Mountains covered in dense forests of tree ferns stretched inland from the coast. The flat peaks seemed identical, and only a column of black smoke on one of them served as a landmark.
"Here is Noru," Itinit looked at the column of smoke. "You don't even need a mark here."
It was only a short distance to the smoking mountain, by the standards of the Southern Continent. Itinit stood on the slope of the opposite ridge, from which he had to descend, cross the river, and then climb to the top.
"It is impossible to live without a railway," Itinit stated. "It is good that the network works and Noru cannot burn down the forest. At least there is some use in these semblances of trees."
Itinit sat down on a fallen fern trunk, opened the interface window, brought his finger to the icon with the image of the head of a bear girl, the symbol of one popular game, but then stopped. The guy thought that someone was watching him.
Itinit turned sharply and swung his "sword" to drive away the curious wild animal. But this animal turned out to be a puppy, similar to a bear cub.
"Noru, what are you doing here?" Itinit asked calmly. "You should be where the forest is burning."
Noru barked, but soon realized that the human did not understand dog language, and turned into an almost human form.
"This forest does not want to burn," the dog girl bared her teeth. "Let's go there."
"It's good that I chose her little sister, that is, another form," Itinit thought. "But Kimchan is like her younger sister, they're separated, aren't they?"
While the creator was thinking, Noru grabbed his hand. Soon, Itinit felt the hot air, and then noticed red and yellow flames around him.
"She's too fast," the guy barely had time to close the interface screen in front of him. "Why, when I set her speed characteristics, did I only think about whether she could fly and burn at the same time?"
The comet flew for a few moments over an intermountain valley, through which flowed a narrow river with rocky banks, and reached the smoking summit of the mountain.
The low tree-like ferns, which seemed to Itinit like parodies of real trees, did not burn like their coniferous brethren, but only smoldered. Therefore, from afar it seemed as if a volcano was erupting, although there were no volcanoes in this area.
The comet almost reached the smoke column, after which it suddenly fell to the ground. Itinit managed to create a support of blue energy under itself, so it landed on it with its feet, and not on the ground head down.
"Why did you bring me here?" Itinit looked around.
The dog girl rose from the ground. Her disheveled hair was smoking, and the brown fur bracelets on her arms and legs continued to burn.
"I can't understand why the forest doesn't burn," Noru said seriously. "You yourself told me that trees can't be burned because they burn. I really, really wanted to burn the forest, to see everything burn to the horizon, but you deceived me."
"These are not the same trees," Itinit turned away so as not to laugh. "Coniferous trees are burning, but here are ferns. They have too much moisture."
Noru looked at her creator, showed her teeth and growled softly. The fire on her fur bracelets flared up and restored her elemental aura.
"Okay, I'll do something now," the burning dog girl looked at Itinit with such anger that he changed his mind.
The fiery aura around Noru decreased, and the grin was replaced by a calm expression. Itinit realized that he would have to do something about the problem that could not be solved due to the laws of nature.
… The smoke gradually dissipated. Itinit approached the first tree fern he came across and looked at its trunk, which was almost unburned.
"I can tell Noru that these trees are not real, that's why they don't burn," Itinit touched the trunk with his hand. "They are not really real. Of course, Noru won't check it. She likes to act, not to think. But it will be better if what I say seems true."
Itinit went back, but did not see the dog girl in the same place.
"Noru flew somewhere again," the creator opened the map of the "Mausoleum of Nature." "She spent too much time on the Island of Energy Mushrooms. Now this dog wants to explore everything and check if something is burning or not."
The red mark this time was even further inland, in a river valley, near a waterfall.
"She's moving too fast. Why isn't there a character call button in the "Mausoleum of Nature?"
Itinit walked down the slope to get away from the smoke. He no longer tried to chase the character. He didn't have the strength for it.
The descent into the river valley seemed endless. Itinit had already begun to get used to the long distances and monotony of the territory, so he was surprised when the forest suddenly parted and water appeared…
Soon Itinit realized that he was standing on the rocky bank of a medium-wide river, which from the height of the dog-girl's flight seemed like a stream. In fact, it was an insurmountable water flow without any bridges.
"It's a good thing these tree-like things can't grow in flowing water," Itinit looked at the water. "But somehow I'm sure that somewhere on this continent they're already trying to do that."
The current in the river was quite strong, and soon the trunk of a fallen tree fern floated past Itinit.
"Well, we've already started," the guy thought and smiled. "I wouldn't be surprised if this log runs aground, and then stands up and turns into what grows here instead of normal trees."
Of course, Itinit did not believe in the rooting of tree trunks, but the nature of the Southern Continent seemed so unusual even for an experienced traveler that this belief was only a matter of time.
