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Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (LN) - Volume 13 - Chapter 6




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6 Watching Over the Hero’s Party for a Living

Once I finished my revival experiments with the third prince and pals, there was nothing left for me to do in the Analeit Kingdom.

Sure, things are still total chaos over there, but that’s not really my problem.

The king is dead, the first prince is useless, the third prince is suspected of being involved in the rebellion, et cetera.

Man, talk about some messy court drama.

A no-holds-barred battle for the throne has begun!

Although I’m the one who engineered the entire thing.

Now I just need Yamada to get caught up in this whole business.

At least, that was the plan, but there’s a new problem.

Ms. Oka woke up and told him that the imperial army, led by Natsume, is marching on the elf village.

Apparently, elves have some kind of Fartalk system for conveying information, like the Word of God religion.

Our worldwide purge of the elves has been going well enough, but it looks like there are still plenty we’ve missed.

Better make sure we wipe out every last one before we attack and destroy the elf village.

Since the Tenth Army has completed all missions within the empire and the kingdom, that’ll be their next job.

I feel bad giving them more work to do right after such a busy period, but this is super important, so they’ll have to deal with it.

Employee exploitation?

Look, that’s just how it is in the military…I’m pretty sure.

Besides, I was already planning on sending the Tenth Army to finish hunting down all the elves before all this extra work in the empire cropped up. Really, it’s just back to business as usual.

In other words, it’s the pontiff’s fault they’re crazy busy now, not mine.

I’m innocent.

Not to mention, who do you think has to find the elves in every nation and deliver the Tenth Army members there in the first place?

I’m the busiest person of all!

This really is one exploitative workplace.

I should put in for a paid vacation.

Ah, I can just see the Demon Lord saying nope with a big smile.

Damn it all.

Anyway, to get back to the main subject here: Since Yamada and friends heard from Ms. Oka that the elf village is in trouble, they’ve decided to ditch their kingdom and go fight Natsume in person, for some reason.

Por qué?

It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Like, what? I mean…

Sure, I see how they came up with that, I guess?

Humans and demons are at war right now, and they probably think it could be dangerous for all of humanity if they let Natsume keep doing as he pleases.

But does that really mean you should just abandon the kingdom that’s falling apart in front of you to go take down Natsume?

I would think that the third prince, who’s staying in the kingdom, would want to have the real hero Yamada fighting on his side.

You know, since he might have to go at it with the first prince’s side.

Yeah, it might sound nice to say that the third prince has a big-picture attitude, but isn’t he looking too far out and missing the trouble right under his nose at this point?

The kingdom might very well end up in a nasty civil war…

But I’m guessing Yamada isn’t thinking about any of that as his brother ships him out.

When the third prince asked him to go, he was immediately like, “Of course.”

He was probably just responding on the basis that he can’t let Natsume get away with this or whatever, not thinking about the situation in his own kingdom.

I’d rather have Yamada stay in the kingdom, but now it totally seems like they’re gonna send him right over to the elf village…

It’d probably be too weird for Hyrince to be the only one to object.

Sure enough, Hyrince keeps quiet, and it’s decided unanimously: Yamada is going to the elf village.

Goddammit.

Yeah, okay, but there’s no way he’s gonna get to the elf village before the imperial army does…or so I foolishly thought.

But I mean, come on! I thought something like this might happen, so I did some prep work to make sure they couldn’t get from Daztrudia to Kasanagara, the continent where the elf village is located.

With help from the Word of God, of course!

Whenever there’s trouble, just call on the Church.

It helps when you’re actually in touch with the guy in charge who can answer your prayers.

Still, it’s not like I really did that much.

I just had them spread the word about the rebellion in the Analeit Kingdom and put bounties on Yamada and company.

Since officially, what went down in the Analeit Kingdom was that Yamada killed the king and tried to usurp the throne.

It was faster and more efficient to turn them into wanted fugitives than to go around telling everyone not to let them use teleport gates and stuff.

Teleport gates being the fastest way to get from one continent to the other.

That’s also why we broke the one in Analeit Kingdom, to prevent him from using it in case he got that far.

Now that they’re on the wanted list, it’ll be harder for Team Yamada to move around.

