"How is it holding up?" Noru asked.
"Probably the way he held you with the wrench," Itinit answered. "It's strange, but nothing surprising really. The element of air can do that."
"Master, he's looking this way."
Itinit looked at his opponent and noticed that his eyes turned their pupils towards the cliff and instantly turned purple.
"Lie down," Itinit grabbed Noru by the hair and pulled her down, after which he himself bent down.
"Master, why?" the dog girl groaned.
"He can control objects from a distance. He usually does it with a wrench because he can't hold a target with his gaze for long. That's what the red-haired doll, who's his big sister, said. And here it is, it looks like."
A doll with long red hair, surrounded by a purple aura, landed on a pile of rocks a few steps away from the enemy.
"I haven't seen you like this in a long time, Kuttanai," the doll said. "I only recognized you by your eyes. You have nothing else."
The enemy's eyes turned to the doll.
"Am I not as scary as I was in the mask?" a voice seemed to come from Kuttanai's eyes.
"You can still talk," Ikte noted. "But Yuehei can't. She still can't answer my question."
"She can write. That's much better. Information is transmitted better through text. It's less distorted."
"This is from the being that speaks even without a mouth."
"I can do this because I am almost a doll. Living beings need a mouth and vocal cords to speak. Dolls only have a shell, and instead of organs, energy and mechanisms that transform it into something else."
"You do not warn those who want to become a doll about the shortcomings of dolls. That is why you have created so many dolls."
"You do not know about the shortcomings because you cannot feel. So for you, as a doll, it does not matter. You just repeat what you learned many years ago."
"Exactly," Ikte remembered. "I learned about it when I was human. That's why I still remember, even though I don't understand, what I felt then. It must have been something that tore me apart."
"Even now, you're just doing what you wanted to do when you were human," Kuttanai continued. "You haven't accepted that you're a doll. But why do you think so? Being a doll is better."
"Maybe it's better for you," Ikte rose a little above the ruins. "But not for me. I didn't choose to be a doll."
An electric clot appeared above Ikte's head.
An electrical clot appeared above Ikte's head.
"But Yuehei chose," Kuttanai looked at the wrench. "She wanted to be able to walk and help us, even if she couldn't talk."
The lightning bolt above Ikte's head turned into an electric ball, which then began to move slowly downwards.
"Did I really want to become a doll too?" Ikte thought. "I don't remember a lot of things. But I can't trust him."
"Why do you think you became a doll?" Kuttanai asked. "After I turned Yuehei into a doll, I couldn't be human anymore. I thought it would be unfair for her to remain a doll while I remained a living being. So I turned myself into a doll, though not a normal one."
The electric ball dropped below Ikte's chin.
"Did you think I thought the same as you did?" the doll asked.
"Yes," Kuttanai answered. "You said you would do anything for Yuehei."
"Did I say that?"
The electric ball dropped below the neck, met an obstacle in the form of the doll's chest and burst. Small, barely noticeable clots of energy appeared in the air, which slowly disappeared.
... The area around Ikte changed in an instant. Instead of ruins and a dense fern forest, the doll was on the bank of a wide river. That same river...
"My data left my body," Ikte guessed. "I entered the memories, but my body remained there."
"Sis, look what I found," a high-pitched voice came from behind.
Ikte turned around and saw a girl in a gray-brown fur dress that reached her knees. Her long black hair almost reached her brown deer fur boots.
"Yuehei…" Ikte recognized the girl as her little sister. "What are you doing here?"
"I found a hole," the girl looked happily at her big sister. "Someone lives there. I'm afraid to go there by myself. Let's go there together."
Ikte looked at little Yuehei and couldn't understand how this smiling girl would later become a doll with pink hair.
"It's been a while since I've seen Yuehei like this. Should I go with her? Even if these are my memories, maybe it will somehow help that Yuehei who is now a doll."
Ikte walked up to her little sister. The girl grabbed the doll's hand and ran forward, towards the coniferous forest on top of the hill.
Ikte felt something pulling her forward, as if someone was looking at her feet with activated pupils. The doll looked down and saw purple boots on her feet, which were replaced by white knee-high stockings higher up.
"Someone changed my legs. They were different. My clothes were different."
Soon the sisters came to the top of a hill that overlooked the surrounding area. The river was far away, but it still looked very wide, like a narrow sea strait. On the other bank, endless blue-green forests stretched to the horizon.
"Sister, look here."
Ikte felt her hand twitch on its own, and suddenly she realized something.
"I used to feel bad when I was hit or fell," the doll thought. "Then I said that it hurt."
"Sis, you're looking in the wrong direction. Look ahead."
