Fangaku:Volume1 Act2 Chapter5
Chapter 5[edit]
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“Oh, nooooo! I’m dead!”
I sprang to my feet.
Then I realized that meant I had been lying down.
…Eh?
Last I remembered, I had been standing up.
I hadn’t been able to move after the Dragon Terror hit me.
But then the dragon’s tail had swung down toward me and…
“I thought I was going to die.”
Only then did I notice my surroundings.
The sun was setting in the west.
And the white color overhead was not due to clouds.
“Cherry blossoms?”
“That’s me! I’m Sakura, the cherry blossom spirit of the Depths Asama Shrine! The cherry blossoms are always in full bloom here! Like a Tyrrell six-wheeler of flowers! Thank you for using our services!”
●
I was below a cherry tree.
I must have fallen asleep there at some point.
I recognized the energetic shrine maiden.
I had seen her before entering the Depths Region, when I was receiving some training and lessons in the midway zone on the border.
She was…was she even human? Well, she was a shrine maiden. And she had taught some of the lessons via divine transmission.
To her, I was probably just one of many new residents, but…
“It’s great to see you again, Deko-san! You were great in the lessons, but it’s a bit of a shame you’re still level 1 and can’t use any of your dark elf traits! Reality’s a bitch, huh!?”
“Wait, you remember me?”
“Of course I do! Every resident of the Depths Region is precious to me – as a source of worship and of money! I make sure to remember each and every one of you!”
Not sure that’s what I want to be known for, I thought while looking to the northern sky.
The north.
The object floating there like a giant cloud was Aerial City Ship Musashi.
That was one of the things “capable of interfering with the ley lines” that had been summoned to help with the Tokyo Liberation.
<Musashi, one of the groups known as the Tokyo Five Great Peaks, sent Sakura here to manage the ley lines in the Depths Region.>
I had heard she was one of the Depths Region’s managers and that she could help me with a great many things, but…
“Anyway, thank you for using our respawn service! All new residents can use the Easy Mode Standard Plan for free once during their first month and I see you’re getting right to it! You’re the first person to ever use it this early on their first day!”
●
I reacted to one term she used.
“Hm? What does respawn mean?”
“When you die in the Depths Region, you get crystallized as a data entity. Our respawn service redigitizes that crystal and then retrieves you. I even personally do some prayer, wishing, or incantationing to, well, I guess it’s simplest to say it extracts your control data all at once.
“That’s the same service I just did for you here, so please place your finger here! Let’s jiggle!”
As asked, I held my finger against the sign frame.
Then she put the sign frame in her pocket.
“Thank you for using our service! You can officially sign a contract with us anytime within the next month, so just say so whenever you have some free time and our Kotodama detection will pick it up and get you set up! Anyway, you just experienced your first death! Congratulations! Have this commemorative Asama Shrine pen. It’s a product of the Musashi IZUMO flying up above us! Now, I’m sure you’ll be making a habit of dying, so I look forward to seeing you again.”
“N-now that’s a flood of information!”
“Um, yes. Now, do you have any questions?”
I thought about it and decided to speak my mind directly.
“What is going on?”
“Vague questions like that are so annoying.”
“Oh, then, um, how did I die?”
“That I can answer! Like this! You crystallized right away, which made it really hard to capture the precise moment it happened, but the camera spell happened to be in a good position and we got 3 frames of you getting squished!”
She showed me the video.
What I saw there made my heart race, but…
“I-it’s censored!”
“Eh!? Huh? Sorry about that! I had the unaltered footage earlier, but it looks like it got censored with a mosaic! Just like my father in spirit back up on the Musashi! Oh, but it looks like the uncensored version is being passed around on less official channels on the divine network! Luckily, I can use the authority of the Asama Shrine to open up those locked sites! Look! It’s getting rave reviews from living dead Expressers and with barbarian and murderer Expressers! Three stars even!! ☆☆☆! And these sharing figures are off the charts! Oh, look, look! You’re getting a ton of sympathetic likes and comments!”
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<Here is a comment from “Bloody Moon – Adult”-sama.>
“☆☆☆: People always say I’m rather lifeless, but it really got my blood flowing to see this with that brown skin for the first time… And a Priestess Conversion as well? It’s too much… I can’t bring myself to look the screen in the eye and I just want to climb into my grave and start screaming.”
