When the Pope Becomes Competent - Chapter 166



Only Noblemtl

166. Chase and the Talking Cat
2024.04.14.

When Prisilia’s soldiers figured out the identity of the item, it was already too late.

With a hissing sound, smoke began to flow out of the item.

“A smoke item… … ! Cough, cough… … !!”

Soon, the narrow cave was filled with smoke, and the soldiers inside were unable to come to their senses and just coughed.

While all the soldiers were confused, Nickelus was able to safely cross the passage and escape the cave.

However, the difficulties did not end there.

“It’s an apostle!! An apostle has crossed the passage!!”

The soldiers standing guard outside the cave shouted as they spotted Nickelus.

Nickelus quickly counted the number of soldiers there.

There were about six of them. They were all armed with weapon items.

Kwakwang!

Nickelus swung his sword at them first using the second form of the Moonlight Sword Technique.

After that, he took advantage of the soldiers’ confusion to shout to his party.

“This way!”

After shouting that, he led his party into the forest that was spread out outside the cave.

Since there were also soldiers floating in the sky with flying items, it was impossible to escape by flying.

“The apostle is running away! Chase him!”

The soldiers who had finally come to their senses from behind chased the party closely.

It was the moment when a long chase began.

* * *

“Gasp, gasp… … . Is anyone left behind? Did we shake off the pursuers properly?”

I looked back and examined the party.

Luciana, Dionique, Elodie, Cheongwang, Rubin… … . Every single one of them was behind me.

It also seemed that the soldiers had been shaken off safely. The sound of footsteps chasing us was no longer heard.

Luciana, who followed me and glanced behind, continued.

“It seems like we’ve shaken them off for now, but it seems like they’re still looking for us. I can hear the soldiers searching from afar. What should we do now?”

“I think we should go to where the people are. Since the Priscillians also formed a nation and lived, there

must be a city where they live together.” “Should we just go there and indiscriminately kill all the erased ones?”

“… … No, we just have to find the Romun somewhere there and kill them.”

It was impossible to massacre all the Priscillians.

It wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

So we were going to kill only the Romun who dared to covet the position of god and go back.

‘Come to think of it, Nethellon said something about the emperor. He said that if I cooperated with them, their emperor might give me a title… … .’

Was that emperor and Romun the same person?

Or were they different people?

My head was getting complicated.

‘For now, let’s just think about completely shaking off those soldiers and escaping from this mountain.’ We

had to put off thinking about Romun until later.

If we couldn’t get out of here alive, we wouldn’t even have a chance to deal with Romun.

‘There must be a lot of soldiers lying under this mountain too. How can I escape…?’

It was while I was lost in thought that I suddenly heard a stranger’s voice.

“Excuse me.”

“…?”

Someone called out to me.

Startled, I looked around to find the owner of the voice.

‘A woman’s voice I’ve never heard before…? Did I hear something?’

Since my companions were the only ones here, there was no way I could hear an unfamiliar voice.

I dismissed it as a hallucination and was about to continue thinking about how to escape when,

“Excuse me, look down.”

“…!!”

As the unfamiliar voice instructed, I absentmindedly looked down and was startled.

“A talking cat!?”

A black cat was standing right at our feet.

The cat was even staring straight at us and talking to us.

“It’s not a talking cat. It used the animal possession skill to possess a cat.”

“You used the possession skill to track us!?”

“It’s true that I’ve been chasing you, but I don’t intend to harm you. I came here to help you.”

As the cat spoke such strange words, Dionik, who had been listening, came over to me.

“Don’t listen to me, brother. He’s probably just trying to buy time by talking to you. He’s buying time until the soldiers can track us down.”

Dionik said and picked up the cat.

“Let’s just throw this cat away and quickly escape to another place. If this cat was sent by them, it means that our location has been discovered.”

“No!! The ones chasing you are the Imperial Army, and I am not part of the Imperial Army!! Rather, I came to help you!!”

The cat shouted in a panic. It seemed that

the ones chasing us were the Imperial Army sent by the Emperor of the Priscillians.

I took the cat from Dionik’s hand and asked him,

“If you are not part of the Imperial Army, then what are you?”

“There is a separate name, but you probably don’t know it even if you hear it. So if I were to put it intuitively… um, you could say the Revolutionary Army.”

“Revolutionary Army… …?”

“The current Emperor is the one who plans to move us Priscillians to the Yuhan system. We are the ones who have come together to oppose that plan.”

Surprisingly, it seemed that not all of the Priscillians were in favor of the migration plan.

There was a separate group that had come together to oppose that plan.

I listened to the cat’s continued words in confusion.

