Intermission: Lithisia’s Super Lovely Shoveling

Intermission:
Lithisia’s Super Lovely Shoveling

AS NIGHT SET upon the castle, Alan was jotting some things down in his room when he heard a very particular knocking at his door. Lithisia was the only one who knocked like that.

“Exshovel me,” Lithisia said as she entered the room and greeted him the usual way. Steam rose from her long, blonde, wavy hair. She had just gotten out of the elf castle’s bath, also known as the elfath, and she was ever so slightly flush. “S-sorry to keep you waiting, shovel…”

Forcing the word “shovel” onto the end of her sentences was one of the princess’ specialties these days.

“No worries. I had something to get done anyway. Hold on for just a second.”

“Shovel!” At what point did she decide “shovel” was also a word of affirmation? Regardless, she sat quietly on her knees nearby, making her look like a doll in a miniskirt. “Sir Miner, Sir Miner! Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing, shovel?”

“Not at all. I’m putting together a plan for Catria’s training.”

Alan had finally begun unearthing Catria’s talents, but he knew when it came to mining, a rock-solid plan was key to success. Where were the veins located? What to do when faced with unexpected problems? What was the most effective way to excavate Catria’s still buried skills? Alan intended to construct a fairly involved and complex plan.

“A long-term shovel plan…” Lithisia’s eyes glistened. “Ah, thank you very much for helping her! Catria’s such a lucky little shovel!”

“I’m doing this because I want to. Catria’s got talent worth unearthing.”

Lithisia twitched. Her glowing smile was just slightly less bright. “Worth unearthing…?”

“Mmhm. I’ve never seen someone with so much latent talent ripe for the shoveling.”

“Ripe for the shoveling…” Lithisia’s tone grew serious.

“Though she’s still very green. Hm? What’s wrong, Lithisia?”

“Er, um, well, um.” She was acting so strange. The princess looked to be at a loss, but eventually she directed her serious gaze at Alan. “Should we, um, call Catria here as well?”

What was she talking about? “Why?”

“Well, um, Sir Miner, you… How should I put this…” Lithisia pressed her two index fingers together. She was struggling to get out what she wanted to say. “We’re going to be practicing shoveling (child making), right?”

“Yeah, we’ll be training (to help you locate successors for me).”

As usual, the pair’s gross misunderstanding was in full swing.

“You said she was worth unearthing, so, um…”

“Hrm. You want to know if I mean to make her my successor.”

Lithisia swallowed loudly and nodded. For some reason, her cheeks were bright red. Alan hadn’t the slightest clue why.

“Hrm. You’re not wrong that I’ve given it some thought.”

“You wanted to shovel (make children) with her?!” Lithisia sounded more shocked than she had in ages.

I knew it. Sir Miner is in love with… Lithisia quickly shook the jealous thoughts from her head. No! Keep yourself together! Shovel! Shovel!

This was a special shovel-style of breathing Lithisia had come up with to help her calm down. Everything would be okay. She was prepared for this. As long as she could be by Alan’s side, it didn’t matter if she was number one in his heart. If anything, she was happy that Catria would be on the receiving end of such shovelove (something even more amazing than regular love). Lithisia would just have to give birth to many children so as to leave Alan’s bloodline all across the land, just as Fio would. It was Lithisia’s mission to see all this come to pass.

“All right!” she said with renewed determination. “I’ll bring Catria here immediately!”

But just as Lithisia began to get up, Alan stopped her.

“Hold it. I didn’t say she’d be my successor. Just that she had the right stuff. If she doesn’t want to take the position, I’m not going to force her.”

“But Sir Miner, I’m sure she’d change her mind if she could just see how amazing you are!” And if not, he could just shovel her anyway (Lithisia had plenty of practice with this, thanks to her daily sessions with Alice). Quite frankly, the princess was on a dangerous path with this line of thought.

However, Alan was steadfast. “If Catria doesn’t want to do it, that’s that. As long as I have you with me, it’ll be fine.”

“Huh? B-but, are you really okay with just me?!”

“Just you? You’re a princess, aren’t you?” Alan asked. What better person was there to help him search for a successor in Rostir than the princess herself? She was known throughout the land and loved by all.

“Wait, so because I’m a princess…” Lithisia looked down at the beautiful dress she was wearing and came to a realization. “You mean you’d rather shovel (verb) with a princess than a knight?”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but I do think you’re a better fit for the job than Catria.”

