The parade on the streets converged into a long procession.
It wasn't just around her home.
The streets throughout Greece were filled with people. These streams of people eventually converged in front of the Arts Committee building.
There was no room left for anyone else there.
Thalia was swept along by the crowd and squeezed to a spot less than fifty meters from the building. She found a set of steps and struggled to climb onto them.
"Why are you banning Amphoreus!"
"Give us back Phainon!"
"You parasites on the Arts Committee, come out and explain yourselves!"
"What right do you have to reject Greek people's own culture on their behalf!"
The shouting shook the entire surroundings.
Some people were holding homemade cardboard signs with slogans written in Greek: "What are you afraid of?"
Others held their phones high, livestreaming the scene in front of the Arts Committee building to those who couldn't get close.
Amid this frenzied crowd, Thalia didn't join in the shouting. She merely stood on tiptoe and tried her best to look toward the building.
She wanted to know what expressions the people sitting inside that building, the ones who had made this decision, had on their faces right now.
...
Inside the building.
Cinnati stood in front of the office window, looking at the sea of people below, his fingers clenched until they turned white.
A scene like this... He had only ever seen it on the news. He had never imagined that one day it would happen to him.
After the ban was announced, Cinnati had already prepared himself and imagined the worst possible outcome.
But even the worst outcome he had imagined was nothing more than protests erupting online, some posts, and perhaps demonstrations breaking out in a few areas, such as the small town where the Okhema Theater was located or the city of Thessaloniki.
All of that would have been within an acceptable range.
But he never expected that after just one night, the Arts Committee building would be surrounded by so many people.
Thousands upon thousands.
This was Athens! This was fucking Athens!!
Even through the window, Cinnati could feel the gazes of the crowd below.
Those furious eyes weren't actually fixed on him, yet they still made Cinnati feel fear, fear from the bottom of his heart.
Cinnati had no doubt that if he walked out through the front doors right now, this crowd might rush forward and tear him limb from limb.
And it wasn't just him. Even the police officers currently surrounding the building to maintain order were probably trembling inside.
There were just too many people. Such a massive crowd gathered together was itself an immense force.
As long as someone ignited their emotions, that force could transform into the most extreme violence.
Knock, knock.
There was a knock on the door behind Cinnati. The sudden sound startled Cinnati so badly that he shuddered.
He quickly recovered and cursed loudly. Though it was unclear whether he was cursing the person knocking on the door or the mob below.
"Come in."
Cinnati straightened his clothes and stood upright, doing his best to appear calm and composed, as though he wasn't afraid in the slightest.
The door opened, and a young man with a deathly pale face walked in.
It was Cinnati's secretary.
"Mr. Cinnati, the people have already surrounded the Arts Committee building. They want an explanation."
The secretary swallowed and spoke.
"Wasn't there already an announcement and explanation on the official website?"
Cinnati took a breath and said, "Tell them to go read it themselves."
"I'm afraid those won't satisfy them..."
"Mr. Cinnati... forgive me for saying this... I-I've never seen anything like this before."
"Those people... there's like literal fire in their eyes. They've already been waiting outside for a long time. I'm afraid that if this drags on, something unexpected might happen."
"Y-You know that the security guards in our building couldn't possibly stop this many people."
"Those people... they're... they're irrational..."
The secretary stammered, clearly terrified to the extreme.
Even though behaving like this might make Cinnati dislike him, the secretary couldn't take it anymore either.
What did his career matter compared to his life? This was no exaggeration.
No matter how confidently someone could usually talk, faced with such an overwhelming sea of people, it was impossible to remain composed.
"This is an unauthorized demonstration! Where are the police?! Where are the soldiers!"
"They're just going to let these people storm a government institution?!"
Cinnati concealed his fear with anger.
"Sir, traffic throughout Greece has been paralyzed."
"Forget about cars, the roads are completely blocked."
The secretary spoke with a trembling voice.
"..." Hearing that traffic had been paralyzed, Cinnati's eyes suddenly lit up. He remained silent for a moment before saying,
"Let's wait."
The secretary stared at him in astonishment.
Cinnati explained, "Traffic has been paralyzed, but Greece still needs to function. Aside from these brainwashed mobs, everyone else in Greece still needs to live their lives."
"Soon enough, once those people can't endure it anymore, public opinion will turn to our side."
