Halankuo jumped back a few steps, though she was practically on her knees. The evil dog girl filled her with primal terror; although in her normal state Noru seemed cute.
"Don't worry, Noru is only angry at me right now," a voice said over Halankuo's head.
The girl jumped back a step again, which almost caused her head to hit the wall, but at the same time she was convinced that the voice belonged to her friend.
"If you're not a dinosaur, you have nothing to fear," Itinit smiled.
As soon as the owner finished his sentence, his restless dog girl pounced on him, and only a wall of energy, summoned reflexively by a movement of his hand, stopped this terrible creature.
"Sis, don't..." a quiet groan came from another part of the room. "Our creator is good."
The next moment, a spark appeared in front of Noru, who was forced to sit on the floor in front of the energy wall.
"Sis," Noru twitched her ears.
A spark fell into the dog girl's palms. A few moments later, the sisters were hugging each other as if they hadn't seen each other in ten years.
"Did something happen?" Itinit approached his friend and accidentally kicked the doll's head.
"Yeah," Halankuo grabbed her "little sister's" head by the hair. "I saw the doll."
"You can see her now."
"That's Sitihi. I saw another doll, with pink hair."
"A doll..."
Itinit fell to his knees. For a few moments his eyes stopped moving and moved slightly out of their slots. Only his brown hair indicated he was still human.
"What's wrong?" Halankuo looked at her friend and immediately turned away.
"Nothing," Itinit answered. "What was she wearing?"
"It's some kind of leaves with vines, similar to those that grew on the Southern Continent."
Itinit placed his hands on the floor and bowed his head. Halankuo noticed that her friend was wearing a yellow fur robe and black boots.
"You're dressed a bit strangely," Halankuo noticed.
Itinit rose from the floor and then looked down.
"I didn't think there would come a time when Halankuo would tell me this," Itinit sat down next to his friend and began examining her hair. "Are you sure you're Halankuo?"
"Don't be like Tuot. That doll is lurking around somewhere and might attack."
"You think I can handle it?"
"Yeah, you're into dolls."
Itinit turned away. Noru and Kimchan were still hugging, their tongues occasionally licking each other's cheeks.
"It's a healing doll," Itinit explained. "They're special."
"What's special about them?"
"They can recover automatically," the head in the hand of the "big sister" suddenly answered. "Unlike me…"
"Sorry, Sitihi," Halankuo approached the body, which hadn't survived the long wait and was already lying on the floor. "I forgot about you."
"I've fought with dolls like these," Itinit looked at the ceiling. "They are the highest form of non-living existence... they are so beautiful."
"Do you really like dolls?" Halankuo tried to attach the head to the body and simultaneously observe her strange friend.
"That's not the word," Itinit sighed. "Their hair is smooth, their skin is clear, and their eyes sparkle in the sun."
"There are other eyes that sparkle, too, aren't there?" Halankuo finally managed to attach the doll's head to its neck.
"They only have two eyes," Itinit looked out the window. "But that doll in the mask, I don't know how many..."
"Did you say 'in a mask'?" Halankuo crawled to her friend on her knees and looked at him.
"Yeah, you're acting a bit too active."
Halankuo turned away, and then took a step back. Silence fell, broken only by the faint moans of the happy dog girl sisters.
"You never said you had a little sister," Itinit looked at the doll, which was trying to rise from the floor.
"Uh..." Halankuo looked at Sitihi. "I'll explain it to you later."
"Okay. But our situation is really bad. If the dolls are wandering around the city, it means they need something here. But what, maybe your sister knows?"
Sitihi turned her head toward the creator of the dog girls, and then tilted it to the side.
"Don't turn your head, it'll break," Halankuo warned.
"It won't break," Sitihi tilted her head back. "It won't break now."
There was silence, but this time it was real. Both dog girls sat on the table, sniffing the air and twitching their ears.
"What's wrong?" Itinit asked. "Is someone coming here?"
"No," Kimchan answered. "My sis and I are trying to sense the energy of other beings, but there's so much of it, it's impossible."
"Maybe you should go to the outskirts and circle the city," Itinit suggested. "She might be there."
"She doesn't come into the city," Halankuo noted. "She hasn't attacked since we passed the block closest to the forest, although she can travel underground."
"She can also tear off her arm and eye and send it underground," Sitihi added. "She might be hiding somewhere underground right now, but we don't know."
Halankuo pressed her breasts with her hands and looked at her feet, but saw nothing but a floor of smooth gray stones.
"I can sense energy even underground," Kimchan closed her eyes. "Big sis does it worse, but only because she hasn't done it enough."
"Can you sense energy, even if it's just with one hand?" Sitihi asked.
