug into Catria’s back. Her jealousy was as plain and hot as the sun magnified by the reflection of a shovel.

“A-Alan, don’t hold me so tightly… Hey…”

“The rules of this recreational facility demand you tightly hold on to the hips of the person in front of you. If I don’t take them seriously, this will hardly function as a test.”

“Why do you have to be serious about this, of all things?!”

“So I can save this country.”

“I agree with your objective, but don’t you think you’re going about this the wrong way?!”

Right about then, the Sacred Scabbard Arcadia at Catria’s waist began to ring loudly. The time to recharge its Anti-Shovel Power had come.

“HOOOOLD ON!”

“Hrm, where can I shovel while holding your hips… Here?”

“NNGH?! H-hey, stop it! N-not there! My stomach is… GAAAAH?!”

Three minutes later, Catria’s stomach had been shoveled quite thoroughly, and she twitched on the ground, sweating profusely.

Lithisia shot a fierce look of jealousy at her nigh-comatose knight. “Th-this time I’ll win the lottery, shovel!”

But in the end, Lucy came up victorious. Together with Alan, she vanished to go ride the Jet Trolley Shovel (an attraction in which two people rode a trolley together and changed routes using a shovel.)

Left behind, Lithisia despaired, looking defeated next to the still recovering Catria. “Aww… Shovel…”

She shot another jealous look at Catria’s stomach, which gave the lady knight cramps.

Only moments earlier, Allen had used a small shovel to dig at it. Even now, it itched, and it even felt a bit hot.

“Catria…could I shovel your stomach, shovel?” Lithisia audibly licked her lips as she studied Catria’s stomach.

The lady knight writhed at the lingering memory of Alan and his shovel. “Like hell you can!”

“Shovel… Aw…” Lithisia was the picture of a mournful maiden, and the sight made Catria’s chest sting ever so slightly.

Her mistress’s personality was a mess—okay, maybe everything about her was a mess—but the knight knew that the princess really did love Alan, and that shone through no matter how messy she was.

Man, augh, jeez. Catria muttered, “You should just marry Alan and be done with it.”

“Shovel?!” Lithisia twitched. Her face utterly pink, she covered her lips with her red shovel to hide her expression. “But, I mean, you’re also a shovel, right?”

“I have absolutely no idea what you mean by that, but I can confirm that I am not, in fact, a shovel.”

“A-anyway, that’ll never happen, no matter what, shovel,” Lithisia forced out.

Something had definitely happened between Lithisia and Alan, but before Catria could ask, the miner and Lucy returned with a loud crash.

Multiple instances of the word “shovel” were written in black all over Lucy’s cheeks. “No more shovels, pleeeease,” she whispered to herself.

Apparently, this theme park was dangerous even for angels. But enough of that.

“Last but not least is the Ferrshovel Wheel,” said Alan.

“Take the princess. We need a break.” Catria grabbed Lithisia and pushed her toward the miner.

“Shovel?! (Catria?!)”

Lithisia panicked, but Catria leaned in and whispered. “Your Highness, now’s your chance. Please talk to Alan. Tell him the truth.”

“Th-the truth, shovel?!”

“You have something you want to tell him, don’t you?”

Lithisia turned bright red in panic. “Sho-sho-sho-shovel?!” she cried.

Catia released another large sigh. Seriously, this princess was a mess. This girl, for real…

“Shovel… Shovel… Shovel…” Lithisia fretted, rocking back and forth.

My mistress sure is a handful of a shovel maiden.