Of course, it’s not like security forces have photos or anything, which means the average person won’t know what they look like. Still, I imagine local guards and stuff will be keeping an eye out for them.

But then the bastards went and flew on Shinohara, who has become a light wyrm.

Light wyrm?

More like flight wyrm!

…Sorry, please forgive me for existing. That was a terrible joke. I regret everything.

Even in video games, flying vehicles are the kinda thing you get toward the end of the game because they make getting around super easy.

You don’t need to worry about roads and stuff, and you can fly right over obstacles like mountains.

In this world where monsters exist, most roads take a meandering route to avoid monster-infested regions, which means it takes that much longer to get anywhere.

But if you can ignore that and fly over everything, you’ll get places way faster.

Basically, they’re taking the shortest route possible.

Which also means they don’t have to stop at many towns and villages, which lowers the risk of them getting caught.

They certainly haven’t been caught once yet.

This is bad news, folks.

My calculations were based on them traveling by foot, but at the rate they’re moving by air, they might actually make it?

…No, no, of course they won’t!

I mean, don’t you know where they’re headed? The Great! Elroe! Labyrinth!

Obviously, they can’t fly inside the labyrinth, so they’ll definitely have to slow down.

Plus, the Great Elroe Labyrinth is insanely massive and complicated to boot.

If you get lost, it’s practically impossible to find your way out.

There’s even a labyrinth guide profession.

We’ve already positioned soldiers at the entrance to the Great Elroe Labyrinth.

And I made sure all the labyrinth guides know about what happened in the Analeit Kingdom and the bounty on Yamada and friends.

So they shouldn’t be able to find a guide.

Trying to navigate the Great Elroe Labyrinth without a guide is practically suicide.

I should know, since I lived there for so long.

No doubt about it.

Otherwise, what are they gonna do, fly over the ocean?

I think that’d be suicide, too.

The ocean is teeming with water dragons.

Now that Shinohara’s evolved into a light wyrm, I’m sure she could take a water dragon or two, but I doubt she’d be able to fend them off nonstop while also carrying everyone on a long-distance flight.

You’d have to fly all day and night with no idea when a dragon might shoot at you from the ocean, you know?

She doesn’t have the physical nor the mental stamina for that.

Which means the adventures of Team Yamada end here…

Y’know, since either path would be suicide and all.

I’m sure Hyrince will stop them if they try to do anything like that.

Hopefully, they’ll just kill time on Daztrudia from here on out.

…Or so I thought, like an idiot.

One of my clones is currently following Yamada’s party in secret.

Guess where they are? In the Great Elroe Labyrinth.

Come on, why?!

They managed to get a labyrinth guide with shocking ease, totally ignored the main exit that’s being closely guarded by the empire, and waltzed right on in through a secret entrance at the bottom of the ocean.

Gimme a break here!

The guide Yamada and friends found is this silver fox named Basgath.

He looks kinda familiar?

Yeah, turns out he’s the very first human who found me when I was a little spider.

For some reason, he was essentially bragging to them about how he ran away from me back in the day.

And this old labyrinth guide with the explosive-sounding name is apparently the father of someone who guided Hyrince a long time ago, which is how he ended up agreeing to guide Yamada’s group this time.

Um, hello? Hyrince?

Now they’ve got a super-skilled guide thanks to you!

What are you gonna do about it?!

Man, this guy is really good, too.

I pop into the Great Elroe Labyrinth every once in a while to check in on my spider babies, and I’ll admit I end up spying on the humans in there and stuff while I’m at it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the process, it’s that there are good guides and bad guides.

Even experienced guides get their paths mixed up sometimes, y’know?

And yet, this old guy is expertly leading them through the labyrinth without even glancing at a map. Only the most exceptional guides can manage stuff like that.

This guy really is a veteran, just like he appears to be.

So now Team Yamada’s journey is going way too smoothly.

They’ve all got relatively high stats, too, which makes their pace even faster.

This is really, really bad!

At this rate, they’ll make it through the Great Elroe Labyrinth with time to spare.