The hand twitched again. Ikte managed to react and noticed that Yuehei was holding her hand and pulling it down.
"The hand isn't moving on its own," the doll thought. "And something is happening to her at the same time. Do I really feel something?"
Ikte looked to the side and saw a dark hole at the top of the hill, and small piles of earth nearby.
"Let's go there," Yuehei pointed to the hole with her free hand.
"Your head will fit in there," Ikte answered. "But the other parts won't pass."
"Why? I had a dream where I was able to enter a hole. There were a lot of animals there. I played with them, and then rode them."
"But something scary could crawl out of that hole and bite your head off. Do you want to walk around without a head?"
"What do you mean?"
"She doesn't know now what happens when a head is cut off, but when she grows up, she'll find out," Ikte thought. "It seems to me that something unusual is happening to me. It's as if I'm splitting apart, but my arms and legs aren't falling off."
"Let's go to that place together when you grow up," Ikte suggested. "Then you'll be big and no one will eat you."
"But I want to go now."
"Yuehei looked at the hole in the ground. The girl wanted to get closer to the entrance to the dungeon, but she was afraid."
"Do you promise that you won't forget?" Yuehei looked at her big sister.
"I won't forget," Ikte answered. "Let's go to the river. There's nothing dangerous there. Cold lizards live there, but they won't bite your head off. They don't have teeth."
The sisters descended a steep path to a narrow strip of land sandwiched between rocks and water. From here, the low opposite bank was not visible at all, making the river seem like a sea.
"There are no lizards here," Yuehei looked at the water. "They don't want to come out. Maybe they need to be fed?"
Ikte also looked at the water, but not to see the lizards. She wanted to see her reflection in the water, since she didn't know how to get a mirror from her inventory.
"Sis, what do lizards eat?"
"Yup, let's go there!" Yuehei jumped for joy. "The lizards are big. You can ride them."
Ikte took her little sister down to the river. The dark blue waves crashed against the high cliffs along the shore, then flowed downstream.
Ikte didn't answer. She saw a girl in the water with long black hair, wearing a grey-brown fur dress.
("Am I not a doll anymore?") Ikte felt everything inside her being divided.
"Answer, sis!"
Ikte looked at Yuehei and noticed that her little sister was looking at her and trembling with curiosity. It seemed that she wanted to hear the answer more than to see the cold lizards.
But there was no answer again.
… "I'm sorry, Yuehei, next time."…
… The space around Ikte changed. Now she was standing in ruins again, in the middle of a dense fern forest.
"I'm back?"
Ikte summoned the inventory, opened the mirror, but instead of a person she saw a doll with red hair and eyes that did not blink.
"No, I'm a doll. Those were just my memories. For some reason Kuttanai didn't delete them. Maybe I should ask him?"
The doll looked around, but her little brother was nowhere to be found.
***
Kyotyoryon wandered along the dark corridor until she came across a small lever in the wall. The spirit of metal grabbed it with her hand and felt a weak impulse.
"There's metal in this thing. It's good. Without it, I'd be lost. I need to get it out of here so the evil dolls don't steal it."
The spirit of metal tried to pull the lever out of the wall, but it wasn't going to leave its stone abode.
"I'm trying to save it, but it doesn't want to," Kyotyoryon's eyes widened. "Maybe the evil dolls did something to it?"
The lever dropped sharply and almost twisted the character's arm. Kyotyoryon was forced to let it go.
"It's because of the dolls. My metal is against me now."
As soon as the lever stopped, the wall shook along with the floor. Kyotyoryon jumped back a few steps and ran into another wall, which was also shaking.
After a few moments, the darkness was replaced by light, but it did not help Kyotyoryon. The character's eyes now saw white instead of a black background.
"The evil dolls changed my eyes," Kyotyoryon raised her hand to the top of her face. "They used to work properly, but now they're not working. I need to fix them."
A short blade emerged from the bracelet on the character's arm, but instead of an eye, it stuck into her cheek.
"It doesn't work. Okay, I'll deal with the eyes later. Now I have to leave here, otherwise the evil dolls will appear and take me away."
The blade went back into the bracelet. Gray filler came out of the wound on her cheek, but the spirit of metal didn't pay attention to it.
Soon, dark silhouettes began to appear on the white background. Kyotyoryon saw the outlines of a large room in front of her, and then she felt something.
"I found the place where the evil dolls hide my metal. I need to get it before they come."
Kyotyoryon entered the room. The outlines became more and more detailed, and soon the spirit of the metal saw a chain hanging from the ceiling.
"It's that doll..." Something inside the character seemed to break. "She's the most evil one."
