Part 14: The Princess Acquires 58 New Shovel Believers

Part 14:
The Princess Acquires 58
New Shovel Believers

 

THE RAHAL TRIBE’S VILLAGE was small, and located in the center of the desert. The villagers themselves were mostly garbed in what seemed to be rags, but that wasn’t the first thing that Alan noticed. No, it was their eyes. They looked dead.

“This is awful.”

They looked even worse for wear than Julia did when she was a slave. The villagers were crouched on the ground, staring into the distance. They showed no signs of either moving or wanting to move.

“This whole oasis drying up thing… Is the problem really that pressing?”

“Water… Water is our life force,” Julia struggled to answer. “This is my fault…”

Alan plopped his hand on her head. “Don’t worry. I’m going to figure out why the ritual failed.”

Julia looked up at Alan with pleading eyes.

“Oh, right. Julia, you should learn how to dig up water with a shovel.”

“Huh? But I’m a priestess. I don’t need a shovel.”

“Priestesses and shovels. Prieshovel. See? They go together perfectly.”

What is wrong with you? Catria thought to herself. That said, she didn’t try to intervene. It was pointless.

After thinking for a minute, Julia nodded. She wasn’t sure she followed what Alan was saying, but she decided to believe in him nonetheless. “All right… Sir Alan, please teach me how to dig.”

“Mm. Then let’s start by looking for a water source.”

Alan tapped the ground with his shovel and pressed it into the dirt. By focusing his energies into the shovel like this, it would resonate with the water hidden beneath the surface, allowing him to locate any water sources within 50 kilometers.

When he explained this to Julia, she simply shook her head from side to side.

“I’m sorry, um… I have no clue what you just did…”

Catria felt exactly the same. This miner constantly ignored the rules of nature.

“No worries. You have the right qualities for this, Julia. You’ll be able to learn how to do this in no time at all. I know this for a fact. After all, you made that sweet and delicious Julia Water.”

The girl’s cheeks went red again. As embarrassing as it was to have a type of water with her name, it also made her happy.

But then…

“Hrm… There’s no water nearby?” Alan could hardly believe it. It was as if some great heat had steamed away all the oases in the area. Someone was responsible for this.

He felt the presence of something dark.

“Julia! You’ve returned!” A surprised voice echoed throughout the village. When the party turned around, they beheld an older man with feather ornaments in his hair and a stern expression on his face. This was the village elder.

“Village Elder, I…”

“No excuses. You traitorous priestess! Have you no shame showing your face here?”

“...” Julia trembled, on the verge of tears.

“Lady Julia! The shovel! Remember the way of the shovel!”

Lithisia’s bizarre words of encouragement caused Julia to stop in her tracks.

“Ah, oh mighty shovel… Sir Alan, please grant me courage! Alaaan!” Somehow, this little prayer helped Julia muster her courage once again. “Please l-listen to...what I have to s-say, Village Elder.”

“Excuse me?”

Julia clasped her hands tightly before her as she desperately pleaded with the man. “I was able to summon water e-earlier. So I… I think there’s another reason why the oasis dried up…”

“Hrmph, nonsense. Nothing but excuses!”

“Village Elder, um, I—”

“You brought disaster upon our village. This time, you will be sacrificed as planned. Come.”

Julia’s expression darkened with despair and great sadness. When trust was broken, it couldn’t be recovered. Just like spilled water.

“This is ridiculous!” Catria raised her voice. “Alan, don’t you think this is awful?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then…”

“Yeah, I know.”

Alan held his shovel up.

There was a single flash of light—

And the village elder’s head went flying. There was no blood. Instead, the elder’s head flew through the air, feathers and all. It eventually smashed into one of the nearby tents and rolled to the ground.

All that remained was his body and those who had gathered nearby.

“...”

Julia was completely frozen, as were the rest of the villagers. It took five seconds before Catria could react.

“You bastard, what have you doooooone?!” she shouted. His head went flying! The elder’s head went flying! You completely ignored the rules of engagement!

“All I did was take his head off with my shovel.”

“Exactly! You’re not supposed to do that to people!” Yes, that was awesome! Sure! But now you’re an actual murderer!

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m no murderer.”

“Are you out of your mind?!”

“Catria, aren’t people supposed to bleed after getting beheaded?”

He was right.

The man’s head had been taken clear off, but there was no blood to be seen. Catria had initially assumed that this was due to the sharpness of the shovel, but that was just because she, too, had had her brain corrupted by Alan and his shovel madness. Now that she thought about it, it was clearly very strange.

By the time Catria realized this, the elder’s body began to emit a hissing sound, like it was filled with boiling water.

“Cursed human, how did you know?” A sinister voice filled the air, emanating from no identifiable source.

“My shovel power.”

“Bwahahaha! Humans say the most foolish things.”

“I’m not joking.”

When Alan went searching for water veins earlier, he had sensed a dark presence and identified it as belonging to a powerful demon. From there, it had been easy to figure out what was going on. The elder was actually a Doppelganger, a demon capable of transforming itself to mimic the physical appearance of its targets.

“I have two questions. Where’s the real elder? And what’s your objective?”

“Hahahahaha… Bwahahahahaha!” The demon released a bloodcurdling laugh from its headless body. “I buried him in the ground. As for my objective, Master Zeleburg has ordered me to revive the Despair-Eating Dragon. This time, humanity will be exiled from the desert!”

“Hrm, thanks for being so chatty. And honest, at that.” Alan’s shovel could perform the functions of a lie detector, too. It even worked on demons.

“Hahahahahahaha! Foolish human, would you like to know why I’m being so honest with you?”

A rumbling noise filled the air. The demon’s stomach split open, forming something shaped like a massive mouth. And within that mouth, intense flames began to flicker.

“It’s because you all die here and now!”

