Please Stop The Pope

Pagans.

Literally, they are people who have a different religion from ours.

Our Limen denomination was not one that had an exclusive tendency towards Pagans.

To begin with, there were several deities in Eden, and we even formed alliances with some denominations that followed them.

In a way, that was a natural result.

It was because we had a common enemy called the Demon King.

Of course, some fanatics rejected heresy and argued that Pagans should be forcibly converted. And some of them actually took action.

However, such people soon disappeared without a trace by the inquisitors of the Papal Office.

That was, after all, the will of Limen.

-What rises from coercion and fear is not faith. It is only obedience. I do not want obedience from my children.

That’s what she once said to me.

As you can see from those words, our denomination was rather considerate of Pagans.

So the reason I’m telling this story now is,

“I’m telling you, I’ve seen those Pagan bastards’ base. Leo and I will go in and wipe them all out, okay?”

“Lord Lebenthon. That is not in accordance with the doctrine. Limen said that if you want to be respected, you must respect others first. Rejecting Pagans indiscriminately is…”

“Those Pagan bastards tried to harm Representative Choi and Your Holiness!”

“These fucking bastards. Your Holiness. Will you declare a holy war? Archbishop Leo Lumen, I will gladly annihilate the evil Pagans on the frontlines of the holy war!”

Because a discussion was in full swing in the Pope’s office.

I looked at Leo and Luna, who were about to run out of the office at any moment, and put my hand on my forehead. Then, slowly closing my eyes, I said,

“…Just stay put for a bit, I’m embarrassed to face Mr. Min-soo and Representative Choi.”

“Hahaha! I like how straightforward you all are! Can’t you include us in the holy war? Let’s push out all those religious bastards at this opportunity!”

“Uh, Representative Choi. Our Limen denomination is also a religious organization.”

“Oh, is that so, Min-soo? Then let’s revise it to ‘other religious bastards except the Limen denomination’.”

“Very well. Thank you. Ah, and I’d like to make a MeTube content featuring the Demon Guild soon. Would that be possible?”

The atmosphere of the meeting seemed to have gone awry.

On one side, they were calling for a holy war, and on the other side, business was underway.

It was a complete mess.

I watched the mess for a moment with a gentle smile. And after slightly nodding my head,

Kwaaaang!

I slammed my fist on the office desk.

The effect was certain.

The atmosphere in the office, which was like a marketplace until just now, quickly subsided.

They glanced at me, and Luna said carefully with a sheepish smile,

“Hehe, Your Holiness. Why are you doing this all of a sudden?”

“It seemed like everyone was doing whatever they wanted, so I just wanted to hit the desk once too. What, are you dissatisfied? If you’re dissatisfied, you become the Pope then.”

“That’s… not possible. Hehe.”

Luna, who was watching my reaction, quickly lowered her voice.

The rest of the members were the same.

They each cleared their throats and sat upright in their chairs, and I continued, looking at them.

“Anyway, I’m going to define the Baek Myung Church as an enemy. Any questions?”

At those words, Mr. Min-soo carefully opened his mouth.

“I know well that the Baek Myung Church is in a competitive relationship with our denomination. But what you mean by ‘enemy’ is not a simple competitive relationship, is it?”

“We will restrict everything, including exchanges. The Limen denomination cannot coexist with the Baek Myung Church.”

“I feel like it’s a slightly hasty decision. We can’t rule out the possibility that we may be misunderstanding.”

The position is that we need to think carefully. Maybe their side is the right argument.

And I, too, could not fail to understand Mr. Min-soo’s position.

The image shown by the Baek Myung Church so far is very fragmentary. In other words, there is a lack of evidence to judge the other party.

Just as I was wondering how to explain this for a moment, Luna, who had been still, stared at me intently.

It was a gesture that she wanted to explain instead.

I nodded my head in permission, and Luna began to speak in a somewhat softer voice while looking at Mr. Min-soo.

“It’s not that we’re arbitrarily defining the Baek Myung Church as an enemy. They have already defined us as their enemy, so we’re just responding accordingly. If His Holiness and I were not in good condition last night, there surely would have been an accident.”

The 30 people that bastard  Shim Jin-gyu brought were all quite skilled.

If they didn’t have ulterior motives, why would the Baek Myung Church bastards need to confront the Demon Guild?

Those guys probably intended to deal with the Demon Guild if necessary to achieve their goal.

The proof was that they knew information about deities from other worlds.

It’s just that they gave up because Luna and I were firmly standing our ground.

After saying that, Luna quietly placed her hand on the desk, and soon spoke to Mr. Min-soo with a very serious expression.

“If His Holiness recognizes them as enemies, that becomes the will of the denomination. His Holiness is the first apostle of Limen and her sole representative. It’s good to try to understand His Holiness’s will, but you must not recklessly doubt it.”

Despite how she appears, Luna is a prophet. She has a high rank within our denomination and is well-versed in doctrine to that extent.

When Luna speaks like that, it feels a bit like she’s a clergyperson.

At Luna’s words, Mr. Min-soo bowed his head and replied,

“I apologize.”

“You don’t need to apologize. Brother Min-soo’s prudence will one day become a great strength for the denomination. And above all…”

She suddenly stopped mid-sentence, lightly grasped Mr. Min-soo’s hand, and raised the corners of her mouth.

“Brother Min-soo is handsome, so that settles it. It’s okay to not know doctrine right away! We’ll teach you well from now on. Right, Your Holiness?”

“Why are you suddenly acting like this?”

