When the Pope Becomes Competent - Chapter 111



Only Noblemtl

111. You are the Pope?
2024.02.19.

“It’s done! It’s finally open!”

Ivan shouted happily.

As he said, the dungeon barrier was broken due to their continued attacks.

The dungeon door was wide open to them.

Ruslan and Victor happily answered one by one.

“Shall we go in now? Before that Pope’s party dies.”

“I’m ready.”

Ivan readjusted his sword after hearing his brothers’ answers.

He then took the lead and tried to enter the dungeon.

However, before he could take the lead, Ruslan discovered something first.

“Um… … ? But that… … . Something is forming?”

After hearing Ruslan’s words, Ivan and Victor also looked in the direction he pointed. In

the direction he pointed… that is, at the entrance of the dungeon, a crack made of light was forming.

They weren’t surprised up to that point.

What surprised them a little was when something like a giant ‘sickle’ emerged from the crack.

“… …?”

They thought it was a scythe of a slightly strange design.

Of course, it was too sharp and large to be a spider’s front leg. That’s why

they didn’t realize that it was a ‘monster that came out of the dungeon’ until the front legs of the 3rd floor boss monster appeared. This

was especially true since they always escaped the dungeon with dungeon escape items after failing to clear the 1st floor.

This was the first time they had seen the 3rd floor boss monster.

The three brothers realized that it was a huge monster when they finally made it out of the exit, including the monster’s head.

“Monster!!”

The two brothers readied their swords after hearing Ivan’s shout.

Then they tried to attack—

“There are no usable skills!”

“Me too!”

Instead of attacking, Ruslan and Victor shouted in turn.

Since they had wasted their skills by randomly casting them to break the dungeon barrier earlier, they had no skills left that could be used right away.

In a situation where they had to wait until the skill cooldown ended in order to use the skill again,

they could only watch as the monster completely escaped the dungeon.

Kyaaaak!

Ivan shouted in panic as the monster’s roar rang out.

“Stop, block! Attack even if you don’t have a skill to use!”

After shouting that, Ivan immediately rushed at the spider without activating his skill, just as he had said.

The other two brothers also followed him with their swords.

Then, they each took one of the spider’s legs and swung their swords.

Kkakang!

He swung his sharp sword as if he was striking, so if it had been a normal object, it would have been cut off immediately.

However, the spider’s legs did not move at all as if he had struck a bar made of steel.

The moment they despaired in front of its strength.

The monster did not miss that moment.

Kkiik!

The spider raised its sharp legs.

Then, the raised legs came down with a sound of cutting wind.

It was towards Ivan.

“Ahhhhh!!!”

He dodged quickly for a moment, so it didn’t pierce his crown.

However, a large chunk of flesh was torn off his right thigh.

The spider raised its leg again as if it was going to finish him off this time.

At that

moment, a chain blade flew in with a clear sound and tightly bound the spider’s raised leg, blocking it.

In the meantime, Ivan retreated with the support of his siblings, and Bliss, the owner of the chain blade, walked out from the dungeon entrance that had opened earlier.

Bliss, who had chased the monster and escaped through the exit, quickly climbed onto the spider’s back with the chain she was holding onto. She

then used her skill, Eternal Snow Shackle.

Crunch—

Eternal Snow Shackle is a skill that originally froze the ground beneath one’s feet to restrict the enemy’s movements.

However, she used it in a slightly different way this time. She used it while climbing onto the spider.

Since he was stepping on the spider’s body rather than the ground, the cold air directed at his feet froze the spider.

Kik, kii… … .

As the cold air covered it, the spider’s movements became dull for a moment.

Petros, who had also come out of the dungeon, activated his skill.

Whoosh—

The spear, whose cutting power had been enhanced by the skill he had activated, “Cutting Spear (A)”, swung towards the spider’s leg.

Crunch—

The spider’s three right legs were cut off by the tip of the spear.

The spider’s body, which lost its balance, fell to the ground.

Bliss, who took advantage of the gap and stood on the ground, shouted,

“Your Holiness!”

Nickelus, who was the last to escape from the dungeon, raised his sword of light as if responding to the call.

Up until now, the spider’s movements had been too fast to hit the attack.

However, now, Bliss and Petros had blocked its movements first.

Nickelus’ next slash of the sword cut the spider’s body in half.

Boom!

The spider’s heavy body, split in half, fell to the ground.

Soon, it jerked its legs a few times before stopping its movements.

The three brothers who had been watching the situation looked at the spider and Nickelus alternately.

It didn’t take long for them to realize Nickelus’ identity.

Because of the divine power, Nickelus’ entire body was emitting a golden light.

“Your Holiness… …?”

Nickelus, who heard Ivan’s call, slowly turned his head and stared at them.

* * *

I first checked the condition of those who had been attacked.

One of them seemed to have had his leg pierced, but fortunately the other two were unharmed.

When I approached them and handed them potions, they nodded their heads.

I waited for the injured to finish drinking the potions, and then quietly asked them.

“Just in case, did you guys pour all your skills into the dungeon or something?”

