Halankuo looked anxiously at the screen with the character in the "Mausoleum of Nature ".
"It's because of me," the girl thought. "I have to go to her. But I won't have time..."
Fortunately, the background in the character window stopped flickering. The screen vibration stopped. The model of Kyotyoryon now stood on a normal black background.
For a few moments, Halankuo could not understand what had happened. Then the anxiety left her, and the girl opened the map.
The red dot was on the coast of the Southern Continent, near a peninsula that jutted far out into the sea.
"She's gone too far," Halankuo noted. "There's no civilization on the Southern Continent. There may be many terrible creatures there that haven't been studied yet. One of them could have attacked Kyotyoryon. I need to fly there. Otherwise, Kyotyoryon may not exist because of me."
"Are you sure?" a voice rang out in the girl's head. "It's too far."
"Yeah. I'll ask a friend to help me fly there. Kyotyoryon needs to be saved urgently."
Halankuo opened the inventory, took out clothes and shoes, and then went to the door, but it did not open.
"I did not close the inventory," Halankuo guessed and turned around.
Two cells were "hanging" in the air: one with black boots, the other with gray shorts. Behind them was a large inventory window.
"It's a good thing the system doesn't allow you to leave the house with your inventory open," Halankuo sighed. "Otherwise, I would leave the house in just a T-shirt again."
***
Kyotyoryon woke up on the seashore and saw a large crab with a red shell and claws crawling next to her.
"It's covered in armor," the most ordinary thoughts immediately appeared in the metal spirit's head. "It's hard to cut."
Kyotyoryon tried to move her hand, but she couldn't. Her body wouldn't obey her. The spirit of metal looked around and realized that she was too close to the surface of the earth, so close that her chin was touching the sand.
This saved the crab from the foolish creature. Only Kyotyoryon's head was sticking out of the sand, so she couldn't stab anyone.
"Where am I?" Kyotyoryon looked towards the forest. "There are too many of these sticks to get through here. That means I'm where I was. I need to go back to the head without clothes and cut it. The main thing is that there is no horned one there. It will get in my way."
Kyotyoryon transformed into a battle form and with one upward movement broke out of the sand.
"You can't go there," a familiar voice was heard.
A doll emerged from the water with a weapon-head in one hand and a shovel in the other. Kyotyoryon recognized it immediately, returned to its original form, and landed on the sand with its feet.
"You were almost crushed," the doll said. "I sunk you underground and took you to another place. She won't haunt you here."
"You're that doll with the head..." Kyotyoryon said. "You're evil, but not very."
"Yes, I'm Sitihi," the doll answered. "It's good that you haven't forgotten me. I have not forgotten you either."
"Why did you come here? Did you follow me?"
"I followed your train back on the Northern Continent. It seemed to me that my sister's body was on the other side of the sea."
"You said something like that... Now I will remember..."
Kyotyoryon grabbed her horns with her hands, but after several dozen moments she let them go.
"I remembered," the spirit of metal answered. "I wanted to go with you. But now I can't. I need to destroy the horned head without clothes. There is a place there where there is nothing. They can send me there. But I don't want to go there."
"You can't go there," Sitihi said. "They almost crushed you there."
"Then I discharged. Now I am charged and can cut anything."
Sitihi stuck the shovel into the sand. Kyotyoryon jumped up to avoid falling into the knee-deep sand, waved her arms and activated the wings from her bracelets.
"You don't know where to go," the doll said.
"I found it last time, so I'll find it this time," Kyotyoryon answered. "I know what's in front of this place."
The spirit of metal turned toward the forest and mountains that were visible on the horizon.
"If you go there, I'll cut off your head," Sitihi pulled the shovel out of the sand and raised it. "I'll cut off with this sword."
"I can't walk without a head," Kyotyoryon thought. "I'll have to not go there."
***
Unana opened her eyes and realized that she was lying on a log near the paving stones, worn out in some places and overgrown with herbaceous plants and moss. Around her grew a normal forest of coniferous and deciduous trees, but something was wrong.
The archer looked around and noticed the wooden ruins of a house across the path, hidden by bushes and a tree with double leaves.
"This is an abandoned village," Unana guessed. "What am I doing here? I've never fallen asleep in a place like this before."
The girl stepped one foot onto the moss that grew near the log. It was wet and cool. Unana immediately remembered how she had gone looking for Kimchan and almost spent the night in the forest.
"I came here to find Kimchan, but I didn't find her," the archer remembered. "Instead, I met a man who introduced himself as my uncle and said that my dad had asked him to look after me and Yueret. What nonsense. How could I have such a dream?"
***
Itinit and Kimchan sat in a flying machine that was moving over low mountains covered with mixed forests.
"It's good that she didn't see you," Itinit said. "I didn't want to reveal myself too early."
"M-i-i-i-i ght have been possible to take off her clothes," Kimchan suggested. "Then she will understand for sure that she fell asleep and did not meet anyone."
