Chapter 349 - 255: Deepwater City: Skyline

Chapter 349: Chapter 255: Deepwater City: Skyline

In the end, the Church adopted many of Zog’s proposals. Of course, this was mainly because they couldn’t come up with any better ideas themselves.

Online public opinion was simply a blind spot in their knowledge.

The effects of disabling comment sections and removing the topic from trending lists were immediate and significant. At the very least, large-scale discussions about the Steam Engine curse were no longer visible online.

Zog seized the opportunity, offering them an upgraded service package.

He would set related terms as forbidden words across social media, forums, and message boards.

Zog didn’t make the restrictions overly strict; discussing the topic in private chat groups wouldn’t get the groups shut down.

Besides, the Church’s upper echelons didn’t read chat groups anyway.

This achieved the desired effect: if it wasn’t publicly visible, it might as well not exist.

The Church was extremely satisfied with this service. It was a monthly subscription, and the Church paid for it a hundred years in advance—they had more faith in the Zog Group becoming a century-old enterprise than Zog the Dragon himself did.

According to the Church, this method of setting forbidden words felt very familiar—a bit like their own precepts.

The point wasn’t to question the reason for the precept; it was simply a forbidden area. To transgress was to be impious.

However, just as "clever" followers find ways to circumvent precepts...

...witty netizens also found ways to bypass the forbidden words.

After a brief adjustment period, various puns, memes, and sticker packs related to the Steam Engine curse began to appear online, and they showed a trend of becoming increasingly abstract and simplified.

In Zog’s eyes, it felt like the budding of a new form of abstract meme culture.

The concept of "Steam Engine plus curse" was becoming completely symbolic and abstract, deeply ingrained in the minds of the most chronically online users.

Any combination of a machine and a curse symbol, or even a curse symbol spouting steam, came to represent the entire affair.

And so, Feilin’s first completely organic, homegrown meme was born. It spread like wildfire online, applicable in almost any situation, and always got a response.

Its degree of abstraction and popularity was similar to how seeing a black top, gray bottom, and two vertical white stripes could instantly bring a specific image and song to mind.

In addition to implementing the forbidden words, the Church also approved the plan to broadcast the public trials live on the Magic Vision Device.

They were clearly adept at this sort of thing. Without any of Zog’s help, they designed a segment for the trial where victims and their families could directly confront the "arch-culprit."

There were also live broadcasts of the evil former Patriarch’s followers being paraded through the streets in shame.

They also created a program where apologetic Church Priests visited victims’ families to offer condolences and aid, with each episode focusing on helping one family.

In the show, the Priests would form an "Aid Priest Corps" and bicker endlessly over the most appropriate assistance plan, making for some incredibly melodramatic television.

But in the end, they would always "overcome great hardships" to arrive at a suitable solution, delivering a guaranteed heartwarming conclusion at the end of each episode.

The Church had a certain flair for creating dramatic effects, likely experience accumulated from performing miracles back in the day.

The series of programs they launched successfully filled the reality TV void left after the first season of *Feilin’s Best Songs* concluded.

It even led to a swift rise in public voices supporting the Church.

Of course, it was hard to say whether these supporters were genuine "neutral observers" or just people the Church had hired.

There might have been some, but there were surely plenty of people who were genuinely taken in by the Church’s performance.

After all, compared to certain Royal Families who did nothing when disaster struck, the Church at least seemed to have a human side, taking on some measure of responsibility.

"Don’t always think about what your state can do for you. Don’t be part of the problem; be the one who solves it..."

This was genuinely the attitude the rulers of many nations here held toward the common folk.

Overall, the Church was very pleased with the PR results from this period. By extension, the Zog Group became a "loyal friend" of the Church.

While everyone knew this friendship was superficial, Zog took advantage of the temporarily good relations to secure several joint projects with the Church.

For instance, they agreed to build a Gate of Hell in Deepwater City, making it convenient for the city—which was still just a blueprint—to one day become a travel hub for Devils on the Main Plane.

The only thing that left Zog dissatisfied was that the Church had rejected his proposal to create other major news stories to suppress the hype around the Steam Engine curse.

Specifically, they shot down his idea of stirring up some romantic scandals for Saintess Astrid.

Zog had been eager to see a nationwide spectacle of everyone discussing who the Saintess’s new boyfriend was. A top celebrity’s romantic scandals never failed to generate buzz.

Of course, Zog’s goal wasn’t the relationship itself, but that such discussions would drastically undermine the Church’s solemnity.

It would gradually turn the Church into a source of public amusement.

Unfortunately, the Church sternly refused. They maintained a final shred of sanity and didn’t embrace the philosophy of "amusing themselves to death." In the Church’s hierarchy, the Saintess’s image had to remain utterly sacrosanct.

Zog had gained the Church’s support, and the Church had improved its public image. It seemed like a win-win.

And so, everything returned to a state of calm.

At least on the surface.

This whole affair had, after all, planted seeds of discontent with the Church in the hearts of many.

Given the chance, they would all burst forth.

It was just that such an opportunity was hard to come by.

They would have to wait for the day the Magic Goddess’s power began to fail...

So, with no other pressing business for the moment, Zog traveled to the site of what he planned to be Feilin’s future greatest metropolis.

Deepwater City.

Or, as it was currently known, Deep Water Village.

Zog was holding a map, surveying the vast tract of land that was, for now, just a barren wasteland.

It was a large plain at a river mouth. A wide river, which conveniently didn’t freeze in winter, flowed directly into the sea. The most significant change in elevation was a small hill, only three hundred meters high.

’Only here could you call this thing a mountain.’