Ivan nodded his head in bewilderment at my question.

“Yes, uh, I’m late in greeting you. I am ‘Ivan van Lazar’ of the Marquis Lazar family. I heard that Your Majesty was going to conquer the dungeon, so I came to help, but since we couldn’t enter the dungeon because of the barrier… I used my skills as Your Majesty said.”

“Haa… … .”

“Did we do something wrong… … ?”

I sighed for the second time as I watched Ivan ask in bewilderment.

I appreciate that they came to help, but they must have made a big mistake.

It seemed that the monsters escaped from the dungeon because of these authors.

‘I thought it was strange that the dungeon entrance suddenly opened, but it was because they broke the dungeon barrier…’

If you didn’t clear the dungeon for a long time, something called a ‘dungeon break’ would occur.

Simply put, a dungeon break meant that monsters would overflow from the dungeon.

And there were two ways to cause a dungeon break.

The first was, as I just said, to leave the dungeon untouched for a long time.

The second was to ‘physically’ attack the dungeon from the outside like they did, breaking the dungeon barrier.

Doing so would force the dungeon open, causing the monsters to flow out.

In other words, their reckless attack of the dungeon in an attempt to help me was the cause of the dungeon break.

Now that I look at it, the thumping sound I’d been hearing was probably the sound of them using their skills on the barrier.

“I advise you to ‘never’ attack the dungeon from the outside from now on. If you do that, monsters will jump out of the dungeon like they did just now.”

Ivan asked with a pale face after hearing me.

“Huh?! You mean… The monster that came out earlier

was because of our attack… .” “That’s right. The dungeon was broken because of our attack.”

“This… .”

He opened and closed his mouth as if he was searching for something to say, wandering around for a while.

After waiting a bit, he finally apologized.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know something like that would happen… .”

“It’s okay. We caught the monsters before they ran wild in the houses anyway. Our party is really tired—”

“Yes, I’ll take you to the Marquis’ residence. Let’s go right away. By the way, where is Sister Luciana?”

“Luciana… Oh, she’s right over there.”

I pointed to the Morning Star’s Footsteps that had just appeared.

Luciana and her party also safely cleared the dungeon and came here like us.

* * *

‘Whew… … . Are there only 5 dungeons left?’

After safely destroying the core of the dungeon we just had, we went to the Marquis’ residence with our rewards.

I was checking the oracle window in the guest room the Marquis gave me.

How far along was the 8th main oracle?

[The 8th Main Oracle – Defense Against the Returnees’ Invasion (In Progress)]

Sub-oracle (1) – Eliminate the “Elcapists” who have begun to take root throughout the Empire! (5/10)

Sub-oracle (2) – Defeat or execute the “Cultivators” who spread the Elcapist seeds! (Complete)

Previously, 3 dungeons had been cleared.

Today, we split into teams and cleared one dungeon each, for a total of 2 dungeons.

So, if you add up the dungeons we’ve cleared so far, there are 5… … .

The oracle window also had (5/10) written correctly.

‘At this rate, we should be able to complete the 8th main oracle soon, right? By the way―’

I glared at the oracle window and narrowed my eyes.

To be exact, I was looking at ‘Sub-oracle (2)’.

‘Should I check the reward for completing Sub-oracle (2)… … ?’

This Sub-oracle (2) had already been completed when I defeated the cultivator Netelon.

It had been a while since the (Complete) button appeared, but I had been so busy that I hadn’t even thought about pressing it to collect the reward.

Since I had nothing else to do right now, I clicked the completion button that had appeared next to the second Sub-oracle with my fingertips.

[The Sub-oracle has been completed! [The reward is paid!]

“Oh!” I exclaimed.

In fact, I didn’t really know that I would receive a reward. It

wasn’t like I would receive a reward just because I completed a sub-trust, and there were also cases where there was no reward at all.

‘There was a reward… … ? I’m lucky.’

I waited for the reward with excitement.

The reward I received after waiting like that was―

[I received the book, “The Perfect Conquest of Shinsoo Parenting” as a reward!]

The reward was… a book.

It was also a book with the strange title, “The Perfect Conquest of Shinsoo Parenting.”

‘A parenting book… … ? A Shinsoo’s… … ?’

I was embarrassed, but I received it anyway and looked through it.

Unfortunately, the more I read, the more bewildered I became.

The book was literally a book that contained ‘methods for successfully raising all kinds of new Shinsoos.’

“… … .”

Why did this come out as a reward?

Even in my confusion, I quickly skimmed through the book. I

was looking for something.

‘Oh, there really is one, the immortal parenting method… … .’

Since Bulgasal is also a divine beast, I looked it up because I thought it might be included in the book. Since Cheonggwang

is also a divine beast, I was going to look up Cheonggwang as well, but I gave up.

Cheonggwang was already a fully grown divine beast, so there was no particular need to learn parenting methods.

So I looked up Bulgasal’s parenting methods, and there was some pretty interesting information written about it.

‘If you keep the egg warm at a certain temperature, you can hatch it… …?’