Evening was approaching. Etinnei curled up on the seashore and tried to sleep. Bright red rays fell on the black ears of the arctic fox girl and made them almost brown, like a bear's.
Of course, Tuot, who was sitting next to her and playing the game, couldn't help but notice it. One casual glance was enough to make him stop looking at the cow girl on the screen and look only at the arctic fox girl in reality.
"Why do I need these girls in the game if I already have one like that," the dinosaur thought. "More than a month ago I didn't believe that I could meet such a creature, and now I don't believe that one of them is lying in front of me."
Tuot tried to touch the ears on top of Etinnei's head, but because of his short arms he couldn't even reach one of them. Moreover, the dinosaur almost fell, but was able to activate his aura in time and therefore kept his balance.
Etinnei moved her ear, as she felt a vibration, but her eyes remained closed. Tuot noticed this and deactivated his aura, but it was too late. An icicle emerged from the arctic fox girl's sleeve.
Tuot instinctively summoned a shield, but the icicle disappeared into the sleeve as suddenly as it appeared.
"Hey, Minniges eat your own ice cream," Etinnei slapped her hand into the air. "She's just sleeping," Tuot thought. "It's so good that it ended this way."
But the dinosaur was wrong. As soon as Etinnei fell silent, rustling sounds were heard in the forest. Tuot did not even have time to recall the shield, so he summoned the sword, and only then looked at the forest.
The rustling came from the leaves of the tree ferns closest to the shore. Tuot thought that a large animal of an unknown species would crawl out from there and run straight towards him.
"I hope it's not a doll," the dinosaur barely managed to restrain himself from accidentally activating his aura. "Let it be just a squirrel. But a man emerged from the forest, and Tuot soon recognized him as his friend."
"Itinit," the dinosaur resummoned his sword and shield, and then looked at the sand. "You can't scare us like that."
"Tell that to the tree-like creatures that have taken over the entire coast and mountains, and haven't built a single road," Itinit answered.
"You spent too much time on that island with the mushrooms."
"That's right. Getting used to the real world after what happened there is not easy. But now is not the time. I want to talk to Etinnei."
"She's sleeping now."
"This is bad," Itinit looked at the forest. "Maybe I should wake her up?"
"It's better not," Tuot trembled and then jumped to the side.
"So I'll have to wake her up."
Itinit walked towards the arctic fox girl, who was sleeping on the sand a few steps away from the water and quietly panting with the tip of her tail in her mouth.
The guy's gaze stopped on the legs of the eared creature, which, although pulled close to the body, still seemed a more accessible target.
From past experience, Itinit knew that this part of Etinnei's body was almost insensitive, so he activated the energy aura and extended his hand to one of the legs...
The vibration was transmitted to the animal girl's body and made her take her tail out of her mouth, and then roll over onto her back...
"Minniges, don't!" Etinnei shouted. "I don't want to eat anymore!"
A stream of air formed around the Arctic fox girl's legs. Itinit didn't feel it, since he was surrounded by an aura. Therefore, when Etinnei straightened one of her legs, Itinit was thrown almost to the edge of the forest.
"Minniges, I can't take it anymore..." the Arctic fox girl sighed.
Etinnei put her feet on the sand, causing a current of air to lift her off the ground. Only this finally forced the unfortunate animal girl to open her eyes and wake up.
"Minniges, where are you?" Etinnei looked to the right, then to the left.
All around was only sea, sand and something green.
"Minniges, you can't hide like that," Etinnei flew towards the forest.
The arctic fox girl didn't notice Itinit, although he was almost standing under her. She was only interested in the ice penguin.
"If you don't show up, I'll get you," Etinnei frowned.
Several moments passed. An icicle emerged from the sleeve of the fur top, and the other hand moved the hair away from the human ear…
Tuot and Itinit looked at the character and watched as the icicle slowly entered the human ear and disappeared there.
"Here's your ice cream!" Etinnei shouted. "Take it! Aaah…"
The icicle entered the ear completely, after which the arctic fox girl lowered her hands. The air flow that held her disappeared. Etinnei instantly fell down...
For the first time in a long time, Tuot felt hunger. The animal girl's thick legs, tasty for nonhumans, stuck out of the sand.
"I didn't think this sand was that deep," Itinit looked at the piece of furry shorts sticking out of the sand. "I wonder if you don't get her out of there, will she suffocate. The characters from "Mausoleum of Nature" are inanimate, but they can breathe, although they don't seem to have to breathe. Okay, I'll get this big-eared one. I hope Tuot won't mind."
While Itinit was thinking, Tuot was already approaching his friend. His mouth was open and his eyes were fixed on one point. His hands were frozen in one position, and his legs seemed to move forward on their own.
Fortunately, Itinit noticed the danger in time and created a barrier in front of the animal girl in the form of an energy wall. Tuot ran into it, after which the vibration made the dinosaur come to his senses.
