Part 42: The Princess Fires a Wave Motion Shovel Blast
Part 42:
The Princess Fires a
Wave Motion Shovel Blast
The Princess Fires a
Wave Motion Shovel Blast
By the time Alan arrived at the City of White Mythril, Catria’s eyes were dead. Upon seeing Alan’s shovel, she yelped and shuddered, then shook her head as if to force out some unseen thing. She could be heard whispering to herself, “No…th-that’s impossible… I haven’t lost to the shovel…I haven’t…!”
Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Was she crying? Over some kind of “defeat”?
“Odessa, what happened?”
“Something terribly, terribly difficult…”
“I see…”
Odessa’s attitude told Alan she didn’t want to talk about it, so he decided to keep his hands off the situation. Anyway, one of Catria’s best qualities was how snappily she was able to recover from this sort of thing. She’d be back to normal in no time.
“Then let’s catch up with Lithisia.”
Lithisia was in the middle of a liberation mission with Alice. According to her regular Shovel Communication report, the mission was going swimmingly.
“But it’ll be bad if we let her work on her own for too long,” said Alan. “Let’s hurry.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Absolutely. The entire world could be buried.”
“Um, Alan, are you sure you’re not talking about yourself?”
“I’m just a miner. But Lithisia isn’t just a princess.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a lie.”
“I promise you I’m not lying.”
Odessa followed along after Alan as he made his way through the cave.
She just doesn’t know yet, Alan thought.
Indeed. Odessa didn’t yet grasp that not only was Lithisia not just a princess, she wasn’t even a member of the human race.
***
Meanwhile, Lithisia and Alice had advanced on the Seat of the Black Iron King. This was both a spot for mining black iron as well as the king’s throne room. In other words, it was the deepest point in the entire country.
Of course, this also meant that demons were all over the place.
“Mwa ha ha ha ha! Go forth, my Neo Alice Army!”
The formidable undead army pressed forward. Alice had used her necromancy to summon powered-up skeletons and specters numbering in the tens of thousands. How? Well, she had taken the orbs from the Mage King Farshinal in Rahzelfo and was making great use of them.
Under normal circumstances, the undead stood no chance against demons, but…
“Hee hee hee, I’m amazing! This is a slaughter!”
Alice was on cloud nine as she watched her army charge. They were extremely capable. The skeletons’ swords, shining a radiant blue color, were powerful enough to cut through the demons’ Hell Breath. Likewise, the specters wielded staffs with brilliant blue auras, and they completely overwhelmed the demons’ black magic.
My magic can best the demons of Hell! Hee hee hee, I’ve gotten stronger since doing battle with Alan. I knew it! I’m not just some naked girl who’s only good for being scooped! I’m invincible!
Just then, a voice came from behind.
“Alice! It’s about time we recharge our Shovel Power!”
“EEK!”
Alice was invincible to all but Lithisia and her shovel.
“W-we’re in the middle of a mission! Get back!”
“Now, now. Don’t be like that. If we don’t recharge, we’re going to lose, shovel!”
“That doesn’t make sense!”
Lithisia tilted her head, puzzled. “Without Shovel Power, your ‘shoveltons’ and ‘scoopters’ will go back to normal.”
“THAT’S NOT WHAT THEY’RE CALLED!”
“Shoveltons” and “scoopters” weren’t any kind of undead Alice was familiar with.
“Oh, did you not notice? I strengthened them with my shovel, shovel!”
“How?!”
“What’s a few letters in the face of a shovel?”
“You literally just replaced huge chunks of their names!”
This was nuts, but the truth was Lithisia had indeed strengthened Alice’s forces. Actually, they were way too strong. Hell, the skeletons were firing off blue beams from their swords like it was no big deal. Alice realized with a sinking feeling that she knew of no skeletons capable of doing such things. But she did know of shovels that could.
“So that’s that! Scoopy, scoopy, scoop!”
Lithisia embraced Alice from behind where she sat on her skeletal palanquin. With her own legs, she locked Alice’s in place. It was the usual scooping stance.
N-no way! She’s seriously going to do this now?! Stop it, stop it, stop it, PLEASE!!!
Lithisia rubbed the undersides of Alice’s feet with her silver shovel.
