Author's Note: Day 1
Stephanie Fia Offrey was many things.
A spoiled brat.
A bully.
A whore.
Most days she likes to think of herself as the queen of pirates.
At the moment though? She was honestly impressed. This was a new level of bullying she had never even considered before. The scholarship ship student had another of her barriers shattered by some kind of projectile being tossed at her by the seven foot giant she's been hearing rumours about. She had one of her slaves retrieve one earlier, a wooden ball wrapped in stitched leather, Stephanie imagined that it was leaving quite a few welts on the girl by now. Even better?
"Was that Good enough!?" The Scholarship student called out as she gasped for breath. She was rewarded with another of the leather balls bouncing off of her shoulder screaming in pain. "I can block three out of four shots!"
"The monsters only need one to kill you, and unlike these balls your healing magic can't fix that." The giant stated a bucket of balls in one hand and tossing one up and down ready to throw in another. The miserable little pain was coming back for more! There is literally nothing that Stephanie can do to her that would be worst than this torture, nothing that she couldn't do without taking the risk of exposing herself anyway.
Olivia's life was a cycle of 'Practice, Class, Study, Practice' with food fitted anywhere that she could manage. Leon, an experienced spell caster, agreed to run Olivia through as much of the Umbran training regimen as he could, which wasn't much. In the morning Olivia would practice running her magic through various magical plants, mostly the relatively common Onyx and Garnet Roses. These plants were quite delicate magically speaking, successfully leading the plants to bloom requires very precise application of magical power along very thin channels, meaning very fine magical control. The better your magic control gets the less power you need to achieve the same result.
After gardening came classes, where Olivia was escorted everywhere she went by Right. The total number of people who were targeting Olivia increased after it appeared that she got her own Demi-human slave, some nonsense about her overstepping her privileges. Right now had a pouch full of teeth from the people who took it too far. For study Olivia now had a collection of books with very specific pages marked down containing the relevant information to her, Olivia herself had to talk Leon out of ripping the pages out and making a new book out of them. Finally Olivia was spending her afternoons getting attacked by Leon, when she dodged she'd get thorny shadows crawling up her legs to bind her in place, it was up to her to either dodge them or break them, and Leon would often make her choose between that or putting up a barrier to block the balls.
"If it makes you feel better my parents are up to chucking cannonballs at me." Leon stated as if he was talking about playing a light game of catch.
"Your parents are very cruel people." Olivia was sprawled out on the floor breathing heavily from her tiredness.
"I'm pretty sturdy under normal conditions." Leon dismissed the situation as he reviewed Olivia's 'Report Card.' Mana control was shaping up to be an abysmal failure, she kills five out of six plants she tries it on, using too much mana every single time, she was getting every question posed to her during their study tests so her practical knowledge was sound, and her barriers consistently stopped three quarters of the balls Leon was hitting her with, balls thrown with enough force to shatter bones, on top of that was Olivia was making money on the side using healing magic on the melee class students and on herself whenever Leon hurts her, for reasons they didn't quite know she was much better with healing people than she was with growing plants. So that left one last matter that he needed to address. "The real question is where are you keeping it all?" Leon asked as he looked at Olivia suspiciously.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Olivia looked both confused and offended.
"I've been having you cast since sun up to sundown for four days now, when you use up about half of your mana you get tired, after you get reduced to twenty percent you become lethargic, and after you run out you become nauseous and throw up. If you cast beyond your limits, then you use up your life force and die." Leon stated bluntly prompting Olviia's eyes to go wide in horror. "You've been casting for a few hours, near as I can tell using two or three times the mana that you're supposed to, and the most that I can do is 'make you tired.'" That particular mystery could wait for another time though. "Take a shower and change your clothes, you smell like blood and sweat, and in case you've forgotten we have an appointment tonight."
The smell of lightly smoked meat wafted from the back of the academy, soaked in a marinade of soy sauce, honey, sesame seed oil, orange juice and various spices the smoked meat was re-hydrated and ready for the grill. Leon put a block of wood on a a dish and with a slap of mana split the block into dozens of skewers which he then skewered the meat with five to one before putting it on the charcoal grill he made using the cheap grill that came with a beginner's adventurer's kit and several rocks that had been arranged in a circle.
