Morning was breaking in Yenekit. Tuot and his eared and tailed friend were walking through the empty streets of the town.
"Her scent appears and then disappears again," Etinnei said. "But then it turns out it's the wrong place!"
"Yeah, it was a station," Tuot answered. "There's a rail there, so there's a lot of metal there. You just mistook it for the smell of Kyotyoryon."
"That's unfair."
Etinnei looked at Tuot with resentment, as if he'd laid the rail, and… burst into tears.
"This rail is bad," the Arctic fox girl continued, but in a low voice. "I'll freeze it, and then shatter it with lightning!"
"She's already like Kyotyoryon," Tuot said, looking outside and seeing the forest wall in the distance.
"I think we're looking in the wrong place," the dinosaur remarked. "She's gone outside the city."
"But there's no scent of that gray thing there," Etinnei sniffed the air.
"That's because Kyotyoryon is far away."
"There's no sound there either."
"How can I explain to her?" Tuot looked in the opposite direction and saw a gray column standing in the central square. "Maybe the creature in her head will do it?"
Tuot remembered that there were shops in the square that were closed at night. A "big" idea occurred to the dinosaur's small brain.
"Did she really have enough time to get away unnoticed?" Etinnei looked at the paving stones as if she was trying to find food. "Maybe she got stuck somewhere closed, that's why there's no smell of the gray stuff?"
"I know where Kyotyoryon is," Tuot said, grabbing his eared friend by the sleeve.
Before Etinnei could think of a response, she found herself standing at the edge of the central square. From here there was a good view of a stone column with the head of a three-horned dinosaur on top, which seemed to fill the empty space at this almost only intersection in the town.
"There," Tuot pointed with his free hand at a large blue screen with symbols at the bottom of the wall, next to a large window.
"There's food there," Etinnei licked her lips. "There's lots more boxes. Are you hungry?"
"Uh..."
Tuot couldn't answer that question. Like a true dinosaur, he was always ready to eat, but right now he was interested in something else.
"I'll explain later," Tuot said, dragging his friend into the store.
The heavy wooden doors were closed, but that couldn't stop the feathered monster. The dinosaur noticed a window near the entrance and decided it was large enough…
Several energy feathers made holes in the glass, but they were too small to create a passage of the required size.
"That blue thing is acting strange," Etinnei noticed. "Let me try."
The arctic fox girl pointed the sleeve of her fur top at the window and closed her eyes. The next moment, an electric beam flew out from there. The glass, already covered in small round holes, gave way and shattered.
"Stop," Tuot said. "Halankuo told me you can't do that."
"But we already did it," Etinnei glanced at the sleeve, from which a faint smoke was emanating. "Let's get in there. There's a lot of tasty stuff in there."
"But..."
While Tuot was trying to figure out how to get into the store through the broken window, his friend was already inside, peering out.
"Get in here," the arctic fox girl waved her hand. "There's no one here."
Tuot looked at the shards of glass in front of the broken window and imagined them rising and flying toward it. The dinosaur trembled and almost fell.
"It's just broken glass. This isn't a doll's ability."
Tuot activated his love for the animal girls and leaped into the window frame. That's what he thought. In reality, the dinosaur had activated his aura, which allowed him to coordinate his movements better.
"Let's go," Etinnei licked her lips. "I'm hungry."
This time the arctic fox girl grabbed the dinosaur by the paw and dragged it deeper into the store.
Soon Tuot and his friend found themselves in a hall with yellow stone walls and ceiling, surrounded by shelves filled with colorful boxes and packaging. The floor was cobblestone, but smooth and uncluttered, which pleased the dinosaur.
"Etinnei, it looks like we've come to the wrong place."
But the Arctic fox girl no longer heard her feathered friend's words. She examined the goods with such curiosity, as if seeing them for the first time.
"Etinnei, you've been here before," Tuot said.
"What?" Etinnei began looking around chaotically, trying to find a suitable package for the food.
A few moments later, the hunger intensified, and the animal girl pounced on the yellow packaging with the image of a bird's leg, tore it open with her teeth, then threw the contents onto the floor and began chewing on the packaging.
"That's not really what we came for," Tuot recalled.
Etinnei didn't answer. She was busy with something important, as evidenced by the loud chomping. So Tuot decided not to distract his friend and strolled around the store.
"There are refrigerators around here somewhere. Kyotyoryon probably climbed in there again for revenge, but couldn't handle such a powerful opponent and is now holed up inside."
Of course, Tuot couldn't remember where the refrigerators were, so he followed the faint scent of meat, which led him to the farthest part of the store. There were several large glass-enclosed refrigerated cabinets, behind which were visible packages of animal body parts, and next to them, a blue energy screen with their names.
"There's nothing here that resembles Kyotyoryon," Tuot said, looking carefully at all the cells. "Perhaps she was disassembled and stored behind the meat?"