"And where should I put it?"
"You can take it with you".
"She will guess even more if she doesn't find in her inventory the very clothes she was wearing."
"The owner's clothes don't fit in her inventory. Every day she dresses in something new."
"I hope she doesn't suspect anything anyway. Let her think it was a dream."
The roofs of buildings appeared behind the mountains. From the air, Yenekit did not look like a city, but like a castle without walls, which someone had placed on the flat top of a mountain.
Itinit pressed several buttons on the blue translucent control panel. The "metal bird" stopped above a clearing on the flat top of the mountain opposite the city and began to land.
"Why did we come here, creator?" Kimchan asked. "Is this a cunning plan?"
"Yes, too cunning," Itinit smiled. "A friend of mine, a dinosaur, wants a dog girl. I will give you to him so that he can cook dinner."
A dog groan was heard from the back seat. Itinit turned around. Kimchan was crying and shaking with fear.
"Don't be afraid, it's a joke," Itinit stroked the character on the top of his head. "Actually, I promised to take someone to our island."
"It's not a dinosaur?"
"No. The dinosaur is already on the island."
Kimchan's eyes widened in fear. Instead of words, a bark mixed with a groan came out of the character's mouth.
"Don't be afraid, he won't eat your older sister," Itinit laughed.
Kimchan stopped barking and touched her chin to the back of the chair in which her creator was sitting, but soon regretted it. The aircraft landed in a clearing, and the dog-girl's head was almost carried away to the ceiling.
The door opened. Kimchan fell out of the cabin. Itinit managed to grab her by the hair so that the unlucky character did not hit his head on the hard rocky surface of the mountain peak, although covered in moss here and there.
"Let go-o-o-o!" the dog girl howled. "I didn't do anything..."
Itinit put the character on his feet, like a toy, and landed next to him.
"She should be here," Itinit said. "Do you feel anything?"
Kimchan stretched her head out, sniffed the air, and then wiggled her ears.
"Someone is coming here," the dog girl said. "This creature has an air element.
"So far it seems correct," Itinit confirmed.
"But this creature is somehow different. It's as if it's not one, but it seems to be one."
Kimchan pressed herself against Itinit.
"Creator, will you protect me?" the dog girl looked at the guy with a sad look.
"Actually, a dog should protect its owner," Itinit objected.
"You are my creator, not my master. My owners are Yueret and Unana. You said so yourself."
"It was a cover for your mission."
Kimchan looked down and whined. Moments later, tears fell onto her breast. Itinit had to hug the dog girl and stroke her head, then take a sausage out of his inventory and give it to her. It worked: Kimchan grabbed the prey with her teeth and carried it behind the flying machine.
Itinit looked carefully at the edges of the clearing, but no one came out of the forest. The guy tried to hear at least something, but he only heard the loud chomping of his own character.
Itinit opened the virtual screen to write to his friend, but did not have time to enter the messenger. Kimchan finished the sausage and returned to the creator.
"There," the dog girl pointed with her hand to a tree with double leaves on the outskirts of the forest.
Itinit looked at the place. After a few moments, the leaves on the lower branch of the tree began to move. A girl with long black hair appeared from the forest, and Itinit recognized Halankuo in her.
"She's alone," Kimchan noted.
"Did you imagine something scary?" Itinit smiled.
Kimchan didn't answer. Instead, she hid behind the creator's back, and then disappeared in the form of a puppy behind the flying machine.
Halankuo noticed her friend and approached him.
"Sorry I'm late," Halankuo looked at the moss beneath her feet. "I don't know this place very well."
"Nothing," Itinit answered. "I recently arrived. Now I can take you to the island."
"I want to tell you something."
Halankuo turned her back to Itinit. It was obvious that this conversation was not easy for her.
"I recently saw a red background on the model of Kyotyoryon," the girl admitted. "Then it disappeared."
"The red background appears when the character is no longer quite alive," Itinit explained. "It's okay. You can create a new character."
"I don't want another character. I've been thinking about Kyotyoryon a lot lately. If something happens to her, it will be my fault. Because of my actions, she left me."
"I shouldn't have given Halankuo advice," Itinit thought. "Now I'm involved in this too."
"Is she still alive?" Itinit asked.
"Yea," Halankuo turned to her friend, but still looked down. "It's on the northern coast of the Southern Continent. It's very far from here."
Itinit looked at the "metal bird," behind which a dog's tail was visible.
"I can't fly to the Southern Continent now," Itinit thought. "I need to hand over Taikuron and the Myuryuri dolls urgently. Flying so far with Taikuron could be dangerous. Theoretically, he can't get out of the "Mausoleum of Nature" since he's on the server, but if some kind of error occurs, he could free itself."
White clouds moved slowly across the bright blue sky. They gave Itinit an idea.