●
“Incredible, right!? That last part was so poetic! He sounds so shy! As you can see, you’ve managed to win so many people’s hearts on your very first day, Deko-san! Isn’t that great!”
“It is not great!”
It bothered me from the bottom of my heart.
Then Sakura opened another sign frame.
“You were popular with the higher ranking people too.”
Huh? I thought and looked to see a video of the school arena.
The screen primarily showed the commentary seats.
A white-haired student there was speaking to the black-and-white-haired student next to her.
“That Dark Elf – Deko-kun, was it? – did great to die at the end there. That was clearly an accident, but it was probably the best result for Angel Stare.”
Huh? I thought again as I watched the video.
It was evening around me, but if the scene on the screen was immediately after the mission, it must have been morning there.
So this was a recording. The analysis girl in a white school uniform spoke in that recording.
“Crystallizing on your first run is actually quite rare with such a skilled party.”
●
“Oh? But losing a member of their party will hurt their score. How could this still benefit Angel Stare?”
“It can help them, depending on certain factors. When a rookie member is added to a team, we generally include ‘have the rookie die once’ as an internal mission for the team. Now, you can’t force them to die and we’re so good at what we do we almost always escape, which means the rookie can’t find a chance to die.”
“Y-you have a point! That does present a challenge! But – and I feel like I’m phrasing this poorly – why do you want them to die?”
That question reminded me of what Hanako had said before we entered Level 1.
…She had two tasks for me to complete in addition to the main mission.
She also said she doubted I could complete them today.
One of those was probably dying.
As for why…
“In the Depths Region, death due to external factors will cause you to crystallize as a data entity. There are plenty of services related to this, but strictly speaking it means we can’t lose our life due to external factors. Well, there have been a few exceptions of late.”
She spread her arms a bit and raised them.
“Death is to be avoided but not feared. However, new residents and anyone who has never been crystallized will try really hard to not be crystallized. And what does that cause?”
She explained.
“Rookies will make mistakes in situations that wouldn’t have even killed them. This is especially common in situations vital to clearing a mission. Furthermore…”
Furthermore…
“We can get be dragged down by the rookie’s mistake too.”
●
“Death really should be avoided, though.”
“It’s about balance. There are two risks. Do you know what they are?
“1. You could die and prevent your team from completing the mission.
“2. You could be so afraid of dying you create a situation even worse than death.”
So what could you do?
She had already given the answer.
“By dying once, you learn to avoid death without fearing death, which greatly reduces risk #2.”
“I see! But risk #1 is still there, right? If dying could make your team fail their mission, can’t that lead to fear of death?”
“Failing a mission because you die is always a risk, of course. But…”
She smiled.
“You can also win by dying, like completing the mission as you die or dying of injuries after completing it.”
Listen.
“What matters is to make the most of everything, even your death.”
A breath.
“So going back to Deko-kun – now that she’s died here, she might be reluctant to die next time, but she won’t hesitate because death is an unknown to her. That gives Angel Stare a huge advantage. It’s especially useful this happened her first time. The longer it takes someone to die, the easier it is for them to develop a perverse pride or unwarranted confidence in their skill level. So I’d say the most important thing Angel Stare accomplished her was to get their rookie member on the right path by having her die, which can be a challenge for more skilled teams.”
●
Is that how it works? I wondered.
“So even dying is meaningful…”
“Yes! So keep on dying and using our services!”
“I don’t think that was the lesson here!”
That aside, it was a strange thing.
When I stood up and looked down at myself, I found myself equipped just as I had been when I died.
I had seen the censored video already, but…
“Your service is awfully generous, isn’t it?”
“That’s because I managed to retrieve you right after you died! When converting you into a data entity, your condition can be rewound to an extent. The standard recompilation services will only do your body, which means chucking you out on the street naked, so I highly recommend a contract with us!”
I definitely don’t want to end up naked, I thought.
Especially when I still wasn’t used to the changes in my body after becoming a girl.
Anyway, all of this had reminded me of a certain scene.
Both Hanako and the white and black pair had seemed panicked when they began that limited mode session right as I died.
They had given me dying as a task to complete, but that didn’t mean they wanted me to die.
“…Yeah.”
