Mausoleum of Nature

Yueret led Halankuo by the hand along the road through the mixed forest. The village was far away.

“Where are we going?” Halankuo asked.

Yueret himself did not know where they were going.

“If we go to my house, Unana won’t like it,” the guy thought. “But if I don't come home, Unana will look for me. I can't leave Halankuo. What should I do?”

The forest ended. The path ended abruptly. Steep slopes descended to a small, green swamp that had once been a lake.

“It seems we've gone a bit wrong,” Yueret noted. “I wanted to go out onto the road to my village and figure it out there...”

“It’s not worth it,” Halankuo said. “You need to go back to your sister. She's definitely scarier than these dolls.”

“She's right,” Yueret thought.

The guy looked at the swamp and noticed a gap in the thickets of ferns along the shore.

“There’s a path there,” Yueret pointed his hand towards the swamp.

“Eh…” Halankuo tilted her head and didn’t know what to say.

“Let’s go there. We need to get away from the dolls. Then we can think about what to do next.”

“Exactly,” Halankuo thought. “As long as there’s no signal coming from Taikuron, the dolls won’t be able to detect it.”

Yueret and Halankuo descended to the swamp, then passed through thickets of ferns and found themselves on a narrow stone path that ran along the shore and further along a gentle slope.

Beyond the swamp basin, the mixed forest began again. The path became wider and soon joined another path, at the crossroads stood a wooden post with a virtual sign on top. Red glowing symbols in a frame of the same color conveyed something to the travelers.

The train station is over there; Yueret read the symbols and then pointed to the side.

“I’ll take you there and put you on the train. You will be able to get to the city. The dolls will not follow you. They cannot read, so they will not be able to buy a ticket or find their seat.”

Yueret opened the virtual screen and clicked on the train icon. A schedule appeared on top of the screen in the form of a table filled with symbols.

“There's a train to Yenekit soon,” Yueret noted. “We need to go to the station urgently. But first you need to change clothes.”

Only now did Halankuo discover that she was wearing only a long T-shirt, torn at the hip.

“In this form they will pay attention to me,” the girl was afraid. “I need to dress like I usually do.”

Halankuo opened her inventory and selected several icons in the form of shorts, a T-shirt, boots, and stockings.

“Am I dressed normally now?” Halankuo asked.

Yueret looked up at his friend: black boots, grey stockings, black leather shorts, which were almost completely hidden by a long black T-shirt.

“Too much black,” Yueret noted.

“It's so I don't stand out,” Halankuo replied. “Besides, it matches my hair color. Okay, it's a joke.”

“It's normal for Unana to dress like this,” Yueret thought. “But Halankuo doesn't want people to stare at her.”

Yueret looked at Halankuo, who walked ahead, and then looked at the trees, or looked back to check if they were being followed.

“Halankuo is cute, and not just kind,” thoughts flashed through the guy’s head. “But my sister is only sweet.”

Soon the forest parted, and a wooden one-story building with a roof covered with moss appeared, similar to an abandoned village house, but much longer. Nearby there were benches with awnings and a rail that emerged from one wall of the forest and another. There were no creatures at the station. The silence was broken only by the cries of birds that came from the trees.

“Sit on the bench, I'll buy a ticket,” Yueret suggested.

“No, I'll go with you,” Halankuo objected. “What if those dolls appear there?”

Halankuo grabbed Yueret's hand, and he had to take her into the station building.

“It’s as if Halankuo were my little sister,” Yueret thought. “When I was a child, I often took Unana by the hand to the train station to buy tickets. I wish I had such a kind little sister.”

A doorless rectangular arch opened into a hall with log walls overlaid with virtual screens, small round windows, and a few benches.

Yueret walked up to one of these screens, selected the right button, and a few moments later a blue energy card appeared in the air.

“Here's your ticket,” Yueret said. “Take it.”

“Is it okay that you bought it for me?” Halankuo reached out for the card, but soon pulled it back.

“Now's not the time to think about that. Take the ticket. The train will be arriving soon.”

Halankuo touched the card with her hand and it moved into the inventory that appeared next to her.

“I can’t tell her that I bought a ticket because she reminded me of my little sister when I was a child,” Yueret thought.

“Unana wasn’t always so angry and jealous. She was kind as a child, albeit stupid. In Halankuo, I saw the Unana of my childhood, who had grown up.”

… Yueret mentally transported himself to the past…

“Yueret, get up!” a thin voice rang out.

Yueret opened his eyes. In front of him stood a girl, half the height of a human, with a large head covered with long brown hair, and large eyes of the same color.

“There, a bear's paw crawled out of the refrigerator,” the girl pointed to the doorway.

“Unana, you dreamed it,” Yueret objected. “Bear paws cannot walk without a bear.”

“I am afraid to go to the kitchen. What if the bear will assemble and attacks me?”

Yueret had to get out of bed and head to the kitchen to check his little sister's words.

