I Became The Pope, Now What?



"Where?" Sylvester hadn't expected to hear about such a bizarre occurrence that day.

"At the Holy Land's gates. They want to enter and meet you—Elyon tried to communicate with them by instinct, but they seemed angry." Gabriel quickly explained. "Soldiers have been deployed to stop them from entering." 

"I hope you didn't hurt them," Sylvester decided to head over and see what was happening. 

"Not at all. I provided them water and sugarcane instead—They should be in a better mood now." Gabriel followed behind Sylvester and got into his carriage. However, he saw Sylvester had picked up the bicycle instead. "Won't this be faster?" 

"The horse will get tired eventually. I can reach the gates faster on a bicycle," Sylvester replied and kicked the pedals. His speed was unmatched, and the bicycle creaked under his weight. He was already quite heavy due to his bone density, so he had to be careful, even if the material used to make it was special. 

"Weee…!" Miraj enjoyed the breeze while sitting on Sylvester's head, "Go faster, Maxy! Let's meet the big sniffers!" 

"Elephants, you mean." Sylvester corrected him and, in no time, reached the Holy Land's entrance. There was already a crowd gathered as the soldiers tried to guard the entrance and keep the elephants out. The elephants were making loud noises, clearly getting annoyed. 

"Step aside!" 

"His Holiness is here!" 

The soldiers recognized Sylvester and quickly moved aside to make way. Without any issue, Sylvester arrived at the other side of the crowd and stood before the biggest elephant of the group, which appeared the calmest as she didn't eat or drink like the rest. Silently, she stood facing the gates and now him. 

"Hey there," Sylvester waved, letting Miraj act as his translator. "What's going on here?" 

Sylvester surveyed the surroundings. There were truly thousands of elephants, from big ones to tiny babies, running around, eating trees, or bathing in the river nearby. Clearly, they had come with a purpose. 

Just then, a loud growl of another elephant came, and she came running toward Sylvester at full speed. The soldiers tensed up, but Sylvester remained calm and allowed the new elephant to approach. Eventually, the elephant wrapped her trunk around his shoulder as if she was hugging him. 

"Haha… It's you!" Sylvester exclaimed, recognizing the elephant. "How's your baby? Did he get stuck in a ditch again?" 

"You know them?" Gabriel finally arrived on the slow carriage.

Sylvester playfully patted the elephant's trunk, "Not all of them, but this one I do. When I was returning from the West, we saved a baby elephant from a ditch, and this was his mother. I think she still remembers me." 

Miraj quickly got to work and jumped on top of the biggest elephant there. He began to whisper into the giant ear and talk, bobbing his head from time to time, and kept talking. The conversation seemed to go on for a long while before Miraj flew back to Sylvester's shoulder. 

"Maxy, she's angry. She said her home got destroyed, the bad humans chopped down the forest and destroyed everything, burned the grass, and dirty the little lakes." Miraj explained. "She came to complain to the boss of humans. She wants your help, Maxy, or else she says she'll make Holy Land her new home."

Sylvester hummed in agreement, "I'd have done worse if I was her. Gabriel! Come here, what's this I'm hearing? Did you give permits to cut down forests? Why are the elephants here to complain?" 

"They're here to complain?" Gabriel looked around in shock. "I… I don't remember giving any permits. The forests near the base of the Pentapeak range are protected lands, and nobody is allowed to do anything there. Even the villagers aren't allowed to venture too deep to chop wood and hunt. We've designated certain animals for both protection and hunting—Elephants are protected." 

Sylvester rubbed his chin as he understood the situation, "Then we have an illegal operation at hand. Someone is ruining the wildlife, forcing the animals to come out—even this far. I'm surprised."

Gabriel took out a notebook and started writing, "I will quickly dispatch a small army to sweep the forest." 

"That would take too much time," Sylvester had a different plan instead. "Ask Emperor Raz to use his undead dragon and check the entire Pentapeak mountain range. While at it, ask him to go to Mount Primis and see if he can sense Bloodrain there. But tell him not to engage in battle, as I fear the Chief of Anti-Light might be there too—He's a master of Dark Magic. Emperor Raz won't last."

Thud!

"I'll go too." 

Felix reached the gates with a single long leap from within the Holy Land. After all, he was now a mighty Platinum Knight. Already in his armor, he seemed eager for a battle to sharpen his blade.