I felt like I understood the upperclassmen’s stance regarding death. It was a relief.
“Um, I guess I’ll be going then…”
“Oh? Hey, I heard you’d respawned, so I came to pick you up.”
Hanako had arrived.
●
We then began walking home.
The Asama Shrine was located south of school.
It was right across the Oume Line railroad tracks.
“Where do you live?”
“Higashi-Nakagami, I guess? My apartment is between there and Nakagami Station.”
“Oh, near where there’s an elementary school across the tracks? Where they built a wall to block the view of several apartment buildings and called it a luxury apartment complex? I think they were saying nothing good comes from renting apartments to students, so the government and the landlords came up with that as a compromise.”
“Wait, am I living somewhere dangerous?”
“Don’t worry about it. I know a lot of people there, so it’s pretty stable. The school’s the most dangerous place, really.”
“Yeah,” I said, walking toward the setting sun visible in the distance.
The sun was reflected in the river.
A river that flowed through the sky far above us.
“This your first time seeing this side of Underground Tokyo?”
■Surface Tokyo and Underground Tokyo
<Allow me to explain. Underground Tokyo is a secondary layer of Surface Tokyo. It was created when the World War Two bombing of Tokyo caused everything east of Kunitachi to split into two layers. During the Tokyo Liberation, the split spread to the entirety of the city to lessen the damage to Tokyo. Numerically, Underground Tokyo is located 20km below Surface Tokyo and the underside of Surface Tokyo acts as its ceiling.>
“Before the Tokyo Liberation, when you tried to see the ‘sky’ from Underground Tokyo, you could only see it through the rivers flowing on the ceiling. Nowadays, most of the weird stuff that used to be in Surface Tokyo has come here, so it’s turned into something like a hidden Tokyo, which is kind of funny.”
I realized I could see several of what looked like vertical threads of light rising toward the sky.
Those were the pillars supporting Surface Tokyo and…
“Those are the elevators used to carry resources and people to and from Surface Tokyo, right?”
“There are a few of them in the Depths Region too. They don’t take you directly there though, since there’s a midway waiting area on the ceiling too.”
I thought about what we were discussing.
…Huh? We’re talking about this so casually.
●
Yes, I sensed.
This kind of casual chatting was something I had lost while dealing with the great changes to my life back home or dealing with the teachers at the midway waiting area.
But now I was chatting casually with Hanako while we walked home.
I felt I was doing pretty well if I could manage that with an upperclassman on my first day.
A school came up on our right as we walked.
But unlike our school…
“Is that a normal school?”
“Eh!? …Yes, that’s Showa High. A metropolitan high school.”
As we walked past, I heard the sounds and cries of a team practicing on the schoolyard. Was it the baseball team? It reminded me of my old life.
“I live in the Higashi-Nakagami shopping district. That’s a straight shot down this road. In a shop called Gyoza Addiction on Edo Kaido, not by the Whale. We call it Gyoza Dic for short. …C’mon, laugh! That’s the funny part.”
Don’t ask the impossible…
She was the type to jump from topic to topic.
And this wasn’t a new discovery, but she also laughed a lot.
So I asked about a hunch I had.
“Hanako-san, are you local to here?”
“Eh? Yeah. My family lived there even before the Tokyo Liberation. According to my parents, they’ve been cooking gyoza before and after the Liberation, but just when it looked like everything was settling down, a hole opened up, a bunch of stuff came out of it, mysterious phenomena became common, and it was all designated a disaster.
<That all happened in 2003.>
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“It was my parents’ generation that first began exploring the Depths. They discovered the Motherless Mother existed at the bottom level, that she’ll grant any wish if you manage an audience with her, and that the Depths undergo a large-scale update each time that happens. Hardly surprising a bunch of countries, organizations, and corporations got interested, right?”
“The Motherless Mother…”
I remembered learning about that during the lessons at the midway waiting area.
I remembered it making sense too. But…
“Huh? I can’t remember it?”
“That’ll be a Word Seal at work. You still have the memory of learning it, but what you learned has been sealed away. The midway areas are linked to the outside world, so they do that to prevent information from leaking out.”