"That's never happened before," Noru admitted. "But maybe little sis has?"
"I only had a statue," Kimchan closed her eyes.
"Is this the statue that came to life?" Halankuo asked.
"Yup, but then it wasn't a statue anymore." Kimchan answered.
"By the way, I completely forgot to ask..." Halankuo grabbed a strand of hair. "Itinit, did you learn something?"
"Yeah," Itinit approached one of the columns. "It's not exactly what we need, but it might be related. Let's continue somewhere else."
Soon, all the participants in the conversation were sitting in a windowless room with a large bed in the corner. The walls were covered with numerous virtual posters of girls with multicolored hair in strange costumes, as well as robots and animal girls.
"Itinit, this is too much even for Tuot," Halankuo covered her mouth with her hand to hide her smile.
"Don't worry, they won't come out," Itinit sat down on the bed.
Halankuo sank down onto the bed next to her friend, and then noticed the suspiciously "clean" stone ceiling, which was "dirty" by a few round light bulbs. The girl didn't look at the posters anymore. She'd grown tired of them during the time she'd shared an apartment with Tuot. Of course, Halankuo guessed his friend was also into something similar, so she wasn't at all surprised.
Sitihi lay down next to her "big sister" and even looked at the ceiling, although she didn't understand why she did it.
Noru and Kimchan sniffed the air, and then jumped onto the bed next to their creator.
"Pets need to know their place," Itinit said. "It's on the floor."
"But it's cold there, creator," Kimchan groaned.
"And you're hot."
Noru bared her teeth and growled like a bear. Halankuo flinched at the sudden, loud sound and nearly ended up under the bed, but as soon as she saw Kimchan's guilty expression and her sister's bared teeth, she sank to the floor and smiled.
"Don't chase away those eared creatures," Halankuo said to her friend. "They're cute."
"Until they burn down your house," Itinit added.
"Uh, they're really cute!" Halankuo jumped at her friend, nearly hitting him with her breast. "Look at them."
"Tuot controls you with a signal?"
Only now did Halankuo realize she was practically lying on Itinit. The girl turned away, after which she returned to "her" place next to Sitihi.
"Okay, I won't chase anyone away," Itinit had to admit his mistake. "The situation is not like that now."
The dog girls' creator told them about what had happened to him that night in the abandoned village.
"It's a good thing I wrote to your eared creatures," Halankuo said. "Now they shouldn't sleep on the table. You must give them two separate beds of the same size and another room."
"I don't want another room," Noru said. "I want to be with my sis."
"Uh..." Halankuo looked at Kimchan, who was staring fearfully at her creator, and then at Noru, who was hugging her sister.
"This is their room," Itinit explained. "My room is next door, but you can't go there."
Halankuo turned to the wall, decorated with posters of creatures so disparate that it seemed they had nothing in common. They were dolls with differently colored hair, wearing strange costumes, next to robot buyers, who in turn stood next to familiar girls with ears and tails. But, unlike the images in Tuot's room, they were wearing much more clothing, even more than Noru and Kimchan themselves.
"Why do they need this?" Halankuo pointed at the wall.
"It's so they don't get bored," Itinit explained. "They have something to do here. They'll bark at those creatures and not bother me."
Halankuo fell back onto the bed and pondered what her friend had said.
"If his dog girls have a room like this, then what kind of room does he have?"
"You're probably wondering what kind of room I have," Itinit guessed.
Halankuo got out of bed and looked at the creator of the dog girls in a way that even Tuot had never looked at him. In response, Itinit left the room.
"What is it?" Sitihi asked.
Halankuo didn't react. She stared at the messenger screen in front of her, reading a new message:
"My pets aren't allowed in there. You and your little sister are allowed in."
"I see," Halankuo thought and covered the screen with her hand. "There's just a secret fridge full of food."
"This doll was on the Southern Continent," Sitihi rose from the bed and looked at the weapon-head, which she was still holding by the hair.
"Have you seen her before?"
"Yes, I saw her, but little. Then they took me apart, and I don't remember whether I saw her again or not."
The rest of the conversation took place in the next room, without the dog girls. There were no longer any posters on the walls, only a large screen with an image of a doll with pink hair, covered in chains instead of clothes.
"This looks more like Itinit's room now," Halankuo was now almost certain her friend had told the truth.
The creator of the dog girls walked up to the wall and hid the poster with a wave of his hand, after which he sat down in the chair next to it. Sitihi and Halankuo settled on the sofa against the opposite wall.
"I've got an idea," Itinit said. "We could send someone to that doll to find out what she wants."
"Do you want to send your characters?" Halankuo asked.