"The food is in the metal bird, not here," Itinit reminded.
"What?" Tuot looked at his friend, then at what was behind the barrier, and only now realized what he was trying to do.
… The dinosaur plunged into an alternate reality for several dozen moments…
"Where is Etinnei?" Tuot asked.
"Nowhere," Itinit answered. "You ate her. Don't you remember?"
"I couldn't eat her. Etinnei is a friend, and friends are not eaten."
"You are a dinosaur. It is normal for you to eat first and think later."
…
"Tuot, wake up!"
The dinosaur opened his eyes and saw his eared and tailed playmate in front of him. Her clothes were covered in a layer of sand, and her hair seemed black and yellow.
"You're wet!" Tuot rejoiced. "That is, alive..."
Etinnei shook her head, causing sand to fall on Tuot.
"Why am I raw?" the animal girl could not understand. "But it doesn't matter. I already talked to Minniges. It promised not to feed me ice cream anymore unless I asked it myself. I barely managed to persuade him. It was almost impossible."
"That sounds about right," Tuot agreed. "It sounds like a script for a scene in a game."
"I had to tell it I'd get to it in my brain with an icicle and then electrocute it," Etinnei continued. "Only then did it appear before me and agree."
"It won't appear in front of you now?" Tuot shook his wings to remove sand from his feathers.
"I don't know. It says something strange. Sometimes I understand it, sometimes I don't. But even if it doesn't appear, it will stay in my head and watch me."
Etinnei looked at the sleeves of her fur top and realized that there was still sand on them. The arctic fox girl closed her eyes, after which a small whirlwind appeared around her...
Tuot was thrown toward the trunk of a nearby fern. The dinosaur activated his aura to stay on his feet, and then looked at his friend.
A small whirlwind was spinning in place of Etinnei. For a moment, Tuot thought that his animal girl had disappeared, but soon she jumped out of the stream of wind without a single grain of sand on her clothes.
The whirlwind slowed down, and then dissolved into the air. Etinnei fell to her knees and looked at the grains of sand that were falling back to their original place.
"Tail..." Tuot summoned a virtual camera. "This creature should not be eaten, but taken a photo to look at later."
Etinnei was breathing heavily. Her breasts inside the fur top rose and fell. Her feet gradually sank into the sand, and the animal girl risked again being captured by the beach.
Fortunately, Tuot noticed the danger in time and sent an energy harpoon to help her friend.
Etinnei felt the vibration and tried to jump back, but then she noticed a snowflake the size of herself and changed her mind. This skill had already saved her from the doll's acid attacks on the Island of Energy Mushrooms. This time, the Snow Shield "saved" her from the harpoon that came to her aid.
Tuot noticed that his skill hadn't worked as it should have, so he mentally changed the trajectory of it movement. But Etinnei didn't understand this and was about to resist.
"Finally, I got the thing that was dragging me by the ear," the Arctic fox girl puffed out one of her cheeks.
The harpoon went around the snowflake and "attacked" Etinnei from behind. The animal girl felt a vibration in her arctic fox ears and turned around sharply..
Lightning flew out of Etinnei's sleeve, passed through the energy harpoon, but did nothing to him. At that moment, the arctic fox girl realized how wrong she had been.
"Tuot told me that elemental skills don't work on energy skills. I thought it only worked on the icicle, but not on electricity, since it's similar to energy."
Harpoon grabbed the arctic fox girl by the waist, pulled her out of the sand, moved her a few steps back, and then let go.
Etinnei stopped feeling the vibration and began looking around for the entity she considered hostile. By this time, the harpoon had disappeared into Tuot's aura. Only then did the dinosaur realize what a mistake he had made.
Etinnei looked at Tuot, but couldn't figure out where the harpoon had disappeared to. The arctic fox girl released two icicles from her sleeves at once, but quickly remembered that they were ineffective against energy.
Tuot slowly retreated back towards the forest, as he was afraid of his girlfriend's attack. He even summoned a shield and thought about how he would counter ice skills and lightning with the help of a yellow lizard, but he didn't need any of this.
Etinnei fell to her knees and cried. She didn't want to fight with her playmate. The arctic fox girl was only interested in his energy harpoon, which she considered an independent actor. The character's brain simply did not perceive some things that were understandable to living beings.
"I can't do anything myself. Minniges, help me."
There was no answer. Etinnei wiped her tears with her sleeve to look for the ice penguin, but found only a wooden coffin lid, slightly covered with sand.
"This thing seems familiar to me," Etinnei twitched her ears. "But I don't remember where I saw it. Minniges gave me a dream in which it was. Maybe he has another dream with this thing?"
Only now did the Arctic fox girl realize that she had made a mistake. She looked around to find the ice penguin that she had seen in difficult moments, but found only a man in black clothes.