“We have no intention of harming you. Rather, we intend to aid your plan. That’s why we’ve been waiting here for you to cross over.”

“… … .”

“Follow me. I’ll show you the way so you can avoid the pursuit of the Imperial Army.”

I asked my companions while holding the cat.

“What should we do?”

Luciana was the first to answer my question.

“To be honest, it’s most likely a trap… If we continue like this, we’ll be captured by the soldiers before long. The sound of the search party is getting closer. I think it would be better to follow the path that the cat is leading.”

Cheong-gwang continued.

“I want to believe that cat too. If Luciana says we’ll be captured like this, we have no other choice.”

Dionik shook his head.

“You said we should throw it away quickly? You’re just making useless noises to get us captured. Even while we’re stalling like this, the soldiers will be getting closer.”

Elodie seemed to agree with Dionik, adding her words. “It’s a trap, obviously

. Let’s deal with the cat quickly, and let’s move quickly before we get caught.”

I looked at Rubin one last time.

“I’ll do what Nike says.”

“Hmm… … .” It wasn’t easy to make a decision because the group’s opinions were exactly divided in half. They all just stared at me with their mouths shut, as if waiting for my opinion. ‘What should I do… … ?’ I stared intently at the cat in my hand. Could I trust the words of a strange cat I met in this strange world? After much thought, I finally said to the cat, “Okay, then guide us to a safe place where we can avoid being pursued.” “Hyung! What are you talking about! It’s a trap, obviously!!” Dionik shouted as if he was disagreeing with me. I simply replied, “We have no other choice right now. There must be soldiers swarming the bottom of this mountain.” “… … .” “And if this cat really was in league with the Imperial Army, instead of coming out like this and talking to us, he would have quietly followed us. Then he would have told the soldiers our location.” So I decided to trust the cat once. When I placed the cat on the ground, he turned to us and said, “Follow me.” After that, he took the lead and started guiding us. Since his black body was quite agile, we had to move quickly so as not to lose him. We crossed the stream and went down the steep mountain path, and we followed the cat for a long time. The cat’s footsteps stopped in front of a pitch-black cave. “You can go through this cave. Then you will come across an underground hideout, and our revolutionaries will be waiting for you there.” Hearing the cat’s words, Dionik asked in a sharp voice. “If you go in, there won’t be a bunch of Imperial soldiers waiting for you, right?” “No way!! I swear on my name that that would happen!!” The cat responded with a gruff voice and took the lead and went into the burrow. We looked at each other for a bit and then followed him into the burrow. The inside of the burrow was dark, but I used my deification skill to light it up, so it was easy to walk. After walking for a while, an iron door appeared. I slowly opened it, and a wide space was revealed. And―

‘Five people… …. Are they members of the revolutionary army?’

Five people were waiting for us at the hideout where we arrived.

Among them, a skinny, bespectacled, brown-haired man approached me.

“You’re the famous apostle, right? I’m ‘Jan’, the leader of the revolutionary army.” ”

Jan… …? How do you know me? Can I hear the details?”

“Of course I should tell you. We’ll have to cooperate with each other in the future. For now, follow me. The rest of you, please wait here for a moment.”

Jan told me to follow him and led me to a small reception room hidden deeper in the underground hideout. It was only

after entering the reception room that I was able to hear Jan’s story.

“You asked me earlier how I know you? It would be stranger if I didn’t know. The imperial family is promoting the mass migration plan of the clan to the entire empire. Everyone in the empire knows that you are the key to that plan.”

“Everyone in the empire knows me… …?”

“Yes, I don’t know their faces, but there is something called an Apostle, and even children would know that it is you, Nickelus?”

“… … .”

Everyone here knows me.

As someone who secretly wanted to assassinate Romun, this was not a pleasant story.

I continued to ask Yan.

“Then does everyone know that I came here?”

“No, that’s not true. The only ones who know that you are coming here are the Imperial Family, the Imperial Army, and our Revolutionary Army.”

“The Imperial Family and the Imperial Army are fine, but how did you know that I was coming?”

“Our informant infiltrating the Imperial Family told us. The Apostle would soon come to the missionary world. That’s why we immediately infiltrated here and waited for you to come as soon as we received that information.”

“Why… … ?”

That was the part I was most curious about.

Why did these Revolutionary Army help us?

If they were against their Emperor’s mass migration plan, they should have attacked and killed me right away instead of helping me.

If the Priscillians were to collectively migrate to the finite world, they would need access to the world’s system, and for that, they would need a country.

If they killed me, the plan for the mass migration and everything would fall apart.

But they didn’t attack me, and they kindly explained the situation to me.

Why?

Jan soon gave me the answer.

“Because our plan requires your power.”