“Princesshovel…” Lithisia was on cloud nine. “Ah… Ah… I, I!”

Golden particles of energy began to run from her red shovel. These were happy shovel particles, and they frequently poured from Lithisia’s shovel whenever she was in her best moods.

Alan was relieved by the sight. She was back to normal. Ish. “All right. Get ready. I’m going to teach you how to shovel properly!”

“Yessir, shovel!”

Some thirty minutes later, the shovel training was over.

“Shovel… Shovel… (♂)” Lithisia’s eyes were shaped like shovel marks.

After finishing her joyous training, Lithisia was now covered in…juices. Yes, juices. She was so thoroughly soaked that there was no way it was just sweat. The juices must’ve been generated by her shovel or something, but Alan paid the topic no mind. He was used to this princess’ weirdness by now.

“Thank you shovel much. Th-that was shovely shovemazing.” Lithisia was back to making up words again, but somehow Alan could follow her.

For the record, all Alan did was teach her how to bury things. Yet for some reason, the princess had gotten herself all hot and bothered. There was no way he could know what images the word “bury” inspired in her.

“You dig things up, then you bury them. Them’s the basics. Make sure you practice on your own.”

“O-of course! I look forward to our next sesshovel!” Lithisia bowed her head, her disheveled blonde hair going everywhere.

“Our next session?” Alan thought she must mean the next time it was just the two of them practicing together. But something seemed off about Lithisia’s words. Well, something was always off with her, but this time was different. Putting it into his own words was proving to be frustrating. “I’ve already taught you the basics. All that’s left is for you to practice on your own.”

“Huh? But, Sir Miner, when you say ‘on my own’, you mean…” Lithisia froze in a rather shoveltastic pose (the alluring kind). It was hard for her to ask this, but she had to. For the sake of shovels everywhere. “The shoveling that goes ‘shuffle shuffle’, right?”

Nothing about what she said was right, but Alan guessed she was trying to replicate the sound of a shovel digging and burying things, so he nodded. The miner wouldn’t really describe the sound as “shuffling,” but he was aware that Lithisia’s sense of sound was drastically different from the rest of humanity’s. It was entirely possible that she personally heard shovel sounds as such.

And so Alan nodded, unaware that he was continuing their tragic misunderstanding. “You’re probably on the money.”

“Oh, gosh!” Lithisia’s cheeks and ears went solid pink. For Lithisia, the shuffle shuffle shovel (verb) was the act of making children itself, and practicing that on her own, was, well, difficult. Her party often forgot that she was only a pure, fifteen-year-old princess. “Then you mean, you want me to shovel (verb) by myself?”

Alan nodded.

“In other words, shoveling (intransitive verb)?!” She sounded like a giant idiot.

Nonetheless, her young maiden’s voice shook. Her knees rose, the bottoms of her feet planted on the floor. As a result, the white cloth beneath her skirt and the garter stretching from it drew Alan’s focus like a magnet. She held her hands to her mouth in embarrassment. She was entirely captivating, but that made it difficult for the miner to know where to look. Despite everything, she was still a bewitching beauty.

“Can you sit straight, please? And why are you acting so embarrassed?” Alan couldn’t understand why Lithisia had become so bashful when all he did was recommend some practice. “Everybody does it (practice).”

“Everyone shovels (intransitive verb)?!”

“Yeah. Take Catria, for example. She practices two hours a day. Once in the morning and once at night. She’s covered in sweat by the time she’s done.”

“Oh my gosh, Catria shovels (intransitive verb) night and day until she’s covered in sweat?!”

“Fio as well. And me too, of course.”

Lithisia was more shocked than she’d been since beginning this journey. “Y-y-you shovel (intransitive verb) everyday, Sir Miner?!”

Alan nodded his head whilst Lithisia’s mouth hung open in shock. This revelation was something else. Just imagining him during the act was enough to make her sweat up a storm. The sweat came from her shovel, however.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never done it alone before.”

“!!!”

Lithisia looked like she was about to start crying from her seated position.

“Er, um, ah…”

She desperately wanted to claim she hadn’t, but she couldn’t lie to the miner. And plus, Alan was saying it was nothing to be embarrassed about. As someone aiming to wield a shovel as true as Alan’s…

“I…” After quite a bit of time passed, Lithisia opened her mouth. “I, I… I’m sorry! Just once! Just once, I swear!” Her lips were trembling. She was embarrassed beyond belief, but she did her best to look Alan in the eyes. “I’ve shoveled (intransitive verb) to you before!”