"An unconventional tea party to say the least Baron Blackmore." Angelica stated as she observed Leon grill the least unconventional aspect of the 'tea party.' The Honour of the most unconventional thing went to the beverage he had prepared: Coffee. Leon somehow had the time to acquire several blends of the strange and alien beverage and was apparently skilled enough to prepare several different varieties of the mystery liquid for her and Olivia's enjoyment. Not familiar with the substance when asked what they would prefer both of the ladies in question gave simple 'Surprise me' in response.
"You will find the mild bitterness of the coffee pairs well with the sweetness of the marinade." Leon had put on his best 'stuffy polite older person' voice as he explained the dishes that he had prepared and the drinks that go with them.
"Splendid!" Angelica clapped her hands together thoroughly amused by the display.
"Bravo!" Olivia herself joined in on giving Leon applause.
"Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all evening!" Leon in turn soaked in the attention for all it was worth.
"I admit I'm quite enjoying myself." Angelica let out a sigh as she bit off another of her meat cubes.
"People are supposed to use these little get togethers to shop for spouses?" Leon gave a shrug as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "If someone wants to live with me then they're going to have to live like me." The constant whining of the male heirs of the academy did not paint a pretty picture of the women of the kingdom's middle ranks. Parasites every last one of them, down to the last squawking gull looking for the tiniest scrap of food these people will drain him dry of every penny he's worth and then toss him out of his own home when they were done. For what? To not appear to be weak at court? To be protected from raiders and Pirates? Leon would like to meet the pirate that was brave enough to invade his territory and threaten what is his, He'd make them famous!
"How wise of you. You have exceptional taste, Baron Blackmore." Angelica complimented, a bitter sweet feeling in her heart.
"You mean to say that you actually like my low born Che BackYard cooking?" Leon gasped in Mock shock.
An unladylike snort was the answer.
"I've been eating 'Che Backyard' as you so inelegantly put it since I was a child." Angelica did not mince her words. "I have idolised adventurers for as long as I can remember, and have lived the lifestyle of one to the best of my ability given my responsibilities as a duke's daughter and future Queen." There was a range of emotions on Angelica's features, joy, happiness, anger, frustration, acceptance.
Why wasn't Julius like this? On paper they should be perfect for each other, they share the same hobbies, they like the same foods, they balance out each other's worst characteristics? The two of them have not had a moment together where she can honestly say they were happy in five years. Angelica feels as if she has become a reservoir of Julius's anger and resentment, both the place where he puts all of his frustration and the place where said anger and frustration seems to pool out from. The first time that she's seen him happy in over half a decade and he's looking at another woman, not even that, he's looking at a little girl!
"Miss Angelica?" Olivia was staring at Angelica concerned, without even realising it the Duke's daughter had started to cry.
"My apologies for this unsightly display." Angelica stated as she wiped her tears. Was this all it takes to break her composure now? A few kind words from what's essentially a stranger? Is this what Julius has done to her?
"We never said it was unsightly." Leon handed Angelica another rack of meat, once more smoked, marinated and seared to perfection.
"What else do I look like but unsightly in this state?" Angelica was absolutely miserable.
"You look like you're thinking about someone that you hate." Now Leon looked concerned.
"My apologies for imposing on you Baron Blackmore." Angelica wiped her tears over Julius, for the last time in what she intends to be quite a while. "I would like to enjoy our time together for a little while longer, but afterwards I'm afraid I will have quite a bit of work to do."
"Understandable, but if we could impose on you for a few moments miss Olivia here has a favour she'd like to ask you." Leon explained as he started to convey Olivia's situation to Angelica.
Come the following morning, Angelica was a woman possessed. As the Weeks followed she made visits to the adventurer's guild, to the banks, she wrote letters to her family, spoke with the teachers and with Leon. Left was quickly proving a wellspring of invaluable knowledge for Angelica's purposes. Angelica drew several conclusions about Marie, most of them weren't good, however vile of a person that she was she didn't deserve to be condemned without the chance to defend herself. The opportunity to determine her character came soon enough, but first there was another matter that desperately needed to be addressed.
