When the Pope Becomes Competent - Chapter 152



Only Noblemtl

152. Not a prince, but a pope.
2024.03.31.

The Mongma siblings seemed to firmly believe that this arm wrestling was a fair match.

Strictly speaking, it was no different from a 2:1 match… … .

Anyway, since it didn’t matter, I prepared to compete.

In the meantime, the group approached us with interest and surrounded us.

Luciana, who had approached, seemed to be trying to judge. She

lightly grabbed the hands that the Mongma siblings and I were holding onto and said,

“Now, since we haven’t started yet, both of you relax—”

As the Mongma siblings and I relaxed our hands together, Luciana then shouted,

“Start!”

With that, I put strength into my arms.

The Mongma siblings did the same. I put all my strength into my muscular forearms.

I tried to knock down their arms with all my might, but they held on tightly and didn’t go down easily.

‘They’re stronger than I thought… … ?’

If I had fought Dionik or Elodie separately, I might have won right away.

However, they were now combined using a combined skill, and their physical strength was much stronger than the simple combination of their physical strengths.

In any case, I couldn’t lose here after boasting as if I would win.

As the Pope, I decided to show them the great difference in strength(?).

Crazy.

I gritted my teeth and tensed my arms.

Then, the forearms of the sleepwalkers who had been holding on tightly began to fall backwards.

“Oh… …! My benefactor! I think I’ll win if I just keep going a little longer!”

Cheong-gwang said that first, and then Luciana shouted.

“Elodie! Fighting!”

Surprisingly, Luciana was cheering for Elodie. She

was cheering for the sleepwalkers instead of me… … .

Because of that, I felt betrayed, but I steeled myself not to waver.

‘Let’s stay calm. If we waver, we lose… … !’

With that, I focused on the arm wrestling with a fairly determined mind.

The sleep demons’ forearms tilted backwards even faster than before.

At that point, the combined sleep demons spoke.

【【Hyung! It’s against the rules if you lift your elbows! Keep your elbows firmly pressed against the floor!】】

Even though they hadn’t lifted their elbows. Since they were losing, they were nitpicking for no reason.

I gathered all the strength in my body, thinking that I would soon end the game.

And finally―

bang!

The sleep demon siblings’ forearms completely tilted backwards. I had won. The sleep demons immediately shouted in a voice full of anger. 【【Ahh! We lost again!! We even used our combined skills in the match!!】】 I showed the disintegrating sleep demons a victorious smile. “You’ll have to train for 100 more years to beat me.” 【【Ahhhh!! You’re annoying!!】】 The sleep demons screamed and released their combined skills. Dionik was tossing his hair in anger, and Elodie was quietly grumbling. The problem was after they had lost like that. The other party members who had been watching gathered around me. Cheong-gwang, Luciana, and Rubin shouted at me one by one. “I want to fight with the benefactor too!” “Your Majesty, let’s have a go at it too.” “Nike! I want to arm wrestle too! I don’t have any hands, but can I use my front paws instead?” I quietly thought to myself as I watched them rushing to extend their arms. ‘Playing with kids is actually quite tiring.’ I knew I would be exhausted if I arm wrestled with all of them. Fortunately, I didn’t have to deal with all of them. The tenth main oracle came to mind just in time. [Tenth Main Oracle – Defeat the Caregiver Julian (In Progress)] Sub-oracle (1) – Head to Chelos Island within a week! Sub-oracle (2) – Enter the ‘labyrinth’ that Julian created on Chelos Island! Sub-oracle (3) – Defeat Julian in the labyrinth and escape safely! (0/1) [Trust Completion Reward] – Mirror Reflecting the Past – Life of the One Who Stole Eternal Life After completing the ninth main oracle, I was just waiting for the tenth oracle to appear. I calmed them down by saying, “Wait a minute. The oracle has appeared.” While the group that had been urging me to arm wrestle was quiet, I slowly looked over the contents of the oracle.

‘It’s telling me to take care of Julian, after all. But he’s on Chelos Island… … ? With his abilities, it would have been easy to quickly travel to Chelos Island… But how did he know in advance that I was going there?’

He must have known I was heading there, so he must have gone there first and ambushed me. He

must have created a labyrinth or something.

‘Did Romun use a skill or item to eavesdrop on my last conversation with Micheln?’

Then he must have naturally known that I was heading to the Evangelism Realm.

That’s why I thought he might have sent Julian to Chelos Island, which had a passage to the Evangelism Realm, in advance.

Either way, it was an eerie piece of information.

‘I also found out in advance that Julian was there thanks to the oracle, so it doesn’t matter.’

The oracle said, ‘Enter the labyrinth that Julian created and take care of him.’

I didn’t like the fact that I had to go into the bastard’s labyrinth myself, but it was still fortunate that I was able to receive this oracle.

Perhaps Julian had set up a labyrinth on the island as a trap, and if I hadn’t received the oracle, we would have fallen into the trap and wandered around the labyrinth.

Now that we knew that Julian had created the labyrinth thanks to the oracle, we would be less confused even if we were trapped there.

“There’s something you all need to know,”

I said, and focused the group, then told them the news I had just learned from the oracle.

“It seems that Julian has set up a strange labyrinth on the island of Celos.”

​​Everyone looked at me with wide eyes in surprise.