The refrigerator was open. The bear's paw lay unpacked on the floor. Yueret crouched down to examine the object in more detail and find something suspicious, but suddenly he heard heavy footsteps behind him.

“The bear came for his paw?” Yueret felt alarmed. “Maybe Unana didn't imagine it?”

Yueret turned around, but there was no one there. A short sword appeared in the guy's hand, which was then covered in a blue energy aura.

“Maybe I imagined it?” Yueret thought. “The bear whose paw was taken does not know where it is. He might even have been cut into pieces and died because of it. If such an animal is cut into several parts, it will not come together. It definitely seemed like it to me.”

The sword in Yueret's hand disappeared. The guy turned away from the entrance to the kitchen and began to look for the packaging, but heard heavy footsteps, which this time were accompanied by a growl.

Yueret turned around abruptly and saw his younger sister standing in front of him with a package in her teeth. The girl frowned and growled as much as her vocal cords would allow.

“Don't growl, little bear,” Yueret smiled, and then stroked his sister's head.

“Why weren't you scared?” Unana stopped growling and asked in a human voice.

“Because I’m big, I have a big head, that's why I'm clever.”

Unana grabbed her head with her hands and then "measured" her brother's head. Yueret laughed.

Unana left, but soon returned with headphones on her head, which she had to hold with her hands to keep them in place.

“Now I have a head like yours,” the girl said. “I’m clever too.”

Yueret didn't laugh anymore. Since then, Unana often wore headphones on her head...

“How awkward I feel now,” Yueret thought, looking at Halankuo, who was looking at him from the window of the wooden carriage.

***

A red-haired doll wrapped in a white translucent cloth and surrounded by a purple aura landed on the top of a mountain. From there, a view opened up of the sea and the coast covered with forests of tree ferns and double-leaf trees.

“Ikte, he’s not here,” a sharp voice, like a bird’s came.

A dinosaur in armor made of gray metal plates landed next to the doll.

“I know, Ustumut,” Ikte replied. “I just want to check. Maybe I'll find something I need.”

The doll jumped from the top and slowly landed on a path among the tree ferns. The sound of the sea waves could already be heard here, which drowned out the sound of the wind on the top of the mountain.

Ikte flew towards the noise, which gradually grew louder. Soon the doll flew onto the sandy shore, where sea waves washed away the sand and left behind wooden planks.

“There is still something left here,” the doll noticed. “The port must be in that direction.”

The doll looked to the right and noticed a large structure in the distance. As she moved towards it, the structure turned out to be a wooden ship, which was partly in the water and partly on the shore. There was something else next to it that was hard to see.

Ikte closed her eyes, lowered her hands, and almost reached the ship, but then she heard the sound of a flying beam of light…

The doll's body dodged the beam of blue energy, and it disappeared into the sea water.

Ikte's head turned back and her eyes opened. There on the shore, near the forest, stood a doll with blue hair with a shovel in one hand and a head in the other. The head's eyes were filled with a bright blue light, with no pupils visible.

“Who is your creator?” Ikte asked.

“What creator?” the doll with a shovel and a head asked. “I don't have one.”

“But you are a doll. All dolls have creators.”

“I don't have a creator. Go away from here. I live here, and you don't.”

The doll pointed its weapon head at Ikte. Two blue energy beams shot out from its glowing eyes.

Ikte flew to the side and thus dodged the attack.

“I just want to ask if you know of a creature called Kuttanai. Maybe he was here?”

In response, the doll tried to stick the shovel into the sand, but stopped a short distance away.

“Do you want to talk?” the doll with the shovel asked.

“Yes,” Ikte answered. “I spent a lot of energy flying here. I don't want to fight.”

The doll turned its weapon head to the side. Ikte realized that it was not going to fight and deactivated its aura.

The dolls approached the ship and then climbed aboard using a wooden platform-lift, which was attached to the vessel with blue energy ropes.

“This ship is what remains of the port,” Ikte thought. “But apparently, nothing else remains. Too much time has passed.”

The doll led Ikte into one of the cabins, where there were two old wooden benches, the boards of which were missing. Despite this, the dolls sat on them and looked at each other.

“You look like my sister,” the doll looked at the weapon-head. “But it's not her. My sister is headless, and you have a head.”

“This doll is right,” Ikte thought. “She is definitely not like Suturu and Aibi.”

At this time, Kyotyoryon was walking through a forest of tall deciduous trees and tree ferns, thinking about how to destroy them all.

“There are too many of them,” the spirit of metal thought. “I can’t do it in one day.”

“Are you lost, girl?” a voice similar to a bird was heard.

Kyotyoryon remembered that voice. It was the voice of Tuot, the pet of her creator. Therefore, the spirit of metal hid behind the trunk, and then looked out from there with a blade from a bracelet on her hand. The voice came from a dinosaur wearing armor made of gray metal plates.