Scoopy, scoopy, scoop!
“EEEEEEEK!”
Scoop, scoop, scooooop!
“SCOOOOOOOOP!!!”
As Alice writhed, her skeleton army grew more and more excited.
“S-stop this at once!!! Why is that shovel so tingly?!”
“Because it’s my special ‘Aliscoop’!” Lithisia smiled as her silver shovel shone in the light.
“Aliscoop?!”
“It’s short for Alice-Exclusive Scooper!”
That didn’t explain a thing! Alice tried her best to resist, but as she flailed—the silver shovel fell from Lithisia’s grasp and clattered down a crevasse.
CLANK!
“EEEK!”
The shovel tumbled end over end into the Kingdom of Darkness’ labyrinthine tunnels.
“Aaaah! My Aliscoop! I have to go get it!” cried Lithisia.
“Haaah, haaah. I’m saved! What a diabolical tool…”
“You’re going to be Shovel Punished later!”
“WHY?!”
And so Lithisia went after her Aliscoop, descending deep into the earth and following its presence all the way to a ten-foot-tall metal door. Judging by the layout of the underground, the hole her Aliscoop fell down connected to the room behind this door.
“Haaah, haaah, it’s finally over…!” Alice was in tatters after receiving her Shovel Punishment on the way down. Even without her Aliscoop, Lithisia still had her little red shovel.
The princess went to open the grand door but stopped in her tracks. “That’s odd…I’m not feeling any Shovel Presence other than the Aliscoop from beyond this door.”
“It’d be weirder if you did. There’s probably a demon on the other side.”
“Even if there was, I’d still feel some kind of Shovel Presence. Did you know all demons have sharp horns on their heads? Their sharpness is a lot like the sharp tip of a shovel. In other words, they’re shovels.”
“That makes no sense. Don’t even bother trying to explain it.”
Shovel corruption was spreading even to the demons. The end of the world was nigh.
“Alice, be scoopful.”
“But I refuse.”
“In the common tongue, that means ‘be careful.’”
“If you have to explain it, don’t bother saying it in the first place!”
“Absoscooply not (absolutely not).”
Trying to communicate with this princess was more difficult than attempting to reason with a demon.
“That said, I’m also getting a bad feeling about this,” Alice admitted. “What do you want to do? Call Alan?”
The miner would arrive in three seconds should they summon him. Even if they didn’t, he’d probably turn up if they were in a pinch. But after thinking for a few seconds, Lithisia shook her head.
“No, we’re going to do this together.”
Conquering the Kingdom of Darkness was one of the tasks required to scoop (read: conquer) the world, as Lithisia had discussed with Alice. Furthermore, there was Catria’s solo defeat of the Mage King to consider. As Catria’s master, Lithisia was therefore also compelled to prove the power of the shovel she had received from Alan.
“It’s scooping time.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
It wouldn’t be long before Lithisia discovered her choice was absoscooply not the right one.
***
They had found their way to the second floor of the underground Great Cathedral, a massive space within which the Pleasure Bell that controlled the enslaved demons once hung. Beneath them, the first floor contained an altar, a vase brimming with black liquid, and a shadowy figure.
The figure stood absolutely still, until it groaned with a long and eerie voice, like the sound of wind passing through a hole. It wore a gray robe and held a tin staff with an orb attached to the end, and it emanated an unearthly violet and black aura. Though its form was humanoid, it was certainly no kind of human.
Alice knew exactly what manner of being it was, and on a horribly personal level.
“That’s not very shovel, is it?” Lithisia whispered from the second floor as she hid herself behind a pillar.
What exactly was this creature?
“It’s not human, demon, angel, or a shovel…” she murmured.
“…”
“Alice, do you know what… Alice?”
“Ngh…!”
Finally, Lithisia noticed something was off with Alice. The undead king was perfectly still, not even breathing. Yet she was trembling—no, spasming. The creature below had paralyzed her.
Fortunately, it only took Lithisia a few rubs to the bottom of Alice’s feet to bring her back.
“EEEEK!”
“It’s not very shovel to ignore someone.”
Alice raised a rather…compromised voice in response to Lithisia’s surprise attack.
