Inside the Arts Committee building.
Everyone's face was filled with worry.
In the past, inside the Committee building, they would sit here dressed in suits, relaxed and at ease, discussing Greek ideology and cultural forms, speaking grandly about how they should guide the masses toward "awakening."
A single word from them could make people lose their jobs, or ride the wave of success.
And every outsider who walked in here would feel this kind of atmosphere.
It would make them feel ashamed of themselves.
Ah! These people were the true elites, the future.
But now, the composure and superiority that had once been written across their faces were gone.
All that remained was panic and fear. Even through the thick walls and windows, they could hear the commotion outside.
The voices of people, their heated discussions. This should have been a symbol of the city coming alive again.
But not a single person in the Committee could bring themselves to smile.
Things had completely spiraled out of control.
The city of Athens was becoming unfamiliar to them. People were frantically chasing after a series created by some other country.
The people envied miHoYo. They envied Amphoreus. This should have been a great work born on this very land.
This envy had turned into anger. Or rather, every normal person, after seeing something they could not have, would instinctively wonder: Why don't I have it?
And most of the troubles in this world began when someone started asking why.
Reflection! They had to reflect, and reflect hard!
The result of the reflection was surprisingly unanimous.
If it weren't for the parasites in the Arts Committee, who had occupied their positions without doing their jobs and oppressed artistic workers everywhere, how could the country have fallen into its current state?!
The more people acknowledged Amphoreus, the more unwilling they became to accept the situation. And the more unwilling they were, the more they needed something to bear the brunt of their anger.
The funny thing was that the Arts Committee wasn't innocent. All those accusations against them were things they had actually done.
Their previous attempt to manipulate Okhema Theatre, and their efforts to suppress the source of the Amphoreus drama, were still vivid in everyone's memory. Everyone believed that this was merely one of the many evil things the Arts Committee had done over the years, except that this particular incident had been exposed.
And that was indeed the case.
In the past, the Arts Committee had controlled public opinion, and no cultural or artistic work had ever caused such a huge sensation in Greece. Most of those famous dramas had little to do with Greece.
There had never been a series like Amphoreus, which wore the name "Greece" so openly on its face. More importantly, this series was also one of the most magnificent works in the modern entertainment industry.
The comfortable little bubble they had lived in was blasted to pieces by the cannon of Honkai: Star Rail. There was no going back to the past.
But compared with these unpleasant points, what was even more troublesome was this: People needed an explanation.
Public resentment needed an outlet. Greece was a democratic country.
At least in name... Culture was a very important part of any country, but there were still people at the top who stood above even the cultural sphere.
Those people had been put in those positions by the people, so whether emotionally or logically, they also needed to listen to the voices of the Greek people.
When those voices became loud enough, those powerful figures, for the sake of their own futures, had to respond.
If it were merely the people demanding an explanation from the Arts Committee, the Committee would simply use the standard three-step response.
"We have not done such a thing."
"We may have done such a thing."
"We have done such a thing, but it was the people before us who did it. It has nothing to do with us."
These three responses could be used flexibly depending on the intensity of public resentment.
But once the matter became something for the people at the top to answer for, things were different.
For those powerful figures, the Arts Committee could provide only two possible explanations.
Resolve the matter. Sacrifice whoever needed to be sacrificed. As long as the peoples' emotions could be stabilized, everything would be fine.
And if even that couldn't be done, then the Arts Committee itself would have to be sacrificed. They couldn't possibly sacrifice the people at the top, could they?
And now. What lay before the Arts Committee was a choice between these two paths.
Inside the conference room.
Cinnati, along with the others of the Arts Committee, were seated together.
Some of the men were bald, some wore reading glasses, and on some, the skin of their faces had already begun to sag. They looked more like ghosts than ghosts themselves.
The conference room was thick with smoke.
Each of them held a cigar, staring at the root cause of all their current problems, Cinnati.
Cinnati sat at the other end of the long table, flipping through the documents in his hands. These were the data he had prepared to persuade these people to support his plan.
Just as he was going through them, the voices outside suddenly grew louder again.
They were once again chanting the names of those people.
