When the Pope Becomes Competent - Chapter 120



Only Noblemtl

120. Skill Change
2024.02.28.

Caw! Caw!

Dozens… no, hundreds of crows covered the sky.

Judging by their size, they were no ordinary crows.

As soon as I realized what they were, I shouted.

“A horde of monsters overflowing from the dungeon… …!!”

As if in response to my voice, the flock of crows flew toward me.

I rolled over to dodge, and several crows crashed into the deck.

Boom!

A sound similar to the loud noise from earlier.

I think the sound I heard earlier was also the sound of a monster slamming into the ship, making a hole.

Damn it. I cursed.

If these guys kept ramming into me like this, it was only a matter of time before the ship was destroyed.

I quickly opened my inventory and took out an item.

Then.

“Petros! Take that!!”

I threw the item to Petros.

Petros, who had snatched the item from the air, looked at it with a curious look.

It was an item whose purpose was hard to guess just by looking at it.

I immediately told Petros, who was bewildered, what the item was.

“Foldable succubus wings! You can fly if you wear them on your waist!”

Petros, who had heard me, quickly put the belt-shaped item on his waist.

I then shouted.

“I might have to have an aerial battle with those bird heads!”

After saying that, I also unfolded my wing item.

It was the “Golden Wings for the Apostle” that I had previously received as a dungeon reward.

Golden, sparkling wings sprouted from my back.

With them, I flew up and climbed to the main mast, the highest point of the ship.

I saw a flock of dirty birds. They were flying at me like bullets.

Whoosh!

I dodged their attacks and activated my Deification skill.

At the same time, I said,

“Gather.”

Swords appeared in my palms.

But it was a little different from what I usually saw.

‘Why is the color like this…?’

The sword was originally made of only bright light, but now it was marbled with a dark red color.

It seemed to be the result of receiving magic power from Grandma Heukwol.

‘Come to think of it, there was a system message before I fainted. It said that the skill was evolving in a new direction…? Was that what it meant?’

In any case, there was no time.

I swung my sword at the birds flying toward me.

Cackle! Cackle!!

Several birds were instantly burned along the long path of my sword.

No, upon closer inspection, they weren’t burned.

‘They quickly rotted…?’ They

literally rotted. In other words

, they rotted.

As if a video had been played at dozens of times the speed, the birds that had been hit by my attacks died in an instant, rotted, and eventually turned into a handful of dirt.

‘It was just a sword with high cutting power…. But it had a strange special effect.’

It seemed that the magic power I had received had not only changed the appearance of the sword.

I swung my sword horizontally.

Pasasak—

This time, dozens of birds that had grazed my sword rotted and decayed without even uttering a final cry.

Thanks to this, the flock of birds that had seemed endless was quickly shrinking.

At that moment, Petros, who had flown behind me using his succubus wings, warned me.

“Be careful of the back of your head, too. There are so many birds.”

“While I clean up the ones in front, you take down the birds flying behind you.”

Petros followed my orders and killed the birds that were swooping toward the back of my head.

In the meantime, I was able to comfortably rot and decay the flock of birds with my sword.

And finally.

‘Almost done… …!’

I stared at the few remaining birds and swung my sword into their midst. As I

unfolded the second eclipse, the penetrating full moon, the sword energy soon shot out into the middle of the birds.

The sword that had been shot out burned like the sun and neatly turned the remaining birds into dust.

* * *

After destroying the flock of birds, we were able to safely board the ghost ship and arrive at the sky above the Baronial territory of Deloch.

I heard that this territory was the most damaged.

When I looked down from the ship, the territory was indeed in ruins.

The buildings were broken here and there, and on top of that, it was covered in bird droppings.

We landed right at the Baronial territory to hear more details.

After entering the mansion, the Baron came running straight to greet us.

“Your Majesty! Welcome!! As I told you through the messenger, the territory is currently under attack by a swarm of monsters!! A flock of huge and vicious birds are swarming and attacking, so even the knights can’t stand it—”

“Wait, a flock of birds… … ?”

I interrupted the Baron for a moment and went outside to climb onto the deck of the ghost ship.

Then I picked up a corpse that was lying there.

It was the corpse of the crow monster we had caught. When I

threw it at the Baron’s feet and showed it to him, his face turned pale.

I cautiously asked the Baron,

“Was that the bird that attacked the territory?”

“Yes, that’s right. Where did you get this corpse?”

“I caught it on my way here.”

“Oh, you caught it on my way here… … ? How many did you hunt?”

I hesitated for a moment before answering the Baron’s question.

“About three hundred.”

“… … !!”

“Those three hundred were all there were? Are there any more birds left?”

I asked, intending to go out and catch them right away if there were any more.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, as the Baron shook his head.

“No… It seems there are no more birds left. The birds that attacked our territory were just that many.”

“Ah, then we’ve caught them all.”

Fortunately, it was resolved more easily than I thought.

