Part 62: The Princess Has the Miner Tend to Her Every Need

Part 62:
The Princess Has the Miner Tend to Her Every Need

 

IT WAS IN THE Great Shovel Temple, in the Hall of Prayer—formerly known as Rostir Castle’s throne room—where the self-proclaimed scoop (Princess Lithisia), lost to Alan in two seconds flat.

“Shovel?!”

“What did you even want to do with all this, Your Highness?” Catria sighed.

Truth be told, it wasn’t even a fight. If one were to precisely lay out what Catria witnessed: Lithisia attempted to assault Alan but tripped and ended up in a princess carry, which was, surprise surprise, the end of her attack. The second Alan touched Lithisia, all the power to resist seemed to evacuate her body.

At the end of the day, she just loved that miner way too much. Yet she had still tried to attack him. Why?

“Haaaaaauuuuuhhh, you’re too kind, Sir Miner…” Lithisia cried as she looked up at him. “Sir Miner, pl-please… Defeat me with your shovel.”

“Come now. I’m going to protect you.”

“Huh?”

“From the beginning to the very end, I’ll always be on your side.”

“Ah…” Lithisia turned bright red with joy despite wanting to protest that this wasn’t the point.

But Alan continued to hold her in his arms and looked her straight in the eyes. “So please, tell me. Why did you do something as scoopy as this?”

“Scoopy” apparently meant “messed up” or “wrong.” You know, like the Shovel Hell they were currently trapped in.

Despite a profound headache, Catria understood it all. She had to painstakingly translate each bit of their conversation, and at this point she was ready to consider that their conversation might be way more messed up than the world’s present situation.

“Mmf…”

For a moment, Lithisia’s lids lowered as she avoided Alan’s gaze. Her lips began to part. Then she balled up in his arms. She couldn’t say it. This was the one thing she couldn’t reveal. Her resolve was rock solid.

But we have to hurry… On Alan’s end, he couldn’t afford to retreat. The Shovel Hellification of the world was still in motion. Even as they spoke in this former-palace, there was no telling when the Sun God’s retaliation would rain down upon them. He wasn’t worried about himself, but Catria and Lithisia would be in real danger.

Alan held up his adamantine shovel and spoke with great intent. “There’s no time to waste. Lithisia, I’m going to dig up your true intentions.”

“Sho?!?!?!” The princess panicked as a scoop or shovel might. No, anything but that! He’ll know how I feel!

She could try and resist, but that was always a pointless endeavor in the face of Alan. He would uncover it all. Tears emerged from her eyes, shovel-shaped tears.

He’ll find out! Sir Miner will find out the feelings in my scoopy heart and soul…

“Is having your heart uncovered embarrassing, Lithisia?”

“Sh…” Lithisia tearfully nodded.

Alan nodded in return and thought for a moment. “Then how about you dig up my true intentions too?” the miner declared shovelly.

Lithisia couldn’t mask her surprise.

Meanwhile, Catria stared blankly into the distance. Can I stop interjecting now?

“We’ll reveal our hearts to one another. No one-sided digging. Just as I uncover your true feelings, you uncover mine. We’ll unearth them together. Maybe that way…” Alan handed Lithisia her red shovel and smiled. “You won’t have to be so embarrassed.”

That logic makes no sense. A few seconds passed during which Catria really seriously considered interjecting. But when she saw how Lithisia gazed at Alan like a girl falling in love for the second time, she decided to hold her tongue. A relationship in which the two would uncover each other’s hearts… Wasn’t that even deeper than just being lovers?

No, seriously. Just get married already, what the hell!

Catria still kept her opinion to herself. She was a good girl who could read the room.

“Then let’s begin. Shoveling Heart!”

When Alan gripped his shovel, a sandpit appeared in the room, in the middle of which rose a single sand mountain, the likes of which a child might make. Lithisia and Alan sat on opposite sides of it. On the side of the mountain in front of Alan was the name “Lithisia.” In front of Lithisia was “Alan.”