The corner of Cinnati's mouth twitched. He simply tossed the documents aside and knocked on the table.
"We have to ban it..." Cinnati spoke.
On both sides of the long table, several aged faces emerged from the smoke.
These people were the godfathers of Greece's cultural world. A single word from them could make a theater troupe disband; a single nod could secure funding for a museum.
They had long been accustomed to determining other people's fates with an indifferent attitude.
But now, no one was indifferent. From their faces, Cinnati could see the appropriate weight and seriousness that the situation demanded.
"Ban it?" The bald old man, whose name was Zopoulos, seemed somewhat tempted.
Or rather, everyone was tempted. Given the current situation, banning Amphoreus was the only solution.
But compared with Cinnati, these old men still had their reservations.
"On what grounds? Historical nihilism? Cultural distortion?"
"We've been using those excuses for more than twenty years. We use them every time. People already know what we're doing."
Hearing Zopoulos' words, Cinnati replied casually: "Then use something new. Cultural security risk assessment, protection of minors, intellectual property disputes. Any one of them will do. Just make something up."
"Get the media involved, put pressure on Parliament. Most importantly, we need your influence to push through the administrative order. Within a single day, the entire matter surrounding Amphoreus will disappear from Greece."
"Then we won't have to think about this every day anymore."
Someone in the corner muttered: "That's too radical."
Another voice immediately echoed in agreement: "Exactly. If we do this, everyone will know that we were the ones behind the incident. They'll know we're afraid of Amphoreus, afraid of a cultural product from another country."
"The authority of the Arts Committee will be trampled upon!"
Listening to the various voices of agreement and dissent, Cinnati laughed angrily.
Authority? Reputation? They couldn't even survive anymore, and these people were still worried about their pride.
"Do you want to die?" At that moment, Cinnati suddenly spoke in an almost casual tone.
The entire long table instantly fell silent.
The men stared at Cinnati in disbelief, unable to believe that such an outrageous statement had come from Cinnati, the young man they themselves had raised and promoted.
After all, Cinnati had always been exceptionally respectful toward them.
If they hadn't believed that this young man knew how to "respect his elders," they would never have promoted Cinnati in the first place.
"What did you say?!"
"Presumptuous!"
"Cinnati! Don't forget who put you in this position!"
"Without us, you'd still be nothing but a nobody on the roadside."
The sound of palms slamming against the table and angry reprimands rang out one after another.
Cinnati, however, acted as though he hadn't heard them. He planted both hands on the table and stood up, looking at the group of old men as he said seriously:
"I'm serious. Do you want to die?"
"You! Zopoulos! The academic funding from the Cultural Foundation, tens of millions of euros! Where did it go? Don't you know yourself?"
"Oh, I almost forgot. All that money was transferred into your Swiss bank account, wasn't it?"
"What was your research called again? Oh, right, 'Digitalization Research on Greek Cultural Heritage.' That research is now sitting coldly on the Arts Committee's official website, and practically no one even looks at it."
"But for you, that cold research turned into your properties and your dates with your lovers."
After saying this, Cinnati ignored Zopoulos's utterly horrified expression and instead pointed toward the old man whose wrinkled skin hung tightly against his cheeks, making him look even more ghostly than a ghost.
"Antonis, you're the most 'noble' person in the entire Arts Committee. Even in the current atmosphere, where everyone is condemning the Arts Committee, you're the one who seems the most respectable."
"You never wanted money. What you wanted was fame, wasn't it?"
"You organized the New Director Support Program. In three years, you supported twelve directors and merged more than a dozen theaters. Every single person you supported was a young woman in her twenties. They had to be beautiful and pure."
"Yes, every one of them was very pure. Every one of them carried the ideal of promoting Greek culture. You made them feel that you were the one who was special, the one they could rely on."
"But you never looked at any of their ideals. Their 'auditions,' however, you never missed a single one. In hotel rooms and all kinds of other places, you conducted your 'artistic guidance.'"
"Coercion. Destruction. You liked watching these pure people fall into depravity, become prostitutes, abandon their ideals, and become your playthings. You called that the sacrifice they made for art."