I thought it would take a little longer, but who would have thought we’d catch all the monsters on the way here?

While I was enjoying the relief, the Baron asked in disbelief,

“Did you really hunt three hundred of those giant birds? Just the two of you?”

Petros responded.

“You almost caught them all by yourself, Your Majesty. I only dealt with the ones that flew in behind me occasionally… … .”

“How could that be… … .”

“I was surprised, too. You’re more monstrous than I thought.”

A monster. When I poked Petros’s stomach playfully, he pretended to be in exaggerated pain.

The Baron seemed quite shocked, and his face turned pale while we were joking around.

“Oh, how surprising. In fact, I had half given up because there were so many monsters. I sent a request for support, but I didn’t think I could expect much even if His Majesty came.”

The Baron continued, stroking his goatee.

“But I didn’t expect you to clean everything up so easily on your way here… … . I was genuinely surprised because you were even more amazing than I had heard from rumors.”

“Don’t be so surprised… … . Instead, give me a place to rest. I’ll be staying for three or four days.”

Petros looked puzzled because he was staying even though he had already defeated the monsters.

I explained briefly to the Baron and Petros.

“Now that I think about it, if there was a dungeon break, those birds probably weren’t the only ones who came out of the dungeon, right? “The various monsters guarding the 2nd and 3rd floors of the dungeon must have come out as well.”

“That means… … .”

I nodded at Petros’ question.

“Another group of monsters might appear. So we’ll stay here for three days.”

If the dungeon’s boss monster had leaked out, it would soon attack the territory.

That meant that the giant spiders we had fought so hard against might come out again.

We needed to prepare for that situation somehow.

* * *

When we decided to stay in the Baron’s territory, the Baron immediately gave us a place to stay.

It was a clean and tidy private room.

I ended up using the room at the end of the hallway, and Petros stayed in the room right next to mine.

When I entered the accommodations provided, the first thing I did was open my information window.

‘Hmm… … . The skill name hasn’t changed. Only the effect has changed.’

For example, the name of the Deification skill was still Deification.

However, when I clicked on the skill’s detailed description, I saw that the description was slightly different than before.

[Deification (L)]

―Infuses the body with a tier 1 being.

―The rate at which ability values ​​increase varies depending on the abilities of the relevant deity and the abilities of the relevant apostle.

―There are no restrictions on the number of times the skill can be used or the time it can be used.

(However, only as long as the causality is not distorted due to the excessive intervention of the deity.)

*Special Notes

―If the user of the relevant skill has magic power, they can incorporate “Chaos” into their attacks.

Originally, there was no “*Special Notes” written in the detailed description of the Deification skill.

However, after receiving the magic power of Black Moon Grandmother this time, the nature of the skill seems to have changed slightly.

It was truly an evolution.

‘What does it mean to contain chaos in an attack? Are you talking about the corruption effect that came out when swinging a sword?’

Every time I swung my sword, all the birds that were touched by the attack would instantly decay.

The power of chaos listed in the special feature probably referred to that corrupting power. A

power that mixed divine power and magical power.

A power that mixed yin and yang.

A power that mixed light and darkness.

Since it was a power that was created by mixing forces that should not be mixed like that, it must have been called “chaos.”

‘At any rate, it’s

fine if it gets stronger. Whether it’s chaos or whatever, it was strong enough that I was satisfied with that.

However, I wasn’t ‘completely’ satisfied with this yet.

I called out to Grandma Black Moon to learn the third form and the subsequent forms that I hadn’t learned before.

“Grandma… … ? Grandma Black Moon… … ?”

I called out to Baekhwamyeongwoldo.

However, for some reason, the appearance of Black Moon Grandmother was late.

It was a little embarrassing to talk to the sword, but I raised my voice once more.

“Black Moon Grandmother!!”

“You idiot,

your eardrums are going to burst.” Finally, Black Moon Grandmother woke up from her sleep, saying old-fashioned words.

I immediately tried to tell the grandmother to continue teaching the third form.

The reason I couldn’t was because I noticed that the grandmother’s condition was a bit strange.

“Grandmother… why does your body seem more transparent than before…?”

At first, I thought it was my imagination, but it wasn’t.

Black Moon Grandmother’s body had definitely become more transparent than before.

Whereas before, I could only see what was behind her body vaguely, now I could see the objects behind her quite clearly.

Black Moon Grandmother answered casually.

“That’s because I gave you my magic.”

“You said that because I gave you my magic…?”

Black Moon Grandmother nodded and continued to explain.

“I am a spirit, and what makes up my body is not material. It was my soul and magical power. I gave you the magical power that made up my body, so my body… my existence has become faint.”

“Fainting existence… … . Isn’t that dangerous? It sounds like you’re saying that if you make one wrong move, Grandma could disappear.”

“That’s true, but don’t frown so much. I should have left this world a long time ago.”

When I didn’t loosen my expression even after saying that, Grandma added,

“It’s just that it’s time to go see the people I miss.”