The only way into the elf village is by using one of the elves’ hidden teleport gates, but if they use the closest one to the Great Elroe Labyrinth exit that I know of, they’ll get there before the imperial army is scheduled to arrive.

Oh, by the way, I’m pretty sure I know about all of the elves’ teleport gates.

My mini-mes are the best at gathering information!

I mean, they’re palm-sized spiders that aren’t easily detected. Unless you’re specifically keeping a close eye out for them, they’re incredibly hard to spot.

And I’ve got them scattered across the world by the thousands, making my own super-powerful information network.

Anyway, I always keep an extra-close eye on elves, so it was easy to locate their teleport gates just by tailing the sneaky ones with my spy clones.

They have to go in and out once in a while, after all.

So I think I know about all the teleport gates that have been used since I sent out my clones, at the very least.

Although if there are any that haven’t been used in a long time, I wouldn’t have any way of finding those.

Heh. The elves probably think we don’t know where their teleport gates are.

Heh-heh-heh. Idiots.

They probably mock us, thinking we’re the stupid ones who don’t know anything, but now they’re about to get a taste of their own medicine.

Pfft. Bwa-ha-ha!

Okay, this is no time to be making fun of the elves.

What am I gonna do about Yamada and friends?

At this rate, if things keep going smoothly, they’re gonna make it to the elf village on time.

Hmm.

Should I sic the baby army on them?

I’m mostly talking about a bunch of white spiders that my old Parallel Minds produced.

Basically, they used the Egg-Laying skill to mass-produce a bunch of spider spawn.

…Except they somehow wound up attacking some human town with the Parallel Minds, and I ended up teleporting the survivors back into the Great Elroe Labyrinth here.

Ever since then, they’ve apparently been doing their own thing in the Labyrinth.

I popped in to say hi after I turned into a god, and they got super clingy.

I guess they still recognize me as their parent even after my deification.

Although technically, it was my Parallel Minds who made ’em, not me…

Anyway, from what I hear, folks call the baby army Nightmare’s Vestiges.

Oh, and I’m called the Nightmare of the Labyrinth.

Since they’re spider monsters that appeared after the Nightmare vanished, people must’ve just assumed there was some connection there.

Which is fair, since there totally is.

Maybe I could send the spider babies after Team Yamada to buy some time… No, wait…maybe not. Yamada and friends would totally get killed.

Even just one of those babies nearly took down the previous hero, Julius…

It’s not like Yamada is significantly stronger than Julius was, so if he had to fight a whole swarm of those things, his party would get wiped out for sure.

I do think that Yamada’s stats are probably higher than Julius’s were, but he’s got waaay less actual experience in battle.

Not as solid in the spirit and determination department, either.

So in practice, he’s about as strong as Julius the hero at best, or possibly even weaker.

Julius did manage to defeat that queen taratect clone, after all.

Although, that being said, with his level of strength, he really shouldn’t have been able to beat that thing in theory…but he totally did.

That hidden hero power is scary.

And since Yamada has that crazy Divine Protection skill on top of being the hero, I’ve gotta be extra careful.

Hmm. Hmmmm.

Seriously, what should I do, though?

It’d be kinda difficult to hinder Yamada and company without actually killing them.

We’d have to slow them down somehow while keeping everyone alive, y’know?

Killing them would be so much simpler.

But I won’t do that, because Ms. Oka is with them, of course.

Still, even if we managed to just injure them a bit, a little Healing Magic would fix it up right away, and that would be that.

It wouldn’t even slow them down.

Should I just straight-up teleport them back to the kingdom?

…Nope, that’s no good.

I don’t have enough hands to spare.

Honestly, I’m so damn busy right now that I don’t really have time to go personally mess around with Yamada and friends.

The best I can do is send someone else to try something, but my only option in the Great Elroe Labyrinth is the spider-baby army.

And if I give those kiddos an order, I can easily see them getting too excited and going overboard.

Even when one of them attacked Julius the hero, it was because they somehow learned that I was planning to take him down in the war, and they wanted to take care of it for me ahead of schedule.

If I asked them to slow down Yamada and company, I could totally see them doing something totally horrifying like cutting off their legs.

Or worse, just getting carried away and killing them outright.