"What if I send Taikuron and the dolls through the net, and fly to the Southern Continent myself?" the creator of the dog girls thought. "Of course, that's unreliable. If Taikuron gets out again, we won't be able to catch it. That time was too lucky. What should I do?"
***
The wooden gazebo transported Tuot to the top of the mountain. From there, a view opened up of the gray-blue sea, and behind him was a crater with a lake in the middle.
"I don't see anything," Tuot looked around. "Where is she?"
"You won't find her that easily," a voice came from the gazebo.
A mammoth head with horns flew up to Tuot, surrounded by a blue energy barrier that looked like a bubble.
"Sometimes you can catch anything from the sea," Myuryuri said. "If you dreamed about it, it might be here."
Tuot took a few steps toward the sea and saw a steep slope that ended abruptly in sheer cliffs. Behind them, right at the water's edge, stretched a strip of black sand beach.
"I'll fall here," Tuot said.
"Use your aura," Myuryuri advised.
"I'll fall on slopes like these even with my aura. Can't a flying house go lower?"
"You can't fly there."
"Why?"
"You'll find out for yourself. Good luck."
Myuryuri went to the gazebo, after which the gazebo flew along the purple energy rope, which had not yet disappeared.
"Even Itinit did not throw me like that," Tuot thought. "It's good that I at least know how to use a fishing rod."
Tuot walked along the ridge of the mountain to find a suitable place to descend. But on the steep rocky slopes of the volcano, only coniferous trees and bushes grew, which here and there formed a forest.
The dinosaur noticed a large, spreading tree with thick branches and a trunk. It was a conifer, but, unlike most trees, it seemed strong. An idea appeared in Tuot's head.
A green energy aura surrounded the dinosaur. A few moments later, an energy harpoon emerged from the tail of the aura, which wrapped around one of the tree's branches, after which it transferred Tuot to a stone in the middle part of the slope.
Ahead of him was a forest that covered the lower part of the slope. There were no thick trees here, and it was impossible to use a harpoon.
"In the dream, I was already standing on the shore," Tuot realized that he had gone down to the wrong place. "But how did I end up there?"
The harpoon let go of the tree branch and returned to its owner. An idea came into the dinosaur's head again, even stranger than the previous one.
Tuot pushed off the rock he was standing on with the harpoon and flew up over the forest. He soon began to fall, but still managed to fly over the lower part of the slope and land right on the edge of the cliff. From here, there was a view of the shore with black sand, washed by low waves.
"Now all that's left is to jump onto the shore," Tuot looked down. "But there's nothing to grab onto."
Soon, a descent was found. It turned out to be a ditch, along which a stream flowed from the forest. It broke through the rock, came out onto the sand and flowed into the sea.
Tuot, without an aura, went down into the ditch, which resembled a miniature model of a canyon, and walked along the stream. Soon, the dinosaur was already standing on the black sand and looking at the waves that were noisily rolling onto the shore.
"This sand is black because of the lava that once flowed into the sea," Tuot thought. "I read about it online in a dream. It's somehow strange to see it in reality."
The dinosaur summoned his inventory, pulled out a wooden stick with a hook on the end and a rubber human head covered in black hair.
"How do you put this bait on?" Tuot thought. "There are no holes. Oh well."
The dinosaur put the head's mouth on the hook and then threw the end of the fishing rod into the water.
"I wonder which lizard will be caught this time, the purple one or the red one." Tuot reasoned mentally.
It looked very strange from the outside. The dinosaur, with its mouth open, was shaking its head from side to side and holding a fishing rod in its hands.
Luckily for Tuot, it didn't take long to wait. The fishing rod became heavy and then pulled the dinosaur into the water.
"This lizard is too big," Tuot suspected something was wrong. "Maybe it's not a lizard at all?"
The energy harpoon sank into the sand and managed to keep its owner from falling into the water. The fishing rod bent and then straightened sharply...
... A small oval stone coffin with spikes on top was thrown out of the water onto the shore.
The end of the fishing rod was hidden in an oblong protrusion at the front of the coffin. Tuot tried to pull out the fishing rod, but it did not move. Then the dinosaur went to the front of the coffin and noticed a connector carved into the stone with a hook sticking out of it.
"It even has a mouth," Tuot noted. "I hope it doesn't have eyes."
But the dinosaur's expectations were not met. Above the "mouth," two round holes appeared which began to emit a blue glow.
Tuot dropped the fishing rod, jumped back and was covered in a green aura. The dinosaur's limbs were shaking with fear, and he couldn't even summon a weapon. Luckily for him, the coffin didn't attack. Instead, a blue virtual screen appeared above him with an image of a lizard with blue-green scales and several buttons: in the shape of the animal's head, paws, body and tail.
At that moment, the dinosaur realized that he had found what he was looking for. Fear left him, and his limbs gradually stopped shaking...
Last night, Tuot had a dream in which he went fishing and used Etinnei's head as bait...