“C-could you please stop it? Now’s not the time to be messing around!” Alice was no longer frozen, but her expression was deeply serious. “We have to call Alan, now! We don’t stand a chance against…that!”
The chill running down Alice’s neck wouldn’t stop.
“I’ve been trying to call him via Shovel Telepathy, but he’s not answering,” said Lithisia.
“What?!”
“There’s some sort of wall, a really hard wall, between us.”
“This is bad! We have to run!” Alice’s teeth were chattering. The instincts carved into Alice’s very soul were telling her to quake in fear, for before her stood a being she had to avoid at all costs. “That’s a god. The real deal ‘God of Death and Destruction,’ Veknar!”
Veknar, the creator of the Crown of Veknar, the ancient artifact that had given Alice her undead immortality. The god who governed death and destruction. That was this figure’s true identity. He usually resided in the extra-dimensional castle Deardol Vectia, so why was he here? What had happened in this place?
“I have to find out…” Alice focused her mental energies.
As the undead king, Alice was capable of looking into scenes of the past by utilizing the lingering grudges in an area.
A blurry vision ran through Alice’s mind. Sitting at the altar of the Great Cathedral was a whopper of a horned demon—a demon priest. It was performing some kind of summoning ritual, which explained the vase filled with human blood sitting atop the altar. The demon priest was trying to summon the king of demons.
But something went wrong. After all, Veknar was not the king of demons.
“Come forth, Master!” As the ritual neared its completion, the demon priest cried out.
Clank, clank, clank, plop!
Just as he did, a silver shovel fell from the ceiling straight into the vase. It was the Aliscoop.
“Huh?” The demon priest was confused. But even as he spoke, the vase began to shine, and in the next moment, Alice’s vision died as “God” descended upon the land.
Alice’s eyes widened and she screamed. “This is our fault?!”
“EEEK!”
“It’s the shovel you dropped! That was the catalyst!”
Veknar was one in body and soul with Alice. It made sense that if Alice’s personal shovel was used as the catalyst of a summoning spell, Veknar would be called.
This was bad. He was the real deal. They needed to run as soon as possible; if they didn’t, they were doomed. Alice could sense this instinctively because Veknar was her, just as she was him.
“!!!”
A voice made direct mental contact with Alice. No, it was more like the voice was overwriting her own. Why? Lithisia, no! Master. My master…
“Hrm, you’re a part of me. You shall be a temporary body for my resurrection.” A cold thing spoke with Alice’s voice, but it wasn’t her. “You shall not escape.”
“Ah…” The light in Alice’s eyes faded. I’m going to vanish. Even after overcoming death, I’m just going to disappear. Of course I am. I exist to become one with my master.
Alice reached out. She was completely defenseless.
As Alice’s arms lifted, Lithisia thrust her shovel into Alice’s armpit.
Shoop, shoop, shoop!
“EEEEEEEK!!!”
Alice responded as intended.
“What?” A booming voice snarled from the robed figure below. “A mere vessel escaped from my control? Impossible. Once more!”
SHIIIIIING!
Veknar directed a cold glare up at Alice.
“SCOOP!”
The princess continued to scratch and scoop at Alice’s side until the undead king was completely soaked in sweat. The battle for control over Alice’s soul was too intense for her young body to handle. All she could do was shake her head in tears.
“NOOO, STOP IT! I’M GOING TO DIEEEEE!”
Veknar watched this with great curiosity. “What was that just now? How fascinating. What have you done to my vessel?”
“Scooped! (Scooped!)”
“Hrm?”
“Scooped! (Scooped! (Scooped!))”
A few seconds passed.
“Event modification, is it? But I don’t sense any magic or holy energy. A technique born on the surface, then?” said Veknar.
“S-scoop…!” Sweat droplets beaded on Lithisia’s forehead. This is absoscooply bad.
Lithisia was scooping repeatedly, but Veknar wouldn’t let himself get shoveled (couldn’t be shaken). When Alice said he was a god, she meant it in the true shovel sense.
After a few seconds, Lithisia made her decision. “Alice, I’ll hold him off, shovel!”
In the meantime, Alice would call for help. This was their only shot at survival.