If they killed anyone besides Yamada, he could bring them back to life, but it’s one hundred percent still too dangerous. Better not risk it.

Honestly, I’m way too busy to deal with this right now. Since I can’t do much to them anyway, it’s probably for the best if I just don’t bother trying to interfere.

I don’t have time to waste on them, quite frankly.

Even just keeping an eye on them like this is about the most I can do.

Still, I gotta admit, it’s actually pretty fun to watch them.

What’s fun about it, you ask?

Oh, you know. All sorts of things.

I never get bored, that’s for sure.

They always run into one crazy situation after another when I’m watching them.

Like Shinohara turning into a human.

Or the time it turned out that she totally couldn’t swim.

Man, that Humanification thing was a shocker.

I went through sooo much trouble to become an arachne, and here she is, turning into a human just like that!

Even after evolving into an arachne, I had to turn into a damn god to get a fully human form, you know!

And there was no Humanification skill on my list of options, either!

It’s no fair that dragons get to do that by default!

If dragon monsters get it, spiders should get it, too!

Except unlike dragons and wyrms, spiders don’t have universal skills like that!

But whatever. It’s fine.

Especially since, after all that, everyone found out Shinohara can’t swim, which must’ve been sooo embarrassing for her.

Psh. I can’t believe that stuck-up bully couldn’t even swim.

You think I could see that without laughing?

Nope, not possible!

Aaah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

I can’t help taking a bit of pleasure in her suffering, probably because I have memories of being bullied by her.

Although the person who was actually bullied is the real Hiiro Wakaba, also known as D.

And I’d imagine it was probably more like being barked at by a harmless little puppy from D’s point of view.

But since the memories feel unpleasant to me, I guess D didn’t exactly enjoy it, either.

I assume.

Anyway, then the helpless non-swimmer Shinohara got chased in the water by a water dragon, just flailing around like an idiot.

Ahh, that was fun all right.

And then the dragon’s breath attack sent her flying, messed up her swimsuit, and got Yamada a nice little fanservice event, too, which was all hilarious to boot.

Shinohara doesn’t really seem to be aware of Yamada as a guy, but since she got squished up against him in such an unladylike state, of course he ended up staring at her a little.

What is this, a rom-com?

Obviously, there’s gonna be a bunch more accidental romantic moments after this, and she’s totally gonna end up falling for Yamada…

Then it’ll develop into a love triangle, and bam, we’ve got a juicy soap opera on our hands!

Oh man. Is Yamada gonna get stabbed to death, or will it be one of the girls? I’m on the edge of my seat here.

No, wait a sec.

Considering the effects of Yamada’s Divine Protection skill, isn’t it more likely that things will stay on the romcom route and somehow build up to a harem ending?

What a scandalous skill! I’m definitely not jealous!

If every girl who joins Yamada’s side ends up falling in love with him, that skill is even scarier than I thought!

And it really does seem like a high percentage of them have already fallen head over heels.

Like his little sister, right? And Hasebe? And Ooshima?

Shinohara’s not there yet, and I don’t think Ms. Oka feels that way.

I don’t really think that half elf erstwhile maid of his, Anna, is in love with him, either.

It’s kinda more like loyalty than love, if I had to describe it?

Although I guess you could argue an oath of loyalty is pretty closely related to a declaration of love.

The nuance is just a little different.

…Huh?

I was only joking, but is it just me, or does Yamada actually have a harem forming around him?

Although that’s on hold right now thanks to Natsume.

…How much of this is the effect of the Divine Protection skill, I wonder?

If they fell for Yamada because of his personal virtues, that’s all well and good, but it’d be kinda messed up if it was because of a skill.

See, this is why it’s so hard to plan around a skill when you don’t know its exact effects.

What if that lucky-lecher moment when they got blown away by the water dragon was due to Divine Protection, too?

But if that’s the case, wouldn’t it mean that deep down, Yamada is secretly hoping for events like that to happen…?

W-well, he is at that age, I guess…

All jokes aside, though, it’s definitely kinda heartwarming to watch Team Yamada’s adventures.

I guess you could say there’s not much of a tragic tone to any of it.

Lately, everyone I have to do with seems to have some level of desperation due to a tragic backstory of some kind, y’know?