“Alan, here it comes!”

“Fear not. I have a shovel.” Alan knew that the demon was preparing to use its Fire Breath.

“Bwahahahaha! Ah, yes! The shovel can do anything and everything, is that right?”

“Seems like you’re not convinced. I guess I’ll just have to show you.”

Alan summoned an aura of light blue energy, collecting it at the tip of his shovel. This was the Shovel Power that could bend space itself.

“DIG!”

His special Wave Motion Shovel Blast instantly fired off, causing the light blue aura to explode outward with an ear-splitting noise. The light radiating from it was like the sun itself. The demon’s Fire Breath paled in comparison to the light of Alan’s cannon. This shovel energy was capable of destroying all. It even rivaled the power of a small Big Bang.

It took three seconds for the light to fade.

“Shovels can dig up things and bury them. They can also…”

The demon had disappeared into the light. All that remained were the traces of Alan’s beam on the scorched earth.

“Fire Wave Motion Shovel Blasts.”

Silence settled upon the village.

Catria did everything in her power to resist the urge to comment. She knew better than to ruin the moment.

Julia, on the other hand, could do naught but stare. She couldn’t wrap her head around what had just transpired. First, she’d thought that the elder had been murdered. Then, he’d been revealed to be an imposter. And now, he’d apparently been consumed and disintegrated by Alan’s shovel.

“Julia, that was the most fundamental tenet of mining,” Alan said.

“...Huh?”

“If you keep delving deep beneath the earth, you’re sure to eventually encounter powerful obstacles. Impenetrable bedrock, a river of magma—you get the idea. That Doppelganger was your obstacle. Do you know what you’re supposed to do when you run into something like that?”

She didn’t know. She didn’t understand any of what Alan did.

“It’s when you come up against an obstacle like that when a shovel comes in handy. The most fundamental tenet of mining...”

Tears formed in Julia’s eyes as it began to dawn on her.

Her heart had been wounded over and over again, and she truly had no idea what was going on. But there was one thing she knew beyond a shadow of doubt to be true, and it was that the man standing before her, shovel in hand…

“…is reducing all obstacles in your path to dust.”

Was a man capable of reducing all common sense to dust.

 

***

 

That night, the villagers gathered in the center of the village. Among them was the village elder who the Doppelganger had replaced.

“I’m so sorry, Julia. I’m so, so sorry…”

He was alive and well. Well, technically he had died of suffocation after being buried by the Doppelganger, but thanks to Alan’s shovel reversing the flow of the ground’s time, he’d been returned to life. None of which made any sense.

“Didn’t you say that you couldn’t bring people back to life?”

“I can control the flow of time within the earth to a certain degree. If a person dies after being buried in the earth, there might be something I can do.”

“Please leave the miracles to the gods...” Catria sighed.

Julia was performing the Ritual of Water Summoning in the center of the crowd. She was giving it everything she had, her wavy priestess’ garments rippling through the air. But something was different from when she performed for the party in the carriage. In her right hand, she held a small blue shovel.

A dancing priestess complete with a shovel. Catria had a headache.

“Hey, Alan, what’s up with that?”

“I powered her up.”

“Wha?”

“By having the Water Priestess hold a water-colored shovel, her water summoning power was increased by 100 percent.”

“Alan… Are you just making this up as you go?”

“I’m not lying.”

The proof of the pudding was in the eating. Each time Julia stabbed her shovel into the ground, water began to gush from the hole with incredible force. The priestess was soon drenched, her outfit rendered see-through, laying her bountiful breasts bare for all to see. In the midst of all of this, the girl had a bright smile on her face.

She held her shovel like a precious treasure, rubbing her cheek against it. Julia clasped the shovel to her large breasts and held it tight.

“Ah, Sir Alan…” She was crying, but they were tears of joy this time.

“See? It worked.”

Catria sighed deeply. Julia and her village were saved. How could she complain?

“By the way, where did Her Royal Highness get off to?” The knight hadn’t seen her for a while now. Despite so many being present for this display of shovel power, she was nowhere to be found. Normally, she’d be overcome with rabid joy by now.

“She said she had something to prepare with Alice.”

Just then, an unfamiliar voice called his name. Alan turned around to see the villagers clustering around some kind of object, chanting as they did.

Lithisia, Alice, and tens of villagers were facing it.

“The Rahal Tribe has been saved! This is all thanks to the power of the shovel!”

“Shovel! Alan! Shovel! Alan!” chanted the villagers. They were all holding shovels that they’d taken from their homes. The object they were gathered around, being led in their chanting by Lithisia, was none other than a copper statue of Alan himself.

“Let us all follow in the Water Priestess’ example! Let us all become children of the shovel!”

“Sh-shovel! Shovel! We must all shovel together!” Even Alice was cooperating. Lithisia had probably threatened her.

“Shovel! Shovel! Shovel!” The chanting grew fiercer.

“We are all one people! One people who have gazed upon the miracle of the shovel!” delivered Lithisia, with a radiant smile on her face.

Catria whispered in Alan’s ear. “Er, shouldn’t we be stopping her?”

“How exactly would you propose we do that?”

“All hail the shovel!”

Catria shook her head at him. “I have no clue.”

The chanting continued in harmony.

 

***

 

That day, the oasis was returned to life and the Holy Shovel Faith gained 58 new believers.

Princess Lithisia was only just getting started.

 

***

 

The next morning, once the excitement had died down, Alan and the others finally managed to get some information about the Red Orb from the village elder. The Doppelganger had placed it deep below the pyramid. Julia would serve as their guide.

“It’s a very old structure, so there are traps everywhere. Even thieves and adventurers dare not come near.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” Alan gripped his shovel. “Shovels were made to dig things up.”

That might be the first logical thing he’s ever said, Catria thought to herself.