The dinosaur stopped near the farthest refrigerator and began to think about how to open the door and get the contents without accidentally eating it.
"There's too much meat in here," Tuot said, looking at the refrigerator with his mouth open.
"There's too much meat in here," a voice from the side repeated.
"That's not food," the dinosaur tilted its head.
"That's not food," a voice from the side repeated.
"Uh..."
Tuot turned toward the source of the voice and saw a girl with long red hair standing next to him, looking at the refrigerator next to him.
"Uh..."
The creature, wrapped in a white translucent fabric, like a dress, reminded him of someone familiar, but only the hair was able to correctly "answer" the question.
"You're a doll!" Tuot jumped back two steps and activated his aura.
"I'm a doll," the girl turned her head towards her interlocutor, while her neck remained in the same position.
"I need to tell Etinnei," the dinosaur remembered and released several energy feathers from the wing part of the aura to distract the enemy.
Soon, Tuot was standing in front of the Arctic fox girl lying on the floor, chewing on the packaging and rubbing her belly with her hand.
"There..." The dinosaur could only utter one word.
"… Is my creator?" Etinnei removed the inedible object from her mouth. "I completely forgot about her. The food is too yum-yum."
The Arctic fox girl rose up on all fours and sniffed the air to figure out where the doll was, but suddenly came across a white translucent fabric that was hanging from the ceiling.
"So this is your creator," Tuot noticed the long red hair hanging over the fabric. "I saw her a few months ago. Why is she here? Dolls don't eat anything."
"This is my creator's store," Etinnei explained. "She's the boss here. I sometimes come here for food."
"You were looking at the shelves as if you'd never been here before."
"I saw that shelf for the first time. I always came in through the door that opened, and that's why I saw the other shelves."
"She probably doesn't care what she's chewing," Tuot guessed. "She's only interested in the packaging."
"Etinnei, if you want to ask something, you can write on the network," Ikte said. "I can read, unlike some dolls. The store will open soon, and the robots will emerge from shelter."
"I didn't come here for nothing," Etinnei answered with a serious expression.
"Why?" Ikte asked.
"This..." Etinnei looked at the floor, grabbed packaging with her teeth, and pointed at her playmate. "That's him."
"Yeah..." Tuot clearly hadn't expected this turn of events. "We actually came here for a reason."
"You don't have much time," Ikte looked at one of the shelves. "Robots have sharp blades."
"Exactly, blades," Tuot recalled. "We're looking for a creature with metal horns on its head."
The dinosaur summoned an interface and showed the doll a full-length image of Kyotyoryon, captured by a hidden camera.
"I saw this creature," Ikte admitted. "But since it wasn't connected to my little brother and sister, I immediately deleted that memory."
"Can you do that, creator?" Etinnei opened her mouth wide in admiration, her eyes widened, and her tail began wagging.
"Yes, but I can't teach you."
Etinnei stopped wagging her tail, pulled her hood down over her eyes, and curled up into a ball on the floor.
"It's a special ability of some dolls," Ikte continued. "After my brother removed my head, I was able to delete certain scenes from my brain to free up my memory."
"Don't you remember where you saw that creature?" Tuot rolled up the screen.
"I need to look on the memory card," Ikte raised her hand to her head. "But I won't have time to do that now. Robots don't care who they cut. Let's talk somewhere else."
The doll activated a purple aura, rose slightly above the floor, and then flew toward Tuot and stepped on Etinnei's thigh...
The next moment, all three found themselves in a clearing in the middle of a mixed forest, on a flat mountaintop opposite the city.
"No one will cut us here," Ikte explained.
The doll deactivated her aura, summoned her inventory, and then pulled out a blue energy card with a black symbol inside.
"I'll remember now," Ikte said.
The doll brought the card to her head and inserted it directly into her hair.
"Is she capable of this?" Tuot thought, turning away. "I wouldn't want to be her opponent."
"My creator is cool!" Etinnei stared at the doll, her mouth hanging open and thought. "I'd also like to carry a pillow around with me so it's yum-yum. It's kind of inconvenient to put it in your inventory and then take it out again."
Ikte fell to her knees. Her head bowed, her hair covering her face, and her arms hung limply, as if paralyzed.
"Did she break?" Tuot took a few steps back.
"No," Etinnei scratched her ear. "That happens to her often. Her head uses up a lot of energy, so she has to conserve it."
Soon, Ikte raised her head. Her hair partially revealed her face. Tuot noticed the doll's closed eyes and looked toward a nearby tree, just in case they opened and turned purple.
But there was no need to run. The eyes remained closed, but the mouth opened.
"The last time I saw a metal spirit was on the southern coast of the Northern Continent. It was a few months ago, when it was autumn here."
"That's completely different," Tuot said. "If only you'd seen her a few months in the future..."
"I can't know what doesn't exist," Ikte answered.