This was something Cinnati had suddenly realized.
Most people still had to struggle to make a living. There was no way they could keep this up indefinitely.
Compared with culture, the realities of everyday life and an economy that could put food on the table were far more tangible.
If nothing unexpected happened, that was probably how things would develop.
But he had clearly underestimated Amphoreus' influence in Greece.
And he had also overestimated the city of Athens. To put it bluntly, half of this city practically lived off the economic activity generated by culture.
And the increase in cultural revenue brought by Amphoreus was far beyond Cinnati's imagination.
Yes. Most people were practical. They needed to make a living. But just like Thalia's father, what Amphoreus brought wasn't merely something spiritual or entertainment.
It also brought genuine economic benefits. The ban didn't just affect people's spiritual lives. It affected the economy as well.
And the chain reaction of economic interests was the most terrifying thing of all.
People who earned more money would spend more. Their spending would create more beneficiaries, and those beneficiaries would then spend their money, spreading the benefits to even more people.
There was an old saying: "Cutting off someone's livelihood is like killing their parents."
"Come out!"
"We demand an explanation!"
"Money! Money! Money! The money we earned because of Amphoreus! What gives you the right to cut it off with a single ban!"
"You people swallow so much money every year, but we've never seen you spit any of it back out!"
"I've run a bookstore for thirty years! Thirty years! Business has never been as good as it is now! What right do you have to force us back to the way things were!"
"When you sold Greek culture, when did you ever share the money with us?!"
The people roared toward the building. Amid the crowd, a gray-haired old woman furiously hurled her cane toward the building.
How much strength could an old woman possibly have? The cane flew only a few meters before falling to the ground.
But that action provoked an even more frenzied response from the crowd.
The young university and high school students standing at the very front held up Amphoreus posters and hurled curses at the people in the building.
The phones livestreaming the scene were held high in the air.
Tokkok, Btube, Stargram.
Countless cameras were pointed here, transmitting these scenes of shouting and fury all across the globe. Comments in all sorts of languages flowed together through the internet.
They felt just as angry. They even thought the Greek Art Committee's reaction was absurd.
Behind the window, Cinnati could no longer withstand the pressure. Or rather, those men on the Art Committee who were afraid of dying needed Cinnati to calm the situation.
The doors of the building opened. The originally restless crowd suddenly fell silent.
Tens of thousands of eyes stared toward the entrance.
And it wasn't just them. Through countless phone cameras, how could the number of eyes looking this way at this very moment be limited to merely hundreds of thousands?
The hairs on Cinnati's back stood on end. He swore that he had imagined countless times what it would feel like to stand before a crowd like this.
But definitely not under circumstances like these. The eyes of those people looked as though they wanted to swallow him alive.
It was just a TV series. Did things really have to go this far?
Cinnati's eyes were bloodshot. Holding a prepared statement, he walked toward the podium in front of the building.
A microphone had always been kept here. In the past, the people of the Art Committee regarded this place as the front line for guiding the cultural values of the people.
But now, Cinnati had no choice but to use this microphone to explain himself to the very people they were supposed to guide.
He didn't meet anyone's gaze. Picking up the microphone, he immediately began:
"Citizens, the Art Committee attaches great importance to the recent public attention and discussion surrounding certain foreign cultural works. In accordance with Article 37 of the Greek Cultural Security Act, Article 12 of the Protection of Minors Act, as well as the regulations governing the quality of streaming media content..."
"Following collective deliberation by all members of the committee, scientific evaluation, and a vote conducted in accordance with the law, it has been decided that temporary restrictive measures will be imposed throughout Greece on the series Honkai: Star Rail, produced by the Chinese entertainment company MiHoYo, as well as all related derivative content."
The noise in the square gradually disappeared.
Cinnati still kept his eyes lowered, not daring to look at anyone. He paused, turned the page, and continued in a voice without the slightest fluctuation:
"It must be clarified that this decision is not directed at any particular country or cultural entity, but is instead based on a comprehensive assessment of issues within the content, including narrative deviations, inappropriate appropriation of cultural symbols, and other related influences..."
"As the competent authority responsible for Greek cultural security, the Art Committee has both the responsibility and the authority to take decisive measures when necessary to safeguard the integrity and purity of Greek cultural symbols."