"No, Noru and Kimchan aren't suitable for this. We could use another creature…"
"Robots..."
"Taikuron is in control of you now," Itinit joked, his expression calm. "Yeah, robots are the only option we have. I'll send one of the robot buyers there. It has a very thick shell, designed specifically to withstand attacks from my little animals. It also has several holes for cameras, so it can record everything it has seen and everything it hasn't."
"And what if the doll steals it?"
Itinit didn't answer. Instead, he swiped his hand across the wall, causing a blue energy screen to appear with numerous cells. Most of them were empty, but some were occupied by bug-like robot heads.
One cell stood out among them, featuring a robot head with yellow eyes and a gray helmet with two small horns.
"It's a monster from the game," Halankuo noted. "Tuot often complained about them. They're too hard."
"I ordered it on the network," Itinit admitted. "They let you choose the robot's appearance, and I chose the one that looked like the robot from the game."
"There weren't any doll heads?"
"Yeah, there were only robot heads there. People are afraid of dolls. They think their heads can come to life."
"That's not true," Sitihi interjected. "My sis' head never came to life, even though many years have passed. It doesn't talk, it just glows."
… While the creatures were deciding what to do, a large robot buyer with a head in a horned helmet and a body made of metal plates drove up to the bed.
"How does it move?" Halankuo crouched down and tried to peer under the plates, which almost reached the floor and concealed the most vulnerable parts of the body.
"Honestly, I don't know," Itinit admitted. "I could turn it over, but I don't think he'd like that. It's better to use this thing for its intended purpose. Well, not exactly for its intended purpose."
Itinit ran his finger over the robot's shell. There appeared a screen with buttons, similar to the control panel of the control panel of a flying machine.
"Now I need to send it to the right place," the dog girl creator raised his hand to the vibrating screen. "But where should I send it?"
"You could just send it outside the town," Halankuo suggested. "The doll will find it itself."
"Healing dolls are more sensitive than combat dolls," Sitihi said. "They can distinguish a creature from a robot."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Itinit slapped his face.
Sitihi stared at the robot with lifeless eyes, glinting in the light from the ceiling bulb, and seemed to understand nothing.
"We could send some creature there," the doll suggested. "But it would have to be a creature that can be abandoned."
"This creature that doesn't cause pity," Itinit guessed. "I have such a creature. I even have two creatures."
Halankuo looked at her friend with fear, making him realize he'd said something wrong.
"No, it's not Noru and Kimchan," Itinit smiled. "It's a gift from the spirit of mushrooms."
***
Timnichan stopped on the bank of a medium-width river flowing from snow-capped mountains on the horizon. Small ice floes floated past the rocky banks covered with coniferous trees, then disappeared behind a large cliff.
"She doesn't show us where to go," Yueret said, approaching the coastal rock. "And she doesn't even smile."
Timnichan really wasn't smiling and simply stared at the water. The cold lizard spirit's face was so serious, as if her previous version had been quietly replaced.
Unana approached Yueret and stood behind him. Timnichan didn't react to the appearance of the younger of the "cubs" and continued to stare at the water.
"Yueret, I think something's about to crawl out of there."
The older "little bear" wanted to answer, but didn't have time. Ripples appeared on the surface of the water, and then a lizard's head emerged, with blue-green scales and a single horn on its forehead.
Yueret summoned his shield and prepared to activate his aura along with the barrier, but it was unnecessary. Instead of another strange creature, a simple wooden boat emerged from the water, complete with three seats: one at the bow and two at the back. The lizard's head turned out to be just part of the vessel's bow.
"Now we'll sail," a silly smile returned to Timnichan's face. "I'll order the boat to come to shore now, so the bear cubs don't get wet. Your fur dries too slowly. That's what the first creator said."
"Did he make this thing, too?" Yueret asked.
"No, I summoned this," Timnichan knelt and bowed her head. "It's a lizard boat from the river bottom. Only I can summon it and control it."
The lizard girl opened her mouth and her tongue ended up in the water.
Unana turned away. Yueret was once again forced to watch the strange things this strange character was doing.
"Dad, why?" the brother and sister thought simultaneously.
Ripples formed in the water. Soon, a tongue emerged from the river near the bow of the boat, grabbed the lizard's head by the neck, and dragged it toward the shore.
"Uh, at least she didn't go on her tongue," Yueret sighed. "It's cold and wet."
"What?" Unana fell to her knees and trembled.
"What is it?" Yueret turned to his sister.
"Nothing," Unana touched the back of her thigh.
"Now I understand why my bed was wet. When I slept, it wasn't the cold lizards coming through the window, but the tongue."
Thus Unana learned the terrible truth her older brother had tried to protect her from.