<Correct. The lessons there are given a Word Seal, which is a higher level seal than a Text Seal. Of course, you are free to use that information in the Depths Region, so I will provide it for you.>
■Motherless Mother
<Allow me to explain. The Motherless Mother is a being who has placed a phenomenon seal on herself and is thought to be an endemic species of the deepest part of the Tokyo Greater Depths. The phenomenon seal means no memory of an encounter with her will remain, but our understanding of her is progressing through research of existing data and other traces. She has two primary traits:
<1. She is the effective ruler and manager of all phenomena in the Tokyo Greater Depths, Central Depths, Lesser Depths, and the Depths Region.
<2. When a priestess encounters her, they are granted a wish and the Greater Depths receives an expansive update.>
“You called that two traits, but I feel like the second one was two traits in itself.”
<I am merely relaying official policy. If you have a complaint, please direct it to the Depths Region Municipal General Affairs Section. Shall I call them for you?>
“No, it’s not that big a deal…”
“The point is she’s at the very bottom,” continued Hanako.
“And only a ‘priestess’ can meet the Motherless Mother. Priestess here means a female Expresser. That’s the condition. The Depths causes everyone in the Depths Region to undergo Expression – a kind of mysterious phenomenon, I guess? But the boys who don’t turn into a girl through a Priestess Conversion undergo too great a correction against their Expression, so if their Expression Depth is too great, they can even turn into a monster.”
■Expression Depth
<Allow me to explain. Expression Depth refers to how advanced an Expression is. The 2008 standard defines Depths from 1-5 with Depth 5 as a complete Expression. To preserve themselves as priestesses, girls’ Expressions are never complete, so they never pass Depth 4. If a boy cannot become a priestess or has a natural tendency toward Expression, he will always reach Depth 5. But even then he will never develop high-level traits or Expression abilities. Possibly because he does not meet the “priestess” condition.>
“Oh, they said I was Depth 2.”
<2 means the Expression has only affected your form and nature. As you level up and show more traits and Expression abilities, you will reach 3.>
“I’m at the upper end of Depth 3. But you more or less get it now, right? This is like Anthropomorphized Creature + Legit Creature City Tokyo.”
“There has to be a better way to say that…”
<Mr. Shokuo from the Tachikawa Police is a good example.>
“Guys seem to be more suited for Expression. Something about their dream of being a hero? I dunno. But annoyingly enough, the Depths Regions care more about whether or not you’re a priestess.”
“So if I hadn’t gone through a Priestess Conversion…?”
“You might’ve turned into something else in Kawasaki.
“But that isn’t what happened,” added Hanako.
“While the government couldn’t act due to friction with other countries, some of the more skilled people gave some advice to Tachikawa’s delegation: let’s leave this place to someone who surpasses nationality.”
I knew what that meant. I could see one example in Tokyo’s sky right now.
Those things had been summoned at the end of the last era to prevent the destruction of the world.
The Tokyo Five Great Peaks who had carried out the Tokyo Liberation.
“ ‘The ones beyond the ley lines’ influence.’ ”
●
“Right. The Tokyo Five Great Peaks. Technically speaking, one of the Peaks is the Tokyo Chancellor’s Officers and some other local forces, so it’s the remaining four Peaks who are ‘beyond the ley lines’ influence’. And while the ‘Gods★’ were considered too powerful to join in, the remaining Three Peaks took action. There was apparently a lot of fighting, but one of the Peaks – UCAT – managed to swipe a bunch of stuff and even bought up the land around the Depths entrance, making themselves the landowners. And after sealing off the Depths, they began running a school there, which leads right up to the present. Plus, both Musashi’s presence and the priestess education has helped support the autonomy of the students.”
“Why did they do all that?”
“They said it was so they could maybe create someone who could save the world the next time it’s nearly destroyed. It seems like not even the Motherless Mother can stop the world from being destroyed, but she might be able to provide the kind of artifacts an idiot could use to fight against the destruction of the world.”
“But anyway,” said Hanako. “That was all during our parents’ generation. Nearly 20 years ago. In terms of the last World War, we’re now in the period of economic growth. And yet Musashi and UAH are sticking around in Underground Tokyo despite the size of their ship and wands. They must really think the Depths Region is dangerous. Even though we won’t let it turn out that way.”
“Oh,” I said, finally making sense of something from the past.