"Don't you think you should rest a bit more?" Sylvester asked. "You aren't fully healed yet." 

"But I'm getting rusty sitting here and doing nothing. Moreover, Emperor Raz is a Lich and a goofy one at that. He'll terrorize the villages, causing more problems. Let me go with him as a human touch." Felix respectfully requested, treating Sylvester as the Pope at that moment. 

'Must be suffocating here… Where your life was ruined.' Sylvester could understand Felix's state of mind. 

"Fine, you can go with Emperor Raz. Gabriel, make arrangements to care for these elephants. They won't leave unless I give them an answer." Sylvester had Miraj convey everything so the elephants could create a path for the passersby. 

With that, the big but adorable crisis was solved, and Sylvester headed back into the Holy Land. It was time to resume his training with the Elder God. Thankfully, due to the time contraction, he could spend more time within the Elder God's realm without losing too much time in the outside world. He had calculated it already; if he were to spend a month inside the Elder God's realm, it would amount to an hour outside.

"I'll be gone for two hours. Take care of everything," Sylvester bid Gabriel a short farewell and entered the chamber that housed the unique door. It had become a daily routine, so Gabriel never asked questions or acted surprised. 

Once again, Sylvester placed the key in the hole and turned it. A flood of excessive solarium immediately drowned the place, but it didn't seem as overbearing as before. 

He then opened the door and stepped through. As usual, the door closed, and his body was swept away, sucked into the void to eventually appear near the massive body of the Elder God. Still lifeless but as domineering as ever. 

"Shall we begin?" He asked the omnipresent voice of the Elder God. 

"You appear to be in higher spirits than before. Good, it is necessary for a complete improvement of your body and mind." The Elder God spoke, sounding much friendlier than before.

"I know, so where am I going to train this time? Surviving a black hole? Fighting a planet full of Grand Wizards? Being thrown into the center of a supernova?" 

"Today, you shall temper your mind. Being an Elder God requires might but a similar amount of mental discipline to resist corruption from temptations and boredom. We may be Elder Gods, but there are a few laws that even we must respect—death and time." Elder God said as if he was teaching Sylvester a lesson beyond just training. "As an Elder God, you may acquire absolute control over the feeble bodies of the living. But you must not meddle without absolute necessity, or chaos will ensue." 

'Is he telling me not to make Mum immortal?' Sylvester read between the lines. 

"Yes, I hope you comprehend the law of birth and death," Elder God said. 

But Sylvester had a lot to argue with. "The law of birth and death was already altered when I was denied my end and brought into this realm. Many others, like me, came and went. The dimension I come from has been ruined already, Nehilius. There is nothing to salvage—I can only rebuild." 

"Don't let your love cloud your judgment," the Elder God warned.

"Let's think about that when I have the power to make someone immortal. For all we know, I might be a completely different man by then," Sylvester dodged the issue. "What's the training method this time?" 

"Memory of thoughts," Nehilius exclaimed. "You must master the art of holding your entire memory as an ever-present thought instead of leaving it as a dormant memory in your mind. That is how I am able to exist despite the death of my physical body." 

Sylvester was in favor of this training, "How do I start?" 

Pop!

Out of thin air, a blank book appeared before Sylvester. 

"Open it and see a glimpse of your own memory. Remember it, close the book, and imagine what you remembered—the book shall reveal it as well. Gradually, you'll become self-aware if you miss any recollections."

Sylvester stared at the simple-looking book and grabbed it. Coming from an Elder God, this training method seemed too small and simple. But when comparing himself with the entity, he was indeed small. Any more forceful methods could very well break him. 

"By the way, Nehilius. Were you able to find anything about Chonky?" Sylvester questioned something he had previously asked the Elder God to look into. 

"Nya?" Miraj looked around as his name was called. He was in the middle of hovering in the void and eating treats that he himself threw by flying around. 

"An enigma," Elder God started, the voice appearing intrigued. "The abilities he possesses are godly, to say the least. I believe his belly leads to another dimension. He could possibly be another Elder God who hasn't realized he has his own dimension to rule—A speculation at best; for I have never heard of an Elder God who naturally came into existence. For it's a state, one attains through effort." 

Sylvester stared at Miraj, who was cutely floating and eating, licking himself clean occasionally. "Our Chonker? An Elder God?" 

Miraj sensed Sylvester's gaze and turned to him, "I'm a god?" 

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