I finally told them the worst news.

“And we’re going to have to go into that labyrinth ourselves and take down Julian.”

I finished the story by adding the last words, “The oracle says so.”

Were they taken aback by the sudden news?

The group just stared blankly at me for a while.

* * *

Naturally, at first, they all acted as if they couldn’t understand what I was saying.

Dionik asked why I had to do such a stupid thing, and Cheongwang also tried to stop me, saying that it was dangerous.

Still, I didn’t give up and

tried to persuade them, so the group gave in to me to some extent. It was really hard to persuade them to walk into the enemy’s territory on their own.

Anyway, after all that effort, the confusion had subsided somewhat.

I stood on the deck, blankly staring out at the sea.

Thanks to moving diligently all day, the ghost ship had already crossed the empire’s lands and was crossing the sea.

If it continued flying for another 2-3 days, it would be able to reach the island of Chelos.

‘There was a lot of work during the day. I’m starting to get tired. Should I stop the ship here and rest for a bit…?’

In order to continuously control the ghost ship, the person holding the “Ghost Ship Summoning Whistle” item had to stay awake.

Otherwise, the ship would have gone in the wrong direction.

So I dropped anchor myself and told the crew,

“Let’s spend the night here and set sail again tomorrow morning!”

Everyone in the crew nodded in agreement with my suggestion.

After that, I returned to the captain’s cabin and burrowed into bed. I

had been arm wrestling all day, trying to persuade the crew to follow the oracle, and other things, so I was feeling very tired. The sound of the waves crashing against the ship was like a lullaby that helped me sleep. I closed my eyes tightly and listened to the sound of the waves. “

Thrust —thrust—thrust! ” “… …?” I felt a strange sound mixed in with the sound of the waves. Did I hear it wrong? I closed my eyes that had opened for a moment and listened again. Thrust—thrust! Thrust! Thrust! “… …?!” I hadn’t heard it wrong. I was definitely hearing a strange sound that wasn’t like the sound of waves. It sounded like some kind of wet creature was walking around on the deck, splashing. ‘What the…? Did they drop an anchor and a monster climb onto it?’ I guessed so and activated my Deification skill. Then I opened the cabin door with the Sword of Judgement in hand. For now, I didn’t see anything strange in the hallway outside the cabin. I saw Luciana, who seemed to have heard the strange sound like me, coming out into the hallway first. Maybe because I opened the door loudly, Dionik, Elodie, Cheong-gwang, and Rubin also came out of the cabin one after another. Elodie asked first. “What’s going on, everyone?”

“I heard a strange noise outside.”

I explained, then continued.

“It sounded like a seal or something moving around.” “

A seal? What is that?”

“You know, that one. A plump animal with no legs.”

Dionysius’s eyes sparkled with curiosity after hearing my explanation.

“There’s something like that… … ? I want to go out and check it out too.”

“It’s not like there’s a seal outside… Anyway, let’s go out. We’ll know if it’s a monster or a seal when we see it.”

As I said that, I led the group out onto the deck.

It was dark because it was night, so I couldn’t see anything.

I drew on my divine power to light a fire.

That’s when.

“Ahhh!!”

Dionysius screamed with a voice so loud it was deafening.

I turned around in surprise, and saw that his face had turned pale.

He pointed to the left railing with trembling fingers.

“A ghost… … ! A female ghost with disheveled hair was crawling around!!”

“A ghost with disheveled hair? Even crawling… … ?!”

It was quite an eerie sound.

There were so many skeletons scattered on the ship that I had gotten used to bones, but I was still a little scared of ghosts.

I stayed closer to the group and activated my Non-Aggression Pact skill.

I thought that if I had this, evil spirits and other unclean things would not approach me.

Thanks to that, the deck became a little brighter, and I looked around thoroughly.

“There’s nothing—”

“Benefactor!! It’s over there!!”

After quickly examining the place that the blue light pointed to, I was finally able to find the crawling ghost.

“Eww! Aww…! Ah… …?”

I screamed so hard that my mouth was about to burst when I caught a glimpse of it… and then calmed down again.

At first glance, I thought it was a ghost with its hair down, just like Dionik said. It was only

after I looked closely that I realized it wasn’t.

“That’s… … .”

It wasn’t a ghost.

Of course, her hair was down.

Her hair, as blue as the sea, was messily down.

It was true that she was crawling on the floor.

She had no legs at all and instead had the lower body of a fish, so she had no choice but to crawl on the floor.

However, she was not a ghost as Dionik had said.

“… … a mermaid?”

That was how I defined the being that was crawling and splashing on the deck of our ship. A ‘mermaid.’

The upper body resembled a beautiful woman, and the lower body of a fish covered in shiny scales… … .

It was clearly a mermaid.

I wondered why a mermaid had crawled up here and splashed on the floor, but anyway.

I looked at the mermaid and spoke to her cautiously.

“Hey… … ?”

As if she had heard my call, the mermaid stared straight at me.

I could see her eyes, the same blue color as her hair.

She stared at me intently with those eyes and then said,

“Are you the prince?”

“… … ?”

The mermaid who had suddenly appeared suddenly looked for the prince, so I was momentarily flustered, but I was soon able to pull myself together and respond.

“Not the prince, but the pope… … .”