“That’s why I was told to live the slow life when I moved here. And why Shiroma-senpai said I could take it easy here.”
“She said that? Well, whatever. That’s more or less correct. All the different factions can be a pain in the ass, but everything you see here is part of ‘normal life’ here.”
●
Hanako stretched.
I noticed again just how short she was. I wasn’t even 160cm, but she may not have even been 150.
Yet she could make such bold moves on the battlefield.
“What level are you?”
“Me? I’m at the level cap, so 30. Right now I’m gathering experience until the cap is raised while I also level up my skills. I have to work against the handicaps too, obviously>”
Oh, I see.
“Go to school and take your first class tomorrow. Since you spent all day today on our speedrun. Then the day after tomorrow we’ll help you with your first level up. All of our members who are available that day will get together so you can meet them.”
■Leveling Up
<Allow me to explain. Leveling up is the official process for a Depths Region resident to increase their “quantified abilities as a data entity”. The current maximum level is 30, but that maximum value is influenced by the Depths, so it is thought the maximum level will soon increase a second time as progression through the Depths continues.>
“Are you saying I can level up? But I got crystallized.”
<Bonus experience is awarded for your first crystallization, so you have plenty. Let’s look at your character sheet.>
Name: Deko Level: 1 Experience: 195
Unit: Angel Stare
Species: Human Expression: Dark Elf
Home Region: Japan Current Home: Near the Station
Affiliation: Tokyo Depths School Sponsor: Undecided
Sex: F Height: M Build: XL Age: 15
Personality: Cheerful, Positive, Doglike
Combat Style Level: No Work
Religion Level: Shinto 1
Emotion Values (When Taking Action)
Happy: 7
Anger: 4
Sad: 4
Enjoyment: 2
Calm: 5
General Skill (1st Choice, Can’t Be Stacked)
STR: 4
INT: 5
AGL: 6
DEX: 4
WIS: 5
PIT: 4
CHR: 4
Specialized Skill (2nd Choice, Can Be Stacked)
Combat Type – Hand-to-Hand: 4 Swords: Katana: 7 Spears: 4 Axes: Hammers:
Whips: Throwing: 3 Archery: 3 Sharpshooting: Dance:
Defense Type – Defense: 6 Evasion: 3 Immunity: 3
Action Type – Manual Labor: 5 Climbing: 2 Running: 1 Acrobatics: Dismantling: Building:
Demolition: 5 Construction: 5 Stealth: 3 Machine Operation: 6 Cooking: 3
First Aid: 5
Sensory Type – Hearing: 3 Sight: Smell: 2 Noticing: 2 Courage: Negotiation: 6
Spellcasting: 5 Unification: Sign Frame: 4
Knowledge Type – Driving: 5 General: 8 Advanced: 2 Depths: 3 Outer World: 5
Depth Specific Skills:
INV: 16 Action Order: 06, 16
Attack Power: Defense Power:
HP: Serious Wound: 2/2 Minor Wound: 13/13 Fatal Condition: 4
Blessings: Internal: 16/16 External: 17/17
Special Moves:
Spells:
Inventory:
Total Penalty:
Money: Current: / Monthly Income: 42000
I checked and saw I really had earned some experience points.
“The character sheets are actually functional?”
“Now do you see what it means that we become data entities when we enter the Depths Region? We’ll work through your level up in the morning the day after tomorrow. Don’t touch it until then, okay? Ignore any advice your classmates might give you and, if possible, don’t open any consoles other than Tutorial.”
“That seems strict…”
“To be blunt, the system is garbage, like it’s designed to screw over noobs. In the worst case, you might even have to redo what you went through today.”
“Oh… I’d really prefer to avoid that.”
●
“But,” I continued.
“What about classes the day after tomorrow? That will only be Friday, so I will have them, won’t I?”
“If you’re wearing your uniform and doing exploration team work, it counts as an excused absence. Remember that. It means you don’t have to own as many casual clothes.”
“Are you saying I’ll be doing exploration team stuff all the time?”
“Pretty much. …Life here revolves around the Greater Depths and other Depths. It’s like the Depths act as a giant farm or mine.”
When she put it like that, it kind of made sense to me.
Probably because I had experienced the Depths now.
…Everything here is so new to me.
That was the right way of looking at it.