Antonis's wrinkled face began to tremble violently.
But Cinnati merely smiled and continued: "Later, someone resisted. What was her name again? Katerina, right. That was the name."
"I cleaned up your mess for you. I had all her channels and complaints suppressed, spent several million euros, and turned the whole incident into a news story about a little girl trying to climb the social ladder."
"And at the time, you even went on television and pretended to be some saint, saying, 'It's fine, everyone wants to improve themselves,' while pretending to defend Katerina."
"You fucking saint."
"Do you know where Katerina ended up? She went to Thessaloniki, where that old bastard Aris's orphanage took her in. She became mentally unstable, constantly believing that she was going to be defiled by demons, a complete madwoman."
"You're the one who deserves to die the most, you know that?"
At this moment, Cinnati completely exploded.
He no longer cared that these old bastards might suffer heart attacks and collapse right there at the table.
"You!"
"You!"
"And all of you!"
He pointed at them one by one. Every time his finger landed on one of the men, that person would either panic or lower his head in shame.
For a moment, Cinnati actually felt somewhat sorrowful. It was the first time he had truly seen the faces of the people who held power.
They could be afraid too. They could be frightened. What was even more laughable was that this was truly a matter of life and death, yet Cinnati himself had to help these people remember the past, remember the things they had done.
Did they really think they were sacrificing themselves for art?
"Enough! Cinnati!"
"Don't forget! Everything you've mentioned, you had a part in it too!"
"All that money passed through your hands! How much did you take? Do you really think we don't know?"
"Antonis's parties, didn't you attend them too?!"
Someone could no longer hold back and angrily pointed at Cinnati.
"That's right."
Cinnati took a deep breath and answered seriously: "Of course I know that I've done those things too. So I deserve to die as well. Understand?"
"When I said, 'Do you want to die?' I wasn't cursing you. I wasn't insulting you. I was simply stating a fact."
"I'm saying this to remind you not to deceive yourselves as well. We're already at the point where art itself is being destroyed."
"People outside are shouting about Amphoreus, shouting about Aglaea, shouting about Mydei! But they no longer regard you as their faith, as the sacred hall of culture!"
"They're angry. They're angry because we cannot produce an Amphoreus. They need an answer. They need to know why!"
"If they start looking for that answer, they will inevitably find their way to us!"
"They'll discover that the budding stories, the rising hopes, and all the money have all been cut off at the Arts Committee, cut off through you and me."
"They'll also discover what we've been doing: making sure they don't know what they should become or what they should love. They'll discover that we're no different from the Church a thousand years ago that burned witches, burned heretics, and burned Greek philosophers. Do you understand?!"
The anger of the committee members was rapidly cooling as Cinnati spoke. The cold, harsh reality was making them feel fear once again.
Cinnati was right.
"Don't think the people above you will protect you. When the people's anger becomes strong enough, even those people at the top will need scapegoats. You are those scapegoats. And, conveniently, every single one of us really does deserve to die."
Cinnati said mockingly:
"Remember, the only solution is to ban Amphoreus and let people's anger gradually die down. Once they lose access to it, even the greatest emotions will become water without a source. The people above us will have an explanation as well. After all, Amphoreus has been banned. Given enough time, the anger will naturally fade."
"Now, ban Amphoreus. Who agrees? Who opposes?"
The words fell.
One hand after another rose through the smoke-filled room.
In the end... It passed unanimously.
"Publish the announcement."
Cinnati finally breathed a sigh of relief. He had no desire to stay here any longer, so he turned and left.
As he pushed open the door, he heard the voices of the young people outside growing even louder.
It sounded as though they were chanting something.
"Phainon..."
"Phainon..."
"Coronal Radiance..."
"Heh. A name destined to fail."
Perhaps it was to encourage his own uneasy heart that Cinnati thought this to himself.
Coronal Radiance.
To give something such a name was to condemn it to gradually extinguish, unable to become true radiance, unable to become the blazing fire that scorches everything in the world.
There can only be one sun in Greece. And that is the Arts Committee.
Then let this decisive ban extinguish the light brought by this ridiculous "Coronal Radiance."