"Specifically, without obtaining certification from any official Greek cultural institution, this work makes extensive use of clearly identifiable elements of Greek mythology, philosophical concepts, and geographical names."
"It has also carried out systematic secondary creation based upon them. Such behavior not only potentially infringes upon Greece's intangible cultural rights as the country of origin of this culture, but also seriously misleads the public's understanding of history."
The crowd was deathly silent.
Many people's hands were trembling. From anger.
Some others, after hearing this extremely official response, actually began to smile. They were so angry that they laughed.
They had desperately wanted an answer, only to receive one so absurd that it was laughable.
A young man asked in disbelief: "So what you're saying is, when you filmed Olympus and shoved several black people into it, even turning the Goddess of Beauty black, that was respecting the culture?"
"When exactly were there black people in Ancient Greece? How come I don't remember?"
"And since when does philosophy have copyright?"
The young man's expression looked as though he couldn't figure out whether Cinnati had gone insane or he himself had.
Those words were indeed spoken in Greek, but when combined together, they gave everyone an indescribable sense of encountering something completely unknown.
It was simply too novel.
"No, Cinnati, can you answer me? If Socrates' philosophy really counts as copyrighted material, who exactly are the royalties supposed to be paid to?"
"Plato would come back to life from sheer anger if he heard what you're saying!"
"Why can those people use it, but MiHoYo can't?"
"Why is your Olympus filled with people who aren't even Greek?"
"Who exactly is respecting the culture, and who is treating it as nothing more than a bargaining chip?"
Cinnati didn't answer.
Instead, he continued following the contents of the prepared statement, transforming himself into a merciless script-reading machine.
This was blatant disregard. Cinnati was practically treating everyone present like idiots and trying to fool them.
What was even more infuriating was that this statement was essentially an open declaration that he intended to abuse the authority of the Art Committee.
Not only did the people fail to receive the answer they wanted, they instead gained even more anger.
Just then, the sound of sirens came from the distance.
Finally... The forces responsible for maintaining public order had finally arrived, belatedly.
On the stage, Cinnati visibly breathed a sigh of relief.
But the crowd only grew angrier and more restless.
The hot-blooded people, whose emotions had completely exploded, were already rolling up their sleeves, preparing to go up there and have a physical philosophical exchange with Cinnati.
But at this moment, Cinnati instead calmed down.
Now that he had protection, the worst that would happen to him was a few injuries. But these people who attacked the Art Committee over a TV series could later become the nails sealing Amphoreus' coffin shut!
" Χεμ, χεμ. Όλοι! " (Ahem, ahem. Everyone!)
And just then, through a loudspeaker, a girl's voice spread throughout the surroundings.
Thalia stood atop a flowerbed, holding a borrowed megaphone.
Everyone looked at her.
She took a deep breath. She didn't shout any slogans, nor did she curse anyone. She merely said calmly:
" Μπορείς να αποκλείσεις τον Amphoreus. " (You can ban Amphoreus.)
" Όμως δεν μπορείς να απαγορεύσεις αυτό που έχει πυροδοτήσει μέσα στις καρδιές μας. " (But you can't ban what it has ignited inside our hearts.)
She lowered the megaphone and jumping down from the flowerbed, she disappeared into the crowd.
The crowd, which had already been overwhelmed by emotion, had its momentum toward losing control forcibly halted by those words.
That's right.
Once certain things came into existence, they could never truly disappear. And they certainly couldn't be erased by a mere ban written on a piece of paper.
They wanted to resist, but absolutely not through a bloody confrontation.
The smarter people quickly realized and felt a lingering fear. Their hot-blooded impulsiveness had nearly become a weapon in Cinnati's hands.
The crowd gradually quieted down.
Cinnati raised his head in shock. For the first time since stepping through the doors, he looked out at the endless sea of people.
He was somewhat bewildered. They were completely different from the unruly masses he had imagined. Yet it was precisely their ability to remain calm even while consumed by rage that made him feel even greater pressure.
If he had a choice, he would rather face a crowd whose anger overwhelmed their minds than one capable of using reason to restrain that anger.
Because that meant their fury remained hidden beneath the surface, ready to erupt at any moment.
And now, as Cinnati looked at the people before him, what he felt was exactly the same shock those people had experienced when they first saw Phainon through the screen.
Reason that could suppress such fury was even more terrifying.