The log disappeared around a distant bend in the river, but the water again brought something strange. A rectangular board floated on the waves, in which Itinit recognized... the lid of the coffin of the character of "Mausoleum of Nature".
"What... is happening there?" Itinit looked in the direction from which the river flowed.
The low blue-green mountains that towered over the river valley interested the guy more than his own character. Fortunately, Itinit was a human, not a dog girl, so his interest soon gave way to rational considerations:
"I don't have the strength to go anywhere at all. How am I going to explore that place? Right now, it's better to just catch this lid."
Itinit created an empty blue energy ball in his hand, but he didn't have to throw it. The lid of the coffin itself landed on the shore a few steps from where the guy was standing, and got stuck between the rocks.
"This is definitely a coffin lid, but it's not clear whose," Itinit placed the ball on a piece of wood. "There's nothing written on it. Maybe it's just a similar piece of wood?"
The lid decreased many times, and then appeared inside the ball. Itinit, with a movement of his second hand, summoned the window of the "Mausoleum of Nature" and selected the button in the form of a coffin. Another window opened, with three models of coffins: wooden, stone and metal.
"This piece of wood really does look like a wooden coffin lid," Itinit thought. "Each user can choose one of the packages for their character. Usually, they choose a wooden coffin. It can float. That's why it's the most common. Of course, it would be interesting to know which character it belongs to, but it's impossible. The packages are standard. Their creation does not involve the energy of the creator himself, as in the creation of characters, so there are no traces."
The ball with the lid went into the inventory. Itinit closed all the windows, then remembered Etinnei's story about the Southern Continent in Tuot's apartment.
"Exactly!" Itinit jumped onto a large coastal stone. "Etinnei was on the Southern Continent. I should show her this lid. Maybe she'll recognize it by its smell."
***
"Yueret, wake up."
"Kimchan, let's play another time."
"I'm not Kimchan!"
"You said yourself that I need to go to school," Unana adjusted her stockings. "So I bought clothes that suit me. It turns out they come in different sizes."
"Even your breasts fit," Yueret noticed two protruding mounds below his sister's neck. "Maybe now Unana will start dressing normally, at least like Halankuo."
"I hope I don't suffocate," Unana sighed. "Although it's winter now, so what difference does it make?"
"Are you going to walk outside like this?"
Yueret felt his pillow vibrate, and immediately opened his eyes. Standing in front of him was his younger sister, dressed in a purple collared shirt, a black skirt that reached mid-thigh and purple stockings below.
"What happened?" Yueret jumped out of bed and even tried to summon a sword, but soon realized that it was too much. "Why are you dressed like that?"
"No. I'm not actually going to school. I'll study at home, online. I recently found out that there are such schools for remote villages. We can't move to the city, can we? There are too many..."
"…girls with colored hair?"
"Yes. They are very dangerous. Here there are only wild animals."
Suddenly, something tugged at Unana's skirt. Luckily for the school uniform, the girl was prepared for it. She raised her leg sharply, then bent it at the knee. A brown puppy that looked like a bear cub fell onto the bed in front of Yueret.
"Unana, this is not a toy," Yueret took the puppy in his arms and then began to stroke it. "Kimchan is alive."
"You have no idea how much," Unana turned away so that her brother could not see her smiling.
"She has ears like the bear I saw in the yard," Yueret noted.
Unana immediately stopped feeling funny. The girl looked at her brother cautiously, and then turned away again and thought:
"Will Yueret really guess? Now he'll say that Kimchan hasn't grown for over a year. Yueret... don't say that, please."
"Kimchan hasn't grown for over a year," Yueret couldn't help but say this phrase. "Dogs usually grow quickly, but Kimchan hasn't changed at all. Maybe she should be taken to the hospital?"
Unana dropped to her knees and rested her palms on the floor. The girl was breathing heavily, and her eyes were moving.
"Do you want to show that Kimchan will grow up like you did?" Yueret looked at his sister, who was on all fours and, as it seemed to her brother, was imitating a dog.
"Au..." Unana barked in surprise.
"So, we have to wait a little longer. If Kimchan doesn't grow up in a month, I'll put her in a box and send her by mail to the hospital."
Kimchan apparently had no intention of sitting in the box, so she broke free from Yueret's hands, jumped off the bed and left such a dangerous place through the open door.
"I remember, you didn't grow before either," Yueret got up from the bed and found himself very close to the hem of his sister's skirt. "I thought you would always be small. And then in two years you grew so much that I wouldn't recognize you now."
Unana turned to her brother and changed her position: she sat on her knees, her legs spread wide apart. Her breathing had already begun to return, but her mouth remained open.
"If I hadn't grown up..." the girl looked at the window, which was a little covered with snow on the other side. "What would you do?"
"Eeeh..." Yueret knelt down and put his hand on the top of his sister's head. "I would give you a bear cub so you could ride it."