That would also be why the Depths and the things obtained there were so useful in dealings with the outside world.
And…
“I live here now…”
“Yeah, and that means stuff like this is going to keep happening, so make sure you’re ready.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant.
“Stuff like what?”
All I was doing was walking down the road as we arrived at a largish intersection.
But something did seem somehow off.
“Huh?”
Something was wrong behind me.
I had heard the sounds and voices of sports practice there before, but now only silence.
Wondering why, I looked back to the high school there to find…
“A hospital!? When did that get there!?”
●
“It’s just like in Ushiro no Shoumen Daare.”
Hanako laughed as I gasped.
“Ha ha! I panicked a little when we were walking and you suddenly started talking about a high school. That high school – and really all high schools and larger facilities in Nishitama – were used to accept evacuees and the injured during the Tokyo Liberation. Because of their structure, schools in particular were used as field hospitals. As a result, a few schools had their official purpose changed, turning into regional hospitals. A few new general-purpose schools were opened…and an entrance to the Depths opened below one of them.”
“Then what did I just see?”
“This land will trick newcomers into seeing its ‘regrets’. Really, it’s trying to say something.”
Say what?
“ ‘I know you can’t remember me, but don’t forget me.’ ”
“This is a complicated land.”
“Do you see now why I came to get you?”
I really, really could.
If I had tried to reach Nakagami on my own, I might have been swallowed up someplace along the way.
The crosswalk light was currently red.
Most of the vehicles driving past were delivery trucks for vegetables and such, but…
“Hey! Hanako! Today, you- hey! Don’t just keep going!”
I heard a voice coming from a passing group of armored trucks.
The people onboard were waving this way, but probably only to Hanako.
●
“Um,” I said to Hanako.
“You said you had two tasks for me. I’m pretty sure one of them was to die.”
“Oh, so you heard Kisaragi acting all smug about knowing that…”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to send the conversation in that direction.
There was something else I wanted to ask.
“What was the other task?”
“Hmmmm? I really think you can figure that out on your own.”
“?”
“The thing is,” said Hanako. “When we moved from the library to the arena, you said, ‘If I stay here, I won’t reach an end, will I?’ ”
“Don’t do an impression of me! I don’t sound anything like that!”
“Maybe, but I’d get too embarrassed saying that super serious stuff in my own words.”
But…
“What you said there was an outside ‘push’ to get you to live here. You have a reason to be here now, but you couldn’t find anything like that ‘outside’, could you?”
●
“Oh.”
I realized she was right.
It was obvious now that she’d said it.
“That’s why you had to add the ‘if I stay here’. You were comparing here to somewhere else. …Now, I won’t claim to know what its like to go through a Priestess Conversion and an Expression back in your hometown.”
But…
“That’s your task. To find a ‘draw’ here in your life in the Depths Region.”
“A draw?”
“Yes,” said Hanako. “Something that gives you a reason to keep on living.”
●
Oh, I thought.
Maybe I was imagining it, but I had come close to sensing something similar.
“When we beat the boss today!”
“Yeah, what about it?”
Yes.
That’s when it happened.
I sensed something about the world changing. I was told that was my view of the world improving, but I just about reached some other understanding then.
…Something that could answer my worries.
What was it?
I didn’t know. So I opened my mouth.
“I don’t know how to describe it, but I found a sense of relief, or something I wanted to understand, then.”
“Did you?”
Hanako suddenly started walking.
“C’mon, let’s go.”
●
I realized the light had turned green.
No, we had talked for quite a while since we stopped. The light had likely gone through a few cycles.
But I recognized it was green now.
I began walking too.
I followed after Hanako.
“I don’t know what you sensed and I don’t know if it’s really what you’re looking for.”
She said this without looking back at me.
“But if you can take it easy while you search for whatever it is, then our efforts were worth it.”
●
“Really?” I asked.
She had a rough way of doing things and she seemed like an idiot more often than not.
I had a feeling Kuroma-senpai meant it wholeheartedly when she called her an idiot.
But she was concerned for me and had taken the time to have this talk with me.
“Hanako…-senpai?”
“Idiot, the questioning tone kind of ruins it. And…”
She smiled.
“That’s Hanako-san to you. Remember that. And if you’re ever in a bind, just shout it at the door.”
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