“It looks like my creator's pet,” Kyotyoryon guessed. “Maybe she sent it after me? I need to kill it before it takes me.”

The spirit of metal began to examine the creature and realized that it would not be so easy to kill it.

“It has plates almost everywhere that make it difficult to cut him,” Kyotyoryon thought. “But they are made of my metal. I must take them off. My metal cannot be worn by anyone but me.”

The blade hid in Kyotyoryon's bracelet. The spirit of metal extended her hand forward. One of the armor plates on the dinosaur's belly separated and slowly flew toward its "true" owner.

“What are you doing?” the dinosaur asked.

“Undressing you,” Kyotyoryon explained.

“Why?”

“This is to cut you. Your clothes prevent you from being cut. I also don't understand why you wear my metal on yourself. I should have the metal, because I am the spirit of metal.”

The plate reached Kyotyoryon and stuck to the bracelet on her free hand.

“You see, this metal chooses me, not you,” Kyotyoryon said. “I am the spirit of metal, and you are an ordinary bird.”

“I am not ordinary…,” the dinosaur objected. “I am a doll. My name is Ustumut.”

Kyotyoryon "took" another plate off the dinosaur's belly, and it had to hide behind a tree to keep its armor from being completely stripped.

“It's not named after my creator's pet,” the spirit of metal noted. “So it didn't come from her. Maybe I shouldn't cut it?”

Kyotyoryon lowered her hand, and then shook her other hand with the bracelet. The two plates that had stuck to it returned and took their place in the armor.

The confrontation did not end there. The spirit of metal saw a tail covered with gray feathers sticking out from behind a tree and ran towards it.

But this dinosaur was not Tuot. As soon as Kyotyoryon approached it, a green aura appeared around its tail, and from it an energy harpoon emerged, which wrapped around the character's waist and lifted her off the ground.

“Let me go!” Kyotyoryon screamed. “I just wanted to pull out one feather from the tail. I wanted to see if it looked like the feather of the first dinosaur or not.”

Ustumut looked out from behind the tree and found Kyotyoryon waving her arms and legs, trying to free herself from the harpoon's grip. The dinosaur then looked at his hands, surrounded by green energy, and then back at the harpoon and the character.

“Now I understand where this aura came from,” Ustumut said. “Don't be afraid. My aura activates automatically when there is a threat. Did you want to pull out the feather?”

“Yup,” Kyotyoryon stopped waving her limbs and looked at the dinosaur.

“You won't be able to do that. The passive skill activates the aura, and then the harpoon or something else.”

“This is an evil skill. Can't it be turned off?”

“It’s impossible. It's activated in the brain.”

“Where is this thing?”

“It's in my head.”

“I need to cut off your head. Let me go, I'll do it!”

Ustumut scratched his head with a claw, and then turned it first to one side, then to the other.

“Without a head, I can't eat,” the dinosaur replied. “Although I don't have to eat, I do sometimes. Maybe I'll let you go, and you won't cut off my head?”

Kyotyoryon had to agree. The harpoon carried the spirit of metal to a thick tree fern and left it at its trunk.

***

The fog formed by the evaporation cleared a little. Tuot noticed Etinnay, who was lying on the shore and saying something. The dinosaur approached her and was able to make out the words:

“Minniges... No need...”

What are you talking about? Tuot asked.

“I'll eat your ice cream, just don't scream,” Etinnei continued.

The arctic fox girl looked up and didn't blink, like a doll.

“What’s wrong with you, Etinnei?”

Suddenly the fox girl woke up and looked at Tuot with her tongue hanging out.

“It’s okay,” Etinnei replied. “Minniges just won’t let me get into the water.”

“Maybe you should get rid of him?” Tuot suggested.

“Then I will forget everything I knew. I will forget the game I played and where I met you. And I will forget you. That is why it cannot be extracted, but sometimes I want to do so. Minniges began to interfere in my life. It seems that this head is too small for him. That is why I will have to get rid of him someday, but not now.”

The conversation was interrupted by a noise that quickly grew louder. Tuot and Etinnei looked up at the sky, grey with fog, and saw a red-orange light there…

The light fell sharply into the water and left behind a fiery trail that slowly dissolved into the fog.

A huge wave of water rushed onto the shore, almost covering Tuot and Etinnei, but then returned back to the lake, contrary to the laws of nature.

It happened so fast that Tuot didn't have time to get scared or react at all. The only thing he noticed was a blue energy barrier in the form of a wall that "hung" in the air in front of Myuryuri and which apparently repelled the wave.

Noru's head emerged from the water, with smoke coming from it.

“At first I thought that my creator's dream had come true,” Myuryuri said. “But it was only a comet that fell from the sky.”

Noru looked at the creature in the bubble and showed a dog-like grin. The next moment, the animal girl flew out of the water in a fiery aura to attack the offender, but again hit the energy barrier.