"But you brought Kimchan. By the way, where did you get her?"
"Eeeh..."
Yueret himself had forgotten how this strange puppy appeared in his house, although he remembered that it happened more than a year ago:
"There are several ways to get a puppy: buy it online, buy it in a store, and find it in the forest... No, such animals don't live in the forest. You can find them in the city, but stray dogs appear there very rarely."
"Maybe he accidentally got into the robot-buyer?"
"No, I checked thoroughly what the robot brings. And I don't remember what was there. If it were an animal, I would remember."
"It would be better to ask Kimchan," Unana thought. "But now is not an option. If I go out right now, Yueret will suspect something. I'll have to wait. How boring it is."
Unana felt her brother begin to stroke her head and suddenly realized that she was something like a pet to Yueret.
"Your hair feels like dog fur," Yueret noted.
"Yeah?" For a moment, Unana felt as if her brother was reading her thoughts.
"I recently petted Kimchan and noticed it. There is no particular difference. But Kimchan is warmer."
Unana frowned, but did not remove her brother's hand from her head.
"Why did you give me Kimchan?" Unana asked. "I didn't ask for a puppy."
"You dragged all sorts of animals from the forest. So I decided you needed a pet."
"I was small and stupid. I thought the foxies could live with us. But the foxies ran away when I went to bed. Also I couldn't catch the squirrel."
"The squirrel could have gotten on the table."
Unana lay down on the floor and stroked her belly with her hand:
"For some reason I felt hungry. You'll feed your little sister, right?"
"Yup, we have squirrels today," Yueret felt that he was in an awkward situation.
Fortunately, Unana was too hungry.
***
Tuot and Etinnei were sitting on the sandy beach playing a game on virtual screens. The flying machine was somewhere off to the side.
"Is this forest like the one we saw on the island?" Etinnei asked.
"There are a lot of such forests in the world," Tuot answered. "Do you have some kind of theory again?"
"Uh... Maybe the spirit of mushrooms sent signals to the developers in their sleep, and they created this game?"
"There is too little evidence. Now if you find a copy of the island, then..."
Etinnei summoned the map, scrolled through it with her finger, and then stopped on one of the blue spots. After a few moments of loading, the fox girl in the armor dress stood on the shore of a lake surrounded by mountains.
"Here," the arctic fox girl pointed at the screen with her sleeve, so that her friend would pay attention.
"It's just a lake in the crater of a volcano," Tuot answered. "That's not enough. And the crater doesn't look like it."
The terrain in the crater was indeed different from that on the Island of Energy Mushrooms and in the residence. Bare gray-brown rocks surrounded a lake with yellow water, in which black tree trunks stood.
"I wouldn't want to end up here," Etinnei scratched the arctic fox's ear with her hand. "It's good that there is no such place in the world. This place doesn't exist in the world, does it?"
"Probably," Tuot answered. "The water is some strange color. I wonder if there are fish there."
Etinnei sent the fox girl into the lake, but instead of fish appearing, the health bar began to rapidly decrease. The Arctic fox girl instantly summoned the card and transported the character to another place.
"Ugh..." Etinnei sighed and lay down on the sand. "At least she didn't die."
"It's just a character," Tuot said. "If she gets killed, you can revive her."
"I know. But I don't want my little fox to die. I think if she dies, something will happen to me."
"I thought so too before. You just haven't played such games enough."
Etinnei rose abruptly from the sand. Her hood flew off her head, and a black lock of hair covered part of her nose.
"What happened to you?" the arctic fox girl moved closer to her friend. "Tell me!"
"I'm playing," Tuot looked at the screen where his cow girl was fighting with robot shoppers. "Don't bother me."
The animal girl's curiosity quickly gave way to resentment. Etinnei crawled back to her screen, closed it, and then released an icicle from her sleeve.
The arctic fox girl wanted to hit someone, and unfortunately, a red and yellow crab was crawling right at her. Etinnei ran a current through the "weapon" and then struck...
The icicle entered the sand, which flew apart from the electric aura. The crab was thrown into the sea, and the icicle began to melt. Etinnei felt this and released the now unusable "weapon".
"It's too hot here," the arctic fox girl looked at the sleeves of the gray-purple top. "My ice can't do anything here."
"Ice cream is best eaten when the weather is hot," the bird's voice sounded in the animal girl's head. "Even the air itself eats your ice cream. Do you want to eat mine?"
Etinnei looked around, but all she could see was Tuot playing a game on a virtual screen, and a bird-shaped flying machine in the distance.
"Why are you hiding, Minniges?" Etinnei asked herself. "Are you afraid to show your ice cream because it's not real?"
There was no answer. At that moment, the arctic fox girl realized that she no longer wanted to eat ice cream that didn't exist.