"You..." Etinnei breathed out. "Not Minniges..."
"Yes, I am not it," the man answered in a familiar voice. "I am Itinit."
The image of the man in black blurred for a few moments then became more detailed. The creature's nose had been replaced by a beak, and its hair had turned into feathers.
Etinnei screamed and jumped back into the sea. Itinit reminded her of that scary man with the carrot nose and Minniges at the same time. The animal girl lowered her gaze so as not to be paralyzed.
"Beastie, don't you recognize me?" Itinit asked. "I'm not scary at all. Even Kimchan isn't afraid of me."
Etinnei raised her head slightly to see the potential enemy. But Itinit's legs, clad in black pants, suddenly grew feathers, and his boots turned into chunks of ice.
Etinnei was overcome by the horror she had felt when meeting a man with an antenna instead of a nose. The animal girl closed her eyes and fell to her knees. She no longer noticed the sound of the sea waves that beat against the shore, did not see the fish that swam near her feet. The whole world seemed to disappear and only fear remained…
Itinit looked at the arctic fox girl, who stood motionless, knee-deep in the water. Only the ears on top of her head moved instinctively, indicating that the character was conscious.
"For some reason, the sun is too bright," Itinit looked at the sky. "But today seems to be a cloudy day."
Itinit's doubts were not in vain - the light did not come from the sun. A fiery comet flew from the cloudy sky straight towards the guy. Fortunately, Itinit had managed to create a wall of blue energy in front of him. During the time spent with the dog girls, summoning such barriers had become almost a reflex for him.
But, contrary to expectations, the comet did not reach the wall, but turned sharply and fell into the sea...
Itinit saw something brown jump out of the cloud of steam above the water and land on the sand. It was a large dog, like a small bear. On its back lay the Arctic fox girl with her eyes closed.
"I thought so," Itinit sighed. "Dogs always return to their owners because they are too used to them. I shouldn't have tried to look for her. Although then I would not have found the lid of the coffin. I wonder where it is."
Itinit began to look for a piece of wood on the sand, but it was missing.
"Uh... Where is it? Maybe while I was distracted by the comet, the lid got covered in sand or washed away by the water?"
Itinit went to the water to see how the piece of wood was floating on the waves, but he felt heat from behind, and created an energy wall behind his back. The next moment, a strong dog groan was heard there.
"Only dolls can be attacked like that," Itinit said. "They are not afraid of damage, so they are unlikely to defend themselves."
The groaning continued. Itinit realized that something serious had happened, so he turned around.
A dog-girl was sitting on the sand in front of the energy wall, putting her hands to her ears. Tears flowed down her face in two thin streams and would soon drop onto her chest.
Itinit deactivated the barrier, then walked up to the pet and wiped the tears from her chin.
"I made it…" the guy said this out loud for some reason.
The dog girl noticed the creator and tried to growl, but because of the pain, the growl became part of the groan.
"Don't swear," Itinit said. "I'll heal you."
The guy created a pink energy ball with a clot of energy inside in his hand, and then let it go.
"It's good that she groans so loudly. The healing ball is aimed at targets by sound. Myuryuri came up with a good idea. This way, the ball will only be able to heal truly sick creatures."
The ball "hung" in the air for a few moments, then approached Noru's ears and burst. A small cloud of pink energy landed on the dog girl's head, and then disappeared.
Noru blinked several times, and then looked at her creator. Instead of gratitude, her face expressed anger and resentment.
"Okay, stop it," Itinit raised his finger up to quickly summon a barrier in case of a sudden attack.
"You were hurting the animal girls," Noru turned away. "You can't hurt them. They're cute."
"Especially Noru," Itinit "smiled" mentally.
"You also took my little sister," the dog girl continued. "We just met, and she disappeared again."
"If you hadn't burned everything in sight, I would have sent you on a mission with her," Itinit said.
Noru looked at the creator. For a moment, the pupils of her eyes turned into lights.
"I saw something there," the dog girl said. "Let me show you."
Noru grabbed the creator's hand and tried to move it, but he was too heavy.
"I think it would take several days to get there," Itinit tried to find an excuse.
"We'll fly on me," Noru smiled. "I can get big. We'll even take Etinnei. We won't take the dinosaur, because he..."
"Why don't you want to take Tuot?" Etinnei approached the dog girl and tried to grab her by the tail, but it sharply turned to the side.
Noru instinctively covered herself in fire, but then realized that it was her friend, and went out.
"The dinosaur is stupid," the dog-girl explained. "Because of him, we can get trapped and..."
"Actually, we didn't come here for this," Itinit finally remembered the reason for visiting the Southern Continent.
"What?" Etinnei began to examine the ears on her friend's head. "I thought you could gnaw trees here."
"And burn them," Noru added.
Itinit smiled. Two cute little animal girls stood in front of him, looking at each other with stupid expressions on their faces.