There’s the ones who try to fight against the grim fate of the demon race, like Agner, Balto, Warkis…

Not to mention the pontiff, who created a whole religion just to protect humanity and has been working his butt off basically forever.

Plus, there’s Black, who’s basically stuck between several rocks and hard places.

And of course, the Demon Lord, who rose up to save the Goddess.

Every last one of them has been driven to the depths of despair, and yet they keep fighting back without ever giving up.

It’s painful to watch.

But Yamada and friends don’t have that air of tragedy.

Sure, they’ve been through a lot themselves, and it’s not like they’re taking this lightly.

But still, they’re just kinda lacking it somehow.

The determination.

I guess that’s probably because they haven’t gotten into one of those situations yet that really puts your determination to the test.

Julius the hero, on the other hand, chose his own path in no small part because he had his determination constantly called into question.

But since this crew hasn’t experienced what I would call true suffering yet, it still doesn’t feel like they’ve really got their feet on the ground.

Not that you’d really want to get used to a violent, hack-and-slash world like this one, I guess.

But this is the same world Julius the hero wanted to protect.

So even though I’m sure these guys are totally serious, I can’t help getting a kinda warm and fuzzy feeling when I watch over them.

Watching guys like Agner was just stressful, and I ended up having to personally send him to his death, so that didn’t help.

…But if Yamada and his merry band do reach the elf village, they’re definitely gonna get caught up in the impending storm.

I doubt things will stay heartwarming for them then.

Because if they get involved in the battle at the elf village, they’re gonna find out just how awful this world truly is.

I was really hoping they would just sit tight and behave until it’s all over, without having to learn any of that.

But if the journey is going this smoothly for them, it means that’s what Yamada himself really wants.

At this point, I definitely have to suspect that Divine Protection is at play here.

And if this is what Yamada wants, if they’re going to get there no matter what’s waiting up ahead, then they’ll just have to accept whatever happens there.

Even if it’s something that goes against Yamada’s wishes.

Thus, we had some laughs, a few tears, and a little bit of sentimental rambling, to the point where I want to make fun of myself for going on such an emotional rollercoaster, but the long and short of it is: Sure, I’m keeping an eye on Yamada and friends.

It seems like Hyrince doesn’t want them to get to the elf village so quickly, either, as he appears to have planned an obstacle of his own.

As soon as Team Yamada sets foot in the Great Elroe Labyrinth, the craziest thing shows up.

An earth dragon, to be specific.

It’s a freshly evolved one, so weak that it doesn’t even compare to Araba.

I guess he had a wyrm in the Upper Stratum quickly exterminate a bunch of monsters up there so it could level up and evolve.

Man, way to mess up the whole ecosystem. Again.

I roll my eyes as I watch Yamada’s party do battle.

A dragon is still a dragon, even if it’s a relatively weak one.

Its stats and skills are far beyond those of any ordinary monster.

Even Julius never defeated a dragon. (Although I bet he could have taken on a lesser dragon if he encountered one.)

But for Yamada and company, this thing is far and away the strongest monster they’ve ever encountered.

Incidentally, if you don’t worry about categories like monsters and stuff, the strongest foe Yamada has ever faced is our own Vampy.

She’d be able to defeat an earth dragon like that without even breaking a sweat.

In other words, if they can’t even take on a baby earth dragon like this one, they definitely won’t be able to beat Vampy.

Still, Yamada’s stats are high enough that he’s probably not gonna lose, even if he might struggle a little.

Plus, it’s not like he’s alone—he’s got allies like Shinohara.

Now that she’s evolved into a light wyrm, Shinohara’s stats are even higher than Yamada’s.

Monsters’ stats seem to go up faster than humans’, just like mine did back in the day.

Even though she’s technically still a wyrm, it looks like Shinohara’s stats are on par with a full-fledged dragon.

See? Just now, she sent that earth dragon flying.

Imagine a dragon getting punched in the face by a little girl and going down hard…

I mean, can you blame me for thinking it looks a little pathetic?

It looks like I’m not the only one who thinks that was embarrassing: The earth dragon itself is practically steaming and charges at Shinohara in a rage.