“Mr. Min-soo, no, Brother Min-soo has good abilities too, I heard? Handsome and capable. Eh? Where else can you find such a great new believer.”

…Yeah, what clergyperson.

I’m the fool for expecting piety from Luna even for a moment.

I let out a big sigh while looking at Luna, then shook my head from side to side.

“Meeting adjourned.”

We should never, ever have a meeting with this group again.

“This way, please.”

After ending the meeting, we immediately moved.

Even though we moved, it’s not like we went that far. From the Pope’s office inside the temple to the sanctification chamber located outside the temple.

In the sanctification chamber, there were sacred stone bracelets that Leo had sanctified all night, and the number had already reached 500.

Leo must have been sanctifying them little by little in his spare time.

The efficacy of the crafted sacred stone bracelets was beyond what I had expected.

Perhaps it was thanks to being made by converting top-grade magic stones into sacred stones, but the results were better than anticipated.

[Sacred Stone Bracelet]

●Item Type: Accessory – Bracelet

●Creator: Leo Lumen

●Description: A bracelet crafted using fragments of top-grade sacred stones. Boasts excellent efficacy as it was personally sanctified by Leo Lumen, the Archbishop of the Limen Denomination. Greatly increases the user’s natural recovery rate and raises the sacred power stat level by 1 for players with sacred power.

The effects confirmed through the system were a bit vague.

However, I could roughly guess the efficacy of this bracelet.

Minor wounds would disappear without a trace within half a day, and there would be improvements for chronic illnesses as well.

Even,

“Your Holiness. Is this bracelet really that…”

“That’s right. It turned out well enough to even have effects on hair loss.”

An incurable disease that has plagued humanity for a long time, it will surely have clear efficacy even on hair loss.

That efficacy had already been verified through numerous cases in Eden.

Despite having less than a fingernail-sized amount of sacred stone embedded, as expected, top-grade sacred stones were top-grade.

“Pope Kim. May I try wearing it once?”

Representative Choi, who had been watching the bracelet with interest, said.

I immediately nodded my head.

“Of course.”

“Then.”

With his large hand, Representative Choi put the bracelet on his right wrist.

And after a moment.

Woooong-.

The sacred power slowly flowing out from the bracelet rapidly seeped into Representative Choi’s body.

Originally, it doesn’t react this dramatically, but it seemed to be reacting to Representative Choi’s vast mana quantity.

“Huh.”

Representative Choi let out a small exclamation. Then he suddenly drew up mana and inflicted a small wound on his left hand.

Needless to say, the wound disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“This is on a different level from the potions made by shoddy alchemists. Amazing.”

“It’s even more so because Representative Choi’s recovery power is already immense. You can think of it as maximizing the user’s recovery power.”

“Does it have effects on ordinary people as well?”

“Yes. But you can’t expect effects to the extent of Representative Choi.”

“Even so, it’s a tremendous item. No, you said it’s called a sacred object, right? Even famous meisters probably can’t make something like this.”

“The effect is not permanent. Once the sacred power contained in the sacred stone is exhausted, it will become an ordinary bracelet. Moreover, the more the healing ability is exerted, the faster it depletes. For severe injuries that threaten one’s life, it can only delay the worsening for a short time.”

“That alone is already groundbreaking.”

Representative Choi satisfactorily nodded his head while looking at his cleaned up left hand.

“I changed my mind.”

“Pardon?”

“It seems it will be difficult for me to help with the distribution of this item after all.”

Just as I was about to express my perplexity at the sudden declaration, Representative Choi grabbed my hand and his eyes shone.

“If you haven’t set up a separate sales channel, we will purchase the entire quantity produced.”

“All of it?”

“It’s equipment that can increase players’ survival rates. That alone is sufficient value.”

I was well aware that there was a shortage of healing-type players.

I thought the scarcity of healers would be resolved with the emergence of sacred-type players, but it seems that was not the case from Representative Choi’s perspective.

“It hasn’t even been a full week since sacred-type players appeared. Not everyone possesses healing abilities at Pope Kim’s level, right?”

“That’s true.”

“Therefore, until the level of sacred-type players rises, healing abilities will still be valuable.”

“Since we’re in a cooperative relationship, we can just give you some to a certain extent.”

At my words, Representative Choi strongly shook his head as if it was out of the question.

“The closer the relationship, the more clearly financial matters should be handled. Moreover, I cannot receive something this precious for free.”

The top-grade sacred stones were mined from magic stone mines, and the bracelets were also made with inexpensive materials through the Meister Guild.

As a result, the production cost was extremely low, so I wasn’t thinking of selling them very expensively…

“100 million each. How about it?”

…but that thought just vanished.

Did I mishear just now?

“100 million per bracelet. We will purchase the entire quantity. In exchange, I hope you will supply the bracelets produced in the future to us as well.”

“The total quantity is 500 though.”

“That’s 50 billion then. Alright. As soon as the contract is written, we will deposit the money into the Limen Denomination’s account.”

50 billion.

An amount I had never experienced even once since I was born.

It seemed like it wasn’t a big problem for the representative of a large guild, but for me, it was a slightly overwhelming amount.

“Ah.”

My eyes open wide.

Why had I only been thinking of selling to ordinary people all this time?

That strategy was flawed from the beginning.

When a gold mine was this close, why did I try to find it elsewhere?

“Representative Choi.”

“Yes, Pope Kim.”

“Congratulations once again on joining hands with the Limen Denomination. Now, shall we get out the calculator… no, shall we try to build a friendship in earnest?”

A denomination cannot be run on faith alone.

It seems a distinguished person has come to our denomination.