"Mr. Leon this is too much!" Leon bluntly told Olivia one day that they were going to go shopping before unceremoniously dragging her off to a dress store of all things. Even Olivia heard about 'Spider Jen,' she's apparently the best tailor in the capital, appointments have to be booked month's in advance, or a rather substantial fee has to be paid up front to warrant delaying the rest of the owner's clients. Leon pushed Olivia into the building anyway as they saw the owner sitting behind the counter. Jenna cut an intimidating figure, she was no shorter than her brother, on the contrary if you squinted you might be able to tell that she was a couple inches taller, with stark white hair tied into a pony tail and grey eyes.
"Whatever it is I'm busy!" Right now she was the very epitome of a seamstress, a white blouse and blue jeans made up her work clothes while several needles were being held in her teeth. Jenna barely reacted in time, her pony tail unravelled and formed a white arm that caught Leon's hand before his fist could make contact with the back of her head.
"That was for missing our parents send off party, you pain in my rear end!" The White arm met Leon's punch head on, and pushed him back.
"Why don't you try and avenge the slight against them when you don't have that shackle on your arm?" The two broke contact as the arm unravelled back into Jenna's pony tail as she looked around. "And you brought a friend? Why does it not surprise me that you only come and visit when you need something?"
"I seem to recall that you were the one who took the most valuable materials out of my run through Avalon forest to help you get the loan you needed to start up your business in the capital." Leon replied bluntly tapping his finger on his lip in thought. "Not to mention, if you really missed me oh so badly, you could've come see me at the school!"
The tension was thick, it could snap at any moment. Then without another word Jenna walked over to the counter, and took out a cigar and cigar cutter from under the register.
"I know you know why I've been busy." The cigar end was cut open, a large red and grey spider poked its head out from an open book and used some kind of magic to light it for her before Jenna took it into mouth and breathed in the smoke. "What's your excuse?" Leon looked over to Olivia and tilted his head in Jenna's direction. Reluctantly Olivia walked over to the giant of a woman.
"H-h-hi miss-"
"Blackmore." Jenna both cut Olivia off and finished her sentence at the same time. Olivia looked between the two several times as she slowly clued in. "Did you think the capital is just full of seven foot tall people or something?"
"N-N-No...?" Olivia was not doing so well under Jenna's glare.
"What does she need?" Jenna asked bluntly.
"Adventurer armour, and a dress for the winter term ball." Leon replied bluntly prompting Olivia to turn and face him about to protest but Jenna cut her off instead.
"Two outfits are too much. I'll do them together." Olivia now turned around to protest to Jenna.
"Deal. I gotta go pick up Left and Right. I loaned them to the Duchess." Leon had picked that time to give himself a stretch before he left.
"Oi." Before he could though Jenna tossed him a duffel bag. "Gift from Rodin, you owe me for this."
"No I don't." Leon frisbee tossed Jenna envelope, with a commission from the aforementioned Duchess, and she was even being generous with the time table too, and a down payment on top of that. He wasn't wrong.
"Oi you." Jenna didn't look at Olivia when she spoke to her. "Go into the back room and strip." Olivia blushed.
"I-I-I-!" A pair of scissors appeared in Jenna's hand and snapped shut.
"Would you rather I cut you out of your clothing here and begin work out in front of the window for the whole capital to see?" Olivia turned red as a tomato at what was rapidly becoming a very real, very serious threat. Unfortunately before she could save herself, she fell unconscious. "And Leon calls me a pain in the rear?"
Angelica looked over the contents of the information that she had been gathering. The summation was 'Not good.' Every single gift that Julius had bought for Lafan since the school year had started had been sold off in any one of the Capitals pawn shops, Marking Lafan as a gold digger, albeit a more sympathetic gold digger than most. Almost every Coin Lafan made went to her parents, but not by choice, the Lafan family had several outstanding debts to other houses and most all of them were made in the girl's name. If that was all that she was doing then Lafan could be written out of the situation completely, emancipation, the arrest/enslavement of her family, a few hundred platinum's and a fully paid scholarship to Alzer as part of the exchange program could remove her influence completely. But Lafan had went above and beyond a mere gold digger, she had set out to be the Queen of all Gold Diggers.
Thus far Lafan has been found snogging Brad in the library, giving Greg a flirtatious massage after training, consoling Chris concerning his relationship with his parents, comforting Jilk concerning his own dirty business, on top of having managed to seduce Julius. Individually Lafan's actions could be written off, but each of these individuals were already engaged in pivotal political marriages.