Ah… Lithisia trembled and closed her eyes, but she would resist no more. She would do as Alan said. It was clear that she had come to terms with her fate.

Catria, meanwhile, had entirely abandoned her role as the straight woman.

At last, Alan began to dig into Lithisia’s sand mountain. From it bellowed smoke in the form of a human: a transparent Lithisia holding a shovel like a baby.

The form spoke. “I’ve committed a horrible scoop…”

“?!?!?!”

Er, what? Catria had already lost the thread. But judging by Lithisia’s terrified expression, she must’ve meant “committed a horrible sin.”

The voice continued. “I thought I tried my best. I really, really did. I know I’m no shovel. I’m just a regular human. But…I practiced shoveling and tried my hardest to become a shovel. I did it all…I did it all so I could have Sir Miner shovel (verb) me.”

Catria thought to look for earplugs but resisted the urge. These were undeniably Lithisia’s true feelings. This is my mistress. I have to understand her true intentions.

The voice continued. “And because I worked really hard, Sir Miner praised me. He said that I was a very shovelly girl. I was so happy. So very, very happy. An ordinary human like me could be a shovel if I tried my hardest. But—”

The voice stopped for a moment.

“I was wrong. I was mistaken from the very beginning. After all, Sir Miner…”

The voice stopped again.

“He didn’t want a shovelly girl, he wanted a normal girl.”

Catria instinctively looked at Alan, who regarded Lithisia with utmost seriousness. In contrast, tears cascaded down Lithisia’s cheeks.

You’re really calling Kuronono normal? She’s way too shovel for that, Catria interjected in her heart, but the voice continued anyway.

“I can never be normal again. Sir Miner acknowledged that both my body and mind are shovels now. That’s why I was just so jealous of Kuronono for being a normal girl. So jealous. I didn’t know what to do with myself. But at that moment, I learned the orbs might grant my selfish wish—the sort of wish a human might never make, but that I, a shovel… And if everyone were to become shovels too, I would be normal again. So I wished for it.”

Both the projected Lithisia and the real one sobbed like a small child.

“I’m the one who wished for this Hell. I’m an evil shovel. An evil scoop. I’m the Great Demon King Scoop who deserves to be vanquished and banished from this world. That’s why, Sir Miner, I have one last request of you. Take me, a completely irredeemable scoop…”

The projected Lithisia opened her eyes wide and stared straight at Alan as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

“And shovel (term not appropriate for broadcast) me, please.”

The projection cut out there, and silence washed over the room. All that remained was the sound of Lithisia crying.

Alan sank deep into thought.

Catria had hit the limit on her patience after seeing Lithisia’s “true intentions” laid bare. She could no longer hold back.

“Your Highness.” There was so, so much she wanted to say, but first, she wanted to interject about the most important misunderstanding of all. “When did you hear from Alan that he likes ‘normal’ girls?”

It was clear that this belief was the origin of all the drama. Catria sensed something really off about it. Sure, Princess Lithisia was always kind of off, but this seemed especially contorted.

“I mean, Sir Miner said that Kuronono was perfect for him.”

“Perfect for him how?”

“Ah, I never did tell you, Catria. When I first started this journey with Lithisia, she made me a promise,” Alan said.

Alan and Lithisia made eye contact and nodded to one another, then spoke in tandem.

 

“She promised to help me find a successor.”

“I promised to birth his child.”

 

A full ten seconds passed.

Lithisia was the first to react.

“Shovel…?” Lithisia blinked rapidly with all of her strength.

“What are you talking about, Lithisia?” Alan said, bewildered. “You were going to help me search for a successor, weren’t you?”

“Shovel?! Um, er, you mean you want a child, right?!”

“Well, an apprentice. I was willing to take in an orphan too, I suppose.”

“?!?!?!”

Lithisia’s eyes went from being shaped like shovels to being round like circles. They were the eyes of an extremely surprised human maiden.

“You’re a princess, so I thought it’d be easy for you to gather potential apprentices among your citizens.”

“?!?!”

Lithisia’s jaw was on the floor.