Kyotyoryon forgot about wanting to take "my metal" and turned towards the exit of the room to escape. But a stone slab suddenly emerged from the wall a step away from the character's foot...
Of course, Kyotyoryon did not accept this. She stuck her foot into the opening, which stopped the slab, and then hit her head on the obstacle.
Cracks appeared in the slab and even pieces of rock broke off, but it did not help. The slab stood firm.
"This thing is made of stone. It is weaker than metal because there is too much of it. There is no such thing as too much of something strong."
The spirit of metal struck on the stone slab again with her head. The cracks grew, but the slab proved too stable.
"There is too much stone. To defeat it, I need more metal."
"My metal came to my aid. It always comes when I think of it. There is a lot of it now, and it is enough to defeat the stone."
The spears flew into the "door." Kyotyoryon looked around and watched as the sharp metal sticks hit the stone surface of the slab, flew back, and then dissolved into thin air.
"Why? There was a lot of my metal. The stone does not fight fairly!"
Kyotyoryon felt something heavy inside her. The spirit of metal bowed her head. A few moments later, a few drops of water fell to the floor…
"If my metal is weaker than the dolls' stone, then I'm not a true spirit of metal. The creator shouldn't have called me that. I should just be called something with metal horns."
Kyotyoryon grabbed the horns with her hands.
"My metal can't be in my head. I'm not a real metal spirit, so I have to get it out of my head."
Kyotyoryon tried to pull her horns up, but she was stopped by a loud crack that filled the entire surrounding space.
…The stone slab, covered with cracks, finally gave way…
Kyotyoryon jumped back. The fragments of the slab fell to the floor. The door, which had been impassable until recently, was now a pile of stones that could simply be jumped over.
Kyotyoryon realized that she could now run, but in reality she could only make one movement with her leg. The spirit of metal froze in place, after which she heard the clanking of a chain behind her.
"I forgot that there was that evil doll. But that doesn't matter now. I defeated the stone, which means I am a real spirit of metal and I can defeat even that evil doll, because metal is stronger than stone."
***
Timnichan led Unana, Yueret and their puppy-shaped pet to the mouth of the river. A small stream of water flowed between the mountains along a ravine, came out onto the snow and suddenly slowed down. It seemed that it did not have enough strength to reach the sea, although it was very close. And yet, through the thickness of the snow, several small, barely noticeable streams broke through.
"Is this how the river flows into the sea?" Unana looked at the puddle in the middle of the snow.
"Yup," Timnichan answered. "This river starts there, in the mountains, and then flows into the sea. It doesn't choose where to flow. The earth makes it."
"This is not how I imagined it," Unana made an angry face.
Timnichan approached the stream of water in front of the snowdrift, and then stuck her foot in.
"Are we going somewhere?" Yueret asked.
"There," Timnichan pointed toward the mountains covered with coniferous forests and snow-capped peaks. "The river hasn't frozen yet, so we'll be able to get there along it."
Yueret and Unana looked at the lizard girl, who was barefoot in the water. But Timnichan only smiled stupidly.
"Come here," the spirit of the cold lizard said. "It's not cold here."
"Not cold for you," Unana frowned.
"Will you float on yourself?" Yueret guessed.
"You'll see now," Timnichan answered. "But you might not even notice it."
Unana looked at her brother.
"She says something strange, but I agree," Yueret answered. "If it helps find the parents, we must use everything we can."
Unana had to summon her inventory. Soon, heavy black boots and stockings were moved into the cells, after which the girl felt that she could not stand on the ground.
Luckily, the purple aura came to the rescue. It lifted the archer above the cold snow and moved her to the mini-river. The vibrations that came from the aura caused ripples to form in the water.
"You're too warm," Timnichan said. "You don't have to take off your shoes. The water will soak them anyway."
Unana felt the cold creeping higher and higher and completely capturing the lower part of her body…
Unana tried to summon her inventory again to put her shoes back on her reddened feet, but she didn't have time. Something large carried her forward...
The archer came to her senses only a few moments later. In the distance, the sea was visible, with mountain slopes covered with coniferous forests descending to it.
"We've already arrived," a voice was heard from below. "This is the top of the mountain. It's a bit cold here, but you're warm, so you'll warm up."
Unana looked down and saw a lizard's head covered in grey scales. The creature stood on the snow with thick paws and seemed not to feel the cold at all.
"This is the same lizard girl," Unana thought. "She can transform, like Kimchan. By the way, where is that dog?"
The archer forgot about the cold for a while, looked around, but found only her big brother, who was already standing in front of the entrance to some cave.
"Yueret, I think we forgot..." Unana started the sentence, but did not have time to finish.
... A bright fireball flew past, after which it disappeared into the cave.
"Kimchan".