Brad's family were border lords, but lacking the natural resources to help contend with a prolonged conflict with their neighbours, his intended fiance Stephanie Fou Offrey comes from a family of merchants, with the connections and ships to provide the Fields a pivotal supply chain.
Greg's family controls the adventurers guild, the largest collection of resource gatherers and independent contractors in the entire country, his Fiance Sarah Fia Winchester was the daughter of a Arms Manufacturer with the factories needed to take that raw material, process it into arms and armour, and distribute the weapons to the Adventurers.
Chris's family are warriors through and through, with the second largest collection of violent thugs in the country, though sadly limited in their effectiveness do to a old fashion sense of tactics, his fiance Jillian Fou Patton was the daughter of the prestigious General Patton, commoner born but a genius in tactics who worked his way up through the ranks of the army on his own merit, together they would be unstoppable.
Jilk's family runs the Kingdom's black ops organisation and other forms of dirty dealings, his fiance Clarice was the daughter of the prime minister, the country's chief finance manager, combined there would be no corruption in the ranks they wouldn't be able to sniff out.
Finally one must not forget Angelica's own fiance Julius, the two largest political factions in the kingdom was set to be inherited by them both, united years worth of civil war could be avoided.
Take into consideration that the Lafan's were a vassal house to the Offrey family, border-lords with Fanoss as neighbours, and the conclusion could be reached that Lafan is being made to act as a spy and saboteur for the principality, it was the explanation that made the most sense since Marie seemed to know so much about all five of them in advance.
It could be but Angelica had yet to reach that conclusion.
For one thing the actions that had been done to Marie by her parents were so absolutely vile that it was hard to imagine her willingly going along with them, one need only look at the fifteen year old in a nine year old's body to imagine what Marie had been through, unless of course her documents were manipulated. Not to mention if her actions were at the Offrey's behest why sabotage their existing marital plans with Brad? They could inflict far more damage with the legitimacy of the Fields and access to their territory after-all. So not a spy or saboteur then, at least not working with the Offrey's, was Lafan merely stupid? Letting out a sigh Angelica looked at the letter she had drafted and attached to a package for her father before handing it to Leon's servant.
"Deliver this for me would you?" Left nodded before taking the package and slinking off through the floor.
Dear Father,
I hope this package finds its recipient in better health than its sender. Attached is excerpts from my personal diary, containing the transcripts of every meeting with the prince that I've ever had, upon examining it's contents I hope you find the actions that I am undertaking justified. The prince has taken on a Lover in the form of a low-ranking noble girl, and so following his lead I will be taking a break from our relationship for the sake of my own mental and physical health.
I also extend my greetings to James, with a reminder that his son requires a refresher course as to his duties to the prince.
Attached is all the documentation I've been able to find on Julius's lover, with the hope that neither you nor Jilk's father will jump to any rash conclusions.
With this I may now write of my own affairs with a clean conscience, I've befriended both the Scholarship student Olivia and the new Baron Leon Fou Blackmore who has recently claimed a floating island, both have been a source of comfort in this difficult time, and I insist you stop by one of these evenings for his combination BBQ and Coffee breaks he is hosting every Saturday. Leon intends to utilise the island he found in order to grow a type of bean used in Coffee, I admit I've acquired a taste for the delicacy. The drink is more effective at keeping people awake for a prolonged period of time than tea/sugar, it also takes longer to spoil, is easy to make, easier to transport and according to the Baron's own words relatively cheap according to the Baron's preliminary business plan, all of this makes it perfect as a commodity to our forces across various border fronts and to our nation's brave adventurers. Attached is a sample tin prepared for you at my request. The three of us intend to tackle the preliminary dungeon dive the school will be hosting as we near the winter ball together, and I admit I quite look forward to the look.
Sincerely yours, Angie Rapha Redgrave
Sitting at his desk looking at the contents of the opened letter Vincent Rapha Redgrave was not going to lose his temper. He is after all a wise and considerate Duke, who is above and beyond deploying twelve air-ships, twenty armours, and over a hundred armed infantry to quietly and politely drag that worthless little swine into the royal palace so that he can receive a long overdue spanking from the queen!
"I'm going to kill that bastard!" And Neither is his son, no matter how much he agrees with his sentiments.