At this point, there was no fixing this misunderstanding of theirs.

***

For ages, the mortified Princess Lithisia apologized over and over with tears in her eyes. By the time she calmed down, it was much later at night, so it was time to get to bed.

“There’s nothing unnatural about shoveling (intransitive verb). There’s nothing shameful about shoveling…” Lithisia repeated to herself. “I’m going to g-give it my all!”

“Great, I guess. Good luck.”

“Thank you shovely much!”

Alan nodded his head as he watched the princess get herself hyped up. He had no way of knowing that he’d made the princess admit to something quite beyond reason.

“But, um, can we still practice together from time to time?” she asked.

“Of course. At least while we’re traveling together.”

“Thank you so…” Lithisia stopped. Alan’s words had given her pause. “Um, while we’re traveling together? What about after that…?”

“Well, I’m a miner. Digging my way through mines is my job.” In other words, once they recovered the orbs, he would return to his mountain.

“O-of course, yes. You’ll return to the mines in Rostir.”

“Nah. While traveling, I’ve come across all manner of fascinating strata.”

“Huh?”

“Since I’m finally out of that mountain, now’s the perfect chance to travel the world and check out other mining locales.”

On the outside, Lithisia maintained her calm, but inside, she wanted to cry. Her tears from earlier were those of embarrassment, but now they were of deep sadness. Now that she thought about it, they’d already collected over half of the orbs. At this rate, she’d soon be separated from her beloved miner.

Zeleburg didn’t stand a chance against Alan. He’d be swiftly defeated, and at last Lithisia would get to joyously shovel (intransitive verb) with Alan. She was certain it’d be an amazing thing, but…

“Ah…”

But that would be the end. Lithisia would return to her life as a princess, and the miner would return to his work. It was just like the shovel, in a sense; things that were dug up were eventually returned to their point of origin.

“What’s wrong?”

Everything and everything. Lithisia wanted to bare her heart to Alan, but she couldn’t. She did everything in her power to hold it in, because she already knew. In fact, since the night the World Tree Castle was built, or more specifically, the moment she saw the miner’s god-like abilities, she understood. Alan was such an amazing person that neither she nor any other beautiful girl in the world would ever be fit for him.

He truly was god-like, no, beyond God. He wasn’t just humanity’s light of hope; he was all of the universe’s. He could never belong solely to Lithisia. He shouldn’t. When people laid their eyes on something far greater than themselves, they didn’t want it to be only theirs. They worshipped it.

But still, even then.

“Nngh!” Lithisia managed to keep the tears from falling by using her shovel-trained psychological strength.

This was bad. Alan was a kind man, so he’d soon catch on. But her eyes were beginning to hurt from fighting back the tears. At the end of the day, Lithisia was still a young maiden. A young maiden who shovely dovely movely shoveltastically loved Alan. The entire reason she had adopted using “shovel” in all sorts of circumstances was because she wanted to get even a little closer to him.

She couldn’t just give up. There had to be a way that they could stay together even after their journey ended.

Lithisia poured every ounce of brainpower into this problem. She was desperate. More desperate than she’d ever been in her entire life.

Ding, ding, ding!

“Other mining locales!” Lithisia had thought of something crazy.

“What’s up?” Alan had heard the strange dinging noise (yes, it actually happened), and was confused.

Lithisia brought herself close to him. Her prim and proper face was right next to his, and the expression on it was dead serious. More serious even than when she spoke of Zeleburg. “You want to visit other mining locales, right? I bet you don’t own those places, right?”

“Hrm? Well, I suppose not. I’d have to negotiate with the owners.”

“There’ll be no need for that.”

“Huh?”

Lithisia peered at the map of the world on the wall. Rostir’s flag was off to the side. Her country was a small but bountiful land. She had dreamed of taking it back and spending the rest of her life there, happily shoveling and loving Alan.

Until this moment, that is. As of now, she could no longer afford to be a dreaming maiden. The fires of ambition filled her eyes. No single princess or woman of any country would ever be fit to stand beside Alan.

In that case…

She had no choice but surpass her current state as a single nation’s princess and as a single human being.

Contrary to popular belief, Lithisia had never tried to overcome her own humanity up until this point. But now, her goal was as clear as day.