Alice was leaking all kinds of Alice-juices as Lithisia lifted her up with her shovel. “Wha?!”
“Alice, hurry and get Sir Miner!”
“Eeek?! I’d love to run, but!”
If Veknar called for her, Alice would lose control of her very soul. The only reason she had maintained herself thus far was Lithisia’s Shovel Powers (status restoration). (Actually, Alice got the feeling it was less restoration and more like overwriting, but whatever.) Either way, the second Alice left Lithisia’s side, she’d be under the god’s control.
“Don’t worry. I had a feeling this might happen, so I developed a completely autonomous shovel weapon!”
Lithisia whipped out something resembling a leotard. It was a pure angelic white and in Alice’s size, but on the inside were thousands of small protruding bits. These weren’t tentacles but in fact small shovel heads, in other words, way worse than tentacles—especially as these shovel heads actively sought out Alice’s skin.
“!!!”
SHIIIISCOOOOP!
(The sound of Alice’s spine quivering in fear.)
“It’s a Shovel Suit! Put it on, Alice!”
“No! Absolutely not!” If Alice wore that suit, her soul would be forever lost.
“With this, you can be scooped endlessly even when I’m not around! Come, Alice!” Lithisia held her red shovel in her left hand and the Shovel Suit in her right.
“STOP IIIIIIIIT!”
This was a complete disaster.
Amidst the chaos, Veknar finally made his move. “I see, so you’re the intermediary. I wonder what will happen once you’re gone?”
“Huh?”
“DEATH RAY.”
SHA-BAAAAAAAANG!
Veknar fired a beam from his finger. The red shovel in Lithisia’s left hand was obliterated.
All sound stopped for Lithisia. It felt like the entire world had ceased to move.
“Huh…?”
Her shovel. The precious shovel she had received from Sir Miner. The shovel, more precious than her life, humanity, or even all the universe…it was gone?
“Now you can’t use that technique of yours. This is the end.” Veknar pointed his finger at Lithisia.
SHA-BAAAAAAAANG!
This beam was even more fierce than the last.
This is bad…this is really, really bad!
The impact of losing her shovel sped up Princess Lithisia’s internal thought processes (as a human). She had dedicated over 99 percent of the resources in her brain to thinking about shovels, and now that it was gone, her former genius-level intellect had kicked back into gear. In other words, she was normally operating at less than 1 percent of her total mental capacity.
What can I do?!
She understood the entirety of her situation. It was bad. The worst, even.
Also, Lithisia recognized that beam of Veknar’s. It was the same as the beam Alan once used to destroy the bandits’ swords. In other words, she was facing someone on the same level as her Sir Miner—someone capable of breaking the laws of the world. There was no way she could win. She had to run. She had to somehow get Alan’s help…
Something strange was happening to Alice.
“Ah…”
Alice’s body slowly fell forward. Lithisia nearly fainted as she watched. Alice’s once silver form now produced dark energy. She was de-shoveling. The tug-of-war between Veknar and Alice’s internal shovel had come to a close. Alice was disappearing.
My belovedly shovely Alice will be no more… Is that really okay? My shovel won’t be a shovel anymore… Is that really okay?
“Not…” Lithisia murmured.
“Hrm?”
“Absoscooply not! I…I am a SHOVEL!” Of course it wasn’t okay! That was why Lithisia yelled at the top of her lungs: “CHARGE UP SEQUENCE, ACTIVATE!”
Lithisia held her hands in the shape of a triangle. She had no shovel to call her own, but so what? Everything in this world was a shovel. She had decided she herself was a shovel. She had to be one, lest Alice disappear forever.
I received my shovel from Sir Miner. That’s why I am a blade that pierces the very rules of this planet.
Lithisia Power: 120 percent. Safety Systems: all green.
“DIIIIIIIIG!”
KA-CHOOOOOOOOM!
“Ha!”
Lithisia fired a beam from the ends of her hands. It was much smaller than Alan’s, but it was without a doubt a Wave Motion Shovel Blast. It was a collection of Lithisia’s pure energies, fired by Lithisia herself. A weapon to pierce and dig through the rules of the world.
Veknar took the blast head-on.
A moment passed.