"Quiet Gilbert." Turning to the side Vincent watched his secretary shake while holding the report detailing the little whore's behaviour. "Alicia, please give me some good news." The woman looking down at the documents in question looked at Vincent and appeared to pause in thought, as if trying to think of something to say.
"Miss Angelica appears to have met some reliable friends while she was at the school, for one thing they are very competent with their surveillance."
Vincent is a realistic and intelligent Duke, thus he is far far above repeatedly slamming his head into his desk in the hopes that when he wakes up this entire mess of a situation will have just turned out to have been a bad dream No matter how tempting it is to do so!
"Alicia, Should I presume that we have to rethink our entire political plans for Angelica's generation?" Duke Redgrave asked having returned to his usual cool and calculating figure.
"You should start with speaking to Her Majesty before you begin any major decision making." The secretary replied evenly, desperately attempting to prevent her lord from going on a rampage against the royal family.
"Yes. We need to have a word with the Brat's parents before we toss him into a shallow grave!" Gilbert snapped fist clenched.
"You're leaking you real intentions again, lord Gilbert." This was gonna be a long couple of decades.
Olivia looked around at the Adventurering class. They were all gathered around the entrance to the dungeon, her excitement for the dive was unfortunately marred by immense confusion. The Guys outfits made sense given her limited understanding of adventuring gear. But the girls? There were large portions of exposed skin, and most of them were wearing dresses and high heels for Saint's Sake!
"Wearing high heels over a prolonged period of time shortens the tendons connecting foot to leg, if you're not used to flat shoes then you're better off with heels." Angelica of course looked stunning, but then she looked stunning to begin with. A long shoulder-less red dress, the cloth complimented by leather armour protecting her vitals but matted to her figure to enable full range of movement and breath, worn over top a mesh body sock. The dress was slitted up to Angelica's thigh, exposing more of the mesh that went down her legs while a sword hung on her hip. "Cloth fabric tends to be made out of material that has been treated to be a mana conductor, making it easier to absorb from the environment or store as an extra reserve. Sadly many of the women here are intending to show off to promising suitors, some of whom are already taken." Angelica turned her attention to the prince's party who were huddling around Marie leaving Olivia concerned. "So they sacrifice their safety for 'sexiness' or some other such nonsense. Well in my case my body gets hot really easily so tend to dress lightly during these trips."
Currently Olivia didn't have much room to talk, she was wearing a dress too albeit hers was navy blue. The corset was more comfortable than she would've thought, she's heard horror stories about people suffocating to death wearing them but not only did she not have any problems breathing but she maintained her full range of movement as well. She was covered head to toe in some kind of sparkly material, arranged in plates so that she wouldn't have any trouble moving that was somehow or another fitted onto the dress itself.
"Silk Plate? So Leon's Claims about 'Spider Jen' was true then."
Angelica's father held the material in high regard, or rather the technique used to make it. Soft material absorbs impacts from blunt force, hard material blocks piercing and cutting attacks, both were weak against the other, but the secret is layers. The Soft material, a type of demonic silk in this case, was layered with a glue like material that hardens when dry, Empusa spit specifically, the end result was something more durable than it had any right to be. She's heard rumour of certain poor Baron's making armour plating for their Knight Runner's out of paper and parchment using such techniques, to shocking effectiveness. So not only did Leon have access to the top tailor in the capital, but also her best materials. In short, Olivia looked stunning, and her dress would Not even be remotely out of place at the winter ball.
Angelica let her eyes wander, to Prince Julius and his group, and the little whore they had centred themselves on. Clearly the fool hasn't learned his lesson yet, so Angelica must follow through on her plans, now to wait for her quote unquote Boyfriend to show up.
A familiar mechanical grinding noise echoed out like a Knight Armour walking into the area, looking in the direction of that Angelica saw a seven foot mass of bright orange that was walking towards her.
"Leon I presume?" Angelica didn't so much ask a question as she stated a fact. At once the figure in orange dropped to one knee as he bowed to Angelica like a figure or yore.
"At your service milady." He held out his hand and Angelica took it, thus giving him permission to stand in accordance with his etiquette lessons, the kiss that followed implied a level of intimacy.
"I would've hoped that you would be... less over the top with your choice of armour Blackmore."