“But since Kuronono seemed fairly talented, I was thinking of making her my apprentice.”

“?!?!?!?!?!?!”

Lithisia was so stunned that she was on the verge of losing consciousness. “Um! W-wait just a second, Sir Miner!”

“Sure.”

Lithisia was so panicked that she even forgot to add shovel to the end of her sentence. “You mean you don’t want to do lewd things with Kuronono?!”

“Uh, that’d make me a criminal.” What an incredibly logical response.

“In other words, there was no point in coming up with names for our children?!”

“You did what?!” Catria groaned.

“If it was a boy, I’d name him ‘Shovel,’ and if it was a girl, ‘Wave Motion Shovel Blast’!”

In other words, names that would guarantee their status as enemies of humanity.

“Your naming sense is incredible, Lithisia,” Alan said.

“Ah, I’m h-honored, shovel… Wait, that’s not important right now!” Lithisia shook her head with all of her might, then stared up at Alan once more. “Shovel?!”

Lithisia fought off a wave of confusion the likes of which she’d never felt before. The very concept she’d based everything in her life upon since the moment she met Alan was crumbling to pieces. She hadn’t expected this. She had planned to have Sir Miner’s children. She had done so much shoveling up until now for that very purpose. She had tried her utmost to become a Shovel Princess.

And yet Sir Miner had never intended any of that. She wanted to cry.

“AAAAAAAUUUUUGHHHHHH!” In fact, she bawled. She had to. She had finally realized that her mistake wasn’t just this Shovel Hell. From the very start of this journey, Lithisia’s love had been mistaken. She wanted to dig a hole and bury herself inside of it. She fell to the floor and hugged her knees.

“Lithisia,” Alan said. “I’m so sorry for making you misunderstand.”

“Sir Miner…?”

Alan looked truly apologetic as he frowned down at Lithisia. Sir Miner wasn’t scoopy; he was shovel, like always. But before she could say as much, he spoke again.

“I’m so sorry. I want to make this up to you. I have to take responsibility for my actions.”

“Huh???”

“I’m going to take responsibility, here and now.” Alan gripped his shovel like always. “I’m willing to do anything you ask of me.”

This was the same thing Lithisia had said to him at the start of their quest.

“?!”

Lithisia unconsciously gripped her shovel. Anything. Alan’s version of “anything” was on a whole other level considering he really could do “anything.” Lithisia understood that all too well after all this time traveling together with him. Whether the feat was world domination or Shovel Space Travel, he could make it happen.

But that wasn’t what Lithisia wanted. She desired but a single thing.

“Ah…” Her mouth opened and closed, but her voice went unheard. She couldn’t speak; she hadn’t the courage. She didn’t think she had the right to ask this of him. Lithisia had been wrong about the promise they exchanged when they first met. She had been wrong to try to become a shovel. She had been jealous of Kuronono for no reason. She had been wrong about everything—truly a useless princess. How could she possibly stand next to Alan, who was a perfect shovel in every which way? It was time to give up.

But just as weakness took her heart, she saw the sharp tip of some shining thing.

“Wow…”

It was the head of Alan’s radiant shovel. Then Lithisia remembered the feeling of her lips against that metal head… The Shovel Kiss she exchanged with Alan.

Shovel. Love. An amazing kiss. Her mind filled with this memory. Lithisia’s heart and body were once more overwhelmed with shovels. She couldn’t imagine a future without Alan in her life.

“I…”

Be brave, she repeated to herself. I may have been scoopy, but even now, I can still be shovel.

“I want to…” Lithisia gripped the red shovel she had received from Alan. She was embarrassed, incredibly so.

But she wanted this. She wanted it with every fiber of her being. It was the one thing she wanted over all else, and she had stuck by Alan’s side for that very reason.

And so Lithisia dug out her heart’s desire and yelled it into the air. “I-I want you to have your shovel way with me and make me pregnant!”

 

Three seconds later, Catria, ignored on the sidelines, interjected in her soul. Wait, Your Highness. You mean like, right now?!