"I wish I could do that," Etinnei knelt down and looked at the pointed top of one of the conifers. "I'd know when Minniges would show up next and figure out a way to say no to the ice cream."
"But I can't travel to the future or know what's in it," Ikte turned her head toward the conifer the Arctic fox girl had been looking at. "The future doesn't exist."
"Really?" Tuot opened his mouth in surprise, but then closed it manually. "I thought that if something happened a day ago, it could happen a day from now."
"Time is moving a little differently," Ikte continued to stare at one point. "If that's all you wanted to ask me, I'll return to the city. The robots might accidentally cut buyers, and then I'll have to pay a fine."
Ikte disappeared before Tuot could think. Etinnei didn't even notice her creator's disappearance and continued talking to "her."
"Why do I have ears and a tail like those animals in the forest?" the arctic fox girl looked at the squirrel, frozen on the trunk of one of the trees. "Everything else is like a human's. You must have had fun making me."
Tuot looked around to see the doll, but found only his playmate.
"She's forgotten us," the dinosaur looked at the town on top of a neighboring flat mountain and thought. "We'll have to go on foot. My animal girl can't carry other creatures, only can carry her own ears and tail."
While Tuot was thinking, Etinnei looked at the forest with a joyful expression and twitched her arctic fox ears.
"Yeah, I completely forgot that you don't know what 'fun' is. But I'll tell you. It's when something explodes inside you, and your legs and arms move on their own until they fall off."
Tuot shuddered.
"...you dream of a delicious pillow and want to try a wooden door," Etinnei continued.
"You've already tried it," Tuot said.
"Creator, you have a voice like a birdie's. Can you teach me how to scare my friend like that?"
Only now did Tuot realize what was happening. He began looking around, trying to find a place to quickly hide. Unfortunately, the clearing looked too large, and the clumsy dinosaur couldn't hide in the forest.
"No, only dolls can do that," Tuot answered.
"Dolls have such cool abilities," Etinnei looked at a branch with small, new, light-green leaves. "Sometimes I want to become a doll, but then I remember I have to cut off my ears..."
"No!"
A loud bird's cry made Etinnei jump, turning around to see a dinosaur with white feathers and a long tail.
"You're not the creator," the arctic fox girl looked right, then left. "Where is she?"
"I don't know," Tuot answered. "She's just gone, as if she vanished into thin air."
"I see. She went somewhere. So, it wasn't her who spoke to me?"
"Yup…"
"Are you sure?"
"Yup…"
"Now I understand why the creator spoke with that birdlike voice. It wasn't the creator."
"It was me."
"Tuot, you..."
Etinnei stood up and turned sharply toward the forest. Icicles emerged from the sleeves of the fur top, and then current passed through them. Tuot sensed danger and activated his green aura, but the situation soon resolved itself.
A squirrel scurried across the branch Etinnei was looking at. The arctic fox girl let tears stream down her face and fell to her knees. Icicles and lightning bolts disappeared into the sleeves of her strange clothing.
"There's a squirrel there," the arctic fox girl pointed to the branch with her sleeve. "She's cute."
"She's also edible," Tuot admitted.
"But we won't eat it."
"That's we won't catch it?"
"Tuot, are you real?"
"Yup..."
"You like ears and tails."
"I like ears and tails on creatures like you. Not on creatures with four legs. They're too furry."
"They're cute too."
Etinnei stroked her ears with her hands and looked down, which nearly broke the dinosaur's heart.
"The fur is what makes them inedible," the Arctic fox girl continued. "Also, the fur is something that's bad to eat, but good to cuddle."
"You said something else…" Tuot tried to remember. "You asked…"
There was silence. Etinnei looked at her feathered friend, who looked at her arctic fox ears.
"You asked if I was real," Tuot finally said.
"I saw a dinosaur that was a doll," Etinnei said, grabbing her own tail.
"I saw him too, but I never got to talk to him. He seemed kind of strange to me."
"He's a doll. All dolls are strange, but dinosaur dolls are especially strange. They don't have colorful hair, but somehow they're dolls."
"That's very strange," Tuot thought. "Apparently hair isn't the only way to identify a doll."
Silence fell again. Etinnei wasted no time and stuffed the bag she'd been chewing at the store into her mouth. Tuot thought again about the missing character and began to think about what to say to Halankuo when she returned.
After a few dozen moments, the silence was broken by the cracking of wood. At first, it was faint, and only Etinnei's ears detected it.
The arctic fox girl looked toward the forest but couldn't locate the sound, so she continued chewing on the bag. And yet, curiosity prevailed.
Etinnei took a few steps toward the forest and noticed the shadow of a coniferous tree, which looked suspiciously large. The animal girl raised her head and saw how the largest plant that grew at the edge of the clearing was falling right on her.
"Uh..." Only then did the arctic fox spirit remove the package from her mouth.