For Sir Miner, I, Princess Lithisia…! Lithisia wore the same excited smile she had the first time she held a shovel in her hands.

She could never voice her new ambitions. If she did, Alan might try and stop her. But the reality was that even if he did, she would never quit. With a shining, beautiful smile on her face, Lithisia quietly clenched her fists, and made a proclamation deep inside of her heart. If being the princess of a single country was not enough…

I will conquer this world. I will be the princess of a worldwide empire!

She had already decided upon the name: the Holy Shovel Empire. And when the deed was done, she would present Alan with every mining location in the world. Of course, she would accompany him to said mines. After all, it would all belong to her.

Problem shoveled!

Not even remotely, but the woman who’d normally interject was already fast asleep.

“Sir Miner, Sir Miner! Please look forward to…things coming up!” Lithisia enthusiastically said to Alan.

“Wha?”

“I promise, no matter what…” She gripped her red shovel, and, pushed forward by her love for Alan, declared, “I’ll become a worldly shovel princess worthy of you, Sir Miner!”

A shovel princess, Alan thought to himself. He had no idea what was going on in the least, but he knew one thing for sure—that was in fact the perfect way to describe Lithisia.

***

“Raystol gave up the deets.”

On the following day, after finishing up breakfast in the main hall, the party began their meeting.

According to the intelligence Alice was able to extract from the necromancer, Prime Minister Zeleburg’s plans weren’t limited to occupying Rostir. He planned on paralyzing all of humanity’s nations and their functions, bringing about a terrible catastrophe to the continent. Raystol unfortunately was not privy to what said catastrophe entailed.

“The Prime Minister is a higher demon, so it’s not that hard to piece together what he’s aiming for. How basic.”

“What do you mean, Alice shovel?”

“Whoa, whoa! Don’t point your shovel at me! He’s probably planning on gathering souls together or something!”

“Is that why he scattered the orbs all across the continent?” Lithisia was in top form this morning.

The Blue Orb went to the undead king, the Red Orb to the red dragon, and the Silver Orb to a necromancer. It appeared as though Zeleburg was using the magical power of the orbs to awaken various fell entities that would then throw the continent into chaos.

“Either way, we’re going to have to collect all of the orbs,” said Alan.

“Couldn’t you just blow him away with that Wave Motion Shovel Blast of yours?” asked Lithisia.

“If I did, Rostir Palace would be reduced to dust. Are you okay with that?”

“I’m shovely fine with it.”

“Excuse me, Princess?!”

“I was planning on rebuilding it as the Great Shovel Palace anyway.”

After Lithisia took back the country, the architects in Rostir were in for a rough ride.

“So moving on from all that, where’s our next objective?”

“The Green Orb is apparently located in the sea nation, the Lactia Republic,” Catria explained.

Despite being called the sea nation, the Republic didn’t actually exist above the water. Instead, it was a coastal nation. Its greatest assets were its ports, and it served as the center of all commerce in the world. It had a massive population, and vast slums surrounded the city. The Green Orb was supposedly located in the market, but at present its specific location was unknown.

“Unknown?”

“Somebody probably put it into a magic box that blocks magical energies.”

“Got it. Which means it’s probably in the hands of a wealthy merchant or collector.”

“I guess we’re in for some hard-fought bartering.”

Alan nodded. “Mmhm. In other words, it’s time to bust the old shovel out,” he declared with all the confidence in the world.

Was he planning on negotiating with his shovel?

“By the way…” Catria glanced at the princess.

“Shovely shovel! Hee hee.”

The princess was normally suspicious, but she was especially out there today. On occasion, she could be seen kissing her shovel while skipping about.

“Alan, did something happen last night?”

“I just taught her how to practice shoveling on her own.”

“Hee hee… Hee hee hee.” Lithisia giggled as she pressed her shovel up against her large breasts. It wasn’t the giggle of a young maiden, however. It was the giggle of a ruler filled with all manner of ambition.

“Even a mining mountain a thousand layers deep has to be conquered from layer one,” said Alan. “Let’s head to the sea nation.”

The head of Lithisia’s shovel began to shine and she whispered, “Let’s dig up the foundations for the Holy Shovel Empire!”

The first princess of Rostir and the high priestess of the Holy Shovel Faith, Princess Lithisia, gained one other title that day.

“Let us be on our way! Shovel onward!”

The first shovel princess of the Holy Shovel Empire. This was the moment of her birth.