"It is my brother's design lady Angelica." Leon stated bluntly by way of reply. "An attempt to scale down the technology inside of a Knight armour and apply it to infantry instead. Right now it is in the prototype phase, it needs to be stress tested and I agreed to do so while he was working on his other designs."
"Your brother is an engineer?" Angelica questioned as she assessed the armour.
"Quite. There were a few lost items in our family's dungeon that he has taken apart and been working to reverse engineer." Which wasn't technically untrue, the various toys Rodin used to make for his video game junkie of a mother a thousand years ago would be revolutionary pieces of technology for this world, but for Nick restoring them and figuring out how they work was just practice.
"Is there even a man underneath all that armour?" Leon served his purpose nicely, Julius and his friends had taken notice of his very obvious presence and were now on their way over. As usual the Loud Mouth Greg was the first with something to say.
"If you'd like I can show you." Leon shrugged his shoulders as if the implied stripping he would subject himself to was obvious. "Though I do warn that it wouldn't be an appropriate thing to do in front of such fine young ladies."
"Leon!" Olivia blushed furiously as she smacked the armoured man to no effect.
"That is quite a jest to make in front of such fine young ladies lord Blackmore." Brad picked that moment to scold Leon.
"Tis no jest Lord Field." Leon boldly stated as if it was obvious. "Would such a sight not be shocking?"
"Well I..." Brad was stammering, the crowd was gathering together, Leon did his job to perfection, even if he was making an ass out of himself.
"Do you mean lord Blackmore that were we to ask you would disrobe yourself of your armour right here and now and bare it all to the world?" Julius asked looking at Leon brow cocked to the air, Marie was looking on oddly interested. Angelica swears if she intends to add onto her little harem...!
"Heavens no your highness!" Leon made a pose of a scandalised girl as his voice hiked, which given his armour was simply ridiculous looking. "Whatever gave you that idea?"
"How exactly do you intend to do as you claim then?" Jilk glared at Leon suspiciously.
"Like this." Leon flicked his wrist and his gauntlet disappeared into the odd bracer on his left arm exposing his hand, which he then raised to his head as his visor flicked open and Leon bit down on his thumb until blood came out. "I trust that this proves my status as a flesh and blood man?" Leon let the blood drip a couple of times before Olivia tended to the wound, less it becomes infected. Greg burst out laughing and bent over, and several within the crowd joined him, the crowd would soon disperse, which meant that now between the gap in their rapt attention for Leon's joke and their coming dungeon delve Angelica had the perfect moment to strike.
"For you Julius." Angelica spoke as she removed an envelope from her bosom. "An official notification of a break in our relationship." Julius was still coming down off of the high of his laughter so he didn't quite understand the full implications of what Angelica was doing. "You wish to take a break from your duties as the prince? I wish for a break from you." Having forced the letter into Julius's hand the young man was starting to hear what Angelica was saying. "And now with that out of the way there is something I've always wanted to say to you." Magic formula circled around Angelia's arm as strength enhancing magic flooded her limb and without another word she delivered a full powered smack to Julius's face, and unlike at the opening ceremony where Julius was sent flying she followed that up with another equally as powerful smack to the other cheek before she finally grabbed him by the collar and dragged him down to her level. "You are the most selfish and inconsiderate being that I have ever had the displeasure of knowing! Every single time we have had a conversation in the past five years it has degenerated into you verbally lashing me for all of your problems!" Angelica threw the prince back as Marie worked to heal the damage done to his face. "I am uniquely qualified to understand how difficult it is having the expectations and responsibility of power thrust upon your shoulders. But while I have suffered the same tribulations that you have, I've had it worse, because not only have I had to put up with everything that you have, I've also had to put up with you!" Leaving behind that scathing gaze Angelica hooked her elbow around Leon's arm, like a lover.
"The Meat's been marinating for three days, Barbeque's gonna be good tonight." Leon stated with enthusiasm, holding up a duffel bag in one hand.
"Excellent, I have been looking forward to this dungeon dive for years!" The stunned prince was left behind as his fiancee when into the dungeon with another man, the distinct feeling that he's been missing out on something bubbling.
Review Section:
Rodvek97: Thank you for saying so.
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hnh058513: As good as that is to now, literally nothing about that has anything to do with my story.
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