“Not bad at all. However, this is just the beginning.” Veknar raised his hand. “WORLD OF REFLECTION.”
SHINK!
Lithisia’s beam was reflected back at her.
“No way?!” As Lithisia watched her own beam careen toward her, she recalled Alan had once told her of beings beneath the surface who could reflect the Wave Motion Shovel Blast. That was why he took “safety first” so seriously. Ah…I’m so sorry, Sir Miner…
She had failed his teachings. Lithisia couldn’t be a shovel. She was a human woman who could do naught but despair over the beam of light advancing on her body.
“DIG!”
KA-CHOOOOOOOOM!
Another beam of light cut through the princess’s.
“Huh…?” Lithisia opened her eyes wide and found herself staring up at the back of a man standing before her.
It was the strong, sturdy back of the most dependable man in the world. The man with the shovel. He stood in front of Lithisia, protecting her from Veknar.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
It was Alan.
“Ah…”
Lithisia gazed at his back with her mouth half-open. She wanted to say something, but no words came out, just a series of sounds. The tears she had been holding back ran freely, blurring her vision. Her emotions overflowed. Her beloved shovel. Her overflowing shovel.
“Leave the rest to me.” Alan casually held out his shovel and turned to Veknar. “Even against the divine itself, my shovel won’t lose.”
Lithisia shed tears. Tears for her savior.
“Who are you?” said Veknar, now facing Alan’s shovel.
Veknar didn’t let his guard down as Alan shook his head.
“I’m Alan the miner.”
“A miner… Ah, yes, I remember hearing of you now.” Veknar gave Alan a long hard look of great interest. “A human who overcame their own mortality. I heard tell of you from Asmodeus.”
“Enough with the chitchat. Are we doing this or not?”
“Not right now. Much like you, I err on the side of safety first.”
“…”
“Feel free to cause as much chaos on the surface as you’d like with my vessel and that little princess of yours.” Veknar began to hover in the air, his robes fluttering into darkness. “Hee hee, fascinating. You might very well be able to seize the Pantheon.”
“I don’t intend to.”
“It matters not what you desire. It is your fate.” And then Veknar vanished with these final words: “Let me give you one piece of advice… Asmodeus has your treasured orb.”
And so the robed Veknar left Alan, Lithisia, and the unconscious Alice behind in the shadows of the Great Cathedral.
“Um, Sir Miner…?”
Alan turned, causing Lithisia’s heart to leap. She didn’t know what to say to him. Wait, she had to apologize for leaving the battleground and getting in trouble against orders—not to mention getting her precious red shovel destroyed! As a believer and follower of the Holy Shovel Faith, she was ready to be punished with death. That was why she had to apologize first and…
“You have my gratitude. You did well, Lithisia.”
“Huh?”
For some reason, Alan thanked her. “It’s thanks to you that everyone ended up okay.”
“Wh-what?”
These words were entirely unexpected.
“That guy’s god-barrier meant I couldn’t get a lock on your location. Your Wave Motion Shovel Blast is what let me find you.”
“Huh? Um, er, um…”
“You did great, Lithisia.”
“Ah…aaauhhhh…”
Sir Miner praised me. I was useful to him at last!
“Ah…scoop…shovel…!”
This truth made Lithisia quite the happy little shovel.
She remained in this delirious state for a solid few minutes, all the way until Catria appeared and found the princess melting with delight, Alice catatonic on the floor in her Shovel Suit, and Alan digging up a barrier to guard against god-tier enemies.
***
“By the way, Alan, which mountain are we freeing next?” asked Catria.
“We’re mostly done, actually. But according to some new intel, it seems the demons took the Purple Orb deep below.”
“Oh, right. We’re collecting orbs. I forgot about that.” Catria was so focused on saving the world from shovels she had lost track of their original objective.
“Which means it’s time to go to Hell.”
Catria thought for a few seconds before sighing. She was only surprised by the fact that his sentence didn’t surprise her in the slightest.
No, the fact that I recognize that means I’m still mostly human.
Catria nodded to herself firmly. Once she got back from Hell, she’d have to have a nice long chat with Odessa so she could regain some of her basic reason.
Her shovel was only just beginning.