But Shinohara easily blocks the swipe of its claws.

So much for the pride of earth dragons…

After that, they use some kind of firestorm magic to pin the earth dragon, and Yamada delivers the finishing blow. Just like that, the earth dragon is done for.

Farewell, sweet pride…

Wow. Never mind slowing them down, didn’t you basically just give Yamada some EXP and the Dragon Slayer title on a silver platter?

Ahh, maybe that’s what Hyrince was after in the first place.

Like, if it doesn’t seem like we can stop him, we might as well make him a little stronger?

Hmm. Well, there’s no way of knowing right now what Hyrince was really thinking, but this totally worked out in Yamada’s favor.

Divine Protection doing its thing again, maybe…?

At this point, I’m incredibly tempted to just blame every stroke of luck Yamada comes by on his Divine Protection skill.

Wait, what’s this now?

“Hero?”

Making a surprise guest appearance while talking to Yamada and friends by way of Telepathy is one of my spider babies.

Huh? What are you guys doing here?

Um, hang on a sec, I don’t want you to do anything weird…

Crap. I’ve kinda got my hands full at the moment, so if the baby army decides to attack Team Yamada, I can’t stop them.

What do I do?!

“Hero.” “Ruler?”

“Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.”

Oh geez, a whole bunch of babies are swarming around them now!

“Cannot be Appraised?”

“Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.” “Cannot be Appraised.”

“Ruler?”

“Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.” “Ruler.”

“Reincarnation?”

“Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.” “Reincarnation.”

“But they’re weak?”

“Weak.” “Weak.” “Weak.” “Weak.” “Weak.” “Weak.”

“Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.” “Weak. Weak.”

Hey now! Just because they’re weak doesn’t mean you can attack them!

“You know about reincarnations?!”

There goes Yamada.

Is this guy totally fearless or what?!

I can’t believe he’s actually talking to the spider-baby army.

He’s not worried they’ll attack him?

“We do.” “We do.” “Of course we do.”

“Why do you know that?”

Phew. It doesn’t seem like they’re gonna jump him right away, at least.

“Master.” “Master.”

“Mother.” “Mother.”

Okay, you’re talking about me, right?

“Is this ‘Master’ a reincarnation?”

“You’ll know soon enough.” “You’ll find out soon enough.” “You’ll find out.” “You’ll know.”

Yeah, I guess that’s true.

If Yamada and friends end up reaching the elf village, we’ll probably meet face-to-face.

“What do you mean?”

“Proclamation.” “Pronouncement.”

“The beginning of the end.”

“The world begins.”

“The world ends.”

“Please wait! What does that mean?!”

Yeah, seriously, what does that mean?!

Do these kids even know what they’re saying?

They’re not just trying to sound cool and foreboding for no reason, are they?

“You don’t need to know.”

“You’ll die anyway.”

“You’ll all die.”

“Just struggle to survive.”

With that, the babies disappear, leaving Yamada and his party alone.

Ugh, now what…?

Looks like my kids are going through an edgy phase right now…

Now that they made it out of sight of Yamada and company, they’re jumping around looking super pleased with themselves, like We did the thing!

Where did I go wrong raising you guys?

…Well, they didn’t attack him, so I guess it’s fine.

They just rattled off some needlessly cryptic BS and freaked out Yamada and his friends… What were they trying to accomplish, exactly?

I have no idea what they’re thinking, even though they’re basically my descendants.

Was it a warning or something?

I dunno, though. I don’t think that’ll help.

At this point, it sorta feels like nothing Yamada and his friends do is gonna matter. They’re in so far over their heads.

In a way, I guess the babies might have succeeded in getting their group a little more mentally prepared for the worst.

Does that mean this was technically a positive event for Yamada, too?

…I dunno.

Divine Protection isn’t all-powerful; I probably shouldn’t blame it for every little thing.

If it was omnipotent, Natsume’s plot wouldn’t have succeeded in the first place, for one.

Plus his sister and Hasebe are still in Natsume’s clutches…

There’s no harm in being extra cautious, but I guess I shouldn’t be overly paranoid, either.

